The cruiser Aurora fires a salvo at the Winter Palace. The cruiser "Aurora" is a ship famous for its one shot

In the summer of 1967, the whole country was preparing to widely celebrate a milestone in the history of Russia - the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution. The Hermitage was also preparing for this date. Groups of guides were formed who were supposed to guide distinguished guests from abroad, whose arrival in the cradle city October Revolution waited with great excitement.

Unexpectedly, the Hermitage received a letter from M.A. Suslov (1902-1982), at that time a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, responsible for ideology (later he was called the “gray cardinal”), who had enormous political power. In this letter, he proposes to collect objective data about the details of the storming of the Winter Palace on October Night, which he will need during meetings in the Kremlin with delegations of fraternal communist parties.

Naturally, an operational headquarters was created in the Hermitage, headed by assistant director and party bureau secretary N.N. Leman. About this interesting person a few words should be said. Coming from Moscow Germans, he lived a difficult life with ups and downs. While still a very young man, under 20 years old, he commanded a large military unit The Red Army defended Red Peter on the front of the fight against Yudenich's troops. Then he studied at a military school in Leningrad, taught social sciences at military academies in a position that corresponds to a modern major general (I write this from his words - B.S.). Then, in the “M. Tukhachevsky case,” he found himself in very remote places, where he stayed for many years working as a carpenter. During the Khrushchev Thaw he was rehabilitated, returned to Leningrad and worked at the Hermitage as an assistant director, secretary of the party bureau, and head of the publishing house. For some reason he treated me well, I often came into his office, and he talked about Petrograd in the early 20s. I was then young, full of energy, a candidate of historical sciences. N.N. attracted me to work on preparing a response to M.A. Suslov.

After careful checks and double checks, a general pattern of events that night gradually began to emerge. Let's start with the general disposition.

In those days, in the buildings of the old and new Hermitages there was a military hospital, fenced off from the premises of the Winter Palace by blocked passages. The Winter Palace housed the Provisional Government, whose meetings were held in the Malachite Hall. In front of the façade on Palace Square there were stacks of firewood, which were used to heat the entire complex of buildings. The residence of the Provisional Government was guarded by a small armed force. They consisted of: A) a battery of three-inch field guns, standing between stacks of firewood. B) Shock women's battalion M.L. Bochkareva. At least that's what Soviet historians claimed. IN lately It turned out that this common statement is not entirely accurate. M. Bochkareva herself did not take part in the defense of the palace, and the shock workers, whom V. Mayakovsky called, apparently, from the words of the participants in the events, “women's fools,” were formally not from M. Bochkarova’s battalion, but from part of those who broke away from it. No one could say exactly how many there were, probably about a company. That is, no more than 100 people. And, finally, a certain number of cadets, also about a hundred people. In total, two or three hundred people, a third of whom were “shock soldiers”, were not distinguished by high combat effectiveness.

According to the late employee of the State Hermitage, Doctor of Historical Sciences. B.A. Latynina, on the afternoon of October 25 in the Zimny ​​district it was relatively calm. He was walking around the square and did not expect that it would take place late in the evening.” turning point history of mankind”, as we taught in schools and universities.

By evening, military units (sailors from Baltic ships) and armed workers' squads began to converge on the palace. The supply came from three sides. The revolutionary sailors, who arrived on light ships from Kronstadt, landed near the monument to Peter I. From there they moved along the Embankment of England past the Admiralty to the Winter Palace. The active participation of the sailors is easy to explain. The government of A.F. Kerensky planned, fulfilling the demands of the Entente, to remove crews from warships stationed in the roadstead, and, as Marine Corps throw into battle against the Kaiser's troops. This prospect clearly did not suit them.

At that time, the garden in front of the Winter Palace was surrounded by a high fence consisting of a stone fence with a forged patterned lattice on it. It could serve as reliable protection for detachments of sailors passing along the Neva to the main entrance of the Palace.

Columns of armed workers from the Vyborg side lingered for some time in front of the Liteiny Bridge, which was raised, but then, when the bridge was closed, they moved towards Millionnaya Street to the New Hermitage. There they met an outpost from among those defending the Palace, and entered into peace negotiations with him, trying to persuade him to surrender. But the negotiations did not lead to anything, and by the evening this group (crowd) entered the halls of the New Hermitage through the Terebenevsky portico. They did not get into the Winter Palace, since the passages were blocked, and their wounded lay in the halls.

Finally, the main crowd or the third column, formed from the working outskirts, along the left bank of the Neva, passing Nevsky Prospekt, emerged from under the arch of the General Staff Building and approached the stacks of firewood in front of the grille of the closed main entrance to the Winter Palace courtyard. By this time, the battery had withdrawn from the firing position, and the Main Gate was not guarded by anyone. One of the besiegers climbed over the gate and opened it. This scene is well known from the movie “Lenin in October”. Crowds poured into the courtyard through the open gates. It is quite obvious that if the battery had remained in the firing position and fired several volleys of grapeshot into the open area, then no one would have reached the gate. Through the internal entrance, near the parade ground, where the guard was being deployed, the crowds entered the Kutuzov Gallery.

As the participants in the assault recalled, in their columns (or rather in their crowd) there were soldiers of the Guards regiments. This news surprised us very much at first. How could it be that the guardsmen, together with the officers, stormed the residence? state power? The answer was found quite quickly. The Guard swore allegiance to the emperor, and for it the Provisional Government was self-proclaimed and not legitimate. The guards officers understood that if they were not with the soldiers, they would lose contact with the mass of soldiers, and would not be able to preserve the guard for future battles for the return of the emperor.

The third wave of those who stormed the palace—sailors from Baltic ships—approached the Main Entrance, but it was closed. They knocked down the door with grenades and entered the main entrance through the windows of the first floor.

What did informants remember about the Aurora shot? This question turned out to be very complex and not completely clear. Most likely, it was, but combat or idle, and in what direction - no one could determine this. The Nikolaevsky Bridge was closed, and the Aurora stood at the English Embankment, where a memorial sign now stands. From this position it was impossible to fire a live shell at Zimny, since the route would run along the facades of buildings on the left bank of the Neva.

