Bolsheviks Seize Winter Palace: Russia's Revolution Begins
Bolshevik Red Guards, soldiers, and sailors seized key positions throughout Petrograd on the night of November 7, 1917 (October 25 on the Julian calendar). The 'storming' of the Winter Palace was far less dramatic than later Soviet propaganda depicted: a few hundred defenders, mostly women's battalion members and military cadets, surrendered with minimal fighting. Kerensky had already fled in a car borrowed from the American Embassy. Lenin announced Soviet power from the Smolny Institute. The Bolsheviks immediately issued decrees on peace and land redistribution. When the democratically elected Constituent Assembly convened in January 1918 and refused to ratify Bolshevik authority, Lenin dissolved it after a single session. Russia's experiment with democracy lasted one day. Five years of civil war, foreign intervention, famine, and Red Terror followed.
November 7, 1917
109 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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