The spirit of revolution

[Olga]

St Petersburg has been the cradle of three revolutions: one in 1905 and two in 1917 (in February and October)

In the Soviet period November was considered to be the month of the Revolution, and 7 November (25 October old style) was a red-letter day in the calendar. Hundreds of thousands of people joined in demonstrations, meetings and parades in honor of the Great October Socialist Revolution...

These days 7 November has been renamed the Day of Harmony and Reconcilation, and causes few palpitations. However the memory of those revolutionary days is preserved.

[Olga]

The resudence of the leader.

The "Smolny" Historical-Memorial museum is located in one of the best-known buildings in the country, designed by Giacomo Quareneghi in the early 19th century as the Smolny Institute for young ladies of noble descent. After the revolution of February 1917, the building became the scene of the stormy political struggle in Petrograd and Russia in general: it was the headquarters of the Bolsheviks, who had begun their preparations for the October Revolution. After the October victory, the Smolny Institute became the seat of the first Soviet government, which operated in the building until the transference of the capital from Petrograd to Moscow. Smolny's present occupants are the Governor of St Petersburg and the City Administration.

The display at the "Smolny" Museum reflects all the principal stages in the building's history ("The Smolny Institute for Young Ladies of Noble Descent", "Smolny- Residence of the First Soviet Government", "Smolny: The Days of the Blockade" and "Business Smolny"). The Lenin memorial complex in Smolny includes Vladimir Lenin's first working study and the room where he lived with his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya. The display is accompanied by documents detailing the work of the "leader of the proletariat" and the Soviet government in their historical context.

The spirit of revolution

[Olga]

Political Chronology

The Museum of the Political History of Russia can trace its origins back to the country's first Museum of the Revolution, which was opened on 9 October 1919 on the first floor of the Winter Palace. The idea was establish the first museum in Russia that would fully and thoroughly describe the progress and development of revolutionary movements in the world. In the first ten years of the museum's existence, the aim was to form collection that would reflect the history of the class struggle in Russia and in the West (from the Pugachev Rebellion to the beginning of the construction of socialism in the USSR, from the Great French Bourgeois Revolution to the foundation of the Communist International) The museum welcomed its first visitors on 11 January 1920, and by the mid-1920s already had unique collection of revolutionary banners, pamphlets of various political parties, posters and other material relics of that time.

From 1955 onwards the museum has occupied two early 20th century mansions on the Petrograd Side. One of them was designed by A. Gogen and belonged to the brilliant prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theater Matilda Kshesinskaya.

The spirit of revolution

The spirit of revolution

The other was built several years later by R. Meltser for the leading timber magnate Baron V. Brandt. A connecting arch was subsequently constructed between two buildings to make a single museum complex.

Today the Museum of the Political History of Russia is one of the few museums that provide a documentary and expositional demonstration of the process of political, economic and social life in Russia from 19th to 21th centuries. In chronological terms, the collection encompasses the whole of Russian history from the reign of Catherine II th the very latest political events. A special place is reserved for a constantly growing collection devoted to current political parties and movements, state legislative and executive organs, and local government bodies.     

[trojan]

Very interesting Olga. I would be very interested to know your views about the revolutions themselves.

One thing that really sticks out in some of the photos is the general state of decay of the buildings.

[Olga]

Very interesting Olga. I would be very interested to know your views about the revolutions themselves.

The theorists and leaders of the Red October Revolution turned the democratic  revolutionary ideas of the Age of Enlightenment into years of terror and totalitarianism. They skilfully used the unready for democracy consciousness of mass. Gustave Le Bon (a French social psychologist and sociologist) wrote about the discrepant consciousness of crowd in his work "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" that on the one hand the revolutionary crowd is disposed to arbitrariness, disorderly conduct, rage and instinct of destruction, but on the other hand the crowd feel fear of the social innovation; and sooner or later after disorder the crowd craves for centralized and authoritarian order. 

[trojan]

So what in your opinion was the difference between the 3 revolutions, the 2 unsuccessful attempts and the 3rd successful one that actually made the 3rd one a success?

Was it the support of the military? or was it the better strategy used by the Bolshevicks? To me it doesn't all add up correctly as the Bolshevicks were not really a major force in Russian politics but certainly grew to become the political power and therefor come through the 3rd revolution ontop.

When the military switched their allegiance away from the Romanov's did they switch it to the revolution in general or to the Bolshevicks specifically? I know in the end it was to the Bolshevicks as the gained complete control but its the bits in the middle that I am unaware of.

[Olga]

The difference was only in the readiness of mind of mass for social upheaval.
The Tsar's manifesto in 1905 created a schism in the revolution movement and gave a constitutional illusions, as results the revolution movement started losing its activity.

The second one was the Bourgeois Democratic Revolution. The dethronement of monarch and the best social-political conditions for the next main Socialist Revolution were the main goals and they were achieved thankfully the military (more than 100 000 soldiers) that joined to Bolsheviks in February 27 1917. All the ministers of the last Russian Tsar were arrested and incarcerated in The Peter and Paul Fortress. The Bourgeois Democratic Revolution gained a victory.

On 27 February the Bolsheviks issued a manifesto of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party that called to establish the Provisional Government and the Democratic Republic, to restrict the working hours to eight hours, to nationalize the land and stop the Imperialistic War. In the evening of 27 February the first conference of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was held in the Tavrichesky Palace.

The October revolution in 1917 replaced Russia's short-lived provisional parliamentary government with government by Soviets.
 

[Olga]

The museum of the Party

The museum of the Revolutionary-Democratic Movement was originally called "Ilich's Corner", the name by wich it was known to many generations of St Pererburg residents. The "Corner"was susequently renamed as the Memorial Flat-Museum of V. I. Lenin, and only assumed its current title in the early 1990s.

The thematic and chronological framework of the museum is quite board. It documents the history of the former Moskovskaya-Narvskaya District of St Petersburg, which from the 18th to the early 20th centuries was home to the Semenovsky, Izmailovsky, Egersky and Litovsky (later Moskovsky) Lifeguard Regiments.

The museum contains a memorial room rented by Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) in the late 1880s. He lived here longer than at any of his other numerous addresses in St Peterburg (Petrograd) - nearly a year and half. The museum's collection includes newspapers published in Petrograd in 1894-95 and between 1917 and 1920; a library featuring works by Lenin published in his lifetime, a great deal of "Leniniana", memoirs etc.;  photographs and posters; portraits in sculpture of leading figures in "The Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class", and materials relating to the public organizations, movements and parties of modern times.

[Olga]

The home of the First Secretary

The building contaning this unique museum of the ore-war Soviet period was built berween 1911 and 1914 to the design of three architects: Alexander Benois, Yuri Benois and A. Gunst.

The five-room flat that now makes up the museum once belonged to Sergei Kirov, who at that time was First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party. The interiors, household objects, library and the owner's personal belongings have been preserved virtually in their entirety, giving an impression of how Stalin's top party officials lived. The display describes Kirov's life and work, and style of his leadership of the Northwest Region, one of the largest and fastest-developing areas in the USSR. One of the rooms is a reconstruction of Kirov's office in Smolny. A great deal of material is devoted to Kirov's assassination, which sparked off a new round of Stalinist repression. In addition, the First Secretary's bedroom was recently restored. Beside the bed (made by the celebrated Meltser company) is a "hot-line" to the Kremlin and dressing-gown. On the floor are some quite "non-Bolshevik" luxury items - bed rugs and even the skins of foxes brought back by Kirov from nuts. This is how Maria Markus arranged the bedroom for her husband while he was away on official business. The museum staff maintain that Kirov gave her hell on his return.

The spirit of revolution