22 - 28 October 1917

The remarkable thing about the Bolshevik insurrection is that hardly any of the Bolshevik leaders had wanted it to happen until a few hours before it began … Trotsky, who in Lenin’s absence had effectively assumed the leadership of the party, repeatedly stressed the need for discipline and patience … ‘This is defence, comrades. This is defence.’ 
(Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, London 1996)

22 October 
The Minister of War has gone to the Caucasus on a fortnight’s leave, and during his absence the Assistant Minister of War, General Tumanoff, will act. In political circles it is considered that General Verkhovsky will not return to the War Office.
(Report in The Times)

23 October 

Report headed ‘American Aid for Russia’
The Administration, which two days ago granted large credits to Italy, has replied to M. Kerensky’s utterances by transferring to Russia’s account over £6,000,000. Washington is willing to encourage and assist Russia by every means in its power. 
(‘News in Brief’, The Times)

Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov
‘Yes’, said [Trotsky], ‘an insurrection is going on, and the Bolsheviks, in the form of the Congress majority, will take the power into their own hands. The steps taken by the Military Revolutionary Committee are steps for the seizure of power.’ Had everybody heard? Or was it still not clear enough?
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)

At 8pm … the soldiers finally, dramatically, voted. Everyone for the MRC moved to the left: those opposed, to the right. There was a protracted shuffling and shoving. When it was done, there rose a huge and sustained cheer. On the right were only a few officers, and some intellectuals from one of those strange bicycle regiments. The majority, by far, stood for the MRC … Most of Petrograd’s weapon stores were now in MRC hands. And the cannon of the fortress looked out over the Winter Palace itself. 
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)

24 October 
At 2.30am a strange army came through the cold night. It was cobbled from whatever forces were to hand, on which the right could count. Two or three detachments of Junkers; some cadets from officers’ training schools; a few warriors from a Women’s Death Battalion; a battery of horse artillery from Pavlovsk; various Cossacks; a bicycle unit with their thick-wheeled machines; and a rifle regiment of war-wounded veterans. They headed through the quiet city to defend the Winter Palace. 
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)

Sir George Buchanan, British Ambassador to Russia
At three o’clock this morning the printing presses of several Bolshevik papers, which the Government had decided to suppress, were seized, and Tereschenko expects that this will provoke a Bolshevik uprising. He is urging Kerensky to arrest the members of the revolutionary military committee, and will not in any case leave for London till the situation has been cleared up. 
(Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia, London 1923)

By the morning of 24 October the Smolny was the unofficial ‘General Staff’ of the Bolsheviks … For John Reed, Smonly was the place to be, the heartbeat of revolution: it was dynamic, visceral, exciting, invigorating and ‘hummed like a gigantic hive’. Albert Rhys Williams … saw it as a haven, the bastion of a brave new world: ‘By night, glowing with a hundred lamp-lit windows, it looms up like a great temple — a temple of Revolution.’ 
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)

Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov
Orders were given [by the General Staff] to raise all the bridges, except the Palace Bridge, in order to hinder marchers … The raising of the bridges at once produced in the city the circumstances of a coup d’etat accomplished and disorders begun. The whole capital, hitherto quite tranquil, became agitated. Crowds began gathering in the streets. 
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)

‘I remembered the July Days’, Ilin-Zhenevsky of the Bolshevik MO later wrote. ‘The drawing of the bridges appeared to me as the first step in another attempt to destroy us. Was it possible the Provisional Government would triumph over us again?’ … Unbidden, Ilin-Zhenevsky directed garrison soldiers to secure the Grenadiers and Samsonovsky bridges. One group returned dragging heavy machinery behind them, and were followed by a shouting mechanic. ‘We have lowered the bridge,’ they told a curious Ilin-Zhenevsky, ‘and to make sure it stays down, we’ve brought part of the mechanism.’ 
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)

By 10 p.m. Lenin could hold back no longer. He donned his wig and a worker’s cap, wrapped a bandage around his head and set off for the Smolny … Near the Tauride Palace a government patrol stopped them, but … mistook Lenin … for a harmless drunk and let them proceed. One can only wonder how different history would have been if Lenin had been arrested. 
(Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, London 1996)

Lenin addressing the Bolshevik CC
To delay the uprising would be fatal … With all my might I urge comrades to realise that everything now hangs by a thread … We must at all costs, this very evening, this very night, arrest the government … We must not wait! We may lose everything! … The government is tottering. It must be given the death blow at all costs.
(V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches from the February Revolution to the October Revolution, 1917, London 1938)

25 October 
The Great October Socialist Revolution, as it came to be called in Soviet mythology, was in reality such a small-scale event, being in effect no more than a military coup, that it passed unnoticed by the vast majority of the inhabitants of Petrograd. 
(Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, London 1996)

At 3.30 in the morning of the 25th, the naval cruiser, Avrora, accompanied by three destroyers, steamed in from Kronstadt and dropped anchor broadside-on to the Winter Palace. It was clear that the endgame had come for this, the last symbolic bastion of old imperial Russia. 
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)

Leighton Rogers, bank employee
They’ve begun it; they’re at it now as I write. Machine-guns and rifles are snarling and barking all over the city. Sounds like a huge corn-popper. 
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)

Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
Yesterday’s quiet was deceptive. In fact, during the night the Bolsheviks pulled off the surprise attack which they have been planning for a long time … They are now in possession of the telegraph office, the stations, and the department of state: in short, they are masters of the capital. The government collapsed like a house of cards without the least resistance, and the apparent order has not been disturbed. Tereschenko has disappeared since this morning; and Kerensky has fled in a car belonging to one of the secretaries of the United States Embassy … He is said to have gone to the front to bring back some troops. 
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)

