19th century theater history briefly. Russian theatrical art

II Congress of the RSDLP and the formation of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks as factions (1903)

The ideological differences between Lenin's supporters and Martov's supporters concerned 4 issues. The first was the question of including the demand for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the party program. Lenin's supporters were in favor of including this requirement, Martov's supporters were against it. The second issue was the inclusion of demands on the agrarian issue in the party program. Lenin's supporters were for the inclusion of these demands in the program, Martov's supporters were against inclusion. Some of Martov’s supporters (Polish Social Democrats and the Bund) also demanded that the demand for the right of nations to self-determination be excluded from the program. Besides, Mensheviks opposed the idea that every party member should be a member of one of its organizations. They wanted to create a less rigid party, whose members could declare themselves as such and participate in party work on at will. On issues related to the party program, Lenin's supporters won, and on the issue of membership in organizations, Martov's supporters won.

For elections to the leading bodies of the party (the Central Committee and the editorial board of Iskra), supporters Lenin received a majority, and supporters Martova- minority. Why did the former begin to be called Bolsheviks, and the latter Mensheviks. What helped Lenin's supporters gain a majority was that some delegates left the congress. These were representatives Bunda who did this in protest against the fact that Bund was not recognized as the only representative of Jewish workers in Russia. Two more delegates left the congress due to disagreements over the recognition of the foreign union of “economists” (a movement that believed that workers should confine themselves to only trade union, economic struggle with capitalists) as the party’s representative abroad.

After the Second Congress and before the final split with the Mensheviks (1903-1912)

The opponents of the Bolsheviks dealt them the most painful blow in 1910, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. Due to the conciliatory position of Zinoviev and Kamenev, who represented the Bolsheviks at the plenum, as well as the diplomatic efforts of Trotsky, who received a subsidy for them to publish his “non-factional” newspaper “Pravda” (which has nothing in common with the legal organ of the RSDLP (b), the plenum was extremely an unfavorable decision for the Bolsheviks. He decided that the Bolsheviks must dissolve the Bolshevik Center, that all friction periodicals must be closed, that the Bolsheviks must pay back the sum of several hundred thousand rubles they allegedly stole from the party.

The Bolsheviks largely complied with the decisions of the plenum. As for the liquidators, their bodies, under various pretexts, continued to leave as if nothing had happened.

Lenin realized that a full-fledged struggle against the liquidators within the framework of one party was impossible and decided to transform the struggle against them into the form of an open struggle between parties. He organized a series of purely Bolshevik meetings, which decided to organize an all-party conference.

Such a conference was held in January 1912 in Prague. All the delegates at it, except for two Menshevik party members, were Bolsheviks. Opponents of the Bolsheviks subsequently argued that this was a consequence of the special selection of delegates by Bolshevik agents. The conference expelled the Menshevik liquidators from the party and created the RSDLP(b).

The Mensheviks organized a conference in Vienna in August of the same year as a counterweight to the Prague conference. The Vienna Conference condemned the Prague Conference and created a rather patchwork formation, called the August Bloc in Soviet sources.

From the formation of the RSDLP(b) to the October Revolution (1912-1917)

After the formation of the RSDLP(b) as a separate party, the Bolsheviks continued both the legal and illegal work they had carried out before and did it quite successfully. They manage to create a network of illegal organizations in Russia, which, despite great amount provocateurs sent by the government (even a provocateur was elected to the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) Roman Malinovsky) carried out agitation and propaganda work and introduced Bolshevik agents into legal workers' organizations. They manage to organize the publication of a legal workers' newspaper, Pravda, in Russia. The Bolsheviks also participated in the elections to the IV State Duma and received 6 out of 9 seats from the workers' curia. All this shows that among the workers of Russia the Bolsheviks were the most popular party.

World War I intensified government repression. In July 1914, Pravda was closed. In November of the same year, the Bolshevik faction in the State Duma was defeated. Illegal organizations were also raided.

