October

CHAPTER 4 · OCTOBER 1917–JANUARY 1918 · The Russian Revolution, 1905–1924

The October Revolution was less a storming than a takeover — insurrection as choreography. Trotsky, chairing the Petrograd Soviet, created a Military Revolutionary Committee that quietly won the loyalty of the garrison, then on the night of 24–25 October occupied the pressure-points of a modern capital: the bridges, the telephone exchange, the telegraph, the railway stations, the power stations, the state bank. By morning the city had changed hands and most of it had not noticed. The Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional Government, held out until the small hours with a garrison of cadets and

The turn: The Winter Palace, night of 25 October/7 November 1917.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.