Was Trotsky A Revolutionary Leader

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Despite the fact that he lacked any military education, Trotsky’s forte as a leader of the Red Army was his clear understanding of strategy. His knowledge of the Civil War greatly enhanced his ability to lead the Red Army with confidence and finesse, even better than most seasoned military specialists. He was able to turn an army of ex-proletariats, who had been an oppressed class for decades, into a fully organized fleet of soldiers. He banded them together with the assurance that they were all working towards a common goal and that they all had the same enemy-those who had previously sentenced them to becoming nothing more than a small fraction of the working class. Some revolutionaries even regarded Trotsky as the true leader of the revolution …show more content…
Once that was settled, they moved on to fight in the Far East where battles lasted until 1922. Thanks to intense propaganda, Lenin was able to persuade workers and peasants to not only support him, but risk their lives to help protect the idea of Bolshevism. His guidance helped with the structure of the Army and ultimately won the Civil War for the Reds. Not only did his leadership help motivate his own soldiers and fellow officers in charge, his persistent work to make White Guard officers switch sides helped the huge deficit of well-trained officers to lead troops in his own …show more content…
For example, with the rise in power of the opposing White force, Lenin was forced to use drastic means to support his army throughout the years of warfare. In the years 1921-22, a new decree was imposed that drastically upped the severity of the grain tax as well as what the peasants could do with it, which was later called War Communism. This resulted in one of the biggest famines in Russian history, increasing the death count to over six million people. The famine was not solely caused by the Civil War-the depreciation of agriculture started its downward spiral back in World War I and the Revolution of 1917. Lenin believed the peasants were trying to undermine the war effort and ordered the seizure of the food that peasants grew for their own subsistence as well as their seed grain. This decision drastically altered the minds of the peasants and caused them to rethink which side they should be supporting since at the beginning of the war the peasants were promised a certain amount of rations and assistance with farm work in return for their support. Lenin’s and Trotsky’s contribution to the victory in the Civil War can be argued on many different points: the concrete leadership in the upper ranks, for instance, as well as the unity and discipline among the Red Army, and the fact that their opponents were not fully suited or prepared to fight such a force. Lenin gave the workers and
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