February Revolution (1917): The Fall of Tsar Nicholas II

The February Revolution was the popular uprising in Petrograd, Russia’s capital, that overthrew Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917 (February in the Julian calendar then used in Russia). In about eight days, bread protests and strikes turned into a mutiny of the city’s garrison, and the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty collapsed. Power passed to a Provisional Government drawn from the Duma, which had to share authority with the newly formed Petrograd Soviet.

A note on dates: until February 1918 Russia used the Julian calendar, which in the 20th century ran 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar used in western Europe. The revolution began on 23 February by the Russian calendar, which was 8 March elsewhere. This article gives both dates where useful, marking the Julian ones as Old Style.

Background and causes

Russia entered 1917 under severe strain. The Tsar ruled as an autocrat, with a weak parliament, the State Duma, created after the Revolution of 1905. Industrial workers in the cities lived in crowded, poor conditions, and peasants resented the land held by nobles and the state.

The First World War deepened every problem. By early 1917 Russia had suffered millions of casualties, including the huge losses of the Brusilov Offensive of 1916. Conscription took millions of men from farms and factories, while the overloaded railways struggled to carry food and fuel to the cities.

Prices rose several times over during the war, and bread queues in Petrograd grew longer through the bitterly cold winter of 1916-1917. Grain existed in the countryside, but transport problems and peasants’ reluctance to sell for depreciating money meant it did not reach the capital in sufficient quantities.

Faith in the monarchy had collapsed among many educated Russians and even among the elite. Nicholas had taken personal command of the army in 1915, leaving government to Empress Alexandra, and the scandal surrounding Grigori Rasputin, whose murder in December 1916 was celebrated in high society, damaged the dynasty further. Ministers were changed again and again.

Eight days in Petrograd

Women’s Day and the strikes

On 23 February (8 March), International Women’s Day, thousands of women textile workers in the Vyborg district of Petrograd walked out of their factories to protest about bread shortages. They called on men from neighbouring metal works to join them. The day before, the management of the huge Putilov works had locked out its workers, adding tens of thousands more to the streets.

Over the next two days the strikes spread. By 25 February (10 March) the city was in an effective general strike, with estimates of 200,000 to 300,000 strikers. Crowds carried red flags and slogans against the war and the autocracy as well as demands for bread.

The garrison wavers

From his headquarters at Mogilev, Nicholas sent a telegram to the commander of the Petrograd military district, General Sergei Khabalov, ordering him to end the disorders by the next day. On Sunday 26 February (11 March) troops opened fire on crowds in several places, including Znamenskaya Square, killing dozens. That evening a company of the Pavlovsky Guards Regiment mutinied in protest.

The Petrograd garrison was large, perhaps around 160,000 to 180,000 men, but many were recent conscripts and reservists who sympathised with the crowds. On the morning of 27 February (12 March) soldiers of the Volynsky Regiment, led by Sergeant Timofei Kirpichnikov, refused to fire again, killed an officer and went into the streets. The mutiny spread rapidly to other regiments.

The government collapses

By the end of 27 February much of the garrison had joined the revolution. Crowds and soldiers seized the arsenal, freed prisoners from the Kresty and other prisons, burned police stations and the district court, and hunted down police, who had fired on demonstrators. The Tsar’s ministers stopped meeting and several were arrested over the following days.

Two new centres of power appeared in the same building, the Tauride Palace. Members of the Duma, led by its chairman Mikhail Rodzianko, formed a Provisional Committee to restore order. That evening socialists and workers’ delegates founded the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, soon expanded to include soldiers.

The abdication of Nicholas II

Nicholas tried to return to Tsarskoye Selo near the capital, but railway workers and revolutionary troops blocked his train, which was diverted to Pskov, headquarters of the Northern Front. There the army commanders, consulted by telegram, advised him that abdication was the only way to keep the army fighting and avoid civil war.

On 2 March (15 March) Nicholas abdicated for himself and, after consulting doctors about his haemophiliac son, for the heir Alexei as well. He named his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, as successor. On 3 March (16 March) Mikhail declined the throne unless a future Constituent Assembly offered it to him. More than three centuries of Romanov rule were over.

