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In October 1917, the world changed forever. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:07 | |
Three men led the takeover of the largest country on Earth. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:11 | |
Russia became the world's first communist state. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:15 | |
It took everyone by surprise, including its own leaders. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:20 | |
Revolution might not happen in our lifetime. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:23 | |
Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
and Joseph Stalin had to struggle, plot and force their way into power | 0:00:27 | 0:00:32 | |
through the most unlikely series of events. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
'Lenin was moving around in secret, being hunted by the police.' | 0:00:36 | 0:00:40 | |
'For me, this is the real turning point of 20th-century history.' | 0:00:41 | 0:00:46 | |
This is the moment when one man makes all the difference. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:50 | |
The insurrection Lenin led still inspires fierce debate. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:55 | |
'Did they want a Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Lenin?' | 0:00:55 | 0:01:00 | |
-Miserable -BLEEP -traitors! | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
I don't think so. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:04 | |
The masses are tired of words and resolutions! | 0:01:04 | 0:01:08 | |
How the hell is that a coup d'etat? | 0:01:08 | 0:01:10 | |
'He is motivated by a vision of an alternative world.' | 0:01:10 | 0:01:15 | |
These people should be shot for their incompetence! | 0:01:15 | 0:01:18 | |
His object was not to convince or persuade anyone, | 0:01:18 | 0:01:23 | |
it was to destroy them. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:25 | |
The system Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin created a century ago | 0:01:25 | 0:01:30 | |
shapes the world we live in today. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
Putin really understands the October Revolution. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
In many ways, he's one of the results of it. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
This is the countdown of the 245 days | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
that brought three men from obscurity to supreme power, | 0:01:44 | 0:01:48 | |
forging a brave and bloody new world. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:53 | |
February 1917. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
Russia is ready to explode. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
Its royalty, the Tsars, have ruled with an iron fist | 0:02:05 | 0:02:08 | |
for four centuries. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:10 | |
EXPLOSION | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
Its men are dying in the millions in World War I. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:15 | |
Its women and children are starving. | 0:02:15 | 0:02:18 | |
But the Tsar rejects any change. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
JEERING AND SHOUTING | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
On February 23rd, Russia erupts. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:33 | |
The masses of Petrograd take over the capital | 0:02:33 | 0:02:36 | |
and force the Tsar to abdicate. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
Here, dramatized in October, | 0:02:39 | 0:02:41 | |
Sergei Eisenstein's propaganda film made ten years after the revolution. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:46 | |
Yet the men we most associate with the Russian Revolution | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
aren't even in the country. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:54 | |
Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin miss the February Revolution. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:58 | |
Lenin is in Zurich, having been exiled for nearly 17 years | 0:03:08 | 0:03:12 | |
as a dangerous revolutionary. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:14 | |
KNOCKING | 0:03:14 | 0:03:15 | |
Haven't you heard? There's been a revolution! | 0:03:15 | 0:03:18 | |
I've heard this sort of rumour before. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:21 | |
It's probably German propaganda. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:23 | |
Just days before the February Revolution, Lenin had confessed... | 0:03:28 | 0:03:33 | |
Revolution might not happen in our lifetime. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
We must go home. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:54 | |
The one thing Lenin couldn't bear | 0:03:55 | 0:03:58 | |
was that the revolution, now it's come, | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
is going to happen without him. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
He was absolutely tormented about getting back | 0:04:03 | 0:04:08 | |
and seizing control before someone else did. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
Lenin's drive for power may have its origins in a family trauma. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:19 | |
Until 1889, | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
Lenin is really a fairly average schoolboy | 0:04:23 | 0:04:27 | |
from a provincial town, Simbirsk. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
But his brother, Aleksandr, | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
has been a activist in the main terrorist revolutionary group, | 0:04:33 | 0:04:38 | |
the People's Will, involved in an attempt to assassinate the Tsar, | 0:04:38 | 0:04:43 | |
arrested and executed. | 0:04:43 | 0:04:45 | |
And I think it's partly in revenge for that family tragedy | 0:04:47 | 0:04:52 | |
that he is so bent on destruction. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:56 | |
Lenin becomes an ardent Marxist. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
By 1903, he's head of his own radical party, the Bolsheviks. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:05 | |
Soon after, Leon Trotsky hears about the February Revolution | 0:05:09 | 0:05:14 | |
while avoiding the Russian authorities in New York. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
'Trotsky was very much the showman, the orator,' | 0:05:18 | 0:05:23 | |
the real firebrand of the revolution. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:26 | |
He was a very glamorous figure. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:30 | |
He was a terrific speaker, real rabble-rouser, and he knew it. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:35 | |
CHEERING | 0:05:35 | 0:05:37 | |
Born Lev Bronstein, Trotsky has been a Marxist rebel from youth. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:44 | |
He had an interesting background. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:48 | |
He came from the Black Sea coast, | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
he was the son of a very rich Jewish farmer. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
He'd had a wonderful education, he was highly cultured, | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
he was an internationalist, he'd been all over the world, | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
he's been in New York and round Europe and Vienna. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
He's known to be a difficult man, abrasive, extremely charismatic, | 0:06:03 | 0:06:08 | |
sometimes hard to love but absolutely impossible not to admire. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:12 | |
This independent revolutionary has rivalled Lenin for 20 years. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:18 | |
Soon, they'll have to work together. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
Days later, Joseph Stalin learns of the February Revolution | 0:06:26 | 0:06:30 | |
while exiled for robbery 3,500 kilometres away | 0:06:30 | 0:06:34 | |
in Achinsky, Siberia. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
'Just look at how attractive Stalin was | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
'in the time leading up to the revolution.' | 0:06:43 | 0:06:45 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:06:45 | 0:06:47 | |
'Not only a published poet' | 0:06:47 | 0:06:49 | |
but an anthologised poet, very handsome, | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
with a marvellous head of hair. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:55 | |
A great one for women. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
He's escaped six times from Siberian exile | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
and wanted what? | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
Universal equality and justice. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
A completely attractive figure. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:11 | |
Until he was in power. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:16 | |
Stalin was the ultimate man of action | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
and he became Lenin's chosen favourite man of action. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
