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171-857: Bolshevik victory The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography ), October coup , Bolshevik coup , or Bolshevik revolution , was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917–1923. It was the second revolutionary change of government in Russia in 1917. It took place through an insurrection in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg ) on 7 November 1917 [ O.S. 25 October]. It

342-566: A Constituent Assembly . This new Soviet government was known as the council (Soviet) of People's Commissars ( Sovnarkom ), with Lenin as a leader. Lenin allegedly approved of the name, reporting that it "smells of revolution". The cabinet quickly passed the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land . This new government was also officially called "provisional" until the Assembly was dissolved. That same day, posters were pinned on walls and fences by

513-642: A leap day being added to February in the leap years . The months and length of months in the Gregorian calendar are the same as for the Julian calendar. The only difference is that the Gregorian reform omitted a leap day in three centurial years every 400 years and left the leap day unchanged. A leap year normally occurs every four years: the leap day, historically, was inserted by doubling 24 February – there were indeed two days dated 24 February . However, for many years it has been customary to put

684-606: A sealed train carriage through their territory. According to Deutsche Welle : On November 7, 1917, a coup d'état went down in history as the October Revolution. The interim government was toppled, the Soviets seized power, and Russia later terminated the Triple Entente military alliance with France and Britain. For Russia, it was effectively the end of the war. Kaiser Wilhelm II had spent around half

855-510: A social science ; hence many applications of statistical mathematics were curtailed, particularly during the Stalin era. Under central planning , nothing could occur by accident. The law of large numbers or the idea of random deviation were decried as "false theories". Statistical journals were closed; world-renowned statisticians like Andrey Kolmogorov and Eugen Slutsky abandoned statistical research. As with all Soviet historiography,

1026-580: A vanguard party was required to lead the working class in the revolution that would overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism. Soviet historiography interpreted this theory to mean that the creation of the Soviet Union was the most important turning event in human history, since the USSR was considered to be the first socialist society. Furthermore, the Communist Party —considered to be

1197-629: A Bolshevik appeal, Moscow's working class began a protest strike of 400,000 workers. They were supported by strikes and protest rallies by workers in Kyiv , Kharkiv , Nizhny Novgorod , Ekaterinburg , and other cities. In what became known as the Kornilov affair, General Lavr Kornilov , who had been Commander-in-Chief since 18 July, with Kerensky's agreement directed an army under Aleksandr Krymov to march toward Petrograd to restore order. According to some accounts, Kerensky appeared to become frightened by

1368-518: A Viking ship into its logo. Soviet historians trace the origin of feudalism in Russia to the 11th century, after the founding of the Russian state. The class struggle in medieval times is emphasized because of the hardships of feudal relations. For example, Soviet historians argue that uprisings in Kiev in 1068–69 were a reflection of the class struggle. There was a constant struggle between the powers of

1539-553: A barely credible scale, in every sphere. Real facts, real statistics, disappeared into the realm of fantasy. History, including the history of the Communist Party , or rather especially the history of the Communist Party, was rewritten. Unpersons disappeared from the official record. A new past, as well as new present, was imposed on the captive minds of the Soviet population, as was, of course, admitted when truth emerged in

1710-564: A billion euros ($ 582 million) in today's money to weaken his wartime enemy. Upon his arrival Lenin gave his April Theses that called on the Bolsheviks to take over the Provisional Government, usurp power, and end the war. Throughout June, July, and August 1917, it was common to hear working-class Russians speak about their lack of confidence in the Provisional Government. Factory workers around Russia felt unhappy with

1881-407: A closely argued, 800-page volume. He would later defend his and Lilius's work against detractors. Clavius's opinion was that the correction should take place in one move, and it was this advice that prevailed with Gregory. The second component consisted of an approximation that would provide an accurate yet simple, rule-based calendar. Lilius's formula was a 10-day correction to revert the drift since

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2052-623: A computation for the date of Easter that achieved the same result as Gregory's rules, without actually referring to him. Britain and the British Empire (including the eastern part of what is now the United States) adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Sweden followed in 1753. Prior to 1917, Turkey used the lunar Islamic calendar with the Hijri era for general purposes and the Julian calendar for fiscal purposes. The start of

2223-542: A diplomatic note of 1 May, the minister of foreign affairs, Pavel Milyukov , expressed the Provisional Government's desire to continue the war against the Central Powers "to a victorious conclusion", arousing broad indignation. On 1–4 May, about 100,000 workers and soldiers of Petrograd, and, after them, the workers and soldiers of other cities, led by the Bolsheviks, demonstrated under banners reading "Down with

2394-533: A means of reaching military forces he hoped would be friendly to the Provisional Government outside the city and ultimately borrowed a Renault car from the American embassy, which he drove from the Winter Palace, along with a Pierce Arrow . Kerensky was able to evade the pickets going up around the palace and to drive to meet approaching soldiers. As Kerensky left Petrograd, Lenin wrote a proclamation To

2565-453: A misreading of commands from above." For Enteen the other school of writing on Soviet historiography is the social-history school which draws attention to "important initiative from historians at odds with the dominant powers in the field." Enteen is unable to decide between these different approaches based on current literature. In Markwick's view there are a number of important post war historiographical movements, which have antecedents in

2736-509: A peaceful demonstration in Petrograd, the so-called July Days . The Provisional Government, with the support of Socialist-Revolutionary Party - Menshevik leaders of the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Soviets, ordered an armed attack against the demonstrators, killing hundreds. A period of repression followed. On 5–6 July, attacks were made on the editorial offices and printing presses of Pravda and on

2907-587: A recent opinion poll in Russia that gave Stalin an approval rating of 47%, and states that "The Soviet Union was not a democracy, but it was an example for millions of people around the world of the best and fairest society." The Economist contends that the book is inspired by Soviet historiography in its treatment of the Cold War , as it claims that the Cold War was started by the United States , that

3078-530: A statement denouncing the government's actions. At 10   a.m., Bolshevik-aligned soldiers successfully retook the Rabochiy put printing house. Kerensky responded at approximately 3   p.m. that afternoon by ordering the raising of all but one of Petrograd's bridges, a tactic used by the government several months earlier during the July Days . What followed was a series of sporadic clashes over control of

3249-425: Is ⁠365 + 97 / 400 ⁠ days = 365.2425 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds. The Gregorian calendar was a reform of the Julian calendar. It was instituted by papal bull Inter gravissimas dated 24 February 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar is named. The motivation for the adjustment was to bring the date for the celebration of Easter to the time of year in which it

3420-473: Is 365.2425463 days. As the average length of a Julian year is 365.25 days, the Julian year is almost 11 minutes longer than the mean tropical year. The discrepancy results in a drift of about three days every 400 years. Lilius's proposal resulted in an average year of 365.2425 days (see Accuracy ). At the time of Gregory's reform there had already been a drift of 10 days since the Council of Nicaea, resulting in

3591-468: Is also argued that by bearing the full weight of the Mongolian invasions, Russia helped to save Western Europe from outside domination. The struggle against foreign domination and the heroism of its participants is a recurring theme in Soviet historiography. Soviet historians have an upbeat assessment of Alexander Nevsky , characterized as one of the greatest military leaders of his time for defeating

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3762-503: Is determined by the Earth's revolution around the Sun. The rule for leap years is: Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the year 2000 is. There were two reasons to establish

