Lenin's role in the revolutionary events of 1917. Causes of the February Revolution. February to October

Vladimir Lenin is the great leader of the working people of the whole world, who is considered the most outstanding politician in world history, who created the first socialist state.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Lenin

The Russian communist theoretical philosopher, who continued the work and whose activities were widely deployed at the beginning of the 20th century, is still interesting to the public today, since his historical role is notable for its significant significance not only for Russia, but also for the whole world. Lenin's activities have both positive and negative assessments, which does not prevent the founder of the USSR from remaining a leading revolutionary in world history.

Childhood and youth

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on April 22, 1870 in the Simbirsk province Russian Empire in the family of the school inspector Ilya Nikolaevich and the school teacher Maria Aleksandrovna Ulyanov. He became the third child of parents who put their whole soul into their children - my mother completely gave up work and devoted herself to raising Alexander, Anna and Volodya, after which she gave birth to Maria and Dmitry.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Lenin as a child

As a child, Vladimir Ulyanov was a mischievous and very intelligent boy - at the age of 5 he had already learned to read and by the time he entered the Simbirsk gymnasium he became a “walking encyclopedia”. During his school years, he also showed himself to be a diligent, diligent, gifted and accurate student, for which he was repeatedly awarded meritorious certificates. Lenin's classmates said that the future world leader of the working people enjoyed great respect and authority in the classroom, since every student felt his mental superiority.

In 1887, Vladimir Ilyich graduated from high school with a gold medal and entered the law faculty of Kazan University. In the same year, a terrible tragedy happened in the Ulyanov family - Lenin's older brother Alexander was executed for participating in organizing an assassination attempt on the tsar.

This grief aroused in the future founder of the USSR a protest spirit against national oppression and the tsarist regime, therefore, already in the first year of the university, he created a student revolutionary movement, for which he was expelled from the university and sent into exile in the small village of Kukushkino, located in the Kazan province.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Lenin's family

From that moment on, the biography of Vladimir Lenin was continuously connected with the struggle against capitalism and autocracy, the main goal of which was the liberation of workers from exploitation and oppression. After exile, in 1888, Ulyanov returned to Kazan, where he immediately joined one of the Marxist circles.

In the same period, Lenin's mother acquired an almost 100-hectare estate in the Simbirsk province and convinced Vladimir Ilyich to manage it. This did not prevent him from continuing to maintain contacts with local "professional" revolutionaries who helped him find the People's Will and create an organized movement of Protestants of the imperial power.

Revolutionary activity

In 1891, Vladimir Lenin managed to pass exams at the Imperial St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Law as an external student. After that, he worked as an assistant to a sworn advocate from Samara, engaged in the "state protection" of criminals.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Lenin in his youth

In 1893, the revolutionary moved to St. Petersburg and, in addition to legal practice, began writing historical works on Marxist political economy, the creation of the Russian liberation movement, the capitalist evolution of post-reform villages and industry. Then he began to create the program of the Social Democratic Party.

In 1895, Lenin made his first trip abroad and made a so-called tour of Switzerland, Germany and France, where he met his idol Georgy Plekhanov, as well as Wilhelm Liebknecht and Paul Lafargue, who were leaders of the international labor movement.

Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Vladimir Ilyich managed to unite all the scattered Marxist circles into the "Union of the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class", at the head of which he began to prepare a plan to overthrow the autocracy. For active propaganda of his idea, Lenin and his allies were imprisoned, and after a year in prison they sent him to the Shushenskoye village of the Elysee province.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Lenin in 1897 with members of the Bolshevik organization

During exile, he established contact with the Social Democrats of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, and in 1900, after the end of exile, he traveled all over Russian cities and personally established contact with numerous organizations. In 1900, the leader created the newspaper "Iskra", under the articles of which he first signed the pseudonym "Lenin".

In the same period, he became the initiator of the congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, in which after that there was a split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The revolutionary headed the Bolshevik ideological and political party and launched an active struggle against Menshevism.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Lenin

In the period from 1905 to 1907, Lenin lived in exile in Switzerland, where he was preparing an armed uprising. There he was found by the First Russian Revolution, in whose victory he was interested, since it cut off the path to the socialist revolution.

Then Vladimir Ilyich illegally returned to St. Petersburg and began to act actively. He tried at all costs to attract the peasants to his side, forcing them into an armed uprising against the autocracy. The revolutionary called on people to arm themselves with everything that is at hand and to attack civil servants.

October Revolution

After the defeat in the First Russian Revolution, the unity of all the Bolshevik forces took place, and Lenin, after analyzing the mistakes, began to revive the revolutionary upsurge. Then he created his own legal Bolshevik party, which published the newspaper Pravda, of which he was the chief editor. At that time, Vladimir Ilyich lived in Austria-Hungary, where the World War caught him.

Embed from Getty Images Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin

Having ended up in prison on suspicion of spying for Russia, Lenin spent two years preparing his theses on the war, and after his release he went to Switzerland, where he came out with the slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil war.

In 1917, Lenin and his associates were allowed to leave Switzerland via Germany to Russia, where a solemn meeting was organized for him. Vladimir Ilyich's first speech to the people began with a call for a "social revolution", which aroused discontent even among Bolshevik circles. At that moment, Lenin's theses were supported by Joseph Stalin, who also believed that the power in the country should belong to the Bolsheviks.

On October 20, 1917, Lenin arrived in Smolny and began to lead the uprising, which was organized by the head of the Petrograd Soviet. Vladimir Ilyich proposed to act promptly, toughly and clearly - from October 25 to 26, the Provisional Government was arrested, and on November 7, at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Lenin's decrees on peace and land were adopted, and a Council of People's Commissars was organized, headed by Vladimir Ilyich.

Embed from Getty Images Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin

This was followed by the 124-day "Smolninsky period", during which Lenin worked actively in the Kremlin. He signed a decree on the creation of the Red Army, concluded the Brest Peace Treaty with Germany, and also began to develop a program for the formation of a socialist society. At that moment, the Russian capital was moved from Petrograd to Moscow, and the Congress of Soviets of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers became the supreme body of power in Russia.

After the main reforms, which consisted in the withdrawal from the World War and the transfer of the land of the landowners to the peasants, the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR) was formed on the territory of the former Russian Empire, ruled by the communists led by Vladimir Lenin.

Head of the RSFSR

With his coming to power, Lenin, according to many historians, ordered the execution of the former Russian emperor along with his entire family, and in July 1918 he approved the Constitution of the RSFSR. Two years later, Lenin liquidated the supreme ruler of Russia, the admiral, who was his strong opponent.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Then the head of the RSFSR implemented the policy of "red terror", created to strengthen the new government in the context of a flourishing anti-Bolshevik activity. At the same time, the decree on the death penalty was restored, under which anyone who did not agree with Lenin's policy could fall.

After that, Vladimir Lenin began to defeat Orthodox Church... Since that period, believers have become the main enemies of the Soviet regime. During that period, Christians were subjected to persecution and executions, trying to protect the holy relics. Also, special concentration camps were created for the "re-education" of the Russian people, where people were imputed in especially harsh ways that they were obliged to work for free in the name of communism. This led to a massive famine that killed millions of people and a terrible crisis.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Lenin and Kliment Voroshilov at the Congress of the Communist Party

This result forced the leader to deviate from his planned plan and create a new economic policy, during which people, under the "supervision" of the commissars, restored industry, revived construction sites and industrialized the country. In 1921, Lenin abolished "war communism", replaced the food appropriation with a food tax, allowed private trade, which allowed the broad mass of the population to independently seek funds for survival.

In 1922, on the recommendations of Lenin, the USSR was created, after which the revolutionary had to step down from power due to sharply deteriorating health. After a bitter political struggle in the country in pursuit of power as the sole leader Soviet Union became Joseph Stalin.

Personal life

The personal life of Vladimir Lenin, like that of most professional revolutionaries, was shrouded in secrecy for the purpose of conspiracy. He met his future wife in 1894 during the organization of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.

She blindly followed her lover and participated in all of Lenin's actions, which was the reason for their separate first exile. In order not to part, Lenin and Krupskaya got married in a church - they invited Shushensky peasants as best men, and wedding rings they were made by their ally from copper dimes.

Embed from Getty Images Vladimir Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya

The sacrament of the wedding of Lenin and Krupskaya took place on July 22, 1898 in the village of Shushenskoye, after which Nadezhda became a faithful companion to the life of the great leader, before whom she adored, despite his harshness and humiliating appeal to herself. Having become a real communist, Krupskaya suppressed in herself a sense of ownership and jealousy, which allowed her to remain the only wife of Lenin, in whose life there were many women.

The question "did Lenin have children?" still arouses interest all over the world. There are several historical theories regarding the paternity of the communist leader - some claim that Lenin was sterile, while others call him the father of many illegitimate children. At the same time, many sources claim that Vladimir Ilyich had a son, Alexander Steffen, from his beloved, an affair with whom the revolutionary lasted for about 5 years.

Death

The death of Vladimir Lenin occurred on January 21, 1924 in the Gorki estate of the Moscow province. According to official data, the leader of the Bolsheviks died of atherosclerosis caused by severe overload at work. Two days after Lenin's death, Lenin's body was transported to Moscow and placed in the Column Hall of the House of Unions, where farewell to the founder of the USSR took place for 5 days.

Embed from Getty Images Funeral of Vladimir Lenin

On January 27, 1924, Lenin's body was embalmed and placed in a specially built Mausoleum located on the Red Square of the capital. The ideologist of the creation of Lenin's relics was his successor Joseph Stalin, who wanted to make Vladimir Ilyich a "god" in the eyes of the people.

