30) The Capture of the Winter Palace

"The Bolsheviks could reduce the struggle for power at the last moment to a ‘conspiracy’, not because they were a small minority, but for the opposite reason – because they had behind them in the workers’ districts and the barracks an overwhelming majority, consolidated, organised, disciplined"

Junkers guarding the Winter Palace

The plan comes unstuck

The original plan for the insurrection was for the Winter Palace to be seized on the morning of the 25th of October, at the same time as the other main strategic objectives were secured. However, while the rest of the city had fallen under the control of the MRC more easily than expected, late into the evening of the 25th, the Winter Palace remained untouched.

Part of the problem lay with the three principal leaders that had been left in charge of the assault, Podvoisky, Antonov and Chudnovsky. All three were devoted and selfless revolutionaries, and probably as able military leaders as any that the MRC could have appointed. However, they simply did not possess the skills necessary to compile and execute a suitable plan of action.

Podvoisky, who had been too impetuous in July, had now grown cautious and sought to drag in as many forces as possible to complete a job that could have been completed far more simply. Antonov’s strength was improvisation rather than careful calculation, and the impulsive Chudnovsky, who had arrived with Trotsky from Canada, was an excellent agitator but had no real military training.

The Winter Palace in 2012

Fearing their own strategic limitations might endanger the action, the three had concluded on a plan that involved throwing such a superiority of forces at the palace that nothing could go wrong – or so they thought. The whole area around the palace was to be encircled by revolutionary forces – or, to be more precise, surrounded by an oval with its longest axis along the embankment of the Neva. On the other side of the river, the encirclement would be completed by the Peter and Paul fortress, the Aurora, and other ships summoned from the Baltic fleet and Kronstadt. Behind this ring, to counter any attack from the rear, further armed detachments would be positioned.

“The plan as a whole was too heavy and complicated for the problem it aimed to solve. The time allotted for preparation proved inadequate. Small incoordin-ations and omissions came to light at every step, as might be expected. To call out the military units, unite them with the Red Guards, occupy the fighting positions, make sure of communications among them all and with headquarters – all this demanded a good many hours more than had been imagined” (143).

As everything else had been going so smoothly, the MRC had not at first really taken on board the extent of the problem. However, at midday, by when Podvoisky had first promised the operation would be completed, it was clear that the forces were still not in place and that the soldiers and sailors from Kronstadt were still to arrive. Five thousand were now on their way aboard navy ships but they had been sent their summons too late to maintain the plan.

Under pressure from the MRC, a new deadline for seizure was set for 3 pm, which Trotsky took as a sufficient guarantee to make his announcement to the Soviet that afternoon. But this deadline, and then another set for 6 pm, came and went without the action being started. By now Podvoisky and Antonov were too flustered to agree to any kind of timescale – things were clearly not going to plan.

“That caused serious anxiety. Politically it was considered necessary that at the moment of the opening of the Congress the whole capital should be in the hands of the MRC: That was to simplify the task of dealing with the opposition at the Congress, placing them before an accomplished fact. Meanwhile the hour appointed for opening the Congress had arrived, had been postponed, and arrived again, and the Winter Palace was still holding out. Thus the siege of the palace, thanks to its delay, became for no less than twelve hours the central problem of the insurrection” (144).

Inside the Winter Palace

While the attackers had the forces but lacked the military know-how to marshal them swiftly, the defenders of the palace had experienced commanders but next to no forces to deploy.

Earlier that morning, the district commander Polkovnikov had already more or less given up his post. He had been replaced by General Bagratuni who, alongside General Alexeiev at headquarters, had attempted to gather up what forces they could - largely composed of junkers. 

The Malachite Room where the Ministers assembled

Meanwhile, most of the Ministers had now successfully managed to assemble at the Winter Palace where they chose one of their own, the hated Kadet Kishkin, to lead its defence. Although its phones had been cut, the Winter Palace still had a direct wire – via the War Ministry – to headquarters. They in turn found enough ‘phone links in operation to attempt to call up reinforcements.

As one of the SR leaders who assisted with these efforts later recalled: “You would learn … of the readiness of this or that regiment to come to the defence of the government, but as soon as you called the barracks directly on the telephone, one unit after another would flatly refuse” (145). As Trotsky points out: “The fact of the matter is that no lightning-like changes in the garrison took place, but the remaining illusions of the governmental parties did crumble to the ground with lightning speed” (146).

Each side sought the help of armoured cars, but across the city they were by now either ‘Bolshevik’ or ‘neutral’, simply withdrawing from the battle. Of the six armoured cars in the Winter Palace, only one remained, and that to guard property, rather than the government.

By midday, the defenders found the vast square in front of the palace still empty. “The government has nobody to fill it with. The troops of the Committee do not occupy it, because they are absorbed in carrying out their too complicated plan. Military units, workers’ detachments, armoured cars, are still assembling for this wide encirclement” (147).

