Which government was overthrown in the October Revolution. How did the great October socialist revolution proceed?

October Revolution of 1917. Chronicle of events

On the night of October 25, 1917, an armed uprising began in Petrograd, during which the current government was overthrown and power was transferred to the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The most important objects were captured - bridges, telegraphs, government offices, and at 2 a.m. on October 26, the Winter Palace was taken and the Provisional Government was arrested.

V. I. Lenin. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Prerequisites for the October Revolution

Counter-revolutionary armored car "Austin" surrounded by cadets at the Winter Palace. 1917 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

At the same time, a powerful system of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies emerged in the country, which became an alternative to the bodies of the Provisional Government. Soviets began to form during the 1905 revolution. They were supported by numerous factory and peasant committees, police and soldiers' councils. Unlike the Provisional Government, they demanded an immediate end to the war and reforms, which found increasing support among the embittered masses. The dual power in the country becomes obvious - the generals in the person of Alexei Kaledin and Lavr Kornilov demand the dispersal of the Soviets, and the Provisional Government in July 1917 carried out mass arrests of deputies of the Petrograd Soviet, and at the same time demonstrations took place in Petrograd under the slogan “All power to the Soviets!”

Armed uprising in Petrograd

The Bolsheviks headed for an armed uprising in August 1917. On October 16, the Bolshevik Central Committee decided to prepare an uprising; two days after this, the Petrograd garrison declared disobedience to the Provisional Government, and on October 21, a meeting of representatives of the regiments recognized the Petrograd Soviet as the only legitimate authority. From October 24, troops of the Military Revolutionary Committee occupied key points in Petrograd: train stations, bridges, banks, telegraphs, printing houses and power plants.

The Provisional Government was preparing for this station, but the coup that took place on the night of October 25 came as a complete surprise to him. Instead of the expected mass demonstrations of the garrison regiments, detachments of the working Red Guard and sailors of the Baltic Fleet simply took control of key objects - without firing a single shot, putting an end to dual power in Russia. On the morning of October 25, only the Winter Palace, surrounded by Red Guard detachments, remained under the control of the Provisional Government.

At 10 a.m. on October 25, the Military Revolutionary Committee issued an appeal in which it announced that all “state power had passed into the hands of the body of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.” At 21:00, a blank shot from the Baltic Fleet cruiser Aurora signaled the start of the assault on the Winter Palace, and at 2 a.m. on October 26, the Provisional Government was arrested.

Cruiser Aurora". Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

On the evening of October 25, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened in Smolny, proclaiming the transfer of all power to the Soviets.

On October 26, the congress adopted the Decree on Peace, which invited all warring countries to begin negotiations on the conclusion of a general democratic peace, and the Decree on Land, according to which the land of the landowners was to be transferred to the peasants, and all mineral resources, forests and waters were nationalized.

The congress also formed the government, the Council people's commissars headed by Vladimir Lenin - the first highest body of state power in Soviet Russia.

On October 29, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the Decree on the eight-hour working day, and on November 2, the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which proclaimed the equality and sovereignty of all peoples of the country, the abolition of national and religious privileges and restrictions.

On November 23, a decree was issued “On the destruction of estates and civil officials”, proclaiming the legal equality of all citizens of Russia.

Simultaneously with the uprising in Petrograd on October 25, the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Moscow Council also took control of all important strategic objects of Moscow: the arsenal, telegraph, State Bank, etc. However, on October 28, the Committee of Public Safety, headed by the Chairman of the City Duma Vadim Rudnev, under with the support of the cadets and Cossacks, he began military operations against the Soviet.

Fighting in Moscow continued until November 3, when the Committee of Public Security agreed to lay down arms. The October Revolution was immediately supported in the Central Industrial Region, where local Soviets of Workers' Deputies had already effectively established their power; in the Baltics and Belarus, Soviet power was established in October - November 1917, and in the Central Black Earth Region, the Volga region and Siberia, the process of recognition of Soviet power dragged on until the end of January 1918.

Name and celebration of the October Revolution

Since in 1918 Soviet Russia switched to a new Gregorian calendar, the anniversary of the uprising in Petrograd fell on November 7. But the revolution was already associated with October, which was reflected in its name. This day became an official holiday in 1918, and starting from 1927, two days became holidays - November 7 and 8. Every year on this day, demonstrations and military parades took place on Red Square in Moscow and in all cities of the USSR. The last military parade on Red Square in Moscow to commemorate the anniversary of the October Revolution took place in 1990. Since 1992, November 8 became a working day in Russia, and in 2005, November 7 was also abolished as a day off. Until now, the Day of the October Revolution is celebrated in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Transnistria.

Goals of the October Revolution of 1917

• Building a more just society than capitalism
• Eliminating the exploitation of man by man
• Equality of people in rights and responsibilities

  The main motto of the socialist revolution of 1917 is “To each according to his needs, from each according to his work”

• Fight against wars
• World socialist revolution

Slogans of the revolution

• "Power to the Soviets"
• "Peace to the Nations"
• "Land to the peasants"
• "Factory to workers"

Objective reasons for the October Revolution of 1917

• Economic difficulties experienced by Russia due to participation in the First World War
• Huge human losses from the same
• Things going wrong at the front
• The incompetent leadership of the country, first by the tsarist, then by the bourgeois (Provisional) government
• The unresolved peasant question (the issue of allocating land to peasants)
• Difficult living conditions for workers
• Almost complete illiteracy of the people
• Unfair national policies

Subjective reasons for the October Revolution of 1917

• The presence in Russia of a small but well-organized, disciplined group - the Bolshevik Party
• The leadership in her is great historical Personality— V.I. Lenina
• The absence of a person of the same caliber in the camp of her opponents
• Ideological vacillations of the intelligentsia: from Orthodoxy and nationalism to anarchism and support for terrorism
• The activities of German intelligence and diplomacy, which had the goal of weakening Russia as one of Germany’s opponents in the war
• Passivity of the population

Interesting: the causes of the Russian revolution according to writer Nikolai Starikov

Methods for building a new society

• Nationalization and transfer to state ownership of means of production and land
• Eradication of private property
• Physical elimination of political opposition
• Concentration of power in the hands of one party
• Atheism instead of religiosity
• Marxism-Leninism instead of Orthodoxy

Trotsky led the immediate seizure of power by the Bolsheviks

“By the night of the 24th, members of the Revolutionary Committee dispersed to different areas. I was left alone. Later Kamenev came. He was opposed to the uprising. But he came to spend this decisive night with me, and we remained alone in a small corner room on the third floor, which resembled the captain’s bridge on the decisive night of the revolution. In the next large and deserted room there was a telephone booth. They called continuously, about important things and about trifles. The bells emphasized the guarded silence even more sharply... Detachments of workers, sailors, and soldiers were awake in the areas. Young proletarians have rifles and machine gun belts over their shoulders. Street pickets warm themselves by the fires. The spiritual life of the capital, which on an autumn night squeezes its head from one era to another, is concentrated around two dozen telephones.
In the room on the third floor, news from all districts, suburbs and approaches to the capital converge. It’s as if everything is provided for, leaders are in place, connections are secured, it seems that nothing is forgotten. Let's check it mentally again. This night decides.
... I give the commissars the order to set up reliable military barriers on the roads to Petrograd and send agitators to meet the units called by the government...” If words cannot restrain you, use your weapons. You are responsible for this with your head." I repeat this phrase several times... The Smolny outer guard has been reinforced with a new machine gun team. Communication with all parts of the garrison remains uninterrupted. Duty companies are kept awake in all regiments. The commissioners are in place. Armed detachments move through the streets from the districts, ring the bell at the gates or open them without ringing, and occupy one institution after another.
...In the morning I attack the bourgeois and conciliatory press. Not a word about the outbreak of the uprising.
The government still met in the Winter Palace, but it had already become only a shadow of its former self. Politically it no longer existed. During October 25, the Winter Palace was gradually cordoned off by our troops from all sides. At one o'clock in the afternoon I reported to the Petrograd Soviet on the state of affairs. Here's how the newspaper report portrays it:
“On behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee, I declare that the Provisional Government no longer exists. (Applause.) Individual ministers have been arrested. (“Bravo!”) Others will be arrested in the coming days or hours. (Applause.) The revolutionary garrison, at the disposal of the Military Revolutionary Committee, dissolved the meeting of the Pre-Parliament. (Noisy applause.) We stayed awake here at night and watched through the telephone wire as detachments of revolutionary soldiers and workers' guards silently carried out their work. The average person slept peacefully and did not know that at this time one power was being replaced by another. Stations, post office, telegraph, Petrograd Telegraph Agency, State Bank are busy. (Noisy applause.) The Winter Palace has not yet been taken, but its fate will be decided in the next few minutes. (Applause.)"
This bare report is likely to give a wrong impression of the mood of the meeting. This is what my memory tells me. When I reported on the change of power that had taken place that night, tense silence reigned for several seconds. Then came the applause, but not stormy, but thoughtful... “Can we handle it?” — many people asked themselves mentally. Hence a moment of anxious thought. We'll handle it, everyone answered. New dangers loomed in the distant future. And now there was a feeling great victory, and this feeling sang in the blood. It found its outlet in a stormy meeting arranged for Lenin, who appeared at this meeting for the first time after an absence of almost four months.”(Trotsky “My Life”).

