October Revolution

During the October 1917 Russian Revolution, the liberal, western-oriented Provisional Government headed by Alexander Kerensky, which was established following the February 1917 Russian Revolution that overthrew Tsar Nicholas II, was removed and replaced by the first Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin. The October Revolution began in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), then the capital of Russia, and quickly spread to the rest of the country. One of the seminal events of the twentieth century in terms of its worldwide historical impact, the October Revolution is also one of the most controversial and hotly debated historical events in modern times.

Most western historians, especially at the height of the Cold War, viewed the October Revolution as a brilliantly organized military coup d'état without significant popular support, carried out by a tightly knit band of professional revolutionaries brilliantly led by the fanatical Lenin. This interpretation, severely undermined by western "revisionist" social history in the 1970s and 1980s, was rejuvenated after the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the Gorbachev era, even though information from newly declassified Soviet archives reinforced the revisionist view. At the other end of the political spectrum, for nearly eighty years Soviet historians, bound by strict historical canons designed to legitimate the Soviet state and its leadership, depicted the October Revolution as a broadly popular uprising of the revolutionary Russian masses. According to them, this social upheaval was deeply rooted in Imperial Russia's historical development and shaped by universal laws of history as formulated by Karl Marx and Lenin. There are kernels of truth and considerable distortion in both of these interpretations.

War and Revolution

The outbreak of World War I in August 1914 found Russian politics and society in great flux. To be sure, the autocratic tsarist political system had somehow managed to remain intact throughout the revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Even the Revolution of 1905, which resulted in the creation of a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament (the Duma), had left predominant political authority in the hands of Tsar Nicholas II. The abolition of serfdom by Alexander II in 1861 had freed the Russian peasantry, the vast bulk of the empire's population, from personal bondage. However, the terms of the emancipation were such that most peasants remained impoverished. Moreover, a fundamental land reform program initiated by Peter Stolypin in 1906 was so complex that, irrespective of the long-term prospects, when it was interrupted by the war in 1914, the Russian countryside was in particularly great turmoil.

In the late nineteenth century, enlightened officials such as Sergei Witte had reversed government opposition to industrialization and spearheaded a program of rapid economic development. However, the pace of this development was too slow to meet Russia's needs, and the industrial revolution resulted in the crowding of vast numbers of immiserated workers into squalid, rat-infested factory ghettos in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other major Russian cities. It is small wonder, then, that in the opening years of the twentieth century, the major Russian liberal and socialist political parties that were destined to play key roles in 1917 took shape and began to attract popular followings. Likewise, it is no surprise that the Russian government was suddenly faced with a growing, increasingly ambitious and assertive professional middle class, waves of peasant rebellions, and burgeoning labor unrest.

Framed against these political and social realities, the significant degree of popular support enjoyed by the Russian government at the start of the war, in so far as it was visible, must have been heartening to Nicholas II. The Constitutional Democratic or Kadet Party, Russia's main liberal party, officially proclaimed a moratorium on opposition to the monarchy and pledged its unqualified support for the war effort. Beginning in early 1915, when the government's extraordinary incompetence became fully apparent, the Kadets, despite their anguish, made use of the Duma only to call for the appointment of qualified ministers (rather than demand fundamental structural change). With good reason, they calculated that a political upheaval in the existing circumstances would be equally damaging to the war effort and prospects for the eventual creation of a liberal, democratic government. Members of the populist Socialist Revolutionary (SR) Party and the moderate social democratic Menshevik Party were split between "defensists," who supported the war effort, and "internationalists," who sought an immediate cessation of hostilities and a compromise peace without victors or vanquished. Only Lenin advocated the fomenting of immediate social revolution in all of the warring countries; however, for the time being, efforts by underground Bolshevik committees in Russia to kindle popular opposition to the war failed.

The February 1917 Revolution, which grew out of prewar instabilities and technological backwardness, along with gross mismanagement of the war effort, continuing military defeats, domestic economic dislocation, and outrageous scandals surrounding the monarchy, resulted in the creation of two potential Russian national governments. One was the Provisional Government formed by members of the Duma to restore order and to provide leadership pending convocation of a popularly elected Constituent Assembly based on the French model. The Constituent Assembly was to design Russia's future political system and take responsibility for the promulgation of other fundamental reforms. The second potential national government was the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and its moderate socialist-led Executive Committee. Patterned after similar "worker parliaments" formed during the Revolution of 1905, in succeeding weeks similar institutions of popular self-government were established throughout urban and rural Russia. In early summer 1917, the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and the First All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Deputies formed leadership bodies, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and the All-Russian Executive Committee of Peasants' Deputies, to represent soviets around the country between national congresses. Until the fall of 1917, when it was taken over by the Bolsheviks, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet strived to maintain order and protect the revolution until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. This was also true of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and the All-Russian Executive Committee of Peasants' Deputies. The Soviet, led by the moderate socialists, made no effort to take formal power into its own hands, although it was potentially stronger than the Provisional Government because of its vastly greater support among workers, peasants, and lower - level military personnel. This support skyrocketed in tandem with popular disenchantment with the economic results of the February Revolution, the effort of the Provisional Government to continue the war effort, and its procrastination in convening the Constituent Assembly.

"ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS!"

At the time of the February Revolution, Lenin was in Switzerland. He returned to Petrograd in early April 1917, demanding an immediate second, "socialist" revolution in Russia. Although he backed off this goal after he acquainted himself with the realities of the prevailing situation (including little support for precipitous, radical revolutionary action even among Bolsheviks), his great achievement at this time was to orient the thinking of the Bolshevik Party toward preparation for the replacement of the Provisional Government by a leftist "Soviet" government as soon as the time was ripe. Nonetheless, in assessing Lenin's role in the October Revolution, it is important to keep in mind that he was either away from the country or in hiding and out of regular touch with his colleagues in Russia for much of the time between February and October 1917. In any case, top Bolshevik leaders tended to be divided into three distinct groups: Lenin and Leon Trotsky, among others, for whom the establishment of revolutionary soviet power in Russia was less an end in itself than the trigger for immediate worldwide socialist revolution; a highly influential group of more moderate national party leaders led by Lev Kamenev for whom transfer of power to the soviets was primarily a vehicle for building a strong alliance of left socialist groups which would form a socialist coalition government to prepare for fundamental social reform and peace negotiations by a socialist-friendly Constituent Assembly; and a middle group of independent-minded leaders whose views on the development of the revolution fluctuated in response to their reading of existing conditions.