The ban on the legal activities of the RSDLP (b) during the First World War was caused by its so-called “defeatist” position, that is, open agitation for the defeat of autocratic Russia, propaganda of the priority of class struggle over international struggle (the slogan “transforming the imperialist war into a civil war”).

As a result, until the spring of 1917, the influence of the RSDLP(b) in Russia was insignificant. In Russia, they conducted revolutionary propaganda among soldiers and workers, and published more than 2 million copies of anti-war leaflets. Abroad, the Bolsheviks took part in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences of socialist parties, which adopted resolutions on the need for revolutionary work during the war and on the inadmissibility of socialists maintaining “class peace” with the bourgeoisie. At these conferences, the Bolsheviks led the group of the most consistent internationalists - the Zimmerwald Left.

After the October Revolution

Links

• Alexander Rabinovich “The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd”
• Nikolai Druzhinin “About three participants in the revolutionary struggle”
• Martemyan Ryutin “Stalin and the crisis of the proletarian dictatorship”
• October Revolution: the main event of the 20th century or a tragic mistake?

see also

• Revolutionary Communist Youth League (Bolsheviks)

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what “Bolsheviks” are in other dictionaries:

Representatives of the political movement (faction) in the RSDLP (since April 1917 an independent political party), headed by V. I. Lenin. The concept of Bolsheviks arose at the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (1903) after, during the elections to the governing bodies of the party... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

BOLSHEVIKS, representatives of the political movement (faction) in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (since April 1917, an independent political party). The concept of Bolsheviks arose at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers... ... Modern encyclopedia

Why did the Bolsheviks win? Because they gave Russian civilization and people new project development. They created new reality, which was in the interests of the majority of the worker and peasant population of Russia. “Old Russia” represented by the nobles, liberal intelligentsia, bourgeoisie and capitalists committed suicide - thinking that it was destroying Russian autocracy.

The Bolsheviks did not intend to revive the old project: both the state and society. On the contrary, they offered people a new reality, a completely different world (civilization), which was fundamentally different from the old world that died before their eyes. The Bolsheviks made excellent use of the brief moment in which “old Russia” died (it was killed by the Westernizers-Februaryists), and the temporary Februaryists were unable to offer the people anything except the power of capitalists, bourgeois owners and increased dependence on the West. Moreover, without the sacred royal power, which for a long time hid the flaws of the old world. A conceptual, ideological void was formed. Russia had to perish, torn apart by Western and Eastern “predators” into spheres of influence, semi-colonies and “independent” bantustans, or make a leap into the future.

Moreover, the Bolsheviks themselves did not expect that there would be a revolution in Russia, and even in a country, in their opinion, not ready for socialist revolution. Lenin wrote: “The endless template for them (traditional Marxists. - Author) is the one that they learned by heart during the development of Western European social democracy and which is that we have not matured to socialism, that we do not have, how Various learned gentlemen of them express the objective economic prerequisites for socialism. And it does not occur to anyone to ask themselves: could the people, having encountered a revolutionary situation such as it developed in the first imperialist war, under the influence of the hopelessness of their situation, rush into such a struggle, which at least opened up for them any chances of conquest for themselves not in completely normal conditions for the further growth of civilization"?

That is, the Bolsheviks used the historical chance to try to create a new better world on the ruins of the old one. Wherein old world collapsed both under the weight of objective reasons that had been sharpening the Romanov empire for centuries, and the subversive activities of a heterogeneous “fifth column”, where main role played by Western liberals, the bourgeoisie and capitalists led by the Freemasons (the support of the West also played a role). It is clear that the Bolsheviks also sought to destroy the old world, but before February they were such a weak, small and marginal force that they themselves noted that there would be no revolution in Russia. Their leaders and activists were hiding abroad, or in prison, or in exile. Their structures were destroyed or went deep underground, having virtually no influence on society, compared to such powerful parties as the Cadets or Socialist Revolutionaries. Only February opened a “window of opportunity” for the Bolsheviks. The February Westernizers, in an effort to seize the desired power, themselves killed the “old Russia”, destroyed all the foundations of statehood, started the great Russian Troubles and paved a loophole for the Bolsheviks.

