According to Marxism who are the proletariat and role did they play in the Bolshevik Revolution?

Answer 1

According to Marx, the proletariat is the class of workers who have no ownership or control of the means of production in the economy. They own nothing but the right to sell their own labor. The proletariat is not simply "the lower class" as that term is commonly used. It just so happens that the common industrial worker may be in a lower social class, lower social status is not the true definition of proletariat.

The "proletariat" actually played very little in the "Bolshevik Revolution" because there was no proletariat in Marxist terms. First, Russia had not gone through the industrialization phase of capitalism therefore there was no true proletariat. Russia was still an agrarian country. Second, the Bolshevik Revolution was not a people's revolution as Marx envisioned it. The Bolshevik Revolution was nothing more than a military and political coup staged by the Bolshevik forces in which they seized control of the government from the existing Provisional Government.

The people of Russia, soldiers, workers and peasants, simply stood by doing nothing while the Bolsheviks seized power. By and large theirs was a wait and see attitude. Most felt it was better to have a revolutionary government (Bolshevik) rather than a counter-revolutionary government (the Provisional Government) even though the Bolsheviks were not universally favored or trusted.

Answer 2

The proletariat are the working class individuals who sell their labor for a wage. In the Bolshevik Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin, the proletariat played a central role by rising up against the ruling class (bourgeoisie) to establish a socialist system that aimed to create a classless society. The revolution resulted in the overthrow of the Russian monarchy and the establishment of the Soviet Union.