page_title: Government of Vladimir Lenin
section_title: Moscow and Assassination Attempts
hierarchical_section_title: Government of Vladimir Lenin / Consolidating power: 1917–1918 / Moscow and Assassination Attempts
caption_attribution_description: English: Moscow, Kremlin. Bird's Eye View from the southwest. Source: https://tassphoto.com/ru/asset/fullTextSearch/search/2758325/page/1Русский: Московский Кремль. Вид со стороны Москвы-реки.
context_page_description: Under the leadership of Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik Party seized power in the Russian Republic during a coup known as the October Revolution. Overthrowing the pre-existing Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks established a new administration, the first Council of People's Commissars, with Lenin appointed as its governing chairman. Ruling by decree, Lenin’s Sovnarkom introduced widespread reforms confiscating land for redistribution among the permitting non-Russian nations to declare themselves independent, improving labour rights, and increasing access to education.
  The Lenin party continued with the previously scheduled November 1917 election, but when it produced a Constituent Assembly dominated by the rival Socialist Revolutionary Party the Bolsheviks lambasted it as counter-revolutionary and shut it down. The Bolshevik government banned a number of centrist and right-wing parties, and restricted the activities of rival socialist groups, but entered into a governmental coalition with the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party.
context_section_description: Concerned that the German Army might nevertheless pose a continuing threat, in March 1918 Sovnarkom reluctantly relocated from Petrograd to Moscow, which at the time they believed would be a temporary measure. On 10 March, the government members travelled to Moscow by night train, with most of them settling in the city's Hotel National on Okhotny Road, 300 yards from the Moscow Kremlin; here, Lenin shared a small two-room apartment with his wife and sister Maria. Soon after, Lenin, Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the Cavalry Corpus of the Great Kremlin Palace, a temporary measure until the Kremlin's Senate Building was readied for them to move in. Here, Lenin again lived with his sister and wife, in a first floor apartment that was adjacent to the room in which the Sovnarkom meetings were held. Based here, he adopted a pet cat, who both he and his wife doted on; he was known to carry the cat into Sovnarkom meetings. Although Lenin was impressed by the architecture of the Kremlin, he had always disliked Moscow, a traditional Russian city which differed from the Europeanised style of Petrograd. He nevertheless would rarely leave central Moscow for the rest of his life, the only exceptions being trips back to Petrograd in 1919 and 1920 and his periods of recuperation.
  In August 1918, after a speech to workers at the Moscow Corn Exchange, Lenin was shot and badly injured. Two bullets had pierced his body, and he was rushed to the Kremlin, where he was seen by doctors. An SR supporter named Fanny Kaplan was arrested, and after confessing to the shooting – and claiming that Lenin was a threat to socialism – she was executed. The attack received much coverage in the Russian press, with much good wishes expressed toward Lenin himself. The assassination attempt boosted Lenin's popularity and generated much sympathy for him. As a respite, in September 1918 Lenin was driven to the luxurious estate near Gorki that the government had recently acquired.
  In January 1919, Lenin left Moscow to attend a children's party to which he had been invited in Sokolniki. As he was driving through the suburbs, armed men stopped Lenin's car and ordered its occupants to get out; the thieves then drove off with the car. Lenin insisted that the incident had been a robbery, noting that if it had been politically motivated then the assailants would have killed him. In responding to the incident, Moscow was placed under de facto martial law and several hundred suspected criminals were arrested. In April 1919, at the command of senior Bolshevik Joseph Stalin, the arrangements for Lenin's personal security were increased.
caption: The Moscow Kremlin, which Lenin moved into in 1918
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