Results of the October Revolution of 1917

• The elite in Russia has completely changed. The one that ruled the state for 1000 years set the tone in politics, economics, social life, was an example to follow and an object of envy and hatred, gave way to others who before really “were nothing”
• The Russian Empire fell, but its place was taken by the Soviet Empire, which for several decades became one of the two countries (together with the USA) that led the world community
• The Tsar was replaced by Stalin, who acquired significantly more than any Russian Emperor, powers
• The ideology of Orthodoxy was replaced by communist
• Russia (more precisely, the Soviet Union) within a few years transformed from an agricultural to a powerful industrial power
• Literacy has become universal
• The Soviet Union achieved the withdrawal of education and medical care from the system of commodity-money relations
• There was no unemployment in the USSR
• IN last decades the leadership of the USSR achieved almost complete equality of the population in income and opportunities
• In the Soviet Union there was no division of people into poor and rich
• In the numerous wars that Russia waged during the years of Soviet power, as a result of terror, from various economic experiments, tens of millions of people died, the fates of probably the same number of people were broken, distorted, millions left the country, becoming emigrants
• The country's gene pool has changed catastrophically
• The lack of incentives to work, the absolute centralization of the economy, and huge military expenditures have led Russia (USSR) to a significant technological lag behind the developed countries of the world.
• In Russia (USSR), in practice, democratic freedoms were completely absent - speech, conscience, demonstrations, rallies, press (although they were declared in the Constitution).
• The Russian proletariat lived materially much worse than the workers of Europe and America

October Revolution(full official name in USSR - , alternative names: October Revolution, Bolshevik coup, third Russian revolution listen)) is a stage of the Russian revolution that occurred in Russia in October 1917. As a result of the October Revolution, the Provisional Government was overthrown and the government formed by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets came to power, the absolute majority of the delegates of which were Bolsheviks - the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) and their allies the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, also supported by some national organizations, a small part Menshevik-internationalists, and some anarchists. In November, the new government was also supported by the majority of the Extraordinary Congress of Peasant Deputies.

The Provisional Government was overthrown during an armed uprising on October 25-26 (November 7-8, new style), the main organizers of which were V. I. Lenin, L. D. Trotsky, Ya. M. Sverdlov and others. The uprising was directly led by The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, which also included the Left Social Revolutionaries.

There is a wide range of assessments of the October Revolution: for some, it was a national catastrophe that led to the Civil War and the establishment of a totalitarian system of government in Russia (or, conversely, to the death Great Russia like empires); for others - the greatest progressive event in the history of mankind, which had a huge impact on the whole world, and allowed Russia to choose a non-capitalist path of development, eliminate feudal remnants and, in 1917, most likely saved it from disaster. Between these extreme points of view there is a wide range of intermediate ones. There are also many historical myths associated with this event.

Name

The revolution took place on October 25, 1917, according to the Julian calendar, adopted at that time in Russia, and although already in February 1918 the Gregorian calendar was introduced ( a new style) and already the first anniversary (like all subsequent ones) was celebrated on November 7-8, the revolution was still associated with October, which was reflected in its name.

From the very beginning, the Bolsheviks and their allies called the events of October a “revolution.” So, at a meeting of the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies on October 25 (November 7), 1917, Lenin said his famous: “Comrades! The workers’ and peasants’ revolution, the need for which the Bolsheviks were always talking about, has taken place.”

The definition of “the great October Revolution” first appeared in the declaration announced by F. Raskolnikov on behalf of the Bolshevik faction in the Constituent Assembly. By the end of the 30s of the XX century, the name was established in Soviet official historiography Great October Socialist Revolution. In the first decade after the revolution it was often called October Revolution, and this name did not carry a negative meaning (according to at least, in the mouths of the Bolsheviks themselves) and seemed more scientific in the concept of a single revolution of 1917. V.I. Lenin, speaking at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on February 24, 1918, said: “Of course, it is pleasant and easy to talk to workers, peasants and soldiers, it was pleasant and easy to observe how after the October Revolution the revolution moved forward...”; this name can be found in L. D. Trotsky, A. V. Lunacharsky, D. A. Furmanov, N. I. Bukharin, M. A. Sholokhov; and in Stalin’s article dedicated to the first anniversary of October (1918), one of the sections was called About the October Revolution. Subsequently, the word “coup” began to be associated with conspiracy and illegal change of power (by analogy with palace coups), the concept of two revolutions was established, and the term was removed from official historiography. But the expression “October revolution” began to be actively used, already with a negative meaning, in literature critical of Soviet power: in emigrant and dissident circles, and, starting with perestroika, in the legal press.

Background

There are different versions of the premises of the October Revolution. The main ones can be considered:

• version of "two revolutions"
• version of the united revolution of 1917

Within their framework, we can, in turn, highlight:

• version of the spontaneous growth of the “revolutionary situation”
• version of the targeted action of the German government (See Sealed carriage)

Version of "two revolutions"

In the USSR, the beginning of the formation of this version should probably be attributed to 1924 - discussions about the “Lessons of October” by L. D. Trotsky. But it finally took shape during Stalin’s times and remained official until the end of the Soviet era. What in the first years of Soviet power had rather a propaganda meaning (for example, calling the October Revolution “socialist”), over time turned into a scientific doctrine.

According to this version, the bourgeois-democratic revolution began in February 1917 and was completely completed in the coming months, and what happened in October was initially a socialist revolution. The TSB said so: “The February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917, the second Russian revolution, as a result of which the autocracy was overthrown and conditions were created for the transition to the socialist stage of the revolution.”

Associated with this concept is the idea that the February Revolution gave the people everything they fought for (first of all, freedom), but the Bolsheviks decided to establish socialism in Russia, the prerequisites for which did not yet exist; as a result, the October Revolution turned into a “Bolshevik counter-revolution.”

The version of “targeted action of the German government” (“German financing”, “German gold”, “sealed carriage”, etc.) is essentially adjacent to it, since it also assumes that in October 1917 something happened that was not directly related to the February Revolution.

Single revolution version

While the version of “two revolutions” was taking shape in the USSR, L. D. Trotsky, already abroad, wrote a book about the single revolution of 1917, in which he defended a concept that was once common to party theorists: the October Revolution and the decrees adopted by the Bolsheviks in the first months after coming to power, were only the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the implementation of what the insurgent people fought for in February.

What they fought for

The only unconditional achievement of the February Revolution was the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne; It was too early to talk about the overthrow of the monarchy as such, since this question - whether Russia should be a monarchy or a republic - had to be decided by the Constituent Assembly. However, neither for the workers who carried out the revolution, nor for the soldiers who went over to their side, nor for the peasants who thanked the Petrograd workers in writing and orally, the overthrow of Nicholas II was not an end in itself. The revolution itself began with an anti-war demonstration of Petrograd workers on February 23 (March 8 according to the European calendar): both the city and the village, and most of all the army, were already tired of the war. But there were still unrealized demands of the revolution of 1905-1907: peasants fought for land, workers fought for humane labor legislation and a democratic form of government.

What did you find?

The war continued. In April 1917, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, leader of the cadets P. N. Milyukov, in a special note, notified the allies that Russia remained faithful to its obligations. On June 18, the army launched an offensive that ended in disaster; however, even after this the government refused to begin peace negotiations.

All attempts by the Minister of Agriculture, Social Revolutionary leader V.M. Chernov, to start agrarian reform were blocked by the majority of the Provisional Government.

The attempt by the Minister of Labor, Social Democrat M.I. Skobelev, to introduce civilized labor legislation also ended in nothing. The eight-hour working day had to be established in person, to which industrialists often responded with lockouts.

In reality, political freedoms were won (of speech, press, assembly, etc.), but they were not yet enshrined in any constitution, and the July turnaround of the Provisional Government showed how easily they can be taken away. Leftist newspapers (not just Bolshevik ones) were closed by the government; “enthusiasts” could have destroyed the printing house and dispersed the meeting without government sanction.

The people who were victorious in February created their own democratic authorities - the Councils of Workers' and Soldiers', and later peasants' deputies; only the Soviets, which relied directly on enterprises, barracks and rural communities, had real power in the country. But they, too, were not legalized by any constitution, and therefore any Kaledin could demand the dispersal of the Soviets, and any Kornilov could prepare a campaign against Petrograd for this. After the July Days, many deputies of the Petrograd Soviet and members of the Central Executive Committee - Bolsheviks, Mezhrayontsy, Left Social Revolutionaries and anarchists - were arrested on dubious or even simply absurd charges, and no one was interested in their parliamentary immunity.

The Provisional Government postponed the resolution of all pressing issues either until the end of the war, but the war did not end, or until the Constituent Assembly, the convening of which was also constantly postponed.

Version of the “revolutionary situation”

The situation that arose after the formation of the government (“too right for such a country,” according to A.V. Krivoshein), Lenin characterized as “dual power”, and Trotsky as “dual power”: the socialists in the Soviets could rule, but did not want to, “progressive bloc" in the government wanted to rule, but could not, finding itself forced to rely on the Petrograd Council, with which it differed in views on all issues of domestic and foreign policy. The revolution developed from crisis to crisis, and the first erupted in April.

April crisis

On March 2(15), 1917, the Petrograd Soviet allowed the self-proclaimed Provisional Committee State Duma form a cabinet in which there was not a single supporter of Russia’s withdrawal from the war; Even the only socialist in the government, A.F. Kerensky, needed a revolution to win the war. On March 6, the Provisional Government published an appeal, which, according to Miliukov, “set its first task as ‘bringing the war to a victorious end’ and at the same time declared that it ‘will sacredly preserve the alliances that bind us with other powers and will steadily fulfill the agreements concluded with the allies’.” "

In response, the Petrograd Soviet on March 10 adopted a manifesto “To the peoples of the whole world”: “In the consciousness of its revolutionary strength, Russian democracy declares that it will by all means oppose the imperialist policy of its ruling classes, and it calls on the peoples of Europe to make joint decisive actions in favor of peace.” . On the same day, a Contact Commission was created - partly to strengthen control over government actions, partly to seek mutual understanding. As a result, a declaration of March 27 was developed, which satisfied the majority of the Council.

