When the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917, there were a number of immediate issues to be dealt with. One was who was going to be in the new government; Lenin was the obvious choice as the leader of the vanguard, but the other offices needed to be filled as well. Trotsky was a natural as the leader of foreign affairs, and of the military as well; one of Lenin's most trusted lieutenants, Joseph Stalin, was put in charge of dealing the national minorities (it seemed a natural fit, since Stalin himself was from Georgia); Lenin's favorite in the party, Nikolai Bukharin, was put in charge of the party newspaper, and became the main theorist for the party.

What made Lenin's vision of Marxism so different was his ability to manipulate it to his own benefit, and the benefit of his own party; virtually any Marxist theory could be turned so that it fit the needs of the Bolsheviks.

The Constituent Assembly, which had been elected in the early fall, did not have a majority of Bolsheviks, and so Lenin had it closed down by the troops. The Bolsheviks' slogan of "Peace, Land, and Bread" had resonated with many groups, but none so much as the military. Most of the enlisted men sided with the Bolsheviks and revolted against their officers, in many cases killing the men. Lenin knew that, in order to keep their support, he needed to get Russia out of World War I, and he did so in March, 1918. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a humiliating defeat for the Russians (they lost nearly 40% of European Russia's population to the Germans), but it was necessary for the Bolsheviks to be able to concentrate on internal policy. Lenin began with a series of small but significant changes, including changing to the western, Gregorian calendar rather than the Julian calendar that the Russian state had previously adhered to (that is why so many dates around the time of the Revolution are given as Old Style/New Style; in the 20th century, the two were 13 days apart; in the 19th century, they were 12 days apart, so an event which occurred on August 3rd Old Style would be August 16th New Style in the 20th century). The Russian Orthodox Church continued (and continues) to use the Julian calendar. Lenin also created a new secret police (the Cheka) which was to remain in place only until the Bolsheviks had consolidated power. Moscow was reestablished as the capital of the state in March 1918.

The Creation of War Communism

War communism, which began to take shape in June 1918, completely changed the economic structure of Russia. All private industry basically disappeared, with virtually everything nationalized by the Bolsheviks. Land had been nationalized in February 1918, although in many cases the peasantry had refused to turn over their crops without compensation, which the Bolsheviks could not provide. The military tried to force the peasantry to submit, and this resulted in revolts against the Red Army and bad publicity for the Bolsheviks.

This revolt, coupled with ideological differences, led to a series of political movements against the Bolsheviks. The largest of these groups, who became collectively known as the Whites, had a specific political agenda: to rid Russia of the Bolsheviks, or the Reds, as they had become known.

The Whites began with a series of successes, but they were simply not prepared for how determined the Bolsheviks were. The membership of the Whites varied wildly, and included such diverse members as Don Cossacks, Czech nationals, and former tsarist officers. Unfortunately, the diversity of the group led to problems coalescing with a single plan, and as a result the Whites were eventually defeated by the Reds after a series of spectacular battles. One of the by-products of the Civil War between the Whites and Reds was the murder of the remaining Romanovs, including Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children and their travelling companions. When Nicholas had abdicated in February 1917, he and his family had been placed under a fairly friendly house arrest, and there was considerable talk of the family moving to England or one of the other European nations where they had family. When the Bolsheviks seized power, however, that situation changed, and the Romanovs were increasingly harassed and abused by their captors. They were moved to the city of Ekaterinburg, in Siberia, and when the White army got close to the city, Lenin ordered the entire family shot. On the night of July 17/18, 1918, the family, along with their doctor and several servants, were awakened and told that they were to be moved. The family went to the basement of the house in which they had been living, and were waiting for their transport when the commander of the local troops walked in and read their death sentence. Nicholas had time only to say "What? What?" when the men opened fire. Nicholas died instantly, shot in the head. Several of the girls survived the first volley of shots because they had sewn jewels in their corsets to smuggle them out, and the bullets deflected off the jewels. They were eventually stabbed to death; Aleksei was hit in the head with the butt of a rifle. When the family was all dead (or at least near death), the bodies were loaded into a truck, and driven out to a nearby mine, where they were thrown in. Later testimony by one of the drivers stated that two of the bodies (presumably those of Aleksei and Mariia, whose bodies were not recovered in the recent excavation) were burned, but because the burning did not go well and took so long, the guards instead decided to dispose of the bodies in the mine shaft. They remained there until the early 1990s, when they were excavated and identified by a team of forensic specialists, who used DNA from Prince Philip of Edinburgh, among others, to identify them. In 1998, the bones of the royal family, along with their companions, were laid to rest at St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, the traditional resting place of the royal family.

The war with the Whites had other outcomes as well. The Allies (Britain, the US, Japan, etc) had intervened by sending troops into Russia to assist the Whites, but they had been primarily interested in the ports that the Germans might have occupied, and were largely gone by the end of 1918. In addition, these interventionist armies (with up to 60,000 men) avoided fighting the Reds if at all possible.

In addition, the Civil War led to numerous political uprisings by nationalist minorities; most of them were crushed during the war, but some continued to plague the Bolsheviks long after the end of the Civil War. By late 1920, the Whites had more or less been defeated, although there would continue to be skirmishes between the two groups through 1921 and into 1922.

The Kronstadt Rebellion

One of the problems that the Bolsheviks faced during the Civil War was the peasantry, which continued to resist collectivization. In March, 1921, in part due to the forced nationalization of lands and industries, the sailors at the Kronstadt Naval Base rose up against the Bolshevik government. This was more than a symbolic uprising; Kronstadt had been one of the first groups to throw themselves behind the Bolsheviks, and so this defection was a telling one. The revolt was brutally surpressed, but Lenin was quick to realize that changes would need to be brought about to avoid a similar situation in the future. As a result, he introduced a New Economic Policy, or NEP, which would be crucial to the Bolsheviks retaining power.

NEP

NEP is a great example of Lenin adapting himself and his beliefs when needed. The New Economic Policy was a reversal of the previous economic plans promulgated by the Bolsheviks: in fact, many of its detractors believed that it was down right capitalistic. It was, however, only a compromise on the economic front, not the political ideology of the Bolsheviks. The state, under NEP, would retain power over the so-called "Commanding Heights": that is, the major industries, including banking. However, private enterprise was to be allowed in smaller industries, and the peasantry were no longer required to collectivize; rather, there were incentives to be given for increased production, etc. NEP proved to be an enormous success, with a growing number of NEPmen (small businessmen) and kulaks (wealthy peasants).

While NEP was popular with the peasantry, it was viewed as a setback by many of the Bolsheviks, including those closest to Lenin. Had Lenin lived, it is possible that NEP might have remained in place; however, in early 1922 he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralyzed, and while he remained involved in government, his powers were greatly diminished. Instead, control of the party came down to three groups:

-The Left, headed by Trotsky, criticized NEP but was also critical of the center, especially of Stalin's willingness to work with the so-called bourgeosie, primarily those who NEP had made well-to-do. The Left also believed that the socialist revolution had to be a global one, and did not believe in Stalin's attempts to end democracy and open speech within the Bolshevik party;
-The Right, headed by Bukharin, believed in the socialist revolution being a world one, but also believed that because such a revolution did not appear to be imminent, it was necessary to focus on the economy within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (created in 1922, the USSR consisted initially of Russia, White Russia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasia) ideally through the continued use of NEP;
-The Center, headed by Stalin, who believed that the world revolution was not necessary and that instead, the Soviet Union could focus on "Socialism in One Country"

Stalin had been made General Secretary of the Bolshevik Party, which gave him responsibility for placing people in positions of power; he used that power to place his own allies in positions of great responsibility, and then, when needed, called in favors. One such occasion happened after Lenin's death in early 1924. Lenin left behind a last document, a "Testament", in which he evaluated each of the leading Bolsheviks as possible successors. His take on Stalin (as a power hungry manipulator) was on target, but Stalin, cagily, suggested that if the document was made public, it would give any opposition group the opportunity to rise up against the Bolsheviks, for while he was particulary critical of Stalin, Lenin had very little praise for anyone within the Testament. Trotsky and other leaders agreed, and the Testament was never released. Within three years, Stalin had manuevered Bukharin against Trotsky, and Trotsky was stripped of party membership and sent into exile in Mexico (where he was assassinated in 1940 by a Stalinist agent). Stalin then turned on Bukharin, forcing him out of his editorship of Pravda, stripping him of his party membership, and eventually placing him on trial and having him executed for crimes against the state. By late 1928, Stalin had either eliminated his enemies or so discredited them that they were powerless. He ended NEP and began his own economic policy, the so-called 5 Year Plans.