After the collapse of the USSR, the question of Lenin's reburial was repeatedly raised in the State Duma. True, he remained at the stage of discussion back in 2000, when the one who came to power during his first presidential term put an end to this issue. He said that he does not see the desire of the overwhelming majority of the population to reburial the body of the world leader, and until it appears, this topic will no longer be discussed in modern Russia.

V.I.Lenin arrived in Petrograd late in the evening on April 3, 1917. The exposition shows the route he took to return to Russia, the questionnaire completed on April 2, 1917 when crossing the Tornio border point (Finland), as well as a telegram sent by M.I.Ulyanova and A.I. Elizarova-Ulyanova: We are coming Monday night, 11. Tell the Truth. Ulyanov.

At 11.10 pm the train stopped at the platform of the Finnish railway station, where by that time the Petrograd workers had gathered. A guard of honor was lined up on the platform. V. I. Lenin, climbing on an armored car, made a speech, which he ended with an appeal: Long live the socialist revolution! This moment is reflected in the sculpture by M. Manizer (1925), installed in the center of the hall.

In an armored car, surrounded by the people, Lenin went to the mansion, which in 1917 housed the Central and Petrograd Committees of the Bolshevik Party. The military organization of the Bolsheviks and other organizations. From the balcony of the mansion, Lenin spoke several times that night in front of the workers, soldiers and sailors. Only in the early morning did he, together with N.K.Krupskaya, go to the apartment of his sister A.I. Elizarova-Ulyanova and her husband M.T. , A. 52).

In an apartment on the street. Shirokoy Lenin lived from April 4 to July 5, 1917. All this time he carried out gigantic propaganda and organizational work to rally the revolutionary forces around the Soviets. He directly headed the Central Committee of the party and the editorial board of the newspaper Pravda.

April theses. About the tasks of the proletariat in the present revolution.

A huge role in preparing the masses for the socialist revolution was played by the April Theses, formulated by V.I.Lenin back in March 1917 and published in Pravda on April 7, 1917 as theses on the tasks of the proletariat in this revolution. The manuscript The original sketch of the April Theses and the number of Pravda dated April 7 are exhibited in a special design on the wall to the left of the entrance to the hall.

The April Theses are a scientifically grounded plan of struggle for the transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution, which gave power to the bourgeoisie, to the socialist revolution, which should transfer power into the hands of the working class and the poorest peasantry. Having set such a task, VI Lenin theoretically substantiated the meaning, the essence of the Republic of Soviets as a political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a new, highest form of democracy.

In the theses, Lenin considered the most burning question at that time - about the attitude to the war, which on the part of Russia and under the Provisional Government remained aggressive, predatory due to the bourgeois nature, goals and policies of this government. Only that power could give the peoples peace, bread and freedom, which would turn the country on the path of socialism. Hence the Bolshevik slogans: No support for the Provisional Government! , All power to the Soviets!

In his April Theses, Lenin formulated the economic platform of the proletarian party: the nationalization of the entire land fund of the country during the confiscation of landowners' lands, that is, the elimination of private ownership of land and its transfer to the local Soviets of Agricultural Laborers' and Peasants' Deputies, as well as the immediate unification of all banks in the country into one national bank and the establishment of control over it by the Soviets of Workers' Deputies; the establishment of workers' control over the production and distribution of products.

Touching upon internal party issues, Lenin proposed to convene a party congress, to change the Party Program, where, in particular, to put forward the task of creating a Soviet Republic, to rename the party to the Communist one. As a practical task for all revolutionary Marxists, Lenin put forward the task of creating the Third, the Communist International.

The stand contains materials and documents of the VII (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b), the first legal conference of the Bolsheviks in Russia. All her work was carried out under the direct supervision of V. I. Lenin. He made reports on the current situation, on the agrarian question, on the revision of the Party Program. in fact, the conference played the role of a congress. She elected the Party Central Committee headed by Lenin.

After the April conference, the task of the Bolshevik Party was to merge into one powerful revolutionary stream the general democratic movement for peace, the peasant struggle for land, the national liberation movement of oppressed peoples for national independence in the struggle for the socialist revolution.

The Bolsheviks had to explain to the proletariat and all working people their program and slogans, the anti-popular character of the Provisional Government, the compromising position of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.

The entire wall to the right of the entrance is occupied by a painting by artist I. Brodsky V. I. Lenin's speech at a meeting of workers of the Putilov factory on May 12 (25), 1917 (1929), which conveys the atmosphere of that time. According to the recollections of the rally participants, Lenin spoke so simply and clearly that all doubts and hesitations disappeared from people, and a willingness to overcome any difficulties appeared.

From the memoirs of the old Putilov worker P. A. Danilov: ... what Ilyich said captured and ignited. Fear disappeared, fatigue disappeared. And it seemed that not only Ilyich was speaking, but all forty thousand workers were speaking, sitting, standing, holding on to the weight, uttering their cherished thoughts. It seemed that everything that was in the worker spoke in one voice of Lenin. Everything that everyone thought, he was worried about himself, but did not find the opportunity and words to fully and clearly explain to his comrade - all this suddenly took shape and began to speak ... This meeting gave an enormous amount for history. He moved the Putilov masses, and the Putilov masses marched into the revolution.

In the exhibition hall there is a shorthand record of V.I.Lenin's speech about his attitude to the Provisional Government, which he delivered at the 1st All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, which met in early June 1917. Declaring that the Bolshevik Party was ready to take power in its entirety, Lenin explained the main slogans of the party: all power to the Soviets, bread to the working people, land to the peasants, peace to the peoples. On the stand is the issue of the newspaper Pravda dated July 2, 1917 with the second speech of V. I. Lenin at the congress - about the war.

The hall shows a diagram of the Bolshevik press for July 1917. It shows that the party had at that time about 55 newspapers and magazines, the daily circulation of which exceeded 500,000 copies. Especially popular was Pravda, in which Lenin's articles were published almost daily. From the moment of his arrival in Russia until July 1917, he wrote over 170 articles for the newspaper.

The materials of the exposition tell about the powerful demonstrations of the working people against the continuation of the imperialist war, against the policy of the bourgeois government. One of the photographs shows the shooting of the July peaceful demonstration of workers and soldiers in Petrograd. Mass searches of workers began, the revolutionary regiments were disarmed, and soldiers were arrested. The Bolshevik Party and workers' organizations were severely repressed.

On the morning of July 5, the cadets destroyed the premises of the Pravda editorial office; on July 7, the Provisional Government issued a decree on the arrest and prosecution of Lenin and other Bolsheviks. The Party Central Committee decided to hide Lenin underground, in the vicinity of Petrograd. The village of Sestroretsk was chosen, where mainly the workers of the arms factory lived. There, not far from the Razliv railway station, in the house of the Bolshevik worker N.A.Emelyanov, V.I.Lenin was settled. In the turnstile there is a photo of a barn with an attic at the house of N.A. Emelyanov at the station. Spill, where in July 1917. V.I.Lenin was hiding.

The new situation after the July days required a revision of the party's tactics and slogans. On July 10, V.I. All hopes for the peaceful development of the Russian revolution, Lenin wrote, have completely disappeared. Thus, in the post-July period, the question of developing new tactics and new methods of struggle arose. It was necessary to convene a party congress.

At the stand completing the hall's exposition, there are documents and materials of the VI Party Congress. It was held in late July - early August 1917 in Petrograd, in a difficult situation, semi-legally. The overwhelming majority of the delegates to the congress were revolutionaries who had been hardened in the struggle against tsarism and the bourgeoisie. The turnstile contains materials about the election of V. I. Lenin as a delegate to the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) from the Yekaterinburg (now the city of Sverdlovsk) Bolshevik organization.

During the preparation and holding of the congress, V.I.Lenin was underground. From there, he maintained close contact with the Central Committee of the party. His works - the theses Political Situation, the brochure To Slogans, the article Lessons of the Revolution and others - formed the basis for the decisions of the VI Congress of the Bolshevik Party.

The exposition contains a resolution on the political situation. It put forward the slogan of the struggle for the complete liquidation of the dictatorship of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and for the conquest of power by the proletariat and the poorest peasantry through an armed uprising.

The exposition (to the right of the entrance to the hall) also presents other resolutions of the congress: On the economic situation, Tasks of the professional movement, On youth unions, On propaganda, as well as the Party Charter with the amendments adopted at the congress.

The VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) elected a Central Committee of the Party headed by V.I. Lenin. The exposition above the stand with resolutions contains photographs of members of the Central Committee, active participants in the revolution.

The manifesto of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) issued after the congress, displayed in the hall, called on the workers, soldiers and peasants to prepare for decisive battles with the bourgeoisie. In particular, it said: Our party is going into this battle with banners unfurled.

Exhibits in Hall 10 reveal Lenin's plan for an armed uprising, show the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, its world-historical significance.

The exposition begins with the work of V. I. Lenin State and Revolution, completed in August-September 1917. It provides the most complete and systematic exposition of the Marxist doctrine of the state. The subtitle of the book The Teachings of Marxism on the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution defines its theme. In the conditions of the maturing socialist revolution in Russia and in a number of other countries, the question of the origin and role of the state, the prospects for its development, arose in all its scientific and practical significance ... as a question of immediate action and, moreover, action on a mass scale, ... as a question on explaining to the masses what they will have to do to free themselves from the yoke of capital in the near future.