Public debate on the issue of war and peace ceased for some time. However, on April 18 (May 1), Miliukov, under pressure from the allies who demanded clear statements about the government’s position, wrote a note (published two days later) as a commentary to the declaration of March 27, which spoke of “the national desire to bring the world war to a decisive victory.” and that the Provisional Government “will fully comply with the obligations assumed in relation to our allies.” The left Menshevik N. N. Sukhanov, the author of the March agreement between the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, believed that this document “finally and officially” signed “the complete falsity of the declaration of March 27, the disgusting deception of the people by the ‘revolutionary’ government.”

Such a statement on behalf of the people was not slow to cause an explosion. On the day of its publication, April 20 (May 3), a non-partisan ensign of the reserve battalion of the Finnish Guard Regiment, member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Council, F. F. Linde, without the knowledge of the Council, led the Finnish Regiment onto the street, "whose example was immediately followed by other military units of Petrograd and the surrounding area.

An armed demonstration in front of the Mariinsky Palace (the seat of government) under the slogan “Down with Milyukov!”, and then “Down with the Provisional Government!” lasted two days. On April 21 (May 4), Petrograd workers took an active part in it and posters appeared “All power to the Soviets!” Supporters of the “progressive bloc” responded to this with demonstrations in support of Miliukov. “The note of April 18,” reports N. Sukhanov, “shaken more than one capital. Exactly the same thing happened in Moscow. Workers abandoned their machines, soldiers abandoned their barracks. The same rallies, the same slogans - for and against Miliukov. The same two camps and the same cohesion of democracy...”

The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, unable to stop the demonstrations, demanded an explanation from the government, which was given. In the resolution of the Executive Committee, adopted by a majority vote (40 to 13), it was recognized that the government’s clarification, caused by the “unanimous protest of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd,” “puts an end to the possibility of interpreting the note of April 18 in a spirit contrary to the interests and demands of revolutionary democracy.” The resolution concluded by expressing confidence that “the peoples of all warring countries will break the resistance of their governments and force them to enter into peace negotiations on the basis of renouncing annexations and indemnities.”

But armed demonstrations in the capital were stopped not by this document, but by the Council’s appeal “To all citizens,” which also contained a special appeal to the soldiers:

After the proclamation was published, the commander of the Petrograd Military District, General L. G. Kornilov, who, for his part, also tried to bring troops into the streets to protect the Provisional Government, resigned, and the Provisional Government had no choice but to accept it.

July days

Feeling its instability in the days of the April crisis, the Provisional Government hastened to get rid of the unpopular Miliukov and once again turned to the Petrograd Soviet for help, inviting the socialist parties to delegate their representatives to the government.

After long and heated discussions in the Petrograd Soviet on May 5, the right-wing socialists accepted the invitation: Kerensky was appointed Minister of War, the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries Chernov took the portfolio of the Minister of Agriculture, the Social Democrat (Menshevik) I. G. Tsereteli became the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs (later - the Minister of Internal Affairs Affairs), his party comrade Skobelev headed the Ministry of Labor and, finally, the People's Socialist A.V. Peshekhonov became the Minister of Food.

Thus, the socialist ministers were called upon to solve the most complex and most pressing problems of the revolution, and as a result, to take upon themselves the dissatisfaction of the people with the ongoing war, food shortages usual for any war, the failure to resolve the land issue and the absence of new labor legislation. At the same time, the majority of the government could easily block any socialist initiatives. An example of this is the work of the Labor Committee, in which Skobelev tried to resolve the conflict between workers and industrialists.

A number of bills were proposed for consideration by the Committee, including on freedom of strikes, an eight-hour working day, restrictions on child labor, old-age and disability benefits, and labor exchanges. V. A. Averbakh, who represented industrialists in the Committee, said in his memoirs:

As a result of either the eloquence or the sincerity of the industrialists, only two bills were adopted - on stock exchanges and on sickness benefits. “Other projects, subjected to merciless criticism, were sent to the cabinet of the Minister of Labor and never came out again.” Averbakh, not without pride, talks about how the industrialists managed not to concede almost an inch to their “sworn enemies,” and casually reports that all the bills they rejected (in the development of which both the Bolsheviks and Mezhrayontsy took part) “after the victory of the Bolshevik revolution were used by the Soviet government either in their original form or in the form in which they were proposed by a group of workers of the Labor Committee" ...

Ultimately, the right-wing socialists did not add popularity to the government, but they lost their own in a matter of months; “dual power” moved inside the government. At the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which opened in Petrograd on June 3 (16), left socialists (Bolsheviks, Mezhrayontsy and left Socialist Revolutionaries) called on the right majority of the Congress to take power into their own hands: only such a government, they believed, could lead the country out of the permanent crisis.

But the right-wing socialists found many reasons to once again give up power; By a majority vote, the Congress expressed confidence in the Provisional Government.

Historian N. Sukhanov notes that the mass demonstration that took place on June 18 in Petrograd demonstrated a significant increase in the influence of the Bolsheviks and their closest allies, the Mezhrayontsy, primarily among Petrograd workers. The demonstration took place under anti-war slogans, but on the same day Kerensky, under pressure from the allies and domestic supporters of continuing the war, launched a poorly prepared offensive at the front.

According to the testimony of Central Executive Committee member Sukhanov, since June 19 there was “anxiety” in Petrograd, “the city felt like it was on the eve of some kind of explosion”; newspapers printed rumors about how the 1st Machine Gun Regiment was conspiring with the 1st Grenadier Regiment to jointly act against the government; Trotsky claims that not only the regiments conspired among themselves, but also the factories and barracks. The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet issued appeals and sent agitators to factories and barracks, but the authority of the right-wing socialist majority of the Soviet was undermined by active support for the offensive; “Nothing came of the agitation, of going to the masses,” states Sukhanov. More authoritative Bolsheviks and Mezhrayontsy called for patience... Nevertheless, the explosion occurred.

Sukhanov connects the performance of the rebel regiments with the collapse of the coalition: on July 2 (15), four cadet ministers left the government - in protest against the agreement concluded by the government delegation (Tereshchenko and Tsereteli) with the Ukrainian Central Rada: concessions to the separatist tendencies of the Rada were “the last straw, the cup overflowing." Trotsky believes that the conflict over Ukraine was just an excuse:

According to the modern historian Ph.D. V. Rodionov claims that the demonstrations on July 3 (16) were organized by the Bolsheviks. However, in 1917 the Special Commission of Investigation could not prove this. On the evening of July 3, many thousands of armed soldiers of the Petrograd garrison and workers of capital enterprises with the slogans “All power to the Soviets!” and “Down with capitalist ministers!” surrounded the Tauride Palace, the headquarters of the Central Executive Committee elected by the congress, demanding that the Central Executive Committee finally take power into its own hands. Inside the Tauride Palace, at an emergency meeting, the left socialists asked their right comrades for the same thing, seeing no other way out. Throughout July 3 and 4, more and more military units and capital enterprises joined the demonstration (many workers went to the demonstration with their families), and sailors from the Baltic Fleet arrived from the surrounding area.

Accusations of the Bolsheviks in an attempt to overthrow the government and seize power are refuted by a number of facts that were not disputed by a cadet eyewitness: the demonstrations took place precisely in front of the Tauride Palace; no one encroached on the Mariinsky Palace, where the government was meeting (“they somehow forgot about the Provisional Government,” testifies Miliukov), although it was not difficult to take it by storm and arrest the government; On July 4, it was the 176th regiment, loyal to the Mezhrayontsy, that guarded the Tauride Palace from possible excesses on the part of the demonstrators; members of the Central Executive Committee Trotsky and Kamenev, Zinoviev, whom, unlike the leaders of the right socialists, the soldiers still agreed to listen to, called on the demonstrators to disperse after they had demonstrated their will…. And gradually they dispersed.

But there was only one way to persuade workers, soldiers and sailors to stop the demonstration: by promising that the Central Election Commission would resolve the issue of power. The right-wing socialists did not want to take power into their own hands, and, by agreement with the government, the leadership of the Central Election Commission called reliable troops from the front to restore order in the city.

V. Rodionov claims that the Bolsheviks provoked the clashes by placing their riflemen on the roofs, who began firing machine guns at the demonstrators, while the Bolshevik machine gunners inflicted the greatest damage on both the Cossacks and the demonstrators. However, this opinion is not shared by other historians.

Kornilov's speech

After the entry of troops, first the Bolsheviks, then the Mezhrayontsy and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were accused of attempting an armed overthrow of the existing government and collaborating with Germany; Arrests and extrajudicial street killings began. In not a single case was the charge proven, not a single accused was brought to trial, although, with the exception of Lenin and Zinoviev, who were hiding underground (who, at worst, could have been convicted in absentia), all the accused were arrested. Even the moderate socialist, Minister of Agriculture Viktor Chernov, did not escape accusations of collaboration with Germany; however, the decisive protest of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, with which the government still had to reckon, quickly turned the Chernov affair into a “misunderstanding.”

On July 7 (20), the head of the government, Prince Lvov, resigned, and Kerensky became minister-chairman. The new coalition government he formed set about disarming the workers and disbanding the regiments that not only participated in the July demonstrations, but also otherwise expressed their sympathies with the left socialists. Order was restored in Petrograd and its environs; it was more difficult to restore order in the country.

Desertion from the army, which began in 1915 and by 1917 reached, according to official data, 1.5 million, did not stop; Tens of thousands of armed people roamed the country. The peasants, who did not wait for the decree on land, began to arbitrarily seize lands, especially since many of them remained unsown; Conflicts in the countryside increasingly took on an armed character, and there was no one to suppress local uprisings: the soldiers sent to pacify them, most of them peasants, who also craved land, increasingly went over to the side of the rebels. If in the first months after the revolution the soviets could still restore order “with one stroke of the pen” (like the Petrograd Soviet in the days of the April crisis), then by mid-summer their authority was undermined. Anarchy was growing in the country.

