24.09.2019
The Chudnovsky fortress signaled the storming of the winter palace. The Unknown Revolution: Truth and Fiction about the Storming of the Winter Palace
Chapter 8. Winter Palace in 1917
In 1917, the history of the Winter Palace as the main imperial residence ended. After difficult period Civil War in Russia (1917–1922), the Winter Palace was transformed from a residence into a museum. It was a difficult and even painful process, because until the second half of the 1940s. two independent structures coexisted in the Winter Palace: the Museum of the Revolution and the State Hermitage.
We will dwell only on the dramatic events of 1917. When unrest swept St. Petersburg at the end of February 1917, the collections of the Winter Palace and the Imperial Hermitage were not subject to a real threat of complete looting, but the servants of the museum and residence experienced several acute moments in the stormy February days. The last director of the Imperial Hermitage, Count D.I. Tolstoy, recalled that by March 1, 1917, the museum was closed because there was shooting on the streets of St. Petersburg. The security of the Winter Palace and the Imperial Hermitage was then in charge of the palace police chief, Colonel Prince Ratiev, and the palace grenadiers and palace police were under his command. By 10 o'clock in the morning on March 1, a representative of the State Duma appeared at the museum, demanding that the security of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage be transferred under his control. The palace police chief refused to do this, but asked the representative of the State Duma to go to the infirmary of the Winter Palace to calm the worried wounded.
On the night of March 2, 1917, drunken soldiers burst into the entrance of the New Hermitage from Millionnaya Street demanding that the machine guns that were allegedly located there be removed from the roof of the Hermitage. It must be said that at that time there were persistent rumors in St. Petersburg about machine guns on many roofs of the city for executions of the insurgent people.
Demonstration on Palace Square. 1917 (On the balcony in front of the Lantern in white coats are the nurses of the palace hospital)
Demonstration on Palace Square
To avoid a repetition of such incidents, on March 2, the Winter Palace and the Imperial Hermitage were guarded by a guard from the 2nd reserve Sapper Battalion. On March 4, 1917, the director of the Hermitage sent an official letter to the new authorities recognizing the Provisional Government.
Parade on Palace Square. March 1917
A.F. Kerensky greets the troops on Palace Square. 1917 (Patients of the palace infirmary are visible in the open windows of the White Hall of the Winter Palace)
The pace at which the new democratic authorities took over the property of the former masters of life is clearly demonstrated by the chronology of events: on March 2, 1917, Nicholas II signed an abdication, becoming a citizen of Romanov; On March 4, 1917, the Provisional Government for the first time addressed the issue of the Romanov property. At the meeting, a decision is made to reassign the “Cabinet of His Majesty” to the Ministry of Finance; On March 5, 1917, by order of the Provisional Government, the Commissariat for the Protection of Artistic Values was formed, headed by State Duma member P. A. Neklyudov and authoritative cultural figures: F. I. Chaliapin, A. M. Gorky, A. N. Benois, K. S. Petrov -Vodkin, M.V. Dobuzhinsky, N.K. Roerich and I.A. Fomin.
On the same day, March 5, 1917, Minister of Justice A.F. Kerensky visited the Winter Palace and announced to all employees “about the latter’s transfer to national ownership.” It was also assumed that all other residences of Nicholas II would share the fate of the Winter Palace. On April 26, 1917, the Commissariat for the Protection of Artistic Values adopted a decision “On the transfer by government agencies for storage to the Winter Palace of all portraits of artistic significance of persons of the reigning house.” This decision marked the beginning of the government's practice of confiscating works of art that belonged to both the royal family and the families of the grand dukes.
Such confiscation practice will be fully included in daily life revolutionary Russia already under the Bolsheviks, and then, in the spring of 1917, the Provisional Government tried to resolve a complex issue by determining where the boundaries of the Romanovs’ personal property lay, and where state property began.
By the end of May 1917, the lawyers of the Provisional Government resolved the difficult issue of “dividing the personal property of Nicholas II and members of his family from the State property.” According to the text of this document, it was recognized that the personal jewelry of the family of Nicholas II remained their absolute property. This decision was implemented in that the personal rooms of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna were thoroughly “cleaned”, removing from them everything more or less valuable. All valuables were sent for storage to the storerooms of the Cameral Department in order to return everything confiscated to the royal family when the political situation stabilized. Some of the valuables were kept in rooms on the third floor of the Winter Palace.
Among other things, a collection of unique jewelry was confiscated from the corner office of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in the Winter Palace, from the corner display case that stood between the door leading to the bedroom and the window. Nowadays, the most famous of them are the famous “imperial series” Easter eggs, made by masters of the Faberge company.
The immediate reason for the movement of the royal jewels was the growing political instability in Petrograd. The initiator of this action was the head of the Petrograd Palace Administration, Lieutenant General V. A. Komarov. It was he who, on May 10, 1917, sent a note to the commissioner of the Provisional Government “over the former Ministry of the Imperial Court” F.A. Golovin, in which he requested permission to “transfer for safekeeping to the Cameral part of b. E.V.’s office, things of great value located in the premises of the Winter Palace that constitute the property b. Emperor and Empress, according to the attached list." F.A. Golovin, after appropriate consultations, allowed the imperial valuables to be transferred for storage to the Chamber Department of the Cabinet.
The process of moving the valuables stored in Alexandra Feodorovna’s half in the Winter Palace began on May 17, 1917. The jewelry was confiscated by a Commission, which included Carl Gustavovich Faberge himself. He also compiled descriptions of the confiscated jewelry, including the now so famous Easter eggs. The jeweler signed the completed inventory as “a former court supplier to Mr. Faberge.” In total, about 300 pieces of jewelry were confiscated from the shelves of the corner display case, including 10 famous eggs by masters from the firm of Faberge. The seized jewelry was packed in one box and sealed with wax seals. This box was kept in the safes of the Cameral Department until mid-September 1917, when the Provisional Government decided to evacuate valuables from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
The decision to begin the evacuation of valuables from the Winter Palace is associated both with the sharp deterioration of the situation on the Russian-German front (the Germans took Riga) and with the next political crisis in Russia, which is commonly called the “Kornilov revolt.” After the suppression of a coup attempt at the end of August 1917 by generals led by Supreme Commander-in-Chief L. G. Kornilov and the beginning of the “Bolshevisation” of the Soviets, the leadership of the Cabinet raised before the Provisional Government the question of the need for an urgent evacuation of all valuables stored in the Cameral Department , from Petrograd to Moscow. The Provisional Government agreed with the arguments of the leadership of the Cameral Department, after which practical preparations began for the evacuation of the valuables of the imperial residence and the Hermitage.
Since the Winter Palace and the Hermitage contained colossal valuables that were impossible to completely remove, an Artistic Historical Commission was formed in June 1917 to select the most valuable works of art.
According to the director of the Hermitage D.I. Tolstoy, “after a long and comprehensive discussion of all issues related to the evacuation, it was decided to distribute all the Hermitage collections in order in order to hurry up with the removal of the most precious ones and put them first.”
September 15, 1917 special train “to load valuable property evacuated from Petrograd to Moscow b. Palace Department" served at 8 o'clock in the morning at the Nikolaevskaya freight station railway. The evacuated valuables were loaded, and on the night of September 15-16, 1917, a train with carriages filled with imperial treasures set off from Petrograd to Moscow. On the night of September 16-17, 1917, the “golden train” arrived in Moscow, and the jewelry was deposited in the storerooms of the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin.
The second echelon with palace valuables was sent from Petrograd to Moscow on the night of October 6-7, 1917. The cargo sent included: various clocks, candelabra, vases (17 boxes), fireplace decorations, carpets (9 bales), 20 tapestries (10 bags), sculptures and items made of bronze and precious metals up to 200 items (61 boxes), jewelry from icons Chapel of the Savior on the Petrograd side (1 box); in a special box there is a corolla and chasuble, decorated with precious stones, to the image of the Savior at the original palace of Peter I and things donated to the image of the Savior; albums with drawings and family photographs (5 boxes), for a department of the Hermitage Museum (26 boxes), for the Hermitage library (10 boxes); from the Hermitage archives (10 boxes); in the department of engravings and drawings (10 boxes); several dozen pieces of artistic furniture.
