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The Bolshevik party officially seized power in October 1917, amidst the severely compromised state that Russia was in under the temporary authority of the Provisional Government. The peasants, abandoned by the Provisional Government's failure to meet their demands for an end to war, proper subsistence, and land, were vulnerable to the Bolsheviks' takeover. The driving forces behind the Bolsheviks' rise – enforcing ideology, meeting popular demands, and asserting authority – were in constant flux