Then too, events often moved so rapidly that the Bolshevik Central Committee had to develop policies without consulting Lenin. Beyond this, circumstances were frequently such that structurally subordinate party bodies had perforce to develop responses to evolving realities without guidance or contrary to directives from the center. Also, in 1917 the doors to membership were opened wide, and the Bolshevik organization became a genuine mass political party. In part as a result of such factors, Bolshevik programs and policies in 1917 tended to be developed democratically, with strong inputs from rank-and-file members, and therefore reflected popular aspirations.

Meanwhile, the revolution among factory workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants had a dynamic of its own. At times, the Bolsheviks followed the masses rather than vice versa. For example, on July 14 (July 1 O.S.) the Bolshevik Central Committee, influenced by party moderates, began preparing for a left - socialist congress aimed at unifying all internationalist elements of the "Social Democracy"(e.g., Menshevik-Internationalists and Left SRs) in support of common revolutionary goals. Yet only two days later, radical elements of the Bolshevik Petersburg Committee and Party Military Organization (responsive to their ultra-militant constituencies) helped organize the abortive July uprising, against the wishes of Lenin and the Central Committee, who considered such action premature.

The July uprising ended in an apparent defeat for the Bolsheviks. Lenin was forced into hiding, numerous Bolshevik leaders were jailed, and efforts to form a united left-socialist front were temporarily ended. Still, in light of the success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution, perhaps the main significance of the July uprising was that it reflected the great popular attraction for the Bolshevik revolutionary program, as well as the party's strong links to Petrograd's lower classes, links that would prove valuable over the long term.

What was the Bolsheviks' program? Contrary to conventional wisdom, in 1917 the Bolsheviks did not stand for a one-party dictatorship (neither in July nor at any time before the October Revolution). Rather, they stood for democratic "people's power," exercised through an exclusively socialist, soviet, multiparty government, pending convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The Bolsheviks also stood for more land to individual peasants, "workers' control" in factories, prompt improvement of food supply, and, most important, an early end to the war. All of these goals were neatly packaged in the slogans "Peace, Land, and Bread!" "All Power to the Soviets!" and "Immediate Convocation of the Constituent Assembly!" The interplay and political value of these two key factors - the attractiveness of the Bolshevik platform and the party's carefully nurtured links to revolutionary workers, soldiers, and sailors - were evident in the fall of 1917, after the left's quick defeat of an unsuccessful rightist putsch led by the commanderin-chief of the Russian army, General Lavr Kornilov (the so-called Kornilov affair).

The Bolsheviks Come to Power

Following the ill - fated July uprising, Lenin, alienated by moderate socialist attacks on the Bolsheviks and by their support of the Provisional Government and dismissive of the soviets' revolutionary potential, tried unsuccessfully to persuade the party leadership to abandon its emphasis on transfer of power to the soviets and shift its strategy to a unilateral seizure of power. Subsequently, in the aftermath of the Kornilov affair, during which Lenin remained in hiding, he briefly reconsidered this position and allowed for a peaceful transition to soviet power. However, this moderation was fleeting. Isolated from day-to-day developments and decision making in the Russian capital, and evidently influenced primarily by clear signs of deepening social unrest at home and abroad, at the end of September (mid-September O.S.) Lenin decided that the time had come for another revolution in Russia: a socialist revolution that would serve as the catalyst for popular rebellions in other European countries. In two emphatic letters to Bolshevik committees in Petrograd written from a hideout in Finland, he now demanded that the party organize an armed uprising "without losing a single moment."

These letters were received in Petrograd at a time when prospects for peaceful creation of an exclusively socialist government suddenly brightened. After passage by the Petrograd Soviet of a momentous Bolshevik resolution to this effect proposed by Kamenev, the Bolsheviks won majority control of that key body. Trotsky became its chairman. Around the same time, the Bolsheviks also gained control of the Moscow Soviet. Moreover, the Bolshevik leadership was just then focused on trying to persuade the Democratic State Conference, a national conference of "democratic" organizations convened to reconsider the government question, to abjure further coalition with the Cadets and to establish exclusively socialist rule. A hastily convened secret emergency meeting of the party Central Committee unceremoniously rejected Lenin's directives within hours of their receipt. For the Bolsheviks, this was just as well. Not long after the October Revolution, Lenin himself acknowledged this. The party was saved from likely disaster by the stubborn resistance of national and lower-level Bolsheviks on the spot who, like Kamenev, were primarily concerned with building the broadest possible support for the formation of an exclusively socialist government or were skeptical of Lenin's strategy of mobilizing the masses behind an "immediate bayonet charge" independent of the soviets.

In part as a consequence of their continuing interaction with workers, soldiers, and sailors, these leaders on the scene possessed a more realistic appreciation than Lenin of the limits of the party's influence and authority among the Petrograd lower classes, as well as of their allegiance to soviets as legitimate democratic organs in which all genuinely revolutionary groups would work to fulfill the revolution. They were forced to recognize that by appearing to usurp the prerogatives of the soviets they risked losing a good deal of their hard - won popular support and suffering a defeat as great as, if not greater than, the one they had suffered in July. Therefore, after hopes that the Democratic State Council would initiate fundamental political change were dashed, they reoriented their tactics toward the formation of an exclusively socialist government at another All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which at the insistence of leftist delegates to the Democratic State Conference was scheduled for early November (late October O.S.). At the same time, the Bolshevik Central Committee initiated steps to convene an emergency party congress just prior to the start of the soviet congress. This was to be the forum in which the party's revolutionary tactics, and the closely related question of the nature and makeup of a future government, were to be decided.

Meanwhile, Lenin had moved to the Petrograd suburbs and intensified pressure for immediate revolutionary action. As a result, on October 23 (October 10 O.S.), the Bolshevik Central Committee, with Lenin in attendance, resolved to make the seizure of power "the order of the day." However, in the days immediately following, it became clear that most Petrograd workers and soldiers would not participate in a unilateral call to arms against the Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks prior to the start of the national Congress of Soviets, scheduled to open on November 7 (October 25 O.S.). Kamenev, the leader of party moderates, was so alarmed by the possibility that the party would act precipitously that he virtually disclosed the Central Committee's decision in Novaia zhizn (New Life), the Left Menshevik newspaper edited by the writer Maxim Gorky.