3933-429: Is inevitable. All research had to be based on those assumptions and could not diverge in its findings. In 1956, Soviet academician Anna Pankratova said that "the problems of Soviet historiography are the problems of our Communist ideology." Soviet historians have also been criticized for a Marxist bias in the interpretation of other historical events, unrelated to the Soviet Union. Thus, for example, they assigned to

4104-467: Is the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and the early 20th century. In England , Wales , Ireland , and Britain's American colonies , there were two calendar changes, both in 1752. The first adjusted the start of a new year from Lady Day (25 March) to 1 January (which Scotland had done from 1600), while the second discarded

4275-512: Is the translation of a widely cited article ( "Lukavaia Tsifra" ) by journalist Vasilii Seliunin and economist Grigorii Khanin , in Novyi Mir, February 1987, #2: 181–202 Various Sovietologists have raised the issue of the quality (accuracy and reliability ) of data published in the Soviet Union and used in historical research. The Marxist theoreticians of the Party regarded statistics as

4446-423: Is the year using astronomical year numbering , that is, use 1 − (year BC) for BC years. ⌊ x ⌋ {\displaystyle \left\lfloor {x}\right\rfloor } means that if the result of the division is not an integer it is rounded down to the nearest integer. The general rule, in years which are leap years in the Julian calendar but not the Gregorian, is: Up to 28 February in

4617-460: Is to "defend Russia against falsifiers of history and those who would deny Soviet contribution to the victory in World War II ." United Russia has proposed a draft law that would mandate jail terms of three to five years "for anyone in the former Soviet Union convicted of rehabilitating Nazism." Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of

4788-924: The Battle of Agincourt is universally considered to have been fought on 25 October 1415 which is Saint Crispin 's Day. Usually, the mapping of new dates onto old dates with a start of year adjustment works well with little confusion for events that happened before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. But for the period between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar on 15 October 1582 and its introduction in Britain on 14 September 1752, there can be considerable confusion between events in continental western Europe and in British domains in English language histories. Events in continental western Europe are usually reported in English language histories as happening under

4959-518: The Catholic countries of Europe and their overseas possessions. Over the next three centuries, the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox countries also gradually moved to what they called the " Improved calendar ", with Greece being the last European country to adopt the calendar (for civil use only) in 1923. However, many Orthodox churches continue to use the Julian calendar for religious rites and

5130-555: The Council of Trent authorised Pope Paul III to reform the calendar, requiring that the date of the vernal equinox be restored to that which it held at the time of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and that an alteration to the calendar be designed to prevent future drift. This would allow for more consistent and accurate scheduling of the feast of Easter. In 1577, a Compendium was sent to expert mathematicians outside

5301-585: The First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the excess leap days introduced by the Julian algorithm had caused the calendar to drift such that the March equinox was occurring well before its nominal 21 March date. This date was important to the Christian churches because it is fundamental to the calculation of the date of Easter . To reinstate the association, the reform advanced the date by 10 days: Thursday 4 October 1582

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5472-588: The German knights' invasions of Russia in the 13th century . Much importance is attached to the Battle of Kulikovo (1380), which marked the beginning of the end of the Mongol domination of Russia. Dmitry Donskoi , for his leadership in the struggle against the Mongols, is credited for being an outstanding military commander and contributing significantly to the unity of the Russian lands. "The deceptive figure". This

5643-477: The July Days ). It declared Russia as a republic on 1 September (O.S.; 14 September, N.S.) 1917. Events came to a head in late 1917 as the Directorate , led by the left-wing Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs), controlled the government. The far-left Bolsheviks were deeply unhappy with the government, and began spreading calls for a military uprising. On 10 October 1917 (O.S.; 23 October, N.S.),

5814-533: The Katyn massacre was carried out by Germans rather than by Soviets. Yet another example is related to the case of Soviet reprisals against former Soviet POWs returning from Germany ; some of them were treated as traitors and imprisoned in Gulags for many years, yet that policy was denied or minimized by Soviet historians for decades and modern Western scholars have noted that "In the past, Soviet historians engaged for

5985-663: The Palace of Kshesinskaya , where the Central Committee and the Petrograd Committee of the Bolsheviks were located. On 7 July, the government ordered the arrest and trial of Vladimir Lenin , who was forced to go underground, as he had done under the Tsarist regime. Bolsheviks were arrested, workers were disarmed, and revolutionary military units in Petrograd were disbanded or sent to the war front. On 12 July,

6156-493: The Petrograd Soviet , led by Leon Trotsky , voted to back a military uprising. On 24 October (O.S.; 6 November, N.S.), the government shut down numerous newspapers and closed the city of Petrograd in an attempt to forestall the revolution; minor armed skirmishes broke out. The next day, a full-scale uprising erupted as a fleet of Bolshevik sailors entered the harbor and tens of thousands of soldiers rose up in support of

6327-537: The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire was the consular year, which began on the day when consuls first entered office—probably 1 May before 222 BC, 15 March from 222 BC and 1 January from 153 BC. The Julian calendar, which began in 45 BC, continued to use 1 January as the first day of the new year . Even though the year used for dates changed, the civil year always displayed its months in

6498-549: The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies , which began on this day. After the majority of the petrograd Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, [Trotsky] was elected its chairman and in that position organized and led the insurrection of October 25. Lenin on the organization of the October Revolution, Vol.XIV of the Collected Works . Kerensky and

6669-627: The Winter War , the occupation of the Baltic states , the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , Allied assistance to the Soviet Union during the war, many other Western Allies' efforts, the Soviet leadership's mistakes and failures, criticism of the Soviet Union and other content were censored out . The official version of Soviet history was dramatically changed after every major governmental shake-up. Previous leaders were denounced as "enemies", whereas current leaders usually became

6840-537: The elected parliament of Russia, and used machine-gun fire against demonstrators in Petrograd, killing about 100 demonstrators and wounding several hundred. Dybenko in his memoirs mentioned this event as "several shots in the air". These are disputed by various sources, such as Louise Bryant , who claims that news outlets in the West at the time reported that the unfortunate loss of life occurred in Moscow, not Petrograd, and

7011-455: The tamizdat authors, Solzhenitsyn was the most famous, publishing The Gulag Archipelago in the West in 1973. Medvedev's Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism was published in 1971 in the West. Neither could publish in the Soviet Union until the advent of Perestroika and Glasnost . The 2006 Russian book, A Modern History of Russia: 1945–2006: A Manual for History Teachers has received significant attention as it

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7182-483: The "Short course", on 14 November 1938 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union issued a special statement that the course and its chapter "About dialectic and historical materialism" were declared as "encyclopedia of philosophical knowledge in a field of Marxism-Leninism ", in which were given "official and verified by the Central Committee interpretation of basic issues of history of

7353-536: The "politically correct" version of the October events in Petrograd came to be taken as truth. Historical falsification of political events such as the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk Treaty became a distinctive element of Stalin's regime. A notable example is the 1938 publication, History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) , in which the history of the governing party

7524-583: The 1920s and 1930s. Surprisingly these include culturally and psychologically focused history. In the late 1920s Stalinists began limiting individualist approaches to history, culminating in the publication of Stalin and other's "Short Course" History of the Soviet Communist Party (1938). This crystallised the piatichlenka or five official periods of history in terms of vulgar dialectical materialism : primitive-communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism. Following publication of

