Home Grape Storming of the Winter Palace briefly. Night of the Red Leaders: How the Winter Palace was actually taken

Grape

Storming of the Winter Palace briefly. Night of the Red Leaders: How the Winter Palace was actually taken

Plan
Introduction
1 Background
2 The day before
2.1 Departure of part of the defenders of the Winter Palace
2.2 Evening of 25 October

3 Assault
3.1 First offensive against the Winter Palace
3.2 Second offensive against the Winter Palace
3.3 Arrest of ministers of the Provisional Government

4 Plundering of the palace by stormers. Vandalism
5 Excesses and violence
6 Reconstructions of the Winter Storm
7 "The Storming of the Winter Palace" in the cinema

Bibliography

Introduction

The storming of the Winter Palace is one of the key events of the October Revolution - the capture by the Bolsheviks of the residence of the Provisional Government in Petrograd on the night of October 25-26, 1917, as a result of which the Provisional Government was overthrown and arrested. The assault was carried out without significant hostilities, but under the threat of the use of force of arms.

1. Background

From July 1917 the Winter Palace became the seat of the Provisional Government, whose meetings were held in the Malachite Hall. In the same place, in the palace, since 1915 there was a hospital for the seriously wounded.

2. The day before

Under the conditions of the Bolshevik uprising that was being openly prepared and was already beginning, the Headquarters of the Provisional Government did not bring a single soldier’s military unit to the defense of the government; preparatory work and with the junkers in military schools, so they turned out to be negligible on Palace Square October 25, and it would have been even less if the junkers had not come on their own. The fact that it was the junkers who did not take part in the defense of the Winter Palace on October 25 that took part in the anti-Bolshevik junker action on October 29 speaks of the complete disorganization in the defense of the Provisional Government. The only military unit of the Petrograd garrison that took the oath to the Provisional Government were the Cossacks. The main hopes were pinned on them in the days of unrest. On October 17, 1917, delegates from the Don Cossack Military Circle visited the head of the Provisional Government of Kerensky, who noted the Cossacks' distrust of the government and demanded that the government restore A.M. Kaledina has the rights of the commander of the army and openly admitted her mistake to the Don. Kerensky recognized the episode with Kaledin as a sad misunderstanding and promised in the coming days to make an official statement disavowing the episode, but he did not keep his word and no official explanation was forthcoming. It was only on October 23 that the Extraordinary Investigative Commission ruled that General Kaledin was not involved in the Kornilov "mutiny". On the whole, the Petrograd Cossacks reacted passively to the upcoming events: even at a critical moment on the night of October 24-25, despite the repeated orders of the headquarters, the Cossacks did not come forward, without personally receiving guarantees from Kerensky that "this time the Cossack blood will not be shed in vain as it was in July, when sufficiently energetic measures were not taken against the Bolsheviks. The Cossacks were ready to come to the aid of the Provisional Government, provided that the regiments were provided with machine guns, each regiment, organized from hundreds distributed among the factories, would be given armored cars and infantry units would march along with the Cossacks. On the basis of this agreement, 200 Cossacks and a machine-gun team of the 14th regiment were sent to Zimny. The remaining regiments were to join them as the Provisional Government fulfilled the requirements of the Cossacks, guaranteeing, in their opinion, that their vain July sacrifices would not be repeated. In connection with the failure to fulfill the conditions proposed by the Cossack regiments, at a daytime meeting of the Council of Cossack troops with representatives of the regiments, it was decided to withdraw the previously sent 2 hundred and not take any part in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising. Revolutionary historian S.P. Melgunov notes that the October refusal of the Cossacks to suppress the uprising of the Bolsheviks was a great tragedy for Russia.

On the morning of October 25 (November 7), small detachments of the Bolsheviks begin to occupy the main objects of the city: the telegraph agency, railway stations, the main power station, food warehouses, the state bank and the telephone exchange. These "military operations" were like a "changing of the guard", since there was no resistance to the commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee who came and occupied this or that institution. By this time, the Provisional Government found itself practically without defenders: it had only junkers and shock women of the women's volunteer battalion.

In the complete absence of any forces from the government, the Bolsheviks also acted, contrary to later victorious reports, indecisively: they did not dare to storm the Winter Palace, since neither the workers nor the garrison of Petrograd as a whole took part in the uprising, but those present on paper The "tens of thousands" of the Bolshevik "Red Guard" (there were 10,000 Red Guards in the Vyborg District alone) did not actually come out with the Bolsheviks. The huge Putilov factory, which allegedly had 1,500 organized Red Guards, also put up only a detachment of 80 people to participate in the uprising.

By the middle of the day most of key objects was occupied by Bolshevik patrols without the resistance of the patrols of the Provisional Government. The head of the Provisional Government, Kerensky, left Petrograd by car at about 11 o'clock, without leaving any instructions to the government. N. M. Kishkin, a civilian minister, was appointed special commissioner for the establishment of order in Petrograd. Of course, de facto, his "governor-general" powers were limited only to self-defense in the Winter Palace. Convinced that the authorities of the district have no desire to act, Kishkin removes Polkovnikov from his post and entrusts the functions of commander of the troops to General Bagratuni. On the day of October 25, Kishkin and his subordinates acted quite boldly and efficiently, but even the energetic and organizational skills of Kishkin could not do much in just a few hours left at his disposal.

The position taken by the government was rather absurd and hopeless: sitting in the Winter Palace, where the meetings were held, they remained there to wait for the arrival of troops from the front. They counted on the unreliability and demoralization of the detachments withdrawn by the Bolsheviks, hoping that "such an army would scatter and surrender at the first blank shot." Also, nothing has been done by the government to protect its last citadel- Winter Palace: neither ammunition nor food was obtained. The junkers, summoned to the seat of government during the day, could not even be fed lunch.

In the first half of the day, the shock cadets of the women's battalion, a detachment of Cossacks with machine guns, a battery of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, a school of engineering ensigns, and also a number of volunteers join the guards of the Winter Junkers of the Peterhof and Oranienbaum schools. Therefore, in the first half of the day, members of the government, most likely, did not feel the tragedy of their situation: some military force, perhaps sufficient to hold out until the arrival of troops from the front. The passivity of the attackers also lulled the vigilance of the Provisional Government. All government activity was reduced to an appeal to the population and to the garrison with a number of belated and therefore useless appeals.

2.1. Departure of part of the defenders of the Winter Palace

By the evening of October 25, the ranks of the defenders of the Winter Palace had thinned greatly: they were leaving hungry, deceived, and discouraged. The few Cossacks who were in Zimne also left, embarrassed by the fact that all the infantry of the government turned out to be "women with guns." By evening, the artillery also left the residence of the government: they left on the orders of their chief, the cadet of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, although a small part of them disobeyed the order and remained. The version later spread by the Bolsheviks that the order to leave had been given allegedly “under pressure” from the MRC was a lie. In fact, the artillery was taken away by deception with the help of the political commissar of the school. Some of the cadets of the Oranienbaum school also left.

Armored cars of the Provisional Government were forced to leave the area of the Winter Palace due to lack of gasoline.

By evening, the hitherto rare single shots began to become more frequent. The guards responded with shots in the air for shots when crowds of Bolsheviks approached the palace, and at one time this was enough.

At 6:30 p.m., scooters from Peter and Paul Fortress with an ultimatum from Antonov-Ovseenko about the surrender of the Provisional Government and the disarmament of all its defenders. In case of refusal, the Bolsheviks threatened to fire from the military ships standing on the Neva and from the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The government decided not to enter into negotiations with the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Finally, having begun to realize the degree of criticality of their situation, the ministers decided to turn to the City Duma for moral support and began to look for some kind of physical help through the phone. Someone even went to the City Duma and walked around its factions with the words that a tragic denouement was coming, that it was necessary to come out in defense of the government and call on the population as well. But no help came. The only real attempt to help the Provisional Government was made by B.V. Savinkov, and it was associated with the name of General M.V. Alekseev. Savinkov found the former Supreme Commander-in-Chief only at night from the 25th to the 26th. The possibility of gathering at least a small armed force to fight the Bolsheviks was discussed. According to Savinkov, the general even sketched out a plan for the upcoming military operations, which, however, did not have time to be carried out.

Finally, in Zimny they began to take some real steps towards their own self-defense in order to hold out until the arrival of troops from the front, expected by morning. All forces were pulled directly to the palace, the headquarters was left to the Bolsheviks. General Bagratuni refused to assume the duties of a commander and left the Winter Palace, then was arrested by sailors and survived thanks to an accident. Lieutenant Colonel Ananin, the head of the school of engineering ensigns, who was destined to become the main organized force, the support of the besieged government, becomes the head of defense. The functions of the defenders in case of an assault are distributed, machine guns abandoned by the departed Cossacks are placed.