The exposition contains the manuscript of the preparatory materials for the book State and Revolution - the so-called blue (because of the color of the cover) notebook, known as the work of Marxism on the state. It consists of 48 pages, written in typical Leninist small, close-fitting handwriting. On the cover, where the title appears, Lenin lists the works of Marx and Engels to which he referred in the course of his work. The manuscript provides an opportunity to get acquainted with Lenin's methods of working on sources and has an independent meaning.

In his work State and Revolution, the pages of the manuscript of which are displayed in showcases and on stands, Lenin developed the views of Marx and Engels on the state, emphasizing: The state is a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions. The state arises there, then and in so far as where, when and insofar as class contradictions objectively cannot be reconciled. Lenin further pointed out that as a result of the victory of the socialist revolution, the bourgeois state must be replaced by the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the social basis of which is the alliance of the working class with the multimillion-strong working peasantry.

Lenin showed the decisive role of the Communist Party not only in conquering, but also in strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat, in building socialism and communism, and gave a comprehensive coverage of the issue of proletarian democracy - a democracy of the highest type.

In the book, Lenin develops the Marxist teaching on socialism and communism as two phases of communist society, on the conditions for the withering away of the state.

In the extensive exposition dedicated to the book State and Revolution, one can see its first edition, as well as editions in the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR and foreign countries.

As already mentioned, the Central Committee of the party hid Lenin from the persecution of the Provisional Government in the house of N.A.Emelyanov near the Razliv station, which was located near the border with Finland. However, the situation there was alarming, and therefore, soon Lenin, under the guise of a Finn-mower, was moved to a hut on the shore of Lake Sestroretsky Razliv. The hall contains exhibits telling about the last underground of V.I. Lenin: photographs of the places where he was hiding, as well as things that he used while living on the shore of the lake. The hut was his home, the area, cleared of bushes, was a green office, as Lenin jokingly called it. Vladimir Ilyich worked very hard, although the living and working conditions were not easy. In the underground, Lenin maintained regular contact with the Central Committee of the party through GK Ordzhonikidze, AV Shotman, E. Rakhyu, and others specially assigned for this purpose.

Autumn was approaching, the haymaking season was over, it became dangerous to hide under the guise of a mowing mow. In addition, police agents with dogs appeared in the vicinity of Sestroretsk. Under these conditions, it was necessary to find a more reliable place for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Central Committee decided to shelter its leader in Finland, and in early August 1917, disguised as a stoker, Lenin moved to Finland on a steam locomotive.

V. I. Lenin in a wig and a cap. The photo was taken for identification in the name of the worker KP Ivanov, according to which Lenin illegally left for Finland, hiding from the persecution of the Provisional Government. August 1917

On display are things (coat, wig) used by Lenin. Here are also photographs of the Finnish Social Democrats A. Blomkvist, J. Latukki, G. Rovio, G. Yalava, who helped Lenin underground, as well as a map-diagram of V. I. Lenin's Last Underground and a painting by artist D. Nalbandian V. I Lenin underground.

Further along the course of the exposition, it tells about the national crisis in Russia. In the fourth year of the imperialist war, the country's economic situation deteriorated sharply. Rail transport worked intermittently. The supply of raw materials, coal and metal to factories and plants was steadily reduced. Decreased coal mining, production of pig iron, steel, consumer goods. The country was threatened with hunger, mass unemployment. In this situation, Lenin wrote a brochure The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It, which outlined a program to prevent a catastrophe and economic renewal of the country, substantiated measures that could help save the country from ruin and hunger: nationalization of banks, insurance companies, enterprises of capitalist monopolies; nationalization of land; cancellation of trade secrets; compulsory unification of the scattered enterprises of the capitalists into syndicates; unification into consumer societies (with the aim of evenly distributing the hardships of war and control of the poor classes over the consumption of the rich). Control, supervision, accounting - this is the first word in the fight against catastrophe and hunger. In his work, V. I. Lenin put forward the task of ending the war immediately, emphasizing that the war hastened the growth of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism, which brought mankind closer to socialism. Die or rush forward at full steam. This is how the question is posed by history. The manuscript of the brochure is on display.

In work Will the Bolsheviks retain state power? , placed on the stand, V.I. In the center of the stand there is a facsimile of Lenin's words: Only when the lower classes do not want the old and when the upper classes cannot in the old way, only then can the revolution win.

The exhibition includes photographs, documents, diagrams characterizing the growing national crisis in the country: a powerful revolutionary movement of the working class, the growth of the peasant movement, the strengthening of the revolutionary movement of the oppressed peoples, a revolutionary upsurge in the army. The most obvious sign of the growing national crisis is the growing influence and authority of the Bolshevik Party among the broad masses of the people. On the stand is a diagram of the distribution of party forces in the regions of the country on the eve of October (there were 350,000 members in the party by that time).

The Bolshevik Party, headed by Lenin, had a clear program for the revolutionary transformation of society, united in one revolutionary stream the struggle of the workers for socialism, the general democratic struggle for peace, the struggle of the peasants for land, the national liberation movement, and led the masses to the victorious socialist revolution.

Under these conditions, Lenin's ability to assess the real situation and his political wisdom were especially vividly manifested. He concentrated all his knowledge, all colossal political experience, all will and energy on the preparation of an armed uprising. In the works on display in the hall, Marxism and the uprising, the Soviets of the Outsider, the Bolsheviks must take power and others V. I. Lenin sets out his approximate plan for organizing the uprising, calling it a special kind of political struggle in the current concrete conditions.

In connection with the growing revolutionary crisis in the country, Lenin turned to the Central Committee of the party with a request to allow him to return to Petrograd. On the stand there is an extract from the minutes of the meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) dated October 3, 1917: ... to invite Ilyich to move to St. Petersburg, so that a permanent and close connection is possible. In early October, VI Lenin returned illegally to Petrograd. He settled in the apartment of M. V. Fofanova (Serdobolskaya str., Building 1, apt. 41) - this was his last safe house.

In Petrograd, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, with the greatest energy and perseverance, is directly leading the preparations for an armed uprising. The exposition contains the resolution of the meeting of the Central Committee of the party on October 10. It emphasizes that an armed uprising is inevitable and fully ripe, that all the Party's work must be subordinated to the tasks of organizing and conducting an armed uprising. For the political leadership of the uprising, the Politburo of the Central Committee was created, headed by Lenin.

On October 16, at an enlarged meeting of the Central Committee of the party, the Military Revolutionary Center was elected. Preparations for an armed uprising unfolded throughout the country.

On the stand is a letter from V.I. Lenin to the members of the Central Committee, written on the evening of October 24: I am writing these lines on the evening of the 24th, the situation is extremely critical. It is clearer that now, indeed, delay in the uprising is like death.

With all my might I convince the comrades that now everything hangs in the balance, that the next in turn are questions that are not resolved by conferences, not by congresses (even at least by a congress of Soviets), but exclusively by the peoples, by the masses, by the struggle of the armed masses ... be that as it may, tonight, tonight, arrest the government, disarming (defeating, if they resist) the junkers, etc. History will not forgive the delay of revolutionaries who could win today (and will certainly win today), risking a lot to lose tomorrow risking losing everything. Late in the evening of October 24, V.I. The Smolny model can be seen in the hall.

The exposition presents an electrified map-diagram of the armed uprising in Petrograd on October 24-25, a photomontage of the Bolsheviks - active participants of the October Revolution in Petrograd, photographs. One of them shows the pickets of soldiers and sailors checking the passes at the entrance to Smolny, which in those days became the focus, the center of turbulent events.

By the morning of October 25, all the strategic centers of the capital - the bridges across the Neva, the central telephone exchange, telegraph, power plants, train stations, etc. - were in the hands of the rebels. The Military Revolutionary Committee has published an appeal written by Lenin to the citizens of Russia! - the exposition presents a Leninist manuscript and a leaflet with the text of an appeal, which spoke of the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the transfer of power into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee, an organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies.

In the afternoon, at 2:35 pm, speaking at an emergency meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, V.I.

In the evening of October 25, a historic shot from the cruiser Aurora thundered (the cruiser model is presented in the hall). That was the signal to storm the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government took refuge. A few hours later, the assault ended in complete victory for the insurgent workers, soldiers and sailors.

At four o'clock in the morning on October 26, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the appeal written by Lenin to the Workers, soldiers and peasants! exhibited at the stand. It proclaimed the transfer of all power in the center and in the localities to the Soviets.

On the central wall of the hall is a painting by artist V. Serov, which captures the moment Lenin spoke at the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Below, in a special form, are the first decrees of the Soviet state adopted by the Congress: Decree on Peace. The decree on land, as well as the decree on the formation of a workers 'and peasants' government - the Council of People's Commissars - headed by Lenin. Here is the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted by the Soviet government on November 2, 1917. It proclaimed the basic principles of the Leninist nationality policy of the Soviet state - the equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia, their right to free self-determination, up to secession, the abolition of all national and national-religious privileges and restrictions.

The gains of the revolution were enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, adopted by the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918. Lenin's manuscript of this program document, the foundations of the first Soviet constitution, is presented in the hall.

1

At the beginning of March 1917, a new, decisive factor arose in the struggle between the government and the Duma. On March 3, a strike began at the Putilov factory, which by March 10 had turned into a general strike of all workers in the capital.

On March 11, the troops of the Petrograd garrison began to refuse to shoot at the workers. On March 12, several regiments came to the Tauride Palace, where the State Duma was located; The Duma was on the verge of dispersal (by decree of the tsar), but its members nevertheless continued to sit. The soldiers of the regiments who opposed the government announced their support for the Duma. In the evening of the same day, the Interim Committee was formed State Duma, the Soviet of Workers' Deputies immediately met. The next day, the leaders of the Duma organized a Provisional Government, headed by the chairman of the Union of Zemstvos, Prince Lvov. Together with the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, this government made the first statement.

On March 15, Nicholas II abdicated in favor of his brother Mikhail, who, in turn, renounced the throne on March 16, transferring power to the Provisional Government until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

The reign of the Romanovs is over. Russia actually turned into a republic, although the declaration of a republic was postponed until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

What caused the revolution? There were many reasons: the weakness of state power, aggravated by the conflict between Nicholas II and the Duma; widespread discontent with the emperor's policies in the army and throughout the country; special circumstances in Petrograd (they were of an economic nature: a sharp rise in prices and difficulties with food, queues in front of shops selling bread and other food products).

Of course, these difficulties turned out to be much less serious than those that awaited the country later, in 1919 and 1920. But in 1917, the population was not yet used to such problems, and therefore they were especially annoying.

In addition, active Bolshevik propaganda was carried out among the workers. It is difficult to say to what extent it played a significant role in fomenting the revolution; Minister Protopopov, for example, believed that her role was not the last.

Some observers also pointed to the participation of German agents in the campaign, but this has not been documented.

As for the troops of the Petrograd garrison, they were mainly driven by the fear of being sent to the front; that is why the first declaration of the Provisional Government included a clause stating that these troops should not be sent to the front. The soldiers of the Petrograd garrison did not suffer from poor nutrition.

But despite all these circumstances, the workers' movement (even intensified by the action of the local garrison) did not yet mean a revolution on a national scale. Only from the moment when the State Duma decided to lead the movement did the rebellion turn into a revolution.

The Provisional Government formed by the Duma soon showed that it was the bearer of supreme power only in name. In reality, power was divided between the government and the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. The Provisional Government consisted mainly of the Cadets and their supporters. It consisted of only one socialist - the socialist-revolutionary Kerensky. Menshevik Chkheidze, invited to the government, refused to join it.

On the other hand, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet represented exclusively the members of the socialist parties and their supporters. Members of the bourgeois parties, even the most democratic of them, were not represented on the council. Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks predominated among those who entered the Executive Committee and the Plenum of the Petrograd Soviet. The Bolsheviks were in the minority (the same picture was in the councils formed in other cities of Russia).

The first question that arose before the Russian revolution was its attitude to the war. A significant part of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were defencists, that is, they stood for the continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks, as well as small groups of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, were defeatists and defended the need for an immediate end to the war. But in the first period, even the Bolsheviks did not openly oppose the continuation of the war in the councils. The majority in Petrograd and other soviets clearly stood for defense. But at the same time, an order was issued on behalf of the Petrograd Soviet - the so-called Order No. 1 - which effectively undermined discipline in the Russian army by urging soldiers to distrust officers and form their own councils in each army unit.

As General Brusilov wrote in his memoirs, the actions aimed at disorganizing the army were quite logical when they came from the Bolsheviks who wanted to interrupt the war, but it remained incomprehensible how the defencists could join this game. The explanation of this fact is in the attitude of the defencist socialists to the Provisional Government. Both the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and especially the Mensheviks, in their views proceeded from the political conditions that prevailed in Russia before the revolution. They still imagined they were living in 1905, when they had to beware of the return of reaction and the restoration of the old regime. In fact, power already belonged to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. As it soon became clear, the Provisional Government was fully ripe to introduce socialists into its ranks. But the Mensheviks continued to regard the Provisional Government as an administration of the old type, with which they were always ready to fight. The Provisional Government, in its convictions, turned out to be completely democratic, but the socialists considered it a bourgeois government. The tactic of the majority in the council was to refuse to support the Provisional Government (except when it was implementing a democratic program).

Undermining the government and its attempts to rely on the army, the socialists tried to ensure their own influence in the troops. At the same time, obviously, they overlooked the fact that the army is at war.

When the revolution took place, almost all socialist groups found themselves without their leaders, who were either in exile or abroad. Those who were in exile were the first to return. On April 1, Tsereteli returned from Siberia, a member of the Second State Duma, exiled as a result of the trial of the Social Democratic faction of this Duma. A week earlier, the Bolshevik Kamenev arrived from Siberia, where he was exiled at the beginning of the war.

Kamenev immediately joined the editorial board of Pravda, the publication of which had resumed a few days earlier. He also became the leader of the Petrograd Bolshevik Committee, which emerged as a legal organization on March 15th. Before Lenin's arrival, Kamenev played a leading role among the Bolsheviks. His policy towards the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries was of a conciliatory nature. He was not a tough politician and, moreover, he understood that the victory of the revolution was a common achievement of the radical parties.

Even during his stay in Siberia, when Kamenev received news that Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich had renounced the throne, he sent him a telegram of greetings, addressing it to citizen Mikhail Romanov. Kamenev maintained his articles in Pravda and speeches in the Soviet in a loyal tone towards the Provisional Government. So, in the first period of the revolution, the Bolsheviks did not sharply separate themselves from other socialists and only tried to impart a leftist tendency to public sentiments within the Soviet itself.

In April, those leaders of the Russian Social Democracy who were abroad began to return. On April 13, Plekhanov arrived in Petrograd from France. April 16 from Switzerland - Lenin and Martov, in early May from the United States - Trotsky. Plekhanov has now become a passionate defencist; the other three are internationalists, including Martov. Lenin and Martov returned to Russia in an unusual way, traveling through the territory of Germany in a "sealed" railway carriage.

2

When the revolution began in Russia, Lenin was in Switzerland. He immediately reacted extremely hostile to the Provisional Government. On March 16, he wrote to Alexandra Kollontai: “A week of bloody battles between the workers and Milyukov + Guchkov + Kerensky in power !! According to the “old” European template ”.

In the first of his Letters from Afar, Lenin describes the events that took place in Russia:

The St. Petersburg workers and soldiers, like the workers and soldiers of all of Russia, selflessly fought against the tsarist monarchy, for freedom, for land for the peasants, for peace, against the imperialist slaughter. In the interests of continuing and intensifying this massacre, the Anglo-Franiusz imperialist capital forged palace intrigues, arranged a conspiracy ... incited and encouraged the Guchkovs and Milyukovs, set up a completely ready-made new government, which seized power after the very first blows of the proletarian struggle inflicted on tsarism.

This government is not a random bunch of people.

These are representatives of a new class that has risen to political power in Russia, the class of capitalist landowners and the bourgeoisie, which has long ruled our country economically and which, both during the revolution of 1905-1907 and during the counter-revolution of 1907-1914, and finally - and moreover, with particular speed - during the war of 1914-1917, it was extremely quickly organized politically, taking local self-government into its own hands, and public education, and congresses of various types, and the Duma, and the military-industrial committees, etc. This new class "almost completely" was already in power by 1917; therefore, the first blows to tsarism were enough for it to collapse, clearing the place of the bourgeoisie.

For Lenin, the Provisional Government was "the clerk of billions of dollars in firms: England and France."

On March 30, Lenin wrote to Ganetsky in Stockholm: "The main thing is to overthrow the bourgeois government and start with Russia, for otherwise peace cannot be obtained." Ganetsky, who lived in Stockholm at that time, was an intermediary between Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia. To successfully carry out mediation, money was needed, and he obviously had large sums on his account, since in the already mentioned letter Lenin gave him the following instruction: "Do not spare money on Peter's relations with Stockholm !!"

From what sources did Ganetsky receive funds for Bolshevik propaganda in Russia? Until recently, the Bolsheviks did not publish information about the party budget for this period. Therefore, one can only build hypotheses.

Ganetsky acted in Stockholm as the commercial representative of Parvus. As already noted, Parvus spoke of the need to coordinate actions between the German military command and the Russian revolutionaries. He announced this publicly, considering it his duty to serve as an "intellectual barometer" of relations between the German armed forces and the revolutionary Russian proletariat. At one time, Lenin harshly criticized certain aspects of Parvus's views. However, now Ganetsky has appeared in Stockholm as a representative of both Lenin and Parvus. Undoubtedly, Parvus had the opportunity to supply Ganetsky with money for Bolshevik propaganda. During the war, Parvus was engaged in the supply of the German army and large speculations, so significant sums passed through his hands. Parvus could also get money to "deepen the revolution" in Russia and directly from the "German imperialists". Whoever financed Ganetsky, the fact remains that in the spring of 1917 he had the funds at his disposal to deploy further Bolshevik propaganda.

3

After receiving the first news of the revolution, Lenin made every conceivable effort to leave for Russia. The task was not easy. During the war, the road through Germany was officially closed to all Russians. Communication from Switzerland with Russia at this time was carried out through France and England. But since the Allies were aware of Lenin's defeatist views, the French and British governments could object to his passage through their territories.

After pondering the current situation, Lenin and other Russian internationalists who were in Switzerland decided to go through Germany. It should be noted that neither Lenin nor his supporters applied to the British and French authorities for permission to travel.

To travel through Germany, it was necessary not only to obtain permission from the German government, but also to try to present the matter in a favorable light, since suspicions of treason (following through enemy territory) inevitably arose.

