12:00 The first telegrams came about the events in Petrograd, about the arrest of the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks immediately convene meetings of the Soviets of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies, and after that, the Military Revolutionary Committee, called upon to direct the fighting in Moscow. The VRC was headed by Grigory Usievich. The committee included Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Grigory Alexandrovich Usievich. Party nickname "Tinsky", member of the RSDLP since 1907

Born on September 6 (September 18), 1890 in the village of Khotenichi, Chernihiv region, into a merchant family. In 1907 he entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. In 1909 he was arrested for the first time for inciting workers to revolt and inciting social hatred. In 1911 he was exiled to Siberia. In 1914 he fled from exile to Austria. There he was arrested as a citizen of an enemy state, released a few months later, left for Switzerland, from where, together with Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), he returned to Russia in 1917. From April 1917 he was a member of the executive committee of the Moscow City Council. By nature, he is quick-tempered, harsh, and irreconcilable towards the enemies of the party.

The Bolsheviks had the following units at their disposal: the 193rd infantry regiment, the 56th reserve regiment (two companies of this regiment were stationed in the Kremlin), a scooter battalion, Red Guard units formed from workers (mostly recent peasants who worked in Moscow factories and on the railway ). The approximate number of troops supporting the Bolsheviks is 15 thousand people.

13:00 The Moscow Mayor, Social Revolutionary Vadim Rudnev, convenes an extraordinary meeting of the City Duma. The Bolsheviks, who did not have a majority in the Duma, leave the meeting room. By decision of the deputies, a Committee of Public Security was created in Moscow, headed by Rudnev, and his deputy, another Social Revolutionary, commander of the Moscow Military District, Colonel Konstantin Ryabtsev.

Vadim Viktorovich Rudnev. Party nickname "Babkin", member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party since 1904

Born in 1880 in Moscow. Nobleman. In 1900 he entered the medical faculty of Moscow University. In 1902, he was exiled to Siberia for two years for participating in student unrest. In 1904 he returned to Moscow, a year later he took part in organizing an armed uprising. He was exiled again, already for four years in Yakutsk. In 1911, in transit through Moscow from exile, he went to complete his studies in Switzerland at the University of Basel at the Faculty of Medicine. In 1914, immediately after the outbreak of the war, he returned to Russia and volunteered for the army. Until 1917 he served as a doctor on a floating military hospital. In the spring of 1917 he returned to Moscow. In June of the same year, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party won the elections to the Moscow City Duma, and Rudnev was elected mayor. Patriot, too soft for a revolutionary.

Konstantin Ivanovich Ryabtsev. Colonel of the Russian army, member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

Born on May 14 (26), 1879 in the Ryazan province in the family of a priest. He studied at the theological seminary, dropped out, entered the army as a volunteer. In 1904 he graduated with honors from the Tiflis Junker School. Participated in the Russo-Japanese War. Brought the battalion of the Penza Infantry Regiment out of the Japanese encirclement. After the war, he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party. During World War II he served in the headquarters of the 10th Army of the North-Western Front. After active participation in the suppression of the rebellion, General Kornilov was appointed commander of the Moscow Military District on September 2, 1917. Interested in writing and journalism. By nature, he doubts himself and his actions, constantly looks back at the assessment of his activities by his party comrades, an idealist, a patriot.

16:00 Student volunteer detachments began to form at Moscow University. Students are armed with rifles from the military warehouses of the Moscow Military District.

At the disposal of the COB were: detachments of cadets of the Alexander Military School, several officer companies, two shock battalions. Approximate number of troops supporting the KOB: 12 ​​thousand people.

19:00 Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks leave the WRC. The activity of the Military Revolutionary Committee is completely controlled by the Bolsheviks.

22:00 The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Bolsheviks issued an appeal to the troops stationed in Moscow. The Bolsheviks called on all soldiers and officers to follow the orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee and not to obey the Duma and the commander of the Moscow Military District.

A few detachments of Red Guards began to approach the headquarters of the Military Revolutionary Committee (the former home of the Moscow Governor-General, and in 1917, the building of the Moscow City Council) on Tverskaya 13.

The former house of the Governor-General of Moscow, in 1917 - the building of the Moscow City Council. In 2012 - the building of the Moscow City Hall

22:30 The Military Revolutionary Committee issued an order to suspend the publication of all city newspapers, except for the Bolshevik ones.

23:00 an officer's conference was held at the Alexander Military School. The cadet companies were armed, some of them were sent to the Duma building, some to guard the warehouses with weapons and ammunition.

Around midnight, detachments of the Red Guards occupied all the printing houses in the city. The typed and ready-to-print newspapers were seized. The set was confiscated, the printers sent home.

7:00 The Red Guards and Bolshevik agitators are distributing their newspaper Rabochy Put throughout the city, in which an appeal of the VRK and the party to the workers is published.

8:00 Detachments of the Red Guards occupied the central telephone exchange and the post office on Myasnitskaya Street.

9:00 Representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee arrived in the Kremlin, they ordered the soldiers of the 56th regiment to prepare the weapons stored in the Arsenal building for removal from the Kremlin and distribution to the workers.

10:00 The Kremlin is surrounded by junkers, shock troops and officer companies, the attempt of the Bolsheviks to take out weapons is thwarted.

12:00 Junker and officer companies take up positions on Nikitsky Gate Square, on Ostozhenka, Prechistenka, Strastnoy Monastery Square (now Pushkinskaya Square).

12:30 The deputy director of the 1st Moscow Cadet Corps, Colonel Vladimir Rar, gathered officers and cadets, together they decided to defend the school and weapons depots in Lefortovo from the Bolsheviks. Throughout the day, the cadets and their teachers built fortifications and prepared to repel the attacks of the Red Guards, but there were no active hostilities that day.

Vladimir Fedorovich Rar. Colonel of the Russian army

Born in 1880 in Arensburg in a Lutheran merchant family. His birth name was Erwin Theodore. He took part in the Russo-Japanese War, has awards for bravery. From 1907 to 1914 he taught German and tactics at the Moscow Cadet Corps. In 1914 he transferred to the active army, converted from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy and changed his baptismal name to Vladimir. He explained his act by the desire to be of the same faith with his soldiers. In 1916 he was wounded during the summer offensive. To recover from a wound, he was sent to his family in Moscow, and was appointed deputy director of the 1st Moscow Cadet Corps. Resolute character, not afraid to take responsibility, restrained and tactful in communication, a patriot.

13:00 Junkers and volunteers take up positions around the Moscow City Council building, no one is allowed to enter the building.

14:00 VRK sends requests for help to Petrograd. The Moscow Bolsheviks urgently ask for reinforcements, as they do not have enough forces, and a single attack on the Moscow City Council building will lead to the arrest of all the leaders of the armed uprising. Trotsky promises to send sailors and a train of soldiers. So far, he is asking to call for help units loyal to the Bolsheviks from the Moscow region.

15:00 Mayor Rudnev and Colonel Ryabtsev are discussing measures to suppress the uprising. Rudnev proposes to immediately send troops to the Moscow City Council and arrest all members of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Ryabtsev hesitates. He says that he does not want blood, that the Public Security Committee has enough strength to resolve the conflict through negotiations. Rudnev persuades Ryabtsev to send a telegram to Headquarters with a request to remove units loyal to the government from the front and send them to Moscow.

16:00 Colonel Ryabtsev asks Headquarters for help by telegram.

22:00 Colonel Ryabtsev in an open carriage makes the rounds of the positions of the junkers around the Kremlin. “We had a complete feeling that the colonel deliberately loudly greeted the junkers hidden in the dark so that, by answering, they would draw the fire of the Reds from the walls of the Kremlin,” recalled one of the participants in those events.

8:00 Junkers continue to fire at the Kremlin with rifles and machine guns. Several artillery pieces have been set up in the streets adjacent to the Kremlin, but the gunners have been ordered not to shoot at the Kremlin so as not to damage "monuments of Russian history."

The junkers quickly built barricades at all the gates of the Kremlin to fight off possible attacks by the Bolsheviks trying to break into the Kremlin.

9:00 Officers living in Moscow, who did not support the Bolsheviks, gathered at the Alexander Military School. Volunteer detachments were formed from them, rifles and machine guns were distributed. Volunteers take up positions on the Arbat, Kudrinskaya and Smolenskaya squares.

11:00 Student volunteer detachments have been formed at Moscow University. In contrast to the "Red Guard" of the Bolsheviks, they call themselves the "White Guard". Students patrol the lanes from Ostozhenka to Tverskaya Street. Many have homemade white bands and ribbons on their clothes or on their sleeves.

12:00 Detachments of the Red Guards tried to storm the artillery workshops in Lefortovo. After a short battle with the cadets, the workshops were taken, the cadets retreated to the territory of their school.

13:00 There are no restrictions on movement in the city. People go about their business, stop at the posts of the junkers, ask what is happening.

15:00 The Red Guards take up positions on the roofs of houses on Povarskaya Street, on the roofs of houses near the Strastnoy Monastery. Junker patrols are periodically fired upon. There are practically no losses on either side. Several people were injured throughout the day.

Red guards in the city center

18:00 Commander of the Moscow Military District Konstantin Ryabtsev receives confirmation from the General Headquarters about sending reinforcements to Moscow. After that, martial law is declared in the city.

18:20 Detachments of Junkers attack Red posts on the Garden Ring in the area of ​​the Crimean Bridge, Smolensky Market and Kudrinskaya Square. As a result of short skirmishes, the Reds retreat from the Garden Ring, the cadets control the section from the Crimean Bridge to Kudrinskaya Square. About a hundred Red Guards were taken prisoner. Eight cadets are wounded.

18:30 An officer company and a small detachment of junkers take away the central telephone exchange and the Post Office from the Reds without a fight.

19:00 The mayor Rudnev and the commander of the Moscow military district Ryabtsev demanded that the Military Revolutionary Committee stop its activities, disarm the Red Guards, and the army units that supported the Bolsheviks return to the barracks and surrender their weapons. The Bolsheviks were given 15 minutes to fulfill their demands.

19:15 The Military Revolutionary Committee refused to fulfill the demands of Rudnev and Ryabtsev. The order was given to storm the Kremlin. The shelling of the battlements of the walls from machine guns began. Several soldiers of the 56th regiment were killed and wounded.

19:30 A group of 150 Reds is trying to break through to the Moscow City Council building. Junkers stop them with fire, and then with a counterattack they are thrown far back. 45 Reds killed, 30 more taken prisoner. The junkers have no losses.

20:00 Officer companies and cadets begin cleaning up the roofs on Povarskaya Street.

2:00 The assault on the Kremlin begins. The junkers are attacked from the Spassky and Borovitsky gates.

6:00 The commander of the Kremlin garrison Berzin decides to surrender. Soldiers of the 56th reserve regiment are ready to hand over their weapons. They line up in front of the Arsenal building, laying down their rifles in front of the formation. The Kremlin includes two companies of junkers. The soldiers, seeing that there are so few junkers, begin to grab their rifles. Berzin tries to stop them. Suddenly, an armored car of whites appears near the Arsenal. One of the soldiers shoots at him. In response, the cadets open fire with rifles, and the armored car fires at the soldiers with a machine gun. According to various estimates, from 50 to 300 soldiers of the 56th regiment were killed during this skirmish. The junkers have no losses.

6:40 The telephone communication of the Moscow City Council with other councils on the outskirts of the city was interrupted. The leaders of the uprising are waiting for arrest any minute. A few defenders of the VRK take up positions at the windows.

12:00 Ryabtsev is slow to order the arrest of members of the Military Revolutionary Committee. He invites the head of the city, Vadim Rudnev, to hold new negotiations with the Bolsheviks in order to avoid new bloodshed.

On October 28, for several hours, there was a battle for the grocery stores at the corner of Zubovsky Boulevard and Ostozhenka

13:00 Povarskaya street is completely cleared of reds. The center of Moscow is controlled by forces loyal to the Committee of Public Security.

14:00 Colonel Ryabtsev again offers the Bolsheviks to negotiate. They agree, but they are playing for time.

16:00 New units of the Red Guard and battalions of the 193rd Infantry Regiment, loyal to the Bolsheviks, begin to approach the Garden Ring from the outskirts.

17:00 In Moscow, reinforcements arrived from the cities near Moscow to the Reds. The WRC has a numerical advantage.

18:00 Soldiers of the 193rd regiment are attacking the grocery stores occupied by whites on the corner of Ostozhenka, storming houses on the inner side of Kudrinskaya Square, trying to break through to the Boulevard Ring through Prechistenka.

Reproduction of G. Savitsky's painting “Fight on Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow. October 1917"

19:00 A column of the 193rd regiment knocks out the cadets from the Strastnoy Monastery and unlocks the building of the Moscow City Council.

22:00 Whites are blocked in the center of Moscow. The Bolsheviks completely control Zamoskvorechye.

6:00 There are barricades on Ostozhenka and Prechistenka, on Tverskoy Boulevard there are trenches, at the Nikitsky Gates there are machine-gun points of white and red ones. There is constant gunfire.

Bolshevik barricade on Ostozhenka

8:00 On Tverskaya Street, near the building of the Moscow City Council, six field guns of the Reds were installed. They fire in the direction of the Metropol Hotel occupied by the junkers.

12:00 The Reds are attacking the positions of the junkers on Bolshaya Nikitskaya. The Whites retreated to the Nikitsky Gate Square and occupied the Union Theater (later the Repeat Film Cinema). Machine-gun positions are equipped on the roof of the Union.

Theater "Union", the strongest position of whites in Moscow (After 1917, the theater housed a re-film cinema, the building is located on the corner of Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street and Nikitsky Boulevard)

13:00 The junkers attacked the positions of the Reds on Tverskoy Boulevard, took about 30 people prisoner, but then, under artillery fire, were forced to retreat to the Nikitsky Gate.

13:30 On Povarskaya, a Red soldier was caught shooting from the roof at a truck with wounded cadets. He was dragged out into the street, tied by the legs to an armored car and dragged at full speed along Povarskaya.

15:00 On the bell tower of the Anglican Church in Leontievsky Lane, the Bolsheviks installed a machine gun. They are shelling the windows of houses, patrols of whites.

Belfry of the Anglican Church in Leontievsky Lane

“From the bell tower of the Anglican Church, machine-gun fire is being carried out on passing patrol detachments. At 15:30, a detachment of 15-man death battalion volunteers was sent to the rescue under the command of Ensign Petrov of the 217th Infantry Reserve Regiment with instructions to shoot down a machine gun and clear the bell tower from the Bolsheviks. During the battle, Ivan Andryushchenko, a volunteer, was the first to run up the bell tower, took a machine gun, and pinned three Bolsheviks. During a heated exchange of fire after taking a machine gun, volunteers of the death battalion were wounded: Uspensky, Valkov, Mironov and Andryushchenko, ”the battalion commander Lieutenant Zotov reported to the headquarters for suppressing the uprising.

21:00 The Bolsheviks installed additional guns on Tverskaya Street and began a methodical shelling of the Metropol and the Kremlin.

This is what the Metropol Hotel looked like in 1916

22:00 The MRC and the Committee of Public Safety attempted to start negotiations for a truce. Both those and others hoped to buy time and wait for reinforcements. The agreements were reached, but were immediately violated by the Reds, who fired several shells at the Metropol.

8:00 The Reds storm the Union Theater at the Nikitsky Gate. The theater is protected by about 50 officers and cadets. The fight lasts almost all day. By noon, a column of 300 Red Guards is moving down the boulevards towards the Nikitsky Gates. They are stopped at the monument to Gogol with dense fire. On the pedestal of the monument, traces of bullets fired either by the Reds or by the Junkers are still visible.

The monument to Gogol in 1917 stood on the Boulevard Ring. The Reds advancing to the Nikitsky Gate hid behind its pedestal

15:00 Fights go with varying success. The Reds either capture houses on Nikitskaya Street and Ostozhenka, or retreat under the attacks of the junkers.

20:00 Soldiers of the 193rd regiment leave the barricades on Ostozhenka to warm themselves in the entrances of neighboring houses. Volunteer boys remain in positions, constantly helping the Reds. Their duty is to periodically shoot from rifles and machine guns anywhere, just to create the illusion that there is someone on the barricades. One of the volunteers, 14-year-old Pavel Andreev, while trying to fire a rifle, dropped it on the other side of the barricades. Useful to get. The machine-gun crew of the whites responded to the movement. Andreev was laid down in a short burst.

Pavel Andreev, volunteer who helped the Bolsheviks during the uprising in Moscow

Born in 1903 in Moscow. He worked as an assistant blacksmith at the Michelson plant. He has been a member of the youth organization of the Bolsheviks since the summer of 1917. He was killed on Ostozhenka by a machine-gun fire on October 30. After the victory of the Bolsheviks, a Moscow street was named after Andreev (the former Arsenevsky lane in the Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya area)

23:00 The cadet corps and the Alekseevsky school in Lefortovo were abandoned by the cadets. Colonel Rahr, who commanded the defense, ordered the cadets to change into civilian clothes and, under cover of the officers who staged a false attack on the Bolsheviks, scatter to their homes. After all the cadets dispersed, Rahr left the school buildings with the officers and began to make his way to the Kremlin.

