Original subtitles

The Russian philosopher and writer Boris Yakovenko was finishing his book

dedicated to the Russian revolution.

He started to gather the materials for it in Italy

when in February of 1917 the Russian Emperor Nicolay II abdicated.

Yakovenko completed the book in 1929 in Prague.

By that time, the Bolsheviks had been ruling in Russia for 12 years…

Petrograd met the morning of October 26 of 1917 calmly.

That night, the Bolshevik coup took place in the capital,

but the residents didn’t pay much attention to the night artillery shootings.

The Ministers of the Temporary Government were arrested

and detained in the cells of the Fortress of Peter and Paul;

still, life was going on in the city as usual –

the carts rumbled, the trams rang,

the passers-by hurried along the streets on their own business…

The newspapers didn’t report on the change of power.

They were sent to print before the storm of the Winter Palace.

The Bolsheviks accused some newspapers

of the counter-revolutionary activities and closed them.

The printed editions were burnt right in the street,

in the presence of public overwhelmed by a scene unseen before.

Soon all the oppositional editions were closed in the capital,

what didn’t happen even in the years of monarchist censorship.

People who demanded the freedom of speech most of all

became the most ardent enemies of that freedom after coming to power.

The residents of Petrograd found out about the coup from a couple of lines

in the “recent events’ column. Rumors spread about the city

that the Bolsheviks were torturing the imprisoned cadets

in the Fortress of Peter and Paul, that the women from the Storm Battalion

who had been defending the Winter Palace were raped,

that the armed seamen are coming to people’s apartments

and requisitioning fur-coats and boots. The shops were closed.

The meetings demanding not to recognize the power

of the usurpers-Bolsheviks took place.

Panic began at the foreign exchange.

Businessmen had good reasons to worry.

The Bolsheviks acted in a decisive way.

They had grandioso plans and they had enough money.

At first, those events seemed to be a mutiny of a handful of radicals.

Nobody could think that on October 26, 1917 a new epoch started

in the history not only of Russia but of the entire world.

In the evening, the session of the Second All-Russian Convention

of the Councils recommenced; it was completely controlled by the Bolsheviks.

From its chair, Lenin read the first decrees of the new power.

The Peace Decree – all the warring parties

were to immediately conclude a truce and start negotiations

on the fair democratic peace without annexations and contributions.

The Land Decree – the land was announced to be the all-people’s property

and handed over for the free usage of the peasants;

the landowners’ estates were confiscated

and private ownership for the land was abolished.

The audience in the hall applauded those decrees.

After those first decrees, other ones were adopted –

on the abolishment of the death penalty at the front

and the formation of the Temporary Government of the Workers and Peasants.

At 5 a.m. on October 27, the historical session was over.

The Second Convention of the Council finished its work.

The tired deputies sang the “International” and went home.

The delegates of the Convention didn’t worry

about how the decrees would be executed.

It was impossible to stop the war by adopting a resolution.

Russia had to sign the truce and pay the price determined by Germany.

The abolition of private ownership for the land didn’t solve the issue

of who its new owners would be.

In the banking sphere of Russia, deals with lands played at important part.

The Land Decree prohibited its sales.

It was a destructive blow for the country’s banking sphere.

In December of 1917, all the private, joint-stock and banking establishments

were nationalized by another Bolsheviks’ decree.

The Bolsheviks’ government was called “the Council of the People’s Commissars”

or “Sovnarkom” for short. The new leaders announced publicly

that they would rule the country

only until the convention of the Constituent Assembly.

During the abdication of the Emperor, it became clear that not all citizens

would support the abolition of the monarchy.

To prevent disturbances, it was declared that the people would determine

the form of the government in the country.

Delegates from all the regions of Russia, deputies of the Constituent Assembly,

would gather in the capital and define the political organization of the country.

All the parties agreed that it was the only democratic way

to determine the future of the state.

The hopes of the people to convene the Constituent Assembly

was the main reason why the civil war didn’t start

right after the Tsar’s abdication.

The population perceived both the Temporary Government and the Sovnarkom

as temporary forms of governance.

Knowing about such mood,

the Bolsheviks recognized the priority of the Constituent Assembly,

if only by the words. One of Lenin’s closest comrades Yakov Sverdlov said:

“We’re too weak now.

