Was Lenin's Leadership the Most Important Factor in the Success of the October Revolution?

After the February revolution of 1917 Lenin spoke of his desire to overthrow the provisional government. He believed that the Bolsheviks should now work for a workers revolution and were not to cooperate with the provisional government.

By the 10th October Lenin was hiding in Petrograd after being in exile in Finland and was planning a revolution. Lenin's secret plan soon spread and was out in the open. Kerensky did nothing about this rumour as he assumed that Lenin would not go ahead with his plan if everybody knew about it. Instead of this happening between the 24th and 26th October, the Bolsheviks took control over the whole of Petrograd.

Trotsky became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet on the 8th October and also started to run its military revolutionary committee. The majority of the Petrograd Soviet was Bolshevik. German troops were nearly in Petrograd at this point and the Provisional Government were finding it hard to control the violence going on. Kerensky received a telegram from the generals saying that there was nothing to do but give up.

The Provisional government had three main problems which meant they were quite a important factor in the success of the October Revolution. Firstly they made three bad decisions, they also had a lack of authority leading to three different provisional governments and they had threats from the left and right wing. The main problem of the provisional government, which was useful for Lenin was the three Provisional governments, the first one only lasted a few weeks, the second widened its membership so that it included all partied but the Bolsheviks. The third and final Provisional government was led by Kerensky and with Kornilov leading the army.

Trotsky was also in charge of the Red Guard. This was a Bolshevik Army and because the red guard had been armed by the Provisional Government during the Kornilov revolt , and were still armed, by the end of the revolution the Bolsheviks had gained a critical amount of power.