As a result, 134 boxes were sent to the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin, 56 to Historical Museum. The carriage with the evacuated property, by order of the head of the Petrograd Palace Administration, Lieutenant General V. A. Komarov, dated October 2, 1917, was accompanied by an employee of the Winter Palace K. Alexandrov and a porter N. Varganov, as well as 7 guards - V. Abramov, A. Kulikov , I. Sedykh, K. Alyabyev, I. Koroteev, P. Rumyantsev, N. Ivanov.
I. I. Brodsky. Portrait of A. F. Kerensky. 1917
On October 16, 1917, the former Ministry of the Court issued an order to urgently evacuate two more carriages with furnishings from the Winter Palace to Moscow. The cargo was prepared, packed in boxes and stored in premises near the Commandant's Entrance of the Winter Palace. The evacuation of the cargo was scheduled for October 26, 1917. However, due to the “assault on Winter”, this cargo was never transported to Moscow. It was these boxes that the American correspondent John Reed stumbled upon when he and a detachment of Red Guards found himself in the Winter Palace.
The beginning of the evacuation of jewelry from the Winter Palace was also due to the fact that in the summer of 1917 the Winter Palace turned into the main residence of the new government. On July 11, 1917, the head of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky, having moved to the Winter Palace with all his apparatus and security, turned it into the main “office” of the new “democratic” government.
Even before A.F. Kerensky moved to the Winter Palace, premises began to be prepared for him. All the stylish palace furniture was removed from the second floor of the northwestern risalit, where the halves of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna were located. Instead, the rooms were equipped with ordinary office tables and chairs taken from the warehouses of the former Palace Department. The walls, upholstered in silk, along with the paintings hung on them, were covered with canvas. Only the office of Nicholas II was preserved as a “memorial” one.
The state living rooms of Alexandra Feodorovna and Nicholas II were “temporary” and used for different purposes. For example, meetings of the Provisional Government were held in the Malachite Living Room, and Kerensky’s deputy was housed in the former Corner Office of the Empress. In the Gothic Library of Nicholas II, Kerensky usually held meetings with the military. On the third floor of the northwestern risalit, in the former chambers Alexandra III, Kerensky’s apartment and part of his apparatus were located.
At that time, many people, regardless of their political beliefs, were extremely annoyed by Kerensky’s move into the Winter Palace. Numerous jokes began to circulate around St. Petersburg about the ambitious “father of Russian democracy” sleeping on the bed of either Alexandra Feodorovna or Alexander III. The former attorney at law immediately began to be called “Alexander IV” or “Alexandra Feodorovna.”
Years later, V.V. Mayakovsky, in his poem “Good,” ridiculed this episode, which was so etched in the memory of his contemporaries:
To the kings
castle
built by Rastrelli.
Kings were born
lived,
were getting old.
Castle
Did not think
about the fidgety shooter, -
I didn't guess
what's in the bed
entrusted to the queens,
will spread out
some kind
attorney at law.
In the same poem there is a mention that in the summer of 1917 Kerensky was written by “both Brodsky and Repin.” I. E. Repin painted A. F. Kerensky from life precisely on the second floor of the northwestern risalit of the Winter Palace, in the office of Nicholas II.
After the head of the Provisional Government moved to the imperial residence, the Winter Palace began to rapidly lose its pompous appearance. This is evidenced by Chief Marshal P. K. Benckendorf, who visited the Winter Palace in the first half of August 1917.
By this time, the new government had already “dismantled” the premises of the palace for its “offices.” For example, Golovin, who oversaw the former Ministry of the Imperial Court, occupied rooms located on the first floor of the northwestern risalit, overlooking the Neva. On the third floor of the Winter Palace, in one of the apartments in the Freylinsky corridor, the “temporaries” settled the “grandmother of the Russian revolution” E.K. Breshko-Breshkovskaya with her secretary.
A. F. Kerensky with his adjutants in the Winter Palace
A. F. Kerensky in the Gothic Library of Nicholas II. 1917
A. F. Kerensky at work in the Gothic Library of Nicholas II. 1917
Meeting of the military cabinet of the minister-chairman in the Gothic Library of Nicholas II. From left to right: V. L. Baranovsky, GA. Yakubovich, B.V. Savinkov, A.F. Kerensky, Prince T.N. Tumanov. 1917
I. E. Repin. Portrait of A. F. Kerensky. 1917
Former Goff Marshal P. K. Benckendorf was shocked by the changes that occurred with the ceremonial appearance of the Winter Palace. First of all, what caught his eye was the dirt and the multitude of people whom it had been absolutely impossible to see in the imperial residence before. Along with the “office ladies,” Kerensky’s guards were brought into the Winter Palace, and she felt very “free” in the historical halls.
These were not selected units guarding Nicholas II, but revolutionary freemen, who believed that the royal residences were simply obliged to suffer “material losses.” Most of the “losses” were simply turned a blind eye. At first these were little things; by inertia they were still given the character of “events.” But the investigation, as a rule, was conducted formally, and the cases ended in vain. In the summer of 1917, attempts by revolutionary freemen to penetrate into the Diamond Room of the Winter Palace were recorded several times. This was already “big”. And “by little things” - the statues in the White Hall of the Winter Palace were decorated with wet towels, caps, jackets, sword belts and coats.
On August 7, 1917, members of the Art Commission told the authorities that “the presence of military units in the historical chambers of the Winter Palace could have the most disastrous consequences.” However, the political realities of that time were such that the Provisional Government decided to strengthen the garrison of the Winter Palace.
White Hall of the Winter Palace. 1917
The premises of the shock workers of the Women's Battalion in the Winter Palace. 1917
Shock troops of the Women's Battalion on Palace Square. October 1917
Armored car and cadets on Palace Square. 1917
Golden living room of Empress Maria Alexandrovna. October 1917
Juncker in the Winter Palace. October 1917
Barricades made of wood in front of the Winter Palace. October 1917
Let us also mention a historical curiosity - the Winter Palace was guarded by Baltic sailors from the cruiser Aurora during the August days of the Kornilov revolt. All this, of course, was fraught with material losses for the residence.
One of the significant episodes in the life of the main imperial residence was the historical night from October 25 to 26, which went down in history as “the storming of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the Provisional Government.” Night episode from the late 1920s. turned into one of key events Great October Socialist Revolution.
In October 1917, the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) decided to prepare an armed coup in Petrograd. In response, the Provisional Government strengthened the garrison of the Winter Palace. As a result, on October 25 (November 7), 1917, it was possible to concentrate in the Winter Palace: 400 bayonets of the 3rd Peterhof School of Ensigns, 500 bayonets of the 2nd Oranienbaum School, 200 bayonets of the “Women’s Shock Battalion of Death”, up to 200 Don Cossacks, separate cadet and officer groups from the Nikolaev engineering, artillery and other schools, a detachment of the committee of crippled soldiers and St. George's cavaliers, a detachment of students, a battery (6 guns) of the Mikhailovsky artillery school and 4 armored cars.
In total, about 1,800 bayonets, reinforced with machine guns, took part in the defense of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage on October 25. By order of the Battalion Committee, a company of scooter riders (cyclists) was withdrawn from their positions, but by this time the garrison of the Winter Palace had been strengthened by about 300 more bayonets at the expense of a battalion of cadets from the engineering school of warrant officers. However, the number of defenders of the Winter Palace was fluid, since at the time of the assault many of their ranks, including armored cars and artillery, left the residence.
On the night of the storming of the Winter Palace, the cadets and shock troops of the Women's Battalion occupied all the halls of the facade of the second floor of the Winter Palace, from the Alexander Hall to the White Hall and the Golden Living Room. Although the precious parquet floors were covered with canvas, the state rooms of the residence nevertheless took on the appearance of a barracks. Mattresses were thrown on the floor on which the cadets slept, pyramids for rifles were installed in the halls, and machine guns, adapted for firing from the windows of the palace, stood on the tables. Naturally, the presence of a huge number of very different people in the Winter Palace could not but lead to material losses and acts of vandalism.