Morning. The Military Revolutionary Committee demands that Rudnev and Ryabtsev stop resisting, disband the Committee of Public Security and hand over their weapons. Participants in resistance will be guaranteed personal safety.

Day. Fighting on Tverskaya, the Reds occupy the entire street, trying to storm the Iberian Gates, but stop under machine-gun fire.

VRK repeats the offer to surrender. In case of refusal, the Bolsheviks promise to begin heavy shelling of the City Duma building.

On the left is the former building of the Moscow City Duma, in the center is the Iberian Gate (reconstruction), on the right is the Historical Museum. This complex of buildings was the last position of the whites in front of the Kremlin

Evening. The shelling of the Duma begins. Junkers and deputies move to the Kremlin. Only the officers of the shock battalion and some student volunteers remain in the building.

Morning. The Bolsheviks tried to drive the officers and cadets out of the Union Theater, suffered heavy losses, about 20 people were killed and the same number were wounded. The bodies of the dead and injured were transferred to Malaya Bronnaya. That's where their weapons are. Around noon, White Guard students, wearing red armbands and taking an empty truck, arrived at Bronnaya Street and announced that, at the request of the Military Revolutionary Committee, they were taking away weapons and ammunition for arming new Red Guard detachments. They were given fifty rifles, one machine gun and several thousand rounds of ammunition. The Reds noticed the catch only after the arrival of a real truck from the VRK.

Officers and cadets continue to hold Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street from Nikitsky Gate Square to Mokhovaya Street.

One of the buildings at the Nikitsky Gate after the end of the fighting

At Ostozhenka, the Reds went on the offensive. Whites are kicked out of the street. During this battle, in the courtyard of house No. 12/1, the Bolshevik agitator Lisinova was killed by a shot from one of the junkers. During the days of the uprising, she served as a liaison between the Military Revolutionary Committee and the commanders of the Reds in the field.

Lyusik Artemyevna Lisinova (Lisinyan). Bolshevik agitator

Born in 1893 in Tiflis in the family of a merchant. In 1915 he moved to Moscow, entered the First Commercial Institute (today the Plekhanov Academy). Since 1916, a member of the RSDLP (b). Works as an agitator at factories in Moscow. She was killed on November 1 at Ostozhenka. After the victory of the Bolsheviks, Lyusinovskaya Street in Moscow was named after her.

13:00 The attack of the Bolsheviks on the Iberian Gates and the Duma building ended successfully. The Red Guards occupied Red Square, set up guns opposite the Borovitsky Gate. The junkers were completely driven out of the Metropol. Red field guns are firing at the Kremlin from the Bolshoi Theater.

14:00 The Reds are going to storm the Kremlin. The assault fails, about 30 people are killed.

Evening. On the square in front of the Metropol Hotel, on Okhotny Ryad and at the Iberian Gates, the Red Guards finish off the wounded cadets who were hiding in the Duma building. Junkers are trying to save the sisters of mercy and passers-by, the Reds threaten that they will kill anyone who tries to save the "bastard".

Morning. The shelling of the Kremlin by the Bolsheviks continues. One of the shells pierced the clock on the Spasskaya Tower, another damaged the Arsenal, and several more hit the cathedrals.

Day. Colonel Ryabtsev decides on the surrender of the troops of the Committee of Public Security. Junkers, officers and students are disarmed. Some of them are killed on the spot, but most are dispersed throughout the city. The Bolsheviks take Colonel Ryabtsev and Mayor Rudnev into custody.

The surrender of the cadets of the Alexander Military School in Moscow

Evening. The MRC issues a ceasefire order. The Bolsheviks took Moscow after a week of fighting. The losses of the Bolsheviks amounted to more than 250 people. White's losses are about the same. There are still no exact figures.

Morning. At the Kremlin wall, the Bolsheviks bury their dead during the uprising. Between the Spasskaya and Senate towers, 238 coffins are buried in a mass grave. Lyusik Lisinova will be buried here on November 14, when her parents arrive in Moscow. Another worker who died of wounds will be buried near the Kremlin on November 17.

The funeral of the Red Guards in Moscow

The funeral procession filled the entire Red Square and the surrounding streets.

Morning. In the Church of the Great Ascension at the Nikitsky Gates, where Pushkin and Goncharova once got married, the dead cadets were buried. About ten thousand people came to the funeral. From the Nikitsky Gate, the procession went to the military cemetery on Petrogradskoe Shosse (today, the area of ​​​​the Sokol metro station), where the remains of the cadets were buried.

Memorial cross at the burial place of cadets in Moscow (Sokol district)

The well-known Russian singer Alexander Vertinsky attended this funeral. He came to Moscow on tour even before the uprising, and did not leave. Returning to his place after the funeral, Vertinsky wrote a romance "What I have to say" dedicated to the fallen cadets. A few weeks after the Bolshevik victory, Vertinsky was summoned to the Cheka and demanded an explanation as to why he had written a counter-revolutionary song. After this visit to the Cheka, Vertinsky leaves for the south of Russia.

What happened to them

Vadim Rudnev after the defeat in Moscow, he left for the south of Russia. In 1919 he emigrated to France and settled in Paris. Engaged in publishing and journalism. Died in 1940.

Konstantin Ryabtsev spent three weeks in prison, after which he was released and continued his political activities in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. After the Social Revolutionaries were removed from work in the Soviets, in September 1918 he left for Ukraine. In Kharkov he worked as a journalist in three local newspapers. In 1919, after the capture of Kharkov by the Whites, Ryabtsev was arrested. He was charged with active action against Kornilov in the summer of 1917, as well as weak-willed command of the Moscow garrison during the Bolshevik uprising. On the way from the counterintelligence investigator to the prison, Ryabtsev was killed by an escort, as official documents say, "while trying to escape."

Grigory Usievich received praise from Lenin for his actions during the uprising in Moscow. In March 1918 he was sent to manage the supply of bread to Moscow from the Urals. Worked in military committees in Omsk and Tyumen. He commanded a small cavalry detachment. Killed in August 1918 during a battle with local residents in the village of Irbit (Sverdlovsk region).

Vladimir Rar successfully made his way from Lefortovo to the Kremlin, avoided arrest after surrender, hid in Moscow with his wife and children until January 1918, and in January managed to take his family to Riga, which was then under the control of the German army. After the Germans left, Rahr took part in the formation of the Latvian Landeswehr, made plans to repel the Bolshevik invasion. In 1919, before the city was captured by the Reds, he sent his family to Germany, while he continued to fight. He joined the Volunteer Corps of Prince Lieven, commanded two companies of the Latvian Landeswehr during the assault on Mitava. In April 1919, while inspecting the city prison, Rahr contracted typhus. Died a week after infection.

The revolutionary events of October 1917 became one of the most tragic pages in the history of Moscow, when full-scale hostilities unfolded in the city, which were fought by citizens of one country against each other.

During these actions, the Kremlin was shelled from artillery pieces. The damage caused is reflected in photographs - the most objective and impartial witnesses of historical events.

The Moscow Kremlin Museums store photographic evidence depicting its destruction after shelling in the fall of 1917, as well as unique glass negatives, which mainly show the Kremlin towers, tower churches, the Annunciation Cathedral, and the Small Nicholas Palace.

For the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917, the Moscow Kremlin Museums have prepared a unique documentary publication “The Moscow Kremlin after artillery shelling in the autumn of 1917”, which presents photographs of the destruction caused.

A hole in the central drum of the Assumption Cathedral after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View from the drum. Photo-phototype by P. P. Pavlov. November 5-7, 1917

“As for the gap in the main domed drum, it has an oval shape, its larger size is about 3 arshins, and the smaller one is approx. 2.5 arshins; the edges of this gap are slightly cracked (the walls of the drum are very thin), stratified, above the gap one can feel a deflection in the domed vault (it is only half a brick) inside the cathedral; there is a crack running along the bulging part, almost vertical, there is also a horizontal crack, this delamination and cracks make one fear the presence of the same, but imperceptible, and, consequently, the falling off of individual parts of the masonry next to the gap.

... The construction of the masonry is visible in the gap and it turns out for the first time that the white-stone facing of the dome drum begins above the windows close to the thin brick vault, while the entire drum is made of brick in a sling " Protocol by P. P. Pokryshkin and E. O. Wiesel November 10, 1917 - RO AT IIMK. F. 1. 1917 D. 6. L. 106v.

