Marx had argued that a class revolution would most likely be effected by an industrial proletariat. The problem in Russia was that it was not largely urban, and while it was industrializing, lacked the kind of tightly-knit, class-conscious proletariat Marx had in mind. It also had an enormous peasant class, people Marx had sneeringly characterized as "sacks of potatoes" due to their unwillingness to make common cause with urban workers.

Lenin, recognizing this fact, advocated that the revolution should be led by a small group of intelligentsia, a party that would seize control of government, or overthrow it altogether, and give power to working people as represented by the soviets. This was the guiding principle of his revolutionary party, the Bolsheviks. Revolution would have to come from above. As Lenin said before the revolution and civil war, "If socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see socialism for another 500 years."

Once in power, Lenin, reacting to pressure from the conservative peasants, especially land owning kulaks, instituted a series of market reforms that would have horrified Marx. This so-called New Economic Policy (NEP) allowed for private land ownership and sale of produce on something approaching a free market. Lenin also openly courted foreign capitalist investment, another flagrant violation of Marxist orthodoxy, but one that seemed necessary under the circumstances. Stalin would make the same decision.