nications, and all the other accoutrements of industrialized society were virtually non-existent, countered only by Russia's agricultural standing as a breadbasket and a large population that counted for something in the geopolitical equation, particularly because the generals strategizing World War I were still using Napoleonic tactics.
Russia was unprepared to engage in the industrialized Great War; the next three years of carnage to her people was as much the fault of Czarist incompetence as it was related to German design (Hough & Fainsod 39-42). The Bolsheviks swept into prominence on the crest of a popular revolution against the hereditary ruler's lack of leadership ability (Thompson 181-186). That revolution was soon dominated by late-comer Vladimir Lenin, who maneuvered the Bolsheviks into power. Lenin's attachment to the Bolshevist cause was always manipulative at best, autocratic at all times (Hough & Fainsod 17-21).
Though he quickly solved the problem--war--that had leveraged his movement into dominance by making peace with Germany and ending that destruction, Lenin's autocratic power-grab alienated other factions and set off a civil war (Hough & Fainsod 83-103). The civil war destroyed what was left of Russia's economy and inspired an anarchic chaos that lingers in Russia's soul. Within a year of assuming power, Lenin's Soviet autocracy justified itself by attacking another, greater problem: reunification of the Russian nation itself.
This was the nascent Soviets' first great popular achievement: identification of their philosophy with the larger goal of Russian nationalism. Lenin used every tool of the Czarist organization to reach this goal (Hough & Fainsod 77-83). The Czarist bureaucracy was given a greater role to play, the secret police was revived as a force of repression, and feudal land-binding was reintroduced under the banner of the commune.
Yet, by the time of his death from natural cau...