The Final Days Of The Romanov Dynasty | The History Of Russia | Our History

[Music] stalin consigned to what his old enemy trotsky called the dustbin of history he's in good company brezhnev is in disgrace even lenin is no longer the hero he was leaders who ruled a hundred soviet nationalities gathering dust in the cellars of a moscow museum will mikhail gorbachev end up here too i don't know i do know that a bloody and extraordinary history has touched every one of his millions of subjects it happened to them one at a time and one at a time is how they are going to tell their country's story [Music] this is where the old communists come to end their days in peace [Music] the retirement home at pere delkina near moscow is their reward for at least half a century of loyal service to the party they've survived revolution terror war and perestroika their numbers are dwindling but there are still some who remember what russia was like before the revolution they made changed the world musee muravnik is 99 years old and a lifelong revolutionary he was already a grown man when the old order was swept away when he and people like him brought down the last tsar of all the rushes nicholas ii the last romanov married one of queen victoria's forty grandchildren their happy union produced four daughters and a son mosese moravnik was one of twenty children from belo russia [Music] the muravniks were jews they took the train east to escape persecution the trans-siberian railway had opened up the heart of the empire it brought the moravnik's three thousand miles to the gold fields along the river liener siberian gold miners worked in temperatures which could fall to -60 their lives were hard and dangerous in 1912 they went on strike they asked for more money an eight-hour day and an education for their children in actually spring collected in one place around the native mind and off we marched which was peaceful really peaceful nobody suspected a thing so when the shooting started it took us completely by surprise we had 500 workers killed or wounded that day i can still picture it the snow still hadn't melted it was the first time i'd ever seen anyone the strike went on we asked for bread you gave us bullets long live the right to strike shame on the butchers [Music] as the siberian families buried their dead half a million workers went on sympathy strike in every corner of the empire the tsar's minister of the interior defended the shooting he said it has happened and it will happen again the imperial parliament was not impressed and voted to set up its own inquiry at the time of the liena goldfield massacre the crown prince zarevich alexei was eight years old he was very frail from his great-grandmother queen victoria he had inherited hemophilia that autumn he started to bleed internally his doctors could do nothing to help him a siberian holy man called rasputin sent alexandra a telegram the little one will not die he said don't allow the doctors to bother him too much the crisis passed the empress came to rely on rasputin to help her son whenever he was well enough the little boy accompanied his father on affairs of state they were filmed together at the celebrations marking the tsar's 25th year as an army officer [Music] but the serious nature of the child's illness was kept a closely guarded secret in those last few years of peace before the great war engulfed the old order the romanovs ruled a country which was modernizing fast the russian people had political parties trade unions a relatively free press and an economic boom [Music] so in the summer of 1913 it was a prosperous and self-confident city of moscow which prepared to mark 300 years of romanov rule there were hundreds of muscovites lined up on pushkin square that summer too they came here out of curiosity to see where the reputation would match up to reality they came to see the tsar i was only a small boy so i climbed up into a tree there used to be a tree just over there at a grand view of the tsar and zarina parading by i could see them bowing and that was the end of that the watching crowds were less than friendly towards the imperial family a scandal was brewing compromising letters from the empress to rasputin had been leaked all i want is to sleep sleep forever on your shoulder in your embrace she wrote my feelings were quite fierce 1914 winter palace squares in petersburg patriotic fervor as the tsar announced war with germany hostility towards him vanished the french ambassador said to those thousands the tsar really was the autocrat the absolute master of their bodies and souls rasputin wrote to the tsar imploring him to stay out of the war dear friend again i say a terrible storm cloud hangs over russia disaster grief murky darkness and no light a whole ocean of tears there is no counting them and so much blood [Music] all over europe men marched off in the biggest mobilization the world had ever seen [Music] nicholas appointed his uncle grandduke nicolai nicolaivic commander-in-chief of the russian armed forces [Music] all armies fought with god on their side but there had been no war between the great powers since 1871 nobody foresaw what this war would be like the first russian men marched off with their heads held high but the army had a million more men than rifles the old soldiers at the communist party rest home were lucky to survive in the first year alone four million russian soldiers were sacrificed we fought for the tsar well that's what it looked like but really we were fighting to get the germans off our backs your country is your country no matter whether this is our up there or whoever so that's why we fought we fought for our country at the front conditions were very difficult i ended up having to spend the autumn winter and then the spring there was snow at the below we had a hard time with it in the carpathian mountains our clothes were really light we only had summer boots to wear there weren't any winter boots to be honest there weren't any trenches either to dig ourselves in because the ground there was too rocky we ended up sitting in the snow russians were bad and there was nothing else the soldiers just went hungry the soldiers had to eat all together eight at a time and all of one plate in fact soldiers had no rights at all we weren't allowed into the parks or gardens you weren't allowed to take your dog in and soldiers couldn't walk around in there either it was written up above the entrance no soldiers no dogs men treated like dogs died like dogs the german commander was general paulvin hindenburg he said in the great war ledger the page on which the russian losses were written has been torn out all we know is that sometimes in our battles with the russians we had to remove the mounds of enemy corpses from before our trenches in order to get a clear field of fire against fresh assaulting waves [Music] in 1915 the tsar decided to take personal control of the conduct of his disastrous war he sacked his uncle nikolai nikolaevich and appointed himself commander-in-chief it was brave conscientious and foolish it meant he would be blamed for everything that went wrong and discontent mounted with the casualty figures some of the soldiers the ones from a working-class background we're already in the mood for evolution we've got discussions organized i told them all about siberia and all about that strike we had two thousand miles from the front line at the far end of the golden road to summer camp soviet was there on the day in the summer of 1916 when the town of jizak refused [Music] the muslims of central asia were called up and their livestock requisitioned by a russian government desperate to replace its appalling losses people said we're not giving them anything am i not going so we started this revolution we wanted freedom we said this is our town and we're not going to be called up by zara nicholas oh and then the soldiers crowded in they'd been sent from russia by nicholas and they killed everyone they killed everyone they saw they just shot everybody they even killed women i saw one they tore her clothes off her and stabbed her bare body thousands died in the prolonged and bloody suppression of the asian rising in european russia the winter of 1916 closed in [Music] it was even colder than usual tempers were short and the government held in contempt a wave of strikes paralyzed the capital there was no heating fuel and bread was rationed sin petersburg had been renamed petrograd to make it sound less german but with azar away at the front rasputin seemed to be in charge alongside zarina who was born in germany opposition cartoons depicted him as a drunk and a lecher a sinister puppet master ruling russia through a cuckold and a german three right-wing aristocrats took action they killed rasputin and drove down to the river neva with a body in the boot of their rolls-royce the historian robert conquest has spent half a lifetime studying everything that happened next they threw rasputin's trust up body into the river here after they'd poisoned him stabbed him and shot him even so some think he was still alive when he hit the water his assassins were acclaimed as heroes and patriots the new year 1917 dawned a few days later 1917 was the year the old russian empire took a step into the unknown a year of revolution and experiment which transformed this country it presented a dream of freedom and equality which has haunted the history of our century what happened to this dream is the theme of this series down with the old regime the banners said women workers and soldiers wives led the first demonstrations by the third day a quarter of a million people were on strike in the capital a small boy from a socialist family made his way to the city center it was full of people discussing and shouting you want food you want bread the feeling was rather tense because in the corner of the square near the station there was a detachment of mounted gendarmes political police and nobody knew what was going to happen of course and then suddenly we heard shouting that the cross acts in such circumstances there would be a feeling of panic because cossacks were even more feared round downs but to our surprise on the contrary the shouting seemed to be quite joyful they are cheerful in fact they were cheering the cossacks that was something quite unexpected meanwhile the rundowns it seems were just as much surprised as the crowd was i remember very clearly a very big man a worker uh grasped the tail of the horse on which the officer sat and pulled it so wildly down that the horse practically sat on the hunches and that made it easier for the crowd to pull the officer down and he was disarmed and his sword was broken and all the others in downs were disarmed and finally enough nothing happened to them they were allowed to go not all figures of authority were spared this is the volinsky regiment on the 27th of february they refused orders to move against the crowds they shot their commanding officer and went over to the revolution and at the naval base of kronstadt philippe mussatov saw an officer lynched i didn't just watch it i took part in the whole thing i was there there was this admiral he was commander of the whole fleet we got him on preparedness square i think even when you're faced with killing your worst enemy it's the same thing you can feel it wrong it was the same then but what can you do at the time the situation was such that we didn't even think about it it was just come on finish him off kill him the chief of the petrograd military district telegraphed the tsar he reported the whole city in the hands of the revolutionists and all the government ministers arrested the tsar never got back to petrograd railway workers stopped his train 170 miles away he abdicated in a siding a dignified illustration appeared in the london graphic magazine a russian cartoon showed the tsar taking his double-headed pet home let's see how they manage without the eagle all around me treason cowardice deceit he wrote the protector of the ancient orthodox church was deposed with barely a murmur of protest this revolution was unanimous father alexander trafimov now in exile in paris was then an officer cadet we even went marching around with red flags and drums rejoicing at it all because the bolsheviks were saying that now we are free and everything's going to be wonderful and we all believed it too during those first few days of the february revolution later when we saw how they were attacking and arresting people that was when we changed our minds but at first we even went parading around the town with trumpets and an orchestra the revolution was something we were all part of margo tracy's family were wealthy capitalists who ran a brewing empire they welcomed the revolution too everybody was fed up with the tar because they thought he was weak and when the tsar actually abdicated there was a great rejoicement everywhere and i remember my parents opened champagne bottles and celebrated with friends everybody was very pleased because they never expected anything anything to get worse they thought everything was going to be better because he was much criticized there were lots of scandals at court and so everybody thought things were for the better [Music] even the circus joined the party as the streets of petrograd erupted in celebration [Music] pauses of revolutionaries roamed around striking attitudes for the newsreel cameramen they saw themselves as the heirs of the french revolution liberty equality fraternity but there was one sad duty to perform the violence had claimed almost 2 000 lives and the solemn funeral of the fighters for freedom was the first great state occasion of revolutionary russia [Music] thousands of ordinary people and dignitaries from all political parties came to pay their respects [Music] the mourners included the ministers of the new administration they called it the provisional government it was to hold the fort only until a proper general election [Music] the martyrs of the revolution were to be vindicated by the election of a real parliament the dream was a constituent assembly representing all democratic russia the provisional government set up shop in one wing of the taured palace and passed some revolutionary decrees dismantling the tsarist police abolishing capital punishment but in the opposite wing of the same palace was another new political organization it was a council called the soviet of workers and soldiers deputies directly elected from barracks and factories here in the tory palace the soviet drew up its order number one to the petrograd garrison in particular standing to attention and obligatory saluting off duty shall be cancelled likewise officers shall be addressed as mr general mr colonel etc instead of your excellency rudeness towards soldiers of all ranks shall be forbidden thus did the much put upon soldiers get their reward for making the february revolution possible army officers came to the toreed palace to commit themselves to fighting on for revolutionary russia against the german armies the response of the soldiers at the front line was quite different after the february revolution the army just completely fell apart soldiers sat themselves up on the train roofs with their ration books the officers didn't allow them up on the roofs but they didn't obey orders everyone just wanted to get home as quickly as possible in the capital the cry was still war till victory [Music] demonstrating soldiers sent greetings to their comrades in the trenches and they proclaimed long live the soviet and long live the provisional government but which of the two was really going to run the city [Music] one man came forward to take a place on both organizations deputy chairman of the soviet and minister of justice in the provisional government was a young lawyer called alexander