Soviet and its Military Revolutionary Committee.
Lenin left a message for his flatmate 'I've gone where you didn't want LO go. Goodbye. Ilyich'. He caught a tram, walked miles and bluffed his way through several checkpoints to reach the Smolny.
Over the Neva in the Liteyniy area, Lenin's route takes you close to the Bolshoy Dom, the secret police's headquarters since Stalin's era and President Putin's old workplace. Surprisingly a statue survives in a nearby park of Felix Dzerzinskhy, the founder of the communists' secret police.
The Guards regiment mutinied 1n this area February 1917 and allied with the Vyborg workers who had crossed frozen Neva. They converged on the unimposing Tauride Palace. Here the St Petersburg Soviet was re-established and the Provisional Committee
Nevertheless a source of disquiet for the Bolsheviks was the Peter and Paul Fortress on an island in the Neva, bristling with guns. Its artillery overlooked the Winter Palace (where the Provisional Government holed up) and its armoury held 100,000 rifles.
Trotsky proposed that the fortress should be taken from the inside - by holding a meeting there. He went there ... and succeeded'?. Thus by the time Lenin arrived at the Smolny, Lazimir, the 18 year old head of the Revolutionary Military Committee Was reporting, 'the Peter and Paul Fortress has just come over to us'1o.
The Fortress is now the best value for money attraction in St Petersburg with a good general museum of the city, a Tsarist prison, a space museum, a cathedral with the tombs of the Romanovs and a beach where Russians bathe even at the height of winter.
The Smolny today houses the Governor's office, but Lenin lived there In October 1917 at the Smolny, Lenin shabby trousers much too long for him' proclaimed the first decrees of the Soviet Government peace and the of private land
Peter and Paul Fortress with Winter Palce across the Neva them go! They are just so much refuse which will be swept away into the garbage heap of history!".
Next morning announcement was made at Smolny that "The Provisional Government is overthrown, the state power has passed into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee." Yet, the Winter Place had still not fallen.
Although the Soviet forces faced little opposition in capturing key points in the city, they were slow to move against the Winter Palace. The Government's troops drifted away reinforcements failed to materialise.
As Trotsky described "The building would hold thousands, but it held nundreds... Many of the officers took refuge in the buffet, where they compelled those Servants who had not yet made their get-away to set out continual batteries wines'!!, ported by armoured cars.
'Under the protection of these steel monsters the attackers felt more and more confident on the square. One
the armoured cars approached the entrance of the palace, [and] ing iS. This prompted the
This prompted the storming of the Palace by Red Guards.
John Reed recalled like a black river, filling all the street, without song or cheer we poured through the Red Arch ...in the open we began to run, stooping low and bunching together 14. However there was no hail of bullets as they crossed Palace Square.
Only four soldiers and one sailor were killed on that historic day. The Winter Palace was taken before the frontal assault. The defenders had been demoralised Dy cruiser Aurora firing (blank cartridges) at them from the river. Then Soviet troops had forced their way in the backdoors and overwhelmed them.
The bourgeois Ministers in the White Dining room were arrested. They signed a proto. col dissolving the Provisional Government at 2.10 a.m. The clock in the room was stopped at this time. The room can be visited on a tour of the Hermitage Art Gallery that occupies the beautiful Winter Place today.
The Aurora still serves as a Russian battleship but can be visited at its mooring in the Neva. Stalls on the nearby quay sell Che Guevara scarves
In October 1917 at the Smolny, Lenin dressed in snaddy clotnes, nis trousers much too long for him'15 proclaimed the first decrees of the Soviet Government calling for peace and the handing over of private land to Peasant Committees and Soviets.
Now dapper Lenin double will pose for a photo with you in a restaurant. St Petersburg feels like a Disneyland for socialists..
However this is no longer a socialist republic and never was magic kingdom Nevertheless dreams can become reality in this city of revoluDon
We can storm into the meeting of the G8 leaders, arrest the war criminals Blair and Bush and proclaim an
Workers Government (in our sleep!). Notes 1 John Reed's eyewitness account of the October 1917 revolution 2 Six Red Months in RussiaLouise Bryant Chapter 3 3 Six Red Months in Russia -Louise Bryant Chapter 3 41905 - Leon Trotsky p284 5 History of the Russian Revolution - Leon Trotsky Volume 1 Ch7 6 History of the Russian Revolution - Leon Trotsky Volume 1 Ch7 7 To the Finland Station -Edmund Wilson p471 8 Ibid p473 9 Year One- Victor Serge Chapter 2 10 Ten Days that shook the world - John Reed p76 11 History of the Russian Revolution - Leon Trotsky Volume 3 Chapter 45 12 Ibid 13 Ibid 14 Ten Days that shook the world - John Reed p108 15 Ten Days that shook the world - John Reed p128