I once read a speech by some author that a cannon fired to count time. I asked the Aurora Museum how likely this was. My question aroused surprise, since in the navy the countdown of time - “flasks” was always marked by striking a bell. Shooting from a heavy bow gun is pointless. Let us note that during the years of the beginning of “perestroika” a piquant detail emerged - the Aurora was parked in steam, in case the coup failed, as in the summer of 17, its organizers had to sail abroad on it. How reliable this is is unknown. Our informants did not report this plan. Perhaps because it was not allowed to talk about it then.

While sorting through the photo archives of the Museum of the Revolution, which were in the State Hermitage after the Second World War, I found documents confirming that two shots were fired at the Winter Palace, but not from the Aurora, but from the forts of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Those photographs showed the windows of the third floor from the Neva side. They clearly showed holes near the window openings. The nature of the holes indicated that the shells were sent across the Neva from the forts of Petropavlovka. And again the question is - none of the informants reported about those gun shots.

From the point of view of a front-line soldier (and I am a WWII veteran), the Winter Palace is a powerful fortress, which is not so easy to take by storm if the besieged have a decision to actively defend themselves. It would have been enough to place several dozen machine guns in the windows, and all those running to attack across open areas would have been shot and driven back.

It is necessary to take into account the general situation that prevailed in Petrograd at that time. The city's garrison consisted of 120,000 people. It consisted mainly of recruits - peasants, since the personnel contingents Russian army died in the battles of World War 1. A guards regiments died in tragic battles near Augustovo in East Prussia in the fall of 1914. The soldiers of the capital's garrison knew that the Provisional Government of A.F. Kerensky planned to transfer them to the front to complete the defeat of Germany. But they also understood very well that the Kaiser’s army was still combat-ready, and many of them would not live to see the end of the war. And the Bolsheviks, V.I. Ulyanov - Lenin, promised peace.

Meanwhile, the forces of the besieged were melting away without a fight. The artillery battery's guns were the first to leave their positions near the firewood barricades, so that the façade of the palace from the square was unprotected.

Then the “ladies” of the women’s shock battalion began to dissolve. Let us note that in Soviet literature the presence of M. Bochkareva among them was constantly noted. But as already noted, it has now been established that she was not there.

Before the rebels began to penetrate the palace, about a hundred cadets and persons loyal to the Provisional Government remained in it. This was clearly not enough to defend a huge building. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, once they entered the interior of the palace, the stormers met no resistance. There was no fighting inside the building. This information was confirmed by photographs of the interiors, then preserved in the Hermitage collections. One more circumstance should be noted. All informants emphasized that none of them knew the layout of the Palace, and they did not know where to run, where the Provisional Government was located. Chaotic running around the halls and corridors of the huge building began. In the end, someone reached the small dining room, where the Provisional Government moved from the Malachite Hall, which had become dangerous due to shooting from the Neva. Previously, a communications center was located in this dining room.

In this hall the Provisional Government was arrested. This is recalled by the inscription placed on the marble plaque above the fireplace, and the clock hand, which stopped at 2 hours 10 minutes at night from November 7 to 8 (October 25 - 26, 1917), recorded the date of the arrest of the Provisional Government.

Visitors often asked and still ask: “Were there any acts of vandalism and theft of valuables during the seizure of the Winter Palace?” We usually answer this question unequivocally. During the assault (which in fact did not take place), no acts of vandalism or robbery were recorded. This is proven by inventory records and photographs of the hall interiors. This indisputable fact can be explained by two reasons. Firstly, the reverence of the royal residence affected. And, secondly, by the fact that during World War I, many exhibits of the museum, the Hermitage and palace premises were evacuated to Moscow. In the movie “Lenin in October” there was such a shot, well known to people of the older generation - one of the Red Guards sat down on royal throne. This is another mistake - in 1917, the royal throne was in the basements of the Kremlin.

There were acts of desecration of portraits of the royal family and emperors placed on the walls of the palace. They were pierced with bayonets. These gaps persisted for a very long time. Now they have been plastered over and restored and are exhibited in the Petrovskaya Gallery of the Winter Palace.

And finally, the last thing. M.A. Suslov demanded to find out the number of victims of the assault. This turned out to be an extremely difficult task. But, in the end, we found a report sent to Smolny about the storming of the Winter Palace. It was noted there that there were only a few people killed. Based on this information, M.A. Suslov, during receptions of foreign delegations in the Kremlin, had reason to assert that the October coup (revolution) was the most bloodless of all such acts in the history of Europe. A civil war, which claimed millions of lives, was organized by W. Churchill..

N.N. Leman said that M.A. Suslov was pleased with our answer, the text of which I, of course, did not read.

Today, many years later, one might think that not all the details of those distant events have been reconstructed accurately enough. But their general scheme apparently corresponds to reality.

This is all that remains in my memory of that work under the leadership of N.N. Leman.

Chief Researcher of the State Hermitage Museum
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor
B.V.Sapunov

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For the first time, Petrograd newspapers wrote that the cruiser Aurora had fired at the Winter Palace from a six-inch gun the very next day after the coup. The ship's crew, however, gave a refutation through the Pravda newspaper, claiming that there was only one shot, and a blank one at that. Who is right?

It MUST be said that the version of the shelling is confirmed by some eyewitnesses. American journalist John Reed wrote about two shells from the Aurora that hit the Winter Palace. Daughter English Ambassador Muriel Buchanan - about “two or three shells arriving from the direction of the Neva.” But perhaps it is her testimony that indicates Aurora’s innocence.

It is known for certain that on the night of October 25, 1917, the cruiser stood near the Nikolaevsky (later Shmidtovsky) bridge on the Neva. In order to somehow hit the Winter Palace with a live shell, the Aurora’s artillerymen would have to shoot under incredibly acute angle. In addition, the pediment of the Admiralty and the Palace Bridge, erected due to the unrest in the city, would have prevented them from aiming.

Where did the fire on the Winter Palace come from? Firstly, from the Peter and Paul Fortress. In front of its western end, the Bolsheviks managed to deploy several three-inch guns and fire, according to various sources, from 3 to 30 shots. It was their fire that the daughter of the English ambassador mistook for shots from the Aurora. Another cannon of the same caliber was located under the arch of the General Staff.

The dramatic events of the night from October 25 to 26, 1917 are shrouded in a huge number of myths, many films have been made about them feature films, books have been written. But almost a hundred years later, the smoke from the Aurora’s blank shot has not cleared...

Winter. "I was surrounded on all sides..."

A gloomy morning on October 25, 1917. The Winter Palace, virtually cut off from the city, is deprived of communication with the outside world; it is defended by three hundred Cossacks of the Pyatigorsk regiment, half a company of a women's battalion and a cadet. All around is a drunkenly merry Petrograd crowd. Armed Red Guards are walking along the nearby streets, so far quite harmlessly.

Everything changed in an instant.

From the memoirs of Alexander Zinoviev, Chief Manager of the Northwestern Branch of the Red Cross:

“As always, in the morning I went to my Red Cross Office. Where I had to pass, everything was still calm and nothing special was noticeable. But at about 11 o’clock in the morning, on Liteinaya opposite the windows of our Office, suddenly, somehow unexpectedly, workers armed with guns appeared, mixed with sailors. A firefight began - they fired in the direction of Nevsky Prospekt, but the enemy was not visible... They began to bring the wounded and dead to the outpatient clinic, located right there in the building of our Administration... Shooting. this lasted for two hours, and then everything calmed down, the shooting workers and sailors disappeared somewhere... But soon information began to be received that the uprising was successful everywhere, telephone exchange, water supply, stations railways and other important points of the city were already in the hands of the Bolsheviks and the entire St. Petersburg garrison joined them...

The Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies sat quietly and below the grass. The Ministers of the Provisional Government locked themselves in the Winter Palace, where most of them lived. The palace was defended only by cadets, that is, students of military schools that trained officers, and a women's battalion recently formed by Kerensky. The palace was surrounded on all sides by Bolsheviks, soldiers and sailors...

When in the evening, around 6 o’clock, I was walking home, in the part of the city through which I had to pass, everything was quiet and calm, the streets were empty, there was no traffic, I didn’t even meet pedestrians... The house in which We lived, it was very close to the Winter Palace - about five minutes walk, no more. In the evening, after dinner, lively shooting began near the Winter Palace, at first only rifle fire, then it was joined by the crackling of machine guns."

Hospital. “And also patients with “spines”

Prime Minister of the Provisional Government Alexander Kerensky urgently left for Gatchina, hoping to bring troops loyal to the Provisional Government to the capital. He by no means fled from Zimny, according to the post-revolutionary legend, which was later entrenched in school textbooks. And subsequently, having learned about this “interpretation,” I was very worried:

“Tell them in Moscow - you have serious people: tell them to stop writing this nonsense about me, that I ran away from the Winter Palace in a woman’s dress!.. I left in my car, not hiding from anyone. The soldiers saluted, including those with red bows. I never put on women’s clothes at all - even as a child, as a joke..." - in a conversation with journalist Genrikh Borovik (Publish an interview taken in 1966 in Paris, of course, did not succeed then, and Borovik told this story " Rossiyskaya newspaper"already in 2009).

Not subject to publication in Soviet era and documents that shed light on the appearance of picturesque details (Kerensky, as the official version stated, changed into the dress of a nurse). The fact is that the Winter Palace ceased to be a citadel since 1915 Russian monarchy- a hospital was opened here. As the Government Gazette reported, “in the Imperial Winter Palace, it is the highest permission to set aside the state halls facing the Neva for the wounded, namely: the Nicholas Hall with the Military Gallery, the Avan Hall, the Field Marshal’s Hall and the Armorial Hall - for a total of a thousand wounded.” The grand opening of the hospital took place on October 5, the name day of the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. By decision of the royal family, the hospital was named after him - to rid the heir of hemophilia.

The eight largest - and most magnificent - state halls on the 2nd floor were turned into chambers. The luxurious walls were covered with canvas, the floors were covered with linoleum.

“The patients were accommodated according to their wounds. In the Nicholas Hall, which accommodated 200 beds, lay those wounded in the head, throat and chest. And also very seriously ill patients - “spines” ... In the Armorial Hall there were patients with wounds in the abdominal cavity, thigh And hip joint... In the Alexander Hall there were sick people wounded in the shoulder and back,” recalled nurse Nina Galanina.

On the 1st floor there was a reception area, a pharmacy, a kitchen, bathrooms, doctor's offices. The hospital was equipped last word science and technology - the most advanced equipment, latest methods treatment.

Hundreds of fighters who shed blood for Russia on the fronts of the World War were also taken by surprise by the revolution.

Smolny. "Ilyich was ready to shoot us"

Meanwhile, in Smolny for the second day, from October 24, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was seething. Lenin, sitting in Margarita Fofanova’s safe house, “bombarded” his party comrades with notes about the need to immediately begin the assault. A certified lawyer, a graduate of St. Petersburg University, he could not help but realize that he was inciting a coup d'etat - after all, the Provisional Government could de jure transfer power only to the Constituent Assembly. But the thirst for power was stronger than the “prejudice” of the law.

Comrades! I am writing these lines on the evening of the 24th, the situation is extremely critical... We cannot wait!! You can lose everything!! The government is wavering. We must finish him off at all costs!"

Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Lenin heads to Smolny. Lunacharsky recalled: “Ilyich was ready to shoot us.” Lenin climbed to the podium, taking over the baton from Trotsky on the podium; he had already “warmed up” the delegates. The Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, representatives of other parties and even the moderate wing of the RSDLP(b) tried to insist on a peaceful and, no less important, legal resolution of the crisis. In vain...

A somewhat hysterical euphoria reigned in Smolny, and nervous confusion reigned in the dim and defenseless Zimny.

Winter. "The powerlessness and small number of defenders..."

A member of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission that investigated the affairs of former tsarist ministers (established after the February Revolution by order of the Provisional Government), Colonel Sergei Korenev, who was in the palace that night, recalled:

“The powerlessness and small number of our defenders - the cadets, to whom the authorities cannot even bother to give the necessary combat supplies, this is the obvious absence of a guiding will in the whole matter of defense, these sleepy generals and their hopes that if not a crook, then Kerensky will help out. And then there’s everything the same damned "Aurora", slyly winking at us with the muzzles of its cannons, which, although they will not fire, as our commanders assure us of this, still look very suspiciously right into our windows.