The news that we delayed the Constituent Assembly will weaken us even further”.

The country was getting ready for the elections.

The All-Russian Commission on Elections to the Constituent Assembly –

the All-Round-Elections – consisted of 16 people.

It was headed by the member of the cadets’ party Nicolay Avinov.

The elections to the Constituent Assembly were scheduled for November 12-14.

On November 28, the elected deputies were to start their session in Petrograd.

Thus, the election of the deputies was to take place

under the Bolsheviks’ authority.

Meanwhile, Lenin became the chairman of the new government –

the Council of the People’s Commissars.

Trotskiy was appointed the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

3 people headed the People’s Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs –

the Secretary of the Military and Revolutionary Committee

Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, a warrant officer Nicolay Krylenko

and the Baltic Fleet seaman Pavel Dybenko.

Antonov-Ovseyevnko Vladimir Alexandrovitch graduated from the cadets’ college.

During the Russian-Japanese war, he deserted.

For an attempt to raise a military mutiny, he was sentenced to death

which was later replaced with 20 years of hand labour.

He headed the storm of the Winter Palace

and personally arrested the members of the Temporary Government.

Krylenko Nicolay Vasilyevitch, a warrant officer.

During the war, he was arrested for avoidance of service

and anti-war agitation. One of the first heads of the revolutionary tribunals.

Dybenko Pavel Yefimovitch, a Baltic Fleet seaman.

He was dismissed from the board for the Bolshevik agitation

and sent to the land front. After the revolution, remaining a common seaman,

he became a People’s Commissar for Naval Affairs.

Thus, one deserter, one soldier who was avoiding the fighting

and a punished seaman headed the Military Ministry of the Russian republic.

The new revolutionary government was very busy.

There were disturbances in Petrograd.

The shots were heard, the arrests were taking place.

Crowds of soldiers were ransacking shops and stores.

Even the most reliable fighters were getting drunk

when guarding the wine cellars of the Winter Palace.

As Antonov-Ovseyenko recalled: “The drunken intoxication was infectious”.

The opponents of the Bolsheviks had no intentions to surrender.

The City Duma kept working in Petrograd.

Its deputies held endless sessions adopting loud resolutions

about the protection of the Motherland and freedom.

The Duma formed a Committee for Salvation of the Motherland and Revolution.

A socialist revolutionary Abram Gotz became its chairman.

On behalf of the Committee, the anti-Bolshevik leaflets were disseminated,

connections were established with the military colleges and officers.

At that, the Committee didn’t appeal to support Kerenskiy.

The Minister and the Chairman had completely lost his popularity.

Kerenskiy escaped from Petrograd to Gatchina.

He didn’t find any troops loyal to the Temporary Government there

and went to Pskov, to the Headquarters of the Northern Front.

There a detachment was formed from the units of the 3rd Kazak Corps

to suppress the Bolshevik revolt. A few months ago,

that Corps went towards the capital to overthrow Kerenskiy.

Now its Kazaks had to save Kerenskiy – move from Pskov to Petrograd

and knock the power out of the Bolsheviks’ hands with weapons.

The Corps was headed by Lieutenant General Petr Krasnov.

Krasnov Petr Nicolayevitch, Lieutenant General,

came from a noble family of the Don Troop.

Demonstrated exceptional bravery in battle.

During Brusilov’s Breakthrough, he was wounded.

During Kornilov’s revolt he was arrested but later released.

The majority of the officers of the Corps like Krasnov himself

used to support General Kornilov.

Just three months ago, Kerenskiy suppressed the advance of Kornilov

with the hands of the Bolsheviks and even arrested him.

Therefore, the officers didn’t bother to hide their contempt towards Kerenskiy.

One of them even openly refused to shake the Minister’s hand.

Still, the 3rd Cavalry Corps marched out and at night of October 27

the Kazaks arrived in Gatchina.

There, representatives of the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland

and Revolution met Kerenskiy and reported

that a revolt against the Bolsheviks was under way in Petrograd.

On the following day, the Kazak units seized Tsarskoye Selo.

The 16,000-strong garrison surrendered to Krasnov’s few troops

without much resistance. The capital was already very close.

