The Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution changed the country forever — 100 years later, here are a few lesser known facts!
17 things you didn’t know about the Bolsheviks’ rise to power
THE 1917 UPRISING WAS RUSSIA’S BIGGEST, BUT NOT ITS FIRST
Although the consequences of the 1917 insurgency for the Romanov dynasty were catastrophic, it wasn’t the first revolt that the monarchy had experienced. In fact, Tsar Nicholas II had already weathered the storm of revolution in 1905, an experience that had left him battered and weakened. Although he avoided a complete disaster in the earlier uprising, he was forced to agree to concessions that limited his powers, resulting in the launch of the October Manifesto, which agreed to a number of demands made by his subjects. These included measures to improve civil liberties, universal male suffrage and the introduction of an elected legislature known as the Duma. Above all, however, in 1905 the immensely powerful military remained predominantly loyal to the tsar’s regime whereas, 12 years later, they were not. This was a crucial tipping point — when Nicholas lost the backing of the military, he also lost the throne.
LENIN WAS BORN TO NOBLE PARENTS
Though presented to the nation as the ultimate man of the people, Lenin’s real origins were far grander than he liked to let on. He relied on the immensely powerful Bolshevik propaganda machine to create a background worthy of a revolutionary leader and give the impression that he was a working-class hero. In fact, Lenin’s father had been born to a family of serfs but had clawed his way up to the top of middle classes, undertaking a university education and marrying the wealthy daughter of a doctor. He enjoyed a glittering civil service career and was eventually awarded the Order of St Vladimir, which turned the one-time serf into a hereditary nobleman. Lenin’s parents were both conservative monarchists yet this fact, as well as his noble birth, were whitewashed from his carefully rewritten public biography, which told a tale of heroic lower-class struggle.
STALIN’S EXILE WAS MORE LIKE A HOLIDAY
When Stalin was exiled to Selivanikha in Siberia in 1914 by the authorities, he spent his days hunting, fishing and communing with nature. He became popular in his new home and performed medical duties for the local community, as well as making friends among the local children, whom he liked to entertain. He was so popular that the community made a gift to Stalin of a dog, which he named Tishka. Yet Stalin still found time in his busy social schedule to father a child of his own. When World War I broke out and he was ruled unfit for duty, Stalin was moved to Achinsk. It was here in 1917, while staying with fellow Bolsheviks, that he learned that the February Revolution had taken place in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg). He left for Petrograd that same day.
STALIN MIGHT HAVE WORKED FOR THE TSAR’S SECRET POLICE
As early as 1916, accusations were being made that Stalin had once worked for the Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire. The young Stalin, going by the alias Koba, seemed to be able to travel freely despite his known revolutionary leanings and wasn’t subject to the same restrictions as his peers. Eyewitnesses claimed that Stalin regularly met Okhrana representatives and always knew who was about to be arrested, yet always escaped arrest himself. While this would suggest that Stalin was a traitor to his own cause, others have reflected that he was a realist who knew when to cosy up to the officers of the Okhrana. Stalin recognised that money, influence and power were all valuable, regardless of which side they came from.
STAFF TURNOVER WAS SHOCKINGLY HIGH
Tsar Nicholas II chose to personally lead Russian troops during World War I. When he went to the front in September 1915, he left Tsarina Alexandra in charge of domestic affairs — assisted by her personal advisor, the mystic monk Rasputin. The tsarina’s rule was beset by scandal and fatally unstable. Thanks to jealous Alexandra’s habit of dismissing anyone she considered disloyal, the Russian government had four prime ministers and ministers of agriculture, five ministers of the interior and three foreign ministers, war ministers and ministers of transport — all in just 18 months. This meant that nobody was in a position long enough to actually learn their job and the restless public were keen to find an alternative that might offer some sense of stability.
THE ROMANOVS WERE WORTH A FORTUNE
When Nicholas II abdicated the throne in February 1917 in the face of growing unrest, the House of Romanov had ruled Russia for 303 years straight. They were one of the richest families in the world, worth some $45 billion at the time of Nicholas’ abdication, which would be approximately $300 billion today. Intriguingly, more than $1 billion-worth of the imperial family’s gold remains unaccounted for to this day, with the sum having disappeared while in transit to the Remington Arms Company to buy a shipment of weapons for the White Army. What became of that wealth has been the subject of questions and conspiracy theories ever since and to this day, pretenders to the House of Romanov occasionally come forward to make their claim to a portion of this fortune. So far, none have been successful.
THE REVOLUTION WAS A PROPAGANDA MASTERCLASS
The Bolsheviks knew the value of propaganda and used it to devastating effect. From popularising the image of the bourgeois as enemies of the working man to casting the leaders of the uprising as working-class heroes, propaganda played a vital role in the success of the Russian Revolution. Most important of all, Soviet propaganda always carried a clear and inarguable message straight from the top of the regime and required little if any decoding by the audience.
IN EUROPE AND RUSSIA, THE DATES DON’T MATCH
Although we know the key events of the Russian uprising as the February Revolution and October Revolution, the unrest actually began on 8 March and 7 November according to Western calendars. The mismatch in the dates is thanks to the fact that Russia was still using the Julian calendar, whereas the rest of Europe had moved over to the Gregorian one. This meant that the two calendars had a discrepancy of almost a fortnight. Russia, however, recorded the outbreak of the Petrograd rebellion as 23 February 1917 thanks to a discrepancy in the international calendar. This first episode of unrest came when striking, starving workers rioted against the monarchy. When the military was ordered to open fire on the protestors, they refused. The army, at last, had turned against the tsar.
THE REVOLUTION DIDN’T OVERTHROW THE TSAR
Although many people still believe that the October Revolution was the uprising that unseated the tsar from his throne, that isn’t actually the case. In fact, Nicholas abdicated immediately after the February Revolution. He gave up the throne on 2 March 1917 and planned to go into exile abroad.
While he initially handed power to his son, Alexi, doctors advised that the little boy was not expected to live long and Nicholas duly chose his own brother, Grand Duke Michael, as his successor. But Michael refused the position, citing the lack of support from the people or the military. With that, the Romanov dynasty surrendered control of Russia.
The Duma formed a Provisional Government to hold the country together. This lasted six months but was hated for its continued commitment to World War I, driving public support for the Bolsheviks.
THE CLOCK STOPPED AT THE WINTER PALACE
At 2.10am on 25 October 1917, the Bolsheviks marched into the small dining room at the Winter Palace and arrested the provisional government of Russia, seizing power once and for all. They had easily overwhelmed the paltry armed brigades who had stayed loyal to the government. It was here that Alexander Kerensky, who had led the provisional government since February, was deposed by Bolshevik forces, members of the cabinet were arrested and the Russian state made its first steps into the Communist era. At 2.10am, the moment at which these world-changing steps were taken, someone stopped the clock that stood on the mantelpiece of the dining room. Today it remains as it was 100 years ago, the hands stilled at the very second when the Russian government fell to the Bolshevik revolution.
BRITISH FORCES FOUGHT THE BOLSHEVIKS
In order to ensure that war supplies intended for Russian use didn’t fall into German or Bolshevik hands, the British War Cabinet sent Royal Marines sent to Murmansk on 6 March 1918 to reestablish the Eastern Front. It quickly became apparent that there was to be no cooperation from the Bolsheviks and the British decided that the best thing for the war effort would be to depose the Bolshevik government as quickly as possible. The Royal Marines offered their support to the anti-bolshevik forces but this mainly took the form of an increased number of weapons and ammunition, as opposed to supplying additional soldiers to fight alongside them. In fact, while War Minister Winston Churchill was virulently in favour of sending additional troops to depose the Bolshevik government, Prime Minister David Lloyd George advocated a less interventionist approach. British forces left Russia in October 1919.
NOT ONLY THE ROMANOVS WERE EXECUTED
There can be few people who don’t know that the tsar, tsarina and their children were executed in the cellar of a house in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. Their deaths, the fate of their remains and the occasional emergence of fraudsters posing as members of the family have entered into the annals of grisly royal history around the world. Yet it wasn’t only members of the House of Romanov who died that night, for they were joined by loyal household staff and servants who had been herded into the cellar to die alongside them. These other victims of the Bolshevik soldiers were Doctor Yevgeny Botkin, cook Ivan Kharitonov, valet Alexei Trupp and Anna Demidova, the tsarina’s maid. Anna tried to cover herself with a pillow stuffed with jewels. She survived over 30 bullet wounds, but was eventually bayoneted to death.
NOT ALL OF THE ROMANOVS WERE KILLED
It’s a common misconception that the entire Romanov family was executed in Yekaterinburg but that isn’t the case. At the time the family were executed, there were 65 members of the Romanov dynasty still living — 18 died during the Revolution but the remaining all found sanctuary overseas. Some of those left Russia in 1919 aboard HMS Marlborough, which King George V of the United Kingdom had sent under pressure from his mother, Queen Alexandra. Her sister, Maria Fyodorovna, was the mother of the murdered tsar. Dowager Empress Maria was one of those who boarded HMS Marlborough to safety, yet she refused to do so until the ship had been filled with injured soldiers and any civilian who wanted to flee the approaching Bolsheviks. For her eldest son, daughter-inlaw and grandchildren, the British intervention was too little, too late.
TRADITIONAL STREET SWEEPING STILL MARKS THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
In the months following the October Revolution, citizens were invited to take part in the voluntary workdays known as Subbotniks. These days, which took place every weekend, were opportunities for people to clean up the streets and clear rubble left after the uprisings. Although they were supposedly optional, all were expected to pull their weight and Subbotniks became a regular fixture in every Russian calendar. The first Subbotnik was on 12 April 1919 and the Bolsheviks soon used the occasion as a propaganda tool, issuing pictures showing revolutionary leaders cleaning up the cities for the people. In fact, Lenin viewed the Subbotnik as the first real chapter in the origin of communist Russia. The tradition continues to this day but now the Subbotniks are usually given a civic purpose, such as cleaning up a specific area, collecting and processing recyclables or carrying out other voluntary work of public value.
RASPUTIN’S LION-TAMING DAUGHTER FLED RUSSIA
Maria Rasputin was just 18 when the tsarina gave her a gift of jewels that she hoped would pay for the girl to escape Russia.
However, Rasputin had unfortunately already arranged for Maria to marry Boris Soloviev, who saw himself as the Mad Monk’s mystical successor, and he took the jewels for his own before their wedding, keeping the money. Following the arrest of the Russian Provisional Government, Maria and Boris went on the run, sheltering with family at locations across Russia. Although Boris was arrested and Maria questioned about those disputed jewels, the couple and their daughter left Russia once and for all in 1920. They lived a nomadic life across Europe, capitalising on Maria’s notorious surname. After Boris died, Maria eventually joined a circus in Indiana, in the United States. She worked as a lion tamer, survived an attack by a bear and eventually died in Los Angeles in 1977 at the age of 79.