The situation at the front also worsened: German troops successfully continued the offensive that had begun back in July, and on the night of August 21 (September 3), the 12th Army, at the risk of being surrounded, left Riga and Ust-Dvinsk and retreated to Wenden; Neither the death penalty at the front and the “military revolutionary courts” at the divisions, introduced by the government on July 12, nor Kornilov’s barrage detachments helped.

While the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution were accused of overthrowing the “legitimate” government, the Provisional Government itself was well aware of its illegality. It was created by the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, but no provisions on the Duma gave it the right to form a government, did not provide for the creation of temporary committees with exclusive rights, and the term of office of the IV State Duma, elected in 1912, expired in 1917. The government existed at the mercy of the Soviets and depended on them. But this dependence became increasingly painful: intimidated and quiet after the July Days, realizing that after the massacre of left-wing socialists it would be the turn of the right, the Soviets were more hostile than ever before. Friend and chief adviser B. Savinkov suggested to Kerensky a bizarre way to free himself from this dependence: to rely on the army in the person of General Kornilov, popular in right-wing circles - who, however, according to eyewitnesses, from the very beginning did not understand why he should serve as a support for Kerensky, and believed that “the only outcome... is the establishment of a dictatorship and the declaration of the entire country under martial law.” Kerensky requested fresh troops from the front, a corps of regular cavalry led by a liberal general; Kornilov sent Cossack units of the 3rd Cavalry Corps and the Native (“Wild”) Division to Petrograd under the command of the not at all liberal Lieutenant General A. M. Krymov. Suspecting something was wrong, Kerensky removed Kornilov from the post of commander-in-chief on August 27, ordering him to surrender his powers to the chief of staff; Kornilov refused to acknowledge his resignation; in order No. 897 issued on August 28, Kornilov stated: “Taking into account that in the current situation, further hesitation is mortally dangerous and that it is too late to cancel the preliminary orders given, I, conscious of all the responsibility, decided not to surrender the position of Supreme Commander-in-Chief in order to save the Motherland from the inevitable death, and the Russian people from German slavery.” The decision, made, as Miliukov claims, “in secret from those who had the immediate right to participate in it,” for many sympathizers, starting with Savinkov, made further support for Kornilov impossible: “Deciding to “come out openly” to “pressure” the government, Kornilov barely did he understand what this step is called in the language of the law and under what article of the criminal code his action can be brought”

Even on the eve of the rebellion, on August 26, another government crisis broke out: the Cadet ministers, who sympathized, if not with Kornilov himself, then with his cause, resigned. The government had no one to turn to for help except the Soviets, who understood perfectly well that the “irresponsible organizations” constantly mentioned by the general, against which energetic measures should be taken, were precisely the Soviets.

But the Soviets themselves were strong only with the support of the Petrograd workers and the Baltic Fleet. Trotsky tells how on August 28, the sailors of the cruiser "Aurora", called upon to guard the Winter Palace (where the government moved after the July days), came to him at "Kresty" to consult: is it worth protecting the government - is it time to arrest it? Trotsky considered that it was not time, but the Petrograd Soviet, in which the Bolsheviks did not yet have a majority, but had already become a striking force, thanks to their influence among the workers and in Kronstadt, sold their help dearly, demanding the arming of the workers - in case it came to fighting in the city - and the release of arrested comrades. The government satisfied the second demand halfway, agreeing to release those arrested on bail. However, with this forced concession, the government actually rehabilitated them: release on bail meant that if those arrested had committed any crimes, then, in any case, not serious ones.

It didn’t come to fighting in the city: the troops were stopped at the distant approaches to Petrograd without firing a single shot.

Subsequently, one of those who was supposed to support Kornilov’s speech in Petrograd itself, Colonel Dutov, said about the “armed uprising of the Bolsheviks”: “Between August 28 and September 2, under the guise of the Bolsheviks, I was supposed to speak out... But I ran to the economic club to call go outside, but no one followed me.”

The Kornilov mutiny, more or less openly supported by a significant part of the officers, could not help but aggravate the already complex relationships between soldiers and officers - which, in turn, did not contribute to the unity of the army and allowed Germany to successfully develop the offensive).

As a result of the rebellion, the workers who had been disarmed in July found themselves armed again, and Trotsky, who was released on bail, headed the Petrograd Soviet on September 25. However, even before the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries gained a majority, on August 31 (September 12), the Petrograd Soviet adopted the resolution proposed by the Bolsheviks on the transfer of power to the Soviets: almost all non-party deputies voted for it. More than a hundred local councils adopted similar resolutions on the same day or the next, and on September 5 (18) Moscow also spoke in favor of transferring power to the Soviets.

On September 1 (13), by a special government act signed by Chairman Minister Kerensky and Minister of Justice A. S. Zarudny, Russia was proclaimed a Republic. The provisional government did not have the authority to determine the form of government; the act, instead of enthusiasm, caused bewilderment and was perceived - equally by both the left and the right - as a bone thrown to the socialist parties, which at that time were clarifying the role of Kerensky in the Kornilov rebellion.

Democratic Caucus and Pre-Parliament

It was not possible to rely on the army; The Soviets moved to the left, despite any repressions against left-wing socialists, and partly thanks to them, especially noticeably after Kornilov’s speech, and became an unreliable support even for right-wing socialists. The government (more precisely, the Directory that temporarily replaced it) was subjected to harsh criticism from both the left and the right: the socialists could not forgive Kerensky for trying to come to terms with Kornilov, the right could not forgive the betrayal.

In search of support, the Directory met the initiative of the right-wing socialists - members of the Central Executive Committee, who convened the so-called Democratic Conference. Representatives of political parties, public organizations and institutions the initiators invited according to their own choice and least of all observing the principle of proportional representation; Such a top-down, corporate representation, even smaller than the Soviets (elected from below by the overwhelming majority of citizens), could serve as a source of legitimate power, but could, as expected, displace the Soviets on the political stage and save the new government from having to apply for sanction to the Central Executive Committee.

The Democratic Conference, which opened on September 14 (27), 1917, at which some of the initiators hoped to form a “uniform democratic government”, and others - to create a representative body to which the government would be accountable before the Constituent Assembly, did not solve either problem, only exposed the deepest divisions in the camp of democracy. The composition of the government was eventually left to be determined by Kerensky, and the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic (Pre-Parliament) during the discussions turned from a supervisory body into an advisory one; and in composition it turned out to be much to the right of the Democratic Conference.

The results of the Conference could not satisfy either the left or the right; the weakness of democracy demonstrated at it only added arguments to both Lenin and Miliukov: both the leader of the Bolsheviks and the leader of the Cadets believed that there was no room left for democracy in the country - both because the growing anarchy objectively required strong power, and because the whole the course of the revolution only intensified the polarization in society (as was shown by the municipal elections held in August-September). The collapse of industry continued, the food crisis worsened; the strike movement had been growing since the beginning of September; Serious “unrest” arose in one region or another, and soldiers increasingly became the initiators of the unrest; The situation at the front became a source of constant anxiety. On September 25 (October 8), a new coalition government was formed, and on September 29 (October 12), the Moonsund operation of the German fleet began, ending on October 6 (19) with the capture of the Moonsund archipelago. Only the heroic resistance of the Baltic Fleet, which raised red flags on all its ships on September 9, did not allow the Germans to advance further. The half-starved and half-dressed army, according to the commander of the Northern Front, General Cheremisov, selflessly endured hardships, but the approaching autumn cold threatened to put an end to this long-suffering. Unfounded rumors that the government was going to move to Moscow and surrender Petrograd to the Germans added fuel to the fire.

In this situation, on October 7 (20), the Pre-Parliament opened in the Mariinsky Palace. At the very first meeting, the Bolsheviks, having announced their declaration, defiantly left it.

The main issue that the Pre-Parliament had to deal with throughout its short history was the state of the army. The right-wing press claimed that the Bolsheviks were corrupting the army with their agitation; in the Pre-Parliament they talked about something else: the army was poorly supplied with food, experienced an acute shortage of uniforms and shoes, did not understand and never understood the goals of the war; War Minister A.I. Verkhovsky found the program for the improvement of the army, developed even before the Kornilov speech, unfeasible, and two weeks later, against the backdrop of new defeats on the Dvina bridgehead and on the Caucasian front, he concluded that the continuation of the war was impossible in principle. P. N. Milyukov testifies that Verkhovsky’s position was shared even by some leaders of the party of constitutional democrats, but “the only alternative would have been a separate peace... and then no one wanted to agree to a separate peace, no matter how clear it was that it was possible to cut the hopelessly tangled knot If only we could get out of the war.”

The peace initiatives of the Minister of War ended with his resignation on October 23. But the main events took place far from the Marinsky Palace, at the Smolny Institute, where the government evicted the Petrograd Soviet and the Central Executive Committee at the end of July. “The workers,” Trotsky wrote in his “History,” “striked layer after layer, contrary to the warnings of the party, councils, and trade unions. Only those sections of the working class that were already consciously moving towards a revolution did not enter into conflicts. Petrograd, perhaps, remained the calmest place.”

Version of "German financing"

Already in 1917, there was an idea that the German government, interested in Russia’s exit from the war, purposefully organized the move from Switzerland to Russia of representatives of the radical faction of the RSDLP led by Lenin in the so-called. "sealed carriage". In particular, S.P. Melgunov, following Miliukov, argued that the German government, through A.L. Parvus, financed the activities of the Bolsheviks aimed at undermining the combat effectiveness of the Russian army and disorganizing the defense industry and transport. Already in exile, A. F. Kerensky reported that back in April 1917, the French Socialist Minister A. Thomas conveyed information to the Provisional Government about the connections of the Bolsheviks with the Germans; the corresponding charge was brought against the Bolsheviks in July 1917. And at present, many domestic and foreign researchers and writers adhere to this version.

