Outline of the October Revolution

October Revolution
Part of the Russian Revolution and the Revolutions of 1917–1923
Red Guards at the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, 1917
Date 25–26 October [N.S. 7–8 November] 1917 Location Petrograd, Russian Republic Result Bolshevik victory Overthrow of the Provisional Government and end of dual power Transfer of power to the Congress of Soviets and formation of the Council of People's Commissars under Vladimir Lenin Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 Onset of the Russian Civil War

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the October Revolution in Russia.

The October Revolution (Russian: Октябрьская революция), known in Soviet historiography as the Great October Socialist Revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Its decisive events took place in and around Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), then the Russian capital, where the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet occupied the government's key installations and overthrew the Provisional Government headed by Alexander Kerensky.

On 10 October [N.S. 23 October] 1917 the Bolshevik Central Committee resolved by ten votes to two that an armed uprising was "inevitable"; the Petrograd Soviet then created the Military Revolutionary Committee, which by the third week of October had displaced the district command and taken effective control of the capital's garrison. When Kerensky moved against the Bolshevik press on 24 October, the committee seized the telegraph, the bridges, the railway stations, the State Bank and the telephone exchange, and on the evening of 25 October besieged the Winter Palace. The ministers were arrested there at 2:10 a.m. on 26 October. Meeting at the Smolny Institute while the palace fell, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets proclaimed the transfer of power to the soviets, adopted the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land, and elected the Council of People's Commissars under Vladimir Lenin.

Main articles

• October Revolution – overview of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, planned and carried out by the Bolsheviks under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin.

Background

• World War I – major armed conflict between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers. Russia suffered social upheaval during the war, followed by a political and military collapse in 1917 that led to the abdication of Nicholas II and the revolution.
• Eastern Front (World War I) – the Russian theater of World War I.
• 1905 Russian Revolution – wave of political and social unrest that preceded the revolutions of 1917.
• February Revolution – mass uprising in Petrograd that forced the abdication of Nicholas II and established the Russian Provisional Government.

Events

• 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election

Places

• Petrograd – the Russian capital, known as Saint Petersburg before 1914 and again from 1991.
• Smolny -
• Petrograd Military District -

Organizations

Political

Governing assemblies

• Russian Constituent Assembly - a constituent assembly convened in the Russian Republic after the October Revolution.
• Russian Provisional Government -
• Petrograd Soviet -
• Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic -
• All-Russian Central Executive Committee -
• Congress of Soviets of Russia
• All-Russian Central Executive Committee -
• Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets

Congresses and Meetings

• Second All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies' Soviets -
• Third All-Russian Congress of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants Deputies' Soviets -

Political parties and movements

• Bolsheviks – a radical faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), led by Vladimir Lenin, which split from the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP in 1903. The Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution and were later renamed the Russian Communist Party.
• Mensheviks – a moderate reformist faction of the RSDLP, which split from the Bolsheviks at the same congress. Its leading figures, among them Julius Martov and Pavel Axelrod, opposed Lenin's conception of the party.
• Socialist Revolutionary Party – agrarian socialists and supporters of democratic socialism; the wing remaining after the 1917 split is generally called the "Right SRs".
• Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (the "Left SRs") – agrarian socialists who split from the Socialist Revolutionary Party over its support for the Russian Provisional Government. They later entered a coalition with the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution.
• Constitutional Democratic Party (the Kadets, from the initials K-D) – liberal party that advocated a Western-style constitutional monarchy and drew support from moderate conservatives and moderate socialists alike.
• Armenian Revolutionary Federation -
• Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party -
• Constitutional Democratic Party -

Military

• Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee - a militant group of the Petrograd Soviet and one of several military revolutionary committees that were created in the Russian Republic.
• Bolshevik Military Organizations -
• Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Soviet Navy -
• Red Army (originally the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army) – established in January 1918 and organized by Leon Trotsky as War Commissar to fight the forces collectively known as the White Army.
• White Army – collective name for the anti-Bolshevik armed formations, whose supporters ranged from monarchists to constitutional democrats.

People

Monarchists

• Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; born 6 May [N.S. 18 May] 1868 – executed 17 July 1918) – Emperor of Russia from 20 October [N.S. 1 November] 1894 until his abdication in 1917. Executed by the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg.

Socialists

• Alexander Kerensky (born 22 April [N.S. 4 May] 1881 – 11 June 1970) – socialist minister who became Minister-Chairman of the Provisional Government. He later left Russia and died in exile in New York City.

Bolsheviks

• Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, 10 April [N.S. 22 April] 1870 – died 21 January 1924) – founder and leader of the Bolsheviks.
• Leon Trotsky (born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, 26 October [N.S. 7 November] 1879 – assassinated 21 August 1940) – Bolshevik leader and founder of the Red Army.
• Nikolai Podvoisky
• Felix Dzerzhinsky
• Yakov Sverdlov
• Andrei Bubnov
• Moisei Uritsky
• Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko
• Joseph Stalin
• Pavel Lazimir

Aftermath

• Murder of the Romanov family – the execution of Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra and their children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei, together with the household servants who had accompanied them to Yekaterinburg.
• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Publications

• Pravda – Bolshevik newspaper.
• Izvestia – newspaper of the Petrograd Soviet and then of the Central Executive Committee.

Miscellaneous

• Commissars -
• Anarchists -
• Smolny Young Ladies’ College -

Bibliography

• Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War § October Revolution

The works below all cover the October Revolution and carry extensive bibliographies for further research.

• Smith, S. A. (2017). Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Engelstein, L. (2017). Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914–1921. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Figes, O. (1996). A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution. New York: Viking.
• McMeekin, S. (2017). The Russian Revolution: A New History. New York: Basic Books.
• Smele, J. (2016). The "Russian" Civil Wars, 1916–1926: Ten Years That Shook the World. New York: Oxford University Press.

See also

• Category:October Revolution
• Index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and Civil War

References

External links

• "Russian Revolution" at Encyclopædia Britannica
• "The October Revolution" at Seventeen Moments in Soviet History
• Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed (1919), at the Marxists Internet Archive