And the Bolsheviks found everything that Russian civilization and the Russian superethnos needed to create a new project and reality, where the majority would “live well”, and not just small layers of the “chosen few”. The Bolsheviks had a bright image of a possible and desirable world. They had an idea, an iron will, energy and faith in their victory. That's why the people supported them and they won.

Main milestones of the Great October Socialist Revolution

It is worth noting that Lenin’s ideas about the need to take power, expressed by him in the “April Theses,” caused misunderstanding among the Bolsheviks. His demands to deepen the revolution, to move towards the dictatorship of the proletariat were then incomprehensible to his comrades-in-arms and frightened them. Lenin found himself in the minority. However, he turned out to be the most far-sighted. Within a few months, the situation in the country changed in the most dramatic way; the Februaryists undermined all the foundations of power and the state, and unleashed unrest in the country. Now the majority was for the uprising. The VI Congress of the RSDLP (late July - early August 1917) headed for an armed uprising.

On October 23, a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) (Bolshevik Party) was held in Petrograd in a secret atmosphere. Party leader Vladimir Lenin achieved the adoption of a resolution on the need for an early armed uprising in order to seize power in the country with 10 votes in favor and 2 against (Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev). Kamenev and Zinoviev hoped that under these conditions the Bolsheviks could gain power by mine, from the Constituent Assembly. On October 25, on the initiative of the Chairman of the Petrograd Council Leon Trotsky, the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) was created, which became one of the centers for preparing the uprising. The committee was controlled by the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. It was established quite legally, under the pretext of protecting Petrograd from the advancing Germans and Kornilov rebels. The Council appealed to the soldiers of the capital's garrison, the Red Guards and the Kronstadt sailors to join it.

Meanwhile the country continued to fall apart and decay. Thus, on October 23, the so-called “Chechen Committee for the Conquest of the Revolution” was formed in Grozny. He proclaimed himself the main authority in the Grozny and Vedeno districts, formed his own Chechen bank, food committees and introduced a mandatory Sharia court. The criminal situation in Russia, where liberal-bourgeois “democracy” won, was extremely difficult. On October 28, the newspaper “Russian Vedomosti” (No. 236) reported on the atrocities committed by soldiers on railways, and complaints about them from railway workers. In Kremenchug, Voronezh and Lipetsk, soldiers robbed freight trains and passengers' luggage, and attacked the passengers themselves. In Voronezh and Bologoye they also destroyed the carriages themselves, knocking out windows and breaking roofs. “It’s impossible to work,” the railway workers complained. In Belgorod, the pogrom spread to the city, where deserters and those who joined them local residents grocery stores and rich houses were destroyed.

Deserters fleeing from the front with their hands in their hands not only went home, but also replenished and created gangs (sometimes entire “armies”), which became one of the threats to the existence of Russia. Only the Bolsheviks will eventually be able to suppress this “green” danger and anarchy in general. They will have to solve the problem of suppressing the criminal revolution, which began in Russia with the “light” hand of the Februaryist revolutionaries.

On October 31, a garrison meeting (representatives of the regiments stationed in the city) was held in Petrograd, the majority of the participants in which spoke out in favor of supporting an armed uprising against the Provisional Government if it occurred under the leadership of the Petrograd Soviet. On November 3, representatives of the regiments recognized the Petrograd Soviet as the only legitimate authority. At the same time, the Military Revolutionary Committee began to appoint its own commissars to military units, replacing the commissars of the Provisional Government with them. On the night of November 4, representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee announced to the commander of the Petrograd Military District, Georgy Polkovnikov, the appointment of their commissars to the district headquarters. Colonels initially refused to cooperate with them, and only on November 5 agreed to a compromise - the creation at headquarters advisory body to coordinate actions with the Military Revolutionary Committee, which never worked in practice.