Assumption Cathedral after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View from Cathedral Square Photograph by P.P. Pavlova. November 5–7, 1917

“There was a rumor that a cross had been taken down from the Assumption Cathedral; in fact, it turned out that all the crosses were intact. But, to our deep regret, in one of the domes of the cathedral there is a significant hole from an artillery shell. From the ground it seems that it is no more than one arshin in diameter, in fact, it is, of course, much larger. 1917–1918 M., 1994. T. 3. S. 86

Cathedral of the Archangel. A hole in the vault of the apse of the southern aisle after a shell hit. Unknown photographer. Not earlier than July 8, 1918. Museums of the Moscow Kremlin

Filaret's extension of the Assumption Belfry after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. East facade. Photo-phototype by P. P. Pavlov. November 5-16, 1917

The Tsar Bell and the Assumption Belfry after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View from the southeast. Photographer D.M. Gusev (?). November 1917

The Archangel Cathedral after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. South facade. Photo-phototype by P.P. Pavlova. November 5–16, 1917

“The shell hit the southern wall of the cathedral and destroyed the middle part of the buttress left at the exit from the cathedral, forming a hole in the brickwork about 2 arshins long and wide and up to 10 vershoks deep” Protocol of inspection of the Kremlin buildings on November 7, 1917 - GTsMSIR. GIK 7720/1. L. 2 about.

Southern porch of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Destruction after shelling at the end of October - November 3, 1917. Photographer D.M. Gusev (?). November - December 1917

“In the Annunciation Cathedral, its southeastern corner was damaged, where a shell hit the upper part of the stone vaulted vestibule above the upper platform of the stairs leading to the southern extension of the cathedral. The brickwork above the corner column was broken, the heel of the cross vault was damaged, and the vault itself was half destroyed. spring-loaded

arches made of natural stone, one is half destroyed, and the other is damaged, its seams have parted and it must be rebuilt” Description N.V. Markovnikov. December 8, 1917 - ORPGF of the Moscow Kremlin Museums. F. 20. Op. 1917 D. 20. L. 4, 19

The southern facade of the Assumption Cathedral after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. Photo-phototype by P.P. Pavlova. November 5–7, 1917

“During an external examination of the cathedral, it turned out that the shells hit ... in the white stone masonry of the cathedral on its southern facade, in the corner of the extreme pilaster, at the height of the first tier of windows, where a pothole was made in the masonry about 9 inches deep with a diameter of about 1 arshin and 4 inches” Protocol inspection of the Kremlin buildings November 7, 1917 - GTsMSIR. GIK 7720/1. L. 1

The Spasskaya Tower after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View from Red Square. Photographer D.M. Gusev (?). November - December 1917

“There are three holes in the Spasskaya Tower from the shells that hit it. One of the shells made a through hole in the outer wall, bypassing the tower of the gallery, located in the third tier from the level of the Kremlin wall from the side of Red Square. Hole about 1 square. arshin was made only in the outer wall and there is no damage inside the tower. Jewelery and columns made of hewn stone were immediately damaged in several places... The third shell hit the upper part of the clock dial from the side of Red Square. Having broken the iron dial and distorted the minute hand, the projectile hit the right edge of the window behind the dial, breaking the stone wall and spoiling the lintels, and the remains of the old clock dial on the brick wall of the tower, located behind the modern one, turned out to be somewhat damaged. Markovnikov. Not later than December 8, 1917 - ORPGF of the Moscow Kremlin Museums. F. 20. Op. 1917 D. 20. L. 7

Destruction of the retractable archer of the Nikolskaya Tower after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View from Red Square. Photographer D.M. Gusev (?). November - December 1917

“In the Nikolskaya Tower, the front facade of the retractable archery, overlooking Red Square, was especially damaged. It has 6 to 8 potholes in the brickwork. Figured columns made of hewn stone were damaged, especially on the left side, and moldings in many places. The kiot near the image of Nicholas the Wonderworker was broken and destroyed, the gilded metal canopy was crumpled and the lantern disappeared. The image itself has been preserved and its painting has been damaged only in the lower part on the right side by about 1/3 of its height, but the image of an angel (modern painting) on ​​the right side has been destroyed. Wooden oak doors are completely broken and must be replaced with new ones. Description N.V. Markovnikov. Not later than December 8, 1917 - ORPGF of the Moscow Kremlin Museums. F. 20. Op. 1917 D. 20. L. 9

The central drum of the Assumption Cathedral after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. Photo-phototype by P.P. Pavlova. November 5–7, 1917.

“The walls of the dome drum are covered with a particularly thick layer of brick dust, this dust covers both the icons of the iconostasis and all surrounding objects ...” Protocol P.P. Pokryshkin and E.O. Wiesel November 10, 1917 - RO AT IIMK. F. 1. 1917 D. 6. L. 106v.

The interior of the Assumption Cathedral after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View of the royal doors. Photo-phototype by P.P. Pavlova. November 5–7, 1917.

“Inside the temple, fragments of white stone and brick are scattered everywhere, there is especially a lot of rubble near the salt and on the salt itself. Fragments of a six-inch projectile and its cone were also picked up here ”Report of the Commission of the Local Council on November 18, 1917 - GARF. F. R-3431. Op. 1. D. 575. L. 70v.

The interior of the Assumption Cathedral after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View of the Tsaritsyno place and the northern wall from the salt. Photograph by P.P. Pavlova. November 5-7, 1917 Moscow Kremlin Museums.

"... A part of the tent of the place of the empresses of the queens and grand duchesses was destroyed, and gilded fragments of wooden carving are scattered on the floor" Protocol of the inspection of the Kremlin buildings on November 7, 1917 - GCMSIR. GIK 7720/1. L. 1

The interior of the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View of the altar. Photo-phototype by P.P. Pavlova. November 5–16, 1917

“Fortunately, the shell did not cause serious damage inside the church; even the glass in the icon case standing at the named window has been preserved, and, even more so, the famous icons of St. St. app. Peter and Paul XIV-XV centuries; the floor is covered with rubble and dust, the surrounding objects are dusty and the crucifix of the 19th century has suffered; broken glass in the windows” Inspection protocol P.P. Pokryshkin and E.O. Wiesel November 10, 1917 - RO AT IIMK. F. 1. 1917 D. 6. L. 107

Belfry "Ivan the Great" and the Assumption Belfry after the shelling of the Moscow Kremlin in late October - November 3, 1917. View from Ivanovskaya Square. Photo-phototype by P.P. Pavlova. November 5–16, 1917.

"The bell tower of Ivan the Great was damaged by shells from the eastern and southeastern sides, and many potholes and bullet wounds are visible on the walls" Nestor, Bishop of Kamchatka. The shooting of the Moscow Kremlin. M., 1917. S. 19

Unlike Petrograd, in Moscow the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in October 17 was accompanied by stubborn battles.
The battle between the forces of the Military Revolutionary Committee of Moscow and units loyal to the Committee of Public Security (an organ of the Provisional Government) was fought with varying success.

According to an eyewitness to the Russian Revolution, American journalist and writer Albert Rhys Williams, in Moscow "contrary to Lenin's expectations, the resistance to the Bolsheviks was much more significant than in Petrograd".

In addition to Moscow, perhaps only Kyiv, during the period of the revolution and the Civil War, experienced the burden of armed strife to the same extent. Ostozhenka and Prechistenka, Znamenka and Okhotny Ryad, Arbatskaya, Strastnaya, Skobelevskaya squares, Bryansk railway station, Zamoskvorechye, Lefortovo. Now it is almost impossible to imagine that there was a real war going on here.

John Reed, in the book "Ten Days That Shook the World", according to Grigory Melnichansky, a trade union member of the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee, describes the entertainment of teenagers. "A large group of street boys gathered in the Nikitsky Gate area. When the shooting subsided a little, they ran across the street. Many of them were mowed down by the opposing sides with machine-gun fire. Others, laughing joyfully, continued to rush from one side of Bolshaya Nikitskaya to the other."
Anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin lived on Bolshaya Nikitskaya. An entry in his diary dated November 1: "Yesterday, a skirmish in Moscow has been going on for 5 days already. Firing from guns and rifles day and night. Along Nikitskaya all the time stray rifle firing".

Companies of junkers and officers fought desperately. Their opponents fought with the same ferocity - the workers' Red Guard detachments and the soldiers of the reserve regiments, who went over to the side of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

From Ivanov, Shuya, Kovrov and Vladimir, Red Guards under the command of Mikhail Frunze arrive in Moscow. They storm the Metropol hotel and besiege the Kremlin.
A combined detachment of sailors of the Baltic Fleet is sent from Petrograd to Moscow. It includes future legendary personalities - Anatoly Zheleznyakov and Fedor Raskolnikov.
The revolutionary sailors were late, the active phase of the fighting ended without them. The Baltics were tasked with, to use modern terminology, "cleansing operations" in Moscow. They were carried out both against participants in recent battles and against criminal elements.

The most dramatic episode of the Moscow battles in the autumn of 1917 was the shelling of the Kremlin, its cathedrals, monasteries and palaces.

