1917 ushered in a string of major political upheavals in Russia,
all of which were predicted by the late Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin shortly
before his September 14th, 1911, assassination in Kiev. On February 23rd
thousands of people took to the streets in Petrograd protesting the erratic
policies of Emperor Nicholas and his government. Part of the city's garrison
joined in the rallies, and the police virtually ceased to resist the insurgents
who quickly took control of the entire capital. Fully aware of his ministers'
and generals' growing discontent, the Emperor abdicated on March 2nd and,
shortly afterwards, bitterly wrote in his diary that he was surrounded
by traitors and cowards. Philosopher Vasily Rozanov was more categorical
saying that "Russia had vanished in a matter of just three days…"
but those three days had been preceded by many centuries of previous Russian
history and triggered by the First World War. Autocracy had clearly exhausted
its potential and in 1917 it was finally replaced by a Provisional government.
In April, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia
and started busily consolidating forces on the extreme left whose influence
and numbers were low and the Bolsheviks boasted only 24,000 members in
the whole of Russia. Dominating the political scene were the 36 year-old
provisional premier Alexander Kerensky and General Lavr Kornilov. They
were both trying hard to check the nationwide spread of Bolshevism, but
their political divisions eventually pitted them against each other in
an armed conflict. Vladimir Lenin immediately cashed in on that, announcing
the necessity and possibility of a Bolshevist takeover. On the night from
October 24th to 25th, the Bolsheviks acted. They met with very little resistance
and, by the following evening, the capital was in their hands. The whole
coup culminated with the October 24th storming of the Provisional Government's
headquarters in the Winter Palace which went off smoothly because the demoralized
and outnumbered defenders were either taking their leave or simply laying
down their weapons. Russia's system of governance was so corrupt and the
overall apathy so overwhelming, that no one actually got killed or wounded
in the act. With the Provisional Government all arrested, the Bolsheviks
started getting down to the daily business of running the huge country…
Meanwhile, the World War raged on… The Germans had launched a
submarine war against the British, trying to cut off their food and raw
material supplies and, by so doing, to force them out of the war. The resumption
of the submarine warfare prompted the United States to enter the fray which
seriously undermined the position of the Germans who were still upbeat
about the respite they had gotten on the Eastern Front, virtually denuded
by the February revolution in Russia. The pause in the east made it possible
for the German military command to move the bulk of their forces westward
and beat back a major allied offensive there.
1917 was the last in the life of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin,
the German General and the designer of an engine-powered and easily-steered
airship. Also known as dirigibles, the airships were widely used to bomb
strategic areas and in sea scouting and patrol missions.
In the same year of 1917, the Dutch dancer and adventuress Mata
Hari was executed by the French as a spy at Saint Lazar prison at Vincennes,
France. She faced the firing squad after being found guilty of transferring
sensitive information to the Germans and after it had been estimated that
her espionage activities had been responsible for the death of at least
50,000 Allied soldiers.
And now let's talk about the famous people who were born in 1917.
In the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29th, destined
to become America's 35th President and the first member of the Roman Catholic
faith to be elected to that office. And, across the world, India's future
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was born in India and it is such a pity that
these two outstanding politicians were to die at the hands of terrorists…
Andre Rembourg, better known as Bourville, was also born in 1917.
The son of peasant parents, he was an absolutely brilliant comic actor
who left behind a string of hilarious characters of honest simpletons who,
for a quarter of a century, were household names to the whole world…
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
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