Consequently, with considerable wavering caused largely by pressure for bolder direct action from Lenin, the Bolshevik leadership in Petrograd pursued a strategy based on the following general principles: (1) that the soviets (because of their stature in the eyes of workers and soldiers), and not party groups, should be employed for the over-throw of the Provisional Government; (2) that for the broadest support, any attack on the government should be masked as a defensive operation on behalf of the soviet; (3) that action should therefore be delayed until a suitable excuse for giving battle presented itself; (4) that to undercut potential resistance and to maximize the possibility of success, every opportunity should be utilized to subvert the authority of the Provisional Government peacefully; and (5) that the formal removal of the existing government should be linked with and legitimized by the decisions of the Second Congress of Soviets. At the time, Lenin mocked this approach. However, considering the development of the revolution to that point, as well as the views of a majority of leading Bolsheviks around the country, it appeared as a natural, realistic response to the prevailing correlation of forces and popular mood.

Between November 3 and 6 (October 21 - 24 O.S.), a majority of Bolshevik leaders staunchly resisted immediate revolutionary action in favor of preparing for a decisive struggle against the Provisional Government at the congress. Among other things, in the party's press and at huge public rallies they attacked the policies of the Provisional Government and reinforced popular support for the removal of the Provisional Government by the Congress of Soviets. Moreover, they reached out to the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left SRs. Simultaneously, using as an excuse the Provisional Government's announced intention of transferring the bulk of the Petrograd garrison to the front, and cloaking every move as a defensive measure against the counterrevolution, they utilized the Bolshevik-dominated

Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet (MRC), established to monitor the government's troop dispositions, to take control of most Petrograd-based military units. Weapons and ammunition from the city's main arsenals were distributed to supporters. Although the MRC did not cross the boundary between moves that could be justified as defensive and moves that might infringe on the prerogatives of the congress, for practical purposes the Provisional Government was disarmed without a shot being fired.

In response, early on the morning of November 6 (October 24 O.S.), only hours before the scheduled opening of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, a majority of which was poised to vote in favor of forming an exclusively socialist, Soviet government, Kerensky took steps to suppress the left. Orders were issued for the rearrest of leading Bolsheviks who had been detained after the July uprising and released at the time of the Kornilov Affair. Loyalist military school cadets and shock battalions from the suburbs were called to the Winter Palace, the seat of the government, and the main Bolshevik newspaper, Rabochii put (Workers' Path), was shut down. Not until these steps had been taken, and even then only after Lenin's personal direct intervention in the party's headquarters at Smolny, did the military action against the Provisional Government begin, action that Lenin had been demanding for a month. This occurred before dawn on November 7 (October 25 O.S.). At that time, all pretense that the MRC was simply defending the revolution and attempting primarily to maintain the status quo pending expression of the congress's will was abruptly dropped. Rather, an open, all-out effort was launched to confront congress delegates with the overthrow of the Provisional Government prior to the start of their deliberations.

During the morning of November 7, military detachments supporting the MRC seized strategically important bridges, key government buildings, rail and power stations, communication facilities, and the State bank without bloodshed. They also laid siege to the Winter Palace, defended by only meager, demoralized, and constantly dwindling forces. Kerensky managed to flee to the front in search of troops before the ring was closed. The "storming of the Winter Palace," dramatically depicted in an Eisenstein film, was a Soviet myth. After nightfall, the historic building was briefly bombarded by cannon from the Fortress of Peter and Paul and occupied with little difficulty, after which remaining members of the government were arrested.

The Soviet Congress was faced with a fait accompli. Lenin proclaimed the demise of the Provisional Government even before the congress opened that night. The thunder of cannon punctuated its first sessions. The effect was precisely what Lenin hoped for and what Bolshevik moderates, Menshevik-Internationalists, and Left SRs feared.

The Mensheviks, SRs, and even the Menshevik-Internationalists responded to Bolshevik violence by walking out of the congress. Lenin now superintended passage of the revolutionary Bolshevik program by the rump congress and the appointment of an interim Soviet national government (the Soviet of People's Commissars or Sovnarkom) made up exclusively of Bolsheviks.

Still, as delegates departed Smolny at the close of the Second Congress on the morning of November 9 (October 27 O.S.), the vast majority of them, most Bolsheviks included, expected that all genuine revolutionary groups would unite behind the interim government they had created and that it would quickly be reconstructed according to the Bolshevik pre-October platform: that is, as an exclusively socialist, Soviet coalition government reflecting the relative strength of the various socialist parties originally in the congress and supportive of its revolutionary decrees. Important exceptions to

Bolshevik leaders holding this views included Lenin and Trotsky who, having successfully engineered the overthrow of the Provisional Government before the start of the Congress of Soviets, were now most concerned to retain complete freedom of action at virtually any price. Most departing delegates also believed that the new government would in any case yield its authority to the Constituent Assembly, scheduled to be elected at the end of November.

Among political parties seeking to restore a broad socialist alliance and to restructure the Sovnarkom in the immediate aftermath of the Second Congress, most prominent were the Menshevik-Internationalists and the Left SRs; the latter were especially important to the success of the revolution because of their growing strength among peasants in the countryside, where Bolshevik influence was critically weak. Among labor organizations seeking to play a similar role was the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Union of Railway Workers (Vikzhel). Vikzhel announced that it would declare an immediate nationwide rail stoppage if the Bolsheviks did not participate in negotiations to create a homogeneous socialist government responsible to the soviets and including all socialist groups.

Under Vikzhel's aegis, intensive talks were held in Petrograd November 11 - 18 (October 29 - November 5 O.S.). With Kamenev in charge of negotiations for the Bolsheviks, they began auspiciously. Indeed, on November 2 even the Bolshevik press reported that the discussions were on the verge of success. However, they ultimately foundered, primarily because of such factors as the impossibly high demands made by the moderate socialists (essentially requiring repudiation of Soviet power and most of the accomplishments of the Second Congress, as well as the exclusion of Lenin and Trotsky from any future government), the defeat by Soviet forces of an internal insurrection and of loyalist Cossack units outside Petrograd, and the consolidation of Soviet power in Moscow. These factors immeasurably strengthened Lenin's and Trotsky's hands, enabling them to torpedo the Vikzhel talks. During the run - up to the Constituent Assembly in December, Bolshevik moderates made a valiant bid to steer the party's delegation toward support of its right to define Russia's future political system. However, by then the moderates had been squeezed out of the party leadership, and this effort also failed. All of this made a long and bitter civil war inevitable.

