Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
rested in the Small Dining Room behind the Malachite Hall. This largely bloodless
battle would be celebrated for 70 years as the most glorious moment in history.
Vsevolod Pudov-kin's 1927 silent film
End of St Petersburg
was produced
to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution and it re-
mains a landmark for Soviet realist cinema.
At the Tauride Palace the Soviet remained in emergency session late into the night
when Lenin announced that the Provisional Government had been arrested and the
Soviet was now the supreme power in Russia. Half the deputies walked out in disgust.
Never one to miss an opportunity, Lenin quickly called a vote to make it official. It
passed. Incredibly, the Bolsheviks were now in charge.
Act Three: Consolidating Communism
Nobody really believed the Bolsheviks would be around for long. Even Lenin said
that, if they could hold on for just 100 days, their coup would be a success by provid-
ing future inspiration. It was one thing to occupy a few palaces in Petrograd, but
across the empire's far-flung regions Bolshevik-brand radicalism was not so popular.
From 1918 to 1921 civil war raged in Russia: between monarchists and socialists, im-
perialists and nationalists, aristocrats and commoners, believers and atheists. When it
was over, somehow Soviet power was still standing. In the final act of the Russian
Revolution, the scene shifted from the Petrograd stage. The imperial capital would
never be the same.
In December 1917, an armistice was arranged and peace talks began with the Ger-
mans. The Bolsheviks demanded a return to prewar imperial borders, but Germany in-
sisted on the liberation of Poland, where its army was squatting. Trotsky defiantly
walked out of negotiations, declaring 'neither war, nor peace'. The German high com-
mand was a bit confused and not at all amused - hostilities immediately resumed.
Lenin had vowed never to abandon the capital, but that was before a German battle
fleet cruised into the Gulf of Finland. Exit stage left. In 1918 the Bolsheviks vacated
their new pastel digs in Petrograd and relocated behind the ancient red bricks of Mo-
scow. It was supposed to be temporary (Lenin personally preferred St Petersburg). But
Russia was turning inward, and Peter's window to the West was closing.