A Bolshevik member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, Viktor Nogin, was a determined opponent of the shelling of the Kremlin. His comrade in the party and the Military Revolutionary Committee, Yefim Ignatov, considered such a position "intellectual vacillations."

The Marxist historian Mikhail Pokrovsky, the future chairman of the Moscow Soviet, was the first to speak at a meeting of the Military Revolutionary Committee in favor of "decisive action" against the Kremlin garrison, commanded by Colonel Konstantin Ryabtsev.
In 1919, the Whites shot Colonel Ryabtsev in Kharkov for capitulating and surrendering the Kremlin to the Reds. Professor of Moscow University, Academician Mikhail Pokrovsky died in 1932. His ashes are buried near the Kremlin wall.

"The Bolsheviks had artillery and people who could shoot,"- wrote in his diary on October 31, 1917, the historian Yuri Gauthier.

From Sparrow Hills the 7th Ukrainian Heavy Artillery Battalion hit the Kremlin. (from me- 98 years before the Maidan, the dream of "professional patriots of Ukraine" came true, gee-gee-gee...)
Two 48-line guns were installed on Shviva (Vshivaya) Hill, where the high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment is now located. They fired at the Small Nikolaevsky Palace and the Spassky Gates of the Kremlin.
The batteries that took up positions at the Babiegorsk dam between the Krymsky and Kamenny bridges were tasked with firing at the Kremlin wall overlooking the Manege and breaking through the Troitsky Gates. The guns were pulled up to the Nikolsky gates.

The actions of the Red artillery in the Moscow battles in the autumn of 1917 are described in detail in the book of General Ignatius Prochko.

In 1917, during the storming of the Kremlin, the Bolsheviks damaged the
top of the tent. Later it was restored by the architect I. V. Rylsky.

On November 2, the Committee of Public Safety issued an order to its supporters for a ceasefire. Negotiations began with the Military Revolutionary Committee on the conditions for the surrender of the Kremlin garrison.

On November 2, 1917, having learned about the bombing of the Kremlin, A. V. Lunacharsky, People's Commissar of Education, resigned, declaring that he could not come to terms with the destruction of the most important artistic values, "thousands of victims", the bitterness of the struggle "to bestial malice", powerlessness "to stop this horror".
But Lenin said to Lunacharsky: “How can you attach such importance to this or that building, no matter how good it may be, when it comes to opening doors to a social order that can create beauty beyond anything that could be dreamed of in the past?” After that, Lunacharsky withdrew his resignation letter.

The Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, which took place in those days in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, addressed the warring parties: "In the name of God, the All-Russian Holy Council calls on our dear brothers and children now to refrain from further terrible bloody battle".
On behalf of the church, the Cathedral implored the victors "not to allow any acts of revenge, cruel reprisals and in all cases to spare the lives of the vanquished".
The cathedral also pleaded not to subject the Kremlin to artillery fire. "in the name of saving the shrines dear to all of Russia, the destruction and desecration of which the Russian people will never forgive anyone".

With the blessing of the Cathedral, the damage to the Kremlin was examined by a special commission headed by Bishop Nestor of Kamchatka. At the end of 1917, Bishop Nestor published the pamphlet "The Execution of the Moscow Kremlin".
The day of October 29, which was free from conciliar studies, Nestor, as a pastor-orderly, spent on the streets of Moscow in the thick of the fighting.
The brochure describes the destruction that the cathedrals, palaces and towers of the Kremlin suffered as a result of artillery fire. The publication was withdrawn immediately after publication.

The Cathedral established an all-Russian collection of donations "for the correction and restoration of the Kremlin churches and other historical shrines".
Later, Bishop Nestor, who personally examined the Kremlin, recorded a number of destruction and damage to the Assumption, Annunciation, Nikolo-Gostun Cathedrals, as well as the Cathedral of the 12 Apostles. The Bell Tower of Ivan the Great, the Patriarch's sacristy, some Kremlin towers were damaged, in particular, Beklemishevskaya stood without a top, and Spasskaya was pierced, the famous clock on the Spasskaya Tower stopped.

The Spasskaya Tower with traces of damage by shells, the clock was also damaged by a shell hit in the number II

However, the rumors that were circulating in Petrograd at that time about the destruction in Moscow were greatly exaggerated; Thus, it was alleged that not only the Kremlin, but also St. Basil's Cathedral was allegedly damaged by shelling, and the Assumption Cathedral was allegedly burned down during shelling of the Kremlin itself.

Junkers, students, officers who died in the Moscow battles were buried in the Church of the Great Ascension at the Nikitsky Gate. "It seems that the new All-Russian Patriarch himself served", - Yuri Gauthier wrote in his diary.
Prayer was held in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior "for the repose of all, without distinction, who fell victims of popular unrest".

The Military Revolutionary Committee and the Moscow Soviet decided to bury the Red Army soldiers and soldiers near the Kremlin wall. The Council came out with a sharp condemnation of this idea.
In the burial under the walls of the Kremlin of people, "who defiled its shrines and, raising the banner of fratricidal war, outraged the people's conscience", the Council saw a deliberate insult to the Church.
John Reed was an eyewitness to the funeral. Huge crowds flocked to Red Square from all the streets, Reed wrote in Ten Days That Shook the World. "The workers carried their dead." "Squads of soldiers also with coffins." "The orchestra played a revolutionary funeral march." The whole huge crowd with uncovered heads echoed him. "" An endless stream of banners ".

Reid writes about women. "Many threw themselves into the grave after their sons and husbands." Five hundred coffins, Reed went on, were stacked in the grave. They started filling up the grave. The sound of earth on the coffins could be heard despite the singing. The proletarian wave subsided.
"And suddenly I realized that the pious Russian people no longer need priests. This people built on earth such a kingdom that you will not find in any heaven."

On November 10, 238 coffins were lowered into mass graves. In total, 240 people were buried in 1917 (the names of 57 people are known for sure).

The deceased cadets and officers were buried on November 13 in the Church of the Great Ascension at the Nikitsky Gate. A crowd of thousands gathered around the church. The funeral procession headed along Tverskoy Boulevard and Petrogradskoye Highway to the Bratsk Cemetery. Memorial services were held in all the churches along the way. Most of the coffins were carried by hand. Toward evening, in the dark, the procession entered the cemetery and, in the light of torches, the coffins began to be lowered into the grave.

In the photo, the ranks of the organization "Volunteer Corps" - participants in the creation
Crosses and slabs at the Fraternal Cemetery and at the Church of All Saints on the Falcon. 1995

On November 17, 1995, on the territory of the former Fraternal Cemetery (now it is a preserved section of the cemetery near the Church of All Saints near the Sokol metro station), a memorial cross was erected with the inscription: “Junkers. We died for our freedom and yours." Above the inscription was fixed a crown of thorns made of barbed wire.

Many have heard that the Cossacks stormed Paris, Berlin and many other cities. There are even songs about this, for example: "... Cossacks, Cossacks ... Our Cossacks are traveling, traveling around Berlin ...". The memory of these events remained in the form of geographical names of the Ural villages. How does it sound! Villages: Berlin, Paris, Andrianopol, Varna, Balkans, Varshavka, Leipzig, Chesma, Port Arthur, Ferchampenoise……

But not everyone knows that the Cossacks stormed the Moscow Kremlin in 1917.

Who were these heroes?

These were Cossacks drafted into the 7th Siberian Cossack Regiment from the 1st Military Department of the Siberian Cossack Army - Cossacks from the villages of the Akmola region of the Steppe General Government, including the Kokchetav Cossacks.
During the storming of the Kremlin, this regiment was commanded by foreman Vyacheslav Ivanovich Volkov.

The 7th Siberian Cossack Regiment began fighting in World War I in December 1914. This regiment, together with the 8th Siberian Cossack regiment, was attached to four army corps of the North-Western Front and used as a corps cavalry. Only in November 1915, the 4.5, 7 and 8 regiments were reduced to the Siberian Cossack division, which, together with the Ural and Turkestan Cossack divisions, made up the consolidated Cossack corps.
On February 7, 1916, the regiment was honored to participate in a meeting with Emperor Nicholas II in Tsarskoye Selo for success in conducting battles in World War I. The emperor personally presented the Cossacks with well-deserved awards and gold coins with his portrait. Nicholas II accepted the parade with pleasure.

There was still a year left before the February Revolution of 1917.

Until the end of the spring of 1917, the Siberian Cossack division fought on the Western Front. She acted with distinction in the battles during the retreat near Grodno and Vilna, and then was withdrawn to the rear and scattered for security service in the Minsk and Moscow military districts.

So the 7th Siberian Cossack regiment ended up in Moscow.
The staff of the wartime regiment was: 25 officers and 1146 lower ranks. Strength!

