The October Revolution

Nov 7th, 2009

I thought this would be fitting since my domain is Red October. Borrowed most of this from Wikipedia.

A little history – On October 25, 1917 (November 7, 1917 GC), Bolsheviks led their forces in the uprising in Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd and later as Leningrad), the capital of Russia, against the ineffective 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 Winter Palace on the night of 25/26 October. The assault led by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko was launched at 9:45 p.m. signaled by a blank shot from the cruiser Aurora. (The Aurora was placed in Petrograd (modern Saint Petersburg) 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.

The October Revolution

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. This was helped by the historical reenactment, entitled The Storming of the Winter Palace staged in 1920. This reenactment, watched by 100,000 spectators, provided the model for subsequent official films made much later showed a huge storming of the Winter Palace and fierce fighting. In reality the Bolshevik insurgents faced little or no opposition. 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.