It became the seat of the Provisional Government, whose meetings were held in the Malachite Hall. In the same place, in the palace, since 1915 there was a hospital for the seriously wounded.

the day before

Women's strike battalion on the square in front of the Winter Palace.

Junkers in the halls of the Winter Palace are preparing for defense.

Under the conditions of the openly prepared and already beginning uprising of the Bolsheviks, the Headquarters of the Provisional Government did not bring a single soldier’s military unit to the defense of the government, no preparatory work was carried out with the junkers in military schools, so there were negligibly few of them on Palace Square on October 25, and there would have been more less if the junkers did not come on their own. The fact that it was the junkers who did not take part in the defense of the Winter Palace on October 25 that took part in the anti-Bolshevik junker action on October 29 speaks of the complete disorganization in the defense of the Provisional Government. The only military unit of the Petrograd garrison that took the oath to the Provisional Government were the Cossacks. The main hopes were pinned on them in the days of unrest. On October 17, 1917, delegates from the Don Cossack Military Circle visited the head of the Provisional Government of Kerensky, who noted the Cossacks' distrust of the government and demanded that the government reinstate A. M. Kaledin as commander of the army and openly admit his mistake to the Don. Kerensky recognized the episode with Kaledin as a sad misunderstanding and promised in the coming days to make an official statement disavowing the episode, but he did not keep his word and no official explanation was forthcoming. And only on October 23, the Extraordinary Investigative Commission issued a decision on the non-involvement of General Kaledin in the Kornilov "mutiny". On the whole, the Petrograd Cossacks reacted passively to the upcoming events: even at a critical moment on the night of October 24-25, despite the repeated orders of the headquarters, the Cossacks did not come forward, without personally receiving guarantees from Kerensky that "this time the Cossack blood will not be shed in vain as was the case in July, when sufficiently energetic measures were not taken against the Bolsheviks". The Cossacks were ready to come to the aid of the Provisional Government, provided that the regiments were provided with machine guns, each regiment, organized from hundreds distributed among the factories, would be given armored cars and infantry units would march along with the Cossacks. On the basis of this agreement, 200 Cossacks and a machine-gun team of the 14th regiment were sent to Zimny. The remaining regiments were to join them as the Provisional Government fulfilled the requirements of the Cossacks, guaranteeing, in their opinion, that their vain July sacrifices would not be repeated. In connection with the failure to fulfill the conditions proposed by the Cossack regiments, at a daytime meeting of the Council of Cossack troops with representatives of the regiments, it was decided to withdraw the previously sent 2 hundred and not take any part in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising. According to the historian of the revolution SP Melgunov, the October refusal of the Cossacks to suppress the Bolshevik uprising was a great tragedy for Russia.

By the middle of the day, most of the key objects were occupied by Bolshevik patrols without resistance from the patrols of the Provisional Government. The head of the Provisional Government, Kerensky, left Petrograd by car at about 11 o'clock, without leaving any instructions to the government. N. M. Kishkin, a civilian minister, was appointed special commissioner for the establishment of order in Petrograd. Of course, de facto, his "governor-general" powers were limited only to self-defense in the Winter Palace. Convinced that the authorities of the district have no desire to act, Kishkin removes Polkovnikov from his post and entrusts the functions of commander of the troops to General Bagratuni. On the day of October 25, Kishkin and his subordinates acted quite boldly and efficiently, but even the energetic and organizational skills of Kishkin could not do much in just a few hours left at his disposal.

The position taken by the government was rather absurd and hopeless: sitting in the Winter Palace, where meetings were taking place, members of the government were waiting for the arrival of troops from the front. They counted on the unreliability and demoralization of the detachments withdrawn by the Bolsheviks, hoping that "such an army would scatter and surrender at the first blank shot." Also, nothing was done by the government to protect its last stronghold - the Winter Palace: neither ammunition nor food was obtained. The junkers, summoned to the seat of the government during the day, could not even be given lunch.

In the first half of the day, the shock cadets of the women's battalion, a detachment of Cossacks with machine guns, a battery of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, a school of engineering ensigns, and also a number of volunteers join the guards of the Winter Junkers of the Peterhof and Oranienbaum schools. Therefore, in the first half of the day, the members of the government, most likely, did not feel the tragedy of their situation: some military force gathered near the Winter Palace, perhaps sufficient to hold out until the arrival of troops from the front. The passivity of the attackers also lulled the vigilance of the Provisional Government. All government activity was reduced to appealing to the population and to the garrison with a series of belated and therefore useless appeals.

Departure of part of the defenders of the Winter Palace

The armored cars of the Provisional Government were forced to leave the area of the Winter Palace due to lack of gasoline.

Evening October 25

By evening, the hitherto rare single shots began to become more frequent. The guards responded with shots in the air for shots in those cases when crowds of Bolsheviks approached the palace, and at first this was enough.

At 6:30 p.m., scooters from the Peter and Paul Fortress arrived at the headquarters of the besieged with an ultimatum from Antonov-Ovseenko to surrender the Provisional Government and disarm all its defenders. In case of refusal, the Bolsheviks threatened to fire from the military ships standing on the Neva and from the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The government decided not to enter into negotiations with the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Finally, having begun to realize the degree of criticality of their situation, the ministers decided to turn to the City Duma for moral support and began to look for some kind of physical help through the phone. Someone even went to the City Duma and walked around its factions with the words that a tragic denouement was coming, that it was necessary to come out in defense of the government and call on the population as well. But no help came. The only real attempt to help the Provisional Government was made by B. V. Savinkov, and it was connected with the name of General M. V. Alekseev. Savinkov found the former Supreme Commander-in-Chief only at night from the 25th to the 26th. The possibility of gathering at least a small armed force to fight the Bolsheviks was discussed. According to Savinkov, the general even sketched out a plan for the upcoming military operations, which, however, they did not manage to carry out.

Finally, in Zimny they began to take some real steps towards their own self-defense in order to hold out until the arrival of troops from the front, expected by morning. All forces were pulled directly to the palace, the headquarters was left to the Bolsheviks. General Bagratuni refused to take on the duties of a commander and left the Winter Palace, then was arrested by sailors and survived thanks to an accident. Lieutenant Colonel Ananin, the head of the school of engineering ensigns, who was destined to become the main organized force, the support of the besieged government, becomes the head of defense. The functions of the defenders are distributed in case of an assault, machine guns abandoned by the departed Cossacks are placed.

Very indicative and characterizing the situation is the episode with the arrival of one of the leaders of the siege, Commissar of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee Grigory Chudnovsky, at the invitation of the delegate of the Oranienbaum school, cadet Kiselev, to the Winter Palace, which was already in combat condition in anticipation of an attack, at the invitation of the delegate of the Oranienbaum school for negotiations on “surrender”. Chudnovsky, together with Kiselev, were immediately arrested on the orders of Palchinsky, but later, at the request of Chudnovsky, who guaranteed the immunity of the junkers with his "honest dining room", Chudnovsky was released. Another group of junkers who no longer wanted to fight left with them.

At 21 o'clock the Provisional Government addressed the country with a radiotelegram:

Petrograd Soviet and s. d. declared the Provisional Government deposed and demanded the transfer of power to it under the threat of bombing the Winter Palace from the cannons of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the cruiser Aurora, standing on the Neva. The government can transfer power only to the Constituent Assembly, and therefore decided not to surrender and give itself under the protection of the people and the army, about which a telegram was sent to the Headquarters. Headquarters responded about sending a detachment. Let the people and the country respond to the insane attempt of the Bolsheviks to raise an uprising in the rear of the struggling army.

Storm

The Bolsheviks decided to storm the Winter Palace only after the arrival of several thousand sailors of the Baltic Fleet from Helsingfors and Kronstadters, who had already been tested in the July days and constituted a real force in Petrograd on October 25, arrived to their aid from Kronstadt. Despite the fact that Lenin demanded the withdrawal of the entire fleet, believing that the coup in Petrograd was in greater danger than from outside Baltic Sea, the sailors themselves, in violation of Lenin's requirements, did not want to expose the external front to the Germans.

At the same time, it is known about the forces guarding the Winter Palace that at the time of the assault they consisted of approximately 137 shock women of the women's death battalion (2nd company), 2-3 companies of cadets and 40 invalids of the St. George Knights, led by a captain on prostheses.

By evening, in the hands of the Provisional Government, in fact, only the Winter Palace remained, which was guarded by a small detachment of junkers and women's battalion. P. I. Palchinsky, Kishkin's deputy, was appointed head of the defense of the Winter Palace. Another key figure was Kishkin's deputy Pyotr Rutenberg.