A similar plan was proposed by Martov, who was the leader of the Menshevik internationalists. Continuing to remain a theoretician far from life, believing in the power of formulas, Martov probably believed that this episode should look quite decent, since theoretically it appears to be so to himself. He was hardly involved in any negotiations for a practical agreement with the German imperialists. His plan was to offer Germany to allow Russian émigrés to pass through its territory in exchange for an appropriate number of Germans and Austrians interned in Russia.

First of all, they decided to turn to the Swiss government to play the role of a mediator. In this way, they wanted to keep a decent appearance on the international level. The Swiss socialist Grimm, one of the leaders of the Zimmerwald movement, was elected to conduct the negotiations. In the political department of the Swiss Federal Council, he was told that the Swiss government could not agree to official mediation, since this could be regarded as a violation of neutrality. Then Grimm privately turned to the representative of the German government in Switzerland. After that, he withdrew from participation in mediation, and further negotiations were continued by another Swiss socialist Platten, a close acquaintance of Lenin and his supporter, one of the members of the Zimmerwald Left: Platten submitted to the German embassy in Bern Lenin's proposals for organizing the passage of Russian emigrants through Germany by taking personal responsibility. Two days later, the conditions proposed by Platten were accepted by the German government, of course, with the consent of the German General Staff. General Hoffmann pointed to Reichstag deputy Erzberger as a mediator in these negotiations. Scheidemann, leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and later Chancellor of the German Republic, claimed that Parvus had arranged for Lenin's passage through Germany.

The motives that inspired the German government and the General Staff to do this are obvious. This is what General Ludendorff and General Hoffmann said.

Ludendorff said: “For sending Lenin to Russia, our government assumed a special responsibility. From a military point of view, his trip was justified - Russia has fallen. " General Hoffmann wrote: "Just as I throw grenades into the enemy's trenches, as I release poisonous gases against them, as their adversary, I have the right to use means of propaganda against the opposing forces."

The consent to provide Lenin and his comrades with the opportunity to get to Russia was in reality the introduction of pathogenic microbes into the body of the Russian state. Germany's calculations did not require special comment. Germany continued the same policy that the Austrian government had previously pursued when, at the beginning of the war, it released Lenin from arrest and allowed him to leave for Switzerland. Of course, the German government could not take seriously the condition that Lenin used to camouflage his trip - the exchange of Russian emigrants for Germans interned in Russia. It clearly follows from Ludendorff's words that the question for the German government was not to allow Lenin to proceed through Germany, but to send him to Russia.

The German government did not publish documents about Lenin's trip to Germany. As for Lenin himself, he published only the resolutions of Russian and foreign socialists adopted in Switzerland. They concerned the start of negotiations and the proposed travel conditions.

The railway carriage in which Lenin, Martov and other emigrants were, was hitched to a train bound for Germany on April 8, 1917. On April 13, Lenin boarded a sea ferry going from Sassnitz to Sweden. So, the trip to Germany lasted at least four days - from April 9 to 12. In Trelleborg Lenin was met by Ganetsky, who then accompanied him to Stockholm. On the morning of April 14, Lenin found himself in Stockholm, and late in the evening of April 16, he arrived in Petrograd. The Bolsheviks arranged a solemn welcome for him. Workers, sailors and soldiers filled the entire Finland Station and the square in front of it. The armored car, which was at the disposal of the Bolshevik committee, delivered Lenin to the mansion that formerly belonged to the ballerina Kshesinskaya. At the beginning of the revolution, it was captured by the Bolshevik committee and served as the headquarters of the Bolsheviks until the July uprising.

4

The arrival of Lenin introduced cardinal changes in the tactics of the Bolsheviks. On the very first night after arriving in Russia, at a meeting in the Kshesinskaya mansion, he made a speech that sounded like a sharp dissonance to the previous conciliatory policy of the Bolsheviks. On April 17, he wrote his famous theses, which Pravda published two days later.

Lenin's first thesis was related to the war. For him, the war "on the part of Russia and under the new government of Lvov and Co. undoubtedly remains a predatory, imperialist war due to the capitalist nature of this government, not the slightest concessions to" revolutionary defencism "are permissible. His third thesis read: "No support for the Provisional Government, an explanation of the complete falsity of all its promises." The fifth thesis suggested: "Not a parliamentary republic ... but a republic of Soviets of workers, farm laborers and peasants' deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom."

Lenin's theses met with misunderstanding at the very center of the Bolshevik Party. Kamenev answered Lenin in the next issue of Pravda. Goldenberg announced that “Lenin has hoisted the banner civil war in the environment of revolutionary democracy ”. It scarcely needs to be said that the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries took a hostile position in relation to the theses.

Lenin found himself in isolation. But several times during his career, he remained alone and did not show fear. And now he showed no signs of concern. Lenin found himself in much more favorable conditions than before. He received complete freedom for agitation and propaganda. He was in Russia, in the very center of the revolution and the Russian workers' movement, and specifically in the place where the Bolsheviks had the firm support of the workers, enlightened by the Bolshevik newspapers during the period of the Dumas. Lenin directed his efforts mainly towards training party cadres from workers and soldiers. He also tried not to limit himself to abstract agitation, but gave practical lessons, trained his supporters to organize street demonstrations. At this point, it was important to choose slogans that would not confuse him with the majority in the Council. Therefore, Lenin at first tried to direct his blows not at the parties in the Soviet, but at the Provisional Government and especially at those aspects of its activity that could be classified as bourgeois and imperialist.

The first such opportunity presented itself to Lenin after the statement of Foreign Minister Milyukov, in which he confirmed the loyalty of the Provisional Government to the war allies and loyalty to the treaties concluded between the allies. This statement showed the imperialist aspirations of the Provisional Government. Such a policy, pursuing the goals of annexation, was unacceptable not only for the internationalists, but also for the defencist socialists. The Bolsheviks got the opportunity to oppose the Provisional Government, hiding behind slogans not only of their own party, but of the entire Soviet. On May 3 and 4, they organized street demonstrations against Milyukov. The cadets staged a retaliatory demonstration in support of him.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies assumed the role of a kind of arbiter between the Cadets and Bolsheviks. All demonstrations were banned for two days. However, these events led to the reorganization of the Provisional Government. Milyukov and Guchkov, the most active ministers of the first cabinet, were forced to resign. The new government included Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Kerensky became Minister of War.

In May and June, Lenin was engaged in intensive party work. From May 7 to May 12, he chaired the All-Russian Bolshevik Party Conference, which in its resolutions approved the main provisions of Lenin's theses. The Provisional Government was declared a "government of landlords and capitalists," and an alliance with the defencists — the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks — was recognized as absolutely impossible. But in assessing the war, the conference noticeably softened the tone of Lenin's theses, noting that

... you cannot end a war by ending hostilities by one of the belligerents. The conference protests again and again against the low slander spread by the capitalists against our party, that we sympathize with a separate (separate) peace with Germany ... Our party will patiently but persistently explain to the people that truth ... that this war can be ended with a democratic peace only through the transition of the whole the state power of at least a few belligerent countries is in the hands of the proletarian class, which is truly capable of putting an end to the oppression of capital.

5

The Bolshevik conference showed that Lenin was firmly at the helm of his party. In the elections to the Central Committee, he received an overwhelming majority of votes, securing himself almost unanimous approval.

In addition to internal party problems, Lenin focused on the labor question, trying by all means to strengthen the influence of the Bolsheviks on the workers of Petrograd.

Soon after the revolution in Russia, at the beginning of 1917, there was a rapid growth of trade union organizations, whose activities during the war years were under strong pressure from the authorities. From April to June 1917, the total number of members of the various trade unions doubled. On the one hand, trade unions arose by profession, on the other hand, trade unions were founded, embracing the workers of the entire enterprise into a single association. Almost every plant had a so-called "factory committee". In May, they were legalized by the Provisional Government. In June, the Petrograd conference of such committees met, which laid the foundations for the coordination of their activities.

A struggle soon began between the factory committees and the trade unions, exacerbated by their political differences. The trade unions were under the strong influence of the Mensheviks, while the factory committees fell under the propaganda of the Bolsheviks. All this was revealed at the June conference of the Petrograd committees, when Lenin proclaimed the slogan of workers' control in production. The conference approved his proposal.

After his success with the workers, Lenin felt firm ground under his feet for a major political demonstration. In mid-June, the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets was convened in Petrograd. The majority of the 790 delegates to the congress were Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. There were only 103 Bolsheviks. At this congress Lenin pronounced a verdict on the state, where the Soviets share power with the Provisional Government. He spoke in favor of rule in the form of a single republic of Soviets.

When the leader of the Mensheviks, Tsereteli, said that there was no political party in Russia that would take responsibility for power entirely upon itself, Lenin objected: “Yes! Not a single party can secede from responsibility, and our party does not refuse this: every minute it is ready to take power entirely. " His statement was greeted with laughter. However, he was not joking: successes in the working environment turned his head.

On June 23, the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks called a demonstration in support of the transfer of power to the Soviets. If it succeeded, the task of overthrowing the Provisional Government could be set. But word of this reached the leaders of the Congress of Soviets, and at the last moment the Bolshevik Central Committee considered it expedient to cancel this plan. But Lenin did not give up - his influence among the workers continued to grow. In early June, the All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions convened in Petrograd, at which the balance of power turned out to be completely different from the balance at the Congress of Soviets.

True, the Bolsheviks had not yet been able to take control of the voting at the conference, but their forces were already equal to those of the Mensheviks. For further leadership of the labor movement, the conference elected the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions. 16 Bolsheviks, 16 Mensheviks and 3 Socialist Revolutionaries were elected to this Council. Thanks to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks secured an advantage in the executive committee (5 Mensheviks against 4 Bolsheviks).