Some confusion is brought into it by the idea of ​​L. D. Trotsky as an Anglo-American spy, and this problem also goes back to the spring of 1917, when reports appeared in the cadet “Rech” that, while in the USA, Trotsky received 10 000 either marks or dollars. This view explains the differences between Lenin and Trotsky over the Brest-Litovsk peace (Bolshevik leaders received money from different sources), but leaves open question: whose action was the October Revolution, to which Trotsky, as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and the de facto leader of the Military Revolutionary Committee, had the most direct connection?

Historians have other questions about this version. Germany needed to close the eastern front, and God himself ordered it to support the opponents of the war in Russia - does it automatically follow from this that the opponents of the war served Germany and had no other reason to seek an end to the “world carnage”? The Entente states, for their part, were vitally interested in both maintaining and intensifying eastern front and by all means supported in Russia the supporters of “war to a victorious end” - following the same logic, why not assume that the opponents of the Bolsheviks were inspired by “gold” of a different origin, and not at all by the interests of Russia? All parties needed money, all self-respecting parties had to spend considerable funds on agitation and propaganda, on election campaigns(many elections at various levels were held in 1917) and so on and so forth - and all the countries involved in the First World War had their own interests in Russia; but the question of sources of financing for defeated parties no longer interests anyone and remains practically unexplored.

In the early 90s, the American historian S. Lyanders discovered documents in Russian archives confirming that in 1917 members of the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee received cash subsidies from the Swiss socialist Karl Moor; it later turned out that the Swiss was a German agent. However, the subsidies amounted to only 113,926 Swiss crowns (or $32,837), and even those were used abroad to organize the 3rd Zimmerwald Conference. So far this is the only documentary evidence of the Bolsheviks receiving “German money”.

As for A.L. Parvus, it is generally difficult to separate German money from non-German money in his accounts, since by 1915 he himself was already a millionaire; and if his involvement in the financing of the RSDLP (b) had been proven, it would also have to be specially proven that it was German money that was used, and not Parvus’s personal savings.

Serious historians are more interested in another question: what role could financial assistance (or other patronage) from one side or the other play in the events of 1917?

The collaboration of the Bolsheviks with the German General Staff is intended to be proven by the “sealed carriage” in which a group of Bolsheviks led by Lenin traveled through Germany. But a month later, along the same route, thanks to the mediation of R. Grimm, which Lenin refused, two more “sealed cars”, with Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, followed - but not all parties were helped by the supposed patronage of the Kaiser to win.

The intricate financial affairs of the Bolshevik Pravda allow us to assert or assume that interested Germans provided assistance to it; but despite any funding, Pravda remained a “small newspaper” (D. Reed tells how on the night of the coup the Bolsheviks seized the printing house of Russkaya Volya and for the first time printed their newspaper in a large format), which after the July Days was constantly closed and forced to change Name; dozens of large newspapers carried out anti-Bolshevik propaganda - why was the little Pravda stronger?

The same applies to all the Bolshevik propaganda, which is supposed to have been financed by the Germans: the Bolsheviks (and their internationalist allies) destroyed the army with their anti-war agitation - but much more larger number parties, which had disproportionately greater capabilities and means, at that time agitated for “war to a victorious end”, appealed to patriotic feelings, accused of betraying the workers with their demand for an 8-hour working day - why did the Bolsheviks win such an unequal battle?

A.F. Kerensky insisted on connections between the Bolsheviks and the German General Staff in 1917 and decades later; in July 1917, with his participation, a communiqué was drawn up in which “Lenin and his associates” were accused of creating special organization“for the purpose of supporting hostile actions of countries at war with Russia”; but on October 24, speaking for the last time in the Pre-Parliament and fully aware of his doom, he polemicized in absentia with the Bolsheviks not as German agents, but as proletarian revolutionaries: “The organizers of the uprising do not assist the proletariat of Germany, but assist the ruling classes of Germany, opening the front of the Russian state before the armored fist of Wilhelm and his friends... For the Provisional Government, the motives are indifferent, it makes no difference whether it is conscious or unconscious, but, in any case, in the consciousness of my responsibility, from this pulpit I qualify such actions of the Russian political party like betrayal and treason To the Russian state…»

Armed uprising in Petrograd

After the July events, the government significantly renewed the Petrograd garrison, but by the end of August it already seemed unreliable, which prompted Kerensky to request troops from the front. But the troops sent by Kornilov did not reach the capital, and in early October Kerensky made a new attempt to replace the “decayed” units with those that had not yet decayed: he issued an order to send two-thirds of the Petrograd garrison to the front. The order provoked a conflict between the government and the capital’s regiments, which did not want to go to the front - from this conflict, Trotsky later claimed, the uprising actually began. Deputies of the Petrograd Council from the garrison appealed to the Council, the workers' section of which turned out to have just as little interest in the “changing of the guard.” On October 18, a meeting of representatives of the regiments, at the suggestion of Trotsky, adopted a resolution on the non-subordination of the garrison to the Provisional Government; Only those orders from the headquarters of the military district that were confirmed by the soldiers' section of the Petrograd Soviet could be executed.

Even earlier, on October 9 (22), 1917, right-wing socialists submitted to the Petrograd Soviet a proposal to create a Revolutionary Defense Committee to protect the capital from the dangerously approaching Germans; According to the initiators, the Committee was supposed to attract and organize workers for active participation in the defense of Petrograd - the Bolsheviks saw in this proposal the opportunity to legalize the workers' Red Guard and its equally legal armament and training for the coming uprising. On October 16 (29), the plenum of the Petrograd Council approved the creation of this body, but as a Military Revolutionary Committee.

The “course of armed uprising” was adopted by the Bolsheviks at the VI Congress, in early August, but at that time the party, driven underground, could not even prepare for an uprising: the workers who sympathized with the Bolsheviks were disarmed, their military organizations were destroyed, the revolutionary regiments of the Petrograd garrison were disbanded . The opportunity to arm ourselves again presented itself only during the days of the Kornilov rebellion, but after its liquidation it seemed that an opening had opened up. new page peaceful development of the revolution. Only on the 20th of September, after the Bolsheviks headed the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, and after the failure of the Democratic Conference, did Lenin again talk about an uprising, and only on October 10 (23), the Central Committee, by adopting a resolution, put the uprising on the agenda. On October 16 (29), an extended meeting of the Central Committee, with the participation of representatives of the districts, confirmed the decision.

Having received a majority in the Petrograd Soviet, the left socialists actually restored the pre-July dual power in the city, and for two weeks the two authorities openly measured their strength: the government ordered the regiments to go to the front, - the Council ordered a check of the order and, having established that it was dictated not by strategic, but political motives, ordered the regiments to remain in the city; the commander of the Military District prohibited the issuance of weapons to workers from the arsenals of Petrograd and the surrounding area - the Council issued a warrant, and the weapons were issued; in response, the government tried to arm its supporters with rifles from the arsenal of the Peter and Paul Fortress - a representative of the Council appeared, and the distribution of weapons stopped; On October 21, a meeting of representatives of the regiments in the adopted resolution recognized the Petrograd Council as the only power - Kerensky tried to call reliable troops to the capital from the front and from remote military districts, but in October there were even fewer units reliable for the government than in August; representatives of the Petrograd Soviet met them at the distant approaches to the capital, after which some turned back, others hurried to Petrograd to help the Soviet.

The Military Revolutionary Committee appointed its commissars to all strategically important institutions and actually took them under its control. Finally, on October 24, Kerensky once again closed the renamed Pravda, not for the first time, and ordered the arrest of the Committee; but the printing house of Pravda was easily recaptured by the Soviet, and there was no one to carry out the arrest order.

Opponents of the Bolsheviks - right-wing socialists and cadets - “scheduled” the uprising first on the 17th, then on the 20th, then on October 22 (declared the Day of the Petrograd Council), the government tirelessly prepared for it, but it happened on the night of the 24th On October 25, the coup came as a surprise to everyone, because they imagined it completely differently: they expected a repetition of the July Days, armed demonstrations of the garrison regiments, only this time with the expressed intention of arresting the government and seizing power. But there were no demonstrations, and the garrison was almost not involved; detachments of the workers' Red Guard and sailors of the Baltic Fleet were simply completing the work begun long ago by the Petrograd Soviet to transform dual power into the autocracy of the Soviet: they were bringing down the bridges drawn by Kerensky, disarming the guards posted by the government, taking control of train stations, a power plant, a telephone exchange, a telegraph, etc., etc., and all this without firing a single shot, calmly and methodically - members of the Provisional Government led by Kerensky, who did not sleep that night, could not understand for a long time what was happening, they learned about the actions of the Military Revolutionary Committee by “ secondary characteristics": at some point the telephones in the Winter Palace were turned off, then the lights...

An attempt by a small detachment of cadets led by the People's Socialist V.B. Stankevich to recapture the telephone exchange ended in failure, and on the morning of October 25 (November 7), only the Winter Palace, surrounded by detachments of the Red Guard, remained under the control of the Provisional Government. The forces of the defenders of the Provisional Government were: 400 bayonets of the 3rd Peterhof school of warrant officers, 500 bayonets of the 2nd Oranienbaum school of warrant officers, 200 bayonets of the women's shock battalion (“shock women”), up to 200 Don Cossacks, as well as separate cadet and officer groups from the Nikolaev Engineering , artillery and other schools, a detachment of the Committee of Crippled Warriors and Knights of St. George, a detachment of students, a battery of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School - in total up to 1800 bayonets, reinforced with machine guns, 4 armored cars and 6 guns. The scooter company, by order of the battalion committee, was later withdrawn from its position, however, by this time the palace garrison had been strengthened by another 300 bayonets at the expense of the battalion of the engineering school of warrant officers.

