October 1917 - Timeline

• 24-25 October 1917

  • At night, Trotsky ordered units of the Red Guard alongside soldiers and sailors loyal to the Bolsheviks to seize key points in Petrograd such as bridges, the telephone exchange, railway stations and power stations.
  • There was very little resistance.
• 25 October 1917

  • Life in Petrograd largely continued as normal.
  • Shops and restaurants opened, taxis and trams operated as people went about their everyday business.
• Evening of 25 October 1917

  • Sailors on the Avrora battleship on the River Nera in Petrograd fired a series of blanks from its 6 inch cannons to indicate the start of the revolution which terrified the PG ministers.
• 25-26 October 1917

  • At night, the Red Guards surrounded the Winter Palace in the centre of Petrograd which was the headquarters of the PG.
  • The Palace was only defended by some officer cadets and members of the Women's Battalion.
  • The officer cadets were swiftly disarmed and the women were allowed to leave unharmed.
  • A search of the palace revealed those members of the PG who had remained and they were arrested.
• The Bolshevik seizure of power had been very straightforward with hardly any casualties on either side.

  • This was an indication of the lack of support that existed by October 1917 for the PG.
  • The filming of Sergei Eisenstein's "October" in 1928 did more damage to the Winter Palace than the revolution itself.
• 26 October 1917

  • Lenin addressed the Congress of All-Russian Soviets.
  • Mensheviks and some SRs objected the seizure of power.
  • Lenin set up a new cabinet dominated by Bolsheviks, forming the Council of People's Commissars.
  • Mensheviks stormed out of the meeting with Trotsky famously saying they were heading to the "dustbin of history".
• 26 October 1917

  • The Cheka was established as a new secret police and it was quickly clear that the Bolsheviks had no intention of sharing power as Mensheviks and SRs were arrested alongside others.
  • Lenin made it clear he would "make no fetish of democracy" and had no desire to allow "bourgeois freedoms".