Palace Square

But this prolonged preparation, instead of mounting a bold attack, had allowed the government to strengthen its meagre defences. Junkers from various schools now took up position in the palace courtyard, where logs had been set in defensive piles, as at Smolny. Others took up firing positions on the first floor, clearing Palace Square with their gunfire. These signs of potentially strong defence had persuaded Antonov and Podvoisky to postpone their attack until the Kronstadters arrived.

In the afternoon, two squadrons and a machine-gun crew from the Cossack Uralsky regiment had arrived at the Palace, along with forty war-wounded ‘Knights of St. George’ and a shock company of the Women’s Battalion. The defenders now numbered perhaps two thousand at most, not a great force by any means, but one that was now going to be far more difficult for the attackers to remove.

The sailors arrive

Later in the afternoon, the ships from Kronstadt finally arrived on the Neva and the sailors quickly disembarked. Spirits were further raised when five ships from the Baltic fleet arrived soon after. They steamed up and down, patrolling the river. Now finally, shortly after six, the Winter Palace was solidly surrounded by the forces of the MRC. There was no more chance of further troops coming to the government’s aid.

Armoured cars began to make forays into Palace Square further raising the confidence of the attackers. Now secure from any sorties by junkers from the palace, a detachment of Red Guards, sailors and soldiers occupied military headquarters, situated nearby, again encountering no resistance.

Inside the palace, the ministers now felt even more isolated. They had received an ultimatum signed by Antonov threatening that the guns of the Peter and Paul fortress and the warships would open fire unless the defenders surrendered the palace forthwith. General Bagratuni chose this moment to resign his post and, having been asked by Kishkin to leave the palace, was promptly arrested by the Baltic sailors.

However, neither the guns of the fortress, nor the Aurora, opened fire. The attackers still hoped the siege could be ended without a battle. But, as junkers and attackers began to exchange sporadic machine-gun and rifle fire, the first few individual casualties occurred.

In the palace dining-room, undermining what patriotic sense of duty still stirred within the defending troops, their officers were sinking bottle after bottle of the palace’s fine wines. Their drunken antics may have been the last straw for some of the junkers from the artillery school who now abandoned the palace, taking four of their six guns with them.

Meanwhile, despite General Alexeiev’s attempts to get further Cossacks to reinforce the palace, the Uralsky regiment instead decided to send a delegation to call its two squadrons back to barracks. Their younger members had never been that keen on going to the government’s aid, the reactionary elders had also now had enough of defending the palace alongside women and Jewish junkers. At nine o’clock the besiegers allowed the Uralsky to withdraw through a side exit which, until then, had been unknown to the defending troops.

Bolshevik agitators had already been using this entrance to infiltrate the palace. They sought to demoralise the junkers while promising them free passage out of the palace if they chose to abandon their posts. Chudnovsky himself managed to get inside and returned with a handful of surrendering junkers and Knights of St. George.

The Women’s Battalion then announced their intention to make a sortie of their own to take on the besiegers. But, as they went out, the electric lights on the gate suddenly lit up their position. Sailors had occupied the electricity station and were controlling the light. Most of the women soon surrendered. After this failure, a lull descended on the palace between ten and eleven o’clock. 

The flagpole on the fortress walls

Seizing the palace at last

This lull was also down to the fact that the attackers were having difficulty carrying out their threat to fire their artillery at the palace. The first hiccough had come over the failure to find a red lantern to hang on the flagpole of the Peter and Paul fortress! This had been the signal arranged between Antonov and Blagonravov for the Aurora to start firing – with blanks at first and then, if required, live shells. 

Then it transpired that the unreliable artillery campaign within the fortress was dragging its feet, claiming its guns were rusty and lacking oil. Finally, Lashevich managed to send two sailor gunners to the fortress, inexperienced but Bolshevik. They fired a signal shot and the Aurora opened up with a loud and bright blank shell.

The Aurora on display in 2012

After yet another delay to see if the palace would surrender, further shots were fired – thirty-five or so over the next two hours or so. But all bar two of them fell wide of the mark. Perhaps Lashevich’s men were also deliberately aiming high to avoid destruction in the hope that a peaceful outcome could still be secured.

But the next explosions that were heard came from inside the palace. Sailors had managed to get into the palace and had let off two hand-grenades before being arrested. They are not alone: “Uninvited guests now begin to appear no longer one by one, but in groups. The palace is getting more and more like a sieve. The number of captives grows. New groups break in. It is no longer quite clear who is surrendering to whom, who is disarming whom. The artillery continues to boom” (148).

Smolny was getting impatient. The delay was putting at risk the whole plan to have a clear victory to put before the Congress of Soviets. Podvoisky reported that plenty of men were willing to mount a direct assault but how many casualties might that lead to? It was decided to order the Aurora to open fire. But, before it was carried out, news came that the palace had already been taken!

In the end, the palace did not surrender, it was taken by storm by workers, sailors and soldiers themselves. Hundreds first broke through the main door – rather than the secret entrance. They had been mistaken for a deputation that the besieged had been told was on its way from the reactionary city duma. This band of a few hundred deputies and Compromisist leaders had indeed set out along the Nevsky before being turned back by a patrol of armed sailors.