First attack on the Winter Palace

Almost simultaneously with the last appeal of the government to Russia, at 9 pm, after a blank signal shot from the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Bolsheviks began to attack the Winter Palace. The first attack was a rifle and machine gun shelling of the palace with the participation of armored cars, accompanied by return fire from the defenders of the palace, and lasted about an hour. As a result of the attack, Palchinsky notes in his notebook that there are quite enough forces for protection, but the absence of command personnel is tragic - among the defenders of the Provisional Government there were only 5 officers. Immediately, the executive committee of the postal and telegraph union sends out a message:

The first attack on the Winter Palace was at 10 pm. repulsed

At the same time, the Government brought "to the attention":

The situation is recognized as favorable ... The palace is shelled, but only with rifle fire without any results. The enemy is found to be weak.

The words of Antonov-Ovseenko himself give approximately the same assessment:

Disorderly crowds of sailors, soldiers, Red Guards now swim to the gates of the palace, then recede

The first attack of the Bolsheviks from 9 to 10 pm resulted in the surrender of the female shock battalion, according to Soviet sources, allegedly "could not withstand the fire." In fact, the surrender was the result of an unsuccessful sortie of shock women to “liberate General Alekseev”, which Colonel Ananyin, the head of defense of Zimny, could not stop.

Simultaneously with the beginning of the assault on the Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks, a meeting of the Petrograd City Duma was held, which decided to support the revolutionary government besieged in the Winter Palace, and attempted to march to the Winter Palace in order to help the ministers of the Provisional Government.

Second attack on the Winter Palace

At 11 p.m., the Bolsheviks began shelling the Winter Palace from the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress, which fired 35 live shells, of which only 2 slightly "scratched" the cornice of the Winter Palace. Later, Trotsky was forced to admit that even the most loyal of the gunners deliberately fired over the Winter Palace. When those who raised the uprising wanted to use the 6-inch Aurora cruiser, it turned out that due to its location, the cruiser could not physically shoot at the Winter Palace. And the case was limited to intimidation in the form of a blank shot.

For the stormers, the Winter Palace could not present a serious obstacle, since it was defended only from the side of the facade, and at the same time they forgot to lock the back doors from the side of the Neva, through which not only sailors with workers, but simply curious people and lovers of profit began to easily penetrate. This accidental oversight by the defenders of the Winter Palace was subsequently used in the Bolshevik ideology and falsely presented in propaganda: “the inhabitants of the palace cellars in their class hatred for the exploiters” opened “secret” entrances to the Bolsheviks, through which the VRK agitators penetrated and occupied the defenders of the palace with propaganda . “... these were not random scouts, but, of course, special envoys of the Military Revolutionary Committee,” the historian of October 1917, S. P. Melgunov, ironically over the methods of Bolshevik propaganda.

Parliamentarians led by Chudnovsky, with a new ultimatum, appear among the besieged. Trotsky, following Malyantovich, repeats the mistake made by the guards of the Winter Palace, who mistook for a deputation of the Duma two hundred enemies who broke through into the corridors of the palace in this way. According to the historian of the revolution S.P. Melgunov, such a mistake could not have happened: behind the parliamentarians, who destroyed the fiery and bayonet barrier between the attackers and defenders with their appearance, a crowd poured from Palace Square, poured into the courtyard, and began to spread along all the stairs and corridors palace.

In some episodes, the junkers tried to resist in some places, but were quickly crushed by the crowd, and by nightfall the resistance had ceased.

The chief of defense, Ananin, sends Sinegub to the government with a message about the forced surrender of the Winter Palace, and also that the junkers were promised life by the Bolshevik truce. During the meeting of the government on surrender, the crowd accompanying Antonov-Ovseenko comes close to the cadet guards. Palchinsky introduces one Antonov into the room to the ministers, then goes out to the junkers with an announcement about decision the unconditional surrender of the ministers, who thereby express submission only to force, and a proposal to the junkers to do the same. However, the Junkers had to be persuaded.

Arrest of ministers of the Provisional Government

The composition of the last, third, Cabinet of the Provisional Government of Russia.

One of the ministers even quite courageously said to Antonov-Ovseenko:

We did not give up, we only submitted to force, and do not forget that your criminal case has not yet been crowned with final success.

The ministers, who proved unable to organize a rebuff to the Bolsheviks in the October days of 1917, nevertheless managed to leave a beautiful and worthy page in history with their courage and worthy behavior in the last tragic hours of the Provisional Government.

Many of the contemporaries assessed the act of the Ministers of the Provisional Government, who remained to the end to the end, as a feat: a citywide meeting of 350 Menshevik-defensists on October 27 welcomed “the unshakable courage shown by the ministers of the Russian Republic, who remained in office to the end under cannon fire and thereby showed tall example truly revolutionary prowess."

human losses

There is no exact data on the losses of the parties. It is known for sure that six soldiers and one striker were killed.

The looting of the palace by the stormers. Vandalism

The fact that hooligan elements from among those who stormed the palace robbed the Winter Palace was not denied even by Bolshevik memoirists and Soviet historians.

5 days after the assault, a special commission of the City Duma examined the destruction of the Winter Palace and found that in terms of valuable art objects, the palace had lost, but not much. In those places where the robbers passed, the commission encountered pictures of real vandalism: eyes were pierced at portraits, leather seats were cut off from chairs, oak boxes with valuable porcelain were pierced with bayonets, valuable icons, books, miniatures, etc. were scattered across the floor of the palace .

At first, the robbers failed to penetrate into the wine cellar, which was worth several million gold rubles, but all attempts to wall it up were also unsuccessful. The contents of the wine cellars began to be destroyed by rifle fire. This led to the fact that the soldiers guarding the palace, fearing that the Bolsheviks would destroy all the wine, seized it again and staged a real pogrom in the wine cellars. As Trotsky recalled these events: “Wine flowed down the canals into the Neva, soaking the snow, drunkards lapped straight from the ditches.” In order to stop the uncontrolled looting of wine, the Military Revolutionary Committee was forced to promise to give alcohol to representatives of military units daily at the rate of two bottles per soldier per day.

Excesses and violence

After the capture of the Winter Palace, rumors began to spread that the captured cadets and officers were mocked, tortured and killed; that women from the shock battalion were raped and some were killed. Similar statements were made in the anti-Bolshevik press, in the diaries and memoirs of contemporaries. The official bodies of the Bolsheviks and part of the participants in the events on both sides rejected such statements. In the historical literature, such rumors are regarded as unreliable. So, the historian S.P. Melgunov in the monograph “How the Bolsheviks seized power” agrees with the statement of L. Trotsky that there were no executions and could not be; according to the doctor historical sciences Vladlen Loginov, immediately after the capture of the Winter Palace "began" information war“, which escalated the atmosphere of general psychosis and confrontation,” and writes about the unreliability of reports of executions and rapes.

Reconstructions of the "storming of the Winter"

On November 7, 1920, in honor of the third anniversary of the revolution, a mass production of "The Capture of the Winter Palace" was organized (organizer - musician D. Temkin, chief director - Evreinov).

Timeline of the 1917 Revolution in Russia

Before:
Bolshevization of the Soviets
See also Directory, All-Russian Democratic Conference, Provisional Council of the Russian Republic

Developments
October armed uprising in Petrograd
see also Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, Storming of the Winter Palace

After:
The struggle for the legitimization of the new government:

Armed struggle immediately after the Bolsheviks took power:

Speech by the Junkers on October 29 under the auspices of the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution
Occupation by the Bolsheviks of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander (1917)

"The Storming of the Winter Palace" in the cinema

The storming of the Winter Palace is shown in many films. Among them:

October - Sergei Eisenstein, 1927
The end of St. Petersburg - Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1927
Lenin in October (film) - Mikhail Romm, 1937. Recut and edited in 1956 and 1963
Reds - Warren Beatty, 1981
Red bells. Film 2. I saw the birth of a new world - Sergei Bondarchuk, 1982
Quiet Don (second series) - Sergei Gerasimov, 1958
Misfire, Channel 5, 1993
Storm of the Winter. Refutation - documentary, 2007

Notes

An assessment of the Storming of the Winter Palace as one of the key events of the October Revolution of 1917 can be found in the works of Benton Gregor, professor at Cardiff University, UK: “Chinese volunteers took part in key events (key events) of the revolution, including the storming of the Winter Palace and the Kremlin” ( Benton G. Chinese migrants and internationalism: Forgotten histories, 1917-1945. - N. Y. : Routledge, 2007. - P. 24. - ISBN 0415418682).
Melgunov, S. P. ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, pp. 144-148
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 149
d.h.s. Yu. N. Emelyanov Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p.5
Melgunov, S. P. ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 165
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 170
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 169
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 172
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, pp. 181-182
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 187
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 184
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 185
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 186
d.h.s. Yu. N. Emelyanov Sergei Petrovich Melgunov - historian of the revolution // Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, pp. 23-24
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 166
Revolution and Civil War in Russia: 1917-1923 Encyclopedia in 4 volumes. - Moscow: Terra, 2008. - T. 2. - S. 77. - 560 p. -( Big Encyclopedia). - 100,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-273-00562-4
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 202
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 188
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, pp. 191-192
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 171
Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power.// How the Bolsheviks seized power. "The Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; foreword by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M.: Iris-press, 2007. - 640 p. + insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, page 198

