On 7 November 1917 (25 October by the old calendar) the Bolsheviks seize power in Petrograd in the name of the soviets, and the October Revolution makes Marxism a governing doctrine for the first time. The event divides the tradition ever after: model of emancipation to its defenders, original catastrophe to its critics, and the hinge on which every later Marxist argument turns.
Tagged: Marxism
The Event
- Date
- 1917 (exact)
- Era
- Revolution and Western Marxism; Standard periodization of Marxist history
- Location
- Petrograd; today St Petersburg, Russia
- Traditions
- Marxism
- Streams
- Marxism
- Key figures
- Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky
How the Tradition Tells It
The tradition reads this event in two irreconcilable ways, as emancipation's founding act and as the origin of a new oppression; the record states the event and its division without adopting either reading.
Connections
Primary Sources
- The decrees and proclamations of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Petrograd, 1917.
Secondary Sources
- Anderson, Perry. Considerations on Western Marxism. London: New Left Books, 1976.
- Kolakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
- McLellan, David. Karl Marx: A Biography. London: Palgrave Macmillan, fourth edition, 2006.
Provenance: HIST-1458; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
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Engels's Anti-Dühring
1878
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Lenin's What Is to Be Done?
1902
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Marx's Capital, volume one
1867
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Marx's Preface of 1859 states the materialist conception
1859
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Marx's Theses on Feuerbach
1845
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The Paris Commune
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World View
Marxism
Marxism explains history as the struggle of classes over material production, and aims at a classless society in which exploitation and alienation are ended.