Who started the Russian revolution was it the Bolsheviks
Executive summary
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not the work of a single actor but a two-stage collapse: a broad social-political uprising in February that toppled the tsar and installed a provisional government, followed by an organized Bolshevik seizure of power in October that placed the Bolsheviks at the head of the state [1] [2]. Historians agree the Bolsheviks were the group that ultimately "started" the Soviet regime by taking the Provisional Government in October, but they acted on a terrain laid bare by mass strikes, soldier mutinies, and soviet power earlier that year [3] [4].
1. February’s mass uprising: crowds, soldiers and the tsar’s collapse
The first revolutionary outbreak in March (February in the old calendar) was driven by city workers, peasants, and exhausted soldiers protesting food shortages, wartime losses and systemic corruption, and these spontaneous demonstrations forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate and ended Romanov autocracy [3] [4]. That upheaval produced a Provisional Government of liberal and moderate socialist leaders rather than an immediate Bolshevik takeover, reflecting the diverse social forces that initiated the revolution’s opening phase [1] [5].
2. Soviets and dual power: popular councils undermining the Provisional Government
While the Provisional Government held formal authority after February, workers’ and soldiers’ soviets—local councils—grew as alternative power centers that constrained and delegitimized the provisional regime, setting the stage for a partisan challenge to state authority [6] [4]. The All‑Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK) exercised real political weight that both undermined the Provisional Government and sidelined moderate socialists, creating a political vacuum the Bolsheviks could exploit [6].
3. Bolsheviks’ rise and the October seizure: organization meets opportunity
The Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin and organizationally effective under leaders like Leon Trotsky, moved from minority agitation to seizing the levers of state power in the October uprising by occupying key government buildings and strategic points in Petrograd, after months of preparation and political messaging such as the April Theses [4] [2]. Although Lenin provided the ideological program and return from exile galvanized the party, many accounts credit Trotsky with organizing the October operation itself, underscoring that the takeover combined Lenin’s strategy with Trotsky’s practical direction [6] [7].
4. Causes beyond individuals: war, economy and political fragmentation
Underlying the sequence were structural causes—Russia’s catastrophic World War I losses, chronic food shortages, industrial labor concentration and political corruption—that radicalized broad swaths of society and made any stable intermediate government precarious, facts emphasized by standard histories and timelines [3] [4]. Those conditions created fertile ground for both spontaneous popular revolts and the disciplined minority party able to convert soviet influence into state control, meaning the Bolsheviks did not create the crisis but were positioned to capitalize on it [3] [1].
5. Contested explanations and hidden agendas: Lenin, Trotsky, Germans and rivals
Controversies remain: some critics have argued for German financial support to Lenin as decisive, a claim debated because documentary evidence is limited, while contemporaneous rivals—Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and the Provisional Government—offer alternative narratives that stress broader social movement rather than a single conspiratorial coup [6] [5]. Scholarly accounts therefore present a mixed picture where Bolshevik agency and planning mattered decisively in October even as broader popular uprisings and institutional breakdown in February created the enabling circumstances [6] [2].
6. Bottom line: who “started” the revolution?
If “started” means the initial revolutionary collapse of imperial rule, that credit belongs to mass unrest by workers, soldiers and peasants in February that forced the tsar’s abdication [3] [4]; if it means who launched the revolutionary government that endured and created the Soviet state, the Bolsheviks executed that decisive seizure in October through coordinated action under Lenin’s leadership and Trotsky’s operational command [2] [6]. Both readings are supported in the sources: the revolution was a process with distinct moments—popular uprising followed by partisan seizure—rather than a single act attributable to one actor [1] [2].