The November Revolution

The November revolution, also known as the Bolshevik revolution took place on the 7-8th November 1917. This was a political revolution; obviously, did I forget to mention it took place in the town of Petrograd? With an armed insurrection by the Bolsheviks.

This revolution overthrew the Russian Provisional Government, but someone else may tell you the details of that. As the revolution was not universally recognised outside of Petrograd (for reasons you can google), it was followed by the struggles of the Russian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922.

Well, where do I start, the 1917 Russian Revolution was not, as many people suppose, one well organised event in which Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown and Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power. It was a series of events that took place during 1917, pretty boring really but listen up. It entailed two separate revolutions in February and October. The Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organise the armed forces, led the revolution. Bolshevik Red Guard forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the takeover of government buildings on 24 October 1917.

The first major event of the Russian Revolution was the February Revolution, the causes of this are too complicated to summarise, but key factors to consider were ongoing resentment at the cruel treatment of peasants (poor guys) and poor working conditions experienced by city workers. A few years before this, in 1905, Russia saw humiliating losses in the Russo-Japanese war, so they were sad.

Basically, the 1917 Revolution rocked the town of Petrograd, many events that happened during this time contributed towards tht. In simple terms, because I'm a kind person, I will list the events for you. During the early hours of the morning on the 7th November (if you had forgotten) the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace, destroying the meeting of the Provisional Government. The night before, on 6th November, the Red Guards took control of post offices, bridges and the loyal state bank. Also, in the early hours of the day, the Bolsheviks were now in charge of most of Petrograd and were now the new government. Getting to the good bit - at 9am the ship 'Aurora' fired a blank shot to start the attack, waste of time if you ask me. The Bolsheviks faced little resistance, on top of this there was a little machine gun fire, and if you hadn't guessed, a "little" machine gun did very "little" damage. After all this had calmed down a bit Kerensky managed to escape (in other words was scared of the consequences) and tried to rally loyal troops. When he failed, he fled to exile.

Ayesha Gwillim