October Revolution

The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the first having been instigated by the events around the February Revolution. The October Revolution was led by Bolsheviks under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin and marked the first officially Communist revolution of the twentieth century, based upon the ideas of Karl Marx. The crucial revolutionary activities in Petrograd were under the command of the Petrograd Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee.

Consequences

Second Congress of Soviets consisted of 649 elected delegates; 390 were Bolshevik and nearly a hundred were Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who also supported the overthrow of the Kerensky Government. When the fall of the Winter Palace was announced, the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution. The transfer of power was not without disagreement. Many of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and they walked out before the resolution was passed. As they exited they were taunted by Leon Trotsky who told them "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on - into the dustbin of history!" The following day, the Soviet elected a Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) as the basis of a new Soviet Government, pending the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, and passed the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land.

Related Topics:
Soviets - Socialist-Revolutionaries - Mensheviks - Leon Trotsky - Council of People's Commissars - Sovnarkom - Constituent Assembly - Decree on Peace - Decree on Land

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

Related Topics:
Peasant - Aristocracy - Kulak - Alliance of workers and peasants - Hammer and Sickle

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The success of the October uprising ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February and transformed the Russian Revolution from liberal to socialist in character. An attempt to take over Moscow a month later was met with much more violent resistance, and the Bolsheviks did not seize full control of the city until March 1918. A coalition of anti-Bolshevik groups attempted to unseat the new government in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1920. The devastating effects of the civil war have been partly attributed to the decline of Soviet democracy and the emergence of the bureaucratic dictatorship which characterised the USSR until 1991.

Related Topics:
Moscow - Russian Civil War - USSR - 1991

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The United States did not recognize the new Russian government until the 1930s, and later would send 10,000 troops to assist a Japanese invasion of Siberia to protest the Bolshevisk takeover of Russia. It received a similarly cool reception in the United Kingdom and other Western countries.

Related Topics:
1930s - Japan - United Kingdom - Western countries

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