Lenin’s leadership was to a large extent an important cause of the Bolshevik’s success in the November 1917 revolution. This is because of Lenin’s great leadership skills, including his personality and timing, and his use of propaganda. Other factors to why the Bolsheviks succeeded included Trotsky’s role, which was debatably more important, and the problems with the Provisional Government, which made it unpopular, increasing support to the Bolsheviks and meant that any future revolution was inevitable.
Lenin’s leadership was crucial in a number of respects. He was a brilliant orator so the Bolsheviks were well led. At the Central Committee meeting on the 23rd October 1917, Lenin forced through an agenda item, when the leading Bolsheviks, Zinoviev and Kamenev, disagreed on it. This was crucial because Lenin was in exile in Switzerland and had fled to Finland more recently because of disasters resulting from the July Days. This shows how Lenin was obviously still the determined leader of the Bolsheviks, and in the face of a united opposition, he was still capable to force his views upon the party. Furthermore, Zinoviev and Kamenev’s correct interpretation of Marx was not enough to stall Lenin’s wish for an armed uprising. Lenin slightly changed Marxist theory by stating that the bourgeois revolution had enough time to complete industrialization. This further established how influential Lenin within the Bolsheviks and no one could compete with him even if it was obvious that his Marxist theory was wrong. The Bolshevik’s success would not have occurred in the armed uprising of the November 1917 revolution without Lenin’s leadership skills. Lenin’s leadership skills is linked to his popular slogans which gained support to the Bolsheviks whilst making the Provisional Government unpopular.
Furthermore, Lenin was