Diary entry of Joshua Butler Wright, Counselor of the American Embassy, Petrograd
Sheldon Whitehouse was asked by an aide of Kerensky’s to allow Kerensky the use of the car of the embassy, went to see Kerensky at the staff, found him very much perturbed and admitting that the Bolsheviks control everything and that he desired the car to make a get-away to form junction with the loyal troops sent from the front. We presume that he got away  —  also that the rest of the ministry are hiding or arrested! The Mariinsky Palace and Winter Palace are surrounded; the majority at the garrison have gone over to the Bolsheviks, the warship Aurora is in the Neva with guns trained on the city. 
(Witness to Revolution: The Russian Revolution Diary and Letters of J. Butler Wright, London 2002)

Press release issued by Lenin at 10.00 a.m.
To the Citizens of Russia! The Provisional Government has been overthrown. The power of state has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Revolutionary Military Committee, which stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison. The cause for which the people have fought — the immediate proposal of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers’ control over production and the creation of a Soviet government — is assured. 
(V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches from the February Revolution to the October Revolution, 1917, London 1938)

Lenin to a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet
One of our next tasks is to put an immediate end to the war. But in order to end this war, which is closely bound up with the present capitalist system, it is clear to everybody that capital itself must be overcome. We shall be helped in this by the world working class movement, which is already beginning to develop in Italy, England and Germany. 
(V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches from the February Revolution to the October Revolution, 1917, London 1938)

… at 9.40 p.m. the signal was finally given and one blank round was fired by the Aurora. The huge sound of the blast, much louder than a live shot, caused the frightened ministers to drop at once to the floor. The women from the Battalion of Death became hysterical and had to be taken away to a room at the back of the palace, while most of the remaining cadets abandoned their posts. After a short break to allow those who wished to do so to leave the palace, [the order was given] for the real firing to begin from the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Aurora and the Palace Square. Most of the shells from the fortress landed harmlessly in the Neva. 
(Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, London 1996)

26 October 
Meanwhile, the final assault on the Winter Palace was nearing completion. The loyalist forces had virtually all abandoned the defence of the palace and Bolshevik troops could enter it at will. The minsters, who were now stretched out on sofas, or slouched on chairs, awaiting the end, could hear the sound of running soldiers, shouts and gun shots from the floor below. Finally, some time after 2 a.m., these sounds grew louder: the Bolshevik attackers were climbing the stairs and approaching the door. It was clear that the moment for surrender had arrived. 
(Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, London 1996)

The night was yet heavy and chill. There was only a faint unearthly pallor stealing over the silent streets, dimming the watchfires, the shadow of a terrible dawn rising over Russia. 
(John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, New York 1919)

Resolution published in Izvestia
The Soviet is convinced that the proletariat of the West European countries will help us to achieve a complete and lasting victory for the cause of socialism.
(V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches from the February Revolution to the October Revolution, 1917, London 1938)

27 October 
Report in The Times
For the moment the Allies of Russia can do little but look on at this agony, getting what comfort they can from the reflection that the voice which struggles up from it is assuredly not the authentic voice of Russia. They may remember, too, that revolution works in the blood of nations like a fever, which must come to its crisis, but, if historical analogy is worth anything, is apt to leave the patient stronger than before. Whether this is the crisis of the Russian Revolution or not, certain it is that the tragic events of the last few months have trampled in the mud the banner of revolutionary idealism. Russia, free for an instant, has found herself bound afresh. 
(‘Russia’s Critical Hour’, The Times)

The Moscow Bolsheviks were reluctant fighters — they were much more inclined to resolve the power question through negotiation … Nor were they very good at fighting: the Kremlin was soon lost in the opening battle on the 27th … Without victory in Moscow, even Lenin recognized that the Bolsheviks could not retain power on their own. 
(Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, London 1996)

Report in The Times
Sir George Buchanan is remaining at Petrograd. The latest telegrams from the British Ambassador, dated Thursday evening, throw no fresh light on the situation. 
(‘Sir George Buchanan’, The Times)

28 October 
For a couple of days there had been no news of Kerensky. ‘No one had the remotest idea’ what was going to happen next, recalled Bessie Beatty. ‘Where is Korniloff? … Where are the Cossacks?’ Last and worst of all, ‘Where are the Germans? Rumour was riding a mad steed.’ 
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)

28 October 2017
Steve Rosenberg, BBC Moscow correspondent, is doing a week of reports on the revolution, talking to people about their attitude to the centenary and the consequences of 1917. Already, in the first one, it’s thrown up some interesting comments. ‘Communism painted the October revolution as an uprising of the oppressed but in reality it was a coup’; ‘the development of the welfare state in the West was a reaction to the revolution in Russia, i.e. let’s make the life of the workers better [to prevent the same thing happening here]’; ‘we do social experiments, we show how things shouldn’t be done’ (Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky); ‘the authorities’ response to the centenary is radio silence, after all, the idea of taking up arms against an oppressive ruling class and abolishing private property is anathema to the current regime’; ‘now, in the 21st century, you don’t have to kill anyone to make significant changes’. As Rosenberg points out, food prices are rising and incomes falling, but there seems little appetite for a major political upheaval in the near future. Or will this be one of those hubristic predictions so enjoyed by readers of history: horizon clear, no icebergs in sight..?