Once Lenin had gotten a hold on power after the October Revolution he spent the next year finding his feet and trying to maintain his power:

November 1917 - the Decree on Land was introduced; this involved the nationalisation of all land belonging to the crown, church and nobility and handing it over to the peasants
November 1917 - Decrees Limited limited the working day to 8 hours, 48 hours a week
November - workers became insured against accident and illness
December - factories came under the control of the workers Soviet, while the banks were controlled by the Bolsheviks
December - the Cheka (secret police) were established to protect the Bolsheviks
- The Cheka once set up made widespread arrests and executions of those opposed to the Communist regime
Lenin had to allow elections for the Constituent Assembly; a majority of seats went to other political groups
- This Assembly met for one day in January 1918 before being dissolved by the Bolshevik Red Guards
Lenin had the challenge of taking Russia out of the First World War. This came about through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March, 1918). The terms of the treaty led to Russia losing:
- 25% of its land
- 33% of its farming land
- 33% of its manufacturing industry
- 80% of its coalmines
- 26% of its population

Historians on October 1917:

“The Bolsheviks came to power, not because they were superior manipulators or cynical opportunists, but because their policies, as formulated by Lenin in April and shaped by the events of the following months, placed them at the head of a genuinely popular movement”. (Paul Dukes, 2004)

“The events that led to the overthrow of the Provisional Government were not spontaneous but carefully plotted and staged by a tightly organised conspiracy…October was a classic coup d’etat, the capture of governmental authority by a small band, carried out, in deference to the democratic professions of the age, with a show of mass participation, but with hardly any mass involvement”. (Richard Pipes, a Polish historian)

“Having seized power, he (Lenin) shrugged off the cape of Social Democrat and donned the cloak of the Jacobin. All his attitudes were now conditioned by one consideration: to cling to power at any cost”. (Dmitri Volkogonov, a former Soviet military officer and historian)