The Significance of the October Revolution

The October Revolution cannot be adequately characterized as either a military coup d'état or a popular uprising (although it contained elements of both). Its roots are to be found in the peculiarities of prerevolutionary Russia's political, social, and economic development, as well as in Russia's wartime crisis. At one level, it was the culminating event in a drawn-out battle between leftists and moderates: on the one hand, an expanding spectrum of left socialist groups supported by the vast majority of Petrograd workers, soldiers, and sailors dissatisfied by the results of the February revolution; and on the other, the increasingly isolated liberal - moderate socialist alliance that had taken control of the Provisional Government and national Soviet leadership during the February days. By the time the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets convened on November 7 (October 25 O.S.), the relatively peaceful victory of the former was all but assured. At another level, the October Revolution was a struggle, initially primarily within the Bolshevik leadership, between proponents of a multi-party, exclusively socialist government that would lead Russia to a Constituent Assembly in which socialists would have a dominating voice, and Leninists, who ultimately favored violent revolutionary action as the best means of striking out on an ultra-radical, independent revolutionary course in Russia and triggering decisive socialist revolutions abroad.

Muted for much of 1917, this conflict erupted with greatest force in the wake of the February Revolution, in the immediate aftermath of the July uprising, and during the periods immediately preceding and following the October Revolution. Such factors as the walkout of Mensheviks and SRs from the Second All - Russian Congress of Soviets, prompted by the belated military operations pressed by Lenin and precipitated by Kerensky; the adoption of the Bolshevik program at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets; the intransigence of the moderate socialists at the Vikzhel talks; and the Bolsheviks' first military victories over loyalist forces decisively undermined the efforts of moderate Bolsheviks to achieve a multiparty, socialist democracy and facilitated the rapid ascendancy of Leninist authoritarianism. In this sense, the October Revolution extinguished prospects for the development of a Western-style democracy in Russia for the better part of a century. Also, in the immediate post-revolutionary years, it led to the catastrophic Russian civil war. Finally, it laid the foundation for Stalinism and the Cold War. However, despite these outcomes, the October revolution was in large measure a valid expression of popular aspirations.

Bibliography

Acton, Edward. (1990). Rethinking the Russian Revolution. London: Edward Arnold.

Acton, Edward; Cherniaev, Vladimir Iu.; and Rosenberg, William G., eds. (1997). Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914 - 1921. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Figes, Orlando. (1989). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Melgunov, S. P. (1972). Bolshevik Seizure of Power, tr. James S. Beaver. Santa Barbara, CA: Clio.

Pipes, Richard. (1990). The Russian Revolution. New York: Knopf.

Rabinowitch, Alexander. (1976). The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd. New York: Norton.

Raleigh, Donald J. (1986). Revolution on the Volga: 1917 in Saratov. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Bone, Ann, tr. (1974). The Bolsheviks and the October Revolution: Minutes of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) August 1917 - February 1918. London: Pluto Press.

Sukhanov, N. N. (1962). The Russian Revolution, 1917, tr. and ed. Joel Carmichael. New York: Harper.

Wildman, Allan. (1987). The End of the Russian Imperial Army, Vol. 2: The Road to Soviet Power and Peace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

—ALEXANDER RABINOWITCH

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The revolution in October 1917 in Russia that brought the Bolsheviks to power. (See Russian Revolution.)

"Red October" redirects here. For other uses, see Red October (disambiguation).

This article is about the Soviet Revolution of 1917. For other uses, see October Revolution (disambiguation).

Bolshevik Revolution
Part of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Revolutions of 1917–23 and the Russian Civil War
Red Guards at Vulkan factory in 1917.
Date 7–8 November 1917 Location Petrograd, Russia Result Bolshevik victory Creation of Soviet Russia End of Russian Provisional Government, Russian Republic and dual power Start of the Russian Civil War
Belligerents
Bolsheviks Left SRs Red Guards 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets Petrograd Soviet Russian Soviet Republic (from November 7)	Russian Republic (to November 7) Russian Provisional Government (to November 8)
Commanders and leaders
Vladimir Lenin Leon Trotsky Pavel Dybenko	Alexander Kerensky
Strength
10,000 red sailors, 20,000-30,000 red guard soldiers	500-1,000 volunteer soldiers, 1,000 soldiers of women's battalion
Casualties and losses
Few wounded red guard soldiers	All deserted

v d e Russian Civil War October Revolution Southern Front Eastern Front Northern Front Ukraine Finland Finnic peoples Estonia Latvia Lithuania Ukraine Poland Ossetia Georgia Armenia and Azerbaijan Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks Tambov Yakutia Basmachi

Bolshevik (1920), by Boris Kustodiev

The October Revolution (Russian: Октябрьская революция, Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya), also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (Russian: Великая Октябрьская социалистическая революция, Velikaya Oktyabr'skaya sotsialisticheskaya revolyutsiya), Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution, mass insurrection and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Old Style Julian Calendar (O.S.), which corresponds with 7 November 1917 New Style (N.S.).Gregorian Calendar.

It followed and capitalized on the February Revolution of the same year. The October Revolution in Petrograd overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and gave the power to the local soviets dominated by Bolsheviks. As the revolution was not universally recognized outside of Petrograd there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922.

The revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organize the armed forces. Bolshevik Red Guards forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the takeover of government buildings on 24 October 1917 (O.S.). The following day, the Winter Palace (the seat of the Provisional government located in Petrograd, then capital of Russia), was captured.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Background 3 Events 4 The Spread of Soviet Power (Gregorian calendar) 5 Outcomes 6 Historiography 6.1 Soviet historiography 6.2 Western historiography 6.3 Revisionist historiography 6.4 Impact of the Dissolution of the USSR on Historical Research 7 Soviet in memoriam of the event 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 External links

Etymology

Initially, the event was referred as the October coup (Октябрьский переворот) or the Uprising of 25th, as seen in contemporary documents (for example, in the first editions of Lenin's complete works). Although in Russian, "переворот" has a similiar meaning as revolution and also means "upheavel" or "overturn", so "coup" is not neccesarily the right translation. With time, the term October Revolution (Октябрьская революция) came into use. It is also known as the "November Revolution" having occurred in November according to the Gregorian Calendar.

The Great October Socialist Revolution (Russian: Великая Октябрьская Социалистическая Революция, Velikaya Oktyabr'skaya sotsialisticheskaya revolyutsiya) was the official name for the October Revolution in the Soviet Union after the 10th anniversary of the Revolution in 1927.

Background

Nationwide crisis had developed in Russia affecting social, economic, and political relations. Disorder in industry and transport had intensified, and difficulties in obtaining provisions had increased. Gross industrial production in 1917 had decreased by over 36 percent from what it had been in 1916. In the autumn, as much as 50 percent of all enterprises were closed down in the Urals, the Donbas, and other industrial centers, leading to mass unemployment. At the same time, the cost of living increased sharply. The real wages of the workers fell about 50 percent from what they had been in 1913. Russia's national debt in October 1917 had risen to 50 billion rubles. Of this, debts to foreign governments constituted more than 11 billion rubles. The country faced the threat of financial bankruptcy.