7695-620: The All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Marxism-Leninism and without allowing any other arbitrary interpretations". While the triumph of Stalinist history was being imposed, different modes of history began to emerge. These included BA Romanov's People and Morals in Ancient Rus' (1947), a study of mentalités at the height of the Zhdanovshchina . However, it was not until the 20th Congress of

7866-552: The Bolshevik party had risen from 24,000 members in February 1917 to 200,000 members by September 1917. The Bolsheviks created a revolutionary military committee within the Petrograd soviet, led by the Soviet's president, Leon Trotsky . The committee included armed workers, sailors, and soldiers, and assured the support or neutrality of the capital's garrison. The committee methodically planned to occupy strategic locations through

8037-467: The Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and they walked out before the resolution was passed. As they exited, they were taunted by Trotsky who told them "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!" The following day, 26 October, the Congress elected a new cabinet of Bolsheviks, pending the convocation of

8208-633: The Bolsheviks' Central Committee voted 10–2 for a resolution saying that "an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe." At the Committee meeting, Lenin discussed how the people of Russia had waited long enough for "an armed uprising," and it was the Bolsheviks' time to take power. Lenin expressed his confidence in the success of the planned insurrection. His confidence stemmed from months of Bolshevik buildup of power and successful elections to different committees and councils in major cities such as Petrograd and Moscow. Membership of

8379-662: The Bolsheviks' popularity in the soviets grew significantly, both in the central and local areas. On 31 August, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies—and, on 5 September, the Moscow Soviet Workers Deputies—adopted the Bolshevik resolutions on the question of power. The Bolsheviks were able to take over in Briansk , Samara , Saratov , Tsaritsyn , Minsk , Kiev, Tashkent , and other cities. On 10 October 1917 (O.S.; 23 October, N.S.),

8550-752: The Bolsheviks. Bolshevik Red Guard forces under the Military-Revolutionary Committee began the occupation of government buildings. In the early morning of 26 October (O.S.; 8 November, N.S.), the Winter Palace (the seat of the Provisional government located in Petrograd, then capital of Russia) was captured. As the revolution was not universally recognized, the country descended into the Russian Civil War , which would last until late 1922 and ultimately lead to

8721-603: The CPSU that different schools of history emerged from the Stalinist freeze. Firstly, a "new direction" within Leninist materialism emerged, as an effectively loyal opposition to Stalinist dialectical materialism, secondly a social psychology of history emerged through a reading of Leninist psychology, thirdly a "culturological" tendency emerged. Soviet-era historiography was deeply influenced by Marxism. Marxism maintains that

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8892-587: The Citizens of Russia , stating that the Provisional Government had been overthrown by the Military-Revolutionary Committee. The proclamation was sent by telegraph throughout Russia, even as the pro-Soviet soldiers were seizing important control centers throughout the city. One of Lenin's intentions was to present members of the Soviet congress, who would assemble that afternoon, with a fait accompli and thus forestall further debate on

9063-479: The Cossacks breaking rank and fleeing, leaving their artillery behind. On 31 October 1917 (13 November, N.S.), the Bolsheviks gained control of Moscow after a week of bitter street-fighting. Artillery had been freely used, with an estimated 700 casualties. However, there was continued support for Kerensky in some of the provinces. After the fall of Moscow, there was only minor public anti-Bolshevik sentiment, such as

9234-460: The Council of Nicaea was corrected by a deletion of 10 days. The Julian calendar day Thursday, 4 October 1582 was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582 (the cycle of weekdays was not affected). A month after having decreed the reform, the pope (with a brief of 3 April 1582) granted to one Antoni Lilio the exclusive right to publish the calendar for a period of ten years. The Lunario Novo secondo la nuova riforma

9405-401: The Council of Nicaea, and the imposition of a leap day in only 97 years in 400 rather than in 1 year in 4. The proposed rule was that "years divisible by 100 would be leap years only if they were divisible by 400 as well". The 19-year cycle used for the lunar calendar required revision because the astronomical new moon was, at the time of the reform, four days before the calculated new moon. It

9576-496: The Gregorian calendar, but Britain used the Julian calendar). This coincidence encouraged UNESCO to make 23 April the World Book and Copyright Day . Astronomers avoid this ambiguity by the use of the Julian day number . For dates before the year 1, unlike the proleptic Gregorian calendar used in the international standard ISO 8601 , the traditional proleptic Gregorian calendar (like the older Julian calendar) does not have

9747-409: The Gregorian calendar. D = ⌊ Y / 100 ⌋ − ⌊ Y / 400 ⌋ − 2 , {\displaystyle D=\left\lfloor {Y/100}\right\rfloor -\left\lfloor {Y/400}\right\rfloor -2,} where D {\displaystyle D} is the secular difference and Y {\displaystyle Y}

9918-412: The Gregorian calendar. First, the Julian calendar assumed incorrectly that the average solar year is exactly 365.25 days long, an overestimate of a little under one day per century, and thus has a leap year every four years without exception. The Gregorian reform shortened the average (calendar) year by 0.0075 days to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes . Second, in the years since

10089-491: The Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Blenheim is always given as 13 August 1704. Confusion occurs when an event affects both. For example, William III of England set sail from the Netherlands on 11 November 1688 (Gregorian calendar) and arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November 1688 (Julian calendar). Shakespeare and Cervantes seemingly died on exactly the same date (23 April 1616), but Cervantes predeceased Shakespeare by ten days in real time (as Spain used

10260-463: The Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar, removing 11 days from the September 1752 calendar to do so. To accommodate the two calendar changes, writers used dual dating to identify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating. For countries such as Russia where no start of year adjustment took place, O.S. and N.S. simply indicate the Julian and Gregorian dating systems. Many Eastern Orthodox countries continue to use

10431-431: The Military-Revolutionary Committee designated the last of the locations to be assaulted or seized. The Red Guards systematically captured major government facilities, key communication installations, and vantage points with little opposition. The Petrograd Garrison and most of the city's military units joined the insurrection against the Provisional Government. The insurrection was timed and organized to hand state power to

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10602-485: The Moscow and Petrograd workers, miners in the Donbas, metalworkers in the Urals, oil workers in Baku , textile workers in the Central Industrial Region , and railroad workers on 44 railway lines. In these months alone, more than a million workers took part in strikes. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a social revolution . Workers organized these strikes through factory committees . The factory committees represented

10773-399: The Provisional Government published a law introducing the death penalty at the front. The second coalition government was formed on 24 July, chaired by Alexander Kerensky and consisted mostly of Socialists. Kerensky's government introduced a number of liberal rights, such as freedom of speech , equality before the law, and the right to form unions and arrange labor strikes . In response to

10944-442: The Provisional Government sent punitive detachments, it only enraged the peasants. In September, the garrisons in Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities, the Northern and Western fronts, and the sailors of the Baltic Fleet declared through their elected representative body Tsentrobalt that they did not recognize the authority of the Provisional Government and would not carry out any of its commands. Soldiers' wives were key players in

11115-413: The Provisional Government were virtually helpless to offer significant resistance. Railways and railway stations had been controlled by Soviet workers and soldiers for days, making rail travel to and from Petrograd impossible for Provisional Government officials. The Provisional Government was also unable to locate any serviceable vehicles. On the morning of the insurrection, Kerensky desperately searched for

11286-411: The SR Party no longer existed as a whole party by that time, as the Left SRs had gone into coalition with the Bolsheviks from October 1917 to March 1918 (a cause of dispute of the legitimacy of the returned seating of the Constituent Assembly, as the old lists, were drawn up by the old SR Party leadership, and thus represented mostly Right SRs, whereas the peasant soviet deputies had returned majorities for

11457-460: The Slavic roots in the foundation of the Russian state in contrast to the Normanist theory of the Vikings conquering the Slavs and founding the Kievan Rus' . There was an outright ban of the theory about the Varangian origin of Kievan Rus in the Soviet Union for ideological reasons. "Anti-Normanists" accused Normanist theory proponents of distorting history by depicting the Slavs as undeveloped primitives. In contrast, Soviet historians stated that

11628-431: The Slavs laid the foundations of their statehood long before the Norman/Viking raids, while the Norman/Viking invasions only served to hinder the historical development of the Slavs. They argued that Rus' composition was Slavic and that Rurik and Oleg' success was rooted in their support from within the local Slavic aristocracy. After the dissolution of the USSR , Novgorod acknowledged its Viking history by incorporating

11799-473: The Socialist Revolutionaries, describing the takeover as a "crime against the motherland" and "revolution"; this signaled the next wave of anti-Bolshevik sentiment. The next day, the Mensheviks seized power in Georgia and declared it an independent republic; the Don Cossacks also claimed control of their government. The Bolshevik strongholds were in the cities, particularly Petrograd, with support much more mixed in rural areas. The peasant-dominated Left SR party

11970-417: The Soviet Union modernized its calendar . To avoid confusion, both O.S and N.S. dates have been given for events. For more details see Old Style and New Style dates . It was sometimes known as the Bolshevik Revolution, or the Communist Revolution. Initially the event was referred to as the "October coup" ( Октябрьский переворот ) or the "Uprising of the 3rd", as seen in contemporary documents, for example in

12141-406: The Soviet Union and Russia. Its status as "scholarly" at all has been questioned, and it has often been dismissed as ideology and pseudoscience . Robert Conquest concluded that "All in all, unprecedented terror must seem necessary to ideologically motivated attempts to transform society massively and speedily, against its natural possibilities. The accompanying falsifications took place, and on

12312-538: The Soviet Union was acting in self-defense, and that the USSR did not lose the Cold War but rather voluntarily ended it. According to The Economist , "rabid anti-Westernism is the leitmotif of [the book's] ideology." In 2009, president Dmitri Medvedev created the Historical Truth Commission , against the perceived anti-Soviet and anti-Russian slander. Officially, the Commission's mission

12483-708: The Soviet leadership and historians, unlike their Western colleagues, had denied the existence of a secret protocol to the Soviet-German Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, and as a result the Soviet approach to the study of the Soviet-German relations before 1941 and the origins of World War II were remarkably flawed. In another example, the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 as well as the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1920 were censored out or minimized in most publications, and research

12654-526: The Stalinist faction routinely distorted political events, forged a theoretical basis for irreconcilable concepts such as the notion of " Socialism in One Country " and misrepresented the views of opponents. He also argued that the Stalinist regime employed an array of professional historians as well as economists to justify policy manoeuvering and safeguarding its own set of material interests. Not all areas of Soviet historiography were equally affected by

12825-465: The application of categories of dialectical and historical materialism in the study of historical events. Marx and Engels' ideas of the importance of class struggle in history, the destiny of the working class, and the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the revolutionary party are of major importance in Marxist methodology. Marxist–Leninist historiography has several aspects. It explains

12996-483: The architect of the Gregorian calendar, noted that the tables agreed neither on the time when the Sun passed through the vernal equinox nor on the length of the mean tropical year. Tycho Brahe also noticed discrepancies. The Gregorian leap year rule (97 leap years in 400 years) was put forward by Petrus Pitatus of Verona in 1560. He noted that it is consistent with the tropical year of the Alfonsine tables and with

13167-472: The army and convinced them to stand down. The Bolsheviks' influence over railroad and telegraph workers also proved vital in stopping the movement of troops. The political right felt betrayed, and the left was resurgent. The first direct consequence of Kornilov's failed coup was the formal abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of the Russian Republic on 1 September. With Kornilov defeated,

13338-544: The autumn, as much as 50% of all enterprises in the Urals , the Donbas , and other industrial centers were closed down, leading to mass unemployment. At the same time, the cost of living increased sharply. Real wages fell to about 50% of what they had been in 1913. By October 1917, Russia's national debt had risen to 50 billion roubles . Of this, debts to foreign governments constituted more than 11 billion roubles. The country faced

13509-470: The bridges, between Red Guard militias aligned with the Military-Revolutionary Committee and military units still loyal to the government. At approximately 5   p.m. the Military-Revolutionary Committee seized the Central Telegraph of Petrograd, giving the Bolsheviks control over communications through the city. On 25 October (O.S.; 7 November, N.S.) 1917, the Bolsheviks led their forces in

13680-531: The building, the cabinet of the Provisional Government surrendered, and were imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress . The only member who was not arrested was Kerensky himself, who had already left the palace. With the Petrograd Soviet now in control of government, garrison, and proletariat, the Second All Russian Congress of Soviets held its opening session on the day, while Trotsky dismissed

13851-430: The calendar being converted from , add one day less or subtract one day more than the calculated value. Give February the appropriate number of days for the calendar being converted into . When subtracting days to calculate the Gregorian equivalent of 29 February (Julian), 29 February is discounted. Thus if the calculated value is −4 the Gregorian equivalent of this date is 24 February. The year used in dates during

14022-420: The cases of destruction (usually burning down and seizing property from the landlord's estate) recorded between February and October occurred in October. While the uprisings varied in severity, complete uprisings and seizures of the land were not uncommon. Less robust forms of protest included marches on landowner manors and government offices, as well as withholding and storing grains rather than selling them. When

14193-518: The change a few months later: 9 December was followed by 20 December. Many Protestant countries initially objected to adopting a Catholic innovation; some Protestants feared the new calendar was part of a plot to return them to the Catholic fold. For example, the British could not bring themselves to adopt the Catholic system explicitly: the Annexe to their Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 established

14364-524: The city, almost without concealing their preparations: the Provisional Government's President Kerensky was himself aware of them; and some details, leaked by Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev , were published in newspapers. In the early morning of 24 October (O.S.; 6 November N.S.), a group of soldiers loyal to Kerensky's government marched on the printing house of the Bolshevik newspaper, Rabochiy put ( Worker's Path ), seizing and destroying printing equipment and thousands of newspapers. Shortly thereafter,

14535-557: The creation of the Soviet Union . The historiography of the event has varied. The victorious Soviet Union viewed it as a validation of its ideology and the triumph of the working class over capitalism . On the other hand, the Western Allies , for various reasons, later intervened against the Bolsheviks in the civil war. The event inspired many cultural works and ignited communist movements globally. October Revolution Day

14706-454: The cruiser Aurora fired a blank shot from the harbor. Some of the revolutionaries entered the palace at 10:25   p.m. and there was a mass entry 3 hours later. By 2:10   a.m. on 26 October, Bolshevik forces had gained control. The Cadets and the 140 volunteers of the Women's Battalion surrendered rather than resist the 40,000 strong attacking force. After sporadic gunfire throughout

