Lenin drafts The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It

Mass strikes, demonstrations led in large part by women workers, and soldiers’ mutinies forced Nicholas II to abdicate. The revolution opened a period of dual power between the Provisional...

Lenin returned via Germany, Sweden, and Finland amid wartime conditions and political controversy. His arrival energized Bolshevik debate, but the party initially resisted parts of his new line,...

The theses called for no support to the Provisional Government, transfer of power to soviets, land redistribution, and an end to the war. They reframed Bolshevik policy around immediate popular...

Workers and soldiers demonstrated amid war, shortages, and political crisis. The Bolshevik leadership tried to shape but did not initiate all the actions; after the protests were suppressed, Lenin...

Lenin revisited Marx and Engels on the state, arguing that a workers’ revolution must dismantle the existing bureaucratic-military apparatus. The theory’s promise of popular self-government later...

In letters to party leaders, Lenin argued that the political moment demanded an uprising. Other Bolsheviks debated timing and strategy; the eventual transfer of power depended on soviet support,...

In a letter to party leaders, Lenin argued that the Bolsheviks could govern by relying on soviets and popular control. The text captures an urgent strategic debate before the October seizure and makes...

The Military Revolutionary Committee and armed workers and soldiers occupied key sites and displaced the Provisional Government during the Second Congress of Soviets. This event, called the October...

The new Soviet government issued a peace appeal and a land decree that drew on peasant demands and Socialist Revolutionary proposals. These measures addressed urgent popular grievances, while the...

After elections in which the Socialist Revolutionaries won more votes nationally, Bolshevik leaders dissolved the Assembly following a brief session. The Bolsheviks argued that soviets expressed a...