After the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had abandoned the coalition and increasingly viewed the Bolsheviks as traitors to the revolution. [307] In July 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Yakov Blumkin assassinated the German ambassador to Russia, Wilhelm von Mirbach, hoping that the ensuing diplomatic incident would lead to a relaunched revolutionary war against Germany. [308] The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries then launched a coup in Moscow, shelling the Kremlin and seizing the city's central post office before being stopped by Trotsky's forces. [309] The party's leaders and many members were arrested and imprisoned but were treated more leniently than other opponents of the Bolsheviks. [310] Bolshevik anti-Polish propaganda poster, 1920 Shub 1966, p.355; Leggett 1981, p.204; Rice 1990, pp.173, 175; Volkogonov 1994, p.198; Service 2000, pp.357, 382; Read 2005, p.187. Fischer 1964, p.35; Pipes 1990, p.357; Rice 1990, pp.64–69; Service 2000, pp.130–135; Rappaport 2010, pp.32–33. Fischer 1964, p.18; Rice 1990, p.27; Service 2000, pp.68–69; White 2001, p.29; Read 2005, p.15; Lih 2011, p.32.

Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued a series of decrees. The first was a Decree on Land, which declared that the landed estates of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church should be nationalised and redistributed to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's desire for agricultural collectivisation but provided governmental recognition of the widespread peasant land seizures that had already occurred. [190] In November 1917, the government issued the Decree on the Press that closed many opposition media outlets deemed counter revolutionary. They claimed the measure would be temporary; the decree was widely criticised, including by many Bolsheviks, for compromising freedom of the press. [191]

Rice 1990, p.18; Service 2000, p.26; White 2001, p.20; Read 2005, p.7; Petrovsky-Shtern 2010, p.64. Budgen, Sebastian; Kouvelakis, Stathis; Žižek, Slavoj (2007). Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-3941-0. Montefiore, Simon Sebag (2007). Young Stalin. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-85068-7. Fischer 1964, p.85; Pipes 1990, pp.378–379; Rice 1990, p.127; Service 2000, p.225; White 2001, pp.103–104.

Rice 1990, pp.57–58; Service 2000, pp.121–124, 137; White 2001, pp.40–45; Read 2005, pp.34, 39; Lih 2011, pp.62–63. Bowman, Verity (27 April 2022). "Kyiv pulls down Soviet-era monument symbolising Russian-Ukrainian friendship". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 27 April 2022 . Retrieved 4 May 2022. Fischer 1964, pp.288–289; Pipes 1990, pp.624–630; Service 2000, p.360; White 2001, pp.161–162; Read 2005, p.205. Pipes 1990, pp.363–364; Rice 1990, pp.89–90; Service 2000, pp.168–170; Read 2005, p.78; Rappaport 2010, p.124. Fischer 1964, pp.31–32; Rice 1990, pp.53, 55–56; Service 2000, pp.110–113; White 2001, p.40; Read 2005, pp.30, 31.Lenin declared that "Soviet government is many millions of times more democratic than the most democratic-bourgeois republic", the latter of which was simply "a democracy for the rich." [454] He regarded his "dictatorship of the proletariat" as democratic because, he claimed, it involved the election of representatives to the soviets, workers electing their own officials, and the regular rotation and involvement of all workers in the administration of the state. [455] Lenin's belief as to what a proletariat state should look like nevertheless deviated from that adopted by the Marxist mainstream; European Marxists like Kautsky envisioned a democratically elected parliamentary government in which the proletariat had a majority, whereas Lenin called for a strong, centralised state apparatus that excluded any input from the bourgeois. [448]

Liebman, Marcel (1975) [1973]. Leninism Under Lenin. Translated by Brian Pearce. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-01072-6. Lenin's collected writings] reveal in detail a man with iron will, self-enslaving self-discipline, scorn for opponents and obstacles, the cold determination of a zealot, the drive of a fanatic, and the ability to convince or browbeat weaker persons by his singleness of purpose, imposing intensity, impersonal approach, personal sacrifice, political astuteness, and complete conviction of the possession of the absolute truth. His life became the history of the Bolshevik movement. Arriving at Petrograd's Finland Station in April, Lenin gave a speech to Bolshevik supporters condemning the Provisional Government and again calling for a continent-wide European proletarian revolution. [133] Over the following days, he spoke at Bolshevik meetings, lambasting those who wanted reconciliation with the Mensheviks and revealing his " April Theses", an outline of his plans for the Bolsheviks, which he had written on the journey from Switzerland. [134] He publicly condemned both the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries, who dominated the influential Petrograd Soviet, for supporting the Provisional Government, denouncing them as traitors to socialism. Considering the government to be just as imperialist as the Tsarist regime, he advocated immediate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rule by soviets, the nationalisation of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with the intention of establishing a proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. By contrast, the Mensheviks believed that Russia was insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the new Republic into civil war. [135] Over the coming months Lenin campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause. [136]Lerner, Vladimir; Finkelstein, Y.; Witztum, E. (2004). "The Enigma of Lenin's (1870–1924) Malady". European Journal of Neurology. 11 (6): 371–376. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-1331.2004.00839.x. PMID 15171732. S2CID 14966309. Fischer 1964, p.389; Rice 1990, p.182; Volkogonov 1994, p.281; Service 2000, p.407; White 2001, p.161; Davies 2003, pp.29–30. Fischer 1964, pp.469–470; Shub 1966, p.405; Leggett 1981, pp.325–326; Rice 1990, p.184; Service 2000, p.427; White 2001, p.169; Ryan 2012, p.170. Fischer 1964, pp.638–639; Shub 1966, p.433; Lewin 1969, pp.73–75; Volkogonov 1994, p.417; Service 2000, p.464; White 2001, pp.173–174. Volkogonov said, while renouncing Leninist ideology, that "there can scarcely have been another man in history who managed so profoundly to change so large a society on such a scale." [514] Lenin's administration laid the framework for the system of government that ruled Russia for seven decades and provided the model for later Communist-led states that came to cover a third of the inhabited world in the mid-20th century. [515] As a result, Lenin's influence was global. [516] A controversial figure, Lenin remains both reviled and revered, [449] a figure who has been both idolised and demonised. [517] Even during his lifetime, Lenin "was loved and hated, admired and scorned" by the Russian people. [518] This has extended into academic studies of Lenin and Leninism, which have often been polarised along political lines. [519]

Fischer 1964, p.647; Shub 1966, pp.434–435; Rice 1990, p.192; Volkogonov 1994, p.273; Service 2000, p.469; White 2001, pp.174–175; Read 2005, pp.278–279. Fischer 1964, pp.211–212; Shub 1966, p.339; Pipes 1990, p.595; Rice 1990, p.167; Service 2000, p.342; White 2001, pp.158–159.Fischer 1964, p.640; Shub 1966, pp.434–435; Volkogonov 1994, pp.249, 418; Service 2000, p.465; White 2001, p.174. Fischer 1964, pp.34–35; Rice 1990, p.64; Service 2000, pp.124–125; White 2001, p.54; Read 2005, p.43; Rappaport 2010, pp.27–28.