14877-498: The dating of major feasts. To unambiguously specify a date during the transition period (in contemporary documents or in history texts), both notations were given , tagged as 'Old Style' or 'New Style' as appropriate. During the 20th century, most non- Western countries also adopted the calendar, at least for civil purposes . The Gregorian calendar, like the Julian calendar , is a solar calendar with 12 months of 28–31 days each. The year in both calendars consists of 365 days, with

15048-496: The deliberate distortions and omissions. Yet part of Soviet historiography produced a large body of significant scholarship which continues to be used in the modern research. Mikhail Pokrovsky (1862–1932) was held in the highest regard as a historian in the Soviet Union and was elected to the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1929. He emphasized Marxist theory, downplaying the role of personality in favour of economics as

15219-478: The driving force of history. However posthumously Pokrovsky was accused of "vulgar sociologism", and his books were banned. After Stalin's death, and the subsequent renouncement of his policies during the Khrushchev Thaw , Pokrovsky's work regained some influence. When Eduard Burdzhalov , then the deputy editor of the foremost Soviet journal on history, in spring of 1956 published a bold article examining

15390-482: The extra day at the end of the month of February, adding a 29 February for the leap day. Before the 1969 revision of its General Roman Calendar , the Catholic Church delayed February feasts after the 23rd by one day in leap years; masses celebrated according to the previous calendar still reflect this delay. Gregorian years are identified by consecutive year numbers. A calendar date is fully specified by

15561-704: The first editions of Lenin 's complete works. The February Revolution had toppled Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and replaced his government with the Russian Provisional Government . However, the provisional government was weak and riven by internal dissension. It continued to wage World War I , which became increasingly unpopular. There was a nationwide crisis affecting social, economic, and political relations. Disorder in industry and transport had intensified, and difficulties in obtaining provisions had increased. Gross industrial production in 1917 decreased by over 36% of what it had been in 1914. In

15732-419: The fiscal year was eventually fixed at 1 March and the year number was roughly equivalent to the Hijri year (see Rumi calendar ). As the solar year is longer than the lunar year this originally entailed the use of "escape years" every so often when the number of the fiscal year would jump. From 1 March 1917 the fiscal year became Gregorian, rather than Julian. On 1 January 1926, the use of the Gregorian calendar

15903-501: The government announced the immediate closure of not only Rabochiy put but also the left-wing Soldat , as well as the far-right newspapers Zhivoe slovo and Novaia Rus . The editors and contributors of these newspapers were seen to be calling for insurrection and were to be prosecuted on criminal charges. In response, at 9   a.m. the Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee issued

16074-531: The growing shortages of food, supplies, and other materials. They blamed their managers or foremen and would even attack them in the factories. The workers blamed many rich and influential individuals for the overall shortage of food and poor living conditions. Workers saw these rich and powerful individuals as opponents of the Revolution and called them "bourgeois", "capitalist", and "imperialist". In September and October 1917, there were mass strike actions by

16245-413: The ideological demands of the government; additionally, the intensity of these demands varied over time. The impact of ideological demands also varied based on the field of history. The areas most affected by ideological demands were 19th and 20th century history, especially Russian and Soviet history. Part of the Soviet historiography was affected by extreme ideological bias, and potentially compromised by

16416-528: The increasing divergence between the canonical date of the equinox and observed reality. Easter is celebrated on the Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March, which was adopted as an approximation to the March equinox. European scholars had been well aware of the calendar drift since the early medieval period. Bede , writing in the 8th century, showed that the accumulated error in his time

16587-544: The international historiography of the period. Translations of foreign historiography were produced (if at all) in a truncated form, accompanied by extensive censorship and "corrective" footnotes. For example, in the Russian 1976 translation of Basil Liddell Hart 's History of the Second World War pre-war purges of Red Army officers , the secret protocol to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , many details of

16758-562: The landowners had spread to 482 of 624 counties, or 77% of the country. As 1917 progressed, the peasantry increasingly began to lose faith that the land would be distributed to them by the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks . Refusing to continue living as before, they increasingly took measures into their own hands, as can be seen by the increase in the number and militancy of the peasant's actions. Over 42% of all

16929-440: The late 1980s." That criticism stems from the fact that in the Soviet Union, science was far from independent. Since the late 1930s, Soviet historiography treated the party line and reality as one and the same. As such, if it was a science, it was a science in service of a specific political and ideological agenda, commonly employing historical revisionism . In the 1930s, historical archives were closed and original research

17100-455: The law of the Catholic Church in 1582, but it was not recognised by Protestant Churches , Eastern Orthodox Churches , Oriental Orthodox Churches , and a few others. Consequently, the days on which Easter and related holidays were celebrated by different Christian Churches again diverged. On 29 September 1582, Philip II of Spain decreed the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. This affected much of Roman Catholic Europe, as Philip

17271-587: The leading position of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars when the Bolsheviks formed a new government, after the October Revolution in 1917, and suggested Trotsky for the position. However, Trotsky refused the position and other Bolsheviks insisted that Lenin assume principal responsibility which resulted in Lenin eventually accepting the role of chairman. The Second Congress of Soviets consisted of 670 elected delegates: 300 were Bolsheviks and nearly 100 were Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , who also supported

17442-524: The mean tropical year of Copernicus ( De revolutionibus ) and Erasmus Reinhold ( Prutenic tables ). The three mean tropical years in Babylonian sexagesimals as the excess over 365 days (the way they would have been extracted from the tables of mean longitude) were 0;14,33,9,57 (Alfonsine), 0;14,33,11,12 (Copernicus) and 0;14,33,9,24 (Reinhold). In decimal notation, these are equal to 0.24254606, 0.24255185, and 0.24254352, respectively. All values are

17613-452: The model for official films made later, which showed fierce fighting during the storming of the Winter Palace, although, in reality, the Bolshevik insurgents had faced little opposition. Later accounts of the heroic "storming of the Winter Palace" and "defense of the Winter Palace" were propaganda by Bolshevik publicists. Grandiose paintings depicting the "Women's Battalion" and photo stills taken from Sergei Eisenstein 's staged film depicting

17784-402: The most part in a disinformation campaign about the extent of the prisoner-of-war problem." The Soviet interpretation of Marxism predetermined much of the research done by historians. Research by scholars in the USSR was limited to a large extent due to this predetermination. Some Soviet historians could not offer non-Marxist theoretical explanations for their interpretation of sources. This

17955-515: The most solemn of forms available to the Church, the bull had no authority beyond the Catholic Church (of which he was the supreme religious authority) and the Papal States (which he personally ruled). The changes that he was proposing were changes to the civil calendar, which required adoption by the civil authorities in each country to have legal effect. The bull Inter gravissimas became

18126-483: The moving forces of history are determined by material production and the rise of different socioeconomic formations. Applying this perspective to socioeconomic formations such as slavery and feudalism is a major methodological principle of Marxist historiography. Based on this principle, historiography predicts that there will be an abolition of capitalism by a socialist revolution made by the working class. Soviet historians believed that Marxist–Leninist theory permitted

18297-530: The new year was moved to 1 September. In common usage, 1 January was regarded as New Year's Day and celebrated as such, but from the 12th century until 1751 the legal year in England began on 25 March ( Lady Day ). So, for example, the Parliamentary record lists the execution of Charles I on 30 January as occurring in 1648 (as the year did not end until 24 March), although later histories adjust