He was the master of assassinations, | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
protection rackets, heists. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:32 | |
Every revolutionary leader needs a Stalin. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
Stalin... | 0:07:37 | 0:07:38 | |
..Trotsky | 0:07:39 | 0:07:41 | |
and Lenin. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:43 | |
Three comrades in revolution who now have barely 230 days | 0:07:43 | 0:07:49 | |
to change the world. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:51 | |
CHEERING | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
They return to a country in turmoil. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
The overthrow of the Tsar in the February Revolution | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
has unleashed wild euphoria. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:02 | |
People were partying in the streets, | 0:08:06 | 0:08:08 | |
soldiers were, sort of, driving around in cars, | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
tooting their horns with, sort of, half undressed girls. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
People were having sex in the street. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
There were a multitude of political factions and parties | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
and everyone was having meetings about everything. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
So, it was total anarchy. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:24 | |
It was an explosion, | 0:08:26 | 0:08:28 | |
which meant all rules were destroyed and it was a chance to start again. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
We're talking about, in aspiration, you know, | 0:08:32 | 0:08:35 | |
a fundamental reconfiguring of the way human beings live in the world. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:40 | |
Lenin arrives at a time when there is an enormous amount of hope | 0:08:42 | 0:08:47 | |
and a sense that this is still a new Russia. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
April 4th, | 0:08:53 | 0:08:54 | |
the Bolsheviks' few thousand supporters await Lenin in Petrograd, | 0:08:54 | 0:08:58 | |
now St Petersburg. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:00 | |
It was Easter Monday and so the factories weren't working | 0:09:00 | 0:09:04 | |
so they did manage to get a big crowd in, | 0:09:04 | 0:09:06 | |
partly by the promise of free beer, | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
which, actually, sadly didn't arrive for any of them. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
They've got fantastic arc lighting and it made it look terrific. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
The converted, the supporters, the acolytes, the underground, | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
the revolutionaries were there to meet him. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
But the vast majority of people | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
didn't even really know who Lenin was. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
After two decades of studying the theory of revolution, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:36 | |
Lenin arrives with radical ideas on what Russia should do now. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:41 | |
He had an idea of the revolution in his head | 0:09:42 | 0:09:46 | |
before he'd even got back to Russia | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
to see what the real possibilities were. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
Lenin is ready to test his theories on real people. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:58 | |
He has no time for other politicians. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
'A delegation greet him rather nervously. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:06 | |
'He doesn't even answer them.' | 0:10:10 | 0:10:12 | |
Instead, he gives a speech to the crowds. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:14 | |
Sailors... | 0:10:14 | 0:10:16 | |
soldiers, comrades... | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
..this is no time for compromise or diplomatic phrases. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:24 | |
This is the time to move towards building a socialist state. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
CHEERING | 0:10:29 | 0:10:31 | |
As soon as he arrives back in Russia, | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
he calls for his party to agitate for a new revolution. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:39 | |
The piratical, imperialist war... | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
Even Lenin's own party, the Bolsheviks, were shocked. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:45 | |
..and the hour is not far distant when the people will turn their arms | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
against their capitalist exploiters. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
'The political conversation was all about a bourgeois democracy.' | 0:10:52 | 0:10:57 | |
It was all about elections that were going to happen. | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
'It was all about coalitions of groups.' | 0:10:59 | 0:11:03 | |
Lenin didn't want any of that. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
Lenin wants a second revolution to overthrow the provisional government | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
that has been set up. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
He calls instead for the country to be run by Soviets - | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
committees of workers, soldiers and peasants. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
He was suggesting that they should seize power pretty much immediately. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:22 | |
The worldwide revolution has already dawned. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:26 | |
'The party was absolutely confused,' | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
bewildered and amazed by what Lenin said. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
And a lot of them thought he'd gone mad. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:33 | |
The people want peace. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:35 | |
They want bread and land. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
They give you war and hunger. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:42 | |
And the landowners still have all the land. | 0:11:42 | 0:11:46 | |
He coins the first big slogan - | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
land for the peasants, | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
peace, an end to war | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
and bread. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
Feed the poor. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
Simple words, but behind each lies a whole set of policies. | 0:11:57 | 0:12:01 | |
The same way that the entire... | 0:12:01 | 0:12:03 | |
The crowd love it. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:05 | |
Those in power just laugh. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:08 | |
A lot of liberal politicians were saying, "Forget it, don't worry, | 0:12:09 | 0:12:12 | |
"Lenin is a busted flush, he's lost his mind, basically an anarchist, | 0:12:12 | 0:12:16 | |
"we don't need to worry about him." | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
Scant months later, this is the most powerful single person in Russia. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:22 | |
Sailors, comrades... | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
we have to fight for a socialist revolution. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
Fight to the end! | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
Long live the worldwide socialist revolution! | 0:12:34 | 0:12:37 | |
CHEERING | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
'People would recognise Lenin as a very modern political phenomenon.' | 0:12:40 | 0:12:45 | |
He believed totally that the ends justify the means. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:49 | |
That winning is all, that power is all that really matters. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
There was still huge disagreement about Lenin's motives. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
Power on its own for him was nothing. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
He really wasn't interested in that. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
It was power to make big changes in society. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:09 | |
'He is motivated by a vision of an alternative world.' | 0:13:10 | 0:13:16 | |
The end of a society dominated by profit. | 0:13:16 | 0:13:19 | |
What motivates Lenin is power. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
Power is all that matters in a revolution. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
That is how Lenin understands revolution. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:28 | |
You have to have power before you can do anything. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:31 | |
