Russia's February Revolution actually happened in March
In about eight days of 1917, bread queues and strikes in Petrograd brought down three centuries of Romanov rule. Nobody seems to have planned it. Russia still ran on the old Julian calendar, which is why an uprising that began on 8 March by modern reckoning is remembered as the February Revolution.
The immediate spark was anger over food rationing in the capital. Women standing in bread lines, striking industrial workers and then soldiers from the city garrison filled the streets. That garrison was made up largely of demoralised draftees, since the disciplined troops were at the front. On 27 February by the old calendar most of the garrison went over to the protesters, and the same day Duma members formed a Provisional Government, seized the railway telegraph and blocked trains from bringing loyal troops towards Petrograd. More than 1,300 people died in the unrest.
Nicholas II, stuck aboard his train at Pskov after failing to reach the capital, abdicated on his generals' advice. His authority had been draining for years. In 1915, against nearly all counsel, he took personal command of the army, tying the monarchy to a losing war and leaving government to Empress Alexandra, who was accused of being a German spy and was seen as dominated by Rasputin. Ministers came and went at dizzying speed, and the Tsar rebuffed Duma pleas for constitutional government.
The war supplied the pressure. By early 1917 Russia had suffered roughly 9.15 million casualties, railways buckled under the strain, millions of refugees poured east and wages lagged soaring inflation. Historians still argue over emphasis: liberals blame the war, Marxists stress inevitability, and Richard Pipes pointed to the basic incompatibility between capitalism and autocracy.
The Provisional Government never gained real authority. It shared dual power with the Petrograd Soviet, and after the July Days Alexander Kerensky took charge but kept Russia in the war while shortages and unemployment worsened. Its failures opened the way for the Bolshevik seizure of power in October, followed by civil war and, eventually, the Soviet Union.
Source: February Revolution
