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Bolsheviks had to do was seize the key points in the city and declare themselves the
government.
To his credit, Lenin realised that such a coup could look like a naked grab for power
by a party representing only a proportion of the opposition forces. Hence, he arranged
for the uprising to coincide with the All Russian Congress of Soviets, to begin on
November 7th thereby allowing the Bolsheviks to take power in the name of the
peoples elected representatives.
Lenins contribution to the Bolsheviks seizure of power was enormous. It was he
who provided the ideological basis for the revolution, he who forged the Bolshevik
Party into an instrument for insurrection, and he who determined the political strategy
to be pursued. Without him, there would almost certainly have been no November
Revolution.