17 November 1917. Vladimir Lenin

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Vladimir Lenin

Petrograd, Russian Republic

For the bourgeoisie, freedom of the press meant freedom for the rich to publish and for the capitalists to control the newspapers, a practice which in all countries, including even the freest, produced a corrupt press.

For the workers’ and peasants’ government, freedom of the press means liberation of the press from capitalist oppression, and public ownership of paper mills and printing presses; equal right for public groups of a certain size (say, numbering 10,000) to a fair share of newsprint stocks and a corresponding quantity of printers’ labour.

As a first step towards this goal, which is bound up with the working people’s liberation from capitalist oppression, the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government has appointed a Commission of Inquiry to look into the ties between capital and periodicals, the sources of their funds and revenues, the list of their donors, covers for their deficits, and every other aspect of the newspaper business in general. Concealment of books, accounts or any other documents from the Commission of Inquiry, or the giving of any evidence known to be false shall be punishable by a revolutionary court.

All newspaper owners, shareholders, and all members of their staffs shall be under the obligation to immediately submit written reports and information on the said questions to the Commission of Inquiry, probing the ties between capital and the press, and its dependence on capital, at Smolny Institute, Petrograd.

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Zinaida Gippius

Sergievskaya 83, Petrograd, Russian Republic

It’s all the same. It’s disgusting to write. The newspapers are utter lies. Moscow is gunned down and submitted to the Bolsheviks. The capitals have been seized by the enemy - and barbaric - troops. There’s nowhere to run. There is no homeland.

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Maria Feodorovna

Ai-Todor, Crimea, Russian Republic

Our commissar Vershinin and Zhorzheliani returned from Sevastopol and told us a few things, including the fact that the Winter Palace has been half destroyed and looted, with the chambers of my beloved Nicky and Alika particularly afflicted by the latter – what infamy! See more

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Auguste Rodin

Meudon, France

Dies

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Harry Kessler with Auguste Rodin

Berlin, German Empire

Rodin is dead. He was one of my oldest and most respected friends. I ferried him from London to Paris just eight days before the war. “Goodbye, and I shall see you on Wednesday at the countess’” – these were his last words at the Gare du Nord. See more

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George Buchanan

4, Dvortsovaya embankment, Petrograd, Russian Republic (British Embassy)

The situation is now hopeless, as the Bolsheviks are masters in the north and at Moscow; and though Kaledin holds the south, there is no chance of his making headway in the north.

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Sofia Tolstaya

Yasnaya Polyana, Tul'skaya guberniya, Russian Republic

The cavalry left today, tomorrow one hundred infantry soldiers will leave. Life is all the more terrible in the countryside, and there is nowhere else to go.

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Nikolay Gumilyov

137, St. Faubourg St. Denis, Paris, France

We’re receiving no books from Russia. But literature is the most nation-specific of the arts. Music, painting, scientific discoveries – all this represents an Esperanto of sorts for the whole world. See more

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John Reed

Petrograd, Russian Republic

In front of Smolny, one day, I saw a ragged regiment just come from the trenches. The soldiers were drawn up before the great gates, thin and grey-faced, looking up at the building as if God were in it. Some pointed out the Imperial eagles over the door, laughing…. See more

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Caracas, Venezuela

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