In September and October 1917, there were strikes by the Moscow and Petrograd workers, the miners of the Donbas, the metalworkers of the Urals, the oil workers of Baku, the textile workers of the Central Industrial Region, and the railroad workers on 44 different railway lines. In these months alone more than a million workers took part in mass strike action. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a social revolution.^[1]

By October 1917 there had been over four thousand peasant uprisings against landowners. When the Provisional Government sent out punitive detachments it only enraged the peasants. The garrisons in Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities, the Northern and Western fronts, and the sailors of the Baltic Fleet in September openly declared through their elected representative body Tsentrobalt that they did not recognize the authority of the Provisional Government and would not carry out any of its commands.^[2]

In a diplomatic note of the 1 May, the minister of foreign affairs, Pavel Milyukov, expressed the Provisional Government's desire to carry the war against the Central Powers through "to a victorious conclusion", arousing broad indignation. On 1–4 May about 100,000 workers and soldiers of Petrograd, and after them the workers and soldiers of other cities, led by the Bolsheviks, demonstrated under banners reading "Down with the war!" and "all power to the soviets!" The mass demonstrations resulted in a crisis for the Provisional Government.^[2]

1 July saw more demonstrations, as about 500,000 workers and soldiers in Petrograd demonstrated, again demanding "all power to the soviets", "down with the war", and "down with the ten capitalist ministers". The Provisional Government opened an offensive against them on 1 July but it soon collapsed. The news of the offensive and its collapse intensified the struggle of the workers and the soldiers. A new crisis in the Provisional Government began on 15 July.

A scene from the July Days. The army has just opened fire on street protesters.

On 16 July spontaneous demonstrations of workers and soldiers began in Petrograd, demanding that power be turned over to the soviets. The Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party provided leadership to the spontaneous movements. On 17 July, over 500,000 people participated in a peaceful demonstration in Petrograd, the so-called July Days. The Provisional Government, with the support of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party-Menshevik leaders of the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Soviets, ordered an armed attack against the demonstrators. Fifty-six people were killed and 650 were wounded.^[2]

A period of repression followed. On 5–6 July attacks were made on the editorial offices and printing presses of Pravda and on the Palace of Kshesinskaia, where the Central Committee and the Petrograd Committee of the Bolsheviks were located. On 7 July a government decree ordering the arrest and trial of Vladimir Lenin was published. He was forced to go underground, just as he had been under the Tsarist regime. Bolsheviks began to be arrested, workers were disarmed, and revolutionary military units in Petrograd were disbanded or sent off to the front. On 12 July the Provisional Government published a law introducing the death penalty at the front. The formation of the second coalition government, with Alexander Kerensky as chairman, was completed on 24 July.^[2]

Another problem for the government centered around General Lavr Kornilov, who had been Commander-in-Chief since 18 July. In response to a Bolshevik appeal, Moscow’s working class began a protest strike of 400,000 workers. The Moscow workers were supported by strikes and protest rallies by workers in Kiev, Kharkov, Nizhny Novgorod, Ekaterinburg, and other cities.

In what became known as the Kornilov Affair, Kornilov directed an army under Aleksandr Krymov to march toward Petrograd with Kerensky's agreement.^[3] Although the details remain sketchy, Kerensky appeared to become frightened by the possibility of a coup and the order was countermanded (by comparison, historian Richard Pipes has argued that the whole episode was engineered by Kerensky himself^[4]). On 27 August, feeling betrayed by the Kerensky government who had previously agreed with his views on how to restore order to Russia, Kornilov pushed on towards Petrograd. With few troops to spare on the front, Kerensky was forced to turn to the Petrograd Soviet for help. Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries confronted the army and convinced them to stand down.^[5] The damage was already done, however. Right-wingers felt betrayed, and the left wing was resurgent.

With Kornilov defeated, the Bolsheviks' popularity with the soviets significantly increased. During and after the defeat of Kornilov a mass turn of the soviets toward the Bolsheviks began, both in the central and local areas. On 31 August the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies and on 5 September the Moscow Soviet Workers Deputies adopted the Bolshevik resolutions on the question of power. The Bolsheviks won a majority in the Soviets of Briansk, Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Minsk, Kiev, Tashkent, and other cities. In one day alone, 1 September, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets received demands from 126 local soviets urging it to take power into its own hands.^[2]

Events

Cruiser Aurora.

Forward gun of Aurora that fired the signal shot.

On 23 October [O.S. 10 October] 1917, the Bolsheviks' Central Committee voted 10-2 for a resolution saying that "an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe".^{[6][dubious – discuss]}

Map of October uprising conflicts in Petrograd, November 6—7 1917

On 5 November [O.S. 23 October] 1917, Bolshevik leader Jaan Anvelt led his leftist revolutionaries in an uprising in Tallinn, the capital of the Autonomous Governorate of Estonia.^{[citation needed]} Two days later, Bolsheviks led their forces in the uprising in Petrograd (modern day Saint Petersburg), the capital of Russia, against the Kerensky Provisional Government. For the most part, the revolt in Petrograd was bloodless, with the Red Guards led by Bolsheviks taking over major government facilities with little opposition before finally launching an assault on the poorly defended Winter Palace.^[7]

The official Soviet version of events follows: An assault led by Vladmir Lenin was launched at 9:45 p.m. signaled by a blank shot from the cruiser Aurora. (The Aurora was placed in Petrograd and still stands there now.) The Winter Palace was guarded by Cossacks, cadets (military students), and a Women's Battalion. It was taken at about 2 a.m. The earlier date was made the official date of the Revolution, when all offices except the Winter Palace had been taken. More contemporary research with access to government archives significantly corrects accepted Soviet edited and embellished history. The archival version shows that parties of Bolshevik operatives sent out from the Smolny by Lenin took over all critical centers of power in Petrograd in the early hours of the night without a shot being fired. In actual fact the effectively unoccupied Winter Palace also was taken bloodlessly by a small group which broke in, got lost in the cavernous interior, and accidentally happened upon the remnants of Kerensky's provisional government in the imperial family's breakfast room. The illiterate revolutionaries then compelled those arrested to write up their own arrest papers. The stories of the "defense of the Winter Palace" and the heroic "Storming of the Winter Palace" came later as the creative propaganda product of Bolshevik publicists. Grandiose paintings depicting the "Women's Battalion" and photo stills taken from Sergei Eisenstein's staged film depicting the "politically correct" version of the October events in Petrograd came to be taken as truth.^[8]

Later official accounts of the revolution from the Soviet Union would depict the events in October as being far more dramatic than they actually had been. (See firsthand account by British General Knox.) This was helped by the historical reenactment, entitled The Storming of the Winter Palace, which was staged in 1920. This reenactment, watched by 100,000 spectators, provided the model for official films made much later, which showed a huge storming of the Winter Palace and fierce fighting (See Sergei Eisenstein's October: Ten Days That Shook the World).^{[citation needed]} In reality the Bolshevik insurgents faced little or no opposition.^[7] The insurrection was timed and organized to hand state power to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which began on 25 October. After a single day of revolution eighteen people had been arrested and two had been killed.

