The October Revolution — also called the Bolshevik Revolution or Red October — was the armed insurrection in Petrograd on 25 October 1917 (Julian calendar; 7 November Gregorian) that brought Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to power. It followed the February Revolution earlier that year, which had forced the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and produced a fragile dual-power arrangement between the liberal-led Provisional Government and the socialist-dominated Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
Under the operational direction of Leon Trotsky, chair of the Petrograd Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee, Red Guards and sympathetic soldiers and sailors seized key infrastructure — bridges, telegraph stations, railway terminals — and stormed the Winter Palace, arresting most of the Provisional Government's ministers. Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky fled the capital. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, convening as the takeover unfolded, ratified the transfer of power and approved Lenin's first decrees on peace (calling for an immediate armistice without annexations) and land (abolishing private ownership of land and authorising peasant seizure of estates).
The new Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), chaired by Lenin, moved quickly: it nationalised banks, repudiated foreign debt, recognised national self-determination in principle, and opened negotiations with the Central Powers that produced the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918). The revolution triggered the Russian Civil War (1918–1922) between the Bolshevik Reds, the anti-Bolshevik Whites, and various nationalist and peasant forces, with Allied intervention on the White side. Victory by the Reds led to the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1922.
For IR and history researchers, October 1917 is a pivotal rupture: it produced the world's first avowedly communist state, reshaped 20th-century ideological alignments, and supplied a template — debated ever since — for revolutionary seizure of power.
Example
In November 1917, Bolshevik forces under Lenin and Trotsky stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, arresting ministers of Kerensky's Provisional Government and inaugurating Soviet rule.
Frequently asked questions
Russia still used the Julian calendar in 1917, which placed the uprising on 25 October. By the Gregorian calendar adopted in 1918, the date corresponds to 7 November.
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