Where was Nikolay during the assault. The storming of the winter and other Soviet myths

Main article: The storming of the Winter Palace

The cruiser "Aurora" in the "eternal stop" on the Bolshaya Nevka, a tributary of the Neva.

In the afternoon, the forces of the Pavlovsky regiment surrounded the Winter Palace within Millionnaya, Mokhovaya and Bolshaya Konyushennaya streets, as well as Nevsky Prospekt between the Catherine Canal and Moika. There were pickets with the participation of armored cars on the bridges over the Ekaterininsky Canal and Moika and on Morskaya Street. Then detachments of the Red Guards arrived from the Petrogradsky district and from the Vyborg side, as well as units of the Kexholm regiment, which occupied the area north of the Moika.

The Winter Palace continued to be defended by the cadets, the women's shock battalion and the Cossacks. A meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Provisional Government, chaired by Konovalov, was held in the large Malachite Hall on the second floor. At the meeting, it was decided to appoint a "dictator" to eliminate the riots, it was N. M. Kishkin. Having received the appointment, Kishkin arrived at the headquarters of the military district, fired Polkovnikov, appointing Bagratuni in his place. By this time, the Winter Palace was completely blocked by the forces of the uprising.

Historical photography by P.A.Otsup. Armored car "Lieutenant Schmidt", captured by the Red Guards from the cadets. Petrograd, October 25, 1917

Despite the fact that in general the forces of the uprising significantly outnumbered the troops defending the Winter Palace, the assault at 6 pm was not started. This was due to a number of secondary circumstances that caused a delay in the mobilization of revolutionary forces, in particular, the detachments of sailors from Helsingfors did not have time to arrive. Also, the artillery of the Kronstadt fortress was not prepared for firing, the means for signaling an assault were not prepared. However, the delay in the assault at the same time weakened the defenders of the Winter Palace, since gradually some of the cadets left their positions. At 6 hours 15 minutes in the evening, a significant group of cadets of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School left the palace, taking with them four of the six guns. And at about 8 pm 200 Cossacks, who were guarding the palace, dispersed to the barracks, making sure that there was no massive government support.

The commissar of the Peter and Paul Fortress G.I. Blagonravov at 6.30 pm sent two scooters to General base, where they arrived with an ultimatum to surrender the Provisional Government, the deadline was set at 19 hours and 10 minutes. The ultimatum was passed on to the Winter and rejected by the Cabinet of Ministers. Soon the General Staff building was occupied by the forces of the rebels.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, the commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee G. I. Chudnovsky arrived at the Winter Palace as a parliamentarian with a new ultimatum to surrender, which was also rejected. The Red Guards, revolutionary units of the garrison and sailors were ready to start the assault. After 9 o'clock in the evening, the revolutionary troops began to fire machine-gun fire at the Winter Palace. At 9.40 pm, a signal shot from the cannon of the Peter and Paul Fortress fired a blank shot from the bow gun of the Aurora, which had a psychological effect on the defenders of the Winter Palace (according to some researchers, the cruiser was unable to fire live shells at the Winter Palace). After that, a firefight broke out again between the besiegers of Winter and its defenders. Then the detachments of cadets and women from the shock battalion who had left their posts were disarmed. By 10 o'clock in the evening, ships supporting the uprising arrived in Petrograd from Helsingfors: a patrol boat "Yastreb" and five destroyers - "Marked", "Bully", "Powerful", "Active" and "Samson".

At about 11 am, shelling of the Winter Palace was launched from the Peter and Paul Fortress, although most of them did not directly hit the building. On October 26, at the first hour of the night, the first large detachments of the besiegers entered the palace. By one in the morning, half of the palace was already in the hands of the rebels. The Juncker ceased resistance, and at 2.10 am the Winter Palace was taken. Antonov-Ovseenko soon arrived with a detachment of revolutionary forces in the Small dining room next to the Malachite Hall, in which the members of the Provisional Government were located. According to the testimony of the Minister of Justice P. N. Malyantovich,

The noise at our door. It flung open - and a small man flew into the room like a chip, thrown towards us by a wave, under the pressure of the crowd, which followed him into the room and, like water, spilled at once in all corners and filled the room ... We sat at the table. The guards have already surrounded us with a ring. “The Provisional Government is here,” said Konovalov, continuing to sit. - What do you want? - I announce to you, to all of you, members of the Provisional Government, that you are under arrest. I am a representative of the Antonov Military Revolutionary Committee. “Members of the Provisional Government submit to violence and surrender to avoid bloodshed,” said Konovalov.

