Petrograd, 1917: "A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies…" This is the beginning of "The Communist Manifesto", written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In October 1917 "the spectre of communism", followed by the Red Guards, took control over the capital city of Petrograd and the Winter Palace. It was the end of the Tsarist Russia and beginning of a bloody civil war.