On November 5, the Military Revolutionary Committee issued an order granting its commissars the right to veto orders from commanders of military units. Also on this day, the garrison went over to the side of the Bolsheviks Peter and Paul Fortress, which was “propagated” personally by one of the Bolshevik leaders and the de facto leader of the Revolutionary Committee, Leon Trotsky (formally, the Revolutionary Revolutionary Committee was headed by the left Socialist Revolutionary Pavel Lazimir). The fortress garrison immediately captured the nearby Kronverk Arsenal and began distributing weapons to Red Guard units.

On the night of November 5, the head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, ordered the chief of staff of the Petrograd Military District, General Yakov Bagratuni, to send an ultimatum to the Petrograd Soviet: either the Council recalls its commissars, or the military authorities will use force. On the same day, Bagratuni ordered the cadets of military schools in Petrograd, students of ensign schools and other units to arrive at Palace Square.

On November 6 (October 24), open armed struggle began between the Military Revolutionary Committee and the Provisional Government. The Provisional Government issued an order to arrest the circulation of the Bolshevik newspaper Rabochiy Put (formerly closed Pravda), printed in the Trud printing house. Policemen and cadets went there and began to arrest the circulation. Having learned about this, the leaders of the Military Revolutionary Committee contacted the Red Guard detachments and committees of military units. “The Petrograd Soviet is in direct danger,” said the Military Revolutionary Committee’s appeal, “at night the counter-revolutionary conspirators tried to summon cadets and shock battalions from the surrounding area to Petrograd. The newspapers “Soldier” and “Rabochy Put” are closed. The regiment is hereby ordered to be placed on combat readiness. Wait for further orders. Any delay and confusion will be considered a betrayal of the revolution.” By order of the Revolutionary Committee, a company of soldiers under its control arrived at the Trud printing house and ousted the cadets. Printing of "The Work Path" was resumed.

The Provisional Government decided to strengthen its own security, but to protect the Winter Palace within 24 hours it was possible to attract only about 100 war invalids from among the St. George Knights (many, including the detachment commander, on prosthetics), artillery cadets and a company of the women's shock battalion. It is worth noting that the Provisional Government and Kerensky themselves did everything to prevent the Bolsheviks from encountering serious armed resistance. They were afraid like fire of the “right” - the cadets, the Kornilovites, the generals, the Cossacks - those forces that could overthrow them and establish a military dictatorship. Therefore, by October, all forces that could provide real resistance to the Bolsheviks were suppressed. Kerensky was afraid to create officer units and bring Cossack regiments into the capital. And the generals, army officers and Cossacks hated Kerensky, who destroyed the army and led to the failure of Kornilov’s speech. On the other hand, Kerensky’s half-hearted attempts to get rid of the most unreliable parts of the Petrograd garrison only led to them drifting “to the left” and going over to the side of the Bolsheviks. At the same time, the temporary workers were carried away by the formation of national formations - Czechoslovak, Polish, Ukrainian, which would later play vital role in unraveling Civil War.

By this time, a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) had already taken place, at which a decision was made to begin an armed uprising. Kerensky went for support to the meeting of the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic (Pre-Parliament, an advisory body under the Provisional Government) that was taking place on the same day, asking for support. But the Pre-Parliament refused to grant Kerensky emergency powers to suppress the incipient uprising, adopting a resolution criticizing the actions of the Provisional Government.

The Revolutionary Committee then addressed an appeal “To the population of Petrograd,” which stated that the Petrograd Soviet took upon itself “the protection of the revolutionary order from the attacks of counter-revolutionary pogromists.” An open confrontation began. The Provisional Government ordered the construction of bridges across the Neva to cut off the Red Guards in the northern half of the city from the Winter Palace. But the cadets sent to carry out the order managed to open only the Nikolaevsky Bridge (to Vasilyevsky Island) and hold the Palace Bridge (next to the Winter Palace) for some time. Already on the Liteiny Bridge they were met and disarmed by the Red Guards. Also late in the evening, detachments of Red Guards began to take control of the stations. The last one, Varshavsky, was occupied by 8 am on November 7th.