So principle goes out the window in the struggle for power, | 0:13:31 | 0:13:35 | |
as far as Lenin is concerned. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
Spring turns to summer, but the provisional government | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
is unable to solve the country's problems. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
Yet most Russians still have faith in this man - | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
Minister of War Alexander Kerensky. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
'Alexander Kerensky was really the first love of the revolution.' | 0:13:57 | 0:14:01 | |
The intelligentsia adored him. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:03 | |
I don't care, General. The men will manage. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
'What became known as the Kerensky cult' | 0:14:07 | 0:14:09 | |
becomes absolutely out of control. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:11 | |
So you have pamphlet after pamphlet describing him literally | 0:14:11 | 0:14:15 | |
as a divine figure. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:17 | |
Immediately. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:18 | |
'He is convinced of his own historical mission' | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
and part of his historical mission is to turn the war around. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
Despite the popular opposition to the war, | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
Kerensky orders a new offensive. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:36 | |
So the offensive is launched on the 16th of June. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:40 | |
It goes forward for a couple of days, the Germans counterattack, | 0:14:40 | 0:14:44 | |
the Russians run back. There's chaos. | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
They lost hundreds of thousands of men within a week | 0:14:48 | 0:14:51 | |
and this played totally into the hands of Lenin. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
Lenin, who'd been saying that war is a bad thing, | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
that he would provide instant peace, suddenly became incredibly popular. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:02 | |
And so did the Bolshevik Party. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
When Kerensky orders more soldiers to leave Petrograd for the front, | 0:15:07 | 0:15:11 | |
they refuse to obey. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:13 | |
Their determined resistance spreads to front-line troops. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:19 | |
By July the 4th, | 0:15:25 | 0:15:27 | |
thousands of deserters join anti-government demonstrations | 0:15:27 | 0:15:31 | |
in Petrograd. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:32 | |
It looks like Lenin's second revolution has arrived. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:37 | |
But are Lenin and the Bolsheviks ready to take power? | 0:15:39 | 0:15:43 | |
The front-page editorial in the party paper, Pravda, | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
had meant to tell the crowds to stay home. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:51 | |
You should all be thrashed for this. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:54 | |
'When it becomes clear that this will simply look ridiculous | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
'with this enormous mass demonstration, | 0:15:57 | 0:15:59 | |
'it is too late for the Bolsheviks to come up with another line.' | 0:15:59 | 0:16:04 | |
They just pull it and they have no time to replace it, | 0:16:05 | 0:16:09 | |
so it comes out with a rather pregnant blank right at its front. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:13 | |
The Bolsheviks look utterly confused. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:19 | |
Lenin had been calling for the provisional government | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
to be thrown out and replaced by the more radical Soviets. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
Now, thousands are ready to do just that... | 0:16:27 | 0:16:31 | |
is he? | 0:16:31 | 0:16:32 | |
'They were screaming, | 0:16:35 | 0:16:37 | |
'"Show us leadership. Seize power right now, Lenin." | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
'And Lenin was hedging. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:41 | |
'He was wondering what the hell to do, how to manage this.' | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
Because he realised that if this went wrong he could be destroyed. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:48 | |
'When Lenin steps out onto that balcony,' | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
perhaps he loses his nerve. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
He doesn't really know what to say. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
We always wanted this to be peaceful. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:04 | |
With no violence. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
The Bolshevik call to give power to the Soviets will win one day. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:16 | |
Despite the zigzags of history. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
But maybe not today. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:27 | |
Why did Lenin hesitate? | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
'Perhaps he's slightly intimidated.' | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
This is a man who lived in books and libraries, | 0:17:40 | 0:17:43 | |
a man who'd been abroad for 15 years, | 0:17:43 | 0:17:46 | |
who'd never really confronted | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
angry workers like that before. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
And perhaps also an element of cowardice creeps in here. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:56 | |
He was not one for mounting the barricades. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
He was, often it was remarked, the first to run | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
when the going got dangerous. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:05 | |
'He was not intimidated at all.' | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
To be able to say to a whirling mass | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
of 20,000, to 30,000, to 40,000 workers, no. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:18 | |
There is a time to strike and there is a time to bite our lips. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:24 | |
'That, to me, is a sign of greatness.' | 0:18:26 | 0:18:31 | |
One wrong move on our part could wreck everything. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:42 | |
'He just knew that...' | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
this would be used as a provocation by the counterrevolution | 0:18:47 | 0:18:51 | |
to crush them. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
That the movement wasn't strong enough to take power. | 0:18:53 | 0:18:57 | |
We are still an insignificant minority. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
Time is on our side. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
It was a little more than a demonstration. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
A lot less than a revolution. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
Perhaps the fact that he bottles it, essentially, on the 4th of July, | 0:19:30 | 0:19:35 | |
is because in the back of his head he's thinking, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
"Crikey, this could fail and then they'll come for me." | 0:19:38 | 0:19:42 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:19:42 | 0:19:44 | |
For Lenin, timing is everything, | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
and he proves correct. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
The revolt collapses the next day | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
amidst a hail of bullets from government snipers. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:57 | |
Kerensky then goes after the Bolshevik Party. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
He ordered the arrest of 800 party members, including Lenin, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:06 | |
for high treason. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:07 | |
The July days left Lenin isolated. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
To stay in Petrograd, he'd face arrest and possibly being shot, | 0:20:12 | 0:20:17 | |
and he knew he had to escape somewhere. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
He felt all chance had gone. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
With the Bolsheviks in ruins, Lenin goes into hiding. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:32 | |
There is a 200,000 rouble bounty on his head. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:36 | |
He must now rely on his Lieutenant, Joseph Stalin, | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
to mastermind his escape. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
'Now they were going underground again. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:45 | |