On October 25 (according to the new style - November 7), 1917, another revolution was made in Russia by the Bolsheviks (a bit too much for one year, of course). In Petrograd, the coup took place virtually without bloodshed. During the storming of the Winter Palace, 6 people died. Those who defended the Winter Junkers, including generals, as well as members of the Provisional Government, were released on parole and a promise that they would no longer fight against Soviet power.
In Moscow, events took on a completely different character.
On October 25, the Moscow Soviet created the Military Revolutionary Committee (chairman G. A. Usievich), but at the same time, at the initiative of the Moscow City Duma, the Public Security Committee arose, headed by the commander of the Moscow Military District, the Social Revolutionary Colonel K. I. Ryabtsev, which began to actively oppose the Bolsheviks.
By October 27, the Committee's troops took control of the entire center of Moscow and blockaded the Kremlin. Armed clashes began with the Red Guard detachments. Armed detachments from industrial centers near Moscow came to the aid of the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee, a detachment of Kronstadt sailors arrived. On the approaches to Moscow, trains with military units moving to help the Committee of Public Security were stopped.
The troops subordinate to the Committee were concentrated on Red Square. These were battalions of cadets from the Alexander and Alekseevsky military schools, under the command of their officers, volunteer officers and Siberian Cossacks. Through the gates of the Spasskaya Tower, units of the White Guard entered the Kremlin without hindrance. It was then that this expression came into circulation as a difference from the Red Guard.
The Whites cut the wire of the Moscow Soviet and, having connected the wire of the Kremlin to their headquarters, pretended to speak from the Moscow Soviet. They informed the Kremlin garrison that the Military Revolutionary Committee was disbanded and "all the troops are on the side of the headquarters." This news had a stunning effect on the soldiers, and without a single shot being fired, the Kremlin was surrendered on the morning of October 27th.
The soldiers of the 56th regiment, located in the Kremlin, were disarmed. The attempt of some to resist was severely suppressed. Some of the soldiers were shot. In total, more than two hundred people died on their part. More than three thousand were put under arrest.
There were fierce battles in many parts of Moscow. On October 30, workers arrive to help the Red Guard - fighters from the Mytishchensky plant, Pavlovskaya Sloboda and the Serpukhov region. Two companies of revolutionary soldiers arrived from Minsk. The Red Guard of Tula equips cars and trucks at state-owned gun factories, puts machine guns on them and sends Moscow to help. The Reds take the post office and the main telegraph office. Occupy the Kursk and Aleksandrovsky stations, take the city administration. On November 1, cadet corps are engaged in them. By evening, the remnants of the White Guard retreated to the Kremlin.
On November 1 and 2, the Reds began shelling the Kremlin with artillery pieces. The walls were damaged in several places. One shell hit the clock on the Spasskaya Tower. It was planned to carry out bombing of the Kremlin from airplanes ....

Only by November 3, after the conclusion of a truce, did the VRK detachments manage to take control of the Kremlin.

On November 2, Rudnev, chairman of the Committee of Public Safety, asked the Military Revolutionary Committee to stop hostilities and announce the terms of the truce. At 5 pm, after six days of fighting, a truce was finally concluded on the following terms:
1. The Public Safety Committee ceases to exist.
2. The White Guard returns the weapons and disbands. The officers remain with their weapons. In the cadet schools, only the weapons that are necessary for training are kept. All other weapons are returned by the junkers. The Military Revolutionary Committee guarantees to all the freedom and inviolability of the individual. To put this into practice, a commission is organized from representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee, commanders and representatives of the organizations that took part in the mediation.
4. Shooting and other hostilities cease.
5. The prisoners of both sides are immediately released.

The command of the Red Guard was well aware that their losses during the storming of the Kremlin would be very high, so they preferred negotiations to direct clashes.

For all the days of the fighting, the losses on both sides amounted to more than 2 thousand people killed.

238 of those killed in the Kremlin by the Reds were solemnly buried near the Kremlin wall, marking the beginning of burials in the main square of the country.

What about Siberians?

The Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee took all measures to send this dangerous regiment by rail to Siberia.

Upon arrival in Tyumen in November 1917, the 7th Sibkazpolk had a conflict with the local garrison, who tried to disarm the Cossacks. After that, the Omsk Military District Committee, fearing the Cossacks, began to “bombard” Petrograd and the Revolutionary Military Council with telegrams demanding the preliminary disarmament of the Cossack units and sending them at as long intervals as possible in order to prevent the concentration of Cossacks in cities and at railway stations. The leaders of the Bolsheviks were well aware that the appearance of Cossack units on the outskirts of the country, where Soviet power was just being established and where its social base was narrow, was extremely dangerous for them.

The Cossacks of the 7th Sibkazpolk arrived in Kokchetav, retaining all their weapons and horses, which almost failed to be done by other Siberian Cossack regiments, following their homeland later, and which were disarmed by the Red Guard units along the way.

Ahead, even more painful trials of the internecine Civil War were already guessed.

In the photo: cadets on the defense of the Moscow Kremlin, November 1, 1917, see this and other photos about those events on

The October battles in Moscow were caused by the armed uprising of the Bolsheviks and took place from October 25 (November 7) to November 2 (15), 1917. It was in Moscow that the longest and most stubborn resistance unfolded during the October Revolution. For a whole week in the ancient capital of Russia, people were killing each other, unique architectural monuments suffered from artillery shelling, and the number of victims among the rebels and the civilian population is still not known exactly.

The Moscow battles in October 1917 completely cross out the theory created by Soviet historiography about the bloodless "triumphal procession" of Soviet power across the country. Many modern historians tend to evaluate these events as the beginning of the Civil War in Russia.

In Petrograd, as we remember, the Bolshevik detachments, clearly acting according to Trotsky's plan, captured all the planned facilities within a few hours and overthrew the Provisional Government. Already by the morning of October 25, the leader of the uprising, lighting a cigarette, reported to Lenin about complete victory.

In Moscow, everything happened differently.

To this day, the question remains debatable among historians: was there a plan for an armed uprising in Moscow? Or did it begin and happen spontaneously, and therefore it acquired such bloody forms? Let's try to figure it out.

The alignment of forces and the leadership of the uprising

The Moscow Bolsheviks received news of the coup in the capital only at noon on 25 October. It seems that this was a big surprise for them. Only yesterday they, hand in hand with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries - opponents of an armed coup - were preparing projects for joint governing bodies, sat in the councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies, discussing the possibilities of "peaceful ways of the revolution." Now it was necessary to grab the rifles and run to the streets. In a hurry, the Combat Center was formed, which led the actions of the Bolshevik detachments in Moscow.

Following the model of their St. Petersburg colleagues, the Bolshevik Combat Center began hostilities with the capture of the city post office building on Myasnitskaya Street by its patrols. However, on October 25, there was no real military force in the hands of the Moscow Bolsheviks to continue the uprising that had begun. The military units located in the city were formally subordinate to the commander of the troops of the Moscow Military District, the weapons were in the Kremlin under the protection of the 56th Infantry Reserve Regiment.

When the Bolsheviks sent their representatives to the barracks of this regiment to form a detachment to occupy the post and telegraph, they were refused by the regimental committee to give two companies of soldiers without the permission of the headquarters of the Moscow District and the consent of the Council of Soldiers' Deputies.

The 56th regiment, in addition to guarding the Kremlin with an arsenal of hand and easel weapons, was entrusted with guarding the State Bank, the treasury, savings and loan banks and other institutions. The regiment was located near the Moscow post office (Myasnitskaya street, 26). His 1st battalion and 8th company were located in the Kremlin, the remaining companies of the 2nd battalion were in the Zamoskvorechye region, and the headquarters of the regiment with two battalions was located in the Pokrovsky barracks. Having received the support of this regiment, the Bolsheviks immediately gained control over all important objects in the city.

Despite the refusal of the regimental committee, the personnel of the 56th regiment, agitated by the Bolsheviks in advance, reacted loyally to the idea of ​​​​immediate action. Soon the 11th and 13th companies moved to carry out the tasks of the Combat Center.

Meanwhile, on October 25, elections to the Moscow City Duma were completed. The Right SRs received an absolute majority of the votes. The minor Bolshevik faction, headed by Skvortsov-Stepanov, was forced to leave the meeting, at which the vowels made a unanimous decision to defend the Provisional Government. At the same meeting of the Duma, the Committee of Public Security (KOB) was created. It was headed by the mayor of Moscow, Social Revolutionary Vadim Rudnev and the commander of the Moscow Military District, Colonel Konstantin Ryabtsev. In addition to representatives of city and zemstvo self-government, the Committee included representatives of Vikzhel - the postal and telegraph union, the executive committees of the Council of Soldiers' Deputies, the Council of Peasants' Deputies and the headquarters of the military district. Thus, the City Duma, headed by the right SRs, turned into a political center of resistance to the Bolsheviks. The Committee acted from the position of defending the Provisional Government, but could rely mainly on the officers of the Moscow garrison and the cadets of the Alexander and Alekseevsky military schools located in Moscow.

