Soviet propaganda poster, proletarian dictatorship 1918

The October Revolution in Petrograd overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and gave power to the local soviets dominated by Bolsheviks. This immediately initiated the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state. As the revolution was not universally recognized outside of Petrograd there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922.