The Spread of Soviet Power (Gregorian calendar)

• 5 November 1917: Tallinn.
• 7 November 1917: Petrograd, Minsk, Novgorod and Ivanovo-Voznesensk.
• 8 November 1917: Ufa, Kazan, Revel and Yekaterinburg.
• 9 November 1917: Vitebsk, Yaroslavl, Saratov, Samara and Izhevsk.
• 10 November 1917: Rostov, Tver and Nizhny Novgorod.
• 12 November 1917: Voronezh, Smolensk and Gomel.
• 13 November 1917: Tambov.
• 14 November 1917: Orel and Perm.
• 15 November 1917: Pskov, Moscow and Baku.
• 27 November 1917: Tsaritsyn
• 1 December 1917: Mogilev.
• 8 December 1917: Vyatka.
• 10 December 1917: Kishinev
• 11 December 1917: Kaluga.
• 14 December 1917: Novorossisk.
• 15 December 1917: Kostroma
• 20 December 1917: Tula.
• 24 December 1917: Kharkov.
• 29 December 1917: Sevastopol.
• 4 January 1918: Penza.
• 11 January 1917: Yekaterinoslav.
• 17 January 1918: Petrozavodsk.
• 19 January 1918: Poltava.
• 22 January 1918: Zhitomir.
• 26 January 1918: Simferopol.
• 27 January 1918: Nikolayev.
• 28 January 1918: Helsinki.
• 31 January 1918: Odessa and Orenburg.
• 7 February 1918: Astrakhan.
• 8 February 1918: Kiev and Vologda.
• 17 February 1918: Arkhangelsk.
• 25 February 1918: Novocherkassk.

Outcomes

See also: Russian Revolution (1917) and Kiev Bolshevik Uprising

Petrograd Milrevcom proclamation about the deposing of the Russian Provisional Government

The Second Congress of Soviets consisted of 670 elected delegates; 300 were Bolshevik and nearly a hundred were Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who also supported the overthrow of the Alexander Kerensky Government.^[9] When the fall of the Winter Palace was announced, the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution.

The transfer of power was not without disagreement. The center and Right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries as well as the Mensheviks believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and they walked out before the resolution was passed. As they exited, they were taunted by Leon Trotsky who told them "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on — into the dustbin of history!"^[10]

The following day, the Congress elected a Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) as the basis of a new Soviet Government, pending the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, and passed the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. This new government was also officially called "provisional" until the Assembly was dissolved.

The Council of People's Commissars now began to arrest the leaders of opposition parties. Dozens of Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadet) leaders and members of the Constituent Assembly were imprisoned in The Peter and Paul Fortress. These were to be followed by the arrests of Socialist-Revolutionary Party and Menshevik leaders. On 20 December 1917 the Cheka was created by the decree of Vladimir Lenin.^[11] These were the beginnings of the Bolshevik's consolidation of power over their political opponents.

The Decree on Land ratified the actions of the peasants who throughout Russia seized private land and redistributed it among themselves. The Bolsheviks viewed themselves as representing an alliance of workers and peasants and memorialized that understanding with the Hammer and Sickle on the flag and coat of arms of the Soviet Union.

Other decrees:

• All Russian banks were nationalized.
• Private bank accounts were confiscated.
• The Church's properties (including bank accounts) were seized.
• All foreign debts were repudiated.
• Control of the factories was given to the soviets.
• Wages were fixed at higher rates than during the war, and a shorter, eight-hour working day was introduced.

Bolshevik-led attempts to seize power in other parts of the Russian Empire were largely successful in Russia proper — although the fighting in Moscow lasted for two weeks — but they were less successful in ethnically non-Russian parts of the Empire, which had been clamoring for independence since the February Revolution. For example, the Ukrainian Rada, which had declared autonomy on 23 June 1917, created the Ukrainian People's Republic on 20 November, which was supported by the Ukrainian Congress of Soviets.

This led to an armed conflict with the Bolshevik government in Petrograd and, eventually, a Ukrainian declaration of independence from Russia on 25 January 1918.^[12] In Estonia, two rival governments emerged: the Estonian Provincial Assembly proclaimed itself the supreme legal authority of Estonia on 28 November 1917 and issued the Declaration of Independence on 24 February 1918, while an Estonian Bolshevik sympathizer, Jaan Anvelt, was recognized by Lenin's government as Estonia's leader on 8 December, although forces loyal to Anvelt controlled only the capital.^[13]

The success of the October Revolution transformed the Russian state from parliamentarian to socialist in character. A coalition of anti-Bolshevik groups attempted to unseat the new government in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1922. "It was this revolution which caused a chain reaction leading to communist governance of Russia," claimed historian Edward Skinner (1951).

In an attempt to intervene in the civil war after the Bolshevik's separate peace with the Central Powers, the Allied powers (United Kingdom, France, United States and Japan) occupied parts of the Soviet Union for over two years before finally withdrawing^{[citation needed]}. The United States did not recognize the new Russian government until 1933. The European powers recognized the Soviet Union in the early 1920s and began to engage in business with it after the New Economic Policy (NEP) was implemented.

Boris Gudz, one of the last survivors of the revolution, died in December 2006 at the age of 104.^[14] Another witness of revolution was Boris Yefimov who died in 2008.

Historiography

Soviet Union

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of the Soviet Union

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Atlas  USSR Portal view talk edit

Few events in historical research have been as conditioned by political influences as the October Revolution.^[15] The historiography of the Revolution generally divides into three camps: the Soviet-Marxist view, the Western-Totalitarian view, and the Revisionist view.^[16]

Soviet historiography

Soviet historiography of the October Revolution is intertwined with Soviet historical development. Many of the initial Soviet interpreters of the Revolution were themselves Bolshevik revolutionaries.^[17] (For example, the revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote a major narrative of the October Revolution.)^[18] After the initial wave of revolutionary narratives, Soviet historians worked within “narrow guidelines” defined by the Soviet government. The rigidity of interpretive possibilities reached its height under Joseph Stalin.^[19]

Soviet historians of the October Revolution interpreted the Revolution so as to establish the legitimacy of Marxist ideology, and also the Bolshevik regime. To establish the accuracy of Marxist ideology, Soviet historians generally described the Revolution as the product of class struggle. They maintained that the Revolution was the supreme event in a world history governed by historical laws. The Bolshevik Party is placed at the center of the Revolution, exposing the errors of both the moderate Provisional Government and the spurious “socialist” Mensheviks in the Petrograd Soviet. Guided by Vladimir Lenin's leadership and his firm grasp of scientific Marxist theory, the Party led the “logically predetermined” events of the October Revolution from beginning to end. The events were, according to these historians, logically predetermined because of the socio-economic development of Russia, where the monopoly industrial capitalism alienated the masses. In this view, the Bolshevik party took the leading role in organizing these alienated industrial workers, and thereby established the construction of the first socialist state.^[20]

Although Soviet historiography of the October Revolution stayed relatively constant until 1991, it did undergo some changes. Following Stalin’s death, historians (like E.N. Burdzhalov and P.V. Volobuev) published historical research that deviated significantly from the party line in refining the doctrine that the Bolshevik victory “was predetermined by the state of Russia’s socio-economic development.”^[21] These historians, who comprised the “New Directions Group,” posited that the complex nature of the October Revolution “could only be explained by a multi-causal analysis, not by recourse to the mono-causality of monopoly capitalism.”^[22] For them, the central actor is still the Bolshevik party, but this party triumphed “because it alone could solve the preponderance of ‘general democratic’ tasks the country faced” (such as the struggle for peace, the exploitation of landlords, and so on.)^[23]

During the late Soviet period, the opening of select Soviet archives during glasnost sparked innovative research that broke away from some aspects of Marxism-Leninism, though the key features of the orthodox Soviet view remained intact.^[19]

Western historiography

During the Cold War, Western historiography of the October Revolution developed in direct response to the assertions of the Soviet view. The Soviet Marxist-Leninist version of the October Revolution conditioned historical interpretations in the U.S. and the West. As a result, these Western historians exposed what they considered flaws in the Soviet view, thereby undermining the Bolshevik’s original legitimacy, as well as the precepts of Marxism.^[24]

Far from being inevitable according the historical laws of Marxism, these Western historians presented the revolution as the result of a chain of contingent accidents. Examples of these accidental and contingent factors that precipitated the Revolution include World War I’s timing, chance, and the poor leadership of Tsar Nicholas II as well as liberal and moderate socialists.^[25] According to this historical interpretation, it was not popular support, but rather Bolshevik manipulation of the masses and the organization’s ruthlessness and superior structure which enabled it to survive. For these historians, the Bolsheviks’ defeat in the Constituent Assembly elections of November–December 1917 demonstrated popular opposition to the Bolsheviks’ coup, as did the scale and breadth of the Civil War.^[26]

These historians saw the organization of the Bolshevik party as proto-totalitarian. Their interpretation of the October Revolution as a violent coup organized by a proto-totalitarian party reinforced the idea that totalitarianism is an inherent part of Soviet history. For them, Stalinist totalitarianism developed as a natural progression from Leninism and the Bolshevik party’s tactics and organization.

Revisionist historiography

Western historians in the U.S. and Europe originally developed the Revisionist view of the October Revolution. Inspired by the social movements and civil unrest of the 1960s, and further fueled by the opening of some Soviet archives during glasnost, Revisionist historians attempted to reconstruct the actions and aspirations of the masses.^[27] These historians were not bound by a common philosophy of history, nor did they agree upon every aspect of their dissent from the two traditional views. However, their willingness to probe, criticize, and reject traditional assumptions distinguish these historians from the other two tendencies. Additionally, the revisionist view heralded the use of “detailed and meticulous specialist research" that aimed to be free from political and ideological influences in carrying out historical analysis.^[28]

Reflecting the growing influence of social history in the West, these historians began to shift the focus of the revolution away from high-ranking politicians like Nicholas II, Alexander Kerensky, and Lenin, and to look instead at the experience and aspirations of the workers, soldiers, and peasants.^[29] In doing so, these historians challenged both the Soviet and the Western accounts of the revolution. For revisionists, the success of Bolshevism during 1917 does not reflect the party's centralization, unity, and discipline, “but rather its relatively open, flexible and democratic nature."^[20] Moreover, these historians held that to understand the October Revolution, it is essential to grasp the social, political, and economic conditions in the Russian Empire that had generated mass discontent. This mass discontent was transformed into support for the Bolshevik party, which the tsarist regime could not constrain. In this view, “it was because Bolshevism articulated mass aspirations so well that the party attracted the support it did and seized power with such ease in October.”^[30]

Support for the Revisionist camp of historical interpretation grew and by the 1980s, this view was endorsed by many Western historians, and was also attracting several sympathetic, though limited, reviews from outspoken Soviet historians.^[31]

Impact of the Dissolution of the USSR on Historical Research

The dissolution of the USSR had an impact on historical interpretations of the October Revolution. Since 1991, increasing access to large amounts of Soviet archival materials made it possible to re-examine the October Revolution.^[32] Though both Western and Russian historians now have access to many of these archives, the impact of the dissolution of the USSR can be seen most clearly in the work of historians in the former USSR. While the disintegration essentially helped solidify the Western and Revisionist views, post-USSR Russian historians largely repudiated the former Soviet historical interpretation of the Revolution.^[33] In other words, the established Soviet view of the October Revolution has been challenged, and consequently “Russian historians’ outlook has come closer to that of their Western conferes.”^[34] As Stephen Kotkin argues, 1991 prompted “a return to political history and the apparent resurrection of totalitarianism, the interpretive view that, in different ways…revisionists sought to bury.”^[35] In other words, after 1991, there has been the revival among some historians of the “continuity thesis,” the idea that there was an uncomplicated, natural evolution from the October Revolution’s organizational structure to Stalin’s Gulags.^[36]

Soviet in memoriam of the event

The term "Red October" (Красный Октябрь, Krasnyy Oktyabr) has also been used to describe the events of the month. This name has in turn been lent to a steel factory made notable by the Battle of Stalingrad,^{[citation needed]} a Moscow sweets factory that is well known in Russia, and a fictional Soviet submarine.

