ABSTRACT
Vladimir Lenin, a keen student of Karl Marx, was aware that the sage of Trier had warned against premature revolutions, based on the experience of France, in 1851, when Louis Napoleon had swept the Legislative Assembly aside and ended the Second Republic, eventually proclaiming himself Emperor Napoleon III. Lenin struck a deal with the German authorities to allow him and his comrades to return to Russia. The Provisional Governments were most concerned about avoiding civil war but were quite incapable of improving the daily life of the citizens. Civil War broke out and the Bolsheviks had to fashion a Red Army as quickly as possible. War communism was an attempt to leap over capitalism to communism. Money was to be phased out but the net result was a catastrophic drop in production and living standards. Lev Trotsky proposed subjecting labour to military discipline but Lenin shied away from such a draconian policy.