John Reed. 1917
Red Russia. 1917
This is evidenced by American journalist John Reed. Literally on the eve of the assault, he managed to enter the Winter Palace: “We opened the door. Just outside the door a couple of cadets stood guard. They didn't say anything. At the end of the corridor was a large, richly decorated room with a huge crystal chandelier, and beyond that were many small rooms lined with dark wood. On both sides of the parquet floor lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets, on which several soldiers could fit. There was dirt all over the floor from cigarette butts, pieces of bread, clothes, empty bottles with the names of expensive French wines. Many soldiers with epaulets of a cadet school moved in a stagnant atmosphere filled with the smell of tobacco smoke and unwashed human bodies. One was holding a bottle of white Burgundy wine, apparently taken from the palace cellars. They looked at us with amazement as we passed from room to room, until we finally entered a row of huge salons, with their long and dirty windows looking out onto the square. The walls were covered with large oil paintings in massive gilded frames, depicting historical military episodes. One painting had a hole cut through the entire top right corner. This whole place was one huge barracks. Machine guns were placed on the window sills. There were columns of guns between the mattresses. We stopped at the window overlooking the square in front of the palace, where three companies of long-robed cadets were lined up under arms, to whom a tall officer was addressing a speech. After a few minutes, the two companies shouted clearly three times and set off at a quick pace across the square, disappearing under the Red Arch.”
The “shock girls” of the women’s battalion under the command of M. L. Bochkareva looked especially colorful against the backdrop of the interiors of the Winter Palace. The 2nd company of the Women's Battalion (137 people) was located directly in the Winter Palace. The ladies were assigned to guard the southeastern wing of the Winter Palace from Palace Square.
One of the participants in the defense of the Winter Palace recalled: “Not without excitement I approached the front of the women lined up. There was something unusual in this sight, and annoying thoughts drilled into my brain: “Provocateurs.” Having commanded “Attention!”, one of the women separated from the right flank and approached me with a report. It was the “commander”. Tall, proportionally built, with the bearing of a dashing guards non-commissioned officer, with a loud, distinct voice, she instantly dispelled my suspicions, and I greeted the battalion. They were dressed as soldiers. High boots, trousers, over which was also thrown a skirt, also of a khaki color, hair tucked under a cap.”
One of the members of the Provisional Government described the Winter Palace on the night of October 25-26, 1917 as follows. Entering the palace through the Saltykovsky entrance, he found himself in “a huge hallway, through the room adjacent to it on the left - a staircase, the entire cage of which along the walls was decorated with tapestries, leads on the second floor into a very wide internal hall - a corridor, with upper dim lighting and galleries upstairs. To the right of the entrance to this hall and corridor, a temporary very high partition was placed, separating the infirmary for wounded soldiers from the left side of the hall. To the left of the entrance from the stairs, at the end of the hall, lay the path to the Malachite Hall, where meetings of the Provisional Government took place, through three halls, the Malachite Hall with all its huge windows overlooking the Neva.
The remaining premises: the office of the Provisional Government and the offices of the Minister-Chairman and his Deputy reached the corner of the palace facing the Nikolaevsky Bridge, and occupied part of the wall along the garden, opposite the Admiralty...
Doomed people, lonely, abandoned by everyone, wandered around in a huge mousetrap, occasionally gathering together or in separate groups for short conversations... “What threatens the palace if the Aurora opens fire?” “It will be turned into a heap of ruins,” answered the admiral Verderevsky, as always, is calm. Only the cheek in the corner of the right eye was twitching. He shrugged his shoulders, straightened his collar with his right hand, again put his hands in his trouser pockets and turned to continue his walk. He stopped for a moment: “It has towers higher than bridges.” Can destroy a palace without damaging a single building. The Winter Palace is conveniently located for this. The sight is good...”
To our proposal to send representatives, we were told that the cadets had already gathered and insisted that the members of the government come to them in full force and tell them what they want from them. It was absolutely impossible to refuse. We went out. The cadets, perhaps a hundred, maybe more, were gathering in that hall-corridor that I already mentioned... By this time we had already left the premises overlooking the Neva and moved into one of the inner chambers of the Winter Palace . Someone said that this is the former office of Nicholas II. I don't know if this is true. Someone said that General Levitsky occupied this room after the revolution. I also don’t know if it’s true...
The entrance to this room was from the hall-corridor through a much smaller room. Next to the office there was another room with no exit. There was a telephone in it. Both the office and the adjacent room were large. In very large private apartments, in mansions, there are only halls of this size. The windows of the office looked out onto one of the courtyards...
“Since we decided to stay here,” said Admiral Verderevsky, when it began to get dark, “we need to go to some interior room. Here we are under fire." We moved here. There was a large round table in the middle of the room. We settled around it...
The clock hand passed 8 o'clock... We turned off the overhead light. Only on the desk by the window was an electric table lamp, blocked by a sheet of newspaper from the window. There was half light in the room... Silence... Short, quiet phrases of short conversations... We were reported that our guards guarding the palace only responded to shots or shot when the Bolsheviks were approaching the palace... They shot in the air. And this was enough for now: the crowd retreated... Some sat, some lay, some walked, silently stepping on the soft carpet throughout the room... A sound was heard, although muffled, but clearly different from all the others. “What is this?” someone asked. “This is from the Aurora,” answered Verderevsky. His face remained just as calm. About 20 minutes later Palchinsky came in and brought a glass from an exploding shell, a shell that flew through the wall into the Winter Palace. Verderevsky examined it and, placing it on the table, said: “From the Aurora.” The glass was damaged in such a way that it could serve as an ashtray. “An ashtray on the table for our successors,” someone said...
And suddenly a noise arose somewhere and immediately began to grow, spread and get closer. And in its varied sounds, but merged into one wave, something special immediately sounded, not similar to those previous noises - something final. It suddenly became immediately clear that this was the end... Those who were lying or sitting jumped up and everyone grabbed their coats... And the noise kept getting stronger, kept growing and quickly, in a wide wave, rolled towards us... And from it an unbearable anxiety rolled in and overwhelmed us, like a wave of poisoned air... All this in a few minutes... Already at the entrance door to our guard room - sharp excited cries of a mass of voices, several separate rare shots, the stomping of feet, some knocks, movements, a merged growing single chaos of sounds and ever-growing anxiety ... It’s clear: this is already an attack, they are taking us by storm... Defense is useless - victims are pointless... The door swung open... The cadet jumped up. Stretched out to the front, hands under the visor, face excited, but decisive: “As the Provisional Government orders!” Protect yourself until last person? We are ready if the Provisional Government orders.” - “This is not necessary!” It's pointless! It's clear! No need for blood! We must give up,” we all shouted, without saying a word, but only looking at each other and seeing the same feeling and decision in each other’s eyes. Kishkin came forward. “If they are already here, then that means the palace is already occupied...” - “Busy. All entrances are occupied. Everyone gave up. Only this room is protected. What will the Provisional Government order?” “Tell us that we don’t want bloodshed, that we are yielding to force, that we are surrendering,” said Kishkin. And there, at the door, the anxiety was growing, and it became scary that blood would flow, that we might not have time to prevent it... And we all shouted anxiously: “Go quickly!” Go ahead and say it! We don't want blood! We give up!..“. The cadet came out... The whole scene lasted, I think, no more than a minute... The room was full of people. Soldiers, sailors, Red Guards. All armed, some armed in highest degree: rifle, two revolvers, saber, two machine gun belts... Chudnovsky is appointed commandant of the Winter Palace. The room in which we were arrested will be sealed so that it will not be searched now.”
Storming of the Winter Palace (still from the feature film “October”. Directed by S. Eisenstein)
Aurora salvo
Memorial plaque in the White Dining Room of the Winter Palace
Visitors…
On the night of October 25-26, 1917, the Winter Palace was “taken by storm” by the Bolsheviks and members of the Provisional Government were arrested in the White Dining Room in the imperial half. This is what the marble tablet standing on the fireplace in the White Dining Room of the Winter Palace and the huge iconography of Soviet paintings dedicated to this event remind us of today. Thus, the Winter Palace, having become the “main character” in the historical events of October 1917, entered the history of Russia with a new facet.
It is curious that the director of the Imperial Hermitage, Count D.I. Tolstoy, slept through the historic night in the “Hoff-Fourier” room of the museum “under the flow of machine guns and the rare roar of cannons from the Aurora that was firing at the Palace. Waking up at four o’clock in the morning, I noticed that there was complete silence everywhere.”
