Why were the Bolsheviks considered heroes of the revolution?

Answer 1

There was a huge social gulf between the peasants who were former serfs and the land owners. The peasants regarded anyone who did not work as a parasite. They had always regarded as all land belonging to them. To the peasants the land retained by the landowners at the time serfs were freed was stolen by them. Only force could prevent them taking the land. They wanted modernization while keeping the autocracy intact. The modernization was primarily for military purposes. In many ways it undermined the autocracy. It created a middle class, it required taxes to pay for all those railways etc which strained economy and hence fueled the discontent of those who didn't benefit. Oh yes it created literacy amongst the peasants and so made them open to new, often revolutionary ideas. With hindsight this was suicidal but to talk of "wasted years" implies aims the Tsars did not have. The Mensheviks believed that Russia was too backward for socialism and followed Marx in believing that only a advance capitalist society co support socialism. Hence they believed that socialists should support the liberal CADETS in bringing about a capitalist revolution. Only after decades of capitalist development would it be permissible for socialists to take power. This very theoretical position was quite suicidal for the people in Russia were not prepared to wait.

The Bolshevik Party was only significant party to clearly oppose the Provisional Government and to unambiguously support the aims of the soldiers and workers and peasants. Had others , say Chernov, done this the Bolshevik party would not of been able to transform itself from an unpopular minority in the way it did.