Around midnight, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin left the safe house and arrived in Smolny. He did not yet know that the enemy was not ready for resistance at all, so he changed his appearance, shaving his mustache and beard so that he would not be recognized. On November 7 (October 25) at 2 a.m., a detachment of armed soldiers and sailors, on behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee, occupied the telegraph office and the Petrograd Telegraph Agency. Telegrams were immediately sent to Kronstadt and Helsingfors (Helsinki) demanding that warships with detachments of sailors be brought to Petrograd. Detachments of the Red Guards, meanwhile, occupied all the new main points of the city and by the morning controlled the printing house of the Birzhevye Vedomosti newspaper, the Astoria Hotel, the power plant and telephone exchange. The cadets guarding them were disarmed. At 9:30 a.m. a detachment of sailors occupied the State Bank. Soon the police department received a message that Winter Palace isolated and his telephone network disconnected. An attempt by a small detachment of cadets led by Provisional Government Commissioner Vladimir Stankevich to recapture the telephone exchange ended in failure, and the cadets of the ensign school (about 2,000 bayonets) called by Kerensky to Petrograd could not reach the outskirts of the capital, since the Baltic Station was already occupied by the rebels. The cruiser "Aurora" approached Nikolaevsky Bridge, the bridge itself was recaptured from the cadets and closed again. Already early in the morning, sailors from Kronstadt began arriving in the city on transports and landed on Vasilyevsky Island. They were covered by the cruiser Aurora, the battleship Zarya Svobody and two destroyers.

On the night of November 7, Kerensky moved between the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District, trying to bring up new units from there, and the Winter Palace, where a meeting of the Provisional Government was taking place. The commander of the military district, Georgy Polkovnikov, read a report to Kerensky, in which he assessed the situation as “critical” and informed that “the government does not have any troops at its disposal.” Then Kerensky removed Polkovnikov from office for indecisiveness and personally appealed to the 1st, 4th and 14th Cossack regiments to take part in the defense of “revolutionary democracy.” But most of the Cossacks showed “unconsciousness” and did not leave the barracks, and only about 200 Cossacks arrived at the Winter Palace.

By 11 a.m. on November 7, Kerensky, in a car of the American embassy and under the American flag, accompanied by several officers, left Petrograd for Pskov, where the headquarters of the Northern Front was located. Later, a legend would appear that Kerensky fled from the Winter Palace, disguised as women's dress, which was a complete fabrication. Kerensky left Minister of Trade and Industry Alexander Konovalov to act as head of government.

The day of November 7 was spent by the rebels to disperse the Pre-Parliament, which was meeting in the Mariinsky Palace not far from the already occupied Astoria. By noon, the building was cordoned off by revolutionary soldiers. From 12:30 p.m. soldiers began to enter, demanding that the delegates disperse. A prominent politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first composition of the Provisional Government, Pavel Milyukov, later described the inglorious end of this institution: “No attempt was made to stop the group of members from reacting to events. This reflected the general awareness of the impotence of this ephemeral institution and the impossibility for it, after the resolution adopted the day before, to take any kind of joint action.”

The capture of the Winter Palace itself began at about 9 pm with a blank shot from the Peter and Paul Fortress, followed by a blank shot from the cruiser Aurora. Detachments of revolutionary sailors and Red Guards actually simply entered the Winter Palace from the Hermitage. By two o'clock in the morning the Provisional Government was arrested, the cadets, women and disabled people defending the palace partly fled before the assault, and partly laid down their arms. Already in the USSR, artists created beautiful myth about the storming of the Winter Palace. But there was no need to storm the Winter Palace; the temporary workers from the Provisional Government were so tired of everyone that practically no one defended them.