The arrested members of the Provisional Government (without Kerensky, who had gone to the front for reinforcements) were sent under heavy guard to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Juncker and the women's battalion were disarmed. Three female shock women were raped.

The number of victims of the armed struggle was insignificant - on both sides there were 6 killed and 50 wounded.

The capture of the Winter Palace is considered the starting point of the October Revolution of 1917. In Soviet history textbooks, this event is covered with an aura of heroism. And, of course, there are many myths around him. How did it really happen?

Who defended the Winter Palace?

By October 1917, the residence of the Provisional Government and the soldier's hospital named after Tsarevich Alexei were located in the Winter Palace.

On the morning of October 25, the Petrograd Bolsheviks occupied the buildings of the telegraph office, the telephone exchange, the state bank, as well as railway stations, the main power plant and food warehouses.

At about 11 o'clock in the afternoon, Kerensky left Petrograd by car and went to Gatchina, leaving no instructions to the government. The fact that he fled from the Winter Palace, dressed in a woman's dress, is nothing more than a myth. He left quite openly and in his own clothes.

The civilian minister N.M. was hastily appointed as special commissioner for Petrograd. Kishkina. All the hope was that the troops would come from the front. In addition, there was no ammunition or food. There was nothing even to feed the junkers of the Peterhof and Oranienbaum schools - the main defenders of the palace.

In the first half of the day, they were joined by a women's shock battalion, a battery of the Mikhailovsky artillery school, a school of engineering warrant officers and a Cossack detachment. Volunteers also pulled up. But by evening, the ranks of the Winter Palace's defenders had thinned considerably, since the government behaved very passively and practically did nothing, confining itself to indistinct appeals. The ministers were isolated - the telephone connection was cut off.

At half past seven, scooters from the Peter and Paul Fortress arrived at Palace Square, bringing the ultimatum signed by Antonov-Ovseenko. It proposed that the Provisional Government, on behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee, surrender under the threat of shelling.

The ministers refused to enter into negotiations. However, in reality the assault began only after several thousand sailors of the Baltic Fleet from Helsingfors and Kronstadt arrived to help the Bolsheviks. At that time, the Winter was guarded only by 137 shock women of the women's death battalion, three companies of junkers and a detachment of 40 St. George's knights with disabilities. The number of defenders ranged from about 500 to 700.

Assault progress

The offensive of the Bolsheviks began at 21:40, after a blank shot was fired from the cruiser Aurora. Rifle and machine-gun shelling of the palace was started. The defenders managed to repulse the first assault attempt. At 23 o'clock the shelling resumed, this time firing from the artillery pieces of Petropavlovka.

Meanwhile, it turned out that the back entrances of the Winter Palace were practically not guarded, and through them a crowd from the square began to seep into the palace. Confusion ensued, and the defenders could no longer offer serious resistance. The commander of the defense, Colonel Ananyin, appealed to the government with a statement that he was forced to surrender the palace in order to save the life of its defenders. Antonov-Ovseenko, who arrived at the palace together with a small armed group, was admitted into the Small dining room, where the ministers sat. They agreed to surrender, but at the same time stressed that they were forced to do so only by submitting to force ... They were immediately arrested and transported in two cars to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

How many victims were there?

According to some reports, during the assault, only six soldiers and one female drummer were killed. According to others, there were much more victims - at least several dozen. The wounded in the hospital wards, which were located in the ceremonial halls overlooking the Neva, suffered the most from the shelling.

But even the Bolsheviks themselves did not later deny the fact of plundering the Winter Palace. As the American journalist John Reed wrote in his book "Ten Days That Shook the World", some citizens "... stole and took with them silverware, watches, bedding, mirrors, porcelain vases and stones of average value." True, within a day the Bolshevik government began to restore order. The Winter Palace was nationalized and declared a state museum.

One of the myths about the revolution says that the water in the Winter Canal after the assault turned red with blood. But it was not blood, but red wine from the cellars, which was poured there by vandals.

In fact, the coup itself was not so bloody. The main tragic events began after him. And, unfortunately, the consequences of the October Revolution were not at all what the romantic-minded supporters of socialist ideas dreamed of ...

Almost a century separates us from that precedent that took place on the night of October 25, 1917, that is, from the storming of the Winter Palace. And only now it becomes clear that all the events, as they were presented to us during the times of socialism, are not only false, but even approximately do not correspond to historical facts.

But let's start to understand from the very beginning. According to encyclopedic data, an assault is a way to quickly capture a settlement, fortress, or fortified position, which consists in attacking with large forces. We have all seen such an assault in the films of the great directors Eisenstein and Shub. In fact, there was nothing even like that. This is just a good propaganda move. The same as the so-called volley of Aurora, because the volley is nothing more than fire from all the guns. But if Aurora had fired a volley at the Winter Palace from all her guns, she would have simply wiped it off the face of the earth. Aurora fired only one shot from the tank gun, and even then with a blank charge. Of course, they fired at the Winter Palace from artillery, but from the Peter and Paul Fortress, they fired extremely unsuccessfully, one might say ineptly.

But back to the original theme of storming the Winter Palace. During the revolution, the Winter Palace was probably the most disadvantageous building in St. Petersburg for the defending side. It is located so that it could be fired on literally from any direction, for example, from the Neva River and the roofs of adjacent houses. But just from the roofs there was no fire support. And from the river it was minimal. The assault was attended by about ten combat and well-equipped ships. However, the cruiser "Aurora" itself did not come closer to the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge, allegedly fearing the shoals.

Also, the invented myth that the Winter Palace was prepared for defense in advance does not stand up to criticism. They usually point to the woodpiles of firewood that were laid on Palace Square, as part of the barricades specially made there. This is completely absurd, firewood was stored there for heating, and posed a greater danger to the defenders of the palace than to the attackers. Because if the shell would hit the woodpile, then everyone who was hiding behind it was filled up. Moreover, the location of the firewood would interfere with aimed fire from the basement, in which, according to all the rules of warfare, firing positions were to be located.
The number of defenders in the Winter Palace just makes you laugh. There were only a few junkers in the palace, and a company of shock workers. They were not even enough to simply surround the Winter with a chain. Realizing this, the Don Cossack regiment left the palace, taking with them two artillery pieces... As Kerensky later accused them of treason, this is written in his memoirs, there would be no sense in their presence. Even these two guns, coupled with experienced artillerymen, were simply useless, since it was impossible to shoot from the yard, there was no one to shoot from the square, no one attacked from there, and it makes no sense to shoot at the ships from the embankment, what are two guns against a dozen ships.

From the very beginning, the defense of the Winter Palace was doomed to failure. Although there were some difficulties in the capture. Take the size of the palace. Two and a half thousand attackers were barely enough to take the territory around the palace in a ring, so as not to allow reinforcements to break through, but there were no reinforcements.

The films about the storming of the Winter Palace show how several thousand people attack and hold the defense. And the attackers were only from six hundred to one thousand people. They were divided into three groups and located on Millionaya Street, under the Admiralty arch and in the Alexander Garden. An enormous amount of effort was expended by the commissars in order not to let them all disperse. When a small group of "stormtroopers" came out to the Palace Square, there was a single burst from a machine gun from the side of the Winter Palace, and the attackers scattered in all directions.

It turns out that there was no offensive either from the General Staff, or from Millionaya Street and Palace Square. So the Cossacks calmly, at nine forty in the evening, went through the Palace Square to the barracks. Where later they were surrounded by armored cars of the Bolsheviks, and they could not provide any assistance to the Provisional Government, and did not even try.
Now it becomes unclear: what did the attackers expect? When will Lenin from Smolny give the order to storm? And then what was he waiting for? This is one of the mysterious secrets of the storming of the Winter Palace.

So, not only a handful of half-drunk people in a revolutionary frenzy captured the Winter Palace, a well-trained group of armed people burst into the palace from the side of the embankment. These were two hundred gamekeepers under the command of General Cheremisov.

Upon arrival at the station from Finland, the jaeger special forces, having overcome a three-kilometer distance, approached the barracks of the commandant company, at that time there was a hospital, there was divided, and one group, passing through a glass passage, entered the barracks. From the windows of the barracks, they took aim at the cadets, who with a machine gun defended the bridge across the Winter Canal, noticing that they were at gunpoint, the cadets, throwing their weapons, fled. And then the second group of gamekeepers quietly went into the Winter Palace without a fight. Entering the palace, they took the cadets and shock women prisoner, after which the cadets fled, and the shock women, showing restraint, remained standing. And then the sailors and soldiers arrived in time and they were given prisoners and arrested ministers of the provisional government.

So were there any casualties among the attackers and defenders? Have there been clashes?

At the time of the capture of the Winter Palace by the rangers, most likely it was not. But the very next day, something that had been kept silent about for a long time, the most common looting, took away all the dishes, linen, even cut the leather from the furniture. There were a lot of wines in the cellars, and a general drunkenness began. Even the guards could not stop the lovers of easy money. The looters were able to stop only a few days later, and then with the help of weapons. It was here that there were some casualties.

Well, when on October 26 the people in the city learned that the Bolsheviks had overthrown the provisional government, large-scale protests began. Several rallies were shot, as well as all the rebellious cadets and the remnants of the Cossack patrols.

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

The day before

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

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

In the conditions of the openly prepared and already starting uprising of the Bolsheviks, the Headquarters of the Provisional Government did not bring a single soldier military unit to the defense of the government, no preparatory work was carried out with the cadets in military schools, therefore, they turned out to be negligible on Palace Square on October 25, and it would have less if the cadets did not come on their own. The fact that it was the cadets who did not take part in the defense of the Winter Palace on October 25 that participated in the anti-Bolshevik cadet action on October 29, speaks of the complete disorganization in the defense of the Provisional Government. The only one military unit The Petrograd garrison, which took the oath to the Provisional Government, were the Cossacks. The main hopes were pinned on them in the days of the Troubles. On October 17, 1917, delegates of the Don Cossack Army Circle visited the head of the Provisional Government of Kerensky, noting the lack of confidence of the Cossacks in the government and demanding that the government restore A.M. Kaledin as commander of the army and openly admitted its mistake before the Don. Kerensky acknowledged the episode with Kaledin as a sad misunderstanding and promised to make an official statement in the coming days disavowing the episode, but he did not keep his word and no official explanation came in time. It was only on October 23rd that the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry issued a resolution that General Kaledin was not involved in the Kornilov "mutiny". In general, the Petrograd Cossacks reacted to the upcoming events passively: even at a critical moment on the night of October 24-25, despite repeated orders from the headquarters, the Cossacks did not act, without personally receiving guarantees from Kerensky that “this time Cossack blood will not be spilled in vain as it was in July, when sufficiently energetic measures were not taken against the Bolsheviks ”. The Cossacks were ready to come to the aid of the Provisional Government, provided that the regiments were provided with machine guns, each regiment, organized from hundreds, distributed among the factories, would be assigned armored cars and, together with the Cossacks, infantry units would act. On the basis of this agreement, 2 hundred Cossacks and a machine-gun team of the 14th regiment were sent to the Winter Palace. The rest of the regiments were to join them as the Provisional Government fulfilled the requirements of the Cossacks, who, in their opinion, guaranteed that their unnecessary July sacrifices would not be repeated. In connection with the failure to fulfill the conditions proposed by the Cossack regiments, at the afternoon meeting of the Council of Cossack Forces with representatives of the regiments, it was decided to withdraw the 2 hundred sent earlier and not to take any part in suppressing the Bolshevik uprising. According to the historian of the revolution, S. P. Melgunov, the October refusal of the Cossacks to suppress the Bolshevik uprising was a great tragedy for Russia.