karensky years later he said between february and october the revolution became a flood [Music] the old cruiser aurora is long past her fighting days but she is honored every year on the anniversary of the october revolution the aurora is a symbol of the victory of communism centerpiece of admiral susloft's anniversary review of the baltic fleet in leningrad [Applause] the baltic sailors were the stormtroopers of the second russian revolution of 1917. the pride and beauty of the revolution lenin called them [Music] [Applause] every year the naval officers invite elderly bolsheviks to their anniversary party to share the celebration and pass on their revolutionary memories michael sinagioski was there on the day in april 1917 when the exiled leader of a tiny marxist party stepped off a train and changed the lives of everyone around this table it was easter monday the finland station petrograd it was a lovely sunny day us kids were hanging about on the street when we saw them they were walking slowly along and turning from side to side to show off this placard to the crowds on the pavement the sunshine brought everyone out into the streets they must have used tooth powder to ride their placards it was gripping everywhere and what it said was this comrades exclamation mark arriving at the finland station today vladimir ilitch in brackets come and meet lenin was a clever man much the toughest of all the exiled professional revolutionaries it was the germans who sent him home they were hoping he'd make trouble a friend said he had eyes like steel shavings none of us had any idea what lenin would look like because he'd gone abroad in 1907 he had on this spring coat he had a beard and a moustache and he was bald of course and there he was lennon there were masters of people there and a couple of men left out of the crowd they got hold of ladies picked him up and helped him onto the turret of that armored car that one over there and right away he started to speak he said that we must go onward our weapons in our hands onto the socialist revolution and he finished up was the only man in russia who thought his country was ready for socialism but in the excitement of revolution political ideas were changing fast the entire city had become a mass meeting in may local council elections brought everyone into the streets [Music] there was a bewildering choice of parties each was identified by a number to help the semi-literate voters to cope on the far left the bolshevik wing of the russian social democratic party did well lenin's slogans were simple and compelling especially for soldiers sick of the war i remember them bringing this soldier up to the platform and someone's saying go on then speak up and he said all right well up until then every soldier who had made a speech had started it gentlemen but this soldier when he gave his speech he said comrades there was a bit of a pause and then he says let's get it right what are we doing calling each other gentlemen he says you've got to point to this group of officers there's your gentleman and you know comrades who the bolsheviks are but of course the soldiers replied no no idea the bolsheviks demand an end to this bloody war that's no use to anyone or don't tell me you want it to continue so once again a chorus of soldiers down with the war long live the bolsheviks i didn't have a clue what that was all about there was a bolshevik in charge here at the huge putilof arms factory the workers elected him to replace the director they'd killed in february but the party of the proletariat had never been open to every worker lenin wanted dedicated full-time revolutionaries who would give their lives to leading the working class from the front bolshevik successes meant trouble for alexander karensky and the provisional government kerensky traveled the front to rally the troops can't you suffer any longer he asked or has free russia become steadily a nation of revolted slaves kerensky approved the organization of a women's death battalion hoping the image of their shaven heads would shame russian men into fighting fifteen hundred women joined up in one evening and emmeline pankhurst the british suffragette paid the battalion an admiring visit [Music] in june kerensky launched russia's summer offensive against germany it was an embarrassing flop the soldiers were interested in revolution not fighting the head of the british military mission to russia said the russian army was irretrievably ruined as a fighting organization once again anti-war protests brought the capital to a standstill now there were half a million people on the streets banners attacked the provisional government and called for immediate peace the city was full of deserters the mood was tense and ugly [Music] july a fumbling attempt by the bolsheviks to seize power was put down by troops sent by the soviet karensky wired from the front arrest the enemies of the people and counter-revolutionaries lenin shaved off his beard and fled the city on false papers scandal broke over the heads of his comrades sometimes the arguments got so heated they ended up in fisticuffs children the germans have bought him for money they sent him back to russia on purpose he's a traitor to russia and you're following a man like that someone who can