Did the Bolsheviks actually seize power in 1917?

[Lyev]

I watched an interesting video of Chomsky on the Soviet Union. He seems to take an anti-Leninist position and posits that there was never really any socialism in Russia, and in fact it was a coup. I don't necessarily with everything he says, but I'm kinda confused.

Here's the video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsceZ9skQI
I find it really hard to distinguish between actual fact based on objectivity, and subjective half-facts biased by sectarianism, as with a lot of things in leftist politics. According to Chomsky, after the October revolution, one of the first moves of Lenin's administration was to "destroy the soviets in the factory councils" in his words. He claims the "revolution" was in fact a coup. Thoughts?

[FSL]

Soviets didn't have any formal role in russian politics until the October revolution.

The Kerensky government that was installed after the February revolution had as its "mission" to decide on a date for elections on a constituent assembly, which would vote on a russian constitution. This dragged on for quite some time. Bolshevicks got the majority in the Petrograd Soviet and used it to depose the government and call the elections.

The elections took place in November of 1917. Bolshevicks got 25% of the vote (mostly workers and soldiers on the front), the social revolutionaries more than 50% (the main party among the peasantry). However a few days later, a split among the social revolutionaries took place (tensions among them had began to grow much earlier) with their left current forming its own party and siding with the Bolshevicks, calling for a Soviet Republic. The split among supporters was roughly in half with most of the poor peasantry following them. However, most of their delegates in parliament chose to remain in the right SRs.

Bolshevicks proposed the founding of a soviet republic as the constituent assembly started its meetings and when even discussing about it was not accepted, they left. Soon the left SRs followed.

This is how the russian civil war began with a soviet council of commissars consisting of Bolshevicks and left SRs on one side and an official parliament of Menshevicks, right SRs, liberals and czarists on the other along with the help of foreign armies who invaded Russia.

There certainly were no "destroyed soviets" but parties that openly and with the use of violence opposed the soviets were banned in areas controlled by the soviet government.

[revolution inaction]

I find it really hard to distinguish between actual fact based on objectivity, and subjective half-facts biased by sectarianism, as with a lot of things in leftist politics. According to Chomsky, after the October revolution, one of the first moves of Lenin's administration was to "destroy the soviets in the factory councils" in his words. He claims the "revolution" was in fact a coup. Thoughts?

I think chomskys right about that, have you read the bolsheviks and workers control (http://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group)? it's quite interesting.

[Glenn Beck]

He takes the critique of the council communists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_communism), dumbs it down a bit, and then goes on to hilariously fudge them with the social-democrats to create his weird fabrication of "mainstream" and "orthodox" Marxism versus the "right-wing deviation" of Leninism. I like Chomsky in general but that video I just find an embarrassing example of his liberal views and general naivety on parade.

ComradeOm, a user on this forum, wrote a pretty decent history of the Bolshevik revolution that addresses the accusation from some fractions of the ultra-left, rightist reformists, and I might add, a major chunk of the bourgeois consensus, that the Bolshevik revolution was simply a bourgeois coup and not a working class revolution.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/russian-revolution-bolshevik-t105275/index.html

If that's too tainted with Leninism for your refined palate, here's what some left-communists think: http://en.internationalism.org/taxonomy/term/408

[Die Neue Zeit]

The coalition of Bolsheviks, Left-SRs, some anarchists here and there, with passive support from the Menshevik-Internationalists, all took power in November 1917 after garning majority political support (not "electoral" as defined later on by the Constituent Assembly) from the working class and enough support from the peasantry.

That support was maintained even after the rigged Constituent Assembly elections. A second set of elections should have been held to reflect the SR split.

The Bolshevik coup proper occurred in 1918 when they shut down soviets which produced majorities for the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs - a slipping away of working-class political support. Nevertheless, the main lesson of this coup and the 1917 revolutions is that proper parties (mass party-movements), and not soviets, should be the nexus of working-class power - something which the USPD in Germany should have learned quickly by moving to arrest Ebert, Scheidemann, and the rest of the main SPD leadership as war criminals (as opposed to entering into coalition with them).

[Lyev]

Thanks for the replies. But why would Chomsky say otherwise?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Because's he's one of those faux "libertarian socialists" or liberal "anarchists." This is the same guy who fawns upon Hugo Chavez, who presides over a bourgeois state form (in spite of that statesman's own self-criticism).

[Dimentio]

I cannot see any problem in condemning Lenin if Lenin is universally hated or seen as a devil figure in your country. Neither could I see any problem with praising him if he is adored as a saviour. Opportunistic? Yes.

But the main goal should always be to reach the goals. Not to debate history (except for fun).