'Stalin, the master of the black arts, was essential to Lenin.' | 0:20:45 | 0:20:49 | |
'Stalin was the boy in the back room who watched what was happening' | 0:20:51 | 0:20:55 | |
and made himself useful as and when the moment came. | 0:20:55 | 0:21:00 | |
'There he was, helps Lenin shave off his very distinctive little goatee. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:06 | |
'They give him a dreadful wig and a worker's cap,' | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
and smuggle him out across into Finland. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
With Lenin gone and Trotsky arrested, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
Stalin finds himself the unlikely leader | 0:21:17 | 0:21:20 | |
of the shattered Bolshevik Party. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:23 | |
'Lenin trusted Stalin.' | 0:21:24 | 0:21:26 | |
He carried secret messages, he set up by the machinery | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
whereby Lenin could communicate from a barn out in Finland | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
with the Bolshevik machine inside Petrograd. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
All of these things, Stalin managed. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:40 | |
And it was now that Stalin became the key person | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
behind Lenin in the revolution. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
The interesting thing about Stalin, | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
he played this incredibly subtle waiting game. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
He was very much there in the shadows, | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
watching, waiting, learning. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
While the Bolsheviks rot in jail, flee or go underground, | 0:22:02 | 0:22:07 | |
things are looking up for Alexander Kerensky. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
He is now Prime Minister. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
After the aborted Bolshevik uprising, | 0:22:14 | 0:22:17 | |
he appoints Siberian General Lavr Kornilov | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
to restore order in Petrograd. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:23 | |
'Kornilov could see that the Bolsheviks were gearing up | 0:22:25 | 0:22:28 | |
'to try and take over. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:30 | |
'He desperately wanted to round up the belligerent revolutionaries, | 0:22:30 | 0:22:33 | |
'the Bolsheviks, slam them in jail | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
'and impose almost a military government on the city' | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
because he saw that as the only way of saving the situation. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
'The right-wing, the conservatives, | 0:22:45 | 0:22:48 | |
'are beginning to rally around Kornilov quite explicitly | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
'as a figure who can bring order to Russia.' | 0:22:51 | 0:22:53 | |
Kerensky worries the General wants to rule Russia | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
as a military dictator. | 0:22:57 | 0:22:59 | |
'There's no question that Kerensky was quite paranoid,' | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
but there's also not much question that people were out to get him. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:07 | |
Just days after appointing the General, | 0:23:08 | 0:23:10 | |
Kerensky dismisses him in a telegram. | 0:23:10 | 0:23:14 | |
But the General's troops advance on Petrograd. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:20 | |
Ironically, it takes Bolshevik activists to save the city. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:25 | |
Bolshevik agitators from within the army, soldiers, | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
went and spoke to the Kornilov soldiers and said, | 0:23:32 | 0:23:35 | |
"Do you know why you're being brought to Petrograd? | 0:23:35 | 0:23:38 | |
"To attack us, to kill your brothers and sisters. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
"Is this what you're coming to do?" | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
And the descriptions of this event are that Kornilov's army | 0:23:46 | 0:23:51 | |
melted away in front of his very eyes. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:54 | |
In an extraordinary reversal of fortune, | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
the Bolsheviks are now seen as the saviours of Petrograd. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:06 | |
MUSIC | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
Kerensky's credibility lies in tatters. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
He's reduced to keeping himself going with cocaine and morphine. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
'So, rather than buttress his power base, in fact, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:32 | |
'the defeat of Kornilov only played into the hands of the left.' | 0:24:32 | 0:24:37 | |
It's hard for me. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
I struggle with the left and with the right. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
The people demand that I lean on one and then the other. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:47 | |
I want to take a middle road but nobody will help me. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:51 | |
'How could you roll out democracy in a country like that?' | 0:24:53 | 0:24:58 | |
So I think it was always inevitable that this anarchic force | 0:24:58 | 0:25:02 | |
which splintered the country into revolution | 0:25:02 | 0:25:04 | |
was never going to quickly shuffle the pieces and put them back | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
into a neat jigsaw puzzle which was a proper democracy. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:11 | |
That wasn't going to happen. | 0:25:11 | 0:25:13 | |
The Kornilov coup created the situation | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
where you had a government with no real power. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
With power ebbing away. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:21 | |
A leader with no real prestige. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
And the opportunity, the vacuum, into which someone, somewhere, | 0:25:24 | 0:25:30 | |
could seize power. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:32 | |
And that someone, Lenin was determined, would be the Bolsheviks. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:36 | |
The Bolshevik resurgence begins when Kerensky releases them from jail. | 0:25:46 | 0:25:51 | |
While locked up, Leon Trotsky has finally joined Lenin's party. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:56 | |
Crowds flock to hear him speak. | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
Trotsky was the great celebrity of the revolution. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
He was much more famous than Lenin, not to speak of Stalin. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
'Trotsky was probably the most brilliant intellectual mind' | 0:26:08 | 0:26:13 | |
produced in tsarist Russia, | 0:26:13 | 0:26:17 | |
including Lenin. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:19 | |
'Lenin knew that Stalin and Trotsky were his two chief supporters | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
'in pushing for the October Revolution, | 0:26:24 | 0:26:26 | |
'so Stalin and Trotsky had actually had a lot in common politically.' | 0:26:26 | 0:26:30 | |
But it was personally that they absolutely loathed each other. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:33 | |
Their animosity only grows when Trotsky replaces Stalin | 0:26:35 | 0:26:40 | |
as interim leader. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
Stalin was very valuable behind the scenes. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:45 | |
He did have a knack of convincing the average run of leaders, | 0:26:46 | 0:26:50 | |
especially the provincials. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:26:53 | 0:26:55 | |
The time for words has passed. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
The country stands on the edge of ruin. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:05 | |
The Army demand peace. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:08 | |
The peasants demand land. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
The workers demand work and food. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
The coalition government is against the people. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:20 | |
The government is a tool in the hands of the enemies of the people. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:26 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:27:26 | 0:27:28 | |
The time for words has passed! | 0:27:28 | 0:27:31 | |
Trotsky's individualism and panache is not always trusted by Lenin. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:38 | |
'Trotsky writes, "Lenin was worried,' | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
"suspicious of my non-Bolshevik past,' | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
"wondering, have I got the capacity to do it, | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
"and I had to constantly reassure him, do not worry, Comrade Lenin, | 0:27:48 | 0:27:52 | |
"it's going to happen. We are doing it." | 0:27:52 | 0:27:55 | |
All power to the Soviets! | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
CHEERING | 0:27:59 | 0:28:01 | |
Immediate Armistice on all fronts! | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
Land to the peasants! | 0:28:06 | 0:28:08 | |
CHEERING | 0:28:08 | 0:28:10 | |
He's sort of arrogant and that's his Achilles heel | 0:28:14 | 0:28:18 | |
because people don't like arrogance in the party. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
Trotsky felt it should all be delivered to him | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
because of that brilliance. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:26 | |
And he would read... ostentatiously read French novels | 0:28:26 | 0:28:32 | |
during meetings of the politburo, | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
to show how, erm, above all this he was. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:40 | |
When Lenin was asked what had kept he and Trotsky apart for so long, | 0:28:42 | 0:28:46 | |
he answered... | 0:28:46 | 0:28:48 | |
Don't you know? | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
Ambition. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:51 | |
Ambition. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 | |
Ambition. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:57 | |
Now they share an ambition - real power. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:03 | |
While hiding in Finland, Lenin makes the biggest decision of his life. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:09 | |
The time is ripe for his revolution. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
'By then, everyone was sick of the war.' | 0:29:13 | 0:29:16 | |
They were sick of the food shortages. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:18 | |
People were openly saying on the streets, | 0:29:18 | 0:29:21 | |
"Do you know what, we don't care who's in power. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
"If they like, the Germans can come and take Petrograd." | 0:29:23 | 0:29:26 | |
From mid-September, | 0:29:29 | 0:29:30 | |
Lenin bombards the Bolsheviks with letters insisting they seize power. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:35 | |
"The present task must be an armed uprising in Petrograd and Moscow, | 0:29:35 | 0:29:41 | |
"the seizing of power and the overthrow of the government." | 0:29:41 | 0:29:46 | |
'Lenin was a complete monomaniac.' | 0:29:49 | 0:29:52 | |
He's like a boiling pot. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:54 | |
All the time, you can hear the lid rattling. | 0:29:54 | 0:29:56 | |
He gets more and more furious and the bubbles are bubbling up. | 0:29:56 | 0:30:00 | |
"It would be naive to wait for a formal majority for Bolsheviks. | 0:30:00 | 0:30:04 | |
"No, revolution ever waits for that." | 0:30:04 | 0:30:08 | |
He brewed himself up extraordinarily | 0:30:08 | 0:30:10 | |
and twisted himself up into anger | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
and his flashes of anger were terrifying. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
"History will not forgive us if we do not assume power now. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:24 | |
'Lenin is raging that we are about to lose' | 0:30:24 | 0:30:27 | |
the one-off opportunity to seize power, to seize Russia. | 0:30:27 | 0:30:32 | |
"To wait would be utter idiocy." | 0:30:32 | 0:30:35 | |
'The Bolshevik leadership doesn't know what to do with these. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:40 | |
'It thinks that they might be inflammatory | 0:30:40 | 0:30:43 | |
'and provoke an uprising prematurely,' | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
so they go as far as to destroying these letters if they can. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:49 | |
-BLEEP -traitors to the proletarian cause! | 0:30:57 | 0:31:01 | |
'When you read the letters,' | 0:31:02 | 0:31:04 | |
my God, he could swear like a trooper when he wanted to. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:07 | |
He had a vicious tongue. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:09 | |
Lenin realises that writing these letters from his hiding place | 0:31:12 | 0:31:16 | |
'is not enough. He's going to have to face the central committee | 0:31:16 | 0:31:20 | |
'to argue for this properly and to win the argument. | 0:31:20 | 0:31:23 | |
'And then he's going to have to seize power immediately.' | 0:31:23 | 0:31:26 | |
Suddenly we're in a state of high drama here. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:30 | |
You know, something has got to give. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:32 | |
If the Bolsheviks don't seize power now, somebody else might. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:36 | |
By the beginning of October, Lenin is beside himself with impatience. | 0:31:39 | 0:31:44 | |
INDISTINCT CHATTER | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
Comrade Lenin? | 0:31:56 | 0:31:58 | |
On the night of October the 10th, Lenin suddenly reappears, | 0:32:00 | 0:32:05 | |
disguised as a Lutheran minister to avoid capture by the authorities. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:09 | |
The significance of the meeting is world historical. | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
History isn't always made on battlefields. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
They're made in small meeting rooms. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:22 | |
Since the beginning of September, there has been a certain... | 0:32:22 | 0:32:26 | |
..indifference to the idea of seizing power. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:31 | |
We must seize power now | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
and not wait for the Soviets or any congresses. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:38 | |
The time is right now. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:40 | |
The moment of decision has arrived. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
The masses are tired of words and resolutions. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:49 | |
The majority are behind us. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
The success of Russian and worldwide revolution | 0:32:52 | 0:32:54 | |
depends on two or three days' struggle. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
If I may, Comrade Lenin. | 0:32:57 | 0:32:59 | |
Trotsky wants to wait to launch the uprising | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
until after the upcoming Congress of Soviets. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:06 | |
This way, socialist delegates from all over the country | 0:33:06 | 0:33:10 | |
can back the insurrection. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:12 | |
But Lenin disagrees. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
It's difficult for a large, organised body of men | 0:33:16 | 0:33:19 | |
to take swift, decisive action. | 0:33:19 | 0:33:21 | |
We must act on the 25th, the day that Congress sits, | 0:33:21 | 0:33:25 | |
so that we may say to it, "Here is our power. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:29 | |
"What are you going to do with it?" | 0:33:30 | 0:33:32 | |
'He hammers and hammers and hammers the point | 0:33:34 | 0:33:37 | |
'that if we don't act now we'll lose our moment,' | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
we'll never have a chance again. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:43 | |
This is the only time we will succeed. | 0:33:43 | 0:33:46 | |
I don't think Lenin was browbeating anyone. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:49 | |
He was just arguing that this is the time. | 0:33:49 | 0:33:52 | |
Of course, they were vigorous arguments. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:55 | |
The argument is essential. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:58 | |
Whether to seize power or to form democratic alliances. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:04 | |
'At this very moment, the top Bolsheviks' | 0:34:04 | 0:34:07 | |
start to say, we should negotiate a coalition | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
with other parties like the Mensheviks, other rival factions. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:15 | |
'This isn't the time to seize power, | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
'we might lose everything we have already.' | 0:34:17 | 0:34:20 | |
I say we put it to the vote. | 0:34:23 | 0:34:25 | |
When they began, at least half the central committee | 0:34:30 | 0:34:33 | |
was against armed insurrection. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:35 | |
After ten hours arguing, | 0:34:37 | 0:34:39 | |
the result goes 10-2 in Lenin's favour. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:43 | |
'This is just the moment when you realise' | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
the absolute paramount power of the individual in history, | 0:34:52 | 0:34:55 | |
