On November 7, 1917, members of the Bolshevik political party seized power in the capital of Russia, Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). This conflict, ultimately, led to a Bolshevik victory in the Russian civil war that followed, and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922. The October Revolution was actually the second Russian revolution of 1917. In March, revolutionaries led by the Petrograd soviet, or council, violently overthrew Czar Nicholas II, the monarch whose family had ruled Russia for more than three centuries. The czarist government was replaced by a republic, largely led by Russian nobles.

The majority (bolshe in Russian) of Russians were peasants and industrial workers. They did not support the new, noble-led government. The communist policies of the Bolshevik Party, led by charismatic lawyer Vladimir Lenin, appealed to these working class Russians. Why does the October Revolution have a November date? In 1917, Russia used the Julian calendar, which placed the date for the October Revolution on October 25. (For the same reason, the March uprising that led to the abdication of the czar is known as the “February Revolution.”) Today, Russia uses the Gregorian calendar, which dates the revolution to November 7.