6

The offensive of the Russian army, prepared by Kerensky, began on July 1 on the southwestern front. During the first days it developed successfully. For further Bolshevik actions, the situation looked unfavorable. On July 11, Lenin left for a few days to rest at Bonch-Bruyevich's dacha in Finland. During these few days the state of political affairs in Petrograd changed so much that a split occurred in the Provisional Government.

The issue of Ukraine's autonomy became the basis for the dispute. On July 14, a delegation of the Provisional Government consisting of three ministers (Tsereteli, Kerensky and Tereshchenko) signed an agreement in Kiev with the All-Ukrainian Central Rada formed there. Having received this news, the Cadet ministers left the Provisional Government, since they believed that the question of Ukraine's autonomy could not be resolved before the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Their resignation triggered a government crisis. The problem of reorganizing the government arose. The Bolsheviks considered this moment favorable for the seizure of power.

On July 16, rallies at factories and party meetings of the Bolsheviks began. On the morning of the 17th, Lenin hastily returned to Petrograd and took over the leadership of the movement. On the same day, a large mass demonstration took place in the capital. It was organized by the Bolsheviks under the slogans "Down with 10 capitalist ministers", "Peace to huts, war to palaces."

Several thousand sailors arrived from Kronstadt. The troops of the Petrograd garrison partly wavered, partly went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. Many of the workers participating in the demonstration were armed. On that day, the preponderance of forces was clearly on the side of the Bolsheviks. But they either did not know how to implement it, or did not want to take the risk by taking a decisive step: arresting the ministers of the Provisional Government and seizing official institutions. The whole day was spent in street demonstrations, during which there were clashes and shootings, there were wounded and killed.

The next day, July 18, the picture changed. The government called in strong cavalry from the Northern Front. In addition, after the publication of evidence by the Minister of Justice Pereverzev that Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders received money from Germany, the mood of a number of regiments of the Petrograd garrison changed in favor of the Provisional Government.

The protest movement was over. On July 19, government troops occupied the Kshesinskaya mansion (the Bolshevik Central Committee was located there), as well as the Peter and Paul Fortress. The editorial office and printing house of Pravda were defeated by an armed detachment of junkers. At the same time, the Provisional Government issued warrants for the arrest of Lenin, Zinoviev and Trotsky.

7

The information published on July 18 was obtained from counterintelligence and accused Lenin of receiving funds from Germany through Sweden. The documents named Parvus, Ganetsky and Kozlovsky as agents and intermediaries. By order of the Minister of Justice, Pereverzev, who was a Menshevik, the documents were made public. The actual head of the government, Kerensky (a few days later he formally became prime minister) considered this publication a mistake, since it prevented the arrest of Ganetsky, who was just at that time on his way from Stockholm to Petrograd. According to Kerensky, his arrest could provide new and irrefutable evidence of the cooperation of the Bolsheviks with the Germans. Ganetsky, having learned about the publication of the Provisional Government, when he had not yet reached Russian territory, immediately turned back to Stockholm.

As a result of this disagreement with Kerensky, Pereverzev was forced to resign. On July 18, immediately after the publication of information from the military counterintelligence, Lenin wrote an article for the Bolshevik edition of Listok Pravda, in which the information that had appeared was declared malicious slander. Lenin even denied his connection with Ganetsky. At the end of the article, he stated:

We add that Ganetsky and Kozlovsky are both not Bolsheviks, but members of the Polish Social-Democratic Party. party, that Hanecki is a member of its Central Committee, known to us from the London Congress (1903), from which the Polish delegates left. The Bolsheviks did not receive any money from either Ganetsky or Kozlovsky. All of this is a lie.

Lenin's desire to renounce Ganetsky makes a strange impression. There is no doubt that Ganetsky was closely associated with the Bolsheviks. Together with Vorovsky and Radek, he was a member of the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee in Stockholm. At the beginning of the war and revolution, Ganetsky helped Lenin and received instructions from him. Lenin's assertion that the Bolsheviks did not receive "any money from either Ganetsky or Kozlovsky" was an obvious lie, since Lenin himself, in a letter dated March 30, 1917, addressed Ganetsky in Stockholm with a request: “Do not regret the relations between Peter and Stockholm of money!!"

It should also be noted that after the Bolshevik revolution, Ganetsky served in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, and later was a member of the collegium of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade of the USSR.

So, the cooperation of Ganetsky with the Bolsheviks is not in doubt. Lenin's refutation - at least in relation to Ganetsky - is definitely not credible.

As for Parvus, Lenin did not mention him in his statement on July 18, but on July 19 or 20 he wrote in an article that was not published at the time:

"They are entangling Parvus, trying their best to create some kind of connection between him and the Bolsheviks."

Lenin further notes that the Bolsheviks demonstratively refused to deal with Parvus. Lenin is silent about the fact that it was Parvus who arranged for him to travel through Germany in a "sealed" carriage.

Lenin could not deny the contacts between Ganetsky and Parvus, but he explained them exclusively by mutual trade interests: "Ganetsky conducted trade affairs as an employee of a company in which Parvus participated." Lenin protested against the attempts of his accusers to confuse these commercial relations with political ones.

In any case, Lenin could have refuted the charges against him at the trial. At first he was going to do just that, and in his first statement in “Leaf of Pravda” he wrote: “Now the slanderers will answer before the court. From this point of view, the matter is simple and uncomplicated. "

But then Lenin reconsidered this issue. Overestimating the decisiveness of the Provisional Government, he reasoned that the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising would give the government an excuse to settle scores with the Bolsheviks. “Now they will shoot us,” he told Trotsky on the morning of 18 July. "This is the most convenient moment for them."

In a note written three days later, noting that going to court would be a constitutional illusion, he continued:

If we assume that in Russia there is and possibly a correct government, a correct court, and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly is probable, then we can come to the conclusion in favor of a turnout. But such an opinion is completely wrong ... the convocation of the Constituent Assembly is incredible without a new revolution ... a military dictatorship is in effect. It's funny to talk about "court" here. The point is not in the "trial", but in the episode of the civil war. That is what the supporters of the turnout do not want to understand in vain.

With the approval of several members of the Central and Petrograd Bolshevik Committees, on July 27, Lenin and Zinoviev decided to hide and go underground. On the same day, Kamenev was arrested. Trotsky and Lunacharsky were arrested two weeks later. On July 28, the newspaper Proletarskoye Delo published a letter signed by Lenin and Zinoviev about the reasons for their refusal to appear in court:

The counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie is trying to create a new Dreyfus case ... There are no guarantees of justice in Russia at the moment ... To surrender oneself now into the hands of the authorities would mean giving oneself into the hands of the Milyukovs, Aleksinsky, Pereverzevs, into the hands of angry counterrevolutionaries, for whom all the accusations against us are a simple episode in the civil war.

Assessing this part of the statement of Lenin and Zinoviev, it should be remembered that neither Miliukov nor Pereverzev were at that time ministers, and Aleksinsky was never a member of the Provisional Government. At that time, more than half of the government consisted of socialists - Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.

At the end of their statement, Lenin and Zinoviev wrote that only the "Constituent Assembly, if it meets and is not convened by the bourgeoisie," will have the right to issue (or not issue) an order for their arrest.

8

From July 22 to November 7, 1917, Lenin was underground. For the first few days, he and Zinoviev hid in the attic of a barn that belonged to a Bolshevik worker, near Sestroretsk (34 kilometers from Petrograd). Then Lenin moved to a haystack a few kilometers from the Razliv station. In early September, when the cold weather approached, he moved to the border with Finland and arrived in Helsingfors on a steam locomotive, posing as a stoker. There he stayed with the head of the militia, a Finnish Social Democrat, then moved to a Finnish worker, also a Social Democrat. In early October, he left Helsingfors for Vyborg to be closer to Petrograd, where new events were mounting. All this time, he continued to maintain close contact with the Bolshevik organization and the press, trying to direct their activities.

The VI Congress of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks), which met in Petrograd on August 8, elected Lenin (in his absence) as honorary chairman and member of the Central Committee. Now Lenin declared that the immediate task was to prepare for an armed uprising. He reported this to the Sixth Congress in an article on the political situation he wrote on 23 July:

All hopes for the peaceful development of the Russian revolution have completely disappeared. Objective situation: either the victory of the military dictatorship to the end, or the victory of the armed uprising of the workers. The aim of an armed uprising can only be the transfer of power into the hands of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry, in order to carry out the program of our party. The party of the working class, without abandoning legality, but not even for a moment exaggerating it, must combine legal work with illegal work, as in 1912-1914.

In this article, Lenin called the Kerensky government a military dictatorship, which was unfair: neither Kerensky nor any of the other leaders in power in Petrograd possessed sufficient determination to establish a dictatorship, although circumstances pushed them to do so. In fact, the attempt to establish a military dictatorship was made by the leader of the army at the front.

On July 19, the same day when the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd was suppressed, the Germans successfully broke through the Russian front near Tarnopol. The Russian army of the revolutionary period showed complete inability to resist the enemy attack. A disorderly retreat began.

By order of July 25, Kerensky reinstated the death penalty for deserters at the front. On July 31, General Kornilov, a supporter of a decisive restoration of discipline in the troops, was appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Then Savinkov became an assistant to the Minister of War. He acted as an intermediary between Kerensky and Kornilov, implementing a program of disciplining the army. But it soon became clear that General Kornilov was being promoted to a leading position, he was the leader of all forces that wanted discipline in the army and order in the country.