because, you know, half the central committee, | 0:34:55 | 0:34:57 | |
or even a majority of the central committee of the Bolshevik Party | 0:34:57 | 0:35:01 | |
doesn't want to seize power in October 1917. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
'The fact that Lenin got the vote and won the permission to go ahead | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
'was entirely decisive. | 0:35:09 | 0:35:11 | |
'This was indeed the cocking of the pistol of revolution.' | 0:35:11 | 0:35:16 | |
By October the 24th, Kerensky is expecting an uprising, | 0:35:19 | 0:35:24 | |
but he's still confident he will prevail. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
It'll be like July again. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:29 | |
I'll be prepared to offer prayers to produce this uprising. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
I'll have greater forces than necessary. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:37 | |
They will be utterly crushed. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:41 | |
LOUD THUD | 0:35:48 | 0:35:50 | |
Kerensky's overconfidence plays right into Lenin's hands. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:08 | |
With Stalin in charge of the Bolshevik press, | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
Kerensky orders two of the newspapers closed. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:15 | |
Within hours, Stalin is free to get the newspapers running again... | 0:36:21 | 0:36:25 | |
..announcing Kerensky's censorship | 0:36:26 | 0:36:28 | |
as the start of a full-blown counterrevolution. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
Now, the Bolsheviks can start their uprising | 0:36:32 | 0:36:35 | |
under the pretext of defending freedom. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:39 | |
A lie always has a stronger effect than the truth. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:43 | |
The main thing is to obtain one's objective. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
You've come a long way, comrades. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:54 | |
As head of the Petrograd Soviet, | 0:36:54 | 0:36:56 | |
Trotsky plays his part in the deception. | 0:36:56 | 0:36:59 | |
He orders that bridges and key government buildings | 0:36:59 | 0:37:02 | |
be seized to protect the city. | 0:37:02 | 0:37:05 | |
He claims... | 0:37:05 | 0:37:06 | |
This is defence, comrades, | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
this is defence. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:11 | |
He goes so far as to say... | 0:37:12 | 0:37:14 | |
An armed conflict, today or tomorrow, | 0:37:14 | 0:37:17 | |
on the eve of the Soviet Congress, is not in our plans. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:21 | |
By that evening, Lenin is convinced the hour, | 0:37:31 | 0:37:34 | |
indeed the moment to seize power, has finally arrived. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:39 | |
Everything now hangs by a thread. | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
The matter must be decided without fail... | 0:37:45 | 0:37:49 | |
..this evening. | 0:37:50 | 0:37:52 | |
'Lenin has been told very categorically by his comrades' | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
to stay put and he is crawling the walls. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:01 | |
'He is desperate to be there, to be in the thick of it. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
'Lenin's face is notorious | 0:38:06 | 0:38:08 | |
'so what he does is he puts on his disguise. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:11 | |
'He puts on glasses, he puts on a fairly ridiculous wig, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:16 | |
'he puts on a battered worker's cap. | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
'And finally he, sort of, swathes some bandages around his face | 0:38:23 | 0:38:27 | |
'to, sort of, look injured in some way | 0:38:27 | 0:38:29 | |
'and also simply to obscure those notorious features.' | 0:38:29 | 0:38:33 | |
He is wanted for high treason. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:38 | |
Government troops are searching the city for him. | 0:38:40 | 0:38:43 | |
Now, he must risk capture to get to Bolshevik headquarters. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:50 | |
DOG BARKS | 0:38:50 | 0:38:52 | |
'On his way, they're stopped by one of the last police patrols' | 0:39:00 | 0:39:05 | |
of the provisional government. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:06 | |
HE MUMBLES | 0:39:06 | 0:39:09 | |
'And they look at this man and think he's some sort of drunk tramp...' | 0:39:12 | 0:39:16 | |
-What do you think? -He's just drunk. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:20 | |
..and let him go. | 0:39:20 | 0:39:22 | |
Get out of here. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:24 | |
For me, this is the real turning point of 20th century history. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:34 | |
This is the moment when one man makes all the difference. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:37 | |
'If Lenin had been arrested... | 0:39:39 | 0:39:42 | |
'..they probably never would have launched an insurrection. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:47 | |
'But because those policemen failed to recognise Lenin,' | 0:39:48 | 0:39:51 | |
for whom there was a warrant for arrest... | 0:39:51 | 0:39:54 | |
..the insurrection took place. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:57 | |
'Everything is happening in a series of rooms | 0:40:08 | 0:40:11 | |
'in the splendid Smolny Institute. | 0:40:11 | 0:40:14 | |
'Lenin arrived at room 36, which was the key room, the headquarters,' | 0:40:15 | 0:40:19 | |
the engine room, the beating heart of the revolution, | 0:40:19 | 0:40:22 | |
'and there he found all the key players. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:26 | |
'There's Trotsky. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:28 | |
'There's Stalin. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:31 | |
'And they're running everything from here. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:34 | |
'There were soldiers playing cards, smoking. | 0:40:38 | 0:40:41 | |
'People sleeping. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:44 | |
'People drinking vodka. Some people drunk. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:47 | |
'Soldiers rushing in with news' | 0:40:47 | 0:40:49 | |
that this building or that building had fallen. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:52 | |
'At this moment in Russian history, in world history, | 0:40:52 | 0:40:56 | |
'these series of shambolic rooms | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
'half encampment, half military headquarters, half student bivouac, | 0:40:59 | 0:41:04 | |
'are the centre of the world and Lenin has to be in this room.' | 0:41:04 | 0:41:08 | |
Lenin has always been called the Father of the Revolution. | 0:41:11 | 0:41:15 | |
But the man who ran the October Revolution was not Lenin or Stalin. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:20 | |
'Trotsky wasn't just a handsome face and a great orator, | 0:41:21 | 0:41:25 | |
'he was also an organisational genius. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:29 | |
'He put together the machinery, the personnel, the plan. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:33 | |
'It was Trotsky that gave the orders.' | 0:41:33 | 0:41:35 | |
Trotsky was the man of the hour. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
The Bolsheviks take control of Petrograd overnight, | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
just hours before the Congress of Soviets is to meet. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:49 | |
By the morning of October the 25th, | 0:41:49 | 0:41:52 | |
only the Winter Palace remains in the hands | 0:41:52 | 0:41:55 | |
of the provisional government. | 0:41:55 | 0:41:57 | |
'Kerensky is in cloud cuckoo land, quite frankly. | 0:41:57 | 0:42:00 | |
'And on the morning of the 25th of October, | 0:42:00 | 0:42:04 | |
'thinks, well, it might be time to go and summon troops. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:07 | |
'He can't get any on the telephone.' | 0:42:07 | 0:42:10 | |
Of course, the Bolsheviks are already in control of virtually | 0:42:10 | 0:42:13 | |
'every means of communication in the capital.' | 0:42:13 | 0:42:16 | |
Though the provisional government still occupies the Winter Palace, | 0:42:21 | 0:42:25 | |
that afternoon, Trotsky announces that the government has fallen. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:30 | |
In the name of the military revolutionary committee, | 0:42:30 | 0:42:34 | |
I declare that the provisional government is no more! | 0:42:34 | 0:42:39 | |
CHEERING | 0:42:39 | 0:42:41 | |
Well, talk about fake news. It hasn't happened at all. | 0:42:41 | 0:42:45 | |
It had meant to happen by that point. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:47 | |
The authority of the provisional government, | 0:42:47 | 0:42:50 | |
presided over by Kerensky, | 0:42:50 | 0:42:53 | |
was a corpse | 0:42:53 | 0:42:55 | |
that only awaited the broom of history to sweep it away. | 0:42:55 | 0:43:00 | |
Well, this was the first Bolshevik lie | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
