ABSTRACT
Subsequent events were to demonstrate that Lenin, the man who had sought power for so long, actually had no concrete plans once he got it. When the congress reconvened that night, Lenin presented it with two decrees designed to bolster support for the new regime and give it urgently needed breathing space. Yet it is inescapable that Lenin and most of his lieutenants not only expected civil war but saw it as integral to the revolutionary process. The Bolshevik Party increasingly thought of itself in militant military terms: fighting battles, attacking fortresses, viewing those who disagreed as enemies or traitors. This method of rule, the War Communism model, as some have called it, did not disappear when the civil war was won and War Communism abolished in 1921, it fused seamlessly with the fundamental authoritarian thrust of Leninism and became a part of the party's guiding set of principles.