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

In the complete absence of any forces from the government, the Bolsheviks also acted, contrary to the later victorious reports, hesitantly: they did not dare to storm the Winter Palace, since neither the workers nor the garrison of Petrograd as a whole took part in the uprising, but were present on paper "Tens of thousands" of the Bolshevik "red guard" (in the Vyborg region alone there were 10 thousand Red Guards) in fact did not act with the Bolsheviks. The huge Putilov factory, which allegedly had 1,500 organized Red Guards, also sent only a detachment of 80 people to participate in the uprising.

By the middle of the day most of key facilities was occupied by Bolshevik patrols without the resistance of the Provisional Government patrols. The head of the Provisional Government Kerensky left Petrograd by car at about 11 o'clock, without leaving any instructions to the government. The civilian minister N. M. Kishkin was appointed special commissioner for the establishment of order in Petrograd. Of course, de facto his "governor-general" powers were limited only to self-defense in the Winter Palace. Convinced of the lack of desire to act on the part of the district authorities, Kishkin dismisses Polkovnikov and entrusts the functions of the commander of the troops to General Bagratuni. On October 25, Kishkin and his subordinates acted quite boldly and orderly, but even energetic and organizationally capable Kishkin could not do much in just a few hours left at his disposal.

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

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

The departure of part of the defenders of the Winter Palace

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

The armored cars of the Provisional Government were forced to leave the area of \u200b\u200bthe Winter Palace due to the lack of gasoline.

Evening October 25

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

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

Finally, having begun to realize the degree of criticality of their position, the ministers decided to turn to the City Duma for moral support and began to look for some kind of physical help through the telephone. Someone even went to the City Duma and bypassed its factions with the words that a tragic denouement is coming, that it is necessary to defend the government and also call on the population. But no help came. The only real attempt to help the Provisional Government was made by B.V.Savinkov, and it was associated with the name of General M.V. Alekseev. I found the former Supreme Commander-in-Chief Savinkov only at night from the 25th to the 26th. They discussed the possibility of collecting at least a small armed force to give battle to the Bolsheviks. According to Savinkov, the general even outlined a plan for the upcoming military operations, which, however, did not have time to implement.

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

A very indicative and characterizing situation is the episode with the arrival of one of the leaders of the siege, the commissar of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee Grigory Chudnovsky, at about 8 pm in the already combat-ready state of anticipation of an attack, at the invitation of the delegate of the Oranienbaum school, cadet Kiselev, for negotiations on "surrender" Chudnovsky, together with Kiselev, were immediately arrested by order of Palchinsky, but later, at the request of the cadets who had guaranteed immunity to Chudnovsky with their "honest canteen", they were released. Another group of cadets who did not want to fight anymore left with them.

At 21:00, the Provisional Government addressed the country with a radio telegram:

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

Storm

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

At the same time, it is known about the forces that guarded the Winter Palace that at the time of the assault they were approximately 137 shock women of the female death battalion (2nd company), 2-3 companies of cadets and 40 disabled Georgievsky knights, headed by a captain on prostheses.

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

First attack on the Winter Palace

Almost simultaneously with the government's last appeal to Russia, at 21:00, after a blank signal shot from the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Bolsheviks began an offensive against the Winter Palace. The first attack consisted of rifle and machine-gun shelling of the palace with the participation of armored cars, accompanied by return fire from the defenders of the palace, and lasted about an hour. According to the results of the attack, Palchinsky notes in his notebook that there are enough forces for defense, but the absence of command personnel is tragic - there were only 5 officers among the defenders of the Provisional Government. Immediately, the executive committee of the postal and telegraph union sends a message:

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

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

The situation is recognized as favorable ... The palace is shelled, but only with rifle fire without any results. It was found that the enemy is weak.

