Petrograd in 1917: Six Photographs Around the Revolution

Red Guards gather in Petrograd during the autumn of 1917. The source identifies the season, not November 7 itself. Rifles, uniforms and civilian clothing share the frame. This is a contemporary group photograph, not a photograph of the capture of the Winter Palace.

This photograph is cataloged as a meeting of soldiers’ deputies at the Tauride Palace in June 1917. It records the crowded institutional politics of the revolutionary year. It should not be confused with the later congress associated with the Bolshevik seizure of power.

A shop window displays a bullet hole after the July disturbances in Petrograd. The Library of Congress preserves the photograph without naming its photographer. This small piece of street damage belongs to the summer crisis, months before the November takeover.

Pyotr Novitsky photographed the entrance to Smolny in the revolutionary autumn. The source labels it October 1917 without resolving the calendar convention. The building was associated with the revolutionary leadership; armed guards and a machine gun stand on the entrance steps.

Yakov Steinberg’s photograph shows Red Guards checking documents. The source explicitly dates the scene to November 1917 in the Gregorian calendar, corresponding to October in the Julian calendar. It records street-level control during the revolutionary period; the exact day is not supplied.