The
Revolution of October 1917:
As the conflict between the Provisional Government
and the Bolsheviks grew, Lenin feared the Provisional Government would set up a
dictatorship. In September, he began discussions for an uprising against the
government. Bolshevik supporters in the army, soviets and factories were
brought together.
On 16 October 1917, Lenin persuaded the Petrograd
Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to agree to a socialist seizure of power. A Military
Revolutionary Committee was appointed by the Soviet under Leon Trotskii to
organise the seizure. The date of the event was kept a secret. The uprising
began on 24 October. Sensing trouble, Prime Minister Kerenskii had left
the city to summon troops. At dawn, military men loyal to the government seized the buildings of
two Bolshevik newspapers. Pro-government troops were sent to take over
telephone and telegraph offices and protect the Winter Palace. In a
swift response, the Military Revolutionary Committee ordered its supporters to
seize government offices and arrest ministers. Late in the day, the ship Aurora shelled the Winter
Palace. Other vessels sailed down the Neva and took over various military
points. By nightfall, the city was under the committee.s control and the ministers
had surrendered. At a meeting of the All Russian Congress of Soviets in
Petrograd, the majority approved the Bolshevik action. Uprisings took place in
other cities. There was heavy fighting . especially in Moscow . but by
December, the Bolsheviks controlled the Moscow-Petrograd area.
What
Changed after October?
The Bolsheviks were totally opposed to private
property. Most industry and banks were nationalised in November 1917. This
meant that the government took over ownership and management. Land was declared
social property and peasants were allowed to seize the land of the nobility. In
cities, Bolsheviks enforced the partition of large houses according to family
requirements. They banned the use of the old titles of aristocracy. To assert
the change, new uniforms were designed for the army and officials, following a clothing
competition organised in 1918 . when the Soviet hat (budeonovka)
was chosen.
The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian
Communist Party (Bolshevik). In November 1917, the Bolsheviks conducted the elections
to the Constituent Assembly, but they failed to gain majority support. In
January 1918, the Assembly rejected Bolshevik measures and Lenin dismissed the
Assembly. He thought the All Russian Congress of Soviets was more democratic
than an assembly elected in uncertain conditions. In March 1918, despite
opposition by their political allies, the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany at
Brest Litovsk. In the years that followed, the Bolsheviks became the only party
to participate in the elections to the All Russian Congress of Soviets, which
became the Parliament of the country. Russia became a one-party state. Trade
unions were kept under party control. The secret police (called the Cheka
first, and later OGPU and NKVD) punished those who criticised the
Bolsheviks. Many young writers and artists rallied to the Party because it
stood for socialism and for change. After October 1917,
this led to experiments in the arts and
architecture. But many became disillusioned because of the censorship the Party
encouraged.
The
October Revolution and the Russian Countryside: Two Views
News of the revolutionary uprising of October 25,
1917, reached the village the following day and was greeted with enthusiasm; to
the peasants it meant free land and an end to the war. ...The day the news
arrived, the landowner.s manor house was looted, his stock farms were
.requisitioned. and his vast orchard was cut down and sold to the peasants for
wood; all his far buildings were torn down and left in ruins while the land was
distributed among the peasants who were prepared to live the new Soviet life..
From:
Fedor Belov, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm
A member of a landowning family wrote to a relative
about what happened at the estate:
.The .coup. happened quite painlessly, quietly and
peacefully. .The first days were unbearable.. Mikhail Mikhailovich [the estate
owner] was calm...The girls also.I must say the chairman behaves correctly and
even politely. We were left two cows and two horses. The servants tell them all
the time not to bother us. .Let them live. We vouch for their safety and
property. We want them treated as humanely as possible...
.There are rumours that several villages are trying
to evict the committees and return the estate to Mikhail Mikhailovich. I don.t
know if this will happen, or if it.s good for us. But we rejoice that there is
a conscience in our people....
From:
Serge Schmemann, Echoes of a Native Land. Two Centuries of a Russian Village
(1997).
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