The Bolsheviks Seize Power in Petrograd

In the early hours of 26 October 1917 under the Julian calendar, armed Bolshevik detachments completed their takeover of the Winter Palace in Petrograd, where most ministers of the Russian Provisional Government had been waiting. The insurrection was coordinated through the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, which the Bolsheviks had turned into their operational headquarters. The uprising displaced the administration led by Alexander Kerensky, which had struggled through months of mounting social collapse, wartime disasters, and public resentment after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II earlier that year.

The Provisional Government had steadily lost authority throughout mid-1917, particularly after the armed demonstrations in Petrograd known as the July Days. Economic breakdown intensified across the country, as factories cut back or shut down, food and fuel distribution collapsed, and peasant land seizures went unpunished. The abortive advance on the capital ordered by General Lavr Kornilov in late August further discredited the Provisional Government, allowing the Bolsheviks to rebuild their standing and secure majorities in key urban councils.