That same evening, a joint meeting (plenum) of both Moscow Soviets - workers' and soldiers' (at that time functioning separately) took place. At the plenum, its own body for leading the uprising was created - the Military Revolutionary Committee (VRC) consisting of 7 people (4 Bolsheviks and 3 members of other parties) chaired by the Bolshevik G.A.Usievich.

The Military Revolutionary Committee relied on part of the Bolshevik troops (193rd regiment, 56th reserve infantry regiment, scooter battalion, etc.), as well as Red Guard workers. The "Dvintsy" - soldiers arrested in the summer of 1917 in Dvinsk for refusing to go on the offensive - went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. On September 22 (October 5) they were released by the Moscow City Council.

Later, the “Reds” created regional military-revolutionary committees headed by commissars, military units that took the side of the Bolsheviks and their allies were put on alert, measures were taken to arm the Red Guard workers (10-12 thousand people).

On the night of October 26, the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee summoned companies of the 193rd reserve regiment to the Kremlin. The head of the Kremlin Arsenal, Colonel Viskovsky, obeyed the demand of the Military Revolutionary Committee for the issuance of weapons to the workers. 1,500 rifles with cartridges were issued, but it was not possible to take out the weapons, since the exits from the Kremlin were blocked by junker detachments.

On October 26, the commander of the troops of the Moscow Military District K.I. Ryabtsev turned to Headquarters with a request to send military units loyal to the Provisional Government from the front to Moscow and at the same time entered into negotiations with the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee. Ryabtsev was in hesitation all day, as he sought to resolve the conflict peacefully. At the same time, the junkers at the rallies demanded his resignation. According to one version, a delegation of cadets was sent to General A.A. Brusilov, who was in Moscow at that moment. The junkers asked Brusilov to lead the anti-Bolshevik resistance, but he refused, citing poor health.

KOB (Rudnev) and the Military Revolutionary Committee (especially its Menshevik part), not wanting large-scale bloodshed, also made repeated attempts to reach an agreement, but each time the negotiations came to a standstill.

Meanwhile, the Alexander Military School became the center of largely spontaneous resistance to the Bolshevik coup in Moscow. On October 27, in addition to the junkers, volunteer officers, students, and even high school students gathered there. This army of 300-400 people was headed by the chief of staff of the Moscow Military District, Colonel K. K. Dorofeev. They occupied the approaches to the school from the Smolensky market, Povarskaya and Malaya Nikitskaya streets, as well as the western side of Bolshaya Nikitskaya to the university building and the Kremlin. The volunteer detachment of students of Moscow University was called the "White Guard" - this was the first time this term was used.

The second center of resistance was the complex of barracks 1,2,3 of the cadet corps and the Alekseevsky military school in Lefortovo. Deputy Director of the 1st Moscow Cadet Corps, Colonel V.F. Rahr organized the defense by the forces of senior cadets. Later they were joined by the Alekseevsky junkers.

The beginning of the uprising

On October 27 (November 9), at 6 pm, K. I. Ryabtsev and the COB, having received confirmation from the Headquarters about the expulsion of troops from the front and information about the performance of Kerensky-Krasnov’s troops against Petrograd, declared the city under martial law. The Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee was presented with an ultimatum: disband the Military Revolutionary Committee, surrender the Kremlin and disarm the revolutionary-minded military units. Representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee agreed to the withdrawal of the companies of the 193rd regiment (by that time it had already left the Kremlin), but they demanded that the 56th regiment be left and refused to disarm.

On the same day, the forces of the junkers attacked a detachment of soldiers - "dvintsev" who were trying to break through to the Moscow City Council. 45 people out of 150 were killed or wounded. Junkers entrenched themselves on the Garden Ring from the Crimean Bridge to the Smolensky Market, entered the Boulevard Ring from the Myasnitsky and Sretensky Gates, captured the post office, telegraph and telephone exchange.

The capture of the Kremlin by the junkers

On October 28, Colonel Ryabtsev demanded that Ensign Berzin, commandant of the Kremlin appointed by the Bolsheviks, surrender the Kremlin. Ryabtsev said by phone that the whole city, including the telephone, post office, telegraph, was in his hands, the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee was disbanded, and further resistance was pointless. Since Berzin was cut off from all means of communication, and a significant part of the Kremlin garrison (still the same 56th infantry regiment) demanded surrender, he ordered the gates to be opened.

In modern historiography, there are two mutually exclusive versions of the events that followed. Each of them is based on the memories and testimonies of "direct eyewitnesses" who, in the subsequent civil confrontation, found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades.

The first version is based on the well-known memoirs of soldiers of the 56th Infantry Regiment who surrendered to the junkers on October 28, 1917. They all claim that the cadets who broke into the Kremlin beat Berzin, dragged armored cars and machine guns through the gates, surrounded the barracks and ordered the garrison to line up on the square near the monument to Alexander II. Having disarmed the soldiers, for no reason at all they machine-gunned more than 300 people.

This execution in the Kremlin has long been considered the beginning of the "white terror". He completely untied the hands of the Bolshevik detachments in their further actions on the streets of revolutionary Moscow against pupils of cadet schools, cadets and yesterday's high school students, who were not followed by mothers and tutors, fully justified the “Red Terror” that unfolded in 1918 throughout the country and all the horrors of the Civil War .

The second version, based on the memoirs of the cadet V.S. Arseniev and the report of the head of the Moscow artillery warehouse, Major General Kaigorodov, which was made in the 1990s, was widely disseminated by Wikipedia and settled in a number of Internet publications and even historical studies.

According to the testimony of Arseniev and Kaigorodov, after the occupation of the Kremlin by the junkers, either a tragic accident or a deliberate provocation took place, which led to numerous victims.

From the report of General Kaigorodov to the Chief of Artillery of the Moscow Military District dated November 8, 1917:

At 8 o'clock. On the morning of October 28, the Trinity Gates were unlocked by ensign Berzin and a cadet was admitted into the Kremlin. Ensign Berzin was beaten and arrested. The junkers immediately occupied the Kremlin, placed 2 machine guns and an armored car at the Trinity Gate, and began to drive the 56th Infantry out of the warehouse barracks. reserve regiment of soldiers, forcing them with rifle butts and threats. Soldiers of the warehouse, including 500 people. were built without weapons in front of the gates of the arsenal. Several junkers did the calculation. At this time, several shots were fired from somewhere, then the cadets opened fire from machine guns and guns from the Trinity Gate. The soldiers of the warehouse, lined up without weapons, fell as if knocked down, screams and screams were heard, everyone rushed back to the gates of the arsenal, but only a narrow gate was open, in front of which a mountain of dead bodies formed, wounded, trampled and healthy, trying to climb over the gate; five minutes later the fire stopped.

October in Moscow (materials of the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee. October-November 1917) // Class struggle. 1931. No. 6-7. pp.98-100

It turns out that they simply wanted to count and arrest the disarmed soldiers of the 56th regiment and the arsenal warehouse built on the square, but the shots fired from nowhere provoked an accidental execution.

In Kaigorodov's report, there are no clear indications of the number of dead and wounded during the execution, except for those of his subordinates who were personally identified by him (12 people). But there is evidence that in the following days of confrontation between the junkers and the red detachments (from October 28 to November 2), no one encroached on the lives of the surviving captured soldiers of the warehouse, everyone (except for the dead and wounded) returned to their places.

The suddenly opened fire from the arsenal building (or from somewhere else) is confirmed by the recollections of V.S. Arseniev, who was in the Kremlin in those days, Metropolitan Veniamin Fedchenkov, as well as a soldier of the 56th regiment Bazyakin, who surrendered to the junkers. The latter, however, assured that the workers of the arsenal began to shoot when they saw that the junkers were shooting unarmed people.

Most likely, the junkers who seized the Kremlin had no intention of shooting people who had already laid down their arms or taking out their anger on them.

The recollections of eyewitnesses also confirm that not all soldiers agreed to surrender and laid down their arms. Some resisted, were forcibly disarmed, wounded or killed. It is possible that one of the "resistors" hid, and then, realizing that there were very few junkers (2 or 3 companies), and they would not be able to control the entire mass of the soldiers captured by them, he fired.

It is even more obvious that, fortunately, none of the revolutionaries besieging the Kremlin knew about the incident on November 28 Square, otherwise the junkers would not have been released from the fortress alive.