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

Disorderly crowds of sailors, soldiers, Red Guards now float to the gates of the palace, then rush away

The first attack of the Bolsheviks from 9 to 10 pm resulted in the surrender of female shock women battalion, according to Soviet sources, allegedly "could not stand the fire." In fact, the surrender was the result of an unsuccessful sortie of shock women for the "liberation of General Alekseev," which Colonel Ananyin, the head of the Winter Palace, could not stop.

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

Second offensive on the Winter Palace

At 23 o'clock the Bolsheviks began to fire at the Winter Palace from the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress, which fired 35 rounds of live shells, of which only 2 slightly "scratched" the cornice of the Winter Palace. Later, Trotsky was forced to admit that the most loyal of the gunners deliberately fired over the Winter Palace. When those who raised the uprising wanted to use the 6-inch cruiser Aurora, it turned out that due to its location, the cruiser was physically unable to shoot at the Winter Palace. And the matter was limited to intimidation in the form of a blank shot.

For those who were storming, the Winter Palace could not represent a serious obstacle, since it was defended only from the side of the facade, and at the same time they forgot to lock the rear doors from the side of the Neva, through which not only sailors with workers, but also simply curious and lovers of profit began to easily penetrate. This accidental oversight of the defenders of the Winter Palace was later used in the Bolshevik ideology and was presented in propaganda in a false form: "the inhabitants of the palace basements in their class hatred of the exploiters" opened "secret" entrances to the Bolsheviks, through which the agitators of the Revolutionary Revolutionary Committee entered and occupied the propaganda of the defenders of the palace ... “… Those were not casual spies, but, of course, special envoys of the Military Revolutionary Committee” - the historian of October 1917 SP Melgunov sneers at the methods of Bolshevik propaganda.

The parliamentarians, led by Chudnovsky, appear among the besieged with a new ultimatum. Trotsky, following Malyantovich, repeats about the mistake of the guards of the Winter Palace, which took two hundred enemies for the deputation of the Duma, who had thus broken through the corridors of the palace. According to the historian of the revolution S.P. Melgunov, such a mistake could not have happened: behind the parliamentarians, who destroyed the fire and bayonet barrier between the attackers and the defenders, a crowd rushed from the Palace Square, poured into the courtyard, and began to spread along all the stairs and corridors palace.

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

The chief of defense Ananyin sends Sinegub to the government with a message about the forced surrender of the Winter Palace, and also that the junkers were promised the preservation of life by the Bolshevik parliamentarians. During the meeting of the government on surrender, the crowd accompanying Antonov-Ovseenko approaches the cadet guard. Palchinsky introduces Antonov to the ministers' room, and then goes out to the junkers with an announcement of the adopted decision to surrender the ministers, expressing this subordination only to force, and a proposal to the junkers to do the same. However, the junkers had to be persuaded.

Arrest of Ministers of the Provisional Government

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

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

We did not surrender and only obeyed force, and do not forget that your criminal case has not yet been crowned with final success.

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

Many of the contemporaries considered the act of the Ministers of the Provisional Government, who remained to the end, as a heroic deed: the city-wide meeting of 350 Menshevik-defencists on October 27 greeted the "unshakable courage shown by the ministers of the Russian Republic, who remained in office until the end under cannon fire and thus showed a high example of true revolutionary valor ".

Loss of life

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

The plundering of the palace by the storming ones. Vandalism

Even the Bolshevik memoirists and Soviet historians did not deny the fact that hooligan elements from among those who stormed the palace were robbing the Winter Palace.

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

At first, the robbers did not manage to get into the wine cellar, which was worth several million gold rubles, but all attempts to brick it up were also unsuccessful. They began to destroy the contents of the wine cellars with rifle fire. This led to the fact that the soldiers guarding the palace, fearing that the Bolsheviks would destroy all the wine, seized it again and staged a real pogrom in the wine cellars. As Trotsky recalled these events: "The wine flowed down the canals into the Neva, soaking the snow, the drunkards lapped directly from the ditches." To stop the uncontrolled plunder of wine, the VRK was forced to promise to issue representatives military units alcohol at the rate of two bottles per soldier per day.