18468-552: The newspaper Novaya Zhizn , which criticized the Bolsheviks' lack of manpower and organization in running their party, let alone a government. Lenin confidently claimed that there is "not a shadow of hesitation in the masses of Petrograd, Moscow and the rest of Russia" in accepting Bolshevik rule. On 10 November 1917 (23 November, N.S.), the government applied the term "citizens of the Russian Republic" to Russians, whom they sought to make equal in all possible respects, by

18639-556: The next day by order of the Congress of Soviets. Historiography in the Soviet Union George M. Enteen identifies two approaches to the study of Soviet historiography. A totalitarian approach associated with the Western analysis of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian society, controlled by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, this school "thought that signs of dissent merely represented

18810-524: The norm, can be identified. In other countries, the customs varied, and the start of the year moved back and forth as fashion and influence from other countries dictated various customs. Neither the papal bull nor its attached canons explicitly fix such a date, though the latter states that the " Golden number " of 1752 ends in December and a new year (and new Golden number) begins in January 1753. During

18981-501: The nullification of all "legal designations of civil inequality, such as estates, titles, and ranks." The long-awaited Constituent Assembly elections were held on 12 November (O.S., 25 November, N.S.) 1917. In contrast to their majority in the Soviets, the Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the Socialist Revolutionary Party , which won 370 seats, although

19152-470: The number of leap years in four centuries from 100 to 97, by making three out of four centurial years common instead of leap years. He also produced an original and practical scheme for adjusting the epacts of the Moon when calculating the annual date of Easter, solving a long-standing obstacle to calendar reform. Ancient tables provided the Sun's mean longitude. The German mathematician Christopher Clavius ,

19323-456: The number was much less than suggested above. As for the "several shots in the air", there is little evidence suggesting otherwise. While the seizure of the Winter Palace happened almost without resistance, Soviet historians and officials later tended to depict the event in dramatic and heroic terms. The historical reenactment titled The Storming of the Winter Palace was staged in 1920. This reenactment, watched by 100,000 spectators, provided

19494-505: The offensive's failure intensified the struggle of the workers and the soldiers. On 16 July, spontaneous demonstrations of workers and soldiers began in Petrograd, demanding that power be turned over to the soviets. The Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party provided leadership to the spontaneous movements. On 17 July, over 500,000 people participated in what was intended to be

19665-451: The older Julian calendar for religious purposes. Extending the Gregorian calendar backwards to dates preceding its official introduction produces a proleptic calendar , which should be used with some caution. For ordinary purposes, the dates of events occurring prior to 15 October 1582 are generally shown as they appeared in the Julian calendar, with the year starting on 1 January, and no conversion to their Gregorian equivalents. For example,

19836-495: The opposing Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries (SR) from Congress. Some sources contend that as the leader of Tsentrobalt , Pavlo Dybenko played a crucial role in the revolt and that the ten warships that arrived at the city with ten thousand Baltic Fleet mariners were the force that took the power in Petrograd and put down the Provisional Government. The same mariners then dispersed by force

20007-621: The order January to December from the Roman Republican period until the present. During the Middle Ages, under the influence of the Catholic Church, many Western European countries moved the start of the year to one of several important Christian festivals—25 December ( Christmas ), 25 March ( Annunciation ), or Easter, while the Byzantine Empire began its year on 1 September and Russia did so on 1 March until 1492 when

20178-408: The organized peasantry in this criminal violation of the will of the working class". This eventually developed into major counter-revolutionary action, as on 30 October (O.S., 12 November, N.S.) when Cossacks , welcomed by church bells, entered Tsarskoye Selo on the outskirts of Petrograd with Kerensky riding on a white horse. Kerensky gave an ultimatum to the rifle garrison to lay down weapons, which

20349-617: The overthrow of the Alexander Kerensky government. When the fall of the Winter Palace was announced, the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution. The transfer of power was not without disagreement. The center and right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Mensheviks, believed that Lenin and

20520-454: The palace and returned to their barracks. While the cabinet of the provisional government within the palace debated what action to take, the Bolsheviks issued an ultimatum to surrender. Workers and soldiers occupied the last of the telegraph stations, cutting off the cabinet's communications with loyal military forces outside the city. As the night progressed, crowds of insurgents surrounded the palace, and many infiltrated it. At 9:45   p.m,

20691-454: The period between 1582, when the first countries adopted the Gregorian calendar, and 1923, when the last European country adopted it, it was often necessary to indicate the date of some event in both the Julian calendar and in the Gregorian calendar, for example, "10/21 February 1750/51", where the dual year accounts for some countries already beginning their numbered year on 1 January while others were still using some other date. Even before 1582,

20862-410: The possibility that the army would stage a coup, and reversed the order. By contrast, historian Richard Pipes has argued that the episode was engineered by Kerensky. On 27 August, feeling betrayed by the government, Kornilov pushed on towards Petrograd. With few troops to spare at the front, Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet for help. Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and Socialist Revolutionaries confronted

21033-512: The precision of observations towards the end of the 15th century made the question more pressing. Numerous publications over the following decades called for a calendar reform, among them two papers sent to the Vatican by the University of Salamanca in 1515 and 1578, but the project was not taken up again until the 1540s, and implemented only under Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572–1585). In 1545,

21204-436: The princes and those of the feudal aristocracy, known as the boyars . In regions like Novgorod, the boyar aristocracy was able to limit the prince's power by making the office and the head of church elective. The Mongol conquests in the 13th century had significant consequences for Russia. Soviet historians emphasize the cruelty of Genghis Khan and the suffering and devastation that Russia endured. Soviet historians attribute

21375-472: The pro-Bolshevik Left SRs). The Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November (O.S.) 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January (O.S.; 18 January, N.S.) 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the Constituent Assembly came into conflict with the Soviets, and it rejected Soviet decrees on peace and land, resulting in the Constituent Assembly being dissolved

21546-502: The rebellions in the Roman Empire the characteristics of the social revolution . Often, the Marxist bias and propaganda demands came into conflict: hence the peasant rebellions against the early Soviet rule, such as the Tambov Rebellion of 1920–21, were simply ignored as inconvenient politically and contradicting the official interpretation of the Marxist theories. Soviet and earlier Slavophile historians emphasized

21717-485: The reform commission for comments. Some of these experts, including Giambattista Benedetti and Giuseppe Moleto , believed Easter should be computed from the true motions of the Sun and Moon, rather than using a tabular method, but these recommendations were not adopted. The reform adopted was a modification of a proposal made by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius (or Lilio). Lilius's proposal included reducing

21888-482: The reliability of Soviet statistical data varied from period to period. The first revolutionary decade and the period of Stalin's dictatorship both appear highly problematic with regard to statistical reliability; very few statistical data were published from 1936 to 1956. Notably, the 1937 census ' organizers were executed and results destroyed altogether, and no further censuses were conducted until 1959. The reliability of data improved after 1956 when some missing data

22059-609: The role of Bolsheviks in 1917 and demonstrated that Stalin had been an ally of Kamenev—who had been executed as a traitor in 1936—and that Lenin had been a close associate of Zinoviev—who had been executed as a traitor in 1936—Burdzhalov was moved to an uninfluential post. The Brezhnev Era was the time of samizdat (circulating unofficial manuscripts within the USSR) and tamizdat (illegal publication of work abroad). The three most prominent Soviet dissidents of that era were Alexandr Solzhenitsyn , Andrei Sakharov and Roy Medvedev . Of

22230-410: The same basis, for years before 1582), and the difference between Gregorian and Julian calendar dates increases by three days every four centuries (all date ranges are inclusive). The following equation gives the number of days that the Gregorian calendar is ahead of the Julian calendar, called the "secular difference" between the two calendars. A negative difference means the Julian calendar is ahead of

22401-463: The same day, it took almost five centuries before virtually all Christians achieved that objective by adopting the rules of the Church of Alexandria (see Easter for the issues which arose). Because the date of Easter is a function – the computus  – of the date of the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, the Catholic Church considered unacceptable

22572-525: The same to two sexagesimal places (0;14,33, equal to decimal 0.2425) and this is also the mean length of the Gregorian year. Thus Pitatus's solution would have commended itself to the astronomers. Lilius's proposals had two components. First, he proposed a correction to the length of the year. The mean tropical year is 365.24219 days long. A commonly used value in Lilius's time, from the Alfonsine tables,

22743-436: The social basis of historical knowledge, determines the social functions of historical knowledge and the means by which these functions are carried out, and emphasizes the need to study concepts in connection with the social and political life of the period in which these concepts were developed. It studies the theoretical and methodological features in every school of historical thought. Marxist–Leninist historiography analyzes

22914-404: The source-study basis of a historical work, the nature of the use of sources, and specific research methods. It analyzes problems of historical research as the most important sign of the progress and historical knowledge and as the expression of the socioeconomic and political needs of a historical period. Soviet historiography has been severely criticized by scholars, chiefly—but not only—outside

23085-505: The start of the year to 1 January and record the execution as occurring in 1649. Most Western European countries changed the start of the year to 1 January before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. For example, Scotland changed the start of the Scottish New Year to 1 January in 1600 (this means that 1599 was a short year). England, Ireland and the British colonies changed the start of the year to 1 January in 1752 (so 1751

23256-402: The subject of a personality cult . Textbooks were rewritten periodically, with figures—such as Leon Trotsky or Joseph Stalin —disappearing from their pages or being turned from great figures to great villains. Certain regions and periods of history were made unreliable for political reasons. Entire historical events could be erased if they did not fit the party line. For example, until 1989

23427-410: The success of Genghis Khan to the fact that feudalism among his people had not developed, which would have involved feudal and political strife. By contrast, the peoples opposed to the Mongols were in a mature state of feudalism and the political disunity that went with it. Soviet historians conclude that the Mongol domination had disastrous consequences for Russia's historical progress and development. It

23598-521: The threat of financial bankruptcy . Vladimir Lenin, who had been living in exile in Switzerland, with other dissidents organized a plan to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with whom Russia was then at war. Recognizing that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens, among them Lenin and his wife, to travel in

23769-490: The time of the event. In his book, The Stalin School of Falsification , Leon Trotsky argued that the Stalinist faction routinely distorted historical events and the importance of Bolshevik figures especially during the October Revolution. He cited a range of historical documents such as private letters, telegrams, party speeches, meeting minutes , and suppressed texts such as Lenin's Testament . Lenin initially turned down

23940-733: The unrest in the villages. From 1914 to 1917, almost 50% of healthy men were sent to war, and many were killed on the front, resulting in many females being head of the household. Often—when government allowances were late and were not sufficient to match the rising costs of goods—soldiers' wives sent masses of appeals to the government, which went largely unanswered. Frustration resulted, and these women were influential in inciting "subsistence riots"—also referred to as "hunger riots", " pogroms ", or "baba riots". In these riots, citizens seized food and resources from shop owners, who they believed to be charging unfair prices. Upon police intervention, protesters responded with "rakes, sticks, rocks, and fists." In

24111-504: The uprising in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg, then capital of Russia) against the Provisional Government. The event coincided with the arrival of a pro-Bolshevik flotilla—consisting primarily of five destroyers and their crews, as well as marines—in Petrograd harbor. At Kronstadt , sailors announced their allegiance to the Bolshevik insurrection. In the early morning, from its heavily guarded and picketed headquarters in Smolny Palace,

24282-414: The vanguard of the working class – was given the role of permanent leading force in society, rather than a temporary revolutionary organization. As such, it became the protagonist of history, which could not be wrong. Hence the unlimited powers of the Communist Party leaders were claimed to be as infallible and inevitable as the history itself. It also followed that a worldwide victory of communist countries

24453-427: The vernal equinox falling on 10 or 11 March instead of the ecclesiastically fixed date of 21 March, and if unreformed it would have drifted further. Lilius proposed that the 10-day drift should be corrected by deleting the Julian leap day on each of its ten occurrences over a period of forty years, thereby providing for a gradual return of the equinox to 21 March. Lilius's work was expanded upon by Christopher Clavius in

24624-511: The war!" and "All power to the soviets!" The mass demonstrations resulted in a crisis for the Provisional Government. 1 July saw more demonstrations, as about 500,000 workers and soldiers in Petrograd demonstrated, again demanding "all power to the soviets," "down with the war," and "down with the ten capitalist ministers." The Provisional Government opened an offensive against the Central Powers on 1 July, which soon collapsed. The news of

24795-414: The wisdom or legitimacy of taking power. A final assault against the Winter Palace —against 3,000 cadets, officers, cossacks, and female soldiers—was not vigorously resisted. The Bolsheviks delayed the assault because they could not find functioning artillery. At 6:15   p.m., a large group of artillery cadets abandoned the palace, taking their artillery with them. At 8:00   p.m., 200 cossacks left

24966-422: The workers and were able to negotiate better working conditions, pay, and hours. Even though workplace conditions may have been increasing in quality, the overall quality of life for workers was not improving. There were still shortages of food and the increased wages workers had obtained did little to provide for their families. By October 1917, peasant uprisings were common. By autumn, the peasant movement against

25137-414: The world. It went into effect in October 1582 following the papal bull Inter gravissimas issued by Pope Gregory XIII , which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar . The principal change was to space leap years differently so as to make the average calendar year 365.2425 days long, more closely approximating the 365.2422-day 'tropical' or 'solar' year that

25308-612: The year (numbered according to a calendar era , in this case Anno Domini or Common Era ), the month (identified by name or number), and the day of the month (numbered sequentially starting from 1). Although the calendar year currently runs from 1 January to 31 December, at previous times year numbers were based on a different starting point within the calendar (see the "beginning of the year" section below). Calendar cycles repeat completely every 400 years, which equals 146,097 days. Of these 400 years, 303 are regular years of 365 days and 97 are leap years of 366 days. A mean calendar year

25479-432: The year sometimes had to be double-dated because of the different beginnings of the year in various countries. Woolley, writing in his biography of John Dee (1527–1608/9), notes that immediately after 1582 English letter writers "customarily" used "two dates" on their letters, one OS and one NS. "Old Style" (O.S.) and "New Style" (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, this

25650-478: The younger brother of Nicholas II, declined to take power. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils ( soviets ) wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and its actions. The provisional government remained unpopular, especially because it was continuing to fight in World War I , and had ruled with an iron fist throughout mid-1917 (including killing hundreds of protesters in