This picture is from the afternoon of October 25th. Around the same time, the American journalist John Reed, his wife and a friend entered the palace. The security did not let them through the gates because of their “IDs from Smolny” Your own garden from the side of the square, but they passed through the gate from the embankment without hindrance, presenting their American passports. We went up the stairs to the office of the minister-chairman, who, naturally, was not found. And we went to wander around the palace-hospital, looking at the paintings. “It was already quite late when we left the palace,” writes John Reed in the book “10 Days That Shook the World.”

And at about 23 o’clock (the “commanders” mentioned by Korenev were mistaken) “Aurora” finally fired. From gun No. 1, with a blank salvo, the echo of which echoed throughout the city. And this caused a real cannonade: the cannons of the Peter and Paul Fortress opened fire. And not with blank shells.

They shot at the hospital.

For the unarmed, defenseless, lying wounded in the halls and chambers of the Winter Palace. For the same workers and peasants, dressed in soldier's overcoats, in whose name the seizure of power was supposedly carried out.

"Aurora". Letter to the editors of Petrograd

The shadow of suspicion of the shameful shooting at the prone persons fell on the cruiser, which prompted its crew to send a very emotional letter to all Petrograd newspapers on October 27:

"To all honest citizens of the city of Petrograd from the crew of the cruiser "Aurora", which expresses its sharp protest about the accusations thrown, especially the accusations that have not been verified, but cast a stain of shame on the crew of the cruiser. We declare that we did not come to destroy the Winter Palace, not to kill civilians, but to protect and, if necessary, die for freedom and the Revolution from counter-revolutionaries.

The press writes that the Aurora opened fire on the Winter Palace, but do the reporters know that if we opened fire from the cannons, it would not have left a stone unturned not only in the Winter Palace, but also in the streets adjacent to it. Is this really true? Isn’t this a lie, the usual method of the bourgeois press to throw mud and plot against the working proletariat based on the facts of events? We, the workers and soldiers of the city of Petrograd, are addressing you. Don't believe provocative rumors. Don’t believe them that we are traitors and rioters, but check the rumors yourself. As for the shots from the cruiser, only one blank shot was fired from a 6-inch gun, indicating a signal for all ships standing on the Neva and calling on them to be vigilant and ready.

We ask all editors to reprint.
Chairman of the Ship Committee
A. BELYSHEV.
Comrade Chairman P. ANDREEV."

Most of the shells flying from the Peter and Paul Fortress exploded on Dvortsovaya Embankment, and shrapnel shattered several windows in Zimny. Two shells fired from the Peter and Paul Fortress hit the former reception room of Alexander III.

Why did the attackers fire howitzers at a virtually unarmed, almost unguarded palace? After all, even before the expiration of the ultimatum presented by the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) to the Provisional Government, the Cossacks and shock workers of the women’s battalion left the Winter Palace with white banners in their hands. There was no point in firing cannons at several dozen cadet boys. Most likely it was a psychic attack...

Well, Petrograd seemed not to notice the fatal events that took place that night.

Winter. The cadets were released on parole

“... On the streets everything is everyday and ordinary: the crowd on Nevsky is familiar to the eye, crowded tram cars are always running, shops are selling, no concentration of troops or armed detachments in general is found anywhere... Only already at the palace itself an unusual movement is noticeable: on Palace Square, government troops are moving from place to place, compared to yesterday.

The Winter Palace from the outside has already taken on a more militant appearance: all its exits and passages leading to the Neva are surrounded by cadets. They sit at the gates and doors of the palace, shouting, laughing, running races along the sidewalk,” an eyewitness recorded.

The defenders of the palace did not really know its logistics: as it turned out, having entered the Winter Palace from the Neva embankment, they could not find their way either to the offices of the Provisional Government or to the exits from Palace Square. In this sense, both the defenders of the palace and the stormers were in approximately the same position. The countless corridors of the palace and the passages from it to the Hermitage were not guarded by anyone for the same reason - none of the military simply knew their location and did not have a plan of the building at hand.

Taking advantage of this, Bolshevik activists freely entered the palace from the Winter Canal. There were more and more of them, but the defenders still could not detect the “leak”.

That’s how, having climbed the narrow small staircase leading to Her Majesty’s personal chambers, having wandered along the corridors of the palace, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko’s detachment at the beginning of the third morning on October 26th ended up in the dim Malachite Hall. Hearing voices in the next room, Antonov-Ovseenko opened the door to the Small Dining Room. The rest of the "emissaries" of the Military Revolutionary Committee followed.

At a small table sat the ministers of the Provisional Government, who had moved here from the Malachite Hall: the windows there overlooked the Neva, and the risk of continued shelling from the Peter and Paul Fortress remained. After a second pause - both sides were shocked by such a simple and quick outcome - Antonov-Ovseenko said from the threshold: “In the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee, I declare you under arrest.”

The ministers were arrested and taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the officers and cadets were released "on parole." And Antonov-Ovseenko returned to Smolny, where the news of the “overthrow and arrest of the Provisional Government” was greeted with applause and singing of the “Internationale”. (Twenty years later, in 1937, Antonov-Evseenko would be arrested as an “enemy of the people” and shot for “counter-revolutionary activities”; the power that arose in lawlessness mercilessly dealt with those who gave birth to it).

Hospital. "The older sister was under arrest..."