Creation of the Soviet government

The uprising coincided with the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which opened on November 7 at 22:40. in the building of the Smolny Institute. Deputies from among the right Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Bundists, having learned about the beginning of the coup, left the congress in protest. But by their departure they could not disturb the quorum, and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, part of the Mensheviks and anarchists and delegates from national groups supported the actions of the Bolsheviks. As a result, Martov’s position on the need to create a government in which there would be representatives of all socialist parties and democratic groups was not supported. The words of the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin - “The revolution, the need for which the Bolsheviks have been talking about for so long, has come true!” - caused an ovation at the congress. Based on the victorious uprising, the Congress issued the appeal “To workers, soldiers and peasants!” proclaimed the transfer of power to the Soviets.

The victorious Bolsheviks immediately began legislative activity. The first laws were the so-called “Decree on Peace” - a call to all warring countries and peoples to immediately begin negotiations on the conclusion of universal peace without annexations and indemnities, to abolish secret diplomacy, to publish secret treaties of the tsarist and Provisional governments; and the “Decree on Land” - landowners’ land was subject to confiscation and transfer for cultivation to peasants, but at the same time all lands, forests, waters and mineral resources were nationalized. Private property to land was canceled free of charge. These decrees were approved by the Congress of Soviets on November 8 (October 26).

The Congress of Soviets formed the first so-called “workers' and peasants' government” - the Council of People's Commissars, headed by Vladimir Lenin. The government included Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries. L. D. Trotsky became the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, A. I. Rykov became the Commissioner of Internal Affairs, Lunacharsky became the Commissioner of Education, Skvortsov-Stepanov became the Commissioner of Finance, Stalin became the Commissioner of Nationalities, etc. The Committee on Naval Affairs included Antonov-Ovseenko, Krylenko and Dybenko. The highest body of Soviet power became the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), headed by Chairman Lev Kamenev (in two weeks he will be replaced by Yakov Sverdlov).

Already on November 8, the resolution of the Military Revolutionary Committee also closed the first “counter-revolutionary and bourgeois” newspapers - “Birzhevye Vedomosti”, the cadet “Rech”, the Menshevik “Den” and some others. The “Decree on the Press,” published on November 9, stated that only press organs that “call for open resistance or disobedience to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government” and “sowing confusion through clearly slanderous distortion of facts” are subject to closure. It was pointed out that the closure of newspapers was temporary until the situation normalized. On November 10, a new, so-called “workers’” militia was formed. On November 11, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on an 8-hour working day and the regulation “On Workers' Control,” which was introduced at all enterprises that had hired workers (enterprise owners were obliged to comply with the requirements of “workers' control bodies”).

The Russian Social Democratic Party was founded in March 1898 in Minsk. Only nine delegates were present at the 1st Congress. After the congress, the RSDLP Manifesto was released, in which the participants expressed the idea of ​​the need for revolutionary changes, and the issue of the dictatorship of the proletariat was included in the party program. The charter establishing the organizational structure of the party was adopted during the 2nd Congress, which was held in Brussels and London in 1903. At the same time, the party split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

The leaders of the groups were V.I. Lenin and Martov. The contradictions between the groups were as follows. The Bolsheviks sought to include in the party program the demand for the dictatorship of the proletariat and demands on the agrarian question. And Martov’s supporters proposed excluding from it the requirement for the rights of nations to self-determination and did not approve of each of the party members working on a permanent basis in one of its organizations. As a result, the Bolshevik program was adopted. It included demands such as the overthrow of the autocracy, the proclamation democratic republic, points about improving the lives of workers, etc.

In the elections to the governing bodies, Lenin's supporters received the majority of seats, and they began to be called Bolsheviks. However, the Mensheviks did not give up hopes of seizing the leadership, which they managed to do after Plekhanov went over to the Menshevik side. During 1905-1907 members of the RSDLP accepted Active participation in the revolution. However, later the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks differed in their assessments of the events of those years.

In the spring of 1917, during the April conference, the Bolshevik Party broke away from the RSDLP. The Bolshevik leader at the same time put forward a series of theses known as the April Theses. Lenin sharply criticized the ongoing war, put forward demands for the elimination of the army and police, and also spoke of the need for radical agrarian reform.

