Palace Square was renamed the Uritsky Square (after an assassinated Bolshevik politician) and Nevsky Prospect became the 25th of October Prospect (after the October Revolution). A number of Revolutionary monuments were erected, but most of them were made of the cheapest materials and did not last long. After the end of the Civil War the city of Petrograd started a recovery under the New Economic Policy (NEP), proclaimed by the Bolsheviks, allowing some elements of the market economy. In 1924 the name of the city was changed to Leningrad, and that was a symbol of its transition to a Socialist city.

The socialist city of Lenin

Shortly after the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin had died, the city was renamed Leningrad (supposedly by public demand).

During the years of the Revolution the population of the city had dropped dramatically and the recovery of the once gorgeous city was slow and only partial. From the 1930s onwards economic growth was significant, but came at the very high price of Stalin's regime. In the late 1920s mass construction of cheap housing for workers became a very prominent feature of the Leningrad landscape. Many cultural centers - "palaces of culture" were built to provide the city's common folk with entertainment, clubs and other social activities. In terms of architecture most of what was built was rather modern, quite straightforward, but sometimes still inspirational. The large apartments of the Imperial St. Petersburg were turned into "communal" (shared) apartments, housing several families.