page_title: October Revolution
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: October Revolution / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Rīga, 1988.g.
context_page_description: The October Revolution was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was instrumental in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917–23. It took place through an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 25 October 1917.
  The October Revolution had followed and capitalized on the February Revolution earlier in the year. The February Revolution had overthrown the Tsarist autocracy, resulting in a provisional government. The provisional government had taken power after being proclaimed by Grand Duke Michael, Tsar Nicholas II's younger brother, who declined to take power after the Tsar stepped down.
  During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and its actions. After the Congress of Soviets, the new governing body, had its second session it elected members of the Bolsheviks and other left-wing groups such as the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to important positions within the new state of affairs. This immediately initiated the establishment of the Russian Soviet Republic. On 17 July 1918, the Tsar and his family, including his five children aged 13 to 22, were executed.
context_section_description: The October Revolution marks the inception of the first communist government in Russia, and thus the first large-scale socialist state in world history. After this, Russia became the Russian SFSR and, later, part of the USSR, which dissolved in late 1991.
  The October Revolution also made the ideology of communism influential on a global scale in the 20th century. Communist parties would start to form in certain countries after 1917.
  Ten Days That Shook the World, a book written by American journalist John Reed and first published in 1919, gives a firsthand exposition of the events. Reed died in 1920, shortly after the book was finished.
  Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No. 2 in B major, Op. 14, and subtitled it To October, for the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. The choral finale of the work, "To October", is set to a text by Alexander Bezymensky, which praises Lenin and the revolution. The Symphony No. 2 was first performed on 5 November 1927 by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academy Capella Choir under the direction of Nikolai Malko.
  Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov's film October: Ten Days That Shook the World, first released on 20 January 1928 in the USSR and on 2 November 1928 in New York City, describes and glorifies the revolution, having been commissioned to commemorate the event.
  The term "Red October" (Красный Октябрь, Krasnyy Oktyabr) has been used to signify the October Revolution. "Red October" was given to a steel factory that was made notable by the Battle of Stalingrad, a Moscow sweets factory that is well known in Russia, and a fictional Soviet submarine.
  7 November, the anniversary of the October Revolution according to the Gregorian Calendar, was the official national day of the Soviet Union from 1918 onward and still is a public holiday in Belarus and the breakaway territory of Transnistria.
caption: Anniversary of October Revolution in Riga, Soviet Union in 1988
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2018:01:15 18:25:18", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "176", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7891", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF SubSecTime": "265", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1798", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1128", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "256"}