Excesses and violence

After the capture of the Winter Palace, rumors began to spread that the captured junkers and officers had been bullied, tortured and killed; that the women from the shock battalion were raped and some were killed. Similar statements were made in the anti-Bolshevik press, in the diaries and memoirs of contemporaries. The official bodies of the Bolsheviks and some of the participants in the events on both sides rejected such allegations. In the historical literature, such rumors are regarded as unreliable. Thus, the historian S. P. Melgunov in his monograph "How the Bolsheviks Seized Power" agrees with L. Trotsky's assertion that there were no executions and could not have been; according to the doctor historical sciences Vladlena Loginova, immediately after the capture of the Winter Palace, “an 'information war' began, forcing an atmosphere of general psychosis and confrontation,” and writes about the unreliability of reports of executions and rapes.

Reconstruction of the "storming of the Winter Palace"

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

Chronology of the 1917 revolution in Russia

Before: Bolshevization of the Soviets See also Directory, All-Russian Democratic Conference, Provisional Council of the Russian Republic Developments October armed uprising in Petrograd see also Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, Storming of the Winter Palace After: Struggle to legitimize the new government: Armed struggle immediately after the Bolsheviks took power: Speech by the cadets on October 29 under the auspices of the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution The occupation by the Bolsheviks of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (1917)

"Storming the Winter Palace" in the cinema

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

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

see also

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

Notes

1. An assessment of the Storming of the Winter Palace as one of the key events of the October Revolution of 1917 can be found in the works of Benton Gregor, a professor at Cardiff University, UK: “Chinese volunteers took part in key events of the revolution, including the storming of the Winter Palace and the Kremlin” ( Benton G. Chinese migrants and internationalism: Forgotten histories, 1917-1945. - N. Y.: Routledge, 2007. - P. 24. - ISBN 0415418682).
2. Melgunov, S.P. ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, pp. 144-148
3. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 149
4. doctor of History Yu.N. Emelyanov Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 5
5. Melgunov, S.P. ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 165
6. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 170
7. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 169
8. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 172
9. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, pp. 181-182
10. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 187
11. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 184
12. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 185
13. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 186
14. doctor of History Yu.N. Emelyanov Sergei Petrovich Melgunov - historian of the revolution // Melgunov, S. P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, pp. 23-24
15. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 166
16. Revolution and civil War in Russia: 1917-1923 Encyclopedia in 4 volumes. - Moscow: Terra, 2008 .-- T. 2. - S. 77 .-- 560 p. - (Great encyclopedia). - 100,000 copies - ISBN 978-5-273-00562-4
17. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 202
18. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 188
19. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, pp. 191-192
20. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 171
21. Melgunov, S.P. How the Bolsheviks seized power. // How the Bolsheviks seized power. "Golden German Key" to the Bolshevik Revolution / S. P. Melgunov; preface by Yu. N. Emelyanov. - M .: Airis-press, 2007 .-- 640 p. + Insert 16 p. - (White Russia). ISBN 978-5-8112-2904-8, p. 198

Why was the Provisional Government in October 1917 defended only by cadets and women? Why did the Bolsheviks fire from the Peter and Paul Fortress at the soldiers' hospital located in the Winter Palace? Why did the water in the Winter Canal turn red after his capture? This was told by the doctor of historical sciences, professor of the department of general history of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after A.I. Herzen Julia Kantor.

Hospital of Tsarevich Alexei

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

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

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

Military hospital in the Winter Palace

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

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

By the way, the building of the palace was then painted not in the current green color, but in beetroot, like a university in Kiev.

Why?

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

Hospital wards in the Winter Palace

Besides the huge hospital, what else was housed in the Winter Palace in October 1917?

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

The myth of Kerensky's escape

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

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

Why do you think he did it? After all, this was clearly a rash step on his part.

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

Therefore, on the morning of October 25, Kerensky set off towards Gatchina to call up loyal troops to the capital. That he allegedly escaped from the Winter Palace to women dress - this is an invention of the Bolsheviks. Alexander Fedorovich left for Gatchina by car, with an open top, and in his own clothes.

So it didn't feel like running away?

