News: 2006-11-08

St Petersburg: what happened here almost 90 years ago , on the 7th of November 

Almost 90 years ago now, what would come to be seen as a major global event of last century, the Russian Revolution,began right here, in St Petersburg.On the night of the 24th of October (7th of November), the Red Guards of Lenin began gathering in the city. This was the beginning of “The October Revolution, Red October, The Great Socialist Revolution of 1917” as the communist preferred to call it, or the Uprising of the 25th, and what most of us refer to as The Russian Revolution.

According to the Old Russian style calendar, the revolution occurred in October, however with the new calendar, the Revolution date is celebrated on the 7th of November. Filled with revolutionary fervor and spurred on by the oratorical genius of their leader, people were leading themselves for change. Smolny Institute, the headquarters of the Bolsheviks, became a hive of activity: vans were arriving to deliver people and supplies, printers were churning out posters to distribute around the city ready to announce the downfall of the Provisional Government. While the citizens of St Petersburg slept on the night of the 24th their lives and those of all Russians were about to change. Lenin himself had only just returned from hiding for the second time and after months of chaos and power struggles, the mass desertions from the army, he had decided the time was right. In the early morning the Bolsheviks troops occupied strategic points around the city. Tradition has it that the Aurora cruiser, with its sympathetic crew, fired the warning shot across the Neva to signal the beginning of the uprising. By the evening of the 25th, troops had occupied the Winter Palace, by this stage, only a small number of Cossacks, some recruits and a battalion of female soldiers were defending the palace. Soldiers trekked through the polished halls of today’s Hermitage with their muddy boots and two husky bearded peasant soldiers were stationed at the entrance way to guard the palace. In the days following  The Second All Party Congress of Soviets met to ratify the revolution officially and Lenin’s famous decrees “About Peace” and “About Land” were made. The rest as they say is history…

Around this date, you may see older residents who are still loyal communists, emerging into the streets with banners and flags to remember this day.

All the places I’ve mentioned in this article  we shall see during “Our Revolutionary and Soviet past”tour: become a participant of  The Russian Revolution!!