View source for October Revolution

{{Short description|Second of two 1917 revolutions in Russia}}
{{Redirect|Red October||Red October (disambiguation)|and|October Revolution (disambiguation)|and|November Revolution (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = October Revolution
| partof            = the [[Russian Revolution]] and the [[revolutions of 1917–1923]]
| image             = After the capture of the Winter Palace 26 October 1917.jpg
| image_size        = 300px
| caption           = The [[Winter Palace]] of Petrograd, one day after the insurrection, 8 November
| date              = {{OldStyleDateNY|7 November 1917|25 October}}, 
108 years since
| place             = [[Saint Petersburg|Petrograd]], [[Russian Republic]]
| result            = {{ublist|Bolshevik victory}}
* End of [[dual power]]
* Dissolution of the [[Russian Provisional Government]]
* The [[Second All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies' Soviets|Second Congress of Soviets]] proclaims itself as the supreme governing body of the country
* [[Kerensky–Krasnov uprising]] fails to retake the capital
* [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election]] held 
* Beginning of the [[Russian Civil War]]
| combatant1        = {{ubl
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Bolsheviks]]
 | {{flagicon image|Калужская организация левых эсеров.svg}} [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]] 
 | {{flagicon image|Black flag.svg}} [[Anarchism in Russia#October Revolution|Anarchists]]
}}
| combatant2        = {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Russian Republic]]
| commander1        = {{ubl
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Vladimir Lenin]]
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Leon Trotsky]]
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Lev Kamenev]]
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko|Vladimir Ovseenko]]
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Pavel Dybenko]]
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Yakov Sverdlov]]
}}
| commander2        = {{ubl
 | {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Alexander Kerensky]]
 | {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Pyotr Krasnov]]
}}
| strength1         = {{ubli
| 10,000 Red sailors
| 20,000–30,000 Red Guard soldiers
| Unknown number of workers{{efn|50,000 workers passed a resolution in favour of Bolshevik demand for transfer of power to the [[soviets]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Head |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYGNAgAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+50+000+workers&pg=PT83 |title=Evgeny Pashukanis: A Critical Reappraisal |date=12 September 2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-1353-0787-5}}{{page needed|date=December 2024}}</ref>{{Sfn|Shukman|1994|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ScabEAAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+50+000+workers&pg=PA21 21 The Workers: February–October 1917 ]}}}}
}}
| strength2         = {{ubli
| 500–1,000 volunteer soldiers
| 1,000 soldiers of the women's battalion
}}
| casualties1       = Few Red Guard soldiers wounded<ref>{{Cite web |date=9 November 2009 |title=Russian Revolution |url=https://www.history.com/topics/russia/russian-revolution |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230826013759/https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/russian-revolution |archive-date=26 August 2023 |website=HISTORY}}</ref>
| casualties2       = All imprisoned or deserted
}}
{{Campaignbox Russian Revolution}}
{{Campaignbox Russian Civil War}}
[[File:Red Guard Vulkan factory.jpg|thumb|[[Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guard]] unit of the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, October 1917]]
[[File:Kustodiev The Bolshevik.jpg|thumb|''Bolshevik'' (1920) by [[Boris Kustodiev]]]]
[[File:Exterminists' Rise in Power in Russia.png|thumb|''[[The New York Times]]'' headline from 9 November 1917]]

The '''October Revolution''',{{Efn|{{langx|ru|Октябрьская революция|Oktyabrskaya revolyutsiya}}, {{IPA|ru|ɐkˈtʲabrʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə|IPA}}.}} also known as the '''Great October Socialist Revolution'''{{Efn|{{langx|ru|Великая Октябрьская социалистическая революция|Velikaya Oktyabrskaya sotsialisticheskaya revolyutsiya}}, {{IPA|ru|vʲɪˈlʲikəjə ɐkˈtʲabrʲskəjə sətsɨəlʲɪˈsʲtʲitɕɪskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə|}}}} (in [[Historiography in the Soviet Union|Soviet historiography]]), or '''Bolshevik revolution''',<ref>{{Cite web |title=What Was the Bolshevik Revolution? |url=https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-46-our-russian-ally-(1945)/what-was-the-bolshevik-revolution |access-date=1 June 2024 |publisher=American Historical Association}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Russian Revolution, 1917 |encyclopedia=Holocaust Encyclopedia |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-russian-revolution-1917}}</ref> was the second of [[Russian Revolution|two revolutions]] in Russia in 1917. It was led by [[Vladimir Lenin]]'s [[Bolsheviks]] as part of the broader Russian Revolution of 1917–1923. It began through an [[insurrection]] in Petrograd (now [[Saint Petersburg]]) on {{OldStyleDateNY|7 November 1917|25 October}}. It was the precipitating event of the [[Russian Civil War]]. The initial stage of the October Revolution, which involved the assault on Petrograd, occurred largely without any casualties.{{Sfn|Shukman|1994|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ScabEAAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PA343 343]}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bergman |first=Jay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5UKjDwAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PA224 |title=The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture |date=2019 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1988-4270-5 |page=224}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=McMeekin |first=Sean |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aXmZDgAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PT155 |title=The Russian Revolution: A New History |date=30 May 2017 |publisher=Basic |isbn=978-0-4650-9497-4}}{{page needed|date=December 2024}}</ref>

The October Revolution followed and capitalised on the [[February Revolution]] earlier that year, which had led to the [[abdication of Nicholas II]] and the creation of the [[Russian Provisional Government]]. The provisional government, led by [[Alexander Kerensky]], had taken power after [[Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia|Grand Duke Michael]], the younger brother of Nicholas II, declined to take power. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils ([[soviet (council)|soviet]]s) wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and its actions. The provisional government remained unpopular, especially because it was continuing to fight in [[World War I]], and had ruled with an iron fist throughout mid-1917 (including killing hundreds of protesters in the [[July Days]]). It declared the [[Russian Republic]] on 1 [N.S.&nbsp;14] September 1917.

The situation grew critical in late 1917 as the [[Directorate (Russia)|Directorate]], led by the left-wing [[Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (Russia)|Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries]] (SRs), controlled the government. The [[far-left]] Bolsheviks were deeply unhappy with the government, and began spreading calls for a military uprising. On 10 [N.S.&nbsp;23] October 1917, the [[Petrograd Soviet]], led by [[Leon Trotsky]], voted to back a military uprising. On 24 October [N.S.&nbsp;6&nbsp;November], the government closed numerous newspapers, and closed Petrograd, attempting to forestall the revolution; minor armed skirmishes ensued. The next day, a full-scale uprising erupted as a fleet of Bolshevik sailors entered the harbor and tens of thousands of soldiers rose up in support of the Bolsheviks. Bolshevik [[Red Guard (Russia)|Red Guard]]s under the [[Military-Revolutionary Committee]] began to occupy government buildings. In the early morning of 26 October [N.S.&nbsp;8&nbsp;November], they captured the [[Winter Palace]] — the seat of the Provisional government located in Petrograd, then capital of Russia.

As the revolution was not universally recognized, the country descended into [[Russian Civil War|civil war]], which lasted until late 1922 and led to the creation of the [[Soviet Union]]. The historiography of the event has varied. The victorious Soviet Union viewed it as a validation of [[Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|its ideology]] and the [[Communist revolution|triumph of the working class over capitalism]]. On the other hand, the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|western allies later intervened]] against the Bolsheviks in the civil war. The Revolution inspired many cultural works and ignited communist movements globally. [[October Revolution Day]] was a [[public holiday in the Soviet Union]], marking its key role in the state's founding, and many [[communist parties]] around the world still celebrate it.

==Etymology==
Despite occurring in November of the [[Gregorian calendar]], the event is most commonly known as the "October Revolution" ({{Lang|ru|Октябрьская революция}}) because at the time Russia still used the [[Julian calendar]]. The event is sometimes known as the "November Revolution", after the Soviet Union [[Soviet calendar|modernized its calendar]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Russian Revolution – Causes, Timeline & Definition |url=https://www.history.com/topics/russia/russian-revolution |access-date=15 October 2020 |website=www.history.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Russian Revolution {{!}} Definition, Causes, Summary, History, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution |access-date=15 October 2020 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref>{{Sfn|Bunyan|Fisher|1934|p=385}} To avoid confusion, both O.S. and N.S. dates have been given for events. For more details see [[Old Style and New Style dates]]. It was sometimes known as the Bolshevik Revolution, or the Communist Revolution.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Samaan |first=A.E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JkXJZtI9DQoC&q=%22october+uprising%22+%22bolshevik+revolution%22&pg=PA346 |title=From a "Race of Masters" to a "Master Race": 1948 to 1848 |date=2013 |publisher=A.E. Samaan |isbn=978-0-6157-4788-0 |page=346 |access-date=9 February 2017}}</ref>

Initially the event was referred to as the "October coup" ({{Lang|ru|Октябрьский переворот}}) or the "Uprising of the 3rd", as seen in contemporary documents, for example in the first editions of [[Lenin]]'s complete works.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

==Background==

===February Revolution===
{{main|February Revolution}}

The [[February Revolution]] had toppled Tsar [[Nicholas II of Russia]] and replaced his government with the [[Russian Provisional Government]]. However, the provisional government was weak and riven by internal dissension. It continued to wage [[World War I]], which became increasingly unpopular. There was a nationwide crisis affecting social, economic, and political relations. Disorder in industry and transport had intensified, and difficulties in obtaining provisions had increased. Gross industrial production in 1917 decreased by over 36% of what it had been in 1914. In the autumn, as much as 50% of all enterprises in the [[Ural (region)|Urals]], the [[Donbas]], and other industrial centers were closed down, leading to mass unemployment. At the same time, the cost of living increased sharply. Real wages fell to about 50% of what they had been in 1913. By October 1917, Russia's national debt had risen to 50 billion [[rouble]]s. Of this, debts to foreign governments constituted more than 11 billion roubles. The country faced the threat of financial [[bankruptcy]].