It should be emphasized that the “storming” of the Winter Palace, as presented in numerous “revolutionary paintings” and films of the Soviet period, did not actually take place. There was a prolonged rifle and artillery shelling of the palace, followed by its occupation and arrest of members last composition Provisional Government. And the legend of the “assault” was created by the Bolsheviks themselves, when at the turn of the 1920-1930s. The “October Revolution” began to turn into the canonical “Great October Socialist Revolution”. And against such a “political background,” it was somehow inconvenient to talk about six deaths during the “assault.” Therefore, the singer of the revolution V. Mayakovsky wrote with inspiration on the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution:
Every staircase
every ledge
took
stepping over
through the cadets.
As if
with water
the rooms are full,
flowed
merged
over every loss
and contractions
flared up
hotter than midday
behind every sofa,
at each curtain.
To put it mildly, these poetic lines exaggerated the ferocity of the struggle.
It was also “inconvenient” for the “defenders” of the Winter Palace, who inspiredly lied about “piles of corpses,” “screams of the dead,” and “atrocities of the Bolsheviks.” In part, the outright lies of the White Guards were confirmed by Soviet artists; they, following a political order, depicted some kind of universal cataclysm near the walls of the Winter Palace: with searchlights, machine-gun bursts, fierce bayonet attacks from under the arch of the General Staff, grenade explosions and numerous bodies of the dead. The image of a “fierce attack” was canonized by Sergei Eisenstein in his thoroughly mythologized film “October,” released in 1928. Sailors climbing over the swinging main gate of the Winter Palace amid grenade explosions were etched in the memory of entire generations of Soviet people, turning the myth into an unconditional historical one. fact. It should be mentioned that the consultants for the film were direct participants in the events of October 1917. For example, member of the Military Revolutionary Committee N. I. Podvoisky played himself in this film. The filming itself took place directly on Palace Square and in the interiors of the Winter Palace. Consequently, the history of the “fierce assault on the Winter Palace” was formed by the joint efforts of both the “whites” and the “reds”.
Storming of the Winter Palace
How did the Winter Palace “survive” this “assault”? First of all, we note that the Winter Palace was shelled by artillery. They fired at the Winter Palace from artillery guns from several points: firstly, from the beach of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where three 3-inch field guns of the 1867 model (76 mm) were rolled out by hand; secondly, from the Naryshkinsky bastion, where there were four 6-inch guns (152 mm); thirdly, two 3-inch guns fired from the direction of Palace Square. Consequently, 9 guns were involved in the shelling.
Storming of the Winter Palace
Arrest of the Provisional Government
In total, about 40 rounds of live shells were fired at the Winter Palace. Most of the shells were filled with shrapnel. The artillerymen knew very well that in the state halls of the Winter Palace there was a hospital where about 1000 wounded lay. Therefore, they fired mainly at the “royal” northwestern projection of the palace. As a result of the shelling, Alexander III's rooms on the third floor were seriously damaged. IN emperor's reception room(corner room) was hit by two shells. Furniture, wall upholstery and glass were damaged. When shelled with shrapnel from the square, the plaster on the porch of the left entrance was damaged, a painting in the hall located above the main gate was torn, and several windows were broken. This was the end of the destruction caused to the Winter Palace by artillery shelling. The cruiser Aurora did not fire live shells at the palace.
Considering the question of the losses that the Winter Palace suffered on the night of October 25-26, 1917, let us turn to numerous eyewitness accounts of the events. In the context of the “White Guard” myths about the complete looting of the Winter Palace, the memoirs of a direct participant in the storming of the Winter Palace, American journalist John Reed, are especially significant. Of no small importance for us is his testimony that one of the columns of the rebels, having burst into the vestibule of the Commandant's entrance of the Winter Palace, found there wooden boxes with valuables that were preparing to be sent to the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin: “Carried away by a stormy human wave, we ran into the palace through the right entrance, opening into a huge and empty vaulted room - the basement of the eastern wing, from which a labyrinth of corridors and staircases radiated. There were many boxes here. The Red Guards and soldiers attacked them with fury, smashing them with rifle butts and dragging out carpets, curtains, linen, porcelain and glassware. Someone slung a bronze watch over his shoulder. Someone else found an ostrich feather and stuck it in his hat. But as soon as the robbery began, someone shouted: “Comrades!” Don't touch anything! Don't take anything! This is a national treasure!“. At least twenty voices immediately supported him: “Stop!” Put everything back! Don't take anything! National treasure!“. Dozens of hands reached out to the robbers. Their brocade and tapestries were taken from them. Two people took away the bronze watch. Things were hastily and somehow dumped back into the boxes, where guards stood up on their own. All this was done completely spontaneously. Along the corridors and staircases, shouts fading in the distance could be heard: “Revolutionary discipline!” National treasure!’” Note that the boxes with valuables were supposed to be taken to Moscow on October 26, 1917.
A. Dense. Winter taken
John Reed states that after the Bolsheviks entered the Winter Palace, all the exits were blocked by guards, who not only did not allow anyone into the palace, but also began to push sailors, Red Guards, soldiers and other random public out of the Winter Palace, who wanted one thing - calmly engage in looting. J. Reed writes: “Everyone was expelled from the palace, first searched... a wide variety of objects were confiscated: figurines, bottles of ink, sheets with imperial monograms, candlesticks, miniatures painted in oil paints, paperweights, swords with gold handles, bars of soap, all kinds of clothes, blankets.” As can be seen from the list, robbery, as they say, took place, but hasty, random, when they grabbed both a sword with a gold hilt and a bar of soap. The robbery of the Winter Palace lasted several hours, and mainly the rooms on the second floor of the residence, located along the western, “imperial” facade, were looted.
When the fuss died down, the American journalist, like a professional, could not help but walk around the palace. In the state rooms overlooking the Neva, he saw: “The paintings, statues, curtains and carpets of the huge state apartments were untouched. In the business premises, on the contrary, all the desks and bureaus had been ransacked, and papers were scattered on the floor. The living rooms were also searched, the bedspreads were torn off the beds, the wardrobes were wide open... In one room, where there was a lot of furniture, we found two soldiers tearing embossed Spanish leather from the chairs. They told us they wanted to make boots out of it. The old palace servants in their blue liveries with red and gold trim stood right there, nervously repeating out of old habit: “This way, master, you can’t... it’s forbidden....”
S. Lukin. It's finished
V. A. Polyakov. After the storming of the Winter Palace
The journalist ran into the palace with the first assault columns at two o'clock in the morning, and left it at four o'clock in the morning. The attackers simply did not have time for “mental” robbery. Yes, of course, in October 1917 the Winter Palace suffered losses, but the masterpieces of the Imperial Hermitage, including items from the Treasure Gallery, remained untouched. Let us recall that the valuables of the Diamond Room were evacuated from the Winter Palace to Moscow in mid-September 1917.
It seems that the passages of some modern authors that “seized on the night of October 25-26 by Red Guards, soldiers and sailors, the palace was in the grip of a crowd of hooligan lumpen for three days, who plundered and disfigured a significant part of its interior decoration,” are, to put it mildly, exaggeration. Some “illustrations” of the robbery of a residence by lumpen are also an exaggeration.
Robbery
In addition to the journalistic notes of John Reed, there is also documentary evidence documenting the losses caused to the property of the Winter Palace as a result of its “assault.” Already on October 26, 1917, members of the Artistic and Historical Commission at the Winter Palace, Vereshchagin and Piotrovsky, tried to enter the palace, but were not allowed there by military guards. But on October 27, 1917, members of the Commission, Nadezhdin and Piotrovsky, were summoned by the commandant of the palace to determine the damage caused to the Winter Palace.
Together with the chairman of the commission, Vereshchagin and the librarian V.V. Gelmersen, in the presence of the commissars of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies G.S. Yatmanov and B.D. Mandelbaum and the specially invited famous Russian artist A.N. Benois, they inspected the premises of the Winter Palace and the results outlined in the “Journal of the Artistic-Historical Commission at the Winter Palace.”
