1968 Shadrina Russian Pictorial 'Red October' Wall Map

A rare pictorial Russian wall map issued in 1968 to chronicle 'Red October' or the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War (1917 - 1922), and subsequent advance of Bolshevik forces into Eastern Europe (1920 - 1922). One of the most influential historical events of all time, the Red Revolution in Russia defined the global rise of extreme Communist ideology, leading to the Cold War, and an East-West social/political/economic divide in Europe. The map pictorially illustrates the Red advance throughout Russia against the White and Green Armies, as well as Soviet empire-building in the 1920s.

'Red October' or the 'Great October Socialist Revolution'

In February of 1917 (March according to the Gregorian Calendar), the Tsarist Regime, destabilized by a poor performance in World War I, and mired in feudal mismanagement, was overthrown by a Menshevik-led socialist coalition of anti-Tsarist Russian forces. The Menshevik established the Russian Provisional Government, which continued Russia's involvement in the increasingly unpopular World War I. This led to a more extreme socialist group within Russia, the Bolsheviks, to mount a second revolution in October of 1917 - an event today known as 'Red October.' Led by the Bolsheviks extremists Vladimir Lenin, Leon D. Trotsky, Anton V. Lunacharsky, Dmitry A. Furmanov, Nikolai I. Bukharin, and Mikhail A. Sholokhov. On October 25th, Lenin proclaimed,

Comrades! The workers 'and peasants' revolution, the necessity of which the Bolsheviks spoke, has come to pass!

The Bolsheviks, firmly in control of the orange area on the map, opposed the idea of the masses controlling the political and economic institutions, and thus established an autocratic dictatorial regime rooted in extreme communist ideology. This extremism led to the Russian Civil War (1917 - 1922) in which various political factions, among them Lenin's Red Army, the White Army (a loose alliance of non-Bolshevik socialist, monarchists, and capitalists), and various Green Armies (rival militant socialists and the non-ideological), vied for control of the fracturing Russian Empire. Threatened Communist Revolutions, eight foreign nations intervened against the Bolshevik Red Army, but were unable to stop the advancing Red Tide that, by 1922, had not only taken over all of former Imperial Russia, but also expanded into other parts of Eastern Europe not traditionally part of the Russian sphere of influence.

Publication History and Census

This map was issued by the Главное управление геодезии и картографии при Совете Министров СССР Москва (General Directorate of Geodesy and Cartography under the Council of Ministers of the CCCP) and printed in Moscow in 1968. The chart was compiled by the editorial and mapmaking department of the GUGN in1966. It was edited by G. V. Shadrina. The technical editors were A. N Panin and I. G. Romaniuk. We have found several maps of the same title dating to as early as 1950, but this one seems unique to 1968. One example in the OCLC housed at the University of Chicago. No market history.