October Revolution
The Bolsheviks took power in Petrograd on the night of 25 October 1917 by the old calendar, 7 November by the new one, with very little fighting. The Provisional Government that had replaced the Tsar in February had made two decisions that destroyed it: to stay in the war, and to postpone land reform and the constituent assembly until the war ended. By autumn the soldiers were deserting in hundreds of thousands, the peasants were seizing estates without waiting, and the soviets — councils of workers, soldiers and sailors that had grown up alongside the government — had Bolshevik majorities in Petrograd and Moscow. Kerensky's own attempt to suppress a supposed coup by his commander-in-chief Kornilov in September left him dependent on the Bolshevik Red Guards he had armed. Lenin had returned in April demanding all power to the soviets and no support for the Provisional Government, against the instincts of much of his own party, and spent October arguing the central committee into an insurrection. Trotsky organised it through the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd soviet, which made it look like the soviet acting rather than a party. The bridges, telegraph, stations and power stations were taken during the night, and the Winter Palace fell in the small hours against a garrison of cadets and a women's battalion. Six people died. The storming everyone pictures is from Eisenstein's film of 1928. The congress of soviets ratified it the next day, the assembly elected in November was dispersed after one sitting, and the civil war ran to 1922.
- Year: 1917 CE
- Category: Political