At 10 a.m., the Military Revolutionary Committee issued an appeal “To the citizens of Russia!” “State power,” it reported, “passed into the hands of the body of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which is at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison. The cause for which the people fought: the immediate proposal of a democratic peace, the abolition of landlord ownership of land, workers' control over production, the creation of the Soviet government - this cause is guaranteed."

At 21:45, in fact already with the sanction of the majority, a blank shot from the Aurora’s bow gun gave the signal for the assault on the Winter Palace. At 2 a.m. on October 26 (November 8), armed workers, soldiers of the Petrograd garrison and sailors of the Baltic Fleet, led by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, took the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government (see also Storming of the Winter Palace).

At 22:40 on October 25 (November 7), the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opened in Smolny, at which the Bolsheviks, together with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, received a majority. Right-wing socialists left the congress in protest against the coup, but were unable to disrupt the quorum by leaving.

Based on the victorious uprising, the Congress issued the appeal “To workers, soldiers and peasants!” proclaimed the transfer of power to the Soviets in the center and locally.

On the evening of October 26 (November 8), at its second meeting, the Congress adopted the Decree on Peace - all warring countries and peoples were invited to immediately begin negotiations on the conclusion of a general democratic peace without annexations and indemnities - as well as a decree on the abolition of the death penalty and a Decree on land, according to which landowners' land was subject to confiscation, all lands, mineral resources, forests and waters were nationalized, peasants received over 150 million hectares of land.

The Congress elected the highest body of Soviet power - the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) (chairman - L. B. Kamenev, from November 8 (21) - Ya. M. Sverdlov); Deciding at the same time that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee should be replenished with representatives of peasant Soviets, army organizations and groups that left the congress on October 25. Finally, the congress formed a government - the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) headed by Lenin. With the formation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, the construction of the highest bodies of state power in Soviet Russia began.

Government formation

The government elected by the Congress of Soviets - the Council of People's Commissars - initially included only representatives of the RSDLP(b): the Left Socialist Revolutionaries "temporarily and conditionally" rejected the proposal of the Bolsheviks, wanting to become a bridge between the RSDLP(b) and those socialist parties that did not participate in the uprising, qualified it was considered a criminal adventure and the Congress was abandoned in protest by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. On October 29 (November 11), the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Railway Trade Union (Vikzhel), under the threat of a strike, demanded the creation of a “uniform socialist government”; on the same day, the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) at its meeting recognized the desirable inclusion of representatives of other socialist parties in the Council of People's Commissars (in particular, Lenin was ready to offer V.M. Chernov the portfolio of People's Commissar of Agriculture) and entered into negotiations. However, the demands put forward by right-wing socialists (among others, the exclusion from the government of Lenin and Trotsky as “personal culprits of the October Revolution”, the chairmanship of one of the leaders of the AKP - V. M. Chernov or N. D. Avksentyev, the addition of the Soviets to a number of non-political organizations, in of which the right socialists still retained a majority) were considered unacceptable not only by the Bolsheviks, but also by the left Socialist Revolutionaries: negotiations on November 2 (15), 1917 were interrupted, and some time later the left Socialist Revolutionaries entered the government, including heading the People's Commissariat of Agriculture.

The Bolsheviks, on the basis of a “homogeneous socialist government,” found an internal party opposition led by Kamenev, Zinoviev and Rykov and Nogin, which in its statement dated November 4 (17), 1917, stated: “The Central Committee of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution on November 14 (1) , which in fact rejected the agreement with the parties included in the Council of the r. and s. deputies for the formation of a socialist Soviet government."

Resistance

On the morning of October 25, Kerensky left Petrograd in a car with an American flag and went to the front in search of units loyal to the government.

On the night of October 25-26 (November 8), right-wing socialists, in opposition to the Military Revolutionary Committee, created the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution; The committee, headed by the right-wing Socialist-Revolutionary A.R. Gots, distributed anti-Bolshevik leaflets, supported the sabotage of officials and Kerensky’s attempt to overthrow the government created by the Second All-Russian Congress, and called for armed resistance of its like-minded people in Moscow.

Finding sympathy from P. N. Krasnov and appointing him commander of all armed forces of the Petrograd Military District, Kerensky and the Cossacks of the 3rd Corps at the end of October launched a campaign against Petrograd (see Kerensky-Krasnov Campaign on Petrograd). In the capital itself, on October 29 (November 11), the Salvation Committee organized an armed uprising of cadets released from the Winter Palace on parole. The uprising was suppressed on the same day; On November 1 (14), Kerensky was also defeated. In Gatchina, having come to an agreement with a detachment of sailors led by P.E. Dybenko, the Cossacks were ready to hand over the former minister-chairman to them, and Kerensky had no choice but to disguise himself as a sailor and hastily leave both Gatchina and Russia.

In Moscow events developed differently than in Petrograd. Formed on the evening of October 25 by the Moscow Councils of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of the Military Revolutionary Committee, in accordance with the resolution of the Second Congress on the transfer of local power to the Soviets, at night it took control of all strategically important objects (arsenal, telegraph, State Bank, etc.) . In opposition to the Military Revolutionary Committee, a Committee of Public Security was created (also known as the “Committee for Saving the Revolution”), which was headed by the Chairman of the City Duma, right-wing Socialist Revolutionary V.V. Rudnev. The committee, supported by cadets and Cossacks and headed by the commander of the Moscow Military District K.I. Ryabtsev, announced on October 26 that it recognized the decisions of the Congress. However, on October 27 (November 9), having received a message about the beginning of the Kerensky-Krasnov campaign against Petrograd, according to Sukhanov, on the direct orders of the Petrograd Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution, the headquarters of the Moscow Military District presented an ultimatum to the Council (demanding, in particular, the dissolution of the Military Revolutionary Committee) and, since The ultimatum was rejected, and military operations began on the night of October 28.

On October 27 (November 9), 1917, Vikzhel, declaring itself a neutral organization, demanded “an end to the civil war and the creation of a homogeneous socialist government from the Bolsheviks to the people’s socialists inclusive.” As the most compelling arguments the refusal to transport troops to Moscow, where the fighting was taking place, and the threat of organizing a general strike in transport were used.

The Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) decided to enter into negotiations and sent the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee L. B. Kamenev and member of the Central Committee G. Ya. Sokolnikov to them. However, negotiations that lasted several days ended in nothing.

The fighting in Moscow continued - with a one-day truce - until November 3 (November 16), when, without waiting for help from troops from the front, the Committee of Public Safety agreed to lay down arms. During these events, several hundred people died, 240 of whom were buried on November 10-17 on Red Square in two mass graves, marking the beginning of the Necropolis at the Kremlin Wall (See also October Days in Moscow).

After the victory of the socialist left in Moscow and the crushing of resistance in Petrograd, what the Bolsheviks later called the “triumphant march of Soviet power” began: a mostly peaceful transfer of power to the Soviets throughout Russia.

The Cadet Party was outlawed, and a number of its leaders were arrested. Even earlier, on October 26 (November 8), a resolution of the Military Revolutionary Committee closed some opposition newspapers: the cadet Rech, the right-wing Menshevik Den, Birzhevye Vedomosti, etc. On October 27 (November 9), a Decree on the Press was issued, which explained actions of the Military Revolutionary Committee and it was clarified that “only press organs are subject to closure: 1) calling for open resistance or disobedience to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government; 2) sowing confusion through clearly slanderous distortion of facts; 3) calling for acts of a clearly criminal, that is, criminally punishable nature.” At the same time, the temporary nature of the ban was pointed out: “the present provision ... will be canceled by a special decree upon the onset of normal conditions of public life.”

The nationalization of industrial enterprises had not yet been carried out at that time; the Council of People's Commissars limited itself to introducing workers' control at enterprises, but the nationalization of private banks was carried out already in December 1917 (the nationalization of the State Bank - in October). The Land Decree gave local Soviets the right to immediately carry out agrarian reform on the principle of “Land to those who cultivate it.”

On November 2 (15), 1917, the Soviet government published the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which proclaimed the equality and sovereignty of all peoples of the country, their right to free self-determination, up to the separation and formation of independent states, the abolition of national and religious privileges and restrictions, the free development of national minorities and ethnic groups. On November 20 (December 3), the Council of People's Commissars, in an appeal “To all working Muslims of Russia and the East,” declared the national and cultural institutions, customs and beliefs of Muslims free and inviolable, guaranteeing them complete freedom to organize their lives.

Constituent Assembly: Elections and Dissolution

Less than 50% of voters took part in the elections of the long-awaited Constituent Assembly on November 12 (24), 1917; the explanation for such disinterest can be found in the fact that the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets had already adopted the most important decrees, had already proclaimed the power of the Soviets - in these conditions, the appointment of the Constituent Assembly was incomprehensible to many. The Bolsheviks received only about a quarter of the votes, losing to the Socialist Revolutionaries. Subsequently, they argued that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (who received only 40 mandates) took victory away from themselves and from the RSDLP(b) by not separating into an independent party in a timely manner.

While the influence of the right Socialist Revolutionaries led by Avksentiev and Gotz and the centrists led by Chernov fell after July, the popularity (and numbers) of the left, on the contrary, grew. In the Socialist Revolutionary faction of the Second Congress of Soviets, the majority belonged to the left; Later, the PLSR was supported by the majority of the Extraordinary Congress of Soviets of Peasant Deputies that took place on November 10-25 (November 23 - December 8), 1917 - which, in fact, allowed the two Central Executive Committees to unite. How did it happen that in the Constituent Assembly the Left Socialist Revolutionaries turned out to be only a small group?