While the “Internationale” was being sung in Smolny, revolutionary detachments burst into the halls of the Winter Palace, filled with seriously wounded. Brigades of Red Army soldiers and armed workers, as the documents show, “began to tear off the bandages from the wounded who had facial wounds: these chambers were located in the hall closest to the government apartments” - they were looking for ministers “disguised as wounded.” This is how nurse Nina Galanina, who was on duty on October 26 in the infirmary of the Winter Palace, recalled this:

“As soon as the morning of 26/X arrived, I... hurried to the city. First of all, I wanted to get to the hospital of the Winter Palace... Getting there was not so easy: from the Palace Bridge to the Jordan entrance there was a triple chain of Red Guards and sailors with rifles They guarded the palace and did not let anyone in. Having explained where I was going, I passed relatively easily. When I passed the second one, a sailor shouted angrily to my comrades: “What are you looking at, you don’t know.” that Kerensky is dressed as a sister?" They demanded documents. I showed my ID... with the seal of the Winter Palace Hospital. This helped - they let me through... I entered, as had happened hundreds of times before, into the Jordan entrance. The usual doorman was not there. There was a sailor at the entrance with the inscription “Dawn of Freedom” on his cap. He allowed me to enter.

The first thing that caught my eye and amazed me was the huge amount of weapons. The entire gallery from the lobby to the Main Staircase was littered with it and looked like an arsenal. Armed sailors and Red Guards walked around all the premises. In the hospital, where there was always such exemplary order and silence; where it was known in which place which chair should stand - everything was turned upside down, everything was upside down. And everywhere there are armed people. Older sister was under arrest: two sailors were guarding her... The wounded who were lying down were very frightened by the storming of the palace: they asked many times whether they would shoot again. If possible, I tried to calm them down... The next day, October 27, the wounded began to be sent to other hospitals in Petrograd. On October 28, 1917, the Winter Palace Hospital was closed."

Winter. "I was taken to the commandant of the palace..."

Alexander Zinoviev, Chief Manager of the Northwestern Branch of the Red Cross, received a call early in the morning of October 26 from the Red Cross Office on duty and said that the Winter Palace had been taken by the Bolsheviks, and the nurses who were in the palace had been arrested. He immediately went there.

“Rifles and empty cartridges were scattered everywhere, in the large entrance hall and on the stairs lay the bodies of killed soldiers and cadets, and here and there lay wounded people who had not yet been carried to the hospital.

I walked for a long time through the halls of the Winter Palace that were so familiar to me, trying to find the commander of the soldiers who had captured the palace. The Malachite Hall, where the Empress usually received those who introduced themselves to her, was covered like snow with torn pieces of paper. These were the remains of the archives of the Provisional Government, destroyed before the palace was captured.

In the infirmary I was told that the sisters of mercy were arrested for hiding and helping to hide the cadets defending the palace. This accusation was absolutely true. Many cadets, just before the end of the fight, rushed to the infirmary, asking the sisters of mercy to save them - apparently the sisters helped them hide, and thanks to this, many of them actually managed to escape.

After a long search, I managed to find out who was now the Commandant of the palace and I was taken to him... He was very decent and correct with me. I explained to him what was going on, said that there were about 100 wounded soldiers in the hospital, and that nurses were needed to care for them. He immediately ordered their release on my signature that they would not leave St. Petersburg until their trial. This was the end of the matter, there was never any trial of the sisters, and no one bothered them anymore, at that time the Bolsheviks had more serious concerns."

P.S. Everything happened so quickly and incredibly easily that few doubted: the Bolsheviks would be even more temporary than the Provisional Government...

On the night of October 25-26, 1917, old style, a military coup took place in St. Petersburg. It would later be called the Great October Socialist Revolution.

Usually we perceive the October revolution according to the film by Sergei Eisenstein: under machine-gun fire, crowds of stormers run across the square to the Winter Palace, here and there the dead and wounded fall... But in reality, everything was not like that - the success of the uprising lay in whose side turned out to be the Petrograd garrison and military units stationed in the city.

Coup not according to script

« Military history the armed October uprising has not yet been written. We know more about the Decembrist uprising than about the events that took place in 1917. About the Decembrists, we can say for sure that this or that regiment went along this route, but not about the October Uprising,” says Kirill Nazarenko, Doctor of Historical Sciences.

Imagine an absolutely dark Palace Square. Rare glimpses of light catch the bloody walls, creating a kind of sketch in crimson tones...

According to Nazarenko, outwardly at that time the center of St. Petersburg looked different, because the Admiralty, the Main Headquarters, and the Headquarters of the Guards Troops - everything was painted the color of ox's blood, dark red without a single white detail. Such a coloristic decision was made under Alexander II, in the 80s of the 19th century, which is why Palace Square for many years resembled in its appearance butcher shop.

Under the arch of the main headquarters of a group of Red Guards, on the right, from Millionnaya Street, detachments of the Pavlovsk Regiment are approaching, on the left, from the side of the Admiralty, sailors of the Baltic Fleet are accumulating. “When darkness thickened over the square, during the assault the palace did not stand out even with the white capitals of the columns; it was completely drowned in the darkness of the night,” explains the historian.

The palace square was blocked by a woodpile of firewood 2-3 meters high. The garden in front of the palace on the Admiralty side was surrounded by a high fence. In complete darkness, messengers ran between the detachments, because urgent means of communication, and even more so mobile phones Of course it wasn't. The city was in complete chaos.

Contrary to popular belief, at the Aurora’s signal there was no rush to storm the Winter Palace. Sergei Eisenstein, for whom it was important to convey the scale of the events taking place, like a great director, decided to simply depict a crowd scene - in fact, it was impossible to run through the square, because it was blocked by firewood.

“John Reed in his “10 Days That Shook the World” has such a scene when he and a group of rebels run out from under the arch of the General Staff Building, and the darkness was such that they simply stumbled upon the woodpile of firewood that surrounded the Alexander Column. They groped around it and reached the woodpile, which towered near the façade of the Winter Palace,” says Nazarenko.

Revolution as a gift

It is believed that the revolution in October 1917 was carried out exclusively by the Bolsheviks, but this is not so. The coup was led by the Military Revolutionary Committee, which was formed not at all by the Bolshevik Party, but by the Petrograd Council, whose leader was Leon Trotsky.

In addition to the Bolsheviks, the military revolutionary committee included left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists. Its leader was the left Socialist Revolutionary Pavel Lazimir. The committee led the entire uprising. By its beginning, all power in the city had in fact passed to the Petrograd Soviet. No one accepted the orders of the provisional government.