The destroyed reception room of Alexander II
Office of A. F. Kerensky
Let us note the openness of the Bolsheviks. Not only were cultural figures who had few sympathies with the Bolsheviks involved in inspecting the residence, but they were also allowed to publish collected materials. It is quite obvious that the Bolsheviks were interested in this, since all opponents of the new government had been shedding tears for several days over the looted ruins of the Winter Palace.
The examination continued in the following days. Here are extracts from materials published in the “Journal of the Artistic and Historical Commission at the Winter Palace”: “The picture of the defeat appears as follows:
1) In the reception room of Alexander II, occupied by the personal office of A.F. Kerensky, stationery papers are scattered, drawers from desks have been pulled out, office cabinets have been broken; in the classroom, tables, chests of drawers and cabinets were broken into and three boxes prepared for evacuation were opened, and the contents were taken out and looted, some of them scattered in rubble on the floor; the entire floor is strewn with wrapping paper, among which one can see drawings by V. A. Zhukovsky, pieces of silk fabric from Marie Antoinette’s furniture, miniatures, photographic cards and all sorts of broken little things; on the back of one of the chairs hangs a piece of the torn uniform of Emperor Nicholas I, which was kept in a special display case; the portrait of Elizaveta Alekseevna Vizhe-Lebrun has been knocked over and is lying near the desk.
In the office of Alexander II, the destruction is even more horrifying: all the tables were broken into, the upper part of the historical bureau of Alexander I was turned into chips, a mangled silver frame of the Gospel was thrown on the table, and the Gospel itself was torn out of the frame; one headdress of Nicholas I was stolen, the other was torn; an icon case was broken into, from which small gold and silver icons and body crosses were stolen; corollas decorated with diamonds and precious stones are torn off and stolen; Tattered historical notes, notebooks, letters and countless shards of broken glass litter the floor.
Office of Nicholas II. 1917
In the dressing room of Alexander II, wardrobes and chests of drawers were opened, and some were broken into; dozens of empty cases for jewelry, toiletries and travel accessories were scattered on the floor; a series of paintings prepared by the art commission for the evacuation - works by Grez, Murillo, Francesco Francia and others - were overturned (the paintings were intact with only minor damage to some of them).
Traces of the same merciless destruction were found in the small library and chambers of Empress Maria Alexandrovna: broken glass, empty cases, watercolors taken out of frames and some torn, boxes broken into small pieces, among other things, a box containing a collection of historical medals, of which all medals draperies, curtains and upholstery were stolen, furniture was overturned, etc.
The so-called private chambers of Emperor Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna, as well as the Malachite, Concert, Arabic halls and the Rotunda were occupied by the Provisional Government at the beginning of July. The furnishings of these rooms, which were more artistically valuable, were promptly removed, with the exception of some paintings covered with blankets and the furnishings of the office of Emperor Nicholas II. The pogrom of these premises was characterized by the same brutality, which manifested itself with particular clarity in the merciless destruction of all images of the royal family: paintings, portraits, photographs.
Thus, in the reception room, a painting depicting the coronation of Alexander III was torn, portraits of the Empress’s parents were stabbed with bayonets, a portrait of the Sovereign by Serov was stolen and subsequently torn to shreds, the same fate befell all photographs of Alexander III, etc. In the billiard room, billiard balls were stolen; in the library, which served as A. F. Kerensky’s office, a bookcase was broken into; the door panels in the restroom were broken; Torn engravings and photographs were scattered in the office, the desk was opened and moved from the main tables, the leather upholstery was removed from the furniture, and an oval portrait of Alexander II in an overcoat and cavalry cap was stolen. The tables and cabinets of all other rooms were also broken into, papers and books were taken out, and the floors were covered with torn and crumpled files of the Provisional Government.
Boudoir of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. 1917
Room on the 3rd floor of the northwestern risalit
1) The adjutant wing and the office of Emperor Nicholas I were subjected to similar destruction. Some paintings were removed from the walls, an oval portrait led. book Mikhail Pavlovich is torn, everything is overturned, broken, blasphemously desecrated and is lying on the floor in a general heap.
2) The premises of the large library of Alexander II and the reserve library of Nicholas II, in which 10 boxes with historical albums were prepared for evacuation, accidentally turned out to be completely intact.”
The mentioned participant in the activities of the commission, A. N. Benois (he cannot be suspected of sympathizing with the Bolsheviks) left his memories of this day. Let us note once again that the events of the night from October 25 to 26, 1917 immediately gave rise to many myths, both from the “Reds” and from the “Whites”. One of the most persistent “white” myths will be the myth of the total looting of the Winter Palace by sailors and Red Guards. Concern about the condition of the Winter Palace led A. N. Benois, who was part of the Commissariat for the Protection of Artistic Values, or, as they said then, the “Gorky” Commission, to the Winter Palace on October 27: “However, we did not dare to go further than the Alexander Garden, and from there the familiar landscape seemed not to have changed at all, no traces of the battle were visible at all, and the entire bottom of the palace was obscured by entire walls of stacked and only scattered firewood in places. Only when, having grown bolder, we (through the Arch of the Headquarters) penetrated further into the square and closer to the palace, it turned out that the entire facade of the palace was dotted with traces of bullets, and that several windows were broken and they gaped black, and that the glass of many others, which seemed intact from a distance, were riddled with regular round holes. I was preparing to see a picture of complete collapse, smoking ruins - instead, thank God, the entire bulk of the palace, as well as what was seen in perspective from the facade on Millionnaya of the Hermitage - everything represented the same powerful, strong, unshakable appearance. We were also struck by the complete emptiness of both the square and the surrounding streets. Everything under the dull gray sky seemed enchanted, as if by some vision of the past... It was necessary to find out exactly how things were inside. To this end, upon returning home, I entered into telephone contact with by different persons, and among them with Lunacharsky.”
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Plan
Introduction
1 Background
2 The day before
2.1 Departure of some of the defenders of the Winter Palace
2.2 Evening of October 25
3 Assault
3.1 First attack on the Winter Palace
3.2 Second attack on the Winter Palace
3.3 Arrest of the ministers of the Provisional Government
4 Looting of the palace by stormers. Vandalism
5 Excesses and violence
6 Reconstructions of the “Storm of the Winter Palace”
7 “Storm of the Winter Palace” in cinema
Bibliography
Introduction
The storming of the Winter Palace is one of the key events of the October Revolution - the capture by the Bolsheviks of the residence of the Provisional Government in Petrograd on the night of October 25-26, 1917, as a result of which the Provisional Government was overthrown and arrested. The assault was carried out without significant military action, but under the threat of using force.
1. Background
Since July 1917, the Winter Palace became the residence of the Provisional Government, whose meetings were held in the Malachite Hall. There, in the palace, since 1915 there was a hospital for the seriously wounded.
2. The day before
In the conditions of the openly prepared and already beginning Bolshevik uprising, the Headquarters of the Provisional Government did not bring a single soldier’s military unit to defend the government, preparatory work was not carried out with the cadets in military schools, so there were negligible numbers of them on Palace Square on October 25, and there would have been more 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 who took part in the anti-Bolshevik cadet action on October 29 speaks of complete disorganization in the defense of the Provisional Government. The only military unit of the Petrograd garrison that took the oath to the Provisional Government were the Cossacks. The main hopes were placed on them during the days of unrest. On October 17, 1917, the head of the Provisional Government Kerensky was visited by delegates of the Don Cossack Military Circle, who noted the Cossacks’ distrust of the government and demanded that the government restore A.M. Kaledina has the rights of an army commander and openly admitted her mistake to the Don. Kerensky recognized the episode with Kaledin as a sad misunderstanding and promised to make an official statement disavowing the episode in the coming days, but he did not keep his word and no official clarification was forthcoming in a timely manner. And only on October 23, the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry issued a ruling that General Kaledin was not involved in the Kornilov “rebellion.” In general, the Petrograd Cossacks reacted passively to the upcoming events: even at the critical moment on the night of October 24-25, despite repeated orders from the headquarters, the Cossacks did not act without receiving personal guarantees from Kerensky that “this time Cossack blood will not be shed in vain.” , as was the case 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 on the condition that the regiments would be provided with machine guns, each regiment, organized from hundreds distributed among factories, would be given armored cars and infantry units would march together with the Cossacks. Based on this agreement, 2 hundred Cossacks and a machine gun team of the 14th regiment were sent to Winter. The remaining regiments were to join them as the Provisional Government fulfilled the demands of the Cossacks, which, in their opinion, guaranteed that their futile July sacrifices would not be repeated. Due to the failure to fulfill the conditions proposed by the Cossack regiments, at an afternoon meeting of the Council of Cossack Troops with representatives of the regiments, it was decided to recall the 2 hundreds sent earlier and not to take any part in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising. Historian of the revolution S.P. Melgunov notes that 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” were like a “changing of the guard,” since there was no resistance to the Military Revolutionary Committee commissars 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 troops of the women’s volunteer battalion.