For both the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, the answer was obvious: the unified electoral lists were to blame. Having widely disagreed with the majority of the AKP already in the spring of 1917, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries nevertheless did not dare to form their own party for a long time - until on October 27 (November 9), 1917, the Central Committee of the AKP adopted a resolution to expel from the party “all those who took part in the Bolshevik adventure and those who did not leave the Congress of Soviets.”

But voting was carried out according to old lists compiled long before the October Revolution, common to the right and left Socialist Revolutionaries. Immediately after the coup, Lenin proposed postponing the elections to the Constituent Assembly, including so that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries could draw up separate lists. But the Bolsheviks accused the Provisional Government of deliberately postponing the elections so many times that the majority did not consider it possible to be like their opponents on this issue.

Therefore, no one really knows - and will never know - how many votes were cast in the elections for the left Socialist Revolutionaries and how many for the right and centrists, who were meant by the voters who voted for the lists of socialist revolutionaries: those located at the top (since in all the governing bodies of the AKP in the center and locally at that time, right-wing and centrists prevailed) Chernov, Avksentyev, Gots, Tchaikovsky, etc. - or those who closed the lists were Spiridonov, Nathanson, Kamkov, Karelin, etc. December 13 (December 26) Pravda published without a signature “Theses on the Constituent Assembly” by V. I. Lenin:

On November 12 (28), 1917, 60 elected deputies, mostly right-wing Social Revolutionaries, gathered in Petrograd and tried to start the work of the Assembly. On the same day, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree “On the arrest of the leaders of the civil war against the revolution,” which banned the Cadet Party as “the party of enemies of the people.” The cadet leaders A. Shingaryov and F. Kokoshkin were arrested. On November 29, the Council of People's Commissars banned “private meetings” of delegates of the Constituent Assembly. At the same time, the right-wing Social Revolutionaries created the “Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly.”

On December 20, the Council of People's Commissars decided to open the work of the Assembly on January 5. On December 22, the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars was approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. On December 23, martial law was introduced in Petrograd.

At a meeting of the Central Committee of the AKP, held on January 3, 1918, it was rejected "as an untimely and unreliable act", an armed uprising on the opening day of the Constituent Assembly, proposed by the party’s military commission.

On January 5 (18), Pravda published a resolution signed by a member of the All-Chka board, since March the head of the Petrograd Cheka, M. S. Uritsky, who banned all rallies and demonstrations in Petrograd in areas adjacent to the Tauride Palace. It was declared that they would be suppressed by military force. At the same time, Bolshevik agitators at the most important factories (Obukhovsky, Baltiysky, etc.) tried to enlist the support of the workers, but were unsuccessful.

Together with the rear units of the Latvian riflemen and the Lithuanian Life Guards regiment, the Bolsheviks surrounded the approaches to the Tauride Palace. Assembly supporters responded with demonstrations of support; According to various sources, from 10 to 100 thousand people took part in the demonstrations. Supporters of the Assembly did not dare to use weapons in defense of their interests; according to Trotsky’s caustic expression, they came to the Tauride Palace with candles in case the Bolsheviks turned off the lights, and with sandwiches in case they were deprived of food, but they did not take rifles with them. On January 5, 1918, as part of columns of demonstrators, workers, office workers, and intellectuals moved towards Tavrichesky and were shot with machine guns.

The Constituent Assembly opened in Petrograd, in the Tauride Palace, January 5 (18), 1918). Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya. M. Sverdlov proposed that the Assembly approve the decrees adopted by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, adopting the draft “Declaration of the Rights of Working and Exploited People” written by V. I. Lenin. However elected chairman V. M. Chernov proposed to start by developing an agenda; In a discussion on this issue that lasted for many hours, the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries saw the reluctance of the majority to discuss the Declaration, the reluctance to recognize the power of the Soviets and the desire to turn the Constituent Assembly into a legislative one - as opposed to the Soviets. Having announced their declarations, the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries, along with several small factions, left the meeting room.

The remaining deputies continued their work and announced the cancellation of the decisions of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. “ The guard is tired" On the evening of the same day, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a Decree on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, which was later confirmed by the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The decree, in particular, said:

Consequences

Formed at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the Soviet government under the leadership of Lenin headed the liquidation of the old state apparatus and the construction, relying on the Soviets, of the bodies of the Soviet state.

To combat counter-revolution and sabotage, on December 7 (20), 1917, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) was formed under the Council of People's Commissars; Chairman F.E. Dzerzhinsky. By the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the Court" dated November 22 (December 5), a new court was created; The decree of January 15 (28), 1918 marked the beginning of the creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA), and the decree of January 29 (February 11), 1918 - the Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet.

Were introduced free education and medical care, 8-hour working day, a decree was issued on insurance of workers and employees; estates, ranks and titles were eliminated, a common name was established - “citizens Russian Republic" Freedom of conscience proclaimed; The church is separated from the state, the school is separated from the church. Women received equal rights with men in all areas of public life.

In January 1918, the 3rd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and the 3rd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies were convened. On January 13 (26), a merger of congresses took place, which contributed to the widespread unification of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies with the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. The United Congress of Soviets adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, which proclaimed Russia a Republic of Soviets and legislated the Soviets as a state form of dictatorship of the proletariat. The congress adopted the resolution “On federal institutions Russian Republic" and formalized the creation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR). The RSFSR was established on the basis of a free union of peoples as a federation of Soviet national republics. In the spring of 1918, the process of formalizing the statehood of the peoples inhabiting the RSFSR began.

First state entities within the RSFSR - the Terek Soviet Republic (proclaimed in March 1918 at the 2nd Congress of the Councils of the Peoples of the Terek in Pyatigorsk), the Tauride Soviet Socialist Republic (proclaimed by decree of the Tauride Central Executive Committee on March 21 in Simferopol), the Don soviet republic(formed on March 23 by a decree of the regional Military Revolutionary Committee), Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (proclaimed on April 30 at the 5th Congress of Soviets of the Turkestan Territory in Tashkent), Kuban-Black Sea Soviet Republic (proclaimed by the 3rd Congress of Soviets of the Kuban and Black Sea Region on May 27-30 in Ekaterinodar), Stavropol Soviet Republic (proclaimed on January 1 (14), 1918). At the 1st Congress of Soviets North Caucasus On July 7, the North Caucasus Soviet Republic was formed, which included the Kuban-Black Sea, Terek and Stavropol Soviet republics.

By decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of January 21 (February 3), 1918, foreign and domestic loans of the tsarist and Provisional governments were canceled. The unequal treaties concluded by the Tsarist and Provisional governments with other states were annulled. The government of the RSFSR on December 3(16), 1917 recognized the right of Ukraine to self-determination (the Ukrainian SSR was formed on December 12(25), 1917); On December 18 (31), the independence of Finland was recognized. Later, on August 29, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree that annulled the treaties of Tsarist Russia at the end of the 18th century. with Austria and Germany on the division of Poland and the right of the Polish people to an independent and independent existence was recognized.

On December 2 (15), 1917, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR signed an agreement on a temporary cessation of hostilities with Germany and on December 9 (22) began negotiations, during which Germany, Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary presented Soviet Russia with very difficult peace conditions. After the initial refusal of the Soviet delegation to sign peace, Germany launched an offensive along the entire front and occupied significant territory. In Soviet Russia, the appeal “The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger!” was issued. In March, after the military defeat near Pskov and Narva, the SNK was forced to sign a separate Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Germany, which ensured the rights of a number of nations to self-determination, with which the SNK agreed, but containing extremely difficult conditions for Russia (for example, the transfer of naval forces by Russia to Black Sea of ​​Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Germany). About 1 million square meters were torn away from the country. km. The Entente countries sent troops into Russian territory and announced support for anti-government forces. This led to the transition of the confrontation between the Bolsheviks and the opposition to new level- a full-scale civil war began in the country.

Contemporaries about the revolution

I. A. Bunin wrote about the consequences of the revolution:

• October 26 (November 7) - birthday of L. D. Trotsky
• The October Revolution of 1917 was the first political event in the world, information about which (the Appeal of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee “To the Citizens of Russia”) was broadcast on the radio.

October Revolution in Russia

First, let's explain this paradox: the "October Revolution", which took place in November! In 1917, Russia still uses the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar... October 25th thus corresponds to November 7th according to the modern calendar.

The first revolution, called the February Revolution (February 27 according to the Julian calendar, March 12 according to ours), overthrew Tsar Nicholas II. Events overtook the Provisional Government, where liberal bourgeois and moderate socialists coexisted. On the right he was threatened by pro-tsarist generals, and on the left by the Bolsheviks (from the word “majority”), the revolutionary wing of the Russian socialist
democratic party led by Lenin.

Seeing the powerlessness of the government, the Bolsheviks at the end of October decided to switch to an uprising. The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Council of Workers and Soldiers of Petrograd (in 1914 the German name of the capital - St. Petersburg - was Russified) controls the garrison, the Baltic Fleet, and the workers' militia - the "Red Guard". On the 7th and on the night of November 8, these armed forces captured all strategic points. The Winter Palace, where the government is located, was stormed after several hours of fighting. The ministers were arrested, with the exception of the head of the Provisional Government, Kerensky, who disappeared, dressed in a woman's dress. The revolution is over.

It was legitimized on November 8 by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, at which the Bolsheviks have a majority. The government was replaced by the Council of People's Commissars. The congress, responding to the demands of the people, primarily soldiers and peasants, adopted a whole series of decrees. The Peace Decree proposes an immediate truce (the peace itself will be concluded not without difficulties and on very difficult conditions in Brest-Litovsk on March 2, 1918). Decree on Land: expropriation, without ransom, of the lands of large landowners and the church. Decree on Nationalities, proclaiming the equality of the peoples of Russia and their right to self-determination.

Origins of the October Revolution

While Russia is modernizing (industrialization is progressing successfully, especially in the years immediately preceding the war), social and political system remains backward. The country, still agrarian, is dominated by large landowners who brutally exploit the peasants. The regime remains absolutist (“autocratic”, to use the official vocabulary). The failed revolution of 1905, when the first soviets appeared, forced the tsar to convene a parliament - the Duma, but it turned out to be unrepresentative and its powers were limited. There is no question of either a parliamentary system or universal suffrage.

With the entry into the war in 1914, the situation worsened: military defeats, heavy losses, supply difficulties. The government has been accused of ineptitude and corruption. The imperial couple was discredited by the influence of the adventurer Rasputin (killed at the end of 1916 by the aristocrat Prince Yusupov).

After the overthrow of the Tsar in March 1917, the masses, and above all soldiers and peasants, expected peace and land (agrarian reform) from the Provisional Government, consisting of liberals and moderate socialists. But the Provisional Government is doing nothing in this direction. Under pressure from the allies, it tries to go on the offensive at the front in July. The offensive failed, desertion became widespread.

The widespread emergence of councils of workers (in factories), soldiers (in military units) and peasants creates a situation of dual power. As long as moderate socialists supporting the Provisional Government dominate the soviets, clashes are minor. But during October the Bolsheviks won a majority in the soviets.

From War Communism (1917–1921) to NEP (1921-1924)

The seizure of power on November 7, 1917 occurred almost without resistance. But this revolution, which was considered doomed, frightened the European powers as soon as it began to pursue a program for the destruction of capitalism (nationalization of industry, trade, banks) and issued a call for peace, posing as the beginning of a world revolution. Lenin in 1919 created the Third International, or Communist International, exposing the betrayal of the socialist parties, consisting of which the Second International died in 1914. Lenin considered these parties guilty of supporting the war policies of their own governments.

In 1919, the excluded ruling classes recovered and, after the 1918 armistice, turned to the Allied governments for help. This is already a civil war, accompanied by foreign intervention(British and French in southern Russia, Japan in Far East and so on.). It takes on a most brutal character and leads to terror on both sides. Due to the civil war and famine, the Bolsheviks introduced a strictly controlled economy: this is “war communism”.

In 1921, thanks to the creation of the Red Army, organized by Trotsky, the internal and external situation improved. Western countries eventually recognize Soviet Russia.

The saved revolution turned out to be drained of blood. Lenin recognizes that in order to restore the economy, space must be given to the private sector. It is created in trade and industry, but unfolds in a narrow space and under state control. In agriculture, the authorities advocate the creation of cooperatives, but allow the development of the farms of strong peasants, “kulaks” who use hired labor.

This is the "new" economic policy"(NEP).

The economic and monetary situation stabilizes starting from 1922–1923; in December 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was created, which united Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasian republics. Production in 1927 reached approximately the level of 1913.

Stalin, Five Year Plans and Collectivization Agriculture

When Lenin died in 1924, Stalin, who had previously been in the background, used his position as general secretary of the party (which adopted the name communist) to seize power. His main rival Trotsky was expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1929. On Stalin's orders, he would be killed in 1940 in Mexico.

The failure of revolutions in Central Europe (in Germany, Austria, Hungary) deprives Russia of the prospect of support that could come from more developed countries.

Then Stalin began to develop the idea of ​​building socialism in one country, the USSR. To this end, in 1927 he put forward an ambitious plan for industrialization and approved the first 5-year plan (1928–1932). The plan provides for the complete nationalization of the economy, which means the end of the NEP and the destruction of the limited private sector that has developed so far.

To support this industrialization, Stalin began the collectivization of agriculture in 1930. Peasants are encouraged to unite into production cooperatives, collective farms, which will be provided with modern equipment (tractors, etc.), but the land and tools of production in which will be socialized (with the exception of a small plot of land and a few heads of livestock). Although said to be “voluntary,” collectivization was actually carried out using violent methods. Those who resisted, the “kulaks,” as well as a large number of middle peasants, were largely deprived of their property and expelled. This leads to a severe crisis in the food supply of the population.

However, the situation is gradually stabilizing. While from 1929 to capitalist countries crisis and depression hit, the USSR is proud of its advanced social policy. Namely: education and medical care are free, rest homes are run by trade unions, pensions are established upon reaching 60 years for men and 55 years for women, the working week is 40 hours. Unemployment disappears by 1930, just as it is breaking records in the United States and Germany.

It was then that Stalin, whose morbid suspicion reaches the point of psychosis, under the pretext of revolutionary vigilance, unleashes mass repression, which primarily hit the cadres of the Communist Party. During trials, where victims are forced to blame themselves, most members of the Bolshevik "old guard" were destroyed. Some were executed, others were sent to camps in the Far North and Siberia. From 1930 to 1953 (the date of Stalin’s death), at least 786,098 people were sentenced to death and executed, and between 2 and 2.5 million were sent to camps, where many of them died.30

Despite this, by 1939 the USSR had become a great economic and military power. It has become a symbol of communism, and communist parties in other countries see the USSR as a revolutionary model.

The ruling classes use this symbol to intimidate the masses, and fascist parties that act under the slogan of fighting communism easily find support among the population.

, Russian Civil War 1918-20 – chronology.

October 10, 1917 – The Bolshevik Central Committee decides on an armed uprising.

October 12– Creation of the Military Revolutionary Committee under the Petrograd Soviet ( VRK) to guide the seizure of power.

Mid October – Kerensky is making an attempt to bring part of the Petrograd garrison to the front. This pushes the garrison, who does not want to fight, to the side of the Bolsheviks, becoming the main condition for the success of the October Revolution.

October 23– Trotsky dispatched Military Revolutionary Committee commissars to most of the Petrograd military units of the garrison. The Peter and Paul Fortress (where there are cannons and an arsenal with 100 thousand rifles) goes over to the side of the Bolsheviks.

October 24– Under the guise of defense against the “counter-revolution,” the Military Revolutionary Committee begins a systematic, silent capture of the capital by small groups of soldiers and Red Army soldiers.

Pre-Parliament actually denies Kerensky the authority to suppress the Bolshevik rebellion, so as not to “provoke a civil war.”

Deputies gather in Petrograd " II Congress of Soviets" Its composition was rigged in advance by the Bolsheviks: representatives of only 300 (according to other sources, only 100) of the 900 existing in the country gather at the congress Soviets- and predominantly members of the Leninist party (335 out of 470 deputies, while the true proportion in local councils is completely different).

On a front completely destroyed by the communists, it is almost impossible to gather troops to help the Provisional Government. Kerensky accidentally finds a general's detachment near Pskov Krasnova, in which there are only 700 Cossacks. Krasnov agrees to lead him against the Bolsheviks to Petrograd (where there is a 160,000-strong garrison of reserve regiments who refused to go to the front, not counting the sailors).

29th of October– The Bolsheviks begin to disarm the Petrograd cadets. They resist. The result is fierce battles with artillery around the Pavlovsk and Vladimir schools; There were twice as many casualties as on Bloody Sunday, January 9, 1905.

Reinforcements arrive at Krasnov in the evening: another 600 Cossacks, 18 guns and an armored train. However, his strength is still insignificant for further movement to Petrograd.

The cowardly Colonel Ryabtsev negotiates a daily truce with the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee. During these days, the Bolsheviks are pulling reinforcements to Moscow from everywhere.

October 30– Krasnov is organizing an attack on the Pulkovo Heights. The garrison soldiers and workers flee in fear from a group of Cossacks, but the sailors resist and fight off the attack. In the evening, Krasnov retreats to Gatchina. Vikzhel, in the hope of success in negotiations with the Bolsheviks on a homogeneous socialist government, prevents transportation by railways nevertheless, reinforcements were collected at the front for Krasnov.

In Moscow in the evening, the Military Revolutionary Committee violates the truce. Bloody battles between Bolsheviks and cadets on Tverskoy and Nikitsky boulevards.

Fights with the Bolsheviks in Kyiv, Vinnitsa, and some other cities.

October 31- The All-Army Soldiers' Committee at Headquarters declares that the front considers the Bolshevik coup illegal and opposes any negotiations with them.

Bolshevik agitators arrive in Gatchina, persuading Krasnov’s small Cossacks not to defend who had already betrayed them in July and August Kerensky, and return to the Don.

The Moscow Bolsheviks begin shelling the Kremlin and cadet schools from Vorobyovy Gory and Khodynka with heavy artillery.

Nov. 1- Flight from Gatchina of Kerensky in disguise. Trotsky brings large Bolshevik detachments to Gatchina, and Krasnov has to stop further actions. Indecisive Commander-in-Chief Dukhonin orders from Headquarters to stop sending new troops to Petrograd.

November 2– Having got rid of the danger from Krasnov, Lenin orders to stop negotiations on a homogeneous socialist government. A group of influential Bolsheviks (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, Nogin), who do not believe that their party will retain power alone.

the 3rd of November- By morning the cadets surrender the Moscow Kremlin, terribly mutilated by red artillery. Ruthless reprisals against cadets and the looting of Kremlin churches begin.

Consequences of the Bolshevik coup in Moscow. Documentary newsreel

November 4– Bolshevik supporters of a homogeneous socialist government leave the Central Committee (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, Milyutin, Nogin) and the Council of People’s Commissars (they soon return, unable to withstand Lenin’s pressure).

November 7 – Left Social Revolutionaries They form a party separate from the right and begin negotiations with the Bolsheviks about joining the Council of People's Commissars.

November 8– Lenin removes Dukhonin from his post as commander-in-chief, replacing him with a Bolshevik ensign Krylenko. Lenin's radiogram: let all soldiers and sailors, regardless of their superiors, enter into negotiations on a truce with the enemy - the final surrender of Russia to the mercy