Page 44 - World History Cover resized

terattacked and in hou wi d out the whole
In Ruia the final revolution t k place on Novem r 7 (thou it
was to r by the calendar the Rians and is therefore called the October Revolution The lsheviks i d the railr d station nks, wer station, bridges and telephone exchange. M t of the ldie sta­ tioned in St Petersburg sup rted the lshevik By evening only the Winter Palace, the former residence of the T remained under Keren­ sky's control At P the lsheviks started shelling the palace. By 1 A.M, the Red Guards were in the buildin They broke into the r ms where the gove ent leaders were hiding and t k them pri ner
On Novem r 8 repr ntatives of the Communist Party, called viets, met With Lenin dominating the meeting, they voted an end to the war, approved the izure of all private pro rty without paying for it, and elected Lenin head of the gove ment By Novem r 18 the Communists were in complete control
Although op ition forces (called "Whites") fought the Communists in several parts of the country, Lenin acted as if he had the full sup rt of the people. He ordered the izure of all private pro rty and t k over all industrie He declared that the gove ment had no deb He t up new court He confiscated all church lands and id that divorce was legal and could granted for any rea n at all Lenin reinstituted the d th penalty and gan to arrest his rival
e situation of the ordinary ople had not changed for the tter. F was still arce. Crime was out of control When elections were held for a Constituent A mbly, the lsheviks obtained only 24 r cent of the vote. Clearly the ople did not want a Communist gove ment
Lenin went back on all his promi s a ut repre ntative gove ent He tried to tage the Constituent A mbly. When it finally met in spite of his attempts to t ne it, the lsheviks dis pted the pr eed­ ing e gove ment arrested more of its enemies and i d the printing pre s of anti- lshevik newspa r Finally the delegates were driven
awayO. n March 13, 1918, nin signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Germans, giving away large tracts of Rian territory. On June 1918, the royal family was brutally murdered
Mary's July prophecy came true. The evil of Communism has spread throughout the world, bringing untold suffering to millions of people, a se­ ries of wars and per cutions of Christians and of others as great as any the world has ever known