General Kornilov began to look more and more like a military dictator. During the State Conference that opened in Moscow on August 25, his popularity among bourgeois circles became evident. This meeting of representatives of various parties and organizations turned out to be rather helpless. It is interesting only in one respect - as an indicator of the depth of the split and demarcation between the socialist groups (including the defencists) and the bourgeois. While the left wing of the conference greeted Kerensky with enthusiasm, the right wing received General Kornilov with equal enthusiasm.

Kornilov's exceptional success at the Moscow conference engendered doubts in Kerensky's soul. At the last moment, just before the approval of the plan for restoring discipline in the army, Kerensky feared that Kornilov would establish a dictatorship, and ordered his removal from the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Kornilov refused to obey the order and sent cavalry units to Petrograd. Kerensky and the Mensheviks from the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets now turned to the Bolsheviks and workers for help in order to oppose some kind of force to Kornilov's troops.

The workers responded, organized a workers' militia, and thus the existence of the armed units of the Bolshevik workers - the Red Guard - was legalized. The matter did not come to a battle, the troops of Kornilov began fraternizing with the troops of the Provisional Government. The general's mutiny failed. Kerensky became the supreme commander in chief, Kornilov was arrested. Kornilov's failure was accompanied by a rift between the Kerensky government and conservative social groups. This put Kerensky in the hands of leftist radical groups led by the Bolsheviks.

Bolshevik leaders arrested after the July events were released, including Trotsky. The influence of the Bolsheviks on workers and soldiers (and to some extent on the peasants) began to grow rapidly. The country was in a state of complete administrative and economic chaos. The interim government was unable to cope with the crisis. The most important issues of the moment - war or peace, solving problems with food, land ownership - were shelved until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

Elections to the Constituent Assembly were scheduled for November 25. There was not much time left until this date, but the masses were excited, no one wanted to wait and one day.

On September 19, the Petrograd Soviet adopted a Bolshevik resolution on power. This led to the resignation of the Menshevik-Socialist-Revolutionary Presidium of the Council. The new Bolshevik history of the Petrograd Soviet dates back to the day when the council moved from the Tauride Palace to the Smolny Institute (a former boarding house for the daughters of the nobility). The Tauride Palace began renovation work to prepare the building for the opening of the Constituent Assembly there.

On October 8, Trotsky was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. At a meeting of the council on October 22, a resolution was adopted on the formation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, designed to oppose the headquarters of the Petrograd military district, which wanted to withdraw the revolutionary troops from Petrograd. This meant an almost complete seizure of power.

9

After the failure of the Kornilov revolt, Lenin began to think over options for the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. His thought worked in two directions: first, it was necessary to develop a program that the Bolsheviks would follow after the seizure of power. Secondly, it was necessary to push the Bolshevik organizations to the quickest overthrow of the government. The program of action of the Bolsheviks after the government coup, he outlined in an article entitled "The Tasks of the Revolution" and published in the newspaper "Rabochy Put" on October 9-10. The following provisions were indicated as the main ones:

1. It is necessary not to allow a compromise with the bourgeoisie.

2. All power in the state should be transferred to the councils.

3. The Soviet government must invite all the belligerent peoples to immediately conclude a peace on democratic terms.

4. The Soviet government must immediately abolish, without redemption, the private ownership of the lands of the large landowners and transfer these lands under the control of the peasant committees until the final decision of the question by the Constituent Assembly.

5. The Soviet government must immediately introduce workers' control over production and consumption.

6. The Soviet government must arrest the Kornilov generals and the leaders of the bourgeoisie by creating a special commission to investigate counter-revolutionary conspiracies; should close the bourgeois newspapers and confiscate their printing houses.

7. The convocation of the Constituent Assembly must be guaranteed within the designated period.

In an article entitled “Will the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?” Written in the second week of October, Lenin discussed the means by which the Bolsheviks, after seizing power, could force civil service officials to work for them. The main means, in his opinion, should be the confiscation by the state of all food and other means necessary for life and providing them only to those persons who support the Soviet power:

"He who does not work should not eat" - this is the basic, first and foremost rule that the Soviets of Workers' Deputies can and will introduce when they become financial power ... in all, their field of activity, work book, they must receive a certificate from this union weekly or after some other definite period that they are doing their work in good faith; without this they cannot receive a bread card and foodstuffs in general.

In early September, Lenin began to rush the Bolshevik organizations, urging them to urgently prepare for the overthrow of the government. Around September 25-27, he wrote a letter addressed to the Central, as well as the Petrograd and Moscow party committees, about the need to take power in Moscow and Petrograd: "We will win unconditionally and undoubtedly."

On October 10, Lenin wrote to I. T. Smilga, chairman of the Regional Committee of the Army, Navy and Workers of Finland. He drew his attention to the exceptional importance of assistance from the Russian troops in Finland at the time of the overthrow of the government by the Bolsheviks. He expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the Central Committee had decided to postpone the uprising until November 2, the date of the opening of the Second Congress of Soviets. Lenin considered it possible for the Petrograd Soviet to take power, which, in turn, could transfer it to the Congress of Soviets.

On October 22, the day when the Military Revolutionary Committee was founded under the Petrograd Soviet, Lenin moved from Vyborg to Lesnoy, near Petrograd. The next day, for the first time after the July events, he took part in a meeting of the Central Committee. It was held in Sukhanov's Petrograd apartment under the chairmanship of Sverdlov. By a majority of 10 votes against 2, the Central Committee approved the resolution proposed by Lenin on the early start of the uprising. The two committee members who voted against were Kamenev and Zinoviev. Lenin called them "strikebreakers" and threatened them with expulsion from the party.

The necessary preparatory measures were taken under Trotsky's leadership. On November 1, a conference of factory committees approved a resolution on the transfer of power to the Soviets. On November 3, at a conference of committees representing the regiments of the Petrograd garrison, the Military Revolutionary Committee was recognized as the governing body of the army sections in Petrograd. On November 4, the delegates of the Petrograd regiments gave instructions that the soldiers were obliged to carry out the orders of the headquarters only if they were endorsed by the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Throughout this period, the Provisional Government was in hibernation, watching the events, but not taking any measures. Finally, on November 6, it decided to call the cadets to guard the Winter Palace (the Provisional Government was located there). The commander of the Petrograd Military District issued an order to the troops prohibiting the implementation of the orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee. In the evening of the same day, Lenin sent a letter to the Bolshevik Central Committee, demanding immediate action. Paraphrasing the words of Peter the Great, he wrote:

"Delay in performing is like death." Having put on his make-up, Lenin, late in the evening of November 6, moved from Lesnoy to Smolny Institute, from where he began to direct the events.

10

On the night of November 6-7, troops under the command of the Military Revolutionary Committee occupied all the main government buildings, railway stations and the services of the Main Telegraph. Early in the morning of November 7, Kerensky fled by car from Petrograd to Gatchina. The rest of the members of the Provisional Government remained in the Winter Palace. Soon the Bolshevik troops surrounded the Winter Palace. The victory of the Bolsheviks was now indubitable.

At 10 o'clock in the morning, Lenin issued an appeal "To the Citizens of Russia," announcing that "The Provisional Government has been deposed ... The cause for which the people fought: the immediate proposal of a democratic peace, the abolition of landlord ownership of land, workers' control over production, the creation of a Soviet government, this is provided ”.

At 2 pm, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, he made another, more detailed, statement in the same spirit. At 10.45 pm the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened.

A little later, the Bolshevik troops occupied the Winter Palace. Members of the Provisional Government were arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Notes:

So in the English edition of Vernadsky's book. Lenin: degenerated into "vulgar philistine radicalism" (Approx. Transl.)

"And the soldiers" is added in the English text - Lenin does not have that. (Approx. Transl.)

Lenin does not use the word "soldiers" again. (Approx. Transl.)

With Lenin "in the hands of the class of proletarians and semi-proletarians." (Approx. Transl.)

It was printed like this - it should be: "1907" (Note by G. Vernadsky).

In the English text: "in a decisive conflict of workers." (Approx. Transl.)

In the English text: "conflict". (Approx. Transl.)

Lenin has just "landlord lands", without division into large and small landowners. (Approx. Transl.)

Lenin does not have the word "financial". (Approx. Transl.)

Lenin said: "Victory is assured, and nine-tenths chances that it is bloodless." (Approx. Transl.)

By the beginning of the twentieth century. Russia was a tangle of unresolved problems and contradictions. These problems were very widespread. Unfortunately, it was impossible to solve these problems without changing the political regime.

The first and most important problem was the economy, which looked depressing. The Russian economy did not develop fast enough for such big country... The modernization was superficial, or there was none at all. The country, despite attempts to develop industry, remained agrarian; Russia exported mainly agricultural products. Economically, Russia lagged far behind all the advanced countries of Europe. Naturally, society began to think about the causes of failures in the economy. It was logical to blame the current government for this.

At the same time, there were signs that Russia was trying to industrialize. From 1900 to 1914, the number of industries doubled. However, the entire industry was concentrated in several "centers": the center of the country, northwest, south, Ural. The high concentration of factories in some places led to the fact that where they were absent, there was stagnation. An abyss arose between the center and the outskirts.