Organizers RSDLP(b)
Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets driving forces Transfer supporters state power Soviets Opponents Supporters of the Provisional Government of Russia Arrested Provisional Government of Russia

background

the day before

Under the conditions of the openly prepared and already beginning uprising of the Bolsheviks, the Headquarters of the Provisional Government did not bring a single soldier’s military unit to the defense of the government, no preparatory work was carried out with the junkers in military schools, so there were negligibly few of them on Palace Square on October 25, and there would have been more less if the junkers did not come on their own. The fact that it was the junkers who did not take part in the defense of the Winter Palace on October 25 that took part in the anti-Bolshevik cadet action on October 29 speaks of the complete disorganization in the defense of the Provisional Government. The only military unit of the Petrograd garrison that swore allegiance to the Provisional Government were the Cossacks. The main hopes were pinned on them in the days of unrest. On October 17, 1917, the head of the Provisional Government, A.F. Kerensky, was visited by delegates from the Don Cossack Military Circle, who noted the Cossacks’ distrust of the government and demanded that the government restore A. M. Kaledin as commander of the army and openly admit his mistake to the Don. Kerensky recognized the episode with Kaledin as a sad misunderstanding and promised in the coming days to make an official statement disavowing the episode, but he did not keep his word and no official explanation was given in a timely manner. And only on October 23, the Extraordinary Investigative Commission issued a decision on the non-involvement of General Kaledin in the Kornilov "mutiny". On the whole, the Petrograd Cossacks reacted passively to the upcoming events: even at a critical moment on the night of October 24-25, despite the repeated orders of the headquarters, the Cossacks did not come forward, without personally receiving guarantees from Kerensky that "this time the Cossack blood will not be shed in vain as was the case in July, when sufficiently energetic measures were not taken against the Bolsheviks". The Cossacks were ready to come to the aid of the Provisional Government, provided that the regiments were provided with machine guns, each regiment, organized from hundreds distributed among the factories, would be given armored cars and infantry units would march along with the Cossacks. On the basis of this agreement, 200 Cossacks and a machine-gun team of the 14th regiment were sent to Zimny. The remaining regiments were to join them as the Provisional Government fulfilled the requirements of the Cossacks, guaranteeing, in their opinion, that their vain July sacrifices would not be repeated. In connection with the failure to fulfill the conditions proposed by the Cossack regiments, at a daytime meeting of the Council of Cossack troops with representatives of the regiments, it was decided to withdraw the previously sent 2 hundred and not take any part in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising. According to the historian of the revolution SP Melgunov, the October refusal of the Cossacks to suppress the Bolshevik uprising was a great tragedy for Russia.

On the morning of October 25 (November 7), small detachments of the Bolsheviks begin to occupy the main objects of the city: the telegraph agency, railway stations, the main power station, food warehouses, the state bank and the telephone exchange. These "military operations" were like "changing of the guard", since there was no resistance to the commissars of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (VRK) who came and occupied this or that institution. By this time, the Provisional Government found itself practically without defenders: it had only a detachment of disabled soldiers, junkers and shock women of the 1st Petrograd Women's Death Battalion.

By the middle of the day, most of the key objects were occupied by Bolshevik patrols without resistance from the patrols of the Provisional Government. The head of the Provisional Government, Kerensky, left Petrograd by car at about 11 o'clock, without leaving any instructions to the government. N. M. Kishkin, a civilian minister, was appointed special commissioner for the establishment of order in Petrograd. Of course, de facto, his "governor-general" powers were limited only to self-defense in the Winter Palace. Convinced that the district authorities had no desire to act, Kishkin removed Georgy Polkovnikov from his post and handed over the functions of commander of the troops to General Yakov Bagratuni. On the day of October 25, Kishkin and his subordinates acted quite boldly and efficiently, but even the energetic and organizational skills of Kishkin could not do much in just a few hours left at his disposal.

In the first half of the day, the shock cadets of the women's battalion, a detachment of Cossacks with machine guns, a battery of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, a school of engineering ensigns, and also a number of volunteers join the guards of the Winter Junkers of the Peterhof and Oranienbaum schools. Therefore, in the first half of the day, the members of the government, most likely, did not feel the tragedy of their situation: some military force gathered near the Winter Palace, perhaps sufficient to hold out until the arrival of troops from the front. The passivity of the attackers also lulled the vigilance of the Provisional Government. All government activity was reduced to appealing to the population and to the garrison with a series of belated and therefore useless appeals.

Departure of part of the defenders of the Winter Palace

By the evening of October 25, the ranks of the defenders of the Winter Palace had thinned greatly: they were leaving hungry, deceived, and discouraged. The few Cossacks who were in Zimne also left, embarrassed by the fact that all the infantry of the government turned out to be "women with guns." By evening, the artillery also left the residence of the government: they left on the orders of their chief, the cadet of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, although a small part of them disobeyed the order and remained. The version later spread by the Bolsheviks that the order to leave had been given allegedly “under pressure” from the MRC was a lie. In reality, the artillery was taken away by deception with the help of the political commissar of the school. Some of the junkers of the Oranienbaum school also left.

The armored cars of the Provisional Government were forced to leave the area of the Winter Palace due to lack of gasoline.

Evening October 25

At 18:30, scooters from the Peter and Paul Fortress arrived at the headquarters of the besieged with an ultimatum from Antonov-Ovseenko to surrender the Provisional Government and disarm all its defenders. In case of refusal, the Bolsheviks threatened to fire from the warships standing on the Neva and from the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The government decided not to enter into negotiations with the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Finally, having begun to realize the degree of criticality of their situation, the ministers decided to turn to the City Duma for moral support and began to look for some kind of physical help through the telephone. Someone even went to the City Duma and walked around its factions with the words that a tragic denouement was coming, that it was necessary to come out in defense of the government and call on the population as well. But no help came. The only real attempt to help the Provisional Government was made by B. V. Savinkov, and it was connected with the name of General M. V. Alekseev. Savinkov found the former Supreme Commander-in-Chief only at night from the 25th to the 26th. Discussed was the possibility of collecting at least a small armed force to give battle to the Bolsheviks. According to Savinkov, the general even sketched out a plan for the upcoming military operations, which, however, they did not manage to carry out.

Finally, in Zimny they began to take some real steps towards their own self-defense in order to hold out until the arrival of troops from the front, expected by morning. All forces were pulled directly to the palace, the headquarters was left to the Bolsheviks. General Bagratuni refused to take on the duties of a commander and left the Winter Palace, then was arrested by sailors and survived thanks to an accident. Lieutenant Colonel Ananin, the head of the school of engineering ensigns, who was destined to become the main organized force, the support of the besieged government, becomes the head of defense. The functions of the defenders are distributed in case of an assault, machine guns abandoned by the departed Cossacks are placed.

Very indicative and characterizing the situation is the episode with the arrival at about 20:00 in the Winter Palace, already brought into combat condition in anticipation of an attack, by one of the leaders of the siege - Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee Grigory Chudnovsky, at the invitation of the delegate of the Oranienbaum school, Junker Kiselev for negotiations on "surrender". Chudnovsky, together with Kiselev, were immediately arrested on the orders of Palchinsky, but later, at the request of those who guaranteed their “ honestly» Chudnovsky immunity of the junkers, released. Another group of junkers who did not want to fight anymore left with them.

At 21 o'clock the Provisional Government addressed the country with a radiotelegram:

Petrograd Soviet and s. d. declared the Provisional Government deposed and demanded the transfer of power to it under the threat of bombing the Winter Palace from the cannons of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the cruiser Aurora, standing on the Neva. The government can transfer power only to the Constituent Assembly, and therefore decided not to surrender and give itself under the protection of the people and the army, about which a telegram was sent to the Headquarters. Headquarters responded about sending a detachment. Let the people and the country respond to the insane attempt of the Bolsheviks to raise an uprising in the rear of the struggling army.

Storm

The Bolsheviks decided to storm the Winter Palace only after the arrival of several thousand sailors of the Baltic Fleet from Helsingfors and Kronstadters, who had already been tested in the July days and constituted a real force in Petrograd on October 25, arrived to their aid from Kronstadt. Despite the fact that Lenin demanded the withdrawal of the entire fleet, believing that the coup in Petrograd was in greater danger than from the Baltic Sea, the sailors themselves, in violation of Lenin's requirements, did not want to expose the outer front to the Germans.

At the same time, it is known about the forces guarding the Winter Palace that at the time of the assault they consisted of approximately 137 shock women of the 1st Petrograd Women's Death Battalion (2nd company), 2-3 companies of junkers and 40 invalids of the St. George Cavaliers, led by a captain on prostheses .

By evening, only the Winter Palace remained in the hands of the Provisional Government, which was guarded by a small detachment of junkers and a small part of the 1st Petrograd women's death battalion. The main part of the women's battalion was sent back to the place of deployment in Levashovo outside the city. P. I. Palchinsky, Kishkin's deputy, was appointed head of the defense of the Winter Palace. Another key figure was Kishkin's deputy Pyotr Rutenberg.

First attack on the Winter Palace

Almost simultaneously with the last appeal of the government to Russia, at 9 pm, after a blank signal shot from the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Bolshevik offensive began on the Winter Palace (At 9:40 pm, on the orders of Commissar A. V. Belyshev, gunner E. Ognev from the Aurora tank gun one blank shot was fired, which, according to a number of Soviet sources, served as the signal for the start of the assault on the Winter Palace). The first attack was a rifle and machine gun shelling of the palace with the participation of armored cars, accompanied by return fire from the defenders of the palace, and lasted about an hour. As a result of the attack, Palchinsky notes in his notebook that there are quite enough forces for defense, but the lack of command staff is tragic - only 5 officers were present among the defenders of the Provisional Government. Immediately, the executive committee of the postal and telegraph union sends out a message:

The first attack on the Winter Palace was at 10 pm. repulsed

At the same time, the Government brought "to the attention":

The situation is recognized as favorable ... The palace is shelled, but only with rifle fire without any results. The enemy is found to be weak.

The words of Antonov-Ovseenko himself give approximately the same assessment:

Disorderly crowds of sailors, soldiers, Red Guards now swim to the gates of the palace, then recede

The first attack of the Bolsheviks from 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm resulted in the surrender of the women's battalion shock women, who, according to Soviet sources, allegedly "could not withstand the fire." In fact, the surrender was the result of an unsuccessful sortie of shock women to “liberate General Alekseev”, which Colonel Ananyin, the head of defense of Zimny, could not stop. The girls ran to the arch of the General Staff building and fell into the hands of a Red patrol. Before that, the striker girl called for a sortie, apparently for some reason thinking that Alekseev was there ... The ranks of the defenders thinned out completely. In the end, through the back doors of the palace, which no one was guarding or defending, the Reds entered the building. Without any resistance and "storm". They were "met" by empty corridors.

Second attack on the Winter Palace

For the stormers, the Winter Palace could not present a serious obstacle, since it was defended only from the side of the facade, and at the same time they forgot to lock the back doors from the side of the Neva, through which not only sailors with workers, but simply curious people and lovers of profit began to easily penetrate. This accidental oversight by the defenders of the Winter Palace was subsequently used in the Bolshevik ideology and falsely presented in propaganda: “the inhabitants of the palace cellars in their class hatred for the exploiters” opened “secret” entrances to the Bolsheviks, through which agitators of the VRK penetrated and began to propagandize the defenders of the palace . “... these were not random scouts, but, of course, special envoys of the Military Revolutionary Committee,” S. P. Melgunov, one of the researchers of the 1917 revolution, ironically over the methods of Bolshevik propaganda.

Parliamentarians led by Chudnovsky appear among the besieged with a new ultimatum. Trotsky, following Malyantovich, repeats the mistake made by the guards of the Winter Palace, who mistook for a deputation of the Duma two hundred enemies who broke through into the corridors of the palace in this way. According to the historian of the revolution S.P. Melgunov, such a mistake could not have happened: behind the parliamentarians, who destroyed the fiery and bayonet barrier between the attackers and defenders with their appearance, a crowd poured from Palace Square, poured into the courtyard, and began to spread along all the stairs and corridors palace.

In some episodes, the junkers tried to resist in some places, but were quickly crushed by the crowd, and by nightfall the resistance had ceased.

The head of defense Ananin sends Lieutenant A.P. Sinegub to the government with a message about the forced surrender of the Winter Palace, and also that the junkers were promised life by the Bolshevik parliamentarians. During the meeting of the government on surrender, the crowd accompanying Antonov-Ovseenko comes close to the cadet guards. Palchinsky introduces one Antonov into the room to the ministers, then goes out to the junkers with an announcement of the decision taken on the unconditional surrender of the ministers, expressing by this submission only to force, and a proposal to the junkers to do the same. However, the Junkers had to be persuaded.

Arrest of ministers of the Provisional Government

The ministers of the Provisional Government were arrested by V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, a representative of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, at 2:10 am on October 26, 1917.

Despite all the real danger, when a motley crowd burst into the Winter Palace, excited by the combat situation of shooting, bombs and gunpowder, with the excesses and violence inherent in such a crowd, the ministers of the Provisional Government did not show either confusion or hesitation.

One of the ministers even quite courageously said to Antonov-Ovseenko:

We did not give up, we only submitted to force, and do not forget that your criminal case has not yet been crowned with final success.

Many of the contemporaries assessed the act of the Ministers of the Provisional Government, who remained to the end to the end, as a feat: a city meeting of 350 Menshevik-defensists on October 27 welcomed “the unshakable courage shown by the ministers of the Russian Republic, who remained in office to the end under cannon fire and thereby set a high example of a true revolutionary prowess".

First hand events

From a conversation with Minister S. L. Maslov, who was a member of the Provisional Government:

On Tuesday (October 24, 1917, O.S.) I arrived at the ordinary meeting of the Verkhovna Rada. Government to the Winter Palace. The entire cast was present. A. F. Kerensky presided ...
During the discussion of the bill, A.F. Kerensky was informed several times about the impending action of the Bolsheviks. It was decided to postpone the end of the discussion of the bill and move on to the consideration of current events ...
Wednesday at 11(?) in the morning, I received a telephone message about my arrival at an urgent meeting of VR. Governments...
At 7 o'clock. vech. N. M. Kishkin at headquarters was presented by two sailors with a written demand signed by Antonov for the surrender of the Provisional Government and the disarmament of the guard. The demand included an indication that all the guns of the Aurora and the Peter and Paul Fortress were aimed at the Winter Palace. 25 minutes were given for reflection.

Antonov, in the name of the revolutionary committee, declared everyone under arrest and began to copy those present. Min signed up first. Konovalov, then Kishkin and others. They asked about Kerensky, but he was not in the palace...
They began to separate the cells of the Trubetskoy bastion, each one alone. They put me in cell no. 39, they put Kartashev next to me. The room is damp and cold. So we spent the night...
The day passed uneventfully...
At three o'clock in the morning I was awakened by several military men who entered the cell. I was told that, by the decision of the 2nd Congress of Soviets, Salazkin and I were released under house arrest...

The interview was published in the newspaper Delo Naroda, No. 193 of October 29, 1917.

human losses

There is no exact data on the losses of the parties. It is known for sure that six soldiers and one striker were killed.

The looting of the palace. Vandalism

The fact that hooligan elements from among those who stormed the Winter Palace was robbed was not denied even by Bolshevik memoirists and Soviet historians. The robbery took place both during the assault and in the days after it, when, as American journalist John Reed, an eyewitness to the events, wrote, “Some people from among all citizens in general, who for several days after occupying the palace were allowed to roam freely through its rooms ... stole and took with them silverware, watches, bedding, mirrors, porcelain vases and stones of average value”. In an attempted robbery, according to the same journalist, some of the defenders of the Winter Palace were also caught. The new authorities tried to stop the looting, but in vain.

5 days after the assault, a special commission of the City Duma examined the destruction of the Winter Palace and found that, in terms of valuable art objects, the palace had lost, but not much. In those places where the robbers passed, the commission encountered pictures of real vandalism: portraits had their eyes pierced, leather seats were cut off from the chairs, oak boxes with valuable porcelain were pierced with bayonets, valuable icons, books, miniatures, etc. were scattered on the floor of the palace. The commission estimated the damage caused to the Winter Palace by robbery and vandalism at 50,000 rubles. Some of the items were later returned - they were found at resellers, in bazaars and from foreigners leaving Russia.

The apartment of the Director of the Hermitage D. Tolstoy was also looted.

At first, the robbers failed to penetrate into the wine cellar, which was worth several million gold rubles, but all attempts to wall it up were also unsuccessful. The contents of the wine cellars began to be destroyed by rifle fire. This led to the fact that the soldiers guarding the palace, fearing that the Bolsheviks would destroy all the wine, seized it again and staged a real pogrom in the wine cellars. Trotsky recalled: “Wine flowed down the canals to the Neva, soaking the snow, drunkards lapped straight from the ditches.” In order to stop the uncontrolled looting of wine, the Military Revolutionary Committee was forced to promise to give alcohol to representatives of military units daily at the rate of two bottles per soldier per day.

Excesses and violence

After the capture of the Winter Palace, rumors began to spread that the captured cadets and officers were mocked, tortured and killed; that women from the shock battalion were raped and some were killed. Similar statements were made in the anti-Bolshevik press, in the diaries and memoirs of contemporaries. The official bodies of the Bolsheviks and part of the participants in the events on both sides rejected such statements. In the historical literature, such rumors are regarded as unreliable. It is difficult to say how accurate this information was, however, as a specially created commission of the Petrograd City Duma established, three shock girls were raped, although perhaps few dared to admit it, one committed suicide.

The city council appointed a special commission to investigate the case. On November 16 (3), this commission returned from Levashov, where the women's battalion was quartered. ... a member of the commission - Dr. Mandelbaum dryly testified that not a single woman was thrown out of the windows of the Winter Palace, that three were raped and that she committed suicide alone, and she left a note in which she writes that she was "disappointed" in her ideals " .
John Reed, 10 Days That..., 1957, p. 289

The historian Melgunov in his monograph “How the Bolsheviks Seized Power” agrees with the statement of L. Trotsky that there were no executions and could not be; According to the historian V. T. Loginov, immediately after the capture of the Winter Palace, “an “information war” began, escalating the atmosphere of general psychosis and confrontation,” he writes about the unreliability of reports of executions and rapes.

Reconstructions of the "storming of the Winter"

Timeline of the 1917 Revolution in Russia

Before:
Bolshevization of the Soviets
See also:
Directory ,
All-Russian Democratic Conference,
Provisional Council of the Russian Republic

October armed uprising in Petrograd

After:
The struggle for the legitimization of the new government:

II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies

Other events

Why did the Provisional Government in October 1917 defend only cadets and women? Why did the Bolsheviks fire at the soldiers' hospital in the Winter Palace from the Peter and Paul Fortress? Why did the water in the Winter Canal turn red after he was captured? This was told by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department world history RGPU them. A.I. Herzen Julia Kantor.

Tsarevich Alexei Hospital

It is almost unknown to the general public what the Winter Palace looked like in October 1917. What was then in the former imperial residence?

Few people here know that since October 1915 the Winter Palace has ceased to be the citadel of the Russian monarchy. The imperial family moved to the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, where they spent the next two years. And the Winter Palace was given over to a military hospital for soldiers (and only soldiers) wounded during the First World War.

All the ceremonial and ceremonial halls, except for the Great Throne Room, were turned into huge chambers that could accommodate up to 200 people. At the same time, in the suite of rooms overlooking the Neva embankment, there were bedridden patients who could not move independently. The hospital was named after Tsarevich Alexei, since at its opening the imperial family made a vow to deliver the heir to the throne from hemophilia.

Military hospital in the Winter Palace

What happened to the luxurious decoration of the palace and numerous art objects?

All the walls of the premises given over to the hospital were covered almost to the ceiling with gauze shields. As for the treasures of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage, during the First World War, a significant part of them were evacuated.

By the way, the palace building was then painted not in the current green color, but in the beet, as a university in Kiev.

Why?

This was done during the First World War - apparently, they decided to experiment. Prior to this, the Winter Palace had been grayish-beige for some time, although it was originally blue, like most of Rastrelli's other buildings.

Hospital wards in the Winter Palace

In addition to the huge hospital, what else was located in the Winter Palace in October 1917?

From the end of March 1917 there was the residence of the Provisional Government. It was the initiative of Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky, who after that was jokingly called Alexander the Fourth. There, of course, there was a huge apparatus of ministries, reception rooms for petitioners and visitors. In a word - Government House.

The myth of Kerensky's flight

Kerensky was also mockingly called Alexandra Fedorovna, because he allegedly lived in the chambers of the former empress.

In fact, there are no documents to support this. It is known for sure that members of the Provisional Government spent the night in the Winter Palace for the last two days before their arrest on the night of October 26, 1917 (hereinafter all dates are given in the old style - approx.). On the last - revolutionary - night, Kerensky was no longer among them, since on the morning of October 25 he left for Gatchina.

Why do you think he did it? It was clearly a rash move on his part.

We must understand what the situation was by that time in Petrograd. It was impossible to rely on the Petrograd garrison, since it consisted almost entirely of rear units, which, as early as the beginning of October, Kerensky tried to send to the front. It is not surprising that the soldiers did not have warm feelings for the Provisional Government and were very susceptible to Bolshevik propaganda. The sailors of the Baltic Fleet (especially the Kronstadters) and the majority of the Cossacks were either on the side of the Bolsheviks, or did not understand at all what was happening. It is important to remember: Zimny was cut off from the world, he did not even have a telephone connection in those two days.

Therefore, on the morning of October 25, Kerensky set off towards Gatchina to summon loyal troops to the capital. The fact that he allegedly escaped from the Winter Palace in a woman's dress is an invention of the Bolsheviks. Alexander Fedorovich left for Gatchina in a car, with an open top, and in his clothes.

So it wasn't like running away?

No, Kerensky's departure was not like the flight from Kiev in December 1918 of the Ukrainian hetman Skoropadsky, so colorfully described by Bulgakov in The White Guard, who was carried out of his office on a stretcher and with a bandaged face.

Remember famous painting Georgy Shegal's "Escape of Kerensky from Gatchina in 1917", where the Minister-Chairman of the Provisional Government is depicted in the dress of a sister of mercy? IN Soviet time everyone heard about women's dress, but no one thought about why Kerensky is depicted in the picture in a nurse's costume.

The fact is that even twenty years after those events, the artist remembered the existence of a soldier's hospital in the Winter Palace in October 1917. Therefore, Shegal tried to doubly humiliate former head the Russian state, which supposedly fled not only to women's clothing, but in the dress of a sister of mercy.

Women's shock battalion on the square in front of the Winter Palace

Passive defense of the Winter

But then where did this legend come from?

According to the memoirs of Nina Galanina, sister of mercy of the palace hospital, on the morning of October 26, after the capture of the Winter Palace, the Bolsheviks tore off bandages from bedridden patients, especially those with maxillofacial wounds. They suspected that ministers of the Provisional Government and the junkers protecting them were hiding among them. I think the legs of this myth grow from there.

Only the junkers remained loyal to the legitimate authorities. How many of them were inside and outside the Winter Palace is not known for certain - from about 500 to 700 people. The defenders of the Provisional Government either came to the palace or left it for various reasons.

For what?

According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, they left mainly along household reasons. The provisional government was so helpless that it could not even feed its defenders. At the most crucial moment, on the evening of October 25, the women's battalion left to wash and eat. There was no organized and thoughtful defense of the Winter Palace. And yet - everyone is just tired of waiting.

Junkers in the halls of the Winter Palace preparing for defense

Didn't the Provisional Government expect an attempt to seize the building?

For me it is still a mystery. Hypothetically - expected. After all, the Extraordinary Congress of Soviets was meeting in Smolny, which, under pressure from a small group of radicals headed by Lenin and Trotsky, in an ultimatum form, offered the legitimate Provisional Government to resign. Of course, the Provisional Government rejected the ultimatum. After that, late in the evening of October 25, it was obvious that the Bolsheviks would proceed to action. But the ministers who met in the Winter Palace were passive, if not bewildered.

Shooting at the wounded

Tell us about the capture of the Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks. As far as we know now, there was no assault?

There was no assault, but there was a capture. The famous shots from Eisenstein's film "October", when a huge human avalanche rushes from the arch of the General Staff Building through Palace Square to the front gates of the Winter Palace, have nothing to do with reality.

By the way, in October 1917, there were no more double-headed eagles on these gates - by order of Kerensky, all symbols Russian Empire(including the imperial monograms on the facade of the building) were removed a month earlier, after the declaration of Russia as a republic on September 1, 1917. There was no assault, there was a gradual capture of the Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks.

But the famous Aurora shot actually happened?

Yes, sure. A single blank shot from gun #1.

Did this shot really mean the signal for the start of an armed uprising?

On October 27, the Aurora team (and it was, of course, promoted by the Bolsheviks) made a statement to the press for the citizens of Petrograd. In it, in a harsh but slightly offended tone, it was reported that the rumors about the firing of live shells from the cruiser at the Winter Palace were a lie and a provocation.

The cruiser's crew claimed that the blank shot was fired only to warn all ships in the Neva area about "vigilance and readiness."

That is, no one shelled the Winter Palace that night?

Even as they fired. On the night of October 25-26, real live shells were fired at the Winter Palace from the side of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the garrison of which was pro-Bolshevik. Moreover, the hospital wards with bedridden wounded, located in the front halls overlooking the Neva, suffered the most from the shelling. The exact number of those killed by this artillery cannonade is not known, but there were at least several dozen dead. These were the first casualties.

But didn't the garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress know that they were shooting at the hospital?

