Why Were the Bolsheviks Successful in October 1917?

Introduction
The October Revolution was led by the Bolsheviks under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky and marked the first officially Communist revolution of the twentieth century, based upon the ideas of Karl Marx. The crucial revolutionary activities in Petrograd were under the command of the Petrograd Soviet headed by Leon Trotsky and the Military Revolutionary Committee headed by Adolph Joffe. The revolution was widely regarded as a reaction to the strains that had been placed upon Tsarist Russia as a result of the Great War. …