Page 39 - Understanding NCERT Histroy 09th

3.2 The Revolution of October 1917
• Differences between the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks widened.
• On 16 October1917, Lenin convinced the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to
seize the power of the government.
Goyal Brothers Prakashan
• The Uprising began on 24 October. Kerensky left the city.
• Under Leon Trotskii, a Military Revolutionary Committee was appointed by the soviet
to seize the power of the government.
• By night, the city was under the control of the committee and the ministers surrendered
to the committee.
• The Bolshevik action was approved by the All Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd,
with full majority.
• The Bolsheviks captured the Moscow Petrograd area by December.

BOX - 2 (Page no. 38)
Date of the Russian Revolution
Russia followed the Julian calendar until 1 February 1918. The country then changed to the
Gregorian calendar, which is followed everywhere today. The Gregorian dates are 13 days ahead
of the Julian dates. So by our calendar, the ‘February’ Revolution took place on 12th March
and the ‘October’ Revolution took place on 7th November.

4. WHAT CHANGED AFTER OCTOBER?
l The Bolsheviks nationalised industry, banks, and land, opposing private property.

• Peasants seized nobles’ land as it was declared social property.
• The Bolsheviks enforced house partition and banned aristocratic titles.

• The Bolshevik Party became the Russian Communist Party.
• The Bolsheviks failed to gain majority support in the Constituent Assembly and dismissed
it.
• The Bolsheviks made peace with Germany and became the sole participating party in
the All Russian Congress of Soviets.
• Russia became a one-party state with controlled trade unions and a repressive secret
police, leading to disillusionment among artists and writers due to censorship.

BOX - 3 (Page no. 40)
The October Revolution and the Russian Countryside: Two Views
‘News of the revolutionary uprising of October 25, 1917, reached the village the following day
and was greeted with enthusiasm; to the peasants it meant free land and an end to the war.
...The day the news arrived, the landowner’s manor house was looted, his stock farms were
“requisitioned” and his vast orchard was cut down and sold to the peasants for wood; all his far
buildings were torn down and left in ruins while the land was distributed among the peasants
who were prepared to live the new Soviet life’.
From: Fedor Belov, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm
A member of a landowning family wrote to a relative about what happened at the estate:
‘The “coup” happened quite painlessly, quietly and peacefully. …The first days were unbearable.

H-32 History Class IX