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A CENTURY AGO on 25 October, 1917, Lenin’s Marxist Bolsheviks took control of Russia’s imperial capital, launching the October Revolution that led to the creation of the Soviet Union.
Although the Bolsheviks were in a political minority, they painstakingly prepared their coup, benefiting from a power vacuum in the country at the height of World War I.
When and where?
The date of 25 October follows the Orthodox Julian calendar which was in use at the time in Russia.
It corresponds to 7 November in the Gregorian calendar which is used in most of the world. Russia switched to this calendar after the Revolution.
Petrograd was the name given to Russia’s imperial capital Saint Petersburg at the beginning of World War I, with the aim of making it sound less Germanic and more Russian.
The city is the site of the Winter Palace, a symbol of tsarist absolutism that is now the Hermitage art museum.
It was called Leningrad during Soviet times but reverted to its original name, Saint Petersburg, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The February revolution
The walls of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg are decked out for the centenary. NurPhoto / PA Images
NurPhoto / PA Images / PA Images
Unrest started when demonstrators, angry over the scarcity of food, took to the streets of Petrograd on 23 February, 1917.
Supported by thousands of people, in just two days the protest transformed into a mass strike and Tsar Nicholas II deployed the army.
The troops were meant to contain the uprising but instead began to take the side of the protesters.
After a week of unrest, the last tsar abdicated on 2 March, 1917, at the military’s urging, as he watched his conflict-torn country spiral into chaos.
A fragile, provisional government headed by Alexander Kerensky took over.
Lenin returns
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A statue on Lenin in Berlin. Britta Pedersen / PA Images
Britta Pedersen / PA Images / PA Images
After more than a decade of self-imposed exile in western Europe, revolutionary leader Vladimir Ulyanov — alias Lenin — returned to Russia on 3 April, 1917.
Although Russia was at war with Germany at the time, the German authorities allowed Lenin and other dissidents to cross Germany on their way to Petrograd, in the hope it would undermine the Russian war effort.
Upon his arrival, Lenin addressed Bolshevik supporters, denouncing the provisional government and those calling for reconciliation with the monarchists.
In July, Bolshevik organisations were outlawed by the provisional government and Lenin fled to Finland, returning to Russia later that year to lead the October Revolution.
Leon Trotsky, head of the Bolsheviks’ Military Revolutionary Committee, prepared the coup, styling himself as the army chief.
His first decision was to negotiate immediate peace terms with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Attack on the Winter Palace
The Smolny Institute building was chosen by Vladimir Lenin as Bolshevik headquarters during the October Revolution. AP / PA Images
AP / PA Images / PA Images
Overnight 25-26 October, the Aurora cruiser ship, staffed with mutineers, fired a blank shot from the Neva River at the Winter Palace, signalling the start of an assault on what had become the seat of the provisional government.
Led by Trotsky, Bolshevik forces took control of Petrograd’s key infrastructure and government buildings before seizing the Winter Palace, which was guarded by a disorientated motley crew of some a thousand, almost without resistance.
Kerensky’s attempts to organise resistance failed and he escaped.
Power had changed hands.
Lenin’s government
On 27 October Lenin formed a body known as the Council of People’s Commissars — or “Sovnarkom” — that laid the foundation of the Soviet Union.
Future Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Trotsky were council members.
Lenin refused to share power with moderate leftists who had resisted the Bolshevik coup, leading him to create security forces that executed and imprisoned those he viewed as enemies.
The festival of lights for the 100-year anniversary of the great October Revolution. NurPhoto / PA Images
NurPhoto / PA Images / PA Images
The ex-tsar and his family, who had been moved to Yekaterinburg in the Urals after the abdication, were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and their remains hidden — the locations of the bodies remained a secret for much of the 20th century.
Lenin’s government, which established a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, went on to fight a bloody civil war against anti-Bolshevik White Army forces.
The Soviet Union was established in 1922 after their defeat.
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This country is out of control for prices everything is over priced and those responsible blame a free market when it’s clearly price gouging and greed.
It will end in disaster. the government are making thing worse. with no attempt to solve the problem with a public works housing project. instead they pander to speculators and landlords.
@Marcus o Dhonnghaile:
You are right, there will be another crash, maybe soon or it could be 10-15 years away but the first thing that will happen when it does is the banks will withdraw credit and very few ordinary people will have the €150-200k+ needed to buy in cash.
@Patrick Nolan: 10 or 15 years away ???? try two to three years for the next crash the next mini boom is 10 or 15 years away, Thats what we do here boom and bust every 10 to 15 years
@Marcus o Dhonnghaile:
You may be right but then…
In 1998 my father built a bungalow in the country to retire and rented his house in the town to a couple who had sold their house for a “big price” and we’re going to rent for a while and then buy back when it crashed again.
They only stayed a year, house was two big really, so I have no idea what happened to them but I know when the crash came house prices didn’t fall to anywhere near 1998 levels.
As regards we having a 10-15 year cycle, the previous to last crash started in the early eighties, didn’t happen again until 2008, at least 25 years later.
Everyone can predict a crash, but anyone suggesting they know when is only fooling themselves.
Are these figures based on new rents ? If so they don’t take into account most rents payed. But it shows that new rents are dangerously way to high leading to misery for Tenants.
@mursim: Can’t be having a riot while X factor is on TV…the plebs haven’t time…
Can’t be having a riot while the premier league is on TV…the plebs haven’t time…
Can’t be having a riot while the GAA is in full swing the plebs haven’t time…
Looks like the peasants will have to put up with being robbed because they haven’t time…to much on TV…
Sorry but it’s a free market (or at least it was). People with more money will pay more to live near the LUAS. Simple as.
This is the way it should be!
My Wife and relocated to the UK 7 months ago best decision we ever made. Both had good paying professional jobs renting in Dublin trying to save for a mortgage. Constantly Broke and out of the house 12hrs a day. Since we moved we are now mortgage ready. What you would get in Firhouse for €345k the exact same house over here is £130k we are also mortgage ready home from work at 5.45pm every day. We feel like we have a future and time back in our lives. Dublin is over heating and will pop very soon. If I could give advise, if you can get out now before another recession hits. You don’t realise how back it is until you leave.
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