Nikolai Evreinov, The Storming of the Winter Palace. Article by the Chief Director of the Production. November 15, 1920

On November 8, 1920, the third anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power, Petrograd staged a mass theatrical reenactment of the storming of the Winter Palace. Directed by Nikolai Evreinov, the spectacle deployed eight thousand participants—Red Army soldiers, sailors, actors, and workers—across the Palace Square. The production dramatized the fall of Kerensky's Provisional Government as a morality play, with opposing "white" and "red" platforms enacting the revolutionary struggle before tens of thousands of spectators.

Original Source: Н. Н. Евреинов «Взятие Зимнего дворца»: Статья главного режиссера постановки // К расный милиционер. 1920. № 14. С. 4–5.

Fate willed it that precisely here, in Soviet Russia, the task of mass theatrical production in the open air was accomplished on a scale that could only be dreamed of in Paris on July 14, 1790, at the Festival of the Federation.

"The Storming of the Winter Palace"!..

What does this event signify, which occurred three years ago?

It signifies the fall of the old revolutionary power, powerless to break once and for all with bourgeois foundations, and the beginning of a new power, the power of the genuinely revolutionary Soviet Power of worker-peasant Russia.

The Winter Palace was the last stronghold of Kerensky's Provisional Government, and to take it meant finally putting an end to a power that had disregarded the demands of an enormous, revolutionarily-minded majority.

On the third anniversary of our October Revolution, the joyful necessity arose to recall to all the people this momentous event in vivid and convincingly graphic forms. Theater provides such forms! And therefore it was decided on this memorable day of November 8 (October 25 old style) to present before tens of thousands of spectators a solemn spectacle in which the main events preceding the storming of the Winter Palace, and finally the storming itself... signifying the final victory of the proletariat, would pass before everyone's eyes.

And this taskwas brilliantly accomplished through the collective efforts of writers, artists, directors, actors, Red Army soldiers, military personnel, and workers of Red Petrograd.

On either side of the arch of the "General Staff" building on "Uritsky Square" stood two platforms, connected by a bridge: the white and the red...

Darkness... Then a cannon shot rang out, announcing the beginning of the performance!

On the white platform light flashed and illuminated the whitewashed walls of an old hall. On the elevation, the Provisional Government, with Mr. Kerensky at its head, receives, to the sounds of a false Marseillaise, signs of devotion from former self-owners, generals, and rich merchant-financiers.

Here there is complete organization, in contrast to the red platform, where against the backdrop of red-brick factories, not yet assembled into unity, not yet sorted out, the still unorganized proletariat listens intently to the standing spectacle, awaiting from the people the desired slogan, advice, or call to final action. But the people are still timid—and the needed word is not heard from their lips! Uncertainly and muffled, as if half-heartedly, the Internationale sounds, when, to the music of this international hymn, cries from the crowd are heard, at first isolated, then from hundreds of throats: "Lenin! Lenin! Lenin!"

And so while on the white platform time flows fruitlessly in all-possible meetings (the Moscow Conference, the Parliament, etc.), on the red platform, to the swelling sounds of the Internationale, the proletariat unites around its leaders and blood-red banners proudly flutter above them.

But on the white platform, where the government, apparently incorrigible, continues to throw things away, the pitiful comedy of the triumphant power continues. Here is an operetta-like women's battalion, defending the remnants of the military-bourgeois order! Here is a group of unfortunate cripples—victims of brutal capitalist warfare! And above them ridiculous, enormous placards with the inscription: "War to a victorious end" and shouts into a political megaphone "We need the Dardanelles!"

Meanwhile, the red platform already displays the full organization of the popular masses, who are intent on testing their strength without wasting time! A song is heard: "Boldly, comrades, in step," cries ring out: "All Power to the Soviets," they are taken up by thousands of voices and thousands of people, following them, choose to storm the bridge connecting the platforms—attacking the whites!

But the whites, gathering their last strength, manage to repel this July (July 3–5) assault of the reds!.. Alas, this was the last victory of the disintegrating power!

On the edge of the white platform, after this event, a tricolored banner of the Kornilovites appears, which puts an end to the wavering of the deceived defenders of the Provisional Government. These defenders of his, brought in by Kerensky, already clearly tottering on their pitiful throne, cross in crowds to the banners proudly and invitingly waving on the red platform.

It remained in tragi-comic solitude, this pitiful Provisional Government, guarded only by junkers and a women's battalion! It had nothing else left but to flee to its last citadel—the Winter Palace!

And this flight was accomplished.

Now the windows of this last citadel of Kerensky's adherents lit up!

The Reds, having formed into combat detachments, exhilarated by the consciousness of their strength, point to each other toward the Winter Palace.

From under the arch of the "General Staff" armored cars rushed forth and all the Red Guard of that day's Petrograd! From the Moika to the Pavlovtsy! From Admiralty Passage armed sailors—"the beauty and pride of the Revolution," as Comrade Trotsky then called them. Their common aspiration, their single goal—the Winter Palace! From under the gates of this besieged fortress the rumble of cannons being rolled out is now heard; junkers mask them with an enormous firewood pile, and an historical battle begins, in which the red cruiser "Aurora," visible in the distance, also takes part.

In the illuminated windows of the Winter Palace, silhouettes of fighters—these are the Reds who have quickly pushed inside the palace and are disarming, with combat, the defenders of the phantom power!.. The rattle of machine guns, rifle shots, the thunder of artillery—all merged into a deafening symphony of decisive battle.

Two or three minutes of continuous thunder already seem an eternity to nerves stretched too taut.

But now a rocket soared up and everything instantly quieted, to be filled with new sounds—the mighty sounds of the Internationale, performed by a forty-thousand-voice chorus!

Above the darkened windows of the palace, red five-pointed stars brightly lit up! And above the palace itself an enormous red banner instantly unfurls!.. This is the symbol of the proletariat's victory!

The solemn spectacle is finished. The parade of Red troops begins.

Here in brief is the essence of the grandiose theatrical spectacle of November 8, 1920, whose artistic novelty lay in its unified staging simultaneously on three stages, of which two were conventionally theatrical (the platforms), and one was the historically real place of action.

This historical play was written by a collective author, staged by a collective director, and performed by a collective actor—in the form of an eight-thousand-strong mass, which on this memorable day took on the inspired-creative appearance of the world's first theatrical army.

N. Evreinov