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

Remember the famous painting by Georgy Shegal "The Flight of Kerensky from Gatchina in 1917", where the Minister-Chairman of the Provisional Government is depicted in the dress of a sister of mercy? IN soviet time everyone heard about a woman's dress, but no one thought about why Kerensky is represented in the picture in a nurse's suit.

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

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

Passive defense of Winter

But then where did this legend come from?

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

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

By what?

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

Juncker in the halls of the Winter Palace preparing for defense

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

It's still a mystery to me. Hypothetically - expected. After all, an extraordinary congress of Soviets was held in Smolny, which, under pressure from a small group of radicals led by Lenin and Trotsky, in an ultimatum form proposed the lawful Provisional Government to resign. Of course, the Provisional Government rejected the ultimatum. After that, in the late evening of October 25, it was obvious that the Bolsheviks would take action. But the ministers who sat in the Winter Palace were passive, if not bewildered.

Shooting the wounded

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

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

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

But was the famous Aurora shot actually?

Yes of course. A single shot with a blank projectile from gun # 1.

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

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

The cruiser's crew asserted that a blank shot was fired only to warn all ships of the Neva water area of \u200b\u200b"vigilance and readiness."

That is, no one fired at the Winter Palace that night?

Even how they fired at. On the night of October 25-26, real military shells were fired at the Winter Palace from the direction of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the garrison of which was pro-Bolshevik. Moreover, the hospital wards with the lying wounded, located in the ceremonial halls overlooking the Neva, suffered the most from the shelling. The exact number of those killed by this artillery cannonade is unknown, but at least several dozen were killed. These were the first victims.

But did not the garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress know that they were shooting at the hospital?

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

And did it bother anyone?

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

Arrest of the Provisional Government

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

After one in the morning, a small armed group (10-12 people) led by Antonov-Ovseenko entered through the only unlocked and unguarded entrance to Zimny \u200b\u200bfrom the side of Palace Square, which led to the Empress's chambers.

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

Antonov-Ovseenko and his comrades climbed a small narrow staircase to the second floor and, naturally, got lost in many completely dark rooms. At about two o'clock in the morning, hearing someone's voices, they went out to the Malachite drawing room and found themselves right in front of the door of the Small dining room, where the ministers of the Provisional Government sat.

Nobody guarded them?

The junkers' post was supposed to be in the Malachite drawing room, but for some reason there was no one there. Another cadet post was located in a room adjacent to the Small dining room on the opposite side.

Didn't the Juncker try to neutralize the Antonov-Ovseenko detachment?

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

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

I don’t think so. The Winter Palace was under fire from the Peter and Paul Fortress, so hardly any of its inhabitants slept that night. I can only assume that the appearance of the Antonov-Ovseenko armed group came as a complete surprise to everyone.

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

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

It turns out that there was no violence?

At this moment there was no. But a few hours later, the entrances from the Neva were opened, and the Winter Palace gradually began to fill up with various loitering people. After that, a real bacchanalia began there.

The defeat of the royal cellars

What do you have in mind?

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

It is symbolic.

Not without it…

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

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

I. Vladimirov. "Taking of the Winter Palace"

Why?

There were government offices that were attended by a wide variety of audiences. The building was littered and kept in an extremely negligent state: there are many archival testimonies of this from those who were "service personnel". Some damage to the interior decoration of the palace was also caused by the cadets using interior items as targets.

Why did they do it?

It was unlikely that this was malicious vandalism - the cadets must have been so amused. In general, the Winter Palace was lucky and, unlike the times of Versailles, it did not suffer much during the events of 1917.

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

The Winter Palace was in the grip of various loitering public for exactly 24 hours. We must pay tribute to the Bolsheviks - they were able to quickly put things in order in the building, declaring it a state museum.

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

"Lock the floors, now there will be robberies"

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

I have not heard anything about violence against women. I can say for sure that the nurses from the hospital were not touched by anyone - this is confirmed by their own memories. As for the junkers, they were disarmed and dismissed to their homes. In those days, massacres and lynching were not in the Winter Palace, but in all of Petrograd.

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

S. Lukin. It's finished!

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

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

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

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

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