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(according to the old Russian calendar then in useOctober; hence the name by which it lives in history,the October Revolution), Lenin became the head of thenew revolutionary government, the Soviet (Council) ofPeople's Commissars, with Trotsky as commissar forforeign affairs, later war, and Stalin for nationalities, laterin various war posts. For some months the Bolsheviksgoverned, in so far as any government at all was possible,with the uneasy collaboration of the left wing of theSocial-Revolutionaries. Thereafter all the commissarsand the overwhelming majority of the Congress ofSoviets were Bolsheviks. Thus almost from the startthe new regime was founded substantially upon a onepartybasis, in fact a corollary of Lenin's conception ofparty.The party, over 600,000 strong by 1920, was thegeneral staff and fighting kernel of the bloody, tumultuousperiod of 'war communism,' the Civil War and Alliedintervention. By 1921 it was triumphant—and thecountry utterly exhausted; and yet further prostratedby the great famine of that year, far the worst for thirtyyears. Lenin turned to a temporary accommodationwith the peasantry in the shape of the New EconomicPolicy (see pp. 128-129) and to an all-round reorganizationof the party and the country.The chaos of 1918-21 was immensely increased by thefact that the Bolsheviks swept away the old army, theold local government bodies, the old judicial system, and(very largely) the old civil service. On the other hand,this was one of the main reasons for the final triumphof the Revolution. Having destroyed they succeededin creating the indispensable essential, a new army andsecret police, 1 and more slowly new courts and a newcivil service, in all of which they controlled the key-posts.In local administration they worked, however, chaotically,through the new Soviets.1 These were new, not in the sense that the entire personnel wasnew, but in the sense that the old army and police were disbanded andnew revolutionary organizations were set up—the Red Guards, theRed Army, and the Cheka (the predecessor of the G.P.U.)—staffed atthe top by Bolsheviks or revolutionaries working with them, butotherwise largely composed of re-enlisted men.60