In the complete absence of any forces in the government, the Bolsheviks also acted, despite later reports of victory, indecisively: 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, and those present on paper “tens of thousands” of the Bolshevik “Red Guards” (in the Vyborg region alone there were 10 thousand Red Guards) did not actually fight the Bolsheviks. The huge Putilov plant, which supposedly had 1,500 organized Red Guards, also sent only a detachment of 80 people to participate in the uprising.
By mid-day, most of the key objects were occupied by Bolshevik patrols without resistance from 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. Civilian Minister N.M. Kishkin was appointed specially authorized to restore order in Petrograd. Of course, de facto his “governor general” powers were limited only to self-defense in the Winter Palace. Convinced that the district authorities have no desire to act, Kishkin removes Polkovnikov from his post and entrusts the functions of commander of the troops to General Bagratuni. On the day of October 25, Kishkin and his subordinates acted quite boldly and orderly, but even Kishkin, who was energetic and possessed organizational skills, was unable to do much in just the few hours remaining at his disposal.
The position taken by the government was quite absurd and hopeless: they sat in the Winter Palace, where the meetings were taking place, and waited there 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: no ammunition or food was obtained. The cadets who were called to the government residence during the day could not even be fed lunch.
In the first half of the day, the cadets of the Peterhof and Oranienbaum schools guarding the Winter Palace were joined by shock workers 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, as well as a number of volunteers. Therefore, in the first half of the day, members of the government most likely did not feel the tragedy of their situation: some people gathered near the Winter Palace military force, perhaps sufficient to hold out until the arrival of troops from the front. The passivity of the attackers also lulled the vigilance of the Provisional Government. All government activities were reduced to addressing the population and the garrison with a series of belated and therefore useless appeals.
2.1. Departure of some of the defenders of the Winter Palace
By the evening of October 25, the ranks of the Zimny defenders were greatly thinned: the hungry, deceived, and disheartened left. The few Cossacks who were in Zimny also left, embarrassed by the fact that all the government infantry turned out to be “women with guns.” By evening, the artillery also left the government residence: they left on the orders of their chief, the cadets of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, although a small part of them disobeyed the order and remained. The version later spread by the Bolsheviks that the order to leave was allegedly given “under pressure” from the Military Revolutionary Committee was a lie. In reality, the artillery was taken away by deception with the help of the political commissar of the school. Some of the cadets from the Oranienbaum school also left.
The armored cars of the Provisional Government were forced to leave the Winter Palace Square due to lack of gasoline.
By evening, the hitherto rare single shots began to become more frequent. The guards responded by firing shots into the air when crowds of Bolsheviks approached the palace, and at one time this was enough.
At 6:30 pm, scooter riders from the Peter and Paul Fortress arrived at the besieged headquarters 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 stationed on the Neva and from the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The government decided not to enter into negotiations with the Military Revolutionary Committee.
Finally, beginning to realize the degree of criticality of their situation, the ministers decided to turn to the City Duma for moral support and began to look for some physical help through the telephone. Someone even went to the City Duma and bypassed its factions with the words that a tragic outcome was coming, that it was necessary to come to the defense of 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 connected with the name of General M.V. Alekseeva. I found the former Supreme Commander-in-Chief Savinkov only on the night from the 25th to the 26th. The possibility of gathering at least a small armed force to give battle to the Bolsheviks was discussed. According to Savinkov, the general even sketched out a plan for the upcoming military actions, which, however, did not have time to be implemented.
Finally, in Zimny they began to take some real steps towards their own self-defense in order to hold out until the troops arrived from the front, expected in the morning. All forces were pulled directly to the palace, the headquarters was left to the Bolsheviks. General Bagratuni refused to bear the responsibilities of commander and left the Winter Palace, then was arrested by sailors and survived thanks to an accident. The head of defense becomes Lieutenant Colonel Ananyin, the head of the school of engineering warrant officers, which was destined to become the main organized force, the support of the besieged government. The functions of defenders in case of an assault are distributed, machine guns abandoned by the departed Cossacks are placed.
Judging by a number of signs, the storming of the Winter Palace in the days of October is one of the widespread myths of the revolution.
The lack of a clear, factual, consistent narrative about this event is puzzling. This gives reason to think that there was no real battle, any kind of bloody battle that distinguishes a genuine assault.
About half a century ago, the film magazine “News of the Day” (usually preceding the screening of feature films) reported that documentary footage of the capture of the Winter Palace by armed workers, soldiers and sailors in 1917 had been discovered. A note appeared in one of the newspapers about one of the heroes of those years, a participant in the assault.
According to him, he was in the ranks of the Red Guards who rushed to the Winter Palace. They climbed onto the carved gate that covered the entrance and swung it open. They rushed forward in the beams of searchlights under brutal fire from the cadets and the women's battalion. His friend fell in front of him, mortally wounded, having made a will to fight until the complete victory of the revolution...
And a year or two later, an article about this mythical participant in the assault was published in the satirical magazine “Crocodile”. It turns out that in the October days he was constantly in Kronstadt as a clerk. Having seen the footage of the capture of the Winter Palace, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and began speaking to children and adults with my “memories” of this event. They arranged ceremonial meetings for him, presenting him with gifts.
The meticulous journalist who exposed this scribe-talker also reported that the film footage of the capture of Winter Palace is in fact a fragment of the unfinished feature film “October” by the outstanding director Sergei Eisenstein.
Official “History of the USSR. The Age of Socialism" (1958) covered the events of October 25 in this way. In the afternoon, at an emergency meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Lenin spoke with the words:
Comrades! The workers' and peasants' revolution, the need for which the Bolsheviks were always talking about, has taken place... From now on, a new period is dawning in the history of Russia, and this third Russian revolution should ultimately lead to the victory of socialism.
The resolution he proposed was adopted without debate, which emphasized unity, discipline and “the complete unanimity that the masses showed in this extremely bloodless and extremely successful uprising.”
Did a revolution really happen? It is reasonable to doubt this. Is it acceptable to call this the seizure of individual institutions and communications in the capital by armed units under the existing government? The book mentioned above says:
At 12 noon on October 25, revolutionary troops occupied the Mariinsky Palace, where the Pre-Parliament was meeting. By 6 pm the Winter Palace was completely surrounded.
To avoid bloodshed, the Military Revolutionary Committee presented the Provisional Government with an ultimatum - to capitulate within 20 minutes. Having received no response to the ultimatum, the Military Revolutionary Committee gave the order to begin the assault on Zimny. The signal to begin the assault was given by a blank shot from the cruiser Aurora. Then a salvo of guns was heard from the Peter and Paul Fortress. The army of the revolution launched an attack on the Winter Palace. An intense firefight ensued. Junkers and "shock troops" (in total there were more than 1,500 of them. - Note compiler), hiding behind the barricades, they stubbornly fired back. However, by nightfall the demoralization of the Winter garrison began. The first detachments of revolution soldiers entered the palace. But the struggle continued inside the building. With the fierce resistance of the cadets, it was not easy to take possession of the palace, which had more than a thousand rooms and halls.
In the dead of night, the Winter Palace was taken. The Junkers capitulated. At 2:10 a.m. from October 25 to 26, members of the Provisional Government were arrested and sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress. "..."
The time of bourgeois rule in Russia has expired. The time has come for the victory of the revolution, the time for the triumph of the true masters of the country - the workers and peasants. The arrest of the Provisional Government brought a victorious end to the armed uprising in Petrograd. This rapid assault on bourgeois power, the organizer and leader of which was Communist Party, is a classic example of a victorious armed uprising.