There is also no exact information about the number of those killed and injured in the Kremlin execution. On the territory of the Kremlin, military operations were carried out with the use of artillery for several more days. The total number of dead and missing could be either 50 or more than 300 people, as TSB has been claiming for many years.

Further course of the uprising

After the capture of the Kremlin by the junkers, the Military Revolutionary Committee was cut off from the working outskirts. The telephone and telegraph were in the hands of the COB. Something had to be done, and the Bolshevik squads concentrated in the center of the city, with the help of soldiers from the 193rd regiment, launched a decisive offensive. On the night of October 28, pro-Bolshevik forces blockaded the city center.

On October 29, trenches were dug in the streets and barricades were erected. Fierce fighting went on for the Crimean and Stone bridges, in the area of ​​Ostozhenka and Prechistenka. Armed workers (the Red Guard), soldiers of a number of infantry units, as well as artillery (which the anti-Bolshevik forces almost did not have) took part in the battles on the side of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

On the morning of October 29, a detachment of the Left SR Yu.V. Sablina seized the city government building on Tverskoy Boulevard, Tverskaya Street and part of Okhotny Ryad, the governor's house in Leontievsky Lane were recaptured. In the afternoon, the rebels occupied Krymskaya Square, the Simonovsky powder warehouse, the Kursk-Nizhny Novgorod, Bryansk and Aleksandrovsky stations, the post office and the main telegraph office.

500 Kronstadt sailors, 5,000 Red Guardsmen from Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Shuya, and other cities arrived to help the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee.

By 6 p.m., the Red Guards occupied Taganskaya Square, drove out the cadets from the 3rd building of the Alekseevsky School in Lefortovo, seized the Central Telephone Exchange and began shelling the Metropol Hotel.

On the evening of October 29, artillery shelling of the central districts of the city and the Kremlin began. The 7th Ukrainian Heavy Artillery Battalion fired at the Kremlin from Sparrow Hills. Two 48-line guns were installed on Vshivaya Gorka (Kotelnicheskaya Embankment), which fired at the Small Nikolaevsky Palace and the Spassky Gate. Batteries at the Babiegorsk dam (between the Krymsky and Kamenny bridges) were tasked by the Military Revolutionary Committee to fire at the Kremlin wall overlooking the Manege in order to make a breach at the Trinity Gates. The guns were also pulled up to the Nikolsky gates of the Kremlin.

The destruction of historical monuments, as well as the death of civilians, no longer interested anyone.

On October 29, a truce was concluded, and both sides were playing for time, hoping for loyal units to approach Moscow. The truce was also facilitated by the actions of the Vikzhel, which demanded the creation of a "homogeneous socialist government." In the event of a violation of the truce by one of the parties, the railwaymen threatened to let the troops of the other side into Moscow. The COB and the MRC reached an armistice agreement from 12 noon on the 29th to 12 noon on the 30th of October on the following terms:

complete disarmament of the Red and White Guards;

return of weapons;

the dissolution of both the MRC and the Committee of Public Safety;

bringing the perpetrators to justice;

establishment of a neutral zone;

subordination of the entire garrison to the commander of the district;

organization of a common democratic body.

These conditions were not met, and the truce was broken the very next day.

On October 30, anti-Bolshevik forces in the 2nd Cadet Corps surrendered to the forces of the Military Revolutionary Committee, on the 31st - in the 1st Cadet Corps. Colonel V.F. Rahr dismissed the cadets dressed in civilian clothes to their homes, and he himself joined the still fighting anti-Bolshevik forces.

On the night of November 1, after artillery strikes and a fire in the building, the 3rd Moscow Cadet Corps and the Alekseevsky Military School capitulated.

End of resistance

On the night of October 31 to November 1, the Military Revolutionary Committee began shelling the building of the City Duma, in which the Committee of Public Security settled. The Kobovites were forced to flee under the protection of the Kremlin and into the building of the Historical Museum.

On November 2, the artillery shelling of the Kremlin by the Bolsheviks intensified, the Historical Museum was occupied. A number of Kremlin buildings were seriously damaged by shelling: the Annunciation Cathedral, the Assumption Cathedral and the Church of the 12 Apostles were damaged. The Small Nikolaev Palace, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the Patriarch's sacristy, the Nikolskaya, Beklemishevskaya and Spasskaya Kremlin towers, Borovitsky and Nikolsky gates were also seriously damaged. The famous clock on the Spasskaya Tower was stopped by a direct hit by a shell.

However, the rumors about destruction in the Kremlin that circulated in those days in Petrograd were greatly exaggerated. The opposition press reported that the walls of the Kremlin were completely destroyed, the Assumption Cathedral burned down, St. Basil's Cathedral was seriously damaged by shells, etc., etc.

November 2, 1917, having learned about the bombing of the Kremlin, the People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky resigned. He stated that he could not come to terms with the destruction of the most important artistic values, "thousands of victims", the fierceness of the struggle "to the point of bestial malice", and the impotence "to stop this horror."

Lenin said to him: “How can you attach such importance to this or that building, no matter how good it may be, when it comes to opening the doors to such a social system that is capable of creating beauty that immeasurably surpasses everything that could only be dreamed of in past?" After that, Lunacharsky somewhat corrected his position and published an appeal in the Novaya Zhizn newspaper (November 4, 1917): "Protect the people's property."

On the evening of November 2, a delegation of the Committee of Public Security went to the Military Revolutionary Committee for negotiations. The Military Revolutionary Committee agreed to release all the cadets, officers and students on condition that they hand over their weapons.

On November 2, at 5 p.m., the counter-revolutionary forces signed a surrender agreement. At 21:00, the Military Revolutionary Committee issued an order: “The revolutionary troops have won, the junkers and the white guards are surrendering their weapons. The Public Safety Committee is dissolved. All the forces of the bourgeoisie have been utterly defeated and are surrendering, having accepted our demands. All power in Moscow is in the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

However, the order of the Military Revolutionary Committee did not have any effect on the majority of those who resisted.

Spasskaya tower of the Kremlin
with bullet holes

Artillery shelling stopped, but on the night of November 2-3 and all the next day, street battles, skirmishes, and fires continued in Moscow. The Kremlin was finally taken only on the morning of November 3. In the battles for the Kremlin, only three Red Guards were killed, as well as several officers and cadets who resisted. The remaining defenders of the Kremlin were arrested.

On November 4, the general disarmament of the junkers and student detachments began. Many of the surviving participants in the Moscow battles immediately went to the Don to join the ranks of the white army that was nascent there.

In those fateful days, Russia split into "red" and "white" for many years.

The number of those who died in the October battles in Moscow is still unknown and has not been published anywhere. It is precisely known about 240 graves of the fallen Red Army soldiers buried under the walls of the Kremlin (only 57 graves with names). About 300 cadets, officers and students found peace at the Fraternal Cemetery, where the participants of the First World War were buried (now the Sokol metro area). Some Soviet and foreign publications spoke of an incomplete thousand dead on both sides.

The number of those killed and wounded among the civilian population of Moscow has never been announced in official sources. Meanwhile, according to eyewitnesses, under shelling, bombardment and fires that engulfed the densely populated center of Moscow, from October 29 to November 3, not so much the military as civilians, street onlookers, women, and children died.

Here is what Maxim Gorky wrote about the revolutionary battles in Moscow:

“In some houses near the Kremlin, the walls of the houses were pierced by shells, and dozens of innocent people probably died in these houses. The shells flew just as senselessly as the whole 6-day process of bloody slaughter and the defeat of Moscow was senseless. In essence, the Moscow massacre was a nightmarish bloody massacre of babies. On the one hand, young Red Guardsmen who do not know how to hold a gun in their hands, and soldiers who are almost unaware of whom they go to death for, why they kill. On the other hand, an insignificant handful of junkers who courageously fulfilled their “duty”, as it was inspired by them ... "

conclusions

From all of the above, the following conclusions can be drawn:

The revolutionary uprising in Moscow was not specially planned or prepared by the Moscow Bolsheviks. They acted exclusively on instructions from Petrograd.

In Moscow, with the majority of moderate socialists in the Soviets (SRs and Mensheviks), there was a real chance to avoid both the coming to power of the Bolshevik party and bloodshed. The Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee initially did not have any plans, as well as the means to carry out the seizure of power in the city. Unfortunately, their opponents, represented by the leadership of the Committee of Public Security (CSC), failed to take advantage of their advantage, relying on the cadets and the expected military assistance from the front, and not on the Soviets of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies loyal to the CSC.

It was the Moscow uprising that in many ways marked the beginning of civil confrontation in the country. By destroying historical monuments and killing civilians, the new government openly opposed itself even to those moderate elements who only yesterday were ready to negotiate, make compromises, and cooperate with it.