Question

How did the Bolsheviks take power in Russia ?

Answer 1

One huge problem in Russian Empire was peasant question: as a result of significant expansion of the borders a small number of people owned large territories. Even after abolition of serfdom peasants didn’t had enough land to feed themselves. But how can you redistribute land, take it away from the strong and give to the weak when land owners would clearly oppose you? Same problem was encountered many times along the history. For example, in Roman Republic after their expansion during Punic wars (optimates vs populares) - that resulted in Jules Ceasar overthrowing the Senate.

So, royal powers couldn’t solve that problem. During crisis caused by WWI, they were removed from power (that coup itself is quite complex event, there were several acting forces). Liberals who came into power after february revolution also were unable to solve peasant question and proved themselves incompetent. Exactly that 1917 year during summer numbers of Bolshevik Party significantly increased. They tried to perform coup in july (unsuccessfull) and achieved their goal in october.

Then after civil war Bolsheviks finally solved peasant problem through collectivisation with big blood and famine.

I wish that Nicholas II was more competent ruler and could prevent all these events in advance.