In the Russian economy, the share of foreign capital invested in production was very high. Therefore, a fairly large part of Russian income went abroad, and this money could be used to accelerate the modernization and development of the country as a whole, which would lead to an improvement in the standard of living. All this was very convenient for socialist propaganda to use, accusing domestic entrepreneurs of inaction and of a disregard for the people.

Due to the high concentration of production and funds, many large monopolies appeared, uniting banks and factories. They belonged either to large industrialists, or (and this is more often) to the state. The so-called "state-owned factories" appeared, with which smaller private industries simply could not compete. This reduced competition in the market, and this, in turn, lowered the level of product quality and allowed the state to dictate its prices. Of course, the population did not like it very much.

Consider Agriculture, a direction that has always been important for Russia because of its large area... The land was divided between landlords and peasants, and the peasants owned a smaller part, and they were also forced to cultivate the landlord's land. All this inflamed the age-old strife between landowners and peasants. The latter looked with envy at the vast lands of the landowners and recalled their tiny allotments, which were not always enough just to feed the family. In addition, the community sowed enmity between the peasants themselves and prevented the emergence of wealthy peasants who would develop trade, bringing city and country closer together. P.A. tried to correct this situation. Stolypin, carrying out a series of reforms, but without much success. According to his idea, the peasants began to settle in free lands: Siberia, Kazakhstan, etc. Most of the settlers could not get used to the new conditions and returned, joining the ranks of the unemployed. As a result, social tension increased both in the countryside and in the city.

The second global problem of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. - its social composition.

The entire population of Russia can be divided into four large, very different social classes:

• 1. Higher ranks, large and medium-sized entrepreneurs, landowners, bishops of the Orthodox Church, academicians, professors, doctors, etc. - 3%
• 2. Small entrepreneurs, townspeople, artisans, teachers, officers, priests, minor officials, etc. - 8%
• 3. Peasantry - 69%

Including: well-to-do - 19%; average - 25%; poor - 25%.

4. The proletarian poor population, beggars, vagabonds - 20%

It can be seen that more than half of the society was made up of the poor (peasants and proletarians), who were dissatisfied with their position. Considering the socialist propaganda, which the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks did not skimp on, it becomes clear that these people were ready to revolt at any moment.

In addition to these problems, there was another circumstance that aggravated the situation: the First World War. It can be seen as a "mighty accelerator" of the revolution. Defeats in the war led to the fall of the authority of the tsarist regime. The war sucked out of Russia the last reserves of money and human resources; put the economy on a war footing, which led to a sharp deterioration in the living conditions of civilians.

Due to the war, the army increased, and the importance of its position increased. The Bolsheviks quickly managed to get most of the soldiers on their side, given the high mortality rate, disgusting conditions, and the lack of weapons and equipment in the Russian troops.

Social confrontation was growing. The number of lumpen has increased. The population became more and more easily influenced by rumors and cleverly spread propaganda. The authority of the government was finally undermined. The last barriers holding back the revolution have come down.

February to October.

In February 1917, the revolution finally took place. Despite the huge number of obvious prerequisites, it came as a surprise to the ruling elite. The result of the revolution was: the abdication of the tsar from the throne, the destruction of the monarchy, the transition to a republic, the formation of such bodies as the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet (or simply the Soviets). The presence of these two bodies subsequently led to a dual power.

The Provisional Government set a course for the continuation of the war, which caused discontent among the people. And although reforms were carried out that were supposed to significantly improve the life of ordinary people, the situation only worsened. Democracy was only an illusion; global problems did not dare. The February revolution deepened the contradictions and awakened destructive forces.

The state of the economy continued to deteriorate, prices rose, and crime increased. The population continued to live in poverty. Chaos and disorder intensified. The Provisional Government preferred to hide and wait for the revelry to calm down. Instability was in the air, society was inclined to continue the political struggle, in which the Bolsheviks, who supported the Soviets, were leading. The entire period from February to October, the Bolsheviks were engaged in active agitation, thanks to which their party became the largest and most influential in the country.

The reasons for the failure of the Provisional Government are very simple:

• 1) The course for the continuation of the war, from which the country is tired;
• 2) Failures of the economy, which could only be corrected by cardinal reforms, which the VP was afraid to do;
• 3) Failure to cope with difficulties and making decisions that cause criticism from milestones in society. The consequences of this were the crises of the Provisional Government;
• 4) The growth of the influence of the Bolsheviks.
• April 3, 1917 V.I. Lenin arrived in Petrograd in a "sealed carriage". A whole crowd came to meet him. In their welcoming speech, the Soviets expressed their hope for the rallying of the revolution around Lenin. He answered directly to the people: "Long live the world socialist revolution!" The enthusiastic crowd lifted their idol to the armored car.

The next day, Lenin published his famous April Theses. With them, Vladimir Ilyich began the transition to a new, socialist tactics of the revolution, which consisted in relying on the workers and the poorest peasantry. Lenin proposed radical measures: the destruction of the VP, an immediate end to the war, the transfer of land to the peasants, and control of the factories to the workers, an equal division of property. Most of the Bolsheviks supported Lenin at the next party congress.

These new slogans were enthusiastically accepted by the people. The influence of the Bolsheviks grew every day. In June and July, the Bolsheviks held demonstrations and even armed uprisings against the Provisional Government with the involvement of the masses.

By the fall of 1917, the Provisional Government, weakened by constant crises and rebellions, surrendered under the pressure of the Bolsheviks and on September 1, 1917 proclaimed Russia a republic. The Democratic Conference opened on September 14, organ government controlled, created by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, which were supposed to include all parties. Lenin, like almost all Bolsheviks, wanted to boycott the Democratic Conference and continue to engage in the Bolshevization of the Soviets, since it was obvious that this new body (the Democratic Conference) did not play a key role and would not make important decisions.

Meanwhile, the country was on the brink of disaster. During the war, lands rich in bread were lost. The factories were falling apart because of the striking workers. Peasant uprisings were raging in the villages. The number of unemployed has increased; prices rose sharply. All this clearly showed the inability of the Provisional Government to govern the state.

By October, the Bolsheviks, led by L.D. Trotsky firmly set a course for an armed uprising, the overthrow of the VP and the transfer of all power to the Soviets. They finally broke off relations with other parties, leaving the Democratic Conference on October 7, after reading out their declaration. Meanwhile, Lenin returned illegally to Petrograd. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party on October 10, 1917, Lenin and Trotsky decided to directly prepare for the uprising.

As Lenin in Russia grows into a central figure on a global scale, fierce controversy is waged around his name.
For the fear-ridden bourgeoisie, Lenin is a bolt from the blue, some kind of obsession, a world plague.
For mystically minded minds, Lenin is the great "Mongol-Slav" who was mentioned in that rather strange prophecy that appeared even before the war. “I see, this prophecy read, - the whole of Europe bleeding and illuminated by fires. I hear the groaning of millions of people in gigantic battles. But around 1915, a hitherto unknown person appeared in the north, who would later become world famous. This is a person without military education, a writer or a journalist, but until 1925 he will control most of Europe.
For the reactionary church, Lenin is the antichrist. The priests are trying to gather the peasants under their sacred banners and icons and lead them against the Red Army. But the peasants say: “Maybe Lenin is indeed the Antichrist, but he gives us land and freedom. Why should we fight against him? "
For ordinary Russian citizens, the name of Lenin has an almost superhuman meaning. He is the creator of the Russian revolution, the founder Soviet power, everything that is present in Russia is connected with his name.
To think in this way is to look at history as the result of the activities of great people, as if great events and great epochs were determined by great leaders. True, an entire era and a huge mass movement can be reflected in one person.
Undoubtedly, any interpretation of history that links the Russian revolution with only one person, or with a group of persons, is wrong. Lenin would be the first to laugh at the idea that the fate of the Russian revolution is in his hands or in the hands of his associates.
The fate of the Russian revolution is in the hands of those who carried it out, in the hands and hearts of the masses. It is in those economic forces, under the pressure of which the masses of the people began to move. For centuries the working people of Russia endured and suffered. In all the boundless expanses of Russia, on the Moscow plains, in the steppes of Ukraine, along the banks of the great Siberian rivers, urged by need, fettered by superstition, people worked from dawn to dawn, and their standard of living was extremely low. But everything comes to an end - even the patience of the poor.
In February 1917, with a roar that shook the entire world, the working class threw off the chains that bound it. The soldiers followed suit and revolted. Then the revolution took over the countryside, penetrating deeper and deeper, igniting the most backward strata of the people with revolutionary fire, until the entire nation of 160 million people - seven times more than during the French Revolution - was drawn into its maelstrom.
Seized by a great idea, an entire nation gets down to business and begins to create a new system. This is the greatest in centuries social movement... Based on the economic interests of the people, it represents the most decisive action in history in the name of justice. A great nation sets out on a campaign and, faithful to the idea of ​​a new world, strides forward, regardless of hunger, war, blockade and death. She rushed forward, casting aside those who betray her, and following those who satisfy the people's needs and aspirations.
In the masses, in the Russian masses themselves, lies the fate of the Russian revolution - in their discipline and devotion to the common cause. And I must say that happiness smiled at them. The wise helmsman and spokesman for their thoughts was a man with a gigantic mind and an iron will, a man with extensive knowledge and decisive action, a man with the highest ideals and the most sober, most practical reason. This man was Lenin.

Albert Rees Williams. From the book “Lenin. Man and his business. "

REFERENCE: Albert Rees Williams (1883-1962) was an American writer and publicist. Was an eyewitness to the October Revolution, met with V. I. Lenin; a friend of our country, he also came to the USSR several times later.