By the autumn of 1917, the situation in the country had worsened. Russia stood on the brink beyond which there was chaos. The Bolsheviks' rise to power was due to many reasons. First of all, this is the obvious weakness of the monarchy, its inability to control the situation in the country. In addition, the reason was the decline in authority and indecision of the Provisional Government, the inability of others political parties(cadets, socialist revolutionaries, etc.) unite and become an obstacle to the Bolsheviks. The Bolshevik revolution was supported by the intelligentsia. The situation in the country was also affected by the First World War.

The Bolsheviks skillfully took advantage of the situation that had developed by the fall of 1917. Using utopian slogans (“Factories for the workers!”, “Land for the peasants!”, etc.), they attracted wide masses. Although there were disagreements within the leadership of the Central Committee, preparations for the uprising did not stop. During November 6-7, Red Guard troops captured strategically important centers of the capital. On November 7, the Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies began. The decrees “On Peace”, “On Land”, “On Power” were adopted. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee was elected, which until the summer of 1918 included the Left Social Revolutionaries. On November 8, the Winter Palace was taken.

The most important demand of the socialist parties was the convening of the Constituent Assembly. And the Bolsheviks agreed to this, since it was quite difficult to maintain power relying only on the Soviets. Elections took place at the end of 1917. More than 90% of the deputies were representatives of socialist parties. Even then Lenin warned them that if they opposed Soviet power The Constituent Assembly will doom itself to political death. The Constituent Assembly opened on January 5, 1918 in the Tauride Palace. But the speech of its chairman, Socialist Revolutionary Chernov, was perceived by Lenin’s supporters as a desire for open confrontation. Although the party debate had begun, the commander of the guard, sailor Zheleznyak, demanded that the deputies leave the hall because “the guard was tired.” The very next day, the Council of People's Commissars adopted theses on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. It is worth noting that the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks was not accepted for the most part society. Four days later, on January 10, the 3rd Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies began in the Tauride Palace.

After the seizure of power, the Bolshevik policy was aimed at satisfying the demands of the workers and peasants who supported them, since the new government needed their further support. Decrees were issued “On an eight-hour working day in industrial production”, “On the abolition of classes, civil, court military ranks”, etc.

During the 20s. A one-party system was fully formed. All monarchist and liberal parties, as well as the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, were liquidated.

The theater of the 19th century was characterized by loud monologues full of passion, spectacular positions preparing theatrical departures, that is, having effectively completed his scene, the actor emphatically theatrically walked away, causing applause from the audience. Complex life experiences and thoughts disappeared behind the theatrical feelings. Instead of complex realistic characters, stereotyped ones accumulated stage roles. The officials running the “imperial” theaters persistently sought to turn them into places of light entertainment.