=== German support ===
{{See also|April Crisis}}
Vladimir Lenin, who had been living in exile in Switzerland, with other dissidents organized a plan to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with whom Russia was then at war. Recognizing that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens, among them Lenin and his wife, to travel in a [[sealed train]] carriage through their territory.

Upon his arrival in Petrograd on 3 April 1917, Lenin issued his [[April Theses]] that called on the [[Bolsheviks]] to take over the Provisional Government, usurp power, and end the war.

===Unrest by workers, peasants, and soldiers===
Throughout June, July, and August 1917, it was common to hear working-class Russians speak about their lack of confidence in the Provisional Government. Factory workers around Russia felt unhappy with the growing shortages of food, supplies, and other materials. They blamed their managers or foremen and would even attack them in the factories. The workers blamed many rich and influential individuals for the overall shortage of food and poor living conditions. Workers saw these rich and powerful individuals as opponents of the Revolution and called them "bourgeois", "capitalist", and "imperialist".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Steinberg |first=Mark |title=The Russian Revolution 1905–1921 |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1992-2762-4 |location=New York |pages=143–146}}</ref>

In September and October 1917, there were mass [[strike action]]s by the Moscow and Petrograd workers, miners in the Donbas, metalworkers in the Urals, oil workers in [[Baku]], textile workers in the [[Central Industrial Region (Poland)|Central Industrial Region]], and railroad workers on 44 railway lines. In these months alone, more than a million workers took part in strikes. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a [[social revolution]].{{Sfn|Mandel|1984}} Workers organized these strikes through [[factory committee]]s. The factory committees represented the workers and were able to negotiate better working conditions, pay, and hours. Even though workplace conditions may have been increasing in quality, the overall quality of life for workers was not improving. There were still shortages of food and the increased wages workers had obtained did little to provide for their families.<ref name=":0"/>

By October 1917, peasant uprisings were common. By autumn, the peasant movement against the landowners had spread to 482 of 624 counties, or 77% of the country. As 1917 progressed, the peasantry increasingly began to lose faith that the land would be distributed to them by the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Social Revolutionaries]] and the [[Mensheviks]]. Refusing to continue living as before, they increasingly took measures into their own hands, as can be seen by the increase in the number and militancy of the peasant's actions. Over 42% of all the cases of destruction (usually burning down and seizing property from the landlord's estate) recorded between February and October occurred in October.{{Sfn|Trotsky|1932|pages=859–864}} While the uprisings varied in severity, complete uprisings and seizures of the land were not uncommon. Less robust forms of protest included marches on landowner manors and government offices, as well as withholding and storing grains rather than selling them.{{Sfn|Steinberg|2017|pages=196–197}} When the Provisional Government sent punitive detachments, it only enraged the peasants. In September, the garrisons in Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities, the Northern and Western fronts, and the sailors of the [[Baltic Fleet]] declared through their elected representative body [[Tsentrobalt]] that they did not recognize the authority of the Provisional Government and would not carry out any of its commands.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Upton |first=Anthony F. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-iTqvnpRXDEC&pg=PA89 |title=The Finnish Revolution: 1917–1918 |date=1980 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-1-4529-1239-4 |location=Minneapolis, Minnesota |pages=89 |language=en}}</ref>

Soldiers' wives were key players in the unrest in the villages. From 1914 to 1917, almost 50% of healthy men were sent to war, and many were killed on the front, resulting in many females being head of the household. Often—when government allowances were late and were not sufficient to match the rising costs of goods—soldiers' wives sent masses of appeals to the government, which went largely unanswered. Frustration resulted, and these women were influential in inciting "subsistence riots"—also referred to as "hunger riots", "[[pogrom]]s", or "baba riots". In these riots, citizens seized food and resources from shop owners, who they believed to be charging unfair prices. Upon police intervention, protesters responded with "rakes, sticks, rocks, and fists."{{Sfn|Steinberg|2017|pages=193–194}}

===Antiwar demonstrations===
In a diplomatic note of 1 May, the minister of foreign affairs, [[Pavel Milyukov]], expressed the Provisional Government's desire to continue the war against the [[Central Powers]] "to a victorious conclusion", arousing broad indignation. On 1–4 May, about 100,000 workers and soldiers of Petrograd, and, after them, the workers and soldiers of other cities, led by the Bolsheviks, demonstrated under banners reading "Down with the war!" and "All power to the soviets!" The mass demonstrations resulted in a crisis for the Provisional Government.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Richard |last=Pipes |author-link=Richard Pipes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XtE54LuhFzEC&pg=PA407 |title=The Russian Revolution |date=1990 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday |isbn=978-0-3077-8857-3 |page=407}}</ref> 1 July saw more demonstrations, as about 500,000 workers and soldiers in Petrograd demonstrated, again demanding "all power to the soviets," "down with the war," and "down with the ten capitalist ministers." The Provisional Government opened an [[Kerensky Offensive|offensive]] against the Central Powers on 1 July, which soon collapsed. The news of the offensive's failure intensified the struggle of the workers and the soldiers.

===July days===
{{main|July Days}}

[[File:19170704 Riot on Nevsky prosp Petrograd.jpg|thumb|A scene from the July Days. The army has just opened fire on street protesters.]]

On 16 July, spontaneous demonstrations of workers and soldiers began in Petrograd, demanding that power be turned over to the soviets. The Central Committee of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] provided leadership to the spontaneous movements. On 17 July, over 500,000 people participated in what was intended to be a peaceful demonstration in Petrograd, the so-called [[July Days]]. The Provisional Government, with the support of [[Socialist-Revolutionary Party]]-[[Menshevik]] leaders of the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Soviets, ordered an armed attack against the demonstrators, killing hundreds.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kort |first=Michael |title=The Soviet colossus: the rise and fall of the USSR |date=1993 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |isbn=978-0-8733-2676-6 |location=Armonk, NY |page=104}}</ref>

A period of repression followed. On 5–6 July, attacks were made on the editorial offices and printing presses of ''[[Pravda]]'' and on the [[Museum of Political History of Russia (St. Petersburg)|Palace of Kshesinskaya]], where the Central Committee and the Petrograd Committee of the Bolsheviks were located. On 7 July, the government ordered the arrest and trial of [[Vladimir Lenin]], who was forced to go underground, as he had done under the [[Tsarist]] regime. Bolsheviks were arrested, workers were disarmed, and revolutionary military units in Petrograd were disbanded or sent to the war front. On 12 July, the Provisional Government published a law introducing the death penalty at the front. The second coalition government was formed on 24 July, chaired by [[Alexander Kerensky]] and consisted mostly of Socialists.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hickey |first=Michael C. |title=Competing Voices from the Russian Revolution: Fighting Words: Fighting Words |date=2010 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-3133-8524-7 |page=559}}</ref> Kerensky's government introduced a number of liberal rights, such as [[freedom of speech]], equality before the law, and the right to form unions and arrange [[labor strike]]s.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

In response to a Bolshevik appeal, Moscow's working class began a protest strike of 400,000 workers. They were supported by strikes and protest rallies by workers in [[Kiev]]<!--See WP:KIEV-->, [[Kharkov]], [[Nizhny Novgorod]], [[Ekaterinburg]], and other cities.

===Kornilov affair===
{{main|Kornilov affair}}

In what became known as the Kornilov affair, General [[Lavr Kornilov]], who had been Commander-in-Chief since 18 July, with Kerensky's agreement directed an army under [[Aleksandr Krymov]] to march toward Petrograd to restore order.<ref>{{harvnb|Beckett|2007|p=526}}</ref> According to some accounts, Kerensky appeared to become frightened by the possibility that the army would stage a coup, and reversed the order. By contrast, historian [[Richard Pipes]] has argued that the episode was engineered by Kerensky.<ref>{{harvnb|Pipes|1997|p=51|ps=: "There is no evidence of a Kornilov plot, but there is plenty of evidence of Kerensky's duplicity."}}</ref> On 27 August, feeling betrayed by the government, Kornilov pushed on towards Petrograd. With few troops to spare at the front, Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet for help. Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and Socialist Revolutionaries confronted the army and convinced them to stand down.<ref>{{harvnb|Service|1998|p=54}}</ref> The Bolsheviks' influence over railroad and telegraph workers also proved vital in stopping the movement of troops. The political right felt betrayed, and the left was resurgent. The first direct consequence of Kornilov's failed coup was the formal abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of the [[Russian Republic]] on 1 September.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Провозглашена Российская республика |url=https://www.prlib.ru/history/619540 |access-date=6 November 2021 |website=Президентская библиотека имени Б.Н. Ельцина |language=ru}}</ref>

With Kornilov defeated, the Bolsheviks' popularity in the soviets grew significantly, both in the central and local areas. On 31 August, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies—and, on 5 September, the Moscow Soviet Workers Deputies—adopted the Bolshevik resolutions on the question of power. The Bolsheviks were able to take over in [[Briansk]], [[Samara, Russia|Samara]], [[Saratov]], [[Tsaritsyn]], [[Minsk]], Kiev, [[Tashkent]], and other cities.{{Citation needed|date=June 2022}}

==Revolution ==

===Planning===
[[File:CruiserAurora061609.jpg|thumb|Cruiser [[Russian cruiser Aurora|''Aurora'']]]]
[[File:GunAurora061609.jpg|thumb|Forward gun of ''Aurora'' that fired the signal shot]]

On 10 October 1917 (O.S.; 23 October, N.S.), the Bolsheviks' [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] voted 10–2 for a resolution saying that "an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe."<ref name="RevoltApproved">{{Cite web |date=10 October 1917 |title=Central Committee Meeting |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/oct/10a.htm |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> At the Committee meeting, Lenin discussed how the people of Russia had waited long enough for "an armed uprising," and it was the Bolsheviks' time to take power. Lenin expressed his confidence in the success of the planned insurrection. His confidence stemmed from months of Bolshevik buildup of power and successful elections to different committees and councils in major cities such as [[Petrograd]] and Moscow.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steinberg |first=Mark |title=Voices of the Revolution, 1917 |date=2001 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-3001-0169-0 |location=Binghamton, New York |pages=170 |ol=9360660M}}</ref><!-- Beckett notes the CC had explicitly *not* approved armed revolution. --> Membership of the Bolshevik party had risen from 24,000 members in February 1917 to 200,000 members by September 1917.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=Stephen |title=Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography 1888–1938 |date=1980 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=London |page=46}}</ref>

The Bolsheviks created a revolutionary military committee within the Petrograd soviet, led by the Soviet's president, [[Leon Trotsky]]. The committee included armed workers, sailors, and soldiers, and assured the support or neutrality of the capital's garrison. The committee methodically planned to occupy strategic locations through the city, almost without concealing their preparations: the Provisional Government's President Kerensky was himself aware of them; and some details, leaked by [[Lev Kamenev]] and [[Grigory Zinoviev]], were published in newspapers.<ref name="arte">{{Cite news |date=16 September 2007 |title=1917 – La Revolution Russe |url=http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/037647-000/1917-la-revolution-russe |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160201134229/http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/037647-000/1917-la-revolution-russe |archive-date=1 February 2016 |access-date=25 January 2016 |publisher=Arte TV}}</ref><ref name="suny2011">{{Cite book |last=Suny |first=Ronald Grigor |author-link=Ronald Grigor Suny |title=The Soviet Experiment |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=63–67}}</ref>

===Onset===

{{multiple image
 | align = right
 | total_width = 300
 | image1 = Lenin in 1920 (cropped).jpg
 | caption1 = [[Vladimir Lenin]], founder of the [[Soviet Union]] and the leader of the [[Bolshevik party]].
 | image2 = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R15068, Leo Dawidowitsch Trotzki.jpg
 | caption2 = [[Leon Trotsky]], founder of the [[Red Army]] and a key figure in the October Revolution.
}}

In the early morning of 24 October (O.S.; 6 November N.S.), a group of soldiers loyal to [[Directorate (Russia)|Kerensky's government]] marched on the printing house of the Bolshevik newspaper, ''Rabochiy put'' (''Worker's Path''), seizing and destroying printing equipment and thousands of newspapers. Shortly thereafter, the government announced the immediate closure of not only ''Rabochiy put'' but also the left-wing ''Soldat'', as well as the far-right newspapers ''Zhivoe slovo'' and ''Novaia Rus''. The editors and contributors of these newspapers were seen to be calling for insurrection and were to be prosecuted on criminal charges.<ref name=rabinowitch/>

In response, at 9{{nbsp}}a.m. the Bolshevik [[Military Revolutionary Committee]] issued a statement denouncing the government's actions. At 10{{nbsp}}a.m., Bolshevik-aligned soldiers successfully retook the ''Rabochiy put'' printing house. Kerensky responded at approximately 3{{nbsp}}p.m. that afternoon by ordering the raising of all but one of Petrograd's bridges, a tactic used by the government several months earlier during the [[July Days]]. What followed was a series of sporadic clashes over control of the bridges, between [[Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guard]] militias aligned with the Military-Revolutionary Committee and military units still loyal to the government. At approximately 5{{nbsp}}p.m. the Military-Revolutionary Committee seized the Central Telegraph of Petrograd, giving the Bolsheviks control over communications through the city.<ref name=rabinowitch/><ref name="bard">{{Cite web |last=Bard College: Experimental Humanities and Eurasian Studies |title=From Empire To Republic: October 24 – November 1, 1917 |url=https://projects.eh.bard.edu/1917/oct-maps.html |access-date=24 February 2018}}</ref>

On 25 October (O.S.; 7 November, N.S.) 1917, the Bolsheviks led their forces in the uprising in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg, then capital of Russia) against the Provisional Government. The event coincided with the arrival of a pro-Bolshevik flotilla—consisting primarily of five destroyers and their crews, as well as marines—in Petrograd harbor. At [[Kronstadt]], sailors announced their allegiance to the Bolshevik insurrection. In the early morning, from its heavily guarded and picketed headquarters in Smolny Palace, the Military-Revolutionary Committee designated the last of the locations to be assaulted or seized. The Red Guards systematically captured major government facilities, key communication installations, and vantage points with little opposition. The [[Petrograd Soviet|Petrograd Garrison]] and most of the city's military units joined the insurrection against the Provisional Government.<ref name=suny2011/> The insurrection was timed and organized to hand state power to the [[Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies]], which began on this day.

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=left|bgcolor=|quote=After the majority of the petrograd Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, [Trotsky] was elected its chairman and in that position organized and led the insurrection of October 25.|source=Lenin on the organization of the October Revolution, Vol.XIV of the ''Collected Works''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trotsky |first=Leon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rv9oAAAAMAAJ&q=%E2%80%9CAfter+the+majority+of+the+petrograd+Soviet+passed+into+the+hands+of+the+Bolsheviks,+%5BTrotsky%5D+was+elected+its+chairman+and+in+that+position+organized+and+led+the+insurrection+of+October+25 |title=The Stalin School of Falsification |date=1962 |publisher=Pioneer Publishers |page=12 |language=en}}</ref>}}

Kerensky and the Provisional Government were virtually helpless to offer significant resistance. Railways and railway stations had been controlled by Soviet workers and soldiers for days, making rail travel to and from Petrograd impossible for Provisional Government officials. The Provisional Government was also unable to locate any serviceable vehicles. On the morning of the insurrection, Kerensky desperately searched for a means of reaching military forces he hoped would be friendly to the Provisional Government outside the city and ultimately borrowed a [[Renault]] car from the American embassy, which he drove from the Winter Palace, along with a [[Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company|Pierce Arrow]]. Kerensky was able to evade the pickets going up around the palace and to drive to meet approaching soldiers.<ref name=rabinowitch/>

As Kerensky left Petrograd, Lenin wrote a proclamation ''To the Citizens of Russia'', stating that the Provisional Government had been overthrown by the Military-Revolutionary Committee. The proclamation was sent by telegraph throughout Russia, even as the pro-Soviet soldiers were seizing important control centers throughout the city. One of Lenin's intentions was to present members of the Soviet congress, who would assemble that afternoon, with a ''fait accompli'' and thus forestall further debate on the wisdom or legitimacy of taking power.<ref name=rabinowitch/>

===Assault on the Winter Palace===
A final assault against the [[Winter Palace]]—against 3,000 cadets, officers, cossacks, and female soldiers—was not vigorously resisted.<ref name="rabinowitch">{{harvnb|Rabinowitch|2004|pages=273–305}}</ref><ref name="beckett528">{{harvnb|Beckett|2007|p=528}}</ref> The Bolsheviks delayed the assault because they could not find functioning artillery.<ref>{{harvnb|Rabinowitch|2004}}</ref> At 6:15{{nbsp}}p.m., a large group of artillery cadets abandoned the palace, taking their artillery with them. At 8:00{{nbsp}}p.m., 200 cossacks left the palace and returned to their barracks.<ref name=rabinowitch/>
[[File:Ivan Vladimirov the-pogrom-of-the-winter-palace.jpg!HD.jpg|thumb|300px|"Pogrom in the Winter Palace" by [[Ivan Vladimirov]]]]
While the cabinet of the provisional government within the palace debated what action to take, the Bolsheviks issued an ultimatum to surrender. Workers and soldiers occupied the last of the telegraph stations, cutting off the cabinet's communications with loyal military forces outside the city. As the night progressed, crowds of insurgents surrounded the palace, and many infiltrated it.<ref name=rabinowitch/> At 9:45{{nbsp}}p.m, the cruiser [[Russian cruiser Aurora|''Aurora'']] fired a blank shot from the harbor. Some of the revolutionaries entered the palace at 10:25{{nbsp}}p.m. and there was a mass entry 3 hours later.

