The Russian Revolution, popularly called the October Revolution, in fact started in February-March 1917, with the abolition of one of the oldest European monarchies and the introduction of the dual rule by the "Provisional Government" and the "Soviets of Deputies of Workers and Soldiers." By mid-October, the Petrograd Soviet already controlled the capital. The arrest of most ministers of the already powerless Provisional Government in the Winter Palace by a group of sailors and a salve from the battleship "Aurora" on 26 October were only episodes, which were later elevated by the propaganda into symbols of the glorious revolution in the largest European state. The colossal upheaval ended by 1921, with the victories of the Bolsheviks in the civil and other wars. Within four years after these wars, other sorts of violence and epidemics caused several million deaths. The Russian Revolution shook the political order in Europe, which had already been destabilised by the ravages of World War I, soon to be followed by the breakdowns of three more empires (Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman). Unlike other similar events, the Russian Revolution called for the complete abolition of the global capitalism and imperialism, as well as for its replacement by classless societies in a global federation of Soviet Republics as a step towards the abolition of the state. The most immediate international impact of the Russian Revolution has been expressed (1) by the geographic expansion of Soviet or Soviet-like political, economic and social systems to a number of other lands, which was accomplished mainly by the Russian Bolsheviks and later by the Soviet communists. The Russian Revolution had also exercised (2) a notable political and ideological influence on numerous other countries, expressed also with the establishment of numerous communist parties and with the expansion of anti-communism. The Soviet example served (3) as an inspiration for the local communists, who, in a number of countries, assumed authority predominantly or exclusively through their own efforts. During the seven decades since its victory in its country of origin, the Russian Revolution failed to abolish world capitalism. It has contributed, however, to a very profound geopolitical change in Europe and Asia. The total number of "socialist" states and the sum total of their territories and population have reached the acme soon after the fortieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, which was celebrated in Moscow in November 1957. The Russian Revolution has also contributed to the decolonization in Asia and Africa. Moreover, the communist threat helped to reform the crude capitalist systems in the West in the direction of a more humane social state. In the last decade of the 20th century, all the communist regimes or countries dominated by the "real socialist" systems in Eastern Germany, Central Eastern and South Eastern Europe, Russia itself, all the other former republics of the Soviet Union (with a possible exception of Belarus), and in Mongolia experienced mostly non-violent counter-revolutions and were replaced by different systems, ranging from liberal multiparty parliamentarian democracies to various autocracies and repressive family dictatorships behind quasi-liberal constitutional facades. Soon after the seventieth anniversary of the Revolution, the number of "socialist" states was reduced by two thirds, to the present five – four in Asia and one in Latin America. Among the systems inspired directly or indirectly by the Russian Revolution, partly copied from the Soviets but developed indigenously, the People’s Republic of China has been economically and politically the most successful one. Several features borrowed from the Soviet system (the ruling Communist Party, an official Marxist – Leninist ideology, mass rituals, red flags, five-pointed stars, and other communist symbols) have been combined by the Chinese communists with market economy, a large share of private domestic and foreign capital, and with gross economic inequality. By the last decade of the 20th century the ideas and symbols of the Russian Revolution had become discredited in many countries, particularly in Europe, by the authoritarian communist regimes, most notably by the totalitarian Soviet Union. This is why the post-Soviet Russian regime stopped celebrating 7 November and removed it from the list of official holidays. The Russian Revolution has thus become a topic for historians, other social scientists, and artists.