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Parted red curtains; in the center, in a trench, a German soldier, eyes closed, hands in overcoat pockets, leans against one side of a trench, smoking a pipe, his rifle resting on the other side of the trench. To the right, a Red soldier, red from red fur hat to red boots, holds two rifles. To the left, a Russian soldier casts away his his hat, backpack, and rifle. Across the bottom of the stage it reads, 1918. Operett: "Trockij", Operetta Trotsky. A watercolor postcard by Schima Martos.
Proclamation by the Military Revolutionary Committee of the fall of the Provisional Government of Russia, issued the night of November 7 (October 25, Old Style), 1917. From the 1967 Signet edition of Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed.
View of Moscow, the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral along the Moskva River. The message on the reverse was dated from Moscow May 29, 1914 (new style); multiple postmarks May 17 (old style; May 30 new style) and May 21 (old style; June 3 new style).
Intermission at a French theater, 1915. Women and a girl knit, socks perhaps, for soldiers at the front, as does a Red Cross nurse seated between two sleepy soldiers, one — from an Algerian regiment — visibly wounded. An older man reads the news. Illustrated by A. Guillaume, the postcard is captioned in the languages of the Entente Allies, French, English, and Russian.
An Italian postcard of the Industry of War. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany squeezes gold from France and Belgium, filling sacks of money he provides to his ally Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary who feeds his guns to fire at Tsar Nicholas of Russia who vomits up troops. On the bottom right, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan join the battle against Germany and Austria-Hungary. To the left, Great Britain flees to its ships. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy surveys it all, serenely neutral until May 1915. Germany taxed Belgium and occupied France heavily during its occupation, in money, in food and other necessities, and in human life and labor. Austria-Hungary borrowed heavily from Germany to support its war effort. The enormous manpower of Russia was a source of consolation for its allies, and of trepidation to its enemies. Some suspected Great Britain would take its small army and return to its ships, home, and empire.
"October 24, a gray morning, early. I roamed about the building from one floor to another, partly for the sake of movement and partly to make sure everything was in order and to encourage those who needed it. Along the stone floors of the interminable and still half-dark corridors of the Smolny, the soldiers were dragging their machine-guns, with a hearty clangor and tramping of feet—this was the new detachment I had summoned. The few Socialist-Revolutionists and Mensheviks still at the Smolny could be seen poking sleepy, frightened faces out at us. The music of the guns was ominous in their ears, and they left the Smolny in a hurry, one after the other. We were now in full command of the building that was preparing to rear a Bolshevik head over the city and the country." ((1), more)
"To the Citizens of Russia!The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of a democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the land, labor control over production, creation of a Soviet Government—that cause is securely achieved.Long live the revolution of workmen, soldiers and peasants!Military Revolutionary CommitteePetrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies." ((2), more)
"By midday [on November 8, 1917], however, certain definite information was available and it was important. A bicycle battalion which had been advancing on the city to defend the government—and at this stage one battalion might have made all the difference—had halted and had come over to the Bolsheviks. In Moscow the garrison had risen against the government. And from the front there was a message to say that the Twelfth Army supported the rising. All this was great encouragement for Smolny; indeed, when the news about the Twelfth Army came in pandemonium broke out and the delegates flung their arms round one another, weeping with relief." ((3), more)
"There has been a big uprising of the Bolsheviki in Petrograd. A telegram has come containing the news that some members of the Provisional Government have been arrested by the rioters and that their so-called 'Socialist Organisation' intends to overthrow the Government and take power into its own hands. It seems that the man Lenin, who, with his accomplice Trotsky, had been worsted in July by Kerensky's supporters, had reappeared and assumed complete control of the Organisation. Will Kerensky prove strong enough to withstand him? If not, a civil war will be inevitable." ((4), more)
"The Entente is paying more and more dearly for its mistakes. Will its leaders ever open their eyes? They are faced with a terrible dilemma. The day will come when the exhausted people will see in revolution the only remedy for their ills and the only means of putting a stop to the war." ((5), more)
(1) Leon Trotsky writing of the morning of November 6, 1917 — October 24, Old Style. The Smolny, a former school for girls, had been the seat of the Soviet Executive Committee, a Committee in which Bolsheviks had been increasingly represented in the weeks before the October Revolution. Earlier in the morning, Trotsky had found the machine guns in the building poorly maintained, and had sent for the detachment he writes of. The Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky had determined to suppress the Bolsheviks on the 5th, and tried to do so on the 6th, but by the morning of the 7th the Bolsheviks would control Petrograd.
My Life: an Attempt at an Autobiography by Leon Trotsky, page 321, publisher: Dover Publications, Inc., publication date: 2007
(2) Proclamation by the Military Revolutionary Committee of the fall of the Provisional Government of Russia, issued the night of November 7 (October 25, Old Style), 1917. The Bolsheviks had seized control of Petrograd the night of November 6–7 — telephone and telegraph exchanges, the State Bank, rail stations and bridges. John Reed, author of Ten Days that Shook the World, helped distribute this proclamation after the surrender of the Winter Palace where most of the government ministers were meeting. The Provisional Government supported continuing the war, and had been unable to resolve the demands for the distribution of land to the peasants who worked it.
Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed, page 102, publisher: Signet Books, publication date: 1967
(3) The Bolsheviks had seized control of Petrograd the night of November 6–7 — telephone and telegraph exchanges, the State Bank, rail stations and bridges. Even as Prime Minister and Commander of the Army Alexander Kerensky was trying to rally troops to retake the capital and seize the Bolsheviks, more army units were coming out in support of the Revolution. The support of the Moscow garrison and the Twelfth Army were critical steps in securing the Bolshevik Revolution. The Smolny, a former school for girls, was the Bolshevik headquarters in Petrograd.
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, page 251, copyright © 1958 by Time, Inc., publisher: Carroll and Graf, publication date: 1989
(4) Beginning of the entry for November 9, (October 27, Old Style), 1917 from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, and then in Romania. She greatly admired Alexander Kerensky, who had been Prime Minister and Minister of War for the Provisional Government. He was then attempting to rally troops to retake Petrograd. Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky were the leaders of the Bolsheviks and the new government the Bolshevik Revolution brought to power. In July, the Bolsheviks and other leftists had failed to meet demonstrators' demands to act where the government would not, particularly in ending the war. In response, the Provisional Government imprisoned Bolsheviks including Trotsky. Lenin went into hiding.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, pp. 327–328, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(5) End of the entry for November 10, 1917 from the diary of Albert I, King of the Belgians. He was writing specifically about the Italian disaster in the Battle of Caporetto, but the same period saw the end of the charnel house of the Third Battle of Ypres, fought in Belgium. Days before the King wrote, Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, pp. 181–182, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
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