The capture of Garchina and Tsarskoye Selo frightened Lenin’s government.

As a leading Bolshevik Nicolay Podvoyskiy wrote:

“The situation is the following:

either they will hang us, or we will hang them”.

Lenin was feverishly looking for a way out.

He even suggested opening fire at the Kazaks from Petrograd’s suburbs

from the cannons of the Baltic Fleet cruiser.

The chief got very upset when he found out

that huge ships wouldn’t be able to enter the shallow Neva to start the shooting.

On October 29, an anti-Bolshevik revolt of the cadets began.

However, it was doomed from the very beginning.

A few hours before its start, the Red Guards patrol detained a car

with the member of the Committee of the Salvation named Bruderer.

He had an order to raise the military colleges to the battle readiness

and the scheme of dislocation of the rebellious units.

Thus, the Bolsheviks found out all the plans of the rebels.

Despite that, the cadets managed to seize some important objects –

the Engineer Palace, the Central Telephone Station

and the Mikhail Arena where some armored cars were stationed.

A former commander of the Petrograd military district Polkovnikov

was at the helm of the troops. However, by that time

neither a regular army nor the centralized commandment existed.

Polkovnikov only had a couple of detachments of the cadets with their officers.

Soldiers of the capital’s garrison didn’t join them.

The Bolsheviks, however, had armed detachments of the working guards,

seamen and a couple of military units on their side.

The fights between the Bolsheviks and the cadets lasted until late evening.

The cadets laid big hopes for the arrival of Krasnov’s troops.

However, it was Sunday and they were simply having rest.

During those days, like during the following years,

the main principle of Lenin’s rule was formed –

to hold on to power despite anything.

The Bolsheviks brought cannons from the Fortress of Peter and Paul

and opened fire at the buildings captured by the cadets.

The Vladimir Military Institute held longer than the others,

but it didn’t stand a chance against artillery.

The cadets’ revolt stalled. The repressions started.

The Bolsheviks caught people in the officers’ uniforms in the streets.

After suppressing the revolt of the cadets,

Lenin’s government felt more confident.

The Soviet government appointed Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Muravyov

the commander of the troops of the Petrograd military district.

Before that, he used to be an ardent monarchist,

but after the February Revolution joined the socialist revolutionaries;

later, when the new power got established, he placed a stake on it.

During a few days of his command, Muravyov gathered over 10,000 soldiers,

seamen and Red Guards.

The forces of the Kazaks who were fighting against them

amounted to mere 800 people and one armored train.

In the morning of October 30, Krasnov’s Kazaks

who were moving from Tsarskoye Selo to Petrograd

approached the Pulkovo Heights by the southern suburbs of the capital.

There the Bolsheviks’ troops of Muravyov had already taken positions

determined to stop the advance of the Kazaks.

The locals gathered to look at the scene unseen before –

a battle of the Russians against Russians.

At first, Krasnov’s advance was successful.

The Volyn Regiment that had been fighting on the Bolsheviks’ side,

left its positions and escaped to the rear.

In February of 1917, that Regiment was the first to support the Revolution.

Now, the Volyn Regiment soldiers were the first to run away from the front.

With the support of the armored train, the Kazaks seized the positions

at the left flank of the Bolsheviks’ defense.

At that point, one of the officers didn’t listen to Krasnov

and moved forward without waiting for the general advance.

The attack stalled.

Krasnov failed to take over the Bolsheviks’ positions.

Krasnov’s situation was quite difficult.

He had few troops, but the Bolsheviks were waiting for the reinforcements.

Plus, they had a garrison at Tsarskoye Selo as a reserve;

it was ready to take up arms and hit the General from behind.

Realizing that the advance might finish in a catastrophe,

Krasnov ordered his Kazaks to retreat to Gatchina.

The Bolsheviks’ agitators followed them.

They did well in the evening of October 30;

after the agitation talks, the Kazak units refused to fight.

The negotiations started.

Bolshevik Dybenko offered the Kazaks a free passage to the Don

as well as un unexpected exchange –

he promised to hand them over Lenin

if the Kazaks handed him over Kerenskiy.

For Dybenko, it was just a trick, but the Kazaks liked that idea.

Krasnov warned Kerenskiy about that.