Sergei Eisenstein's film October: Ten Days That Shook the World describes and glorifies the revolution and was commissioned to commemorate the event.

7 November, the anniversary of the October Revolution, was an official holiday in the Soviet Union from 1918 onward and still is in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan.

The October revolution of 1917 also marks the inception of the first communist government in Russia, and thus the first large-scale socialist state in world history. After this Russia became the Russian SFSR and later part of the USSR, which dissolved in late 1991. The Russian SFSR still exists, but in 1991—1993 it was transformed from a Soviet socialist republic into the current Russian Federation of today.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Russian Revolution of 1917

• February Revolution
• Arthur Ransome
• John Reed
  • Ten Days that Shook the World
• Revolutions of 1917-23
• Russian Civil War
• Russian Revolution (1917)
• Kiev Bolshevik Uprising
• Anna Geifman

Notes

1. ^ David Mandel, The petrograd workers and the seizure of soviet power, London, 1984
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Cultinfo.ru (Russian)
3. ^ Beckett, 2007. p. 526.
4. ^ Pipes, 1997. p. 51. "There is no evidence of a Kornilov plot, but there is plenty of evidence of Kerensky's duplicity."
5. ^ Service, 2005. p. 54.
6. ^ Central Committee Meeting—10 Oct 1917
7. ^ ^{a b} Beckett, p. 528.
8. ^ Argumenty i Fakty newspaper
9. ^ Service, 1998.
10. ^ John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World
11. ^ Figes, 1996.
12. ^ See Encyclopedia of Ukraine online
13. ^ See the article on Estonian independence in the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia online
14. ^ "Boris Gudz". The Independent (London). 6 January 2007. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/boris-gudz-430985.html. 
15. ^ Edward Acton, Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914-1921 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 5.
16. ^ Acton, Critical Companion, 5-7.
17. ^ Stephen Kotkin, “1991 and the Russian Revolution: Sources, Conceptual Categories, Analytical Frameworks,” The Journal of Modern History 70 (October 1998): 392.
18. ^ Paul Blackledge, “Leon Trotsky’s Contribution to the Marxist Theory of History,” Studies in East European Thought (March 2006): 2.
19. ^ ^{a b} Acton, Critical Companion, 7.
20. ^ ^{a b} Acton, Critical Companion, 8.
21. ^ Alter Litvin, Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia, (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 49-50.
22. ^ Roger Markwick, Rewriting History in Soviet Russia: The Politics of Revisionist Historiography, (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 97.
23. ^ Markwick, Rewriting History, 102.
24. ^ Acton, Critical Companion, 6-7.
25. ^ Acton, Critical Companion, 7
26. ^ Acton, Critical Companion, 7-9.
27. ^ Kevin Murphy, “Setting the Standard for the Study of the Russian Revolution,” http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9856, (May 2011).
28. ^ Acton, Critical Companion, 8, 13.
29. ^ Acton, Critical Companion, 8-9.
30. ^ Acton, Critical Companion, 10.
31. ^ Jacob Heilbrunn, “Review of Cold War Triumphalism,” Journal of Cold War Studies, (2006): 150.
32. ^ Kotkin, “1991 and the Russian Revolution,” 385-86.
33. ^ Litvin, Writing History, 47.
34. ^ Litvin, Writing History, 47-48.
35. ^ Kotkin, “1991 and the Russian Revolution,” 385.
36. ^ Kevin Murphy, “Can we write the history of the Russian Revolution?,” http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/feat-russianrev.shtml (May 2011).

References

• Acton, Edward (1997). Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution. 
• Beckett, Ian F.W. (2007). The Great war (2 ed.). Longman. ISBN 1405812524. http://books.google.com/books?id=CMYbKgcAW88C. 
• Mandel, David (1984). The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet seizure of power. London: MacMillan. 
• Richard Pipes (27 May 1997). Three "whys" of the Russian Revolution. Vintage Books. ISBN 9780679776468. http://books.google.com/books?id=mdqtQgAACAAJ. Retrieved 8 September 2010. 
• Read, Christopher (1996). From Tsars to Soviets. 
• Robert Service (2005). A history of modern Russia from Nicholas II to Vladimir Putin. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674018013. http://books.google.com/books?id=eseDgCQK9UkC. Retrieved 1 September 2010. 
• Service, Robert (1998). A history of twentieth-century Russia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-40347-9. 
• Figes, Orlando (1996). A People's Tragedy. Pimlico. 

External links

• The October Revolution Archive
• Let History Judge Russia’s Revolutions, commentary by Roy Medvedev, Project Syndicate, 2007
• October Revolution and Logic of History
• Maps of Europe and Russia at time of October Revolution at omniatlas.com

v d e October Bolshevik Uprising Cities Petrograd (November 7) · Moscow (November 7-15) · Kiev (November 8-13) · Tashkent (November 10-14) · Vinnytsia  · Odessa

v d e Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War   Events Revolutionary February Revolution July Days Kornilov affair October Revolution Kerensky–Krasnov uprising Civil war Russian Civil War Kiev Bolshevik Uprising Ukrainian War of Independence Finnish Civil War Heimosodat Polish-Ukrainian War Polish-Soviet War Estonian War of Independence Latvian War of Independence Lithuanian Wars of Independence Red Army invasion of Georgia Armenian–Azerbaijani War Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War Siberian Intervention   Major groups Provisional Committee of the State Duma Russian Provisional Government White Movement Pro-independence movements Petrograd Soviet Council of the People's Commissars Military Revolutionary Committee Russian Constituent Assembly (elections) Red Guards Tsentralna Rada Ukrainian People's Republic   Political parties Kadets Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Bolsheviks Mensheviks Socialist-Revolutionary Party Left   Major figures Monarchists Nicholas II of Russia Russian Republic Georgy Lvov Pavel Milyukov Alexander Guchkov White Movement Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel Aleksandr Kolchak Anton Denikin Pyotr Krasnov Nikolai Yudenich Bolsheviks Vladimir Lenin Lev Kamenev Grigory Zinoviev Leon Trotsky Joseph Stalin Right SRs Alexander Kerensky Stepan Petrichenko Boris Savinkov   International effects Revolutions of 1917–23 Courtine Rebellion German Revolution Bavarian Soviet Republic Hungarian Soviet Republic Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919 Polish-Ukrainian War Polish–Soviet War Slovak Soviet Republic Finnish Civil War Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic

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