of...of many of the next, erm, the next 70 years. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:08 | |
The Winter Palace is not yet taken | 0:43:08 | 0:43:12 | |
but its fate will be settled in the course of the next few minutes! | 0:43:12 | 0:43:17 | |
CHEERING | 0:43:17 | 0:43:19 | |
But the minutes drag into hours. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:22 | |
Why haven't they seized power? | 0:43:22 | 0:43:26 | |
'He was promised, he was told by his military' | 0:43:27 | 0:43:29 | |
that it would take just three or four hours. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:32 | |
For heaven's sake, | 0:43:32 | 0:43:34 | |
why aren't shells being fired into the Winter Palace? | 0:43:34 | 0:43:38 | |
Why haven't they stormed it? | 0:43:38 | 0:43:41 | |
'They couldn't find the artillery, the guns didn't work,' | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
they were blocked, could anyone find anyone to work them? | 0:43:45 | 0:43:48 | |
They needed a lantern to give the signal | 0:43:48 | 0:43:51 | |
but no-one could find a lantern. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:53 | |
'There's a sort of hilarious crisis where the Mayor of Petrograd | 0:43:53 | 0:43:56 | |
'actually marches in front of the troops | 0:43:56 | 0:43:58 | |
'and stops the whole seizure of the Winter Palace. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:01 | |
'An entire group of men in frock coats start waving their umbrellas | 0:44:01 | 0:44:05 | |
'and saying, "You're not going to seize power now."' | 0:44:05 | 0:44:08 | |
They have to be moved out of the way and still nothing has happened. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
By this point, Lenin is apoplectic. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:14 | |
What the hell's going on? | 0:44:15 | 0:44:17 | |
These people should be shot for their incompetence! | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
As long as ministers are in the Palace, | 0:44:22 | 0:44:24 | |
the provisional government still stands. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:28 | |
I think the seizure of the Winter Palace is the key, | 0:44:29 | 0:44:32 | |
'because until then there's a Cabinet | 0:44:32 | 0:44:35 | |
'sitting around a Cabinet table, still running Russia.' | 0:44:35 | 0:44:38 | |
And Lenin himself recognises this. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:41 | |
This is why Lenin doesn't go to the Congress or do anything else. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:45 | |
Trotsky deals with the other socialist parties | 0:44:49 | 0:44:52 | |
at the Congress of Soviets. | 0:44:52 | 0:44:54 | |
Having travelled from all over Russia, | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
they are shocked to find Petrograd already seized by the Bolsheviks. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:01 | |
But their protests are shouted down by Trotsky's men. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:05 | |
Trotsky has another strategy ready. | 0:45:05 | 0:45:08 | |
'Trotsky's order of the day was that if the people in the Winter Palace' | 0:45:09 | 0:45:14 | |
didn't surrender, | 0:45:14 | 0:45:16 | |
'the battleship Aurora should fire blanks at them. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:21 | |
'He said that very noise of the battleship, | 0:45:22 | 0:45:26 | |
'which they could all see with its guns pointing,' | 0:45:26 | 0:45:29 | |
would be enough to send them out scurrying like rabbits. | 0:45:29 | 0:45:32 | |
At 10:40pm, the warning shot is fired from the Aurora. | 0:45:35 | 0:45:41 | |
And is heard as far away as the Congress. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:46 | |
The other socialist parties are outraged by the aggression... | 0:45:47 | 0:45:51 | |
..and walk out. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:53 | |
Without realising it, they have just handed power to the Bolsheviks. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:59 | |
'It was a godsend that his chief opponent just walked out, | 0:46:00 | 0:46:04 | |
'leaving the field of battle.' | 0:46:04 | 0:46:06 | |
So many socialist delegates leave that the Bolsheviks are now | 0:46:08 | 0:46:12 | |
in the majority and can do as they please. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:15 | |
'I think we have to agree with the great memoirist,' | 0:46:18 | 0:46:21 | |
Nikolai Sukhanov, who was at the Soviet Congress himself, | 0:46:21 | 0:46:25 | |
when he said, it was just a huge gift to Lenin. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:28 | |
As the delegates leave, Trotsky mocks his one-time allies | 0:46:29 | 0:46:34 | |
in one of the most quoted speeches of the 20th century. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:37 | |
The rising of the masses of the people | 0:46:37 | 0:46:42 | |
requires no justification. | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
What has happened is an uprising, | 0:46:46 | 0:46:49 | |
not a conspiracy. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
Trotsky's the real star of the Petrograd Soviet. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:54 | |
He's a brilliant orator. | 0:46:54 | 0:46:56 | |
The masses of the people moved under our banner | 0:46:56 | 0:47:01 | |
and our uprising | 0:47:01 | 0:47:03 | |
has won victory. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:05 | |
But he's also a brilliant theoretician | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
who understands how rhetoric and politics are intertwined | 0:47:08 | 0:47:13 | |
and how he can play on an audience to mobilise them. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:16 | |
Trotsky is able to make the Bolshevik view | 0:47:18 | 0:47:21 | |
sound like everyone's view. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:23 | |
And now... | 0:47:24 | 0:47:25 | |
..we are told... | 0:47:26 | 0:47:29 | |
to renounce our victory. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
Make concessions. | 0:47:32 | 0:47:34 | |
Compromise. | 0:47:34 | 0:47:36 | |
With whom? | 0:47:37 | 0:47:39 | |
With that wretched group who've just left us? | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
No-one in Russia is with them any more. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
No. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:47 | |
No compromise is possible. | 0:47:47 | 0:47:50 | |
The Bolshevik position becomes the Soviet position. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:55 | |
To those who have left | 0:47:55 | 0:47:58 | |
and those who make these proposals, | 0:47:58 | 0:48:00 | |
we say, you are pathetic individuals! | 0:48:00 | 0:48:05 | |
You are bankrupt! | 0:48:05 | 0:48:07 | |
Your role is played out. | 0:48:07 | 0:48:10 | |
Go off to where you belong from now on. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:13 | |
To the dustbin of history! | 0:48:14 | 0:48:16 | |
CHEERING | 0:48:16 | 0:48:18 | |
'His kind of dripping contempt lets them know that power is moving now,' | 0:48:20 | 0:48:25 | |
minute by minute, erm, to the Bolsheviks, | 0:48:25 | 0:48:29 | |
and to the creation of an entirely new world. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:31 | |
At virtually the same moment, Lenin's wish is becoming reality. | 0:48:41 | 0:48:46 | |
The Winter Palace is about to be taken. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:49 | |
Though its capture may not have been quite as spectacular | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
as Sergei Eisenstein's film, October, portrayed it. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:06 | |
First of all, it wasn't even locked. | 0:49:14 | 0:49:16 | |
Secondly, it was guarded by a group of adolescent boys | 0:49:16 | 0:49:19 | |
who were about 15 years old - cadets, | 0:49:19 | 0:49:21 | |
and by a group of female soldiers | 0:49:21 | 0:49:24 | |
who were getting more and more terrified. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:27 | |
So when they finally did, on that evening, enter the Winter Palace... | 0:49:29 | 0:49:34 | |
..when the doors were open, no-one stopped them. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:39 | |
There was no fighting, there was no storming. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:42 | |
The heroic scale of that film is creating a myth of October, | 0:49:42 | 0:49:48 | |
far from the reality. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
'The storming of the Winter Palace creates this foundation myth | 0:49:51 | 0:49:55 | |
'of it being a mass uprising. | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
'That the thousands who stormed the Winter Palace,' | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
instead of the few dozen who actually did so, | 0:50:02 | 0:50:05 | |
were representatives of the whole people. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:08 | |
'Revolutions are, by nature, illegitimate.' | 0:50:11 | 0:50:14 | |
So you need to create foundation myths. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:17 | |
The moment that power passes to the Bolsheviks is an epic example. | 0:50:17 | 0:50:22 | |
They walked into the Cabinet meeting. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
'And the Cabinet looked up and said, "What do you want us to do?" | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
'And the Bolsheviks said, "You're under arrest."' | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
That is the moment the October Revolution happens. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:46 | |
CHEERING | 0:50:49 | 0:50:51 | |
An heroic new world is born. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:55 | |
At least in Eisenstein's version of events. | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
In reality, Lenin is in room 36 when he gets the news, | 0:51:03 | 0:51:07 | |
far from the action. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:09 | |
It is finally done. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:15 | |
Russia is his. | 0:51:18 | 0:51:20 | |
But did Lenin just grab power in a coup | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
or did he have popular support? | 0:51:34 | 0:51:36 | |
'I think it was a coup d'etat.' | 0:51:37 | 0:51:39 | |
There were people who wanted bread and land | 0:51:39 | 0:51:41 | |
and all power to the Soviets, | 0:51:41 | 0:51:43 | |
but did they want a Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Lenin? | 0:51:43 | 0:51:48 | |
I don't think so. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
Was there an element of conspiracy in it? | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
Well, of course, because you can't plan an insurrection | 0:51:53 | 0:51:57 | |
by publishing the details the day before. | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
But everything till then, till the day before, | 0:52:00 | 0:52:04 | |
had been discussed in Lenin's speeches, in his writings, | 0:52:04 | 0:52:08 | |
and those of Trotsky, what he was saying, | 0:52:08 | 0:52:11 | |
they were saying, yes, we are making a revolution. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:14 | |
How the hell is that a coup d'etat? | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
For sure, the coup d'etat of October, which is what it was, | 0:52:17 | 0:52:22 | |
based itself on the underpinnings of a mass social revolution | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
which originated in February 1917. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:30 | |
And we see the radicalisation of peasants, workers, soldiers, | 0:52:30 | 0:52:34 | |
across the country, giving a mandate for Soviet power by October. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:40 | |
But Soviet power is not what Lenin makes | 0:52:40 | 0:52:45 | |
of the events of the 25th of October. | 0:52:45 | 0:52:47 | |
Lenin is using the cloak of Soviet power | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
to establish a Bolshevik dictatorship. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:54 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:52:58 | 0:53:00 | |
The next day, Lenin appears at the Congress of Soviets to announce... | 0:53:05 | 0:53:10 | |
We shall now proceed | 0:53:11 | 0:53:13 | |
to construct the socialist order. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:16 | |
'This is a man who had spent years working out the theory | 0:53:20 | 0:53:23 | |
'of exactly what he was going to do.' | 0:53:23 | 0:53:25 | |
And so the moment that they took over, he was ready. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
Trotsky is named the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:35 | |
Stalin, the People's Commissar for Nationalities. | 0:53:35 | 0:53:39 | |
And Lenin becomes the leader of the government. | 0:53:39 | 0:53:42 | |
A new era in the history of Russia and of the world begins. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:48 | |
Lenin issues scores of decrees that transform Russia in days. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:55 | |
'You start to see the first stirrings of a different kind | 0:53:57 | 0:54:01 | |
'of social control, for example. | 0:54:01 | 0:54:03 | |
'Workers' control and peasantry having control of their own lives. | 0:54:03 | 0:54:07 | |
'Equal rights of men and women, of divorce law, | 0:54:08 | 0:54:11 | |
'decriminalising homosexuality.' | 0:54:11 | 0:54:13 | |
To me, there's no question that October represents a moment of hope. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:19 | |
'Just weeks after the October Revolution,' | 0:54:21 | 0:54:25 | |
Lenin created a one-party state, a totalitarian state. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:29 | |
'He also created the Cheka, the secret police, | 0:54:30 | 0:54:33 | |
'with power over life and death, to kill enemies of the revolution.' | 0:54:33 | 0:54:37 | |
He repeatedly ordered mass shootings of thousands of innocent people. | 0:54:38 | 0:54:42 | |
'He specified that, you know, | 0:54:43 | 0:54:45 | |
'annihilation was the only way for the party to keep power. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:49 | |
'So, gradually, he created a dictatorship' | 0:54:49 | 0:54:51 | |
that was inherited by Stalin, and made much more intense by Stalin. | 0:54:51 | 0:54:56 | |
'When the ideologue is confronted with reality, | 0:54:58 | 0:55:02 | |
'that doesn't fit into his scheme,' | 0:55:02 | 0:55:04 | |
he can't defeat reality with argument, | 0:55:04 | 0:55:06 | |
so the fist tightens. | 0:55:06 | 0:55:08 | |
Vladimir Lenin dies of a stroke in 1924. | 0:55:09 | 0:55:13 | |
Joseph Stalin rises to power. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:18 | |
He eliminates his rivals. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:21 | |
Notably, Leon Trotsky, | 0:55:21 | 0:55:23 | |
who was assassinated in 1940. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
Joseph Stalin, the quiet backroom fixer, | 0:55:29 | 0:55:33 | |
outlasts both Lenin and Trotsky. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:36 | |
His reign becomes the Great Terror | 0:55:36 | 0:55:39 | |
that lasts for over a quarter of a century. | 0:55:39 | 0:55:42 | |
The Tsars, in their last half century, | 0:55:43 | 0:55:47 | |
were averaging 17 executions a year. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:51 | |
Within a month... | 0:55:51 | 0:55:53 | |
a few months of Lenin taking power, | 0:55:53 | 0:55:56 | |
erm, it was 1,000 a month, executions. | 0:55:56 | 0:55:59 | |
And during the Great Terror, it was more like 1,000 a week. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:04 | |
'Under Stalin, something like 20 million people' | 0:56:04 | 0:56:07 | |
would go through the concentration camps, the Gulag camps. | 0:56:07 | 0:56:11 | |
Somewhere between 20 and 30 million people were killed. | 0:56:11 | 0:56:16 | |
These were on the orders not just of Stalin, | 0:56:16 | 0:56:18 | |
but of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:21 | |
Stalin is not Lenin's heir. | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
In his last will and testament, | 0:56:24 | 0:56:26 | |
Lenin made it very clear that he should be removed | 0:56:26 | 0:56:30 | |
as General Secretary of the party. | 0:56:30 | 0:56:32 | |
Said he was not the right sort of person to be leading the party. | 0:56:32 | 0:56:36 | |
Stalin's impact on Russia lasts beyond his death in 1953 | 0:56:40 | 0:56:46 | |
or even the death of the Soviet Union in 1991. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:50 | |
ANNOUNCED IN RUSSIAN | 0:56:51 | 0:56:53 | |
'Putin really understands the October Revolution. | 0:56:55 | 0:56:57 | |
'In many ways, he's a result of it, one of the results of it. | 0:56:57 | 0:57:01 | |
'When he looks back at history, he's really interested,' | 0:57:02 | 0:57:05 | |
not in Marxism or Bolshevism, | 0:57:05 | 0:57:08 | |
'he's most impressed by the Red Tsar, by Stalin. | 0:57:08 | 0:57:12 | |
'Because Stalin is the successful manager | 0:57:13 | 0:57:16 | |
'of the Russian nation.' | 0:57:16 | 0:57:18 | |
HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN | 0:57:18 | 0:57:20 | |
'Putin's not interested in the chaos caused by Lenin and Trotsky. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:24 | |
'He's interested in the prestige and the victory' | 0:57:24 | 0:57:28 | |
delivered by Joseph Stalin. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:30 | |
So, has history proved Stalin to be more influential | 0:57:34 | 0:57:38 | |
than Lenin or Trotsky? | 0:57:38 | 0:57:40 | |
For so many years, 70 years of the Soviet Union, | 0:57:41 | 0:57:44 | |
it was Lenin who was always invoked as the godlike figure, | 0:57:44 | 0:57:48 | |
the Father of the Revolution. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:50 | |
And now, in the Putin era, he's been sort of left to one side a bit. | 0:57:50 | 0:57:55 | |
The statues are still there, | 0:57:55 | 0:57:56 | |
but somehow he's not talked about as much. | 0:57:56 | 0:57:59 | |
When there was a poll recently about some of the greatest leaders | 0:57:59 | 0:58:03 | |
or figures in Russia, it was Stalin who figured, not Lenin. | 0:58:03 | 0:58:07 | |
But is Lenin's time coming again? | 0:58:12 | 0:58:15 | |
'We live today in a world of rampant populism, of post-factual politics, | 0:58:19 | 0:58:24 | |
'and much of this can be traced back to Lenin. | 0:58:24 | 0:58:29 | |
'That ultimate political manipulator...' | 0:58:29 | 0:58:32 | |
..who, though he was a fanatical Marxist, | 0:58:33 | 0:58:37 | |
was also the master of pragmatism. | 0:58:37 | 0:58:40 | |
'He understood that politics was all about who controls who | 0:58:40 | 0:58:45 | |
'and any means were suitable to achieving his ends.' | 0:58:45 | 0:58:50 |