“It is not surprising that in such a situation the coup itself on the night of October 23-24 took place relatively quietly and peacefully. Detachments of the Red Guard and sailors of the Baltic Fleet built bridges, disarmed the guards of the Provisional Government, took control of the power plant, train stations, telegraph, telephone and all this - practically without firing a single shot. The provisional government did not understand at all what was happening for quite a long time,” explains the culturologist and writer Andrey Stolyarov.

On November 7 or October 26, old style, the whole world will celebrate the centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. And on the same day, November 7, 1917, Leiba Davidovich Bronstein, better known as Leon Trotsky, celebrated his birthday; he turned 36 years old.

It is unlikely that the armed uprising won in Petrograd on that day can be considered a coincidence. And Trotsky himself considered himself, and not Lenin, the true leader proletarian revolution. “My birthday coincides with the day of the October Revolution. Mystics and Pythagoreans can draw any conclusions from this,” Leon Trotsky later wrote.

“The revolution could happen any day starting from September 15th. The Red Guard was ready, seizing post offices and other strategically important points communication was a matter of a few hours. But Trotsky wanted to give himself a gift. He understood that his birthday would always be celebrated this way as long as the Soviet Union existed - people would go to parades, march... And he turned out to be right - until 1991, we went to parades every year and celebrated his birthday as public holiday,” says the writer Alexander Myasnikov.

Who was the real leader of the armed uprising? Trotsky or Lenin? Trotsky, of course, was a brilliant orator, he knew how to stir up a crowd for any cause, but he did not have a party or support among the masses. Lenin was by and large an office worker, but he had a party.

According to Andrei Stolyarov, Leon Trotsky himself understood this fact. In July 1917, one of his comrades, having learned that Trotsky intended to join the Bolshevik Party, exclaimed: “Lev Davidovich, but these are political bandits!” Trotsky responded to this: “I know. But the Bolsheviks are now the only real political force.”

According to many historians, in Russia there were three great memoirists - falsifiers, who wrote their memoirs with one goal: to expose themselves as the best side, contrary to the facts. These are Ivan the Terrible, Catherine II and Leon Trotsky, who described their path to power so vividly that for several centuries later historians cited their works as the only true ones. Leon Trotsky had the opportunity to write his memoirs when he was in exile, and his main task was to discredit Stalin and prove that Stalin in power was a mistake and an accident.

Trotsky's American connections

What was the true role of Leon Trotsky in the October Revolution? American journalist John Reed made a great contribution to the creation of the myth that it was Trotsky who was the leader of the revolution with his book “10 Days That Shook the World.” Today some details are being revealed in his mysterious life.

“We know that this man was from a very rich family, received higher education in the best foreign educational institutions. And suddenly this rich, successful boy Reed is turned into some kind of revolutionary. Yes, his notes about workers’ protests in Boston appeared in the media, then these two publications were published as a separate book and that’s it - he never wrote anything else during his career,” explains writer Alexander Myasnikov.

It is known that Trotsky was in America before the revolution. There he was really received high level, he met with Baron Rothschild several times, and, according to some sources, received at least $20 million from the banking house of Jacob Schiff.

With this money, Trotsky returns to Russia to prepare the revolution. The most remarkable thing is that John Reed is leaving with him on the same ship to Russia. And, apparently, not in vain. After the June events in Petrograd, many Bolsheviks were forced to go underground, and some of them were arrested. Among those arrested was Leon Trotsky. But an amazing thing happens.

In August 1917, John Reed and a group of Americans arrived in Petrograd, and suddenly someone released Leon Trotsky on a very large bail. And when Trotsky already makes a revolution - he becomes a people's commissar - he immediately creates a department for combating agitation, which is headed by Reed.

Now sensational evidence has emerged that John Reed was most likely a “double agent” of both the Kremlin and Wall Street. Reed actually worked for America's leading banker, John Morgan, and his anti-capitalist writings supported the valuable myth that capitalists are the implacable enemies of all revolutionaries.

It also became known that evidence was found in the archives of the US Communist Party active participation John Reed in laundering money that Russia sent to America. According to Alexander Myasnikov, his book “10 Days That Shook the World” is a report on how money was spent at Trotsky’s headquarters.

Myths about the Women's Battalion

The October Revolution was characterized by complete confusion and inconsistencies. The fact is that no one had any experience of fighting in the city at that time - it appeared only during the Second World War. Therefore, no one knew what to do. Modern military personnel would place machine guns in the windows of the palace and fortify the basements. But nothing of the kind was done. Sometimes the stormers and defenders of the palace, in complete darkness, shot at the white light like a penny. But mostly there was a verbal skirmish.

According to various estimates, there were about 10 thousand people who stormed the palace, about 2 thousand defenders of the palace. After several ultimatums, part of the troops defending the palace left it. The cadets and Cossacks left. The students of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School also left the palace along with the cannons. Moreover, a very typical example of the fact that no one wanted to shoot, much less kill, is the episode with artillery during the storming of the Winter Palace.

One of the main myths about the October Revolution is the story of the chairman of the provisional government, Alexander Kerensky, dressing up as a woman and escaping from the Winter Palace. In fact, Kerensky calmly left the Palace by car American Ambassador and he did not change into any female attire.

Among the myths about the heroic defenders of the Winter Palace is the persistent belief of many historians about the heroines - shock workers from the women's death battalion. They write that they were completely raped by the sailors and soldiers who burst in. But the fact is that at the time of the assault there was not a single female defender in the palace, and there were no cases of rape. They all calmly left the palace long before the assault.

“At about 6 p.m. the first firefight broke out around the Winter Palace. And both the defenders and the besiegers were very afraid to go out into the open space in front of the palace. The shootout demoralized the shock workers, and when the next ultimatum was sent, the firefight stopped, they stayed overnight in the barracks of the Pavlovsky regiment on the Field of Mars. Nobody offended them there and they even fed them dinner,” describes Kirill Nazarenko.

The Minister of the Navy made a mistake

The legendary cruiser "Aurora" is a ship whose shot from the forecastle gun, as they used to write, "heralded the beginning new era" The Aurora actually fired a shot, but it was only one and a blank one at that. The fact is that then almost no one had a watch; watches were a luxury item: soldiers and sailors, of course, did not have them.