Two great events in theatrical life mark the end of the 19th century - the birth of the dramaturgy of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov and the creation Art Theater. In Chekhov's first play, “Ivanov,” new features were revealed: the absence of division of characters into heroes and villains, a leisurely rhythm of action with enormous internal tension. In 1895, Chekhov wrote a major play, The Seagull. However, the performance staged by the Alexandria Theater based on this play failed. Dramaturgy required new stage principles: Chekhov could not perform on stage without direction. The innovative work was appreciated by the playwright, theater teacher Nemirovich-Danchenko. Who, together with the actor and director Stanislavsky, created a new Art Theater. The true birth of the Art Theater took place in October 1898 during the production of Chekhov's Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. On the stage they saw not actors playing at the “audience”, but genuine living people speaking to each other in the most ordinary, not elevated tone, as if at home. People moving freely and even turning their backs to the viewer (which seemed especially daring). The sincerity and simplicity of the playing, the naturalness of halftones and pauses touched everyone with truthfulness. Moreover, even those who played weekend and wordless roles were not mannequins, but created their own small artistic image. The members of the team that created the performance, guided by the director's will, were imbued with and welded together by a single task. And this created an ensemble unprecedented in the Russian theater until then, striking in its overall consistency. In December, the premiere of “The Seagull” took place, which has since been the emblem of the theater. The performance was entirely built on mood, on spiritual movements barely noticeable in external expression, unusual images, which could not be shown, depicted, one had to merge with them, they had to be lived. The production of “The Seagull” contributed to the birth of the famous formula: “not to act, but to live on stage.” For the play, Stanislavsky came up with mise-en-scène that had never existed in the theater. Thus, together with Chekhov, that diversity was created, which largely determined further paths theater development. This required new technology acting performance. After all, living on stage is many times more difficult than performing. And Stanislavsky creates his own system of psychological realism, aimed at reproducing the “life of the human spirit.” And Nemirovich-Danchenko develops the doctrine of the “second plan” when behind what is said much is unspoken.
In 1902, with funds from the largest Russian philanthropist S. T. Morozov built the famous Moscow Art Theater building. Stanislavsky admitted that “the main initiator and creator of the socio-political life” of their theater was Maxim Gorky. The performances of his plays “Three”, “Bourgeois”, “At the Bottom” showed the difficult lot of workers and the “lower classes of society”, their rights, and a call for revolutionary restructuring. The performances took place in crowded halls.
Further contribution to the stage production of Gorky’s drama is associated with the name of Vera Fedorovna Komissarzhevskaya, who was close to revolutionary circles. Sick of the bureaucracy that was strangling the imperial stage, she left it and created her own theater in St. Petersburg. In 1904, the premiere of “Dachniki” took place here. Gorky's plays became the leading ones in the repertoire of the Komissarzhevskaya Theater.

At the beginning of the 20th century a new theatrical genre. In 1908, the first theater in Russia was opened in St. Petersburg by V. A. Kazansky one-act plays. The Liteiny Theater was the third theater of the entrepreneur (after the Nevsky Farce and Modern). The theater's poster was full of scary titles: “Death in the Arms,” “On gravestone" and so on. Critics wrote that the theater was doing anti-artistic, irritable things. Spectators poured in. The Foundry Theater had a predecessor - the Parisian theater " strong sensations", headed by the creator and author of the plays, Andre de Lorde. The Russian theater imitated him from the repertoire to the specific means of influencing the public. But the spirit of Russian life did not resemble the atmosphere of Parisian inhabitants. The attraction to the terrible, the repulsive captured various layers of the Russian public. After two months, interest in the theater faded. main reason is that the horror theater could not compete with the horrors of Russian modernity. The theater's programs changed greatly, and three years later the theater received the genre designation "Theater of Miniatures." The number of miniature theaters increased markedly after 1910. Actors, for the sake of profit, move from drama to miniature theaters, many drama theaters somehow made ends meet, and miniature theaters grew like mushrooms after rain. Despite the different names and genre designations of the newly emerged theaters, the nature of their performances was the same. The programs were built from one-act comedies, operas, operettas, and ballets.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the passion for luxurious productions, completely devoid of artistic ideas characteristic of the style of the pre-revolutionary Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters. The ensembles of a number of opera houses, first-class in their artistic composition, only won their positions through a complex and intense struggle. creative achievements. One of the founders of the World of Art association, S.P. Diaghilev, organized the Russian Seasons in Paris - performances by Russian ballet dancers in 1909-1911. The troupe included M. M. Fokin, A. P. Pavlova, V. F. Nezhensky and others. Fokine was choreographer and artistic director. Designed performances famous artists A. Benois, N. Roerich. Performances of La Sylphide were shown ( Chopin music), Polovtsian dances from the opera “Prince Igor” by Borodin, “The Firebird” and “Petrushka” (music by Stravinsky) and so on. The performances were a triumph for the Russian choreographic art. The artists proved that classical ballet can be modern and excite the viewer. The best productions Fokine's works were “Petrushka”, “Firebird”, “Scheherazade”, “The Dying Swan”, in which music, painting and choreography were united.