The frightened Minister and Chairman wanted to shoot himself first,

then begged his adjutants to kill him but finally, simply escaped from Gatchina

in a seaman’s uniform.

The yellow press spread rumors

that the Prime-Minister disguised himself in a nurse’s dress.

The story about the escape in a woman’s dress followed Kerenskiy

until his very death and was even screened in the Soviet movies.

In the 60ies, aged Alexander Fedorovitch had to justify himself

and explain how it all had happened in reality.

Despite the failure of the advance, Krasnov’s officers tried to save the day.

But the commander of the Northern Front General Cheremysov

didn’t want to fight the Bolsheviks and didn’t provide them

with the reinforcements. The Bolsheviks entered Gatchina.

It strengthened the positions of the new power immensely.

During the same days, the Bolsheviks won another important victory –

they took the control over Moscow.

In the afternoon of October 25, their detachments seized the post,

banks and railways stations but in the evening,

they ran into strong resistance.

The resistance was organized by the Committee of Public Safety

formed by the Moscow City Council to prevent seizure of power in the city

by the Bolsheviks. The Committee relied on the officers and cadets.

At night of October 26, they blocked the Kremlin

to prevent the theft of weapons from the Kremlin arsenal.

The commander of the Moscow military district Colonel Ryabtsev

asked the Headquarters to send reliable military units

and started negotiations with the Bolsheviks.

The Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief was close

to the Russian-German front line, in a far-away Byelorussian Mogilev.

People there didn’t quite understand what was going on.

Whom should they submit to? What is the new power like?

The generals didn’t support the Bolsheviks

but weren’t in a hurry to send the troops.

Many military units didn’t listen to the commandment anyway.

When Ryabtsev found out that Krasnov was moving towards Petrograd,

he stopped negotiations with the Bolsheviks

and declared a state of defense emergency in Moscow.

The cadets won back the telephone station, telegraph and the post.

The Kremlin that had been seized by the Bolsheviks capitulated.

However, it soon became known that Kerenskiy’s campaign in Petrograd failed.

The Bolsheviks mobilized new forces to Moscow.

The majority of soldiers from the Moscow garrison turned to their side.

Moscow was falling under the control of the revolutionaries.

The ancient streets were all in trenches and barricades,

and shots from machine guns and cannons were heard everywhere.

Colonel Ryabtsev was looking for ways to negotiations.

The cadets didn’t like it and wanted to dismiss him

and hand the commandment over to the legendary General Brusilov;

however, he refused to take part in the fratricidal conflict.

For the last time in its history,

the Moscow Kremlin played its initial part of a fortress.

Its massive walls became a reliable protection for the cadets.

To crush the fortress, the Bolsheviks put the large-caliber siege cannons

at the Vorobyovy Hills and started the bombardment of the Kremlin.

The shells damaged the cathedrals, a few towers

and the Bell Tower named after Ivan the Great.

The Chiming Clock stopped.

The cadets laid down their weapons only on November 2.

The power in Moscow passed to the Councils once and for all.

Maksim Gorkiy wrote about those historical days:

“In some houses close to the Kremlin the walls of the buildings

are pierced with shells and it’s likely that dozens innocent people died

in those houses. The shells were flying around as senselessly

as the whole six-day long massacre and ransacking of Moscow

didn’t make any sense”.

In the course of seven days of the fights

about 1,000 people died from both sides.

On November 10, a famous necropolis was laid by the Kremlin’s wall.

The bodies of 240 Red Guards were buried there.

Over 300 officers and cadets were buried by the present-day “Sokol” metro station.

A famous poet and musician Alexander Vertinskiy was present at the burial.

Under the impression of that tragedy,

he wrote his well-known song: “What I Must Say”:

“I don’t know who needed it and why,

who sent them to their death with an unshaking hand so mercilessly.

But now they are lowered into the eternal peace…”

The fate of Colonel Ryabtsev was tragic.

He left Moscow for Kharkov.

In 1919, the city was seized by the troops of the Volunteer White Army.

Ryabtsev was arrested by the counter-intelligence.

He was accused for in October of 1917 he allegedly issued an order

to stop resisting the Bolsheviks, didn’t use all the opportunities

at his disposal and didn’t take opinions of his subordinates into account.

On the basis of conclusions of the investigation,

Colonel Ryabtsev was executed.

The fratricidal fights in Moscow, previously unseen in the country,

seemed to bring its citizens to senses.

Anti-Bolshevik meetings were held everywhere.

The All-Russian Executive Committee of the Railways’ Unions

refused to carry the Bolsheviks’ troops

and threatened with the universal strike of the transport.

The Union put forward an ultimatum –

to stop the civil way and to form the joint socialistic government.

The socialist revolutionaries and Mensheviks were setting the tone

in that Union, and it was difficult to come to terms with them.

Lenin didn’t want to share the captured power.

Protesting against Lenin’s rigid position,

a part of the Bolshevik people’s commissars even resigned.

The People’s Commissar for Education Anatoliy Lunacharskiy resigned too.

After the Moscow massacre and the shooting of the Kremlin

he wrote in his statement:

“The struggle embitters to the point of animal hatred.

What will happen next? Where shall we move?

I feel powerless to stop this terror.

I realize the gravity of my decision.

However, I can’t go on”.

Lenin managed to talk Lunacharskiy into staying.

The coalitional government was formed

but the Mensheviks and socialist revolutionaries didn’t become its members.

The Bolsheviks limited themselves

to a union with the left socialist revolutionaries

giving them the people’s commissariats of agriculture, justice,

post and telegraph and a couple of less-important ministries.

The left socialist revolutionaries were weak partners,

and the coalitional government didn’t last for long.

And in a few months,

the Bolsheviks also simply disbanded the Railways’ Union.

After the victory in both capitals,

Lenin and the Bolsheviks started to root in other places too.

Sometimes that process was fast and didn’t run across any resistance.

However, it wasn’t like that everywhere.

The Bolsheviks met with serious troubles in Kiev.

The self-proclaimed body, the Central Rada (“Council”)

refused to recognize the Bolsheviks’ authority

when it found out about the coup.

However, the positions of Rada in Kiev were not very strong,

and despite loud declarations it preferred to keep neutrality.

On October 29, the Kiev Bolsheviks decided to arrange a revolt of their own.

The Central Rada gathered the pro-Ukrainian regiments in Kiev

and even helped the Bolsheviks in their struggle

against the forces of the Temporary Government.

In a result of that, diarchy was established in Kiev for some time.

It was ruled by both Rada and the Bolsheviks.

In November, the Central Rada announced the establishment

of the Ukrainian People’s Republic –

for the time being, in federation with Russia.

It didn’t dare declare full independence.

Rada was preparing to overthrow the Bolsheviks

to become the only authority in Kiev.

A new conflict was brewing there…

The Region of the Don Troop also refused to recognize the Bolsheviks’ authority.

The Kazak ataman Alexei Kaledin announced that until legality was restored

the government of the Region of the Don Troop

would undertake the complete power.

Other Kazak regions supported it – Kuban, Ter,

as well as the Kalmyks and the highlanders of the Northern Caucasus.

Here, on the south, the forces that would later lay the foundations

of the Volunteer or White Army started to gather.

The army top commandment at the Headquarters

of the Commander-in-Chief could become another center of resistance

to the Soviet power.

Numerous politicians and public activists arrived in Byelorussian Mogilev

where the Headquarters was situated.

Constant meetings went on, the projects were drafted…

There was no Commander-in-Chief at that moment.

Lieutenant General Nicolay Dukhonin temporarily executed his duties.

However, he wasn’t a politician but just a responsible officer.

The General didn’t want to interfere into the civil conflict.

He was just trying to save the remains of the army to resist the German troops.

He thought negatively about the Bolsheviks

but wasn’t going to fight them or to form the new government.

Dukhonin limited himself to an appeal to the troops

to keep calm and contain the enemy.

Still, even such a moderate position failed to save the General’s skin.

On November 9, during a telephone call Lenin demanded

that Dukhonin should start peaceful negotiations

with the German commandment.

The General answered that it was the government and not he who should do it.

The government shall do it, and I’m a military man.

For that, Dukhonin was called “the enemy of the people”.

You’re the enemy of the people!

Lenin sent telegrams to all the units of the Russian army.

