The museum of Political History charts the main events in politics from the downfall of the Romanov dynasty, through the revolution, the repressive days of Stalin, up to Gorbachev and glasnost, and all the way through to Boris Yeltsin and the current regime of Putin.
A political history museum has existed in St. Petersburg since 1919. It was first housed in the Winter Palace and known as the Revolution Museum. In 1957 it moved to its current premises, where, until 1991, it was called the Museum of the Great October Socialist Revolution. It is now known as the Museum of Russian Political History, a title that reflects the recent changes that have been made to its profile.
Photo by Photobank Lori
The building itself is political history as for a period it served as the Bolshevik headquarters. The Military Wing of the Central Committee, the editorial offices of Soldatskaya Pravda and other revolutionary organizations were located there. The mansion became the nerve-centre of their propaganda work. Lenin once addressed a crowd of workers and soldiers from the balcony that the museum is now located in.
Before the reorganization of the museum in the early 1990s, more than 1,600 exhibits were kept in its 12 halls. These included documents, leaflets, photographs, revolutionary banners from 1917, and various personal belongings of eminent figures of the Communist Party and members of the revolutionary movement.
The recently created permanent exhibitions arouse great interest among visitors. They include: “Soviet Period: Between Utopia and Reality”, “Man and Power in Russia in the XIX-XXI Centuries”, “The State Duma, Historical Parallels”, “Collapse of the USSR”, “February of 1917. Breakdown of Monarchy”.
For anyone interested in Soviet politics, the Museum of Political History, covers and exhibits the most interesting moments in an excellent way. There are rare exhibits which aren’t covered in any other museum of this type.