By 2:10{{nbsp}}a.m. on 26 October, Bolshevik forces had gained control. The cadets and the 140 volunteers of the [[Women's Battalion]] surrendered rather than resist the 40,000 strong attacking force.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lynch |first=Michael |title=Reaction and revolution : Russia 1894–1924 |publisher=Hodder Education |date=2015 |isbn=978-1-4718-3856-9 |edition=4th |location=London |oclc=908064756}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Raul Edward Chao |title=Damn the Revolution! |date=2016 |publisher=Dupont Circle Editions |location=Washington DC, London, Sydney |page=191}}</ref> After sporadic gunfire throughout the building, the cabinet of the Provisional Government surrendered, and were imprisoned in [[Peter and Paul Fortress]]. The only member who was not arrested was Kerensky himself, who had already left the palace.<ref name=rabinowitch/><ref>{{Cite web |title=1917 Free History |url=http://www.project1917.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108180902/https://project1917.com |archive-date=8 November 2017 |access-date=8 November 2017 |website=Yandex Publishing}}</ref>

With the Petrograd Soviet now in control of government, garrison, and proletariat, the Second All Russian Congress of Soviets held its opening session on the day, while Trotsky dismissed the opposing [[Mensheviks]] and the [[Socialist Revolutionaries]] (SR) from Congress.

===Dybenko's disputed role===
Some sources contend that as the leader of [[Tsentrobalt]], [[Pavlo Dybenko]] played a crucial role in the revolt and that the ten warships that arrived at the city with ten thousand [[Baltic Fleet]] mariners were the force that took the power in Petrograd and put down the Provisional Government. The same mariners then dispersed by force the [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|elected parliament]] of Russia,<ref>{{Cite web |title=ВОЕННАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА – [ Мемуары ] – Дыбенко П.Е. Из недр царского флота к Великому Октябрю |url=http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/dybenko/index.html |website=militera.lib.ru |language=ru}}</ref> and used machine-gun fire against demonstrators in Petrograd,{{Citation needed|reason=This is a strong claim that needs proper sourcing to remain in this article|date=February 2018}} killing about 100 demonstrators and wounding several hundred.{{Citation needed|reason=These claims are disputed below and are unsourced|date=February 2018}} Dybenko in his memoirs mentioned this event as "several shots in the air". These are disputed by various sources, such as [[Louise Bryant]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bryant |first=Louise |url=https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bryant/russia/russia.html |title=Six Red Months in Russia: An Observer's Account of Russia Before and During the Proletarian Dictatorship |date=1918 |publisher=George H. Doran Company |location=New York |pages=60–61 |access-date=5 December 2021}}</ref> who claims that news outlets in the West at the time reported that the unfortunate loss of life occurred in Moscow, not Petrograd, and the number was much less than suggested above. As for the "several shots in the air", there is little evidence suggesting otherwise.

===Later Soviet portrayal===
While the seizure of the Winter Palace happened almost without resistance, Soviet historians and officials later tended to depict the event in dramatic and heroic terms.<ref name=suny2011/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schell |first=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Schell |title=[[The Unconquerable World|The Unconquerable World. Power, nonviolence and the will of the people]] |date=2003 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9780805044577 |location=London |pages=167–185 |chapter=The Mass Minority in Action: France and Russia' |ol=36779W |chapter-url=http://www.chrisknight.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/The-Mass-Minority-in-Action.pdf}}</ref><ref>(See a first-hand account by British General [[Alfred Knox]].)</ref> The [[historical reenactment]] titled ''[[The Storming of the Winter Palace]]'' was staged in 1920. This reenactment, watched by 100,000 spectators, provided the model for official films made later, which showed fierce fighting during the storming of the Winter Palace,<ref>{{Cite AV media |title=[[October: Ten Days That Shook the World]] |date=1928 |last=Eisenstein |first=Sergei M. |author-link=Sergei Eisenstein |last2=Aleksandrov |first2=Grigori |author-link2=Grigori Aleksandrov |type=Motion picture |publisher=First National Pictures}}</ref> although, in reality, the Bolshevik insurgents had faced little opposition.<ref name="beckett528"/>

Later accounts of the heroic "storming of the Winter Palace" and "defense of the Winter Palace" were propaganda by Bolshevik publicists. Grandiose paintings depicting the "Women's Battalion" and photo stills taken from [[Sergei Eisenstein]]'s staged film depicting the "politically correct" version of the October events in Petrograd came to be taken as truth.<ref>''[[Argumenty I Fakty]]'' newspaper</ref>

[[Historical negationism|Historical falsification]] of political events such as the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk Treaty became a distinctive element of Stalin's regime. A notable example is the 1938 publication, ''[[History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)]]'',<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Suny |first=Ronald Grigor |author-link=Ronald Grigor Suny |date=2 January 2022 |title=Stalin, Falsifier in Chief: E. H. Carr and the Perils of Historical Research Introduction |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546545.2022.2065740 |journal=Revolutionary Russia |language=en |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=11–14 |doi=10.1080/09546545.2022.2065740 |issn=0954-6545}}</ref> in which the history of the governing party was significantly altered and revised including the importance of the leading figures during the Bolshevik revolution. Retrospectively, Lenin's primary associates such as Zinoviev, Trotsky, [[Radek]] and Bukharin were presented as "vacillating", "opportunists" and "foreign spies" whereas Stalin was depicted as the chief discipline during the revolution. However, in reality, Stalin was considered a relatively unknown figure with secondary importance at the time of the event.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bailey |first=Sydney D. |date=1955 |title=Stalin's Falsification of History: The Case of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/126074 |journal=The Russian Review |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=24–35 |doi=10.2307/126074 |issn=0036-0341 |jstor=126074|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In his book, ''[[The Stalin School of Falsification]]'', Leon Trotsky argued that the Stalinist faction routinely distorted historical events and the importance of Bolshevik figures especially during the October Revolution. He cited a range of historical documents such as private letters, telegrams, party speeches, meeting [[minutes]], and suppressed texts such as [[Lenin's Testament]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trotsky |first=Leon |author-link=Leon Trotsky |title=The Stalin School of Falsification |date=13 January 2019 |publisher=Pickle Partners Publishing |isbn=978-1-7891-2348-7 |editor-last=Shachtman |editor-first=Max |pages=vii-89 |language=en |orig-date=1932}}</ref>

==Outcome==
{{See also|Russian Revolution|Kerensky–Krasnov uprising|Moscow Bolshevik Uprising|Kiev Bolshevik Uprising}}
[[File:Milrevkom proclamation.jpg|thumb|right|Petrograd [[Milrevcom]] proclamation about the deposing of the [[Russian Provisional Government]]]]
[[File:Russian Constituent Assembly Election 1917.svg|thumb|upright=1.76|The elections to the [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|Constituent Assembly]] took place in November 1917. The Bolsheviks won 24% of the vote.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Constituent Assembly |url=http://www.jewhistory.ort.spb.ru/eng/main/sprav.php?id=1374 |website=jewhistory.ort.spb.ru}}</ref>]]
[[File:Protección del Palacio Tauride durante el Segundo Congreso Regional de los Soviets.jpg|thumb|The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on 6 January 1918. The [[Tauride Palace]] is locked and guarded by [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]], [[Yakov Sverdlov|Sverdlov]], [[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]], and [[Mikhail Lashevich|Lashevich]].]]

===New government established===

Lenin initially turned down the leading position of [[Premier of the Soviet Union|Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars]] when the Bolsheviks formed a new government, after the October Revolution in 1917, and suggested Trotsky for the position. However, Trotsky refused the position and other Bolsheviks insisted that Lenin assume principal responsibility which resulted in Lenin eventually accepting the role of chairman.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pipes |first=Richard |url=https://archive.org/details/russianrevolutio00pipe/page/498/mode/2up?view=theater |title=The Russian Revolution |date=1990 |publisher=New York : Knopf |isbn=978-0-3945-0241-0 |page=499}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Deutscher |first=Isaac |url=https://archive.org/details/prophetarmedtrot01deut/page/324/mode/2up |title=The prophet armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921 |date=1954 |publisher=New York, Oxford University Press |page=325}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sukhanov |first=Nikolai Nikolaevich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6-D_AwAAQBAJ |title=The Russian Revolution 1917: A Personal Record by N.N. Sukhanov |date=14 July 2014 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-5710-4 |page=266 |language=en}}</ref>

The Second Congress of Soviets consisted of 670 elected delegates: 300 were Bolsheviks and nearly 100 were Left [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist-Revolutionaries]], who also supported the overthrow of the [[Alexander Kerensky]] government.<ref>Service, Robert (1998). A history of twentieth-century Russia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|0-6744-0347-9}} p. 65</ref> When the fall of the Winter Palace was announced, the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution.

The transfer of power was not without disagreement. The center and right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Mensheviks, believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had [[Coup d'état|illegally seized power]] and they walked out before the resolution was passed. As they exited, they were taunted by Trotsky who told them "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!"<ref>{{harvnb|Reed|1997|p=217}}</ref>

The following day, 26 October, the Congress elected a new cabinet of Bolsheviks, pending the convocation of a [[Russian Constituent Assembly|Constituent Assembly]]. This new Soviet government was known as the council (Soviet) of People's Commissars ([[Sovnarkom]]), with Lenin as a leader. Lenin allegedly approved of the name, reporting that it "smells of revolution".{{Sfn|Steinberg|2001|pages=251}} The cabinet quickly passed the [[Decree on Peace]] and the [[Decree on Land]]. This new government was also officially called "provisional" until the Assembly was dissolved.

===Anti-Bolshevik sentiment===
That same day, posters were pinned on walls and fences by the Socialist Revolutionaries, describing the takeover as a "crime against the motherland" and "revolution"; this signaled the next wave of anti-Bolshevik sentiment. The next day, the Mensheviks seized power in [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] and declared it an independent republic; the [[Don Cossacks]] also claimed control of their government. The Bolshevik strongholds were in the cities, particularly Petrograd, with support much more mixed in rural areas. The peasant-dominated Left SR party was in coalition with the Bolsheviks. There were reports that the Provisional Government had not conceded defeat and were meeting with the army at the Front.

Anti-Bolshevik sentiment continued to grow as posters and newspapers started criticizing the actions of the Bolsheviks and repudiated their authority. The executive committee of Peasants Soviets "[refuted] with indignation all participation of the organized peasantry in this criminal violation of the will of the working class".<ref>{{harvnb|Reed|1997|p=369}}</ref> This eventually developed into major counter-revolutionary action, as on 30 October (O.S., 12 November, N.S.) when [[Cossacks]], welcomed by church bells, entered [[Tsarskoye Selo]] on the outskirts of Petrograd with Kerensky riding on a white horse. Kerensky gave an ultimatum to the rifle garrison to lay down weapons, which was promptly refused. They were then fired upon by Kerensky's Cossacks, which resulted in 8 deaths. This turned soldiers in Petrograd against Kerensky as being the Tsarist regime. Kerensky's failure to assume authority over troops was described by [[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]] as a "fatal blunder" that signaled the final end of his government.<ref>{{harvnb|Reed|1997|p=410}}</ref> Over the following days, the battle against the anti-Bolsheviks continued. The Red Guard fought against Cossacks at Tsarskoye Selo, with the Cossacks breaking rank and fleeing, leaving their artillery behind. On 31 October 1917 (13 November, N.S.), the Bolsheviks gained control of Moscow after a week of bitter street-fighting. Artillery had been freely used, with an estimated 700 casualties. However, there was continued support for Kerensky in some of the provinces.

After the fall of Moscow, there was only minor public anti-Bolshevik sentiment, such as the newspaper ''[[Novaya Zhizn]]'', which criticized the Bolsheviks' lack of manpower and organization in running their party, let alone a government. Lenin confidently claimed that there is "not a shadow of hesitation in the masses of Petrograd, Moscow and the rest of Russia" in accepting Bolshevik rule.<ref>{{harvnb|Reed|1997|p=565}}</ref>

===Governmental reforms===
On 10 November 1917 (23 November, N.S.), the government applied the term "citizens of the Russian Republic" to Russians, whom they sought to make equal in all possible respects, by the nullification of all "legal designations of civil inequality, such as estates, titles, and ranks."<ref name="Steinberg 2001 257">{{Harvnb|Steinberg|2001|page=257}}</ref>

The long-awaited [[Russian Constituent Assembly|Constituent Assembly]] [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|elections]] were held on 12 November (O.S., 25 November, N.S.) 1917. In contrast to their majority in the Soviets, the Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]], which won 370 seats, although the SR Party no longer existed as a whole party by that time, as the Left SRs had gone into coalition with the Bolsheviks from October 1917 to March 1918 (a cause of dispute of the legitimacy of the returned seating of the Constituent Assembly, as the old lists, were drawn up by the old SR Party leadership, and thus represented mostly Right SRs, whereas the peasant soviet deputies had returned majorities for the pro-Bolshevik Left SRs). The Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November (O.S.) 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January (O.S.; 18 January, N.S.) 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the Constituent Assembly came into conflict with the Soviets, and it rejected Soviet decrees on peace and land, resulting in the Constituent Assembly being dissolved the next day by order of the Congress of Soviets.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Llewellyn |first=Jennifer |last2=Rae |first2=John |last3=Thompson |first3=Steve |date=2014 |title=The Constituent Assembly |url=http://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/constituent-assembly |access-date=7 March 2022 |publisher=Alpha History}}</ref>

On 16 December 1917 (29 December, N.S.), the government ventured to eliminate hierarchy in the army, removing all titles, ranks, and uniform decorations. The tradition of saluting was also eliminated.<ref name="Steinberg 2001 257"/>

On 20 December 1917 (2 January 1918, N.S.), the [[Cheka]] was created by Lenin's decree.{{Sfn|Figes|1996}} These were the beginnings of the Bolsheviks' consolidation of power over their political opponents. The [[Red Terror]] began in September 1918, following a failed assassination attempt on Lenin. The French [[Reign of Terror|Jacobin Terror]] was an example for the Soviet Bolsheviks. Trotsky had compared Lenin to [[Maximilien Robespierre]] as early as 1904, when Trotsky was a critic of Lenin and his political opponent within the Marxist movement.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pipes |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Pipes |title=The Russian Revolution |date=2011 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday |isbn=978-0-3077-8857-3 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XtE54LuhFzEC&pg=PA789 789]}}</ref> In his book, ''[[Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky]],'' Trotsky argued that the reign of terror began with the [[White Terror (Russia)|White Terror]] under the [[White movement|White Guard]] forces and the Bolsheviks responded with the [[Red Terror]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kline |first=George L. |title=The Trotsky reappraisal |date=1992 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-0317-6 |editor-last=Brotherstone |editor-first=Terence |page=158 |translator-last=Drummond |translator-first=Andrew |chapter=In Defence of Terrorism |editor-last2=Dukes |editor-first2=Paul |translator-last2=Pearce |translator-first2=Brian |translator-last3=Brine |translator-first3=J. J.}}</ref>

The Decree on Land ratified the actions of the peasants who throughout Russia had taken private land and redistributed it among themselves. The Bolsheviks viewed themselves as representing an alliance of workers and peasants signified by the [[Hammer and Sickle]] on the [[Flag of the Soviet Union|flag]] and the [[Coat of Arms of the Soviet Union|coat of arms of the Soviet Union]].
Other decrees:
*All [[private property]] was [[nationalized]] by the government.
*All [[Banking in Russia|Russian banks]] were nationalized.
*Private [[bank account]]s were expropriated.
*The properties of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] (including bank accounts) were expropriated.
*All [[External debt|foreign debts]] were repudiated.
*Control of the factories was given to the soviets.
*Wages were fixed at higher rates than during the war, and a shorter, [[Eight-hour day|eight-hour working day]] was introduced.

==Timeline of the spread of Soviet power (Gregorian calendar dates)==
{{see also|Establishment of Soviet power in Russia (1917–1918)}}
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* 5 November 1917: [[Tallinn]].
* 7 November 1917: [[Petrograd]], [[Minsk]], [[Novgorod]], [[Ivanovo-Voznesensk]] and [[Tartu]]
* 8 November 1917: [[Ufa]], [[Kazan]], [[Yekaterinburg]], and Narva; ([[Kiev Bolshevik Uprising|failed]] in [[Kiev]])
* 9 November 1917: [[Vitebsk]], [[Yaroslavl]], [[Saratov]], [[Samara]], and [[Izhevsk]]
* 10 November 1917: [[Rostov, Yaroslavl Oblast|Rostov]], [[Tver]], and [[Nizhny Novgorod]]
* 12 November 1917: [[Voronezh]], [[Smolensk]], and [[Gomel]]
* 13 November 1917: [[Tambov]]
* 14 November 1917: [[Oryol|Orel]] and [[Perm, Russia|Perm]]
* 15 November 1917: [[Pskov]], Moscow, and [[Baku]]
* 27 November 1917: [[Tsaritsyn]]
* 1 December 1917: [[Mogilev]]
* 8 December 1917: [[Kirov, Kirov Oblast|Vyatka]]
* 10 December 1917: [[Kishinev]]
* 11 December 1917: [[Kaluga]]
* 14 December 1917: [[Novorossisk]]
* 15 December 1917: [[Kostroma]]
* 20 December 1917: [[Tula, Russia|Tula]]
* 24 December 1917: [[Kharkov]] (invasion of Ukraine by the Muravyov Red Guard forces, the establishment of Soviet Ukraine and [[Ukrainian-Soviet war|hostilities in the region]])
* 29 December 1917: [[Sevastopol]] (invasion of Crimea by the Red Guard forces, the establishment of the [[Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic]])
* 4 January 1918: [[Penza]]
* 11 January 1918: [[Yekaterinoslav]]
* 17 January 1918: [[Petrozavodsk]]
* 19 January 1918: [[Poltava]]
* 22 January 1918: [[Zhitomir]]
* 26 January 1918: [[Simferopol]]
* 27 January 1918: [[Mikolaiv|Nikolayev]]
* 29 January 1918: ([[Kiev Bolshevik Uprising|failed]] again in Kiev)
* 31 January 1918: [[Odessa]] and [[Orenburg]] (establishment of the [[Odessa Soviet Republic]])
* 7 February 1918: [[Astrakhan]]
* 8 February 1918: Kiev and [[Vologda]] (defeat of the Ukrainian government)
* 17 February 1918: [[Arkhangelsk]]
* 25 February 1918: [[Novocherkassk]]
{{col div end}}