He offered the soldiers to take the “issue of peace”

into their own hands and start the negotiations with the enemy.

Dukhonin was dismissed from his position

and ordered to wait for the arrival of the new commander.

Bolshevik Krylenko was appointed to replace him.

A warrant officer, the lowest officer rank of the army,

plus a man who had been avoiding the military service for long,

was now the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army.

Together with the detachment of the revolutionary seamen and soldiers,

Krylenko went to Mogilev.

Dukhonin was preparing to hand the commandment over.

With one of the last of his orders, he released the arrested General Kornilov

and his comrades from the Bykhov prison.

The former inmates went to the Don

where the forces for resisting the Bolsheviks were gathering.

Dukhonin also issued an order

to send the troops of the storm battalions out of Mogilev.

Their commanders wanted to defend the headquarters

and to resist the Bolsheviks. However, Dukhonin said:

“I don’t want the fratricidal war.

The Motherland will need thousands of your lives”.

Our Motherland will need your lives. Thank you, gentlemen.

On November 20, echelons with the detachments of the Bolsheviks

arrived in Mogilev. First of all, Krylenko arrested Dukhonin.

Nicolay Nicolayevitch… do you know who I am?

The Lieutenant General was brought to the wagon

of the new Commander-in-Chief, the former warrant officer.

A group of soldiers burst in there,

threatening both with weapons.

The enraged crowd dragged the last Commander-in-Chief

of the Russian army from the wagon.

The reason for the carnage was the news of Kornilov’s disappearance.

The crowd killed Dukhonin with bayonets

and then scoffed at the dead body.

Krylenko failed to stop the lynching.

The crowd went to look for Dukhonin’s wife to made even with her too.

However, she wasn’t at home.

The poor woman was in the church, and it saved her life.

After ransacking the Headquarters,

the Bolsheviks started the peace negotiations.

The Germans and the Austrians, exhausted by the war at a couple of fronts,

had no objections against the peace.

However, feeling their advantage, they put their conditions forward.

The peace conference started in December of 1917.

The peace negotiations took place in the town of Brest-Litovsk

captured by the Germans on December 9.

The Soviet delegation consisted of five members of the Central Committee

headed by the Bolshevik Adolf Joffe,

8 members of the military delegation,

a secretary,

3 interpreters,

6 technical employees

as well as 5 common members of the delegation –

seaman Olitch,

soldier Belyakov,

peasant Stashkov from Kaluga,

worker Obukhov

and naval warrant officer Zedin.

For the Russian officers, those negotiations were shameful.

A member of the delegation Major General Skalov shot himself

on the first day of the arrival in Brest-Litovsk.

In a death note addressed to his wife General wrote:

“Farewell, my dearest Anyuta.

Don’t judge me and forgive me. I can’t go on living…”

“The revolution choked on the war

and finally had to concede with humiliation and shame

before the German imperialistic fist, surrendering huge Russian territories…”

All parties were ready to conclude peace.

However, on what conditions?

The German Empire put forward incredible demands –

to surrender territories captured by the German troops at that point.

Simultaneously the Germans started negotiations

with the Ukrainian Central Rada about the accession of the lands of Ukraine.

The Bolsheviks returned to the capital for consultations.

However, they didn’t have forces to resist anyway.

The Russian army didn’t exist anymore.

A witness to those events recalled:

“There is no army. The comrades are sleeping, eating, playing cards,

don’t listen to any orders; they leave the communication means behind;

the telephone and telegraph lines are broken,

the regiments aren’t connected with the headquarters of their divisions,

the cannons are left behind at the positions,

they are dirty and snow-bound…”

Lenin kept demanding peace at any cost.

At the end of December, a delegation of the Bolsheviks

returned to Brest-Litovsk and continued with the negotiations.

During 300 years of the rule of the Romanovs dynasty

the territory of the Russian Empire only grew.

Even after defeats in wars, Russia had never surrendered any of its lands.

The Brest Peace Treaty between Russia and Germany

signed at Lenin’s insistence on March 3, 1918 and ratified on March 16

consisted of 14 articles.

In particular, it stipulated the following.

Russia had to completely demobilize its army.

