[Depicted in Adventures in the Secret Service, the 13th episode from the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, produced by George Lucas - released in 1999 - it’s original edit is from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles; Episode: Petrograd, July 1917 - released in 1993]
In the months following the Sixtus Affair, Indiana is commissioned to the French Embassy in Petrograd where he works with French Intelligence on determining whether or not the Bolsheviks are going to make their move on a revolution.
Indiana is initially sent to the basement working on decoding and translating, and although he doesn’t believe the Bolsheviks were large enough to be a serious threat, he one day comes across a message that concerns him enough to reach out to a newfound friend named Sergei - a deserter from the Russian Army whom he warns to not go to a scheduled demonstration.
Indiana also befriends two women named Irena and Rosa, the latter who has a crush on Indy and invites him to a Mozart recital. The concert, however, is canceled, so instead Indiana celebrates his birthday with Sergei and company over healthy and spirited discourse on capitalism and communism.
Afterwards Indiana’s friends take him to see Vladimir Lenin speak, who denouncers the war to an enthusiastic crowd. At the demonstration he overhears two men arguing over the timing of the revolution. Indiana then sneaks into the Bolshevik headquarters where he finds flyers urging the workers to rise up.
Indiana’s coworkers at the French Embassy believe the Bolsheviks will strike when the steel workers join them, yet Sergei tells Indiana that the revolution isn’t imminent, as Lenin had just left the country to rest in Finland. Sergei also proclaims that the majority of Russia wasn’t yet ready for a revolution.
Back at the embassy Indiana impressed the French Ambassador with his intel on Lenin, yet hours later he’s summoned to the crisis room where he learns that an uprising had begun, with bridges shut down and President of Petrograd Leon Trotsky trying in vain to calm the crowds.
Indiana soon learns that Sergei had incited the steelworkers and the revolution would happen with or without Lenin’s full support, meanwhile the Cossacks had sided with the provincial government and were ready to shoot and kill any protestors.
Indiana pleads with Sergei one last time but to no avail, thus he goes to find Rosa in hopes that she’ll reason with him. On their way back to Sergei they see Cossack snipers on the rooftops, yet once they reached the town square their warning cries were too late, and Sergei was one of 400 people that died in the uprising.
Although these events led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II (which signaled the end of the Romanov Dynasty and the end of the Russian Empire) Lenin ultimately fled the country and a more successful revolution didn’t happen until later that October.
Thus in this adventure Indiana has first hand observations of:
Bolsheviks - founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, they were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) (apart from the other faction of Mensheviks) that was a socialist political party and the leaders of the revolutionary working class in Russia. After the first and very deadly attempt of a Russian Revolution in February of 1917, the Bolsheviks inevitably came to power in October of that year.
Cossacks - groups of predominantly East Slavic speaking people who made up self governing and semi military communities occupied mostly in Ukraine and Russia. A faction known as the Don Cossacks originated in the 16th century and allied with the Tsardom of Russia, and hundreds of years later they were used by the Tsarist regime to perform police service and suppress all threats of a revolution. During the Russian Revolution the Don and Kuban Cossacks were the first to declare open war against the Bolsheviks.
Vladimir Lenin - Russian Revolutionary who took power of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1917-24, where he turned the country into a one-party socialist state governed by the Russian Communist Party, formally known as the Bolsheviks. Opponents of his government were suppressed by events known as the Red Terror, when Bolsheviks carried out mass killings against representatives of the former Tsarist regime. Today he is widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, having become the ideological figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism along with communism in general.
Leon Trotsky - Marxist Revolutionary who initially supported the Mensheviks and later the Bolsheviks of the RSDLP, where following the successful October Revolution he became a leader of the Communist Party. Trotsky was a major figure of the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918-23), yet became suppressed by the rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920’s, who removed Trotsky from power, exiled him from the Communist Party, and later had him assassinated in Mexico in 1940. Stalin then ensured that Trotsky would be written out of the history books, however the term Trotskyism is widely known as a school of Marxist thought that directly opposes Stalinism.
Nicholas II of Russia - last Emperor of Russia whose reign saw the Russian Empire fall from one of the great powers of the world to an economic and military collapse. Historians suggest that his failed leadership in WWI led to millions of Russian casualties and was the direct cause for the fall of the Romanov dynasty. Following the February Revolution of 1917 Nicholas II abdicated himself from the throne, and was subsequently imprisoned and executed by the Bolsheviks along with his family.
The main location in this adventure is:
Petrograd - originally known as St Petersburg - and later known as Leningrad preceding its return to St Petersburg in 1991. St Petersburg was once the capital of Imperial Russia and was the site of the February and October Revolutions.