==Russian Civil War==
[[File:Russian civil war in the west.svg|thumb|European theatre of the [[Russian Civil War]] in 1918]]{{Main|Russian Civil War}}

Bolshevik-led attempts to gain power in other parts of the [[Russian Empire]] were largely successful in Russia proper—although the fighting in Moscow lasted for two weeks—but they were less successful in ethnically non-Russian parts of the Empire, which had been clamoring for independence since the February Revolution. For example, the Ukrainian [[Rada]], which had declared autonomy on 23 June 1917, created the [[Ukrainian People's Republic]] on 20 November, which was supported by the Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. This led to an armed conflict with the Bolshevik government in Petrograd and, eventually, a [[Ukrainian State|Ukrainian declaration of independence from Russia on 25 January 1918]].<ref>See [http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/S/T/StruggleforIndependence1917hD720.htm Encyclopedia of Ukraine] online</ref> In [[Estonia]], two rival governments emerged: the [[1917 Estonian Provincial Assembly election|Estonian Provincial Assembly]], established in April 1917, proclaimed itself the supreme legal authority of Estonia on 28 November 1917 and issued the [[Estonian Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]] on 24 February 1918;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Miljan |first=Toivo |title=Historical Dictionary of Estonia." Historical Dictionary of Estonia |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |date=2015 |isbn=978-0-8108-7513-5 |p=169}}</ref> but Soviet Russia recognized the executive committee of the Soviets of Estonia as the legal authority in [[Autonomous Governorate of Estonia|the province]], although the Soviets in Estonia controlled only the capital and a few other major towns.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Raun |first=Toivo U. |isbn=978-0-8179-2853-7 |chapter=7. The Emergence of Estonian Independence 1917–1920 |title=Estonia and the Estonians |publisher=Hoover Inst. Press |date=2002 |p=102}}</ref>

After the success of the October Revolution transformed the Russian state into a soviet republic, a coalition of anti-Bolshevik groups attempted to unseat the new government in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1922. In an attempt to intervene in the civil war after the Bolsheviks' separate peace with the [[Central Powers]] ([[German Empire|Germany]] and the [[Ottoman Empire]]), the [[Allies of World War I|Allied Powers]] (the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]], [[French Third Republic|France]], [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]], the [[United States]], and [[Empire of Japan|Japan]]) [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|occupied parts of the Soviet Union]] for over two years before finally withdrawing.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ward |first=John |title=With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia |date=2004 |publisher=Dodo Press |isbn=1-4099-0680-9 |page=91}}</ref> By the end of the violent civil war, Russia's economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged, and as many as 10 million perished during the war, mostly civilians.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Russian Civil War – Casualties and consequences of the war |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention#ref283723 |date=29 May 2024}}</ref> Millions became [[White émigré]]s,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schaufuss |first=Tatiana |date=May 1939 |title=The White Russian Refugees |journal=Annals of the [[American Academy of Political and Social Science]] |publisher=[[SAGE Publishing]] |volume=203 |pages=45–54 |doi=10.1177/000271623920300106 |jstor=1021884 |s2cid=143704019}}</ref> and the [[Russian famine of 1921–1922]] claimed up to five million victims.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Haller |first=Francis |date=8 December 2003 |title=Famine in Russia: the hidden horrors of 1921 |url=https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/article/other/5rfhjy.htm |website=[[Le Temps]] |publisher=[[International Committee of the Red Cross]]}}</ref> The United States did not recognize the new Russian government until 1933. The European powers recognized the Soviet Union in the early 1920s and began to engage in business with it after the [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP) was implemented.{{citation needed|date=February 2019}}

==Historiography==
{{Marxism–Leninism sidebar|History}}

There have been few events where the political opinions of researchers have influenced their historical research as significantly as the October Revolution.<ref>{{harvnb|Acton|1997|p=5}}</ref> Generally, the [[historiography]] of the Revolution generally divides into three camps: Soviet-Marxist, Western-Totalitarian, and Revisionist.<ref>{{harvnb|Acton|1997|pp=5–7}}</ref>

===Soviet historiography===
[[Historiography in the Soviet Union|Soviet historiography]] of the October Revolution is intertwined with Soviet historical development. Many of the initial Soviet interpreters of the Revolution were themselves Bolshevik revolutionaries.<ref name="Kotkin 1998">{{Cite journal |last=Kotkin |first=Stephen |date=1998 |title=1991 and the Russian Revolution: Sources, Conceptual Categories, Analytical Frameworks |journal=The Journal of Modern History |publisher=University of Chicago Press |volume=70 |issue=2 |pages=384–425 |doi=10.1086/235073 |issn=0022-2801 |s2cid=145291237}}</ref> Bolshevik figures such as [[Anatoly Lunacharsky]], [[Moisei Uritsky]] and [[Dmitry Manuilsky]] agreed that Lenin's influence on the Bolshevik party was decisive but the October insurrection was carried out according to Trotsky's, not to Lenin's plan.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Deutscher |first=Isaac |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-7816-8721-5 |page=1283 |language=en}}</ref> After the initial wave of revolutionary narratives, Soviet historians worked within "narrow guidelines" defined by the Soviet government. The rigidity of interpretive possibilities reached its height under Stalin.{{Sfn|Acton|1997|p=7}}

Soviet historians of the Revolution interpreted the October Revolution as being about establishing the legitimacy of [[Marxist ideology]] and the Bolshevik government. To establish the accuracy of Marxist ideology, Soviet historians generally described the Revolution as the product of [[class struggle]] and that it was the supreme event in a world history governed by historical laws. The Bolshevik Party is placed at the center of the Revolution, as it exposes the errors of both the moderate Provisional Government and the spurious "socialist" Mensheviks in the Petrograd Soviet. Guided by Lenin's leadership and his firm grasp of scientific [[Marxist Theory|Marxist theory]], the Party led the "logically predetermined" events of the October Revolution from beginning to end. The events were, according to these historians, logically predetermined because of the socio-economic development of Russia, where monopolistic industrial capitalism had alienated the masses. In this view, the Bolshevik party took the leading role in organizing these alienated industrial workers, and thereby established the construction of the first [[socialist state]].{{Sfn|Acton|1997|p=8}}

Although Soviet historiography of the October Revolution stayed relatively constant until 1991, it did undergo some changes. Following Stalin's death, historians such as [[Eduard Burdzhalov|E. N. Burdzhalov]] and P.&nbsp;V.&nbsp;Volobuev published historical research that deviated significantly from the party line in refining the doctrine that the Bolshevik victory "was predetermined by the state of Russia's socio-economic development".<ref>{{Cite book |first=Alter |last=Litvin |title=Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia |location=New York |publisher=Palgrave |date=2001 |pp=49–50}}</ref> These historians, who constituted the "New Directions Group", posited that the complex nature of the October Revolution "could only be explained by a multi-causal analysis, not by recourse to the mono-causality of monopoly capitalism".<ref>{{Cite book |first=Roger |last=Markwick |title=Rewriting History in Soviet Russia: The Politics of Revisionist Historiography |location=New York |publisher=Palgrave |date=2001 |page=97}}</ref> For them, the central actor is still the Bolshevik party, but this party triumphed "because it alone could solve the preponderance of 'general democratic' tasks the country faced" (such as the struggle for peace and the exploitation of landlords).{{Sfn|Markwick|2001|p=102}}

During the late Soviet period, the opening of select [[State Archive of the Russian Federation|Soviet archives]] during [[glasnost]] sparked innovative research that broke away from some aspects of Marxism–Leninism, though the key features of the orthodox Soviet view remained intact.{{Sfn|Acton|1997|p=7}}

Following the turn of the 21st century, some Soviet historians began to implement an "anthropological turn" in their historiographical analysis of the Russian Revolution. This method of analysis focuses on the average person's experience of day-to-day life during the revolution, and pulls the analytical focus away from larger events, notable revolutionaries, and overarching claims about party views.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=S. A. |date=2015 |title=The historiography of the Russian Revolution 100 Years On |journal=Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=733–749 |doi=10.1353/kri.2015.0065 |s2cid=145202617}}</ref> In 2006, S. V. Iarov employed this methodology when he focused on citizen adjustment to the new Soviet system. Iarov explored the dwindling labor protests, evolving forms of debate, and varying forms of politicization as a result of the new Soviet rule from 1917 to 1920.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Iarov |first=S.V. |date=2006 |title=Konformizm v Sovetskoi Rossii: Petrograd, 1917–20 |journal=Evropeiskii Dom |language=ru}}</ref> In 2010, O. S. Nagornaia took interest in the personal experiences of Russian prisoners-of-war taken by [[German Empire|Germany]], examining Russian soldiers and officers' ability to cooperate and implement varying degrees of [[autocracy]] despite being divided by class, political views, and race.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nagornaia |first=O. S. |date=2010 |title=Drugoi voennyi opyt: Rossiiskie voennoplennye Pervoi mirovoi voiny v Germanii (1914–1922) |journal=Novyi Khronograf |language=ru}}</ref> Other analyses following this "anthropological turn" have explored texts from soldiers and how they used personal war-experiences to further their political goals,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Morozova |first=O. M. |date=2010 |title=Dva akta dreamy: Boevoe proshloe I poslevoennaia povsednevnost ' veteran grazhdanskoi voiny |journal=Rostov-on-Don: Iuzhnyi Nauchnyi Tsentr Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk |language=ru}}</ref> as well as how individual life-structure and psychology may have shaped major decisions in the civil war that followed the revolution.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=O. M. |last=Morozova |date=2007 |title=Antropologiia grazhdanskoi voiny |journal=Rostov-on-Don: Iuzhnyi Nauchnyi Tsentr RAN |language=ru}}</ref>

===Western historiography===
{{see also|Soviet and communist studies|Totalitarianism#Politics of historical interpretation}}
==== "Totalitarian" historians ====
During the [[Cold War]], Western historiography of the October Revolution developed in direct response to the assertions of the Soviet view. As a result, Western historians exposed what they believed were flaws in the Soviet view, thereby undermining the Bolsheviks' original legitimacy, as well as the precepts of Marxism.{{Sfn|Acton|1997|pp=6–7}} The view which originated in the early years of the Cold War became known as "traditionalist" and "totalitarian" as well as "Cold War" historians for relying on concepts and interpretations rooted in the early years of the Cold War and even in the sphere Russian [[White émigré]]s of the 1920s.{{Sfn|Acton|1997|pp=4–13}}<ref name="mawdsley">{{Cite book |last=Mawdsley |first=Evan |author-link=Evan Mawdsley |title=The Russian Civil War|year=2011|publisher=Birlinn |isbn=9780857901231}}</ref>

These "traditionalist" historians described the revolution as the result of a chain of contingent accidents. Examples of these accidental and contingent factors they say precipitated the Revolution included [[World War&nbsp;I]]'s timing, chance, and the poor leadership of Tsar Nicholas&nbsp;II as well as that of liberal and moderate socialists.{{Sfn|Acton|1997|p=7}} According to "totalitarian" historians, it was not popular support, but rather a manipulation of the masses, ruthlessness, and the party discipline of the Bolsheviks that enabled their triumph. For these historians, the Bolsheviks' defeat in the [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|Constituent Assembly elections]] of November–December 1917 demonstrated popular opposition to the Bolsheviks' revolution, as did the scale and breadth of the Civil War.{{Sfn|Acton|1997|pp=7–9}}

"Totalitarian" historians saw the organization of the Bolshevik party as totalitarian. Their interpretation of the October Revolution as a violent coup organized by a totalitarian party which aborted Russia's experiment in democracy.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Norbert |last=Francis |url=http://www.ijors.net/issue6_2_2017/pdf/__www.ijors.net_issue6_2_2017_article_2_francis.pdf |title=Revolution in Russia and China: 100 Years |journal=International Journal of Russian Studies |volume=6 |issue=July 2017 |pp=130–143}}</ref> Thus, Stalinist totalitarianism developed as a natural progression from [[Leninism]] and the Bolshevik party's tactics and organization.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hanson |first=Stephen E. |title=Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions |date=1997 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-4615-5 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=wSaLSRHnoygC&pg=PA130 130]}}</ref> To these historians, Soviet Russia in 1917 was as totalitarian as the USSR under Joseph Stalin in 1930s.<ref name="mawdsley"/> More to it, such historians have blamed Lenin and the Bolsheviks for inventing policies further implemented by totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, such as the [[Holocaust]]: for example, according to [[Richard Pipes]], a prominent "totalitarian", "The Stalinist and Nazi holocausts" stemmed from Lenin's [[Red Terror]] and had "much greater decorum" than the latter.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Suny |first=Ronald Grigor |author-link=Ronald Grigor Suny |title=Red Flag Unfurled: History, Historians and the Russian Revolution |date=2017 |publisher= Verso Books}}</ref>

==== "Revisionist" historians ====
The 1960s-1970s saw a rise of a young historians who opposed the "totalitarian" historians and began challenging, revising and refuting the dominant and accepted conceptions, as well as criticizing the bias towards the USSR and the Left in general; they lacked a full-fledged doctrine or philosophy of history, but were distinguished as "revisionists"; in contrast with the focus of "totalitarian" historians on "politics" "from above" and on personalities of the leaders of political movements, "the one man", the revisionists have produced "history from below" and put attention on social history.{{Sfn|Acton|1997|pp=4–13}}<ref name="mawdsley"/> These historians tend to see a rupture between Stalinist totalitarianism and Leninism and refute the definition of the Revolution as a totalitarian coup carried out by a minority group; the 'revisionists' stress the genuinely 'popular' nature of the Bolshevik Revolution. According to [[Evan Mawdsley]], "the 'revisionist' school had been dominant from the 1970s" in academic circles, and achieved "some success" in challenging the traditionalists;<ref name="mawdsley"/> however, they continued to be criticized by "totalitarians" who accused them of "Marxism" and failing to see the primary reason of political events, the personality of the leaders. During the rise of the "revisionists", "totalitarians" retained popularity and influence outside academic circles, especially in politics and public spheres of the [[United States]], where they supported harder policies towards the USSR: for example, [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]] served as National Security Advisor to President [[Jimmy Carter]], while Richard Pipes headed the CIA group [[Team B]]; after 1991, their views have found popularity not only in the West, but also in the former USSR.<ref name="suny2011"/>

===Effect of the dissolution of the Soviet Union on historical research===
The [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] affected historical interpretations of the October Revolution. Since 1991, increasing access to large amounts of Soviet archival materials has made it possible to re‑examine the October Revolution.<ref name="Kotkin 1998"/> Though both Western and Russian historians now have access to many of these archives, the effect of the dissolution of the USSR can be seen most clearly in the work of the latter. While the disintegration essentially helped solidify the Western and Revisionist views, post-USSR Russian historians largely repudiated the former Soviet historical interpretation of the Revolution.{{Sfn|Litvin|2001|p=47}} As [[Stephen Kotkin]] argues, 1991 prompted "a return to political history and the apparent resurrection of totalitarianism, the interpretive view that, in different ways...revisionists sought to bury".<ref name="Kotkin 1998"/>

==Legacy==
{{More citations needed|section|date=November 2018}}<!--only the first item has a citation-->

[[File:19191107-lenin second anniversary october revolution moscow.jpg|thumb|[[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]], [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] and [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution]]
[[File:Rīga, 1988.g. - panoramio.jpg|thumb|240px|Anniversary of October Revolution in [[Riga]], Soviet Union in 1988]]

The October Revolution marks the inception of the first communist government in Russia, and thus the first large-scale and constitutionally ordained [[socialist state]] in world history. After this, the [[Russian Republic]] became the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], which later became the Soviet Union.

The October Revolution also made the ideology of communism influential on a global scale in the 20th century. Communist parties would start to form in many countries after 1917.

''[[Ten Days That Shook the World]]'', a book written by American journalist [[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]] and first published in 1919, gives a firsthand exposition of the events. Reed died in 1920, shortly after the book was finished.

[[Dmitri Shostakovich]] wrote his ''[[Symphony No. 2 (Shostakovich)|Symphony No. 2 in B major]]'', Op. 14, and subtitled it ''To October'', for the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. The choral finale of the work, "To October", is set to a text by Alexander Bezymensky, which praises Lenin and the revolution. The ''Symphony No. 2'' was first performed on 5 November 1927 by the [[Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra|Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra]] and the Academy Capella Choir under the direction of [[Nikolai Malko]].

[[Sergei Eisenstein]] and [[Grigori Aleksandrov]]'s film ''[[October: Ten Days That Shook the World]]'', first released on 20 January 1928 in the USSR and on 2 November 1928 in New York City, describes and glorifies the revolution, having been commissioned to commemorate the event.

The Hollywood film'', [[Reds (film)|Reds]],'' released in 1981 was based on Reed's account of the October Revolution and featured interviews with historical contemporaries from the period for the film.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Berger |first=Hanno |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v5eDEAAAQBAJ&dq=reds+film+1981+hollywood&pg=PA130 |title=Thinking Revolution Through Film: On Audiovisual Stagings of Political Change |date=20 September 2022 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=978-3-1107-5470-4 |pages=123–130 |language=en}}</ref>

The term "Red October" (Красный Октябрь, ''Krasnyy Oktyabr'') has been used to signify the October Revolution. "Red October" was given to a steel factory that was made notable by the [[Battle of Stalingrad]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ivanov |first=Mikhail |title=Survival Russian |publisher=Russian Life Books |date=2007 |isbn=978-1-8801-0056-1 |location=Montpelier, VT |page=44 |oclc=191856309}}</ref> a [[Krasny Oktyabr Open Joint-Stock Company|Moscow sweets factory]] that is well known in Russia, and a [[Red October (fictional submarine)|fictional Soviet submarine]] in both [[Tom Clancy]]'s 1984 novel ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]'' and the [[The Hunt for Red October (film)|1990 film adaptation of the same name]].