only bring unhappiness to russia [Music] lenin took refuge at raz live in the woods on the gulf of finland 20 miles outside petrograd the straw hat where he hid is now a soviet shrine lyndon spent most of the summer writing a book state and revolution and sending a series of ferocious letters to his comrades demanding that they stop chile shelling and get on with organizing the socialist insurrection they ignored his letters he threatened to resign this went on all summer lenin never got around to finishing his book as he said it is more pleasant and useful to go through the experience of the revolution than to write about it august factories were closing wages were falling inflation was spiraling out of control the army had a new commander-in-chief general corniloff two million men had deserted from the front and he blamed the left if necessary we'll hang every member of the soviet he said and attempted a military coup the coup was a dismal failure it left the general's political boss korensky dangerously isolated some thought he should have supported corniloff everyone else thought he'd betrayed the revolution leon trotsky was the beneficiary for years a supporter of the more cautious menshevik tendency trotsky joined the bolsheviks and was elected chairman of the petrograd soviet they called it dual power but that was never a true reflection of the uneasy relationship between the provisional government and the soviet the soviet had all the real power in the city now it had a bolshevik majority a bolshevik chairman and a bolshevik slogan all power to the soviets this flat belonged to a prominent menshevik called sukhanov whose wife was a bolshevik sympathizer on the night of october the 10th when her husband was out she invited lenin and his central committee to meet here this was the night his comrades finally fell into line behind lenin the night they drew up the plan for armed insurrection in the name of soviet power mrs sukhanov made them tea and sausage sandwiches [Music] this is the way the russians remember the october revolution this heroic reconstruction was a piece of street theater filmed to celebrate a revolutionary anniversary the truth was less dramatic [Music] the rising began not at the winter palace but at the city post office and telephone exchange captured by a band of red sailors the post office and telegraph were being guarded by officer cadets supporters of the provisional government we disarmed well there were more of us than them there must have been 800 of us and maybe 300 of them so we disarmed them and kicked them out and we cut off the telephone lines of the provisional government whether we're meeting in the winter palace then i went off to the winter palace with a small unit about 25 men the winter palace was heavily defended at all the windows everywhere there were sandbags and behind these barricades there was a guard of czar's cadets armed with rifles and machine guns was one point defended by the women's death battalion the most vulnerable spot the only place that we could take we thought if we went into the attack all shouting hurrah they wouldn't shoot at us then we would somehow scramble past their defenses and get into the winter palace that way it didn't work out they found out a hail of bullets defended by the last of the women and cadets the provisional government sat inside the winter palace and waited for the end the last minister of justice described the scene doomed people lonely abandoned by all walked around in the huge mousetrap the red cruiser aurora stood hard by her guns trained on the palace the bolsheviks had picked the day of their insurrection carefully at the smallness institute delegates from soviets all over russia were arriving for a national congress amid heated discussions the delegates heard the aurora open fire the signal for a last assault [Music] the storming of the winter palace in reality it was dark it was foggy there were no film cameras there was hardly any resistance five soldiers and one sailor died [Music] there were big sellers under there flooded with water because of all the bombardment they kept a lot of wine down there old wine 50 they'd pick out a bottle smash the top off have a taste and say oh that's no good and this bind was 50 years old the party went on for days finally what was left in the cellars was pumped into the river at the small knee lenin and trotsky heard the news that their attack had succeeded but delegates to the congress of soviets had been arguing all night about whether they even wanted the bolsheviks to seize power in their name lenin walked into the great white ballroom to make his announcement by 10 in the morning most of the delegates who opposed the coup had given up and left so lenin was greeted by tumultuous applause when he told the congress we will now proceed to construct the socialist order and that was the revolution in petrograd even trotsky felt it was a little unexciting [Music] in moscow soviet power was not so easily won there were seven days of pitched battles as officers struggled to defend february against october very well approachable we fought the bolshevik government our attack began successfully enough we formed up into lines and rushed the kremlin and burst through some of our men were already dead