But traces of gun shots remained after the volleys of guns from the Peter and Paul Fortress. The guns were very old, all modern weapons It was at the front, and therefore shooting from the fortress was carried out at the risk of life.

“The cannons fired several times from the direction of the Peter and Paul Fortress. They fired at the Winter Palace with a sheaf of bullets that hit the facade - traces of this were clearly visible in photographs of the 20s. During one of the salvoes, the so-called “glass” - the body of a shrapnel shell - flew into the hall of the third floor of the Winter Palace from the Neva. It was brought to the table of the Provisional Government, but it would have been better not to have done this, because most of the ministers were again shocked and awe, and someone joked that this was an ashtray for the table of their successors,” says the historian.

At this moment, all the eyes of the civilian ministers turned to the Minister of Naval Rear Admiral Dmitry Verderevsky, who, in their opinion, should have known the origin of the projectile.

But Verderevsky, who by his naval specialty was a navigator, not an artilleryman, said: “This is from the Aurora.” This is how the myth was born that during the assault the Aurora fired live shells. This was forgivable for the rear admiral, because he simply determined by eye that the diameter of the shell could be suitable, although an artilleryman would never have confused the size of a land cannon from the Peter and Paul Fortress with the Aurora shell.

Bloodless coup

The inside of the Winter Palace at that time was completely different from the modern one. It was a real labyrinth, with a bunch of partitions and secret staircases. The corridors ended in plywood partitions that had to be walked around. That is why the interim government could not be found for four hours. In addition, part of the palace was given over to a hospital and the attackers returned to their starting point several times. The detachments wandered through the passages and could not get to the room where the government was meeting.

According to historian Kirill Nazarenko, it was arrested only at two in the morning, and the cadets of the Pavlovsk School stood until the last, blocking the path to the White Dining Room and obeying the order to stand with rifles in hand. The weapons were snatched from them because there was no order to shoot. The next night the arrest was bloodless - the ministers were detained and sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress, from where they were subsequently released on receipt, and in the morning they left the palace.

The inhabitants of Petrograd perceived the October revolution surprisingly calmly. Nothing has changed in their lives. Trams ran in the same way, groups of well-dressed people walked along the embankments, shops and cinemas operated. Everyone was already accustomed to the change of governments and believed that this was another temporary government, and that we had to wait for the convening constituent assembly, which will put everything in its place. Moreover, the coup itself took place surprisingly bloodlessly.

In the morning, crowds of ordinary people began to converge on the Winter Palace, because rumors spread throughout the city that the palace had burned down and the Alexander Column had cracked and collapsed. They went to look at the stump of the Alexander Column, but to their surprise everything turned out to be in order.

Full version issue “Storm of the Winter Palace” is available at the link.

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IN shots from guns located near the exchange were fired during the Epiphany parade.
This happened on January 6 (19), 1905 (on the feast of Epiphany), during the blessing of water on the Jordan (on the ice of the Neva), in front of the Winter Palace, in the presence of the emperor and members of his family. Romanov was mortally wounded... but not the emperor. Perhaps it was this shot that became the harbinger of all the troubles of the Russian Empire and led to “Bloody Sunday” (which happened a few days later), as a consequence to the revolution of 1905, and then to the October Meat Grinder.

Jordan on the Neva on the feast of Epiphany. The royal family descended the Jordan Stairs of the Winter Palace to the river, where the ceremony of blessing the water took place.

There are still many versions of what it was? Criminal negligence or terrorist attack? The shot rang out at the very beginning of the troparion. It was like a challenge for God's anointed! And after all, it was “accidentally” from precisely the gun that was aimed at the emperor (other guns would have fired to the side). As the investigation found out, a charge of buckshot accidentally (according to the official version) remained in the artillery gun after the exercise on January 4. Personally, as an artilleryman, I find it hard to believe in chance. These are the basics of artillery... especially when firing is conducted in the direction of the first person of the state and his family in the presence of all the nobility of the city...

Most of the grapeshot fell into the ice next to the royal pavilion and into the facade of the palace, the glass of which was broken in 4 windows. By luck, the imperial family was not harmed.

The newspaper “New Time” collected the following information from eyewitnesses: “During the majestic Jordanian ceremony, when Metropolitan Anthony performed the blessing of water and, at the signal of a rocket, an artillery salute thundered at the moment the cross was immersed, inexplicably, in one of the blank charges there were several cartridges with old-style bullets, which, when fired, flew over the Neva, showered part of the Jordan, the entrance box and the columns of the Winter Palace, leaving noticeable marks on them. One bullet pierced the banner. naval corps, one bullet wounded a policeman; two bullets pierced the upper glass of the Nicholas Hall and flew into the hall itself, falling under the choir.

Despite the shot, there was no panic or stop - the ceremony continued as usual. From and to. Banners and standards passed, loud cries rang out in response to the gracious words of the Emperor, who thanked the troops for the parade.

Nicholas II met the news of the policeman’s shot and injury completely calmly, went to see the broken banner, despite persuasion to return to the palace, stayed and listened to the entire service to the end; then, without speeding up your pace, procession of the cross returned to his place. But despite his outward self-control and calmness, Nicholas II was frightened, as evidenced by the fact that the tsar left the Winter Palace and moved to Tsarskoye Selo (now Detskoye), where he was behind a triple chain of security.

The British Ambassador Sir Charles Harding also witnessed the incident, which surprised many.

Is it not by chance that within a few days it was " Bloody Sunday"? After all, initially the demonstration was allowed and only after this incident did troops enter the city.

To investigate the accident, a commission was appointed under the chairmanship of the chief of artillery of the Guards Corps, Lieutenant General Khitrovo, consisting of the temporary commander of the Life Guards of the 1st Artillery Brigade, Colonel Golovachev, the commander of the Life Guards of the 2nd Artillery Brigade, Major General Ivashentsov, and the commander of the Guards Cavalry. artillery brigade of Colonel Prince Masalsky, under the personal supervision and direction of the inspector of all artillery of His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich.

