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technicolour

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Basically, Marxist ideology outlines a few economic stages that need to evolve before there can be a communist state. In Marx's view, capitalism had to evolve before the proletariat could become large enough to attempt to overthrow the bourgeoise.

Lenin knew Russia was only just starting to embrace industrialisation, and that the working class was far too small to attempt revolution. Because of that, Lenin took a practical approach and organised a small group of professional revolutionaries to overthrow the Provisional Govt. and implement socialism. Basically, they forced a revolution before it was really ready to happen. This is completely contrary to Marxist ideology which is essentially an evolutionary theory. Thus, the Bolshevik style of politics is often referred to as "Bolshevism," as it's not really true to socialism. The goals Lenin had in mid were rooted in Marxist theory, but the way he went about achieving them wasn't.

Also, some of the initial reforms weren't really strictly socialist. For instance, the Land Decree encouraged peasants to grab the land off those who owned it, but really, that was just transferring private ownership from one group to another. This all eventually changed, but in it's initial stages, the Bolsheviks weren't strictly socialist.

I hope that helps. :) I'm sure there are others on here that might have more stuff to add, but I just did an essay on this very same question.
 

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