The date 7 November, the anniversary of the October Revolution according to the Gregorian Calendar, was the official [[national day]] of the Soviet Union from 1918 onward and still is a public holiday in Belarus and the breakaway territory of [[Transnistria]]. Communist parties both in and out of power celebrate 7 November as the date Marxist parties began to take power.

The Russian Revolution was perceived as a rupture with [[imperialism]] for various civil rights and [[decolonization]] struggles and providing a space for [[oppression|oppressed]] groups across the world. This was given further credence with the Soviet Union supporting many [[anti-colonial]] [[Third World|third world]] movements with financial funds against European [[colonialism|colonial]] powers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thorpe |first=Charles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XOJaEAAAQBAJ&dq=soviet+union+funding+anti+colonial+movements&pg=PA207 |title=Sociology in Post-Normal Times |date=28 February 2022 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-7936-2598-4 |language=en}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Soviet Union}}
* [[Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War]]
* [[Index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and Civil War]]
* [[Revolutions of 1917–1923]]
* [[Russians in Toruń]]
* [[Soviet Decree]]

== Explanatory notes ==
{{Notelist}}

==Citations==
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* 
* {{Cite book |last=Acton |first=Edward |title=Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution |date=1997}}
* {{Cite book |last=Beckett |first=Ian F. W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CMYbKgcAW88C |title=The Great war |date=2007 |publisher=Longman |isbn=978-1-4058-1252-8 |edition=2}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bunyan |first=James |title=The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1918: Documents and Materials |last2=Fisher |first2=Harold Henry |author-link2=Harold Henry Fisher |date=1934 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |location=Palo Alto |oclc=253483096}}
* {{Cite book |last=Figes |first=Orlando |url=https://archive.org/details/peoplestragedyhi00fige |title=A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924 |date=1996 |publisher=Pimlico |isbn=978-0-8050-9131-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Mandel |first=David |title=The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet Seizure of Power :From the July Days, 1917 to July 1918 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |date=1984 |isbn=978-0-3126-0395-3 |location=New York |oclc=9682585 |ol=3171762M}}
* {{Cite book |last=Pipes |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mdqtQgAACAAJ |title=Three "whys" of the Russian Revolution |date=1997 |publisher=[[Vintage Books]] |isbn=978-0-6797-7646-8}}
* {{Cite book |last=Rabinowitch |first=Alexander |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HzRiDJnTTG4C |title=The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd |date=2004 |publisher=[[Pluto Press]] |isbn=978-0-7453-2268-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Reed |first=John |title=[[Ten Days that Shook the World]] |date=1997 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |orig-date=1919}}
* {{Cite book |last=Service |first=Robert |url=https://archive.org/details/historyoftwentie00serv |title=A history of twentieth-century Russia |date=1998 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=0-6744-0347-9 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}
* {{Cite encyclopedia |title=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |date=1994 |editor-last=Shukman |editor-first=Harold |editor-link=Harold Shukman |isbn=978-0-6311-9525-2}}
* {{Cite book |last=Trotsky |first=Leon |author-link=Leon Trotsky |title=The History of the Russian Revolution |title-link=History of the Russian Revolution |date=1932 |publisher=[[Victor Gollancz Ltd|Gollancz]] |volume=III: The Triumph of the Soviets |location=London |translator-last=Eastman |translator-first=Max |oclc=605191028 |orig-date=1930 |translator-link=Max Eastman}}
* Wade, Rex A. "The Revolution at One Hundred: Issues and Trends in the English Language Historiography of the Russian Revolution of 1917." ''Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography'' 9.1 (2016): 9–38. {{doi|10.1163/22102388-00900003}}
{{Refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* {{Cite book |last=Ascher |first=Abraham |title=The Russian Revolution: A Beginner's Guide |date=2014 |publisher=Oneworld Publications}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bone |first=Ann (trans.) |title=The Bolsheviks and the October Revolution: Central Committee Minutes of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) August 1917 – February 1918 |date=1974 |publisher=Pluto Press |isbn=0-9028-1854-6}}
* {{Cite book |last=Chamberlin |first=William Henry |title=The Russian Revolution |date=1935 |volume=I: 1917–1918: From the Overthrow of the Tsar to the Assumption of Power by the Bolsheviks}} [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.172837/page/n11/mode/2up online vol 1]; also [https://archive.org/details/russianrevolutio00cham/page/n5/mode/2up online vol 2]
* {{Cite book |last=Guerman |first=Mikhail |title=Art of the October Revolution |date=1979}}
* {{Cite book |last=Kollontai |first=Alexandra |author-link=Alexandra Kollontai |title=The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman |date=1971 |publisher=[[Verlag Herder|Herder and Herder]] |location=New York |chapter=The Years of Revolution |oclc=577690073 |chapter-url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1926/autobiography.htm#a100}}
* {{Cite book |last=Krupskaya |first=Nadezhda |author-link=Nadezhda Krupskaya |title=Reminiscences of Lenin |date=1930 |publisher=[[Foreign Languages Publishing House (Soviet Union)|Foreign Languages Publishing House]] |location=Moscow |chapter=The October Days |oclc=847091253 |chapter-url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/krupskaya/works/rol/rol26.htm}}
* {{Cite book |last=Luxemburg |first=Rosa |author-link=Rosa Luxemburg |title=The Russian Revolution |date=1940 |publisher=Workers Age |others=Translated by [[Bertram Wolfe]] |location=New York City |oclc=579589928 |orig-date=1918}}
* {{Cite book |last=Radek |first=Karl |author-link=Karl Radek |title=In Defence of the Russian Revolution: A Selection of Bolshevik Writings, 1917–1923 |date=1995 |publisher=Porcupine Press |isbn=1-8994-3801-7 |editor-last=Bukharin |editor-first=Nikolai |editor-link=Nikolai Bukharin |location=London |pages=35–75 |chapter=The Paths of the Russian Revolution |oclc=33294798 |orig-date=First published 1922 as "Wege der Russischen Revolution" |editor-last2=Richardson |editor-first2=Al |editor-link2=Al Richardson (historian) |chapter-url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/radek/1922/paths/index.html}}
* {{Cite book |last=Read |first=Christopher |title=From Tsars to Soviets |date=1996}}
* {{Cite book |last=Serge |first=Victor |author-link=Victor Serge |title=Year One of the Russian Revolution |date=1972 |publisher=[[Penguin Group|Penguin Press]] |location=London |oclc=15612072 |orig-date=1930}}
* {{Cite book |last=Swain |first=Geoffrey |title=Trotsky and the Russian Revolution |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge}}
* {{Cite book |last=Trotsky |first=Leon |author-link=Leon Trotsky |title=My Life |title-link=My Life (Leon Trotsky autobiography) |date=1930 |publisher=Thornton Butterworth |location=London |chapter=XXVI: From July to October |oclc=181719733 |chapter-url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch26.htm}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|October Revolution}}
* [https://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28++Russian+Revolution%29&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22&sort=-date free books on Russian Revolution]
* Read, Christopher: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/revolutions_russian_empire Revolutions (Russian Empire)], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Peeling, Siobhan: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/july_crisis_1917_russian_empire July Crisis 1917 (Russian Empire)], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* [http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/events/revolution/index.htm The October Revolution Archive]
* [http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/medvedev4 Let History Judge Russia's Revolutions], commentary by [[Roy Medvedev]], [[Project Syndicate]], 2007
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110429023539/http://www.ilhs.tuc.gr/en/October%20Revolution%20and%20Logic%20of%20History.pdf October Revolution and Logic of History]
* [http://maps.omniatlas.com/europe/19171201/ Maps of Europe] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150316061544/http://maps.omniatlas.com/europe/19171201 |date=16 March 2015}} and [http://maps.omniatlas.com/russia/19171201/ Russia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321023843/http://maps.omniatlas.com/russia/19171201 |date=21 March 2015}} at time of October Revolution at omniatlas.com
* [https://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group How the Bolshevik party elite crushed the democratically elected workers and popular councils – soviets – and established totalitarian state capitalism].

{{Annual Great October Socialist Revolution Parade}}
{{October Bolshevik Uprising}}
{{Russian Revolution 1917}}
{{Soviet Union topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:October Revolution}}
[[Category:1910s coups d'état]]
[[Category:1917 in Russia]]
[[Category:Bolshevik uprisings]]
[[Category:Communist revolutions]]
[[Category:Dissolution of the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:November 1917 in Europe]]
[[Category:Russian Provisional Government]]
[[Category:Russian Revolution|*]]
[[Category:Russian Revolution in Petrograd|Russian Revolution in Petrograd]]
[[Category:October Revolution| ]]