25821-536: Was a public holiday in the Soviet Union , marking its key role in the state's founding, and many communist parties around the world celebrate it. Despite occurring in November of the Gregorian calendar , the event is most commonly known as the "October Revolution" ( Октябрьская революция ) because at the time Russia still used the Julian calendar . The event is sometimes known as the "November Revolution", after

25992-536: Was a short year with only 282 days). Later in 1752 in September the Gregorian calendar was introduced throughout Britain and the British colonies (see the section Adoption ). These two reforms were implemented by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 . In some countries, an official decree or law specified that the start of the year should be 1 January. For such countries, a specific date when a "1 January year" became

26163-642: Was at the time ruler over Spain and Portugal as well as much of Italy . In these territories, as well as in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the Papal States, the new calendar was implemented on the date specified by the bull, with Julian Thursday, 4 October 1582, being followed by Gregorian Friday, 15 October. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies followed somewhat later de facto because of delay in communication. The other major Catholic power of Western Europe, France, adopted

26334-457: Was celebrated when it was introduced by the early Church. The error in the Julian calendar (its assumption that there are exactly 365.25 days in a year) had led to the date of the equinox according to the calendar drifting from the observed reality, and thus an error had been introduced into the calculation of the date of Easter . Although a recommendation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 specified that all Christians should celebrate Easter on

26505-404: Was extended to include use for general purposes and the number of the year became the same as in most other countries. This section always places the intercalary day on 29 February even though it was always obtained by doubling 24 February (the bissextum (twice sixth) or bissextile day) until the late Middle Ages . The Gregorian calendar is proleptic before 1582 (calculated backwards on

26676-422: Was falsified both during collection—by local authorities who would be judged by the central authorities based on whether their figures reflected the central economy prescriptions—and by internal propaganda, with its goal of portraying the Soviet state in the most positive light to its own citizens. Nonetheless the policy of not publishing—or simply not collecting—data that was deemed unsuitable for various reasons

26847-415: Was followed by Friday 15 October 1582. In addition, the reform also altered the lunar cycle used by the Church to calculate the date for Easter, because astronomical new moons were occurring four days before the calculated dates. Whilst the reform introduced minor changes, the calendar continued to be fundamentally based on the same geocentric theory as its predecessor. The reform was adopted initially by

27018-455: Was in coalition with the Bolsheviks. There were reports that the Provisional Government had not conceded defeat and were meeting with the army at the Front. Anti-Bolshevik sentiment continued to grow as posters and newspapers started criticizing the actions of the Bolsheviks and repudiated their authority. The executive committee of Peasants Soviets "[refuted] with indignation all participation of

27189-533: Was more than three days. Roger Bacon in c.  1200 estimated the error at seven or eight days. Dante , writing c.  1300 , was aware of the need for calendar reform. An attempt to go forward with such a reform was undertaken by Pope Sixtus IV , who in 1475 invited Regiomontanus to the Vatican for this purpose. However, the project was interrupted by the death of Regiomontanus shortly after his arrival in Rome. The increase of astronomical knowledge and

27360-442: Was much more common than simple falsification; hence the many gaps in Soviet statistical data. Inadequate or missing documentation for much of Soviet statistical data is also a significant problem. In his book, The Stalin School of Falsification , Leon Trotsky cited a range of historical documents such as private letters, telegrams, party speeches, meeting minutes, and suppressed texts such as Lenin's Testament , to argue that

27531-558: Was openly subjected to politics and propaganda , similar to philosophy , art , and many fields of scientific research . The Party could not be proven wrong, it was infallible and reality was to conform to this line. Any non-conformist history had to be erased, and questioning of the official history was illegal. Many works of Western historians were forbidden or censored , and many areas of history were also forbidden for research because, officially, they had never happened. For this reason, Soviet historiography remained mostly outside

27702-404: Was printed by Vincenzo Accolti, one of the first calendars printed in Rome after the reform, notes at the bottom that it was signed with papal authorization and by Lilio ( Con licentia delli Superiori... et permissu Ant(onii) Lilij ). The papal brief was revoked on 20 September 1582, because Antonio Lilio proved unable to keep up with the demand for copies. Although Gregory's reform was enacted in

27873-519: Was promptly refused. They were then fired upon by Kerensky's Cossacks, which resulted in 8 deaths. This turned soldiers in Petrograd against Kerensky as being the Tsarist regime. Kerensky's failure to assume authority over troops was described by John Reed as a "fatal blunder" that signaled the final end of his government. Over the following days, the battle against the anti-Bolsheviks continued. The Red Guard fought against Cossacks at Tsarskoye Selo, with

28044-413: Was publicly endorsed by Russian President Vladimir Putin . Putin said that "we can't allow anyone to impose a sense of guilt on us" and that the new manual helps present a more balanced view of Russian history than that promoted by the West. The book says that repressions, carried out by Stalin and others, were "a necessary evil in response to a cold war started by America against the Soviet Union." It cites

28215-483: Was published and Soviet experts themselves published some adjusted data for the Stalin era; however the quality of documentation has deteriorated. Some researchers say that on occasion the Soviet authorities may have completely "invented" statistical data potentially useful in historical research (such as economic data invented to prove the successes of the Soviet industrialization, or some published numbers of Gulag prisoners and terror victims—as Conquest claims). Data

28386-465: Was severely restricted. Historians were required to pepper their works with references—appropriate or not—to Stalin and other "Marxist–Leninist classics", and to pass judgment—as prescribed by the Party—on pre-revolution historic Russian figures. Nikita Khrushchev commented that "Historians are dangerous and capable of turning everything upside down. They have to be watched." The state-approved history

28557-453: Was significantly altered and revised including the importance of the leading figures during the Bolshevik revolution. Retrospectively, Lenin's primary associates such as Zinoviev, Trotsky, Radek and Bukharin were presented as "vacillating", "opportunists" and "foreign spies" whereas Stalin was depicted as the chief discipline during the revolution. However, in reality, Stalin was considered a relatively unknown figure with secondary importance at

28728-557: Was suppressed, in order to enforce the policy of 'Polish-Soviet friendship'. Similarly, the enforced collectivisation , the wholesale deportations or massacres of small nationalities in the Caucasus or the disappearance of the Crimean Tatars were not recognized as facts worthy of mention. Soviet historians also engaged in producing false claims and falsification of history; for example Soviet historiography falsely claimed that

28899-558: Was the precipitating event of the Russian Civil War . The initial stage of the October Revolution which involved the assault on Petrograd occurred largely without any human casualties . The October Revolution followed and capitalized on the February Revolution earlier that year, which had led to the abdication of Nicholas II and the creation of a provisional government . The provisional government, led by Alexander Kerensky , had taken power after Grand Duke Michael ,

29070-412: Was to be corrected by one day every 300 or 400 years (8 times in 2500 years) along with corrections for the years that are no longer leap years (i.e. 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, etc.) In fact, a new method for computing the date of Easter was introduced. The method proposed by Lilius was revised somewhat in the final reform. When the new calendar was put in use, the error accumulated in the 13 centuries since

29241-562: Was true even when alternate theories had a greater explanatory power in relation to a historian's reading of source material. The Marxist theory of historical materialism identified means of production as chief determinants of the historical process. They led to the creation of social classes , and class struggle was the motor of history. The sociocultural evolution of societies was considered to progress inevitably from slavery , through feudalism and capitalism to socialism and finally communism . In addition, Leninism argued that

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