and wounded by them but still we took the kremlin and hung onto it for several days then we had to abandon it the reds began to overwhelm us big reinforcements came from petersburg these troops who came from petersburg they believed in the bolsheviks they were dedicated to the bolsheviks they had already taken the winter palace in petersburg and then they threw everything they had into moscow to crush by the time the fighting was over 500 men and women lay dead the kremlin had passed into the control of the red guards including nikolais manoff the boy who waved at the tsar and his young friend leonie dolofsky the battle lasted seven days and seven nights but our enthusiasm was so great more and more people keep coming across to join us people were killed people were wounded of course i was afraid for my life i tried not to get in the way of the bullets tried to stay alive we knew we were going to our deaths because we were making a revolution and the older workers did look after me i went around all the morgues in the city of moscow looking for people i knew and i found my uncle to find their cities shell-shocked the surviving whites were disarmed and allowed to leave red and white moscow buried its dead in separate graves among those who attended the white funeral was a student militza zernoff so when this fight in the streets was over i went to the university and found all the bodies of those who were fighting them i was telling goodbye to them on behalf of the mothers and sisters and fiances and took part in the funeral and that was a colossal manifestation of an old russia the communists had no time yet to organize any resistance so the funeral was quite free we went through the trees of moscow to the cemetery and that was an old russia saying goodbye to its sons the red guards who survived got together on red square we really are here we dug a huge pit by the walls to bury the martyrs of the revolution these days red square looks beautiful all around the kremlin walls but then it was just a great big pitch people brought coffins here from all over moscow some of the coffins weren't painted at all just bare planks we laid the coffins one on top of the other and that's how we buried them we had no orchestra we had no ceremony we just buried our dead comrades and sang revolutionary songs [Music] in petrograd the smallness was now headquarters to lenin's revolutionary soviet government the soldiers had been promised peace and land and the bolsheviks were as good as their word the great war was still going on trotsky went off to negotiate peace with the germans for his army of peasants in uniform the soldiers families had spent the summer taking land from their landlords by force the bolsheviks legalized the seizures about that time this former bolshevik came back to our village he'd been in exile he got all us young people together and he said right lads the bolshevik party has got a slogan shake the crows out of their nests and what it means he explained what it means is we're going to take the land away from the land owners the first thing we did was to get a group together must have been 50 of us well when we got to this landowner's estate it was burning someone had set fire to it all the cattle were let out people took a car for a horse whatever they could lay their hands i didn't take anything somehow i just couldn't bring myself to stealth one week after the bolshevik seized power the election for the constituent assembly went ahead as planned this was the parliament in whose name the february revolution had overthrown this art a peasant party called the socialist revolutionaries expected to win a majority 40 million people cast their votes only a quarter of them for the bolsheviks the constituent assembly met in the torreed palace the peasants party had indeed won a majority of the 800 seats but their organization was hopelessly split it was all too late red sailors stood in the balcony their guns trained on the delegates below after a few hours of barracking they lost patience that's enough of that they said and closed the assembly down it was an undignified end to the dreams of a generation of revolutionary democrats the bolsheviks had written roughshod over the votes of millions russia's infant parliament had lasted just one day soviet power spread quickly as red units traveled the empire they reached kazakhstan close to the chinese border one day about 20 soldiers just turned up in our village bolshevik soldiers the elders were pleased they said so we're going to have a soviet government they'll help our poor people our orphans and our old folks we're all going to enjoy a long life there is no better government than the soviet government the soviet government will be [Music] a dream of peace and prosperity [Music] but a small urban workers party had taken charge of a vast rural peasant state the tsar had reigned over a hundred different nationalities a bloody civil war lay ahead to secure the horizons of the soviet empire [Music]

Channel: Our History

Views: 120,075

Keywords: our history, documentary, world history documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, history, historical, history documentary

Id: JFbWaXd1OUM

Length: 49min 46sec (2986 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2022