When the Bolsheviks overthrew the short-lived democratic government in Moscow and St. Petersburg in October 1917, it was a virtual Jewish coup d'état. The most prominent Jewish Commissar was Trotsky, real name Bronstein. He had been married by a rabbi in 1900, and whilst in exile in New York he had worked for Novy Mir, described in the Church Times (23 January 1925) as a "Yiddish newspaper."