With German forces advancing on Petrograd following the collapse of peace talks, Lenin ordered the Soviet government relocated to Moscow, a city that had not served as Russia's capital since Peter the Great moved it to St. Petersburg in 1712. The Kremlin, long a symbol of Tsarist power, became the seat of Bolshevik rule, a status Moscow retains to this day.
The decision was born of raw military necessity rather than sentiment. German troops, resuming their advance after peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk stalled, were within striking distance of Petrograd, and Lenin's government, only months into its rule after the October Revolution, could not risk losing its capital to hostile occupation.
On March 10 and 11, 1918, government offices, records, and personnel streamed onto trains bound for Moscow, and Lenin took up residence in the Kremlin, the medieval fortress that had symbolized Tsarist authority for centuries. Loyalists initially saw the move as temporary and humiliating, an admission of weakness by a revolution that claimed to be unstoppable.
The relocation proved permanent. Moscow's return to preeminence after two centuries of St. Petersburg's dominance reshaped Russian political geography for the rest of the twentieth century, and the Kremlin's red-brick walls became the visual shorthand for Soviet power recognized around the globe, from Cold War newsreels to spy novels.