History of Saint Petersburg - Revolutions

Revolutions

Several revolutions, uprisings, assassinations of Tsars, and power takeovers in St. Peterburg had shaped the course of history in Russia and influenced the world. In 1801, after the assassination of the Emperor Paul I, his son became the Emperor Alexander I. Alexander I ruled Russia during the Napoleonic Wars and expanded his Empire by acquisitions of Finland and part of Poland. His mysterious death in 1825 was marked by the Decembrist revolt, which was suppressed by the Emperor Nicholas I, who ordered execution of leaders and exiled hundreds of their followers to Siberia. Nicholas I then pushed for Russian nationalism by suppressing non-Russian nationalities and religions.

Cultural revolution that followed after the Napoleonic wars, had further opened St. Petersburg up, in spite of repressions. The city's wealth and rapid growth had always attracted prominent intellectuals, scientists, writers and artists. St. Petersburg eventually gained international recognition as a gateway for trade and business, as well as a cosmopolitan cultural hub. The works of Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and numerous others brought Russian literature to the world. Music, theatre and ballet became firmly established and gained international stature.

The son of Tsar Nicholas I, Tsar Alexander II implemented the most challenging reforms undertaken in Russia since the reign of Peter the Great. The emancipation of the serfs (1861) caused the influx of large numbers of poor into the capital. Tenements were erected on the outskirts, and nascent industry sprang up, surpassing Moscow in population and industrial growth. By 1900, St. Petersburg had grown into one of the largest industrial hubs in Europe, an important international center of power, business and politics, and the 4th largest city in Europe.

With the growth of industry, radical movements were also astir. Socialist organizations were responsible for the assassinations of many public figures, government officials, members of the royal family, and the Tsar himself. Tsar Alexander II was killed by a suicide bomber Ignacy Hryniewiecki in 1881, in a plot with connections to the family of Lenin and other revolutionaries. The Revolution of 1905 initiated here and spread rapidly into the provinces. During World War I, the name Sankt Peterburg was seen to be too German, so the city was renamed Petrograd.

1917 saw next stages of the Russian Revolution, and re-emergence of the Communist party led by Lenin, who declared "Guns give us the power" and "All power to the Soviets!" After the February Revolution, the Tsar Nicholas II was arrested and the Tsar's government was replaced by two opposing centers of political power: the "pro-democracy" Provisional government and the "pro-communist" Petrograd Soviet. Then the Provisional government was overthrown by the communists in the October Revolution, causing the Russian Civil War.

The city's proximity to anti-Soviet armies forced communist leader Vladimir Lenin to move his government to Moscow on 5 March 1918. The move was disguised as temporary, but Moscow has remained the capital ever since. On 24 January 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. The Communist party's reason for renaming the city again was that Lenin had led the revolution. After the Civil War, and murder of the Tsar Nicholas II and his family, as well as millions of anti-Soviet people, the renaming to Leningrad was designed to destroy last hopes among the resistance, and show strong dictatorship of Lenin's communist party and the Soviet regime.

St. Petersburg was devastated by Lenin's Red Terror then by Stalin's Great Purge in addition to crime and vandalism in the series of revolutions and wars. Between 1917 and 1930s, about two million people fled the city, including hundreds of thousands of educated intellectuals and aristocracy, who emigrated to Europe and America. At the same time many political, social and paramilitary groups had followed the communist government in their move to Moscow, as the benefits of capital status had left the city. In 1931 Leningrad administratively separated from Leningrad Oblast.

In 1934 the popular governor of Leningrad, Kirov, was assassinated, because Stalin apparently became increasingly paranoid about Kirov's growth. The death of Kirov was used to ignite the Great Purge where supporters of Trotsky and other suspected "enemies of the Soviet state" were arrested. Then a series of "criminal" cases, known as the Leningrad Centre and Leningrad Affair, were fabricated and resulted in death sentences for many top leaders of Leningrad, and severe repressions of thousands of top officials and intellectuals.