Of course, they knew - newspapers of all directions wrote a lot about the existence of the hospital during the entire time of its existence. They fired directly at the facade of the Winter Palace, not caring in the least that there were wounded soldiers there, and many of them in a completely helpless state.

And it didn't bother anyone?

Rhetorical question. According to the recollections of the sisters of mercy and the surviving soldiers, after the shelling from the Neva side, a wild panic arose in the palace hospital - no one knew who and why was shooting and when it would all end. Who could somehow move, lay down on the floor. Shooting from the Peter and Paul Fortress began around midnight and continued for an hour and a half.

Arrest of the Provisional Government

The capture of the Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks began only after this shelling?

After one in the morning, a small armed group (10-12 people), led by Antonov-Ovseenko, entered through the only unlocked and unguarded entrance to Zimny from the side of Palace Square, which led to the Empress's chambers.

It is now impossible to find out why none of the defenders of the palace was there - probably everyone simply forgot about this entrance, since this part of the Winter Palace had long been empty. According to some reports, one of the companies of the women's battalion was supposed to be here, but late in the evening of October 25, almost all of its personnel left their positions.

Antonov-Ovseenko and his comrades climbed a small narrow stairs to the second floor and, of course, got lost in many absolutely dark rooms. At about two o'clock in the morning, hearing someone's voices, they went out to the Malachite Drawing Room and found themselves right in front of the door of the Small Dining Room, where the ministers of the Provisional Government met.

Nobody guarded them?

There was supposed to be a post of junkers in the Malachite Drawing Room, but for some reason there was no one there. Another cadet post was located in a room adjoining the Small Dining Room from the opposite side.

Junkers did not try to neutralize the Antonov-Ovseenko detachment?

There is no evidence that the junkers were somehow involved in this situation.

How can this be explained? Maybe they were just sleeping?

I do not think. The Winter Palace was shelled with might and main from the Peter and Paul Fortress, so it is unlikely that any of its inhabitants slept that night. I can only assume that the appearance of the Antonov-Ovseenko armed group came as a complete surprise to everyone.

Reception Alexander III, where one of the shells fired at the palace from the Peter and Paul Fortress hit

Perhaps the members of the Provisional Government, in order to avoid bloodshed, asked the junkers not to resist, especially since Antonov-Ovseenko guaranteed everyone's life. He declared the ministers arrested, after which they were taken in two cars to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Does that mean there was no violence?

At that moment there was none. But after a few hours, the entrances from the Neva side were opened, and the Winter Palace gradually began to fill up with various idle people. After that, the real bacchanalia began there.

Destruction of the royal cellars

What do you have in mind?

I have already mentioned that in the palace hospital the Bolsheviks began to tear off the bandages and dressings from the bedridden patients. But the other guests of the hospital, who could move independently, put up a worthy resistance to them. According to the memoirs of eyewitnesses, the first uninvited guests who broke into the medical premises got pretty bad: they were simply lowered down the stairs, and sick soldiers used not only crutches, chairs and stools, but also vessels for natural needs as a means of defense.

Symbolically.

Not without it…

Is it true that after the capture the Winter Palace underwent a real defeat?

No, this is an exaggeration. Door handles were unscrewed in some places, wallpaper was cut off in some places or furniture was damaged, something, of course, was stolen. Some of the interiors were damaged. The victims of that public were portraits of Alexander III and Nicholas II: they were pierced with bayonets. One - Nicholas II - is now stored in the Museum political history Russia, the second - Alexander III - is still in the Hermitage. The Winter Palace, by the way, was damaged between February and October 1917, when it actually turned into a passage courtyard.

I. Vladimirov. "The Capture of the Winter Palace"

Why?

There were government offices, which were visited by the most diverse public. The building was littered and kept in an extremely neglected condition: there is a lot of archival evidence of this from those who were "attendants". Some damage interior decoration The palace was also inflicted by junkers using interior items as targets.

Why did they do it?

It was unlikely that this was malicious vandalism - probably, the junkers had so much fun. In general, the Winter Palace was lucky and, unlike the Versailles of the times, it did not suffer much during the events of 1917.

They say that after the capture of the Winter Palace, the new owners plundered its wine cellars and shat in vases?

The Winter Palace was at the mercy of various loitering public for exactly one day. We must pay tribute to the Bolsheviks - they were able to quickly restore order in the building, declaring it a state museum.

But during these days, the palace wine cellars were indeed completely devastated. Thank God, a significant part of the red wine stocks managed to be drained into the Winter Canal. By the way, another myth was born from here that after the assault, the water in the canal turned red with blood. The winter groove really turned red, but not from blood, but from good red wine. As for the allegedly defiled vases and vessels, this is also a myth. If there were such cases, they were isolated.

"Lock the floors, today there will be robberies"

Were there cases of bullying and reprisals against the junkers and violence against women?

I have never heard of violence against women. I can say for sure that no one touched the sisters of mercy from the hospital - this is confirmed by the memories of them themselves. As for the junkers, they were disarmed and sent home. Reprisals and lynchings in those days were not in the Winter Palace, but in all of Petrograd.

As with any turmoil, armed gangs of criminals immediately appeared in the capital, with which even the Bolsheviks at first could not cope. They robbed shops and banks everywhere, broke into the houses of the townspeople and killed them. It was not in vain that Blok wrote at that time: “Lock the floors, Today there will be robberies! // Unlock the cellars - The squalor is walking now.

S. Lukin. It's done!

What happened to the building of the Winter Palace after the October Revolution?

I already said that just a few days after the seizure of power, the Bolsheviks nationalized the Winter Palace and the Hermitage, setting up a state museum there. Then they liquidated the palace hospital, and its guests were distributed to other infirmaries of the capital.

How did Petrograd and the rest of Russia react to the change of power?

At first, they didn't really notice her. Let's not forget that the Bolsheviks immediately after the October Revolution declared themselves a provisional government only until the elections to the Constituent Assembly. Many believed that they would last even less than the Provisional Government. No one then could have imagined that this regime would last in our country until 1991.

On the announcement: Women's shock battalion on the square in front of the Winter Palace

Until recently, one of the most beloved and popular holidays was the holiday of the Great October Revolution. Those who are now over forty will surely remember the streets filled with festively dressed demonstrators with red flags and banners, their enthusiastic faces. They probably didn’t forget the lines from the poem: “... A sailor is running, a soldier is running, shooting on the move. A worker is dragging a machine gun - now he will enter the battle. Down with the landlords!..” They also remember the stories of how the revolutionary detachments of workers, sailors and soldiers boldly, not sparing their lives, attacked the Winter Palace, a stronghold of the autocracy. In other words, the revolution was accomplished thanks to the skillful and coordinated actions of its participants But in fact, everything was not quite so, or rather, not at all, and there are many facts about this, including testimonies of famous people.

Who are they, storming the Winter Palace and its defenders?

In March 1917, Nicholas II abdicated in favor of younger brother Michael. However, he voluntarily handed it over to the Provisional Government. As you know, there was another power in the country at that time - the power of the Bolsheviks. And, of course, it was impossible to do without confrontation between them.

On October 24, all the most important objects, including the Peter and Paul Fortress, were in the hands of the Bolsheviks. Only one Winter Palace - the stronghold of the interim government, was not in their power. He was under the protection of a small group of Cossacks, a women's battalion, and teenage junkers.

A few words about the Petrograd women's battalion, formed in June 1917. They put on soldier's overcoats for the sole purpose of helping the army bring the protracted war to a victorious end. On October 24, the battalion was called to the Winter Palace, ostensibly to take part in the parade. After that, Staff Captain Loskov was ordered to use women to protect the Provisional Government, but he refused, citing the fact that the battalion was serving to fight an external enemy. Then he was ordered to leave at least one company. So, with the help of deception, this company ended up among the few defenders of the Winter Palace. Ilyin-Zhenevsky, editor of the Bolshevik newspapers Soldatskaya Pravda and Golos Pravdy, later noted that the women's company made a rather pitiful spectacle.

So, the position of the defenders of the Winter Palace was not so hopeless: almost all more or less trained soldiers were at the front, and the Red Guard detachments, which consisted mainly of workers and peasants, actually did not know how to use weapons. True, the revolutionary-minded sailors of the Baltic Fleet joined the Bolsheviks, but they were not trained in combat operations on land.

On October 25, the defenders of the Winter Palace showed their combat readiness. When the Bolsheviks launched an attack, they received a fierce rebuff and retreated. Then they were ordered to bring down the full power of artillery on the Winter Palace. Volleys of dozens of guns were heard from the side of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Ordinary workers, who by the will of fate became artillerymen, fired almost direct fire. However, only two shells hit the target, slightly hitting the eaves of the building. warships in general, they limited themselves only to the world-famous blank shot of the Aurora cruiser.

