These questions turn on the character of the October 1917 Russian Revolution. Pro-capitalist politicians and pundits call the revolution a putsch, or coup. They claim the Bolshevik Party led by V.I. Lenin acted against the will and interests of the people of Russia. What they hate is that through the October Revolution workers and farmers established their own government and overthrew the old capitalist order, giving an example to the exploited and oppressed around the world. Millions of working people were drawn into beginning to build a new society, transforming themselves in the process.

In February 1917, a revolutionary upsurge led to the overthrow of the Russian monarchy, headed by tsar Nicholas II of the Romanov family. This revolution was driven by opposition to the imperialist slaughter in World War I, lack of basic democratic rights, widespread hunger, landlessness, and the subjugation of oppressed nationalities in the tsarist empire.

Capitalist politicians patched together a Provisional Government, which continued the imperialist war and ignored the urgent demands of working people and the op-pressed.They promised to convene a Constituent Assembly to draw up a republican constitution, but kept postponing the elections for it. Meanwhile, during the uprising, soviets (councils) sprang up as a parallel government. These bodies were a new, vastly more democratic form of rule than anything existing under bourgeois regimes. Representatives to the soviets were freely elected by workers in the factories and other workplaces, by peasants, and by soldiers, who were largely peasants. These soviets debated out policy and elected delegates to an All-Russian Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

At first, class-collaborationist parties--the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries--held the majority in these bodies. They voluntarily handed authority to the Provisional Government, while workers and farmers increasingly raised the demand, "All Power to the Soviets." This highly unstable "dual power" could not last. Eight months of war and privation impelled working people toward another revolution.

In this process, the Bolshevik Party won wide respect among workers for its class-struggle perspectives and leadership role. The Bolsheviks eventually gained a majority in the executive committee of the Petrograd soviet, which began to arm workers more extensively and voted to replace the Provisional Government with a soviet government.

By the end of October, preparations were made for an armed insurrection. In Moscow and Petrograd, the capitalist government forces took flight before the insurrectionary forces. The All-Russia Congress of Soviets convened in Petrograd, the capital, and voted to assume governmental power. The old bourgeois state apparatus was dismantled, as workers and farmers power was consolidated.

The question asked by reader G.M. appears to be about the elections to the Constituent Assembly, which after the delays by the pro-capitalist forces finally took place after the October insurrection. Pro-capitalist politicians tried to rally forces against the soviet government by demanding "all power to the Constituent Assembly." But the assembly had already been bypassed by events. For instance, peasants were unable to choose between the pro-soviet and anti-soviet wings of the peasant-based Social Revolutionary party, because the slates of candidates had been drawn up before the party split. When the Assembly was convened by the soviet government in January 1918, the majority voted down resolutions by the Bolshevik delegation calling for recognition of the new soviet government--including its declarations on land reform, workers control, nationalization of the banks, and withdrawal from the war. With mass support, the soviet government dissolved the now discredited and outlived Constituent Assembly.

Imperialist and domestic pro-capitalist forces then unleashed a bloody civil war against the revolutionary government. The young soviet republic was invaded by troops from Britain, France, the United States, and other powers. The revolutionary workers and peasants, through the Red Army, organized the defense of soviet power. They took firm measures to crush the counterrevolutionary forces led by the former landlords and capitalists.

It was at that time that the execution of the tsar's family, detained in the Ural region, took place in July 1918. As Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky wrote in 1935, this "took place during a very critical period of the Civil War." The action was carried out to prevent the counterrevolutionary White armies from using the former royal family as a live banner to rally around. "The decision was not only expedient but necessary. The severity of this summary justice showed the world that we would continue to fight on mercilessly, stopping at nothing." It put fear into the hearts of the former exploiters and helped steel the ranks of the Red Army. "In the intellectual circles of the Party there probably were misgivings and shakings of heads. But the masses of workers and soldiers had not a minute's doubt."

To learn more about these events, Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution is indispensable reading. The two-volume Revolutionary Continuity by Farrell Dobbs has several succinct chapters devoted to this subject as well.  
 
 
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