The day of October 25 (November 7), 1917 went down in the history of our Motherland and in the world history of mankind as the day of victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the day of the beginning new era- the era of communism."
The Italian historian D. Boffa writes: “In the evening, the rebel workers, sailors, and soldiers stormed the residence of the Provisional Government - the Winter Palace - and arrested the ministers... The victory of the Bolsheviks was not only and not so much a military rebel, but a political one.”
The Englishman E. Carr chose not to mention this event at all. The Frenchman N. Werth, using the expression “storming of the Winter Palace”, clarified that it happened late at night “after the cruiser Aurora fired several blank shots towards the palace... Battles in which no more than several hundred people ended with minimal losses (6 killed among the defenders, none among the attackers).”
If these figures are correct, then we are faced with strange battles and an unprecedented assault, in which the attackers did not suffer losses! You might think that they simply burst into the building as a whole crowd and ran over some of those who got in their way.
Let us turn to the gigantic (in terms of volume) three-volume work of Academician I.I. Mints “History of the Great October Revolution” (1968). Chapter "Taking the Winter Palace". The word “capture” was used instead of the usual “assault”.
“General for assignments under Kerensky B.A. Levitsky, writes Mintz, characterized the position of the government on the morning of October 25: “The units located in the Winter Palace are only formally guarding it, since they actively decided not to act; in general, the impression is as if the Provisional Government is in the capital of a hostile state, who completed mobilization, but did not begin active actions."
According to the academician, on last meeting government ministers themselves raised the question of the validity of their powers “in the circumstances of the current moment.” And late in the evening “the Winter Palace was already being stormed and continuous machine-gun fire and the roar of guns were heard.”
In the evening, the rebels captured the district headquarters without firing shots and arrested the officers. In response to the ultimatum of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Provisional Government refused to capitulate, hoping for the approach of troops loyal to it. They moved towards Petrograd, but as they approached the capital, they increasingly adopted resolutions supporting the uprising. Nobody wanted to fight against their own.
The Winter Palace was surrounded. About ten o'clock in the evening three hundred Cossacks left him. The cadets wanted to join them. The ministers persuaded them to stay. Meanwhile, agitators came to the palace premises and called on its defenders to surrender. The battle chains around the Winter Palace were strengthened. Warships entered the Neva, pointing their guns at it. The battery of the Peter and Paul Fortress was also ready to shell the palace. The rebels installed cannons under the arch of the General Staff building. The leaders of this operation, Podvoisky, Antonov-Ovseenko and Chudnovsky, received an order from Lenin to arrest the Provisional Government. The shelling of the palace began.
“Having taken cover behind the barricades,” Mintz wrote, “the cadets and shockwomen opened rapid fire in response at the attackers, who were approaching the Winter Palace from all sides... This formidable inevitability with which the rebels moved forward testified to the imminent victory of the revolution and the inevitable doom of the resisters. Now the attackers have reached the first entrance from the Hermitage, and some daredevils have already entered the palace through the basement windows. Around midnight, an explosion was heard in the room located next to the one in which members of the former government were holed up. It turned out that the sailors, having made their way through the back passages into the upper gallery, threw a bomb into the lower corridor.”
And here is Podvoisky’s testimony: “It was a heroic moment of the revolution, menacing, bloody, but beautiful and unforgettable. In the darkness of the night, illuminated by the rushing lightning of shots, from all the adjacent streets and from the nearest corners, like menacing shadows, chains of Red Guards, sailors, soldiers rushed, stumbling, falling and rising again, but not for a second interrupting their rapid, like a hurricane , flow."
According to Academician Mints, “having opened the gates, some of the attackers filled the courtyard. Several hundred people simultaneously burst into the lower floor of the palace. The cadets began to be disarmed. Advancement through the palace required caution; an attack from the rear could be expected. The besieged talked more than once about a sortie, and even at the last moment they still planned to convince their supporters in the city to strike in the rear of the besiegers.
The history of uprisings has never seen a battle in such a huge room.”
Although we're talking about about the “attackers”, about the “lightning shots”, the falling and rising of the Red Guards, the battle in a huge room, information about the victims is not given. Mentioned about measures taken“against the theft of valuables by those random elements who could enter the occupied palace.”
The fact that there were no significant losses during the “assault” is evidenced by Mintz’s remark: “Bourgeois historians diligently distort the very concept of “uprising.” They attribute to it violence, blood, sacrifice as an obligatory sign... But the proletarian revolution does not dress up in the costumes of the past... The storming of the Winter Palace was the end of the uprising.” Only he does not clarify whether the blank shots of the Aurora can be called an assault, an attack and a battle, after which armed people burst into the room without losses, and the main concern of the leaders was to place guards in the rooms and prevent the theft of valuables...
In the report of the commissioner of the cruiser Aurora A.V. Belyshev to the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee clearly stated what happened to the legendary ship. He was detained at the dock of the Franco-Russian plant by order of Tsentrobalt to support the upcoming Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The Military Revolutionary Committee appointed Belyshev to the cruiser on October 24. At a meeting of the ship's committee in the presence of the ship's commander and officers, he said that his orders and instructions must be carried out unquestioningly. (As we see, real power was already in the hands of the commissioner and the team.)
When it was necessary to introduce the ship into the Neva, the commander refused to do so, citing the insufficient depth of the river. Belyshev ordered to measure the fairway. It turned out that Aurora could pass. With this information, the commissioner came to the commander and was again refused. Then he ordered the arrest of all the officers. It was decided to sail the ship ourselves. At the last moment, the commander nevertheless agreed to carry out the order.
“All day on October 25,” the commissar reported, “the ship was brought into combat condition... In the evening, an order was received from the Military Revolutionary Committee - after signal cannon shots from the Peter and Paul Fortress, fire several blank shots and, depending on the circumstances, if necessary, open combat fire, which we didn’t have to resort to, since Zimny soon surrendered.”
That's the whole report about the "battle".
Commissar of the Petrograd Regiment L.D. Yolkin, who took part in the operation, outlined it briefly: “By evening, the Winter Palace was surrounded by revolutionary troops. Evening and night are very dark. Cold. Sharp wind. Shooting is heard. In the dead of night, the Winter Palace was taken. The ministers have been arrested."
Let's return to the memories of N.I. Podvoisky, describing the final moments of the “assault”:
“Sailors, Red Guards, and soldiers surged over the barricades in wave after wave, accompanied by machine-gun criss-crossing chatter. They have already crushed the first line of defenders of the Winter Palace and burst into the gates. The yard is busy. They burst onto the stairs. On the steps they grapple with the cadets. They knock them over. They rush to the second floor, breaking the resistance of government defenders. They crumble. Like a hurricane, they rush to the third floor, sweeping away the cadets everywhere along the way. The narrow, winding side staircase is difficult to attack. The cadets repulse our first onslaught. But these defenders of Winter Palace throw down their weapons..."
The mention of machine-gun chatter and the resistance of the palace defenders is surprising. In this case, the attackers should have suffered losses. Not a word about them. Apparently, the shooting was carried out almost exclusively by the attackers, mainly to demoralize the enemy. Blank shots from the Aurora were intended for the same purpose. In the memoirs of a witness of those days, Bolshevik I.Kh. Bodyakshina: “The cruiser Aurora fired two shots, and the Winter Palace fell silent.”
In a telegram to the commissars of the fronts and armies, Lieutenant Colonel Kovalevsky reported: “The actual balance of forces is such that until late in the evening, when the siege of the Winter Palace began, the uprising took place bloodlessly. The rebels removed government posts without any resistance. The plan for the uprising was undoubtedly developed in advance and was carried out harmoniously.”
By analogy with the Cold War and psychological weapon we can say that the October uprising in Petrograd was “cold”, and its opponents were suppressed morally. On October 26, in a conversation with Quartermaster General of the Northern Fleet Baranovsky, a witness to the events, Lieutenant Danilevich, said: “It all turned out simply amazing.”
So, the seizure of the Winter Palace by the rebels, as well as others government agencies, there are no compelling reasons to call it an assault. Is it for this reason that Eisenstein’s film “October”, where the battle for the palace was, as it were, restored, was not released on the screens of the country?
The myth of the storming of Winter Palace under the volleys of the cruiser Aurora was intended to demonstrate the heroic enthusiasm of the Red Guards, the glorious apogee of the armed, victorious October uprising.