Most likely, the whole point was that since 1915 on the first floor of the Winter Palace there was a hospital with almost a thousand beds. It goes without saying that not a single normal sailor or soldier, even a revolutionary one, will shoot at the Red Cross. It must be said that the hospital had the most advanced equipment for that time, the best medicines, latest methods treatment. It is also gratifying to note that the wounded were placed not in accordance with their merits and titles, but according to the degree of injury.

So, Zimny continued to defend himself. Two more attacks were made by the Bolsheviks, but they were also repulsed. However, in the late afternoon, hungry, forgotten by everyone and discouraged, the defenders began to disperse. A few Cossacks also left, shocked by the fact that all impact force turned out to be "women with guns." The rest continued to hold on.

From the memoirs of Prussing

I would especially like to touch on such a category of defenders as junkers. Oswald von Prüssing, a Russian officer of German origin, happened to take part in the defense of the Winter Palace. In his memoirs, he later noted: “I was at home when the doorbell rang. took over the commandant of the Winter Palace. My headquarters was located on the first floor of the Winter Palace, in a corner room. Its windows overlooked the square and the Alexander Garden. From here it was clearly visible how the commandant placed the junkers from the outside of the palace: across the Palace Bridge, from the embankment to corner of Nevsky and further, to the palace. I looked and grieved in my soul for my wards. Their arrangement had not yet been completed, when an armored car appeared from the side of Vasilyevsky Island, and along Admiralteyskaya embankment- a disorderly crowd of armed sailors, Red Army soldiers and civilians. And then, as if on someone's signal, fire was opened on the junkers. Those who were guarding the bridge, the uncontrollable crowd picked up bayonets and threw them into the Neva. There was deathly silence in the palace, we were all terrified. And then help arrived in time - it was a women's battalion. I approached the lined up women, not without emotion. One of them separated from the right flank and, having commanded "Attention!", approached me with a report. The commander was tall, with the bearing of a dashing non-commissioned officer of the Guards and a loud stentorian voice. She and her subordinates were wearing high boots, harem pants, over which were khaki skirts.

It must be said that our situation was critical: the water supply did not work, the electricity was turned off, and according to intelligence reports, the attackers had already made their way into the attic of the palace. Soon we clearly heard that the ceiling above our headquarters room was being pulled apart from above. I ordered barricades to be set up in all passages and stairs from the furniture available in the chambers. Finally, at four o'clock, drunken Bolsheviks appeared behind the barricades. Some of them, seeing women behind the barricades, tried to take possession of them. But they were under the reliable protection of the remaining junkers. Soon, unable to withstand the onslaught, the attackers left the palace. However, some women still fell into the clutches of angry bandits. All of them were stripped and raped, and some of them were killed.

It was already about 8 pm when we sent messengers to Smolny to ask permission for the junkers to return to their school. At about eleven they returned with a pass signed by Lenin himself. I lined up the surviving junkers, as well as the remaining women dressed in cadet uniforms, and we left the palace."

Very true book

In John Reed's book "Ten Days That Shook the World" there is also a story about the capture of the Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks. And it is not about the revolution, but about the October Revolution. Indeed, the concept of the "Great October Socialist Revolution" appeared only ten years later. Prior to this, the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks was called a coup. Stalin did not like the book right away - there was not a word about the leading role of the leader of all times and peoples. But the book has an important advantage over others. literary works: it is true and reliable. John Reed was not just an eyewitness to all events - he always found himself at their epicenter. His story refutes the official version of the storming of the Winter Palace. It was the capture of the palace by various rabble, who considered themselves the defenders of the revolution. And of course, it ended with the plundering of property by drunken participants in this lawlessness. They dragged everything in a row that they could only carry away.

"Carried away by the stormy human wave, we ran into the palace through the right entrance, which opened into a huge and empty vaulted room - the basement of the east wing, from where a labyrinth of corridors and stairs diverged. There were many boxes here. The Red Guards and soldiers attacked them with fury, breaking them with rifle butts and pulling out carpets, curtains, linen, porcelain and glassware... Someone put a bronze watch on his shoulder ... ".

drunken revolution

And now, perhaps, it would be appropriate to recall such an anecdote: "Smolny?! Do you have wine or vodka?" "Not!". "And where it is?". "In the Winter". "On the assault! Hurrah!!!". So, as soon as the resistance of the defenders of the Winter Palace was suppressed, crowds of drunken Red Guards, sailors, and other rabble entered the palace. The fact that large stocks of alcohol are stored in the Winter Palace pleasantly surprised both its defenders and the stormers. For example, a group of junkers, having credited a box of Madeira, armed themselves with swords and staged real duels in the corridor. On the whole, both in Zimny itself and outside it, there was a general mass booze.

According to eyewitnesses, the necks of empty bottles stuck out of the snow everywhere near the palace. When many were already drunk, they began to beat bottles in the wine cellars - some were no longer fit, some out of drunken prowess. To restore order, a group of still sober Red Guards arrived there in an armored car. However, when they were given several bottles, they immediately forgot about their lofty mission. Then revolutionary-minded, reliable Latvian riflemen were sent to liquidate the pogroms. However, this was not an easy task even for them - the drunken pogromists did not want to leave the warehouses so easily. Here and there rifle shots and even machine-gun shots were heard.

From the same memories, a fire brigade arrived in Zimny and began pumping out alcohol from the cellars with pumps. "The wine, soaking the snow, flowed down the ditches into the Neva. Some lapped right from the ditches." And soon, allegedly, the fire brigade itself got too drunk.

Here is evidence of Lenin's reaction to this drunken arbitrariness: "These scoundrels will drown the whole revolution in wine!" he shouted, and a cramp cramped his face. "The Smolny did not know exactly what to do. Take out all the stocks of alcohol from the Winter Palace - but where? If you go to Smolny, then drunken crowds from Zimny will rush in. It seemed that there was no such force that would put an end to all this lawlessness.

There is such power!

But there is such power! It was she who recently broke the resistance of the defenders of the Winter Palace. Few people know that the Winter Palace was actually captured not by the Red Guards and sailors. They were top-class professionals from Finland, and they were commanded by a former military intelligence officer, Colonel Mikhail Stepanovich Svechnikov. For two years, his team was trained as a special assault brigade, which in 1917 was considered the most combat-ready force. The revolutionary consciousness and combat skills of this Finnish army, especially its commander, were highly valued by Lenin himself.

And Mikhail Stepanovich did not let him down. On October 19, the newspaper Izvestia of the Gelsinforskogo Soviet of Deputies published an article by Svechnikov calling for the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Thus, he let Lenin know that everything was ready for them. And soon Svechnikov sent a telegram to Smolny: "We are ready to defend the Soviets." It meant only one thing: trainloads of fighters were already on their way to Petrograd. On October 26 at 0.30, the arrived special forces began the last assault on the Winter Palace and dealt a crushing blow to the left flank of its defenders. The provisional government was arrested. Having accepted the revolution and being the head of the department of the history of military art of the Military Academy. Frunze, Svechnikov was arrested in 1938 and then shot.

To this should be added one interesting story. Somehow, in one old Petersburg house, among other documents, an officer's George Cross and a yellowed diary. Judging by the content, its author in 1917 was a participant in the defense of the Winter Palace. The document turned out to be quite interesting, however, what is happening is described in it in a completely different way from what was taught in Soviet schools and universities. If you believe the diary entries, the defenders of the Winter Palace easily repelled several Bolshevik attacks. The palace was captured only on the fourth attempt, and not by those who attacked before. Here is how it is described in the diary: "Suddenly, as if from the ground, an unknown detachment appeared in the form imperial army and literally in an instant he crushed all resistance, which decided the outcome of the October uprising. Then, having opened the doors for the revolutionary crowd, he just as suddenly disappeared. "As it turned out later, this detachment consisted of two hundred officers who arrived from Finland under the command of General Cheremisov. The strangest thing is that all these people for some reason were forgotten for many decades.

Vladimir Lotokhin

TO THE MAIN

the day before

Departure of part of the defenders of the Winter Palace

Evening October 25

Storm

First attack on the Winter Palace

Second attack on the Winter Palace

Arrest of ministers of the Provisional Government

human losses

The looting of the palace by the stormers. Vandalism

Excesses and violence

Reconstructions of the "storming of the Winter"

"The Storming of the Winter Palace" in the cinema

see also

Notes

background

the day before

Departure of part of the defenders of the Winter Palace

Evening October 25

Storm

First attack on the Winter Palace

Second attack on the Winter Palace

Arrest of ministers of the Provisional Government

First hand events

human losses

The looting of the palace. Vandalism

Excesses and violence

Reconstructions of the "storming of the Winter"

Tsarevich Alexei Hospital

The myth of Kerensky's flight

Passive defense of the Winter

Shooting at the wounded

Arrest of the Provisional Government

Destruction of the royal cellars

"Lock the floors, today there will be robberies"

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