The Announce­ment of the Soviet Gov­ern­ment. By Vladimir Serov, 1918.

The Soviet Union was offi­cially cre­ated in 1922, how­ever, if there was a date which could be con­sid­ered as a birth­day of the USSR, that would have had to be Novem­ber 7^th of 1917  — this was the day when in St Peters­burg the Bol­she­viks — the organ­ised mil­i­tary rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies, who later became the Com­mu­nist Party of the USSR — came to power. The Russ­ian Pro­vi­sional Gov­ern­ment which were the head of the coun­try after the Tsar Nicholas II had resigned, was over­thrown and the Sovi­ets, tak­ing the gov­ern­ment build­ings one by one, had finally cap­tured the town.

The Octo­ber Coup, as it was ini­tially called, had later been renamed as we know it now -  the Great Octo­ber Social­ist Rev­o­lu­tion. Many attribute this change in ter­mi­nol­ogy from a coup  to a rev­o­lu­tion to have a pro­pa­ganda under­line, as rev­o­lu­tion is cer­tainly per­ceived as hav­ing more weight and grandios­ity that coup. Inter­est­ingly, the term “Octo­ber” is no mis­take: the rev­o­lu­tion­ary events did take place on the 25^th Octo­ber 1917, yet the cal­en­dar style was changed in 1918 from the tra­di­tional Julian cal­en­dar to the Gre­go­rian style cal­en­dar. Thus 25 Octo­ber 1917 became 7 Novem­ber 1917, yet the title — the Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion — was left unchanged.

The first anniver­sary. 1918.

It is hard to explain briefly what had lead to these dras­tic events of 1917. The coun­try was exhausted after the First World War. In March 1917 Tsar Nicholas II abdi­cated, and the Pro­vi­sional Gov­ern­ment came into power, although many refused to recog­nise it.  The coun­try was in cri­sis on the eco­nomic, social and polit­i­cal lev­els. Work­ers of many towns were on mass strikes, demand­ing bet­ter pay and bet­ter con­di­tions. In towns the rates of unem­ploy­ment were ris­ing, while in coun­try­side peas­ants were rebelling against landown­ers. The total bank­ruptcy was inevitable, which was odd, given that less that ten years prior to it, it was one of the most strongest economies in the world. Food short­ages were becom­ing more and more fre­quent, and numer­ous con­spir­a­cies against the gov­ern­ment began. So it was no sur­prise when 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”.

Vladimir Lenin, the brain behind the Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion, and the face most often asso­ci­ated with it.

The Pro­vi­sional Gov­ern­ment was resid­ing in the Win­ter Palace and, when the fall of it was announced, a decree was adopted, giv­ing the power to the Union of Work­ers’, Sol­diers’ and Peas­ants’ Deputies, thus rat­i­fy­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion. The peas­ants were offi­cially granted the land. The work­ers were allowed to take con­trol over the fac­to­ries and now man­age them as they saw fit. The banks were nationalised,and all pri­vate bank accounts were con­fis­cated. The Church was out­lawed, and its prop­er­ties were seized and later redis­trib­uted as cin­ema the­atres, leisure clubs, or any recre­ational venues. All for­eign debts were repu­di­ated, and the wages fixed at an arti­fi­cially high level. Vladimir Lenin was declared as the head of the State, and the long jour­ney to Com­mu­nism had offi­cially began.

Seiz­ing of the Win­ter Palace in St Peters­burg by Bol­she­vik Baltic Sailors. The movie Octo­ber, 1927.

The Bol­she­viks viewed them­selves as rep­re­sent­ing an alliance of work­ers and peas­ants and memo­ri­al­ized that under­stand­ing with the Ham­mer and Sickle on the flag and coat of arms of the Soviet Union. So the day was an offi­cial pub­lic hol­i­day and the tra­di­tion to cel­e­brate it with a parade, peo­ple march­ing in the streets with red flags and car­ry­ing red bal­loons and car­na­tions — the offi­cial flower of the Rev­o­lu­tion — had lin­gered for almost 70 years. The Red Square access roads in Moscow were re-constructed specif­i­cally for the Novem­ber 7^th annual Mil­i­tary parade show­ing off the lat­est devel­op­ments in the Soviet weaponry.

Moscow 1941.

Not even the Mil­i­tary parade of 1941 was skipped, the year Ger­many invaded into Rus­sia.  The Soviet Army tanks were mov­ing that day across the Red Square and straight to the army front. That act itself was as impor­tant as a large mil­i­tary oper­a­tion as the Soviet peo­ple were show­ing their des­per­ate sub­lime hero­ism. It is believed that the same day, November 7^th 1941, was planned by Hitler as the day of the grand vic­tory march of Ger­man troops through the Red Square hav­ing con­quered Moscow, but it didn’t happen.

Prob­a­bly one of the most famous images of the Soviet power –tanks in the Red Square in 1941.

Stalin gave a truly inspi­ra­tion speech that day.

The tra­di­tion to com­mem­o­rate the day of Novem­ber 7^th was spread all over the coun­try. Any town — no mat­ter how big or small — would par­tic­i­pate. The atten­dance often was compulsory.

A parade in the small town of Lyvny, 1954.

Small town of Volzh­sky. 1978.

Small town of Usinsk. 1979.

By the end of 1970s the enthu­si­asm about this day started to cease. A great deal of years passed since the orig­i­nal Rev­o­lu­tion and peo­ple stopped feel­ing that excited about the Soviet state.  The cel­e­bra­tion march of the Work­ing Peo­ple was now enforced by fac­to­ries and other organ­i­sa­tions: it was no longer vol­un­tary.  This mil­i­tary parade was not as pop­u­lar any­more, the new gen­er­a­tion of the Sovi­ets was not inter­ested in  weaponry and the great world power of the Soviet Union. How­ever, from the out­side it still looked the same and it was almost impos­si­ble to reg­is­ter the tiny changes in the  mood.

Town of Ufa, circa 1980.

Town of Ufa, circa 1980.

1986. Town unknown, but could have taken place anywhere.

Small town of Volzh­sky. 1986.

Small town of Lyvny. 1988.

After the col­lapse of the Soviet Union the first Russ­ian pres­i­dent Boris Yeltsin offi­cially renamed the hol­i­day in 1994, giving it a com­pletely dif­fer­ent meaning. November 7^th became the Day of the Lib­er­a­tion of Moscow from the Pol­ish occu­pa­tion in the year 1612. The next year he came up with a new name and changed it to the Day of People’s Unity. Almost 10 years later, in the year 2004, Vladimir Putin changed the name again, bring­ing it back to the orig­i­nal roots: it became the Day of 1941 Mil­i­tary Parade on the Red Square in the city of Moscow in the mem­ory of the 24^th anniver­sary of the Great Octo­ber Social­ist Rev­o­lu­tion. It stopped being a day off, rather,  the Day of People’s Unity sprawled as a new hol­i­day, cel­e­brated nowa­days on Novem­ber the 4^th. Who knows what the future holds for this day now.

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Related posts:

1. The Patri­otic Edu­ca­tion in the USSR. Part One: the Octo­ber Kids.
2. A Trip Around the USSR: Leningrad 1972
3. We Wish You a Merry Christ­mas and Happy New Year!
4. May, 1^st: Soviet Labour Day.
5. Happy New Years!