Dual power

On 2 March (15 March) the Duma committee announced a Provisional Government headed by Prince Georgy Lvov, a liberal known for his work in local government and wartime relief. Pavel Milyukov became Foreign Minister and Alexander Guchkov Minister of War. The only socialist in the cabinet was the lawyer Alexander Kerensky, Minister of Justice, who also sat in the Soviet.

The Soviet, dominated at first by Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, agreed to support the government conditionally while keeping its own authority. Its Order No. 1 of 1 March (14 March) told soldiers to elect committees and to obey only those orders of the government that did not conflict with the Soviet’s. This arrangement became known as dual power.

The new government quickly introduced sweeping freedoms: an amnesty for political prisoners, freedom of speech, press and assembly, the end of legal discrimination on grounds of religion or nationality, and the promise of a Constituent Assembly elected by universal suffrage. Russia became, for a few months, one of the freest countries in Europe.

Key people

• Nicholas II (1868-1918), the last Emperor of Russia, whose abdication ended the monarchy.
• Mikhail Rodzianko (1859-1924), chairman of the Duma, who led its Provisional Committee.
• Prince Georgy Lvov (1861-1925), first head of the Provisional Government.
• Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970), Minister of Justice, later War Minister and head of the government.
• Nikolai Chkheidze (1864-1926), Menshevik leader and first chairman of the Petrograd Soviet.

Consequences

News of the revolution spread by telegraph across the empire within days. In Moscow and most provincial cities, local Duma figures, officials and socialists formed committees and soviets of their own, and governors and police chiefs were removed with little resistance. In the Baltic Fleet at Helsingfors and Kronstadt, however, sailors killed dozens of officers.

The former imperial family was placed under arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo in March 1917. Plans to send them to exile in Britain came to nothing, partly because King George V’s government feared the political reaction at home, and in August they were moved to Tobolsk in Siberia.

The Provisional Government chose to continue the war alongside Britain and France, which proved fatal. A major offensive launched in June 1917, often called the Kerensky Offensive, collapsed with heavy losses, and desertion grew. Peasants began seizing land without waiting for the Constituent Assembly, and workers formed factory committees.

Vladimir Lenin returned from Swiss exile through Germany and arrived at Petrograd’s Finland Station on 3 April (16 April). In his April Theses he demanded no support for the Provisional Government and all power to the soviets. After the failed July Days rising and the Kornilov affair in late summer, Bolshevik support surged, leading to the October Revolution of November 1917.

By the numbers

Myths and facts

The February Revolution is sometimes presented as a Bolshevik achievement. In reality the Bolshevik leaders were mostly in exile or prison, and the uprising was largely spontaneous, driven by workers, soldiers and women in the streets, with activists of several parties taking part.

It is also often described as bloodless. It was much less violent than what followed, but street fighting, shootings of demonstrators and attacks on police and officers caused well over a thousand casualties in Petrograd alone. Outside the capital, and in Moscow, the change of power was mostly peaceful.

Timeline

• 1917, 23 February (8 March): Women’s Day strikes begin in Petrograd.
• 1917, 25 February (10 March): A general strike grips the city.
• 1917, 26 February (11 March): Troops fire on crowds; a Pavlovsky Regiment company mutinies.
• 1917, 27 February (12 March): Garrison mutiny; the Duma committee and Petrograd Soviet are formed.
• 1917, 1 March (14 March): The Soviet issues Order No. 1.
• 1917, 2 March (15 March): The Provisional Government is formed; Nicholas II abdicates at Pskov.
• 1917, 3 March (16 March): Grand Duke Mikhail declines the throne.
• 1917, 3 April (16 April): Lenin returns to Petrograd.

Why it matters

The February Revolution ended one of Europe’s oldest autocracies and opened a brief experiment in liberal democracy in Russia. Its failure to end the war or solve the land and bread crises created the conditions for the Bolshevik seizure of power, making it the first act of a revolution that reshaped the twentieth century.