The Soviet Russia was surrendering Poland, Lithuania, Kurland,

Lifland and Estland. The Germans were getting regions

captured by the German troops at the moment of conclusion of the treaty.

Ukraine and Finland were recognized as independent states.

Russia was surrendering Kars, Ardahan and Batum to Turkey.

As a result of that, Russia lost a territory of 780 sq.km

with population of 56 mln people

(a third of the population of the Russian Empire).

It included 27% of the fertile agricultural land,

26% of all railway network;

there, 73% of iron was smelted,

89% of coal was mined and 90% of sugar was produced.

The 1917 was nearing its end.

Delivering a speech at the Seventh Convention

of the Russian Communist Party, Lenin said,

“One shall never limit oneself with formal concepts during the war…

An agreement is a means of mobilizing the forces…”

While the Bolsheviks were mobilizing forces,

the battles were already going on between their supporters and opponents

at the Don, in Siberia and in the Crimea.

In Ukraine, the Bolsheviks and the Central Rada were in a state of a real war.

In places where there were no hostilities,

hordes of deserters swept everything off their path

on their way home from the front.

Entire regions got separated from the country.

Finland proclaimed its independence,

Lithuania announced his separation,

the Caucasian states were talking about their autonomy too.

Chaos was engulfing the country…

That chaos brought the Bolsheviks to power,

but the same chaos now threatened to exterminate them.

To fight the attempt at the Soviet power,

an All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle

against the Counter-Revolution and Sabotage was formed at the Sovnarkom.

Felix Dzerzhinskiy became its chairman.

At first, the Commission was working without spilling any blood.

People declared the enemy of the people were deprived

of the ration cards or had their property confiscated.

Terror and violence were isolated cases

explained by the rage of the people’s masses.

The oncoming meeting of the deputies of the Constituent Assembly

was the last hope for those who still expected the restoration of order

in the country. What will become of the former Empire?

A republic? A monarchy?

Even the Bolsheviks who were making a new revolution happen

claimed that their task was to defend the elections to the Constituent Assembly

which Kerenskiy allegedly wanted to disrupt.

However, Lenin had no intention of letting the power go.

He urged his comrades to prepare the Bolshevik coup in October,

before the start of the Constituent Assembly.

The chief of the Bolsheviks counted on two options

either the Bolsheviks would get the majority of votes at the elections

to the Constituent Assembly or, being the authority at that point,

they would cancel all the decisions of the Constituent Assembly

and disband it with the help of the arms.

After they seized the power, Lenin and his comrades lost the need

to make the Constituent Assembly happen.

However, they didn’t dare cancel it.

The idea of the Constituent Assembly was very popular among the people.

They expected it to work miracles and solve the country’s problems.

As scheduled, the elections of the delegates took place

all over the country on November 12-14 of 1917.

Thanks to the Commission of the All-Elections

they were well-organized and happened in the pre-arranged time.

A week before the elections, Lenin issued a decree

on introduction of the state monopoly for the announcements.

It made the agitation campaigns of the Bolsheviks’ opponents difficult.

Lenin tried to press on the Commission on All-Elections,

but when it refused to cooperate, he simply disbanded it.

However, despite all those tricks, the Bolsheviks lost the elections.

48 401 962 people took part in the elections.

The socialist revolutionaries got 39,5% of votes

while the Bolsheviks got 22,5%.

The constitutional democrats (cadets) got 4,5%.

However, Lenin ordered to arrest all the members of the cadets’ fraction

as enemies of the people. The rest of the votes were divided

between other parties, religious confessions and public organizations.

Taking such results of the elections into account,

Lenin and the Bolsheviks had to hand all the power

over to the Constituent Assembly and resign.

However, that didn’t suit Lenin at all.

On January 5, 1918 in the Tavria Palace the Constituent Assembly

opened its first session. On the eve of it,

the Bolshevik delegates organized meetings and agitated against the Assembly.

Lenin and his comrades didn’t spare efforts and money

for the military troops that were loyal to them.

The Latvian Shooting Regiments where the majority of soldiers

didn’t know Russian well and for that reason didn’t succumb

to any agitation were considered to be the most reliable.

The Latvians were isolated, disciplined and well-armed.

The Bolsheviks were regularly paying and supplying them.

A part of the Latvian Shooters had been stationed in Petrograd

since autumn of 1917.

A couple of weeks before the Constituent Assembly started its work,

Lenin allotted 10 million rubles to the People’s Commissar for Military Affairs

to organize detachments of the workers.

On December 30, he issued an order to form a detachment of the seamen

up to 2,000 people and summon additional two regiments

of the Latvian Shooters from the front.

The opponents of the Bolsheviks arranged manifestations,

but the Bolsheviks’ troops opened fire at them.

A few dozens of people died.

Going to the Tavria Palace, the delegates of the Constituent Assembly

took candles and sandwiches in case the authorities decided

to switch the electricity off or not feed the delegates.

A sworn enemy of the Bolshevisk Viktor Chernov was elected its chairman.

Lenin’s delegates whistled and shouted

preventing him from leading the meeting.

Lenin was going between the chairs, then he sat on the steps

leading to the chair where he was writing something,

laughing at the delegates and openly demonstrating his despise.

-Zheleznyakov? -Yes?

During the break, you shall close this circus.

Will do.

During the break, the Bolsheviks left the hall.

Pavel Dybenko gave an order to the seamen to disband the delegates

with the arms but Lenin cancelled that order.

Only at 5 a.m. at his order the head of the guards,

drunk seaman Zheleznyakov came up to the chair and told Chernov:

“I got an instruction to inform you that all the delegates shall leave the hall

because the guards are tired”.

The delegated were indignant but they had to leave.

They agreed to meet again the following evening.

However, the following evening a line of seamen and Latvian Shooters

was waiting for them by the Tavria Palace.

The doors of the Palace were locked, and the machine guns

and a couple of cannons aimed right at the delegates.

The Assembly had to disperse.

In a couple of days afterwards the Bolsheviks published a decree

on disbanding of the Constituent Assembly in the newspapers.

That was how they did away of the last hope of the people

for the fair determination of its future fate.

A dot was put in the history of the Russian Revolution.

February, 1917.

The country that was confidently nearing a victory in a war;

then, demonstrations started because bread queues appeared in Petrograd.

In just nine months, the state practically ceased its existence.

The Civil War started in Russia…

The First World War ended on November 11, 1918.

Russia had been engulfed by the Civil War,

one of the awfullest wars in the history of the country, for five long years.

The First World War took 1 700 000 lives of the citizens of Russia,

and during the years of the Civil War unleashed by Lenin

8-13 million people died.

The fate of the majority of the heroes of the revolutionary drama

of 1917 was tragic. Lenin went on ruling the Soviet State.

He suffered a stroke and by the end of his life

was almost completely paralyzed.

In 1924, he died at the age of 53 years.

Trotskiy who signed the Brest Peace Treaty

became one of the founding fathers of the Red Army

but lost the struggle for power after Lenin’s death.

In 1926, he was driven out of the USSR.

In 14 years, he was killed in Mexico

by an agent of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs.

Antonov-Ovseyenko who arrested the Temporary Government

as well as his comrades at the Sovnarkom Krylenko and Dybenko

occupied the highest posts in the Red Army and the Soviet State.

All three of them were executed in 1938.

Seaman Zheleznyakov who disbanded the Constituent Assembly

was killed during the Civil War.

Lavr Kornilov headed the Volunteer Army.

He organized an attack against the Bolsheviks knows as the Ice Campaign.

He died in March of 1918.

Petr Krasnov took part in the Civil War and then emigrated.

During the Second World War he cooperated with Hitler’s authorities.

He supported the German aggression against the USSR.

After the war, he was taken prisoner and in 1947,

hanged according to the court sentence.

Alexander Kerenskiy left Russia.

He lived in Paris and then moved to America.

He died at the age of 89 years.

Orthodox priests refused to commemorate him

blaming him for the tragedy that had happened in Russia.

The philosopher and historian Boris Yakovenko

didn’t return to his Motherland and died in Prague in 1948.

His book “The History of the Great Russian Revolution”

was published in Germany with the following introduction:

“I dedicate this book to my late mother

with whom we had been dreaming of the great revolution all our lives,

then lived through it with alarm and sadness,

then swore and cried over it,

but at the end, managed to understand and to forgive”.