With the junkers’ defence weakened, waves of revolutionary forces had poured through the square into the courtyard, and from there into the palace, pushing the remaining junkers back. The attackers flooded through the stairways and corridors, reaching the last guarded door behind which the ministers awaited their fate.

The room where the arrests took place

At 2.10 am, Antonov led a crowd into the room and announced the arrest of the members of the Provisional Government in the name of the MRC, with the joy of victory gleaming in his eyes. The eighteen arrested ministers were led away into the square and on to the Peter and Paul fortress. The angry crowd outside, where deaths and injuries had been suffered, yelled abuse at the prisoners. Red Guards surrounded them for their own protection as they made their way over Troitsky Bridge.


The junkers and officers that had been defending the palace were released on the condition that they gave assurances not to organise action against soviet rule. This again proved to be wishful thinking on behalf of the new power.

Attempts at looting had been made, as John Reed’s account of the revolution explains. However, as this invaluable eye-witness also describes, this was quickly stopped by the Red Guards: “Everyone going out was searched, and every object stolen was taken back and listed. In this way they recovered little statues, bottles of ink, daggers, cakes of soap, ostrich feathers. The junkers were also subjected to a careful search, and their pockets turned out to be full of stolen bric-a-brac. The junkers were abused and threatened by the soldiers, but that was as far as it went” (149).

So now, in the early hours of October 26th (actually November 8th in the international calendar) the MRC was finally in full possession of the capital.

“The military authorities of the governmental camp in Petrograd gave a very flattering judgement of the military leadership of the revolution. ‘The insurrectionaries are preserving order and discipline. There have been no cases at all of destruction or pogroms. On the contrary, patrols of insurrectionists have detained strolling soldiers. The plan of the insurrection was undoubtedly worked out in advance and carried through inflexibly and harmoniously’ ” (150). They certainly had a thorough plan, even if not carried out quite as smoothly as the enemy imagined. But, as Trotsky concludes: “Even in the court of the most austere critic success is the best praise” (151).

The role of the insurrection

“The October revolution was a struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie for power, but the outcome of the struggle was decided in the last analysis by the muzhik. The party led the uprising; the principal motive force was the proletariat; the armed detachments of workers were the first of the insurrection; but the heavy-weight peasant garrison decided the outcome of the struggle” (152).

The Red Guards had been able to swiftly occupy the government institutions because they were confident that the garrison would not stand in their way. Unlike February, when it had taken the fraternisation of workers and soldiers during the general strike and street encounters over several days to test out the mood of the troops, in October no general strike was required – the Bolsheviks already knew that they were masters of the garrison. The insurrection completed the final task of using these forces to remove the state apparatus from the government.

“The government of Kerensky, having irrevocably lost the soul of the soldier, still clung to the commanding summits. In its hands the headquarters, the banks, the telephone, were only the façade of power. When they should come into the hands of the soviets, they would guarantee the conquest of complete power” (153).

Memorial Plaque

These final operations only required limited forces – Trotsky estimates twenty-five to thirty thousand at most – and even then the military bases and state institutions fell with hardly any resistance. “To be sure, the thing was not after all settled without fighting. The Winter Palace had to be taken by storm. But the very fact that the resistance of the government came down to a defence of the Winter Palace, clearly defines the place occupied by October 25th in the whole course of the struggle. The Winter Palace was the last redoubt of a régime politically shattered during its eight months’ existence, and conclusively disarmed during the preceding two weeks” (154).

“The tranquillity of the October streets, the absence of crowds and battles, gave the enemy a pretext to talk of the conspiracy of an insignificant minority, of the adventure of a handful of Bolsheviks. But in reality the Bolsheviks could reduce the struggle for power at the last moment to a ‘conspiracy’, not because they were a small minority, but for the opposite reason – because they had behind them in the workers’ districts and the barracks an overwhelming majority, consolidated, organised, disciplined” (155).

Trotsky adds that in Moscow too, the balance of forces was decisively in favour of the revolution, so much so that Lenin had suggested starting the insurrection there. Rather than a conflict over the garrison as in Petrograd, the preceding weeks in Moscow had been dominated by a wave of strikes. On October 23rd the city soviet declared that only the shop committees could decide on ‘hiring-and-firing’, not the employers or government – meaning the soviet was effectively starting to act as the state power.

However, if a decisive leadership had sometimes been lacking in Petrograd, things were far worse in Moscow: “It was in Moscow that the insurrection took the form of extended battles lasting with intervals for eight days. ‘In this hot work’, writes Muralov, one of the chief leaders of the Moscow Insurrection, ‘we were not always and in everything firm and determined. Having an overwhelming numerical advantage, ten to one, we dragged the fight out for a whole week …’ ” (156).

The weaknesses were again partly in military technique, but largely political. The Bolshevik leaders in Moscow had stayed too close to the Compromisers. But this was a reflection of the lack of experience of struggle among Moscow’s working-class. They had not taken part in the February overthrow and the city had remained peaceful enough in July. Moscow’s previous calm now contributed to a more protracted battle in October.