October Revolution This article is about the October Revolution in Russia. See October Revolution (disambiguation) for other meanings. The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution, the first having been instigated by the events around the February Revolution. It was led by Vladimir Lenin and marked the first officially communist revolution of the twentieth century, based upon the ideas of Karl Marx. On October 25, 1917 (by the Julian calendar still in use in Russia at the time; November 7 by the current Gregorian calendar), Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a nearly bloodless uprising in Petrograd, the then capital of Russia, against the ineffective Kerensky Provisional Government. Later official accounts of the revolution from the Soviet Union would depict the events in October as being far more dramatic than they actually had been. For the most part, the revolt in Petrograd was bloodless, with the Bolsheviks taking over major government facilities with little opposition before finally launching an assault on the Winter Palace. Official films made much later showed a huge storming of the Winter Palace and fierce fighting, but in reality the Bolshevik insurgents faced little or no opposition and were practically able to just walk into the building and take over. The Second Congress of Soviets was occurring at the same time, and of its elected 649 delegates, 390 were Bolshevik and nearly a hundred were Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who also supported the overthrow of the Kerensky Government. When the fall of the Winter Palace was announced, the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution. The transfer of power was not without disagreement. Many of the Socialist Revolutionaries believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and they walked out before the resolution was passed. As they exited they were taunted by Leon Trotsky who told them "yes, walk out, go ahead, leave, you are entering the dust heap of society." The following day, the Soviet elected a Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) as the basis of a new Soviet Government, pending the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, and passed a Decree of Peace and a Decree on Land. The success of the October uprising ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February and transformed the Russian Revolution from liberal to socialist in character. An attempt to take over Moscow a month later was met with much more violent resistance, and the Bolsheviks did not seize full control of the city until March 1918. The United States did not recognize the new Russian government until the 1930s. The U.S. even sent 10,000 troops to assist a Japanese invasion, as a way to speak out against the Bolshevist takeover of Russia. The Great October Socialist Revolution was the official name for the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, used since the 10th anniversary celebration of the Revolution in 1927. Today this name is used mainly by Russian Communists. Criticism of the Bolshevik Revolution For many Western and American conservatives, the Bolshevik Revolution marked a threatening geopolitical development that permitted and led to the beginning of a 73-year advance of global communism. In the eyes of conservatives, the Bolshevik Revolution was the beginning of what former U.S. President Ronald Reagan ultimately called an "evil empire", ushering in a repressive and expansionist Soviet regime. Conservatives saw this regime as one that needed to be rolled back if Western democracies were to survive. This philosophy, in turn, gave birth to the "Reagan Doctrine", under which the U.S. began supporting insurgent groups fighting Soviet client states. While not all Western democracies subscribed to this approach, almost all at least saw Soviet expansionism as a threat that needed to be contained. See also Russian Revolution of 1917 February Revolution Russian Provisional Government, 1917 Vladimir Lenin Alexander Kerensky FAVORITE ARTICLES: History of the World    History of the United States    History of Europe    Ancient History    History    Military History    World War I    Bombing of Dresden    California    US Constitution    Frank Sinatra    Boston    Marbury v. Madison This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. You must provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html To view or edit this article at Wikipedia go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution