ABSTRACT
The denigration of Lenin's role by historians may have been equally as harmful as their earlier uncritical stances. Lenin should be acknowledged as the key figure in the October events. Lenin and the Bolsheviks, like the other socialist parties of 1917, had consistently supported the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. Few Russian citizens were accustomed to a democratic parliament, and moreover, the Constituent Assembly lacked a military force capable of maintaining it or willing to maintain it. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly epitomized Lenin's break with the past, his willingness to resort to force to maintain power, and his final rift with fellow socialist parties. The demographic structure of Ukraine thus effectively prevented the majority of Ukrainians from taking an active role in the political transformation that had occurred, a factor that was to prove highly significant with time.
