16 January 1918. 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

On the basis of all the achievements of the October Revolution, and in accordance with the Declaration of the Working and Exploited People adopted at the meeting of the Central Executive Committee of January 16, 1918, all power in the Russian Republic belongs to the Soviets and the Soviet institutions. Accordingly, any attempt by any person or institution whatsoever to usurp any of the functions of state power will be regarded as a counter-revolutionary act. All such attempts will be suppressed by every means at the disposal of the Soviet power, including the use of armed force.

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Alexander Blok

The intelligentsia’s favourite pastime is to put up protests: they’ll occupy a theatre, close a newspaper, destroy a church – protest. It is the true sign of anemia: it means that they didn’t particularly like their newspaper or their church.

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Alexander Zamaraev

Totma, Vologodskaya guberniya, Russian Republic

At midday another snowstorm started, and it beat until morning. The Germans are agreed on a world which would look like this, which even befuddled our Bolsheviks. They are to take from us Poland, Lithuania, and Courland and, in return for the upkeep of prisoners, a monetary contribution, and our men must purge Galicia and part of Turkey. We are long going to have to bear this German yoke. The war left us a difficult legacy. Food alone is all that now occupies everyone’s minds.

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Winston Churchill

Russia has fallen halfway and started to change its appearance. We saw a ghost instead of our former ally - a ghost very different to anything that had ever existed before. We saw a state without a nation, an army without a country, a religion without a god. The government that's calling itself the new Russia has been born out of the Revolution and feasts on Terror. It backtracked on all commitments that had been made before.

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Ottokar Czernin

Brest, Belorussia

Despairing appeals from Vienna for food supplies. Would I apply at once to Berlin for aid, otherwise disaster imminent. I replied to General Landwehr as follows:

“Dr. Kühlmann is telegraphing to Berlin, but has little hope of success. The only hope now is for His Majesty to do as I have advised, and send an urgent wire at once to Kaiser Wilhelm. On my return I propose to put before His Majesty my point of view, that it is impossible to carry on the foreign policy if the food question at home is allowed to come to such a state as now. Only a few weeks back your Excellency declared most positively that we could hold out till the new harvest.” See more

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Nicholas II

Tobolsk, Russian Republic

Alexis also got the measles, but they were quite mild; Olga and Tatiana themselves feel fine; the latter even got up. All day it snowed. The detached committee of the infantry today decided to take off their shoulder straps so that they would not have to endure insults and attacks while in the village. Incomprehensible!

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15 January 1918 года

The United States are not ready to acknowledge the Soviet Russia

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Why did the Russian Empire collapse

-7

in Petrograd

-10

in Moscow