The police department and military authorities tried to gloss over the matter and reduce it to the inexperience of the lower ranks and oversight on the part of the officers. The commission, military and police authorities came to the conclusion “that in the absence of any indication of any criminal intent in the case, the shooting that occurred in January can with reasonable probability be explained by non-compliance with established rules when handling guns in the park and at salute shooting.”

"... in the channel of one of the guns of the 1st platoon of the 3rd battery of the Guards Horse Artillery Brigade, one of the training grapeshots remained from the training on January 4, and in this form the gun was in the artillery shed for two days. The presence of forgotten grapeshot in the gun channel was would have inevitably been discovered if the guns had been fired, as required by the regulations when firing with blank charges. The remains of buckshot shells collected in the snow indicate that it was a training shell..."

The case of the St. Petersburg Military District Court No. 144 for 1905, dedicated to this incident, was also mentioned in the book by M.I. Akhun and V.A. Petrov "Bolsheviks and the army in 1905-1917."

In connection with the incident, the editor of the synodal publication wrote that “one cannot help but see something special” in the fact that only one policeman named “Romanov” was mortally wounded (a sign?) Buckshot hit him right in the eye. In addition, the pole of the banner of “the nursery of our ill-fated fleet” - the banner of the naval corps ... " standing on the wooden platform of the Jordan Chapel, to the left of the entrance and six steps from the location of His Majesty the Emperor, flag bearer of the Naval Cadet Corps, sergeant major of the midshipman company Salov, one of these bullets hit the flagpole, knocked off the head of the nail and, piercing the banner panel in the right lower corner, slid across Salov’s nose without causing any damage to him "... born in a shirt. And the emperor and his family stood ten steps from him.

The court decided: Captain Davydov, Staff Captain Kartsov and Lieutenant Roth II should be deprived of: the first two - certain special ones personally and by virtue of the rights and advantages assigned or acquired by service, expelled from military service without deprivation of ranks and imprisoned in a fortress: Davydov for a year and 6 months, Kartsova - for a year and 5 months, and Rota II - for a year and 4 months, with the legal consequences of this punishment; Second Lieutenant Roth I should be kept in the guardhouse, with certain service benefits limited, for 3 months; junior fireworker Gondarev and gunner Apalkov should be deprived of certain special rights and advantages personally and by status assigned and acquired through service, namely: the first - deprived of the fireworks rank, and sent to a disciplinary battalion for two years each...

"Here, all the military unanimously state that the events of January 6 are an obvious assassination attempt, and that no such accident could have happened. For some reason, there is a rumor in the public that this attempt is coming from the reigning house itself, which is said to be extremely dissatisfied and says that the Emperor will destroy them all".

Info and pictures (C) Internet. Main sources:
Strumillo B. Shot at the Winter Palace on January 6, 1905. Hard labor and exile. M., 1935. N1 (116).
Right. No. 2 dated January 18/31, 1905 stlb. 106
Lyubimov D.N. Gapon and January 9. // Questions of history. M., 1965. No. 8, p. 123
Verkhovsky A.I. At the turning point of life. Memoirs of 1905. // Past. 1924. No. 27-28, p. 160-162
"25 years ago." (From the diaries of L. Tikhomirov.)

Firsov A.

For many years now, every year on November 7th and 8th, citizens of our country celebrate the anniversary of the Great October Revolution. Socialist Revolution. According to party historians, everything happened as follows. At a signal from the cruiser Aurora, armed workers and peasants under the leadership Communist Party rushed to storm the Winter Palace, overcame the resistance of the women's battalion guarding the Winter Palace, broke into the palace and arrested the Provisional Government.

The Chairman of the Provisional Government, Kerensky, left the Winter Palace in the morning.

The main hero of the revolution is considered to be Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who that evening went to the Smolny Palace, from there he led the storming of the Winter Palace, and after the completion of the storm he declared the Provisional Government deposed.

There are several facts that are constantly obscured by historians, but which make sense to pay attention to.

Firstly On the morning of November 25 at about 11 o'clock in the morning, the Chairman of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, left the Winter Palace, leaving the Provisional Government without any instructions.

Secondly, on the afternoon of November 25, the general staff and the provisional government (located on both sides of the palace square) were presented with ultimatums to surrender. And a white flag soon appeared on the general headquarters.

Thirdly, at 19 o'clock, and another hour later, the commissioner of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee Grigory Chudnovsky with a group of parliamentarians comes to the Winter Palace and presents the Provisional Government with a repeated ultimatum demanding surrender.

The provisional government understands that the situation is acute, so Chudnovsky is released, but they do not give a positive answer.

Fourth, the shot from the Cruiser Aurora at 21 o'clock was not fired into the air. This was not a signal for an assault, but a demonstration of force. Shots were also fired several times from the walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Fifthly, Aurora's shot was not fired from the main gun and blank cartridge, but targeted. The projectile wad that flew out along with the powder gases hit the Winter Palace. In doing so, he broke through two walls of the building, causing the building to shake. In the first years after the revolution, visitors were shown the holes in the wall caused by Aurora's shot.

Sixth, after Aurora's warning shot, the cruiser's six-inch guns were loaded with live shells.

Aurora's next one or more shots would level the Winter Palace. But Aurora didn’t shoot anymore. Neither idle nor in combat. Judging by the fact that no further shots were needed from Aurora, it can be assumed that above the Winter Palace or on one of its windows as well as above general staff a white flag was hoisted. Whether this is so is not known.

Obviously, in this situation, defending the palace, firing even one shot, or in any way preventing outsiders from entering the Winter Palace would be tantamount to suicide.

V.A. himself Antonov-Ovseyenko, sent to the Winter Palace to arrest the provisional government, no matter how he embellished the dangers of the event, described the events immediately after Aurora’s shot in his book “In the Seventeenth Year”:

“A gun shot sounded dully. Again and again. Peter and Paul Fortress spoke. Better... The air was powerfully torn... - "Aurora"! - Shouldn't we suggest they surrender again? - asks Chudnovsky, who brought some of the Pavlovians, brave and talkative as always. I agree. Goes with someone. The artillery shelling had an effect. The fire of the barricades went out. Shut up - apparently abandoned? - armored cars... Some kind of crash, clanging of weapons, hysterical screams. “We surrender, comrades!”