This had its own truth - the same as in myths different countries and peoples glorifying the heroic era and its heroes. No one doubts that Trojan War differed from her depiction in the Iliad. But this does not prevent us from returning again and again to the immortal images of Homer.
Almost a century separates us from that precedent that occurred 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 presented to us during the times of socialism are not only false, but also do not even approximately correspond to historical facts.
But let's start looking at it from the very beginning. According to encyclopedic data, an assault is a method of quickly capturing a populated area, fortress, or fortified position, consisting of an attack by large forces. This is exactly the kind of assault we all saw in the films of the great directors Eisenstein and Shub. In fact, there was nothing even similar to this. This is just a good propaganda move. The same as the so-called Aurora salvo, because a salvo is nothing more than fire from all guns. But if Aurora had fired a salvo at the Winter Palace with 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 guns, but from the Peter and Paul Fortress, and they fired extremely unsuccessfully, one might say ineptly.
But let's return to the original topic - the storming of 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 in such a way that it could be fired from literally any direction, for example, from the Neva River and the roofs of nearby houses. But there was no fire support from the rooftops. And from the river it was minimal. About ten combat and well-equipped ships took part in the assault. However, the cruiser Aurora itself did not approach closer than the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge, allegedly fearing the shoals.
Also, the invented myth that the Winter Palace was prepared in advance for defense does not stand up to criticism. They usually point to the woodpiles of firewood that were stacked on Palace Square, as part of the barricades that were specially made there. This is complete absurdity, the 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 hit the woodpile, then everyone who was hiding behind it would be killed. Moreover, the location of the firewood would have made it difficult to conduct targeted fire from the basement, in which, according to all the rules of warfare, firing positions should have been located.
The number of defenders in the Winter Palace simply makes you laugh. There were only a few cadets and a company of shock troops in the palace. There weren’t even enough of them to simply surround 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 benefit from 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 was pointless to fire at 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. Just take the size of the palace. Two and a half thousand attackers were barely enough to encircle the area around the palace in order to prevent reinforcements from breaking through, but there were no reinforcements.
In films telling about the storming of the Winter Palace, they 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 were located on Millionaya Street, under the Admiralty Arch and in the Alexander Garden. The commissars spent a tremendous amount of effort to prevent them all from leaving. When a small group of “stormtroopers” reached Dvortsovaya, there was only one burst from a machine gun from the direction of Zimny, and the attackers fled in all directions.
It turns out that there was no attack either from the General Headquarters, or from Millionaya Street and Palace Square. So the Cossacks calmly, at nine forty in the evening, left through Palace Square to the barracks. Where they were subsequently surrounded by Bolshevik armored cars, and they could not provide any assistance to the Provisional Government, and they did not try.
Now it becomes unclear: what did the attackers expect? When will Lenin give the order for the assault from Smolny? What was he waiting for then? This is one of the mysterious secrets of the storming of the Winter Palace.
So, not only did a bunch of half-drunk people in a revolutionary frenzy seize the Winter Palace, a well-trained group of armed people burst into the palace from the embankment. These were two hundred rangers under the command of General Cheremisov.
Upon arrival at the station from Finland, the Jaeger special forces, covering a three-kilometer distance, approached the barracks of the commandant company, at that time there was a hospital, they split up there, and one group, passing through a glass passage, entered the barracks. From the windows of the barracks they took aim at the cadets who were defending the bridge over the Winter Canal with a machine gun, noticing that they were under gunpoint, the cadets threw down their weapons and ran away. And then the second group of rangers calmly walked into the Winter Palace without a fight. Entering the palace, they captured the cadets and shockwomen, after which the cadets fled, and the shockwomen, showing restraint, remained standing. And then the sailors and soldiers arrived and the prisoners and arrested ministers of the provisional government were handed over to them.
So, were there any casualties among the attackers and defenders? Were there any clashes?
At the time of the capture by the rangers, the Winter Palace most likely did not exist. But the very next day, what started for a long time They kept silent, the most common looting, they took away all the dishes, linen, and even cut the leather from the furniture. There was a lot of wine in the cellars, and widespread drunkenness began. Even the security could not stop the lovers of easy money. The marauders were stopped only after a few days, and then only with the help of weapons. This is where there were casualties.
Well, when on October 26 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 rebel cadets and the remnants of Cossack patrols.
Main article: Storming of the Winter Palace
The cruiser "Aurora" at the "eternal mooring" 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 Prospect between the Catherine Canal and the Moika. Pickets were set up with the participation of armored cars on the bridges over the Catherine Canal and Moika and on Morskaya Street. Then detachments of Red Guards arrived from the Petrograd region and from the Vyborg side, as well as parts of the Kexholm regiment, which occupied the area north of the Moika.
The Winter Palace continued to be defended by cadets, a women's shock battalion and Cossacks. In the large Malachite Hall on the second floor there was a meeting of the cabinet of ministers of the Provisional Government chaired by Konovalov. At the meeting, they decided to appoint a “dictator” to eliminate the unrest; N.M. Kishkin became him. Having received the appointment, Kishkin arrived at the headquarters of the military district, fired Polkovnikov, appointing Bagratuni in his place. By this point, the Winter Palace was completely blocked by the forces of the uprising.
Historical photograph of 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 was not launched at 6 pm. This was due to a number of minor circumstances that caused a delay in the mobilization of the revolutionary forces, in particular, detachments of sailors from Helsingfors did not have time to arrive. Also, the artillery of the Kronstadt fortress was not prepared for firing, and the means were not prepared to give a signal for the assault. However, the delay in the assault simultaneously weakened the defenders of the Winter Palace, as gradually some of the cadets left their positions. At 6:15 pm a significant group of cadets from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School left the palace, taking with them four of the six cannons. And at about 8 o’clock in the evening, the 200 Cossacks guarding the palace went to their barracks, making sure that there was no mass support from the government.
The Commissioner of the Peter and Paul Fortress G.I. Blagonravov at 6:30 pm sent two scooters to the General Headquarters, where they arrived with an ultimatum to surrender the Provisional Government; the deadline was set for 7:10 pm. The ultimatum was transmitted to the Winter Palace and rejected by the Cabinet of Ministers. Soon the General Staff building was occupied by rebel forces.
At 8 o'clock in the evening, 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 Guard, revolutionary units of the garrison and sailors were ready to begin the assault. After 9 pm, the revolutionary troops began firing rifle and machine gun fire at the Winter Palace. At 9:40 pm, following a signal shot from the cannon of the Peter and Paul Fortress, a blank shot was fired from the Aurora’s bow gun, which had a psychological effect on the defenders of the Winter Palace (according to some researchers, the cruiser was not able to fire live shells at the Winter Palace). After this, skirmishes broke out again between the besiegers of Zimny and its defenders. Then the detachments of cadets and women from the shock battalion who had abandoned their posts were disarmed. By 10 o'clock in the evening, ships supporting the uprising arrived in Petrograd from Helsingfors: the patrol boat "Yastreb" and five destroyers - "Metky", "Zabiyaka", "Powerful", "Active" and "Samson".
At about 11 o'clock at night, shelling of Zimny with live shells began from the Peter and Paul Fortress, although most of them did not hit the building directly. On October 26, at one o'clock in the morning, the first large detachments of the besiegers entered the palace. By one o'clock in the morning, half of the palace was already in the hands of the rebels. The cadets stopped resisting and at 2:10 a.m. the Winter Palace was taken. Antonov-Ovseyenko and a detachment of revolutionary forces soon arrived at the Small Dining Room next to the Malachite Hall, in which members of the Provisional Government were located. According to the Minister of Justice P. N. Malyantovich,
Noise at our door. It swung open - and like a piece of wood thrown towards us by a wave, a small man flew into the room under the pressure of the crowd, which behind him poured into the room and, like water, spilled into all corners at once and filled the room... We were sitting 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, 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,” Konovalov said.
The arrested members of the Provisional Government (without Kerensky, who went to the front for reinforcements) were sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress under heavy guard. The cadets and the women's battalion were disarmed. Three drummers were raped.
The number of victims of the armed struggle was insignificant - there were 6 killed and 50 wounded on both sides.
