February revolution

Question 1

What happened on Monday 14th of February 1917?

Answer 1

• 100,000 people striked in 58 factories in Petrograd
• I was announced that on the 1st of march, bread would be rationed leading to queues and violent exchanges with the police

Question 2

What happened Wednesday 22nd February?

Answer 2

200,000 workers were locked out of Putilov steelworks by management encouraging strikes to emerge in support

Question 3

What happened on Thursday 23rd February?

Answer 3

It was the women’s day march which was led by Aleksandra Kollontai mostly consisted of women and students and this led to an additional 9,000 workers and c24,000 people on the streets overall. This resulted in 50 factories closing. The police tried to manage the situation and luckily no one died

Question 4

What happened Friday 24th February?

Answer 4

200,000 people on strike and they started to draw influence from the French revolution through destroying tsarist statues, revolutionary slogans, red rosettes and flags. This didn’t encourage organised radicals but radical emblems and banners were shown

Question 5

What happened Saturday 25th February?

Answer 5

• 250,00 people striking (half of the working population)
• factories and shops were closed
• no newspapers or public transport
• mounted police officer Shalfeev tried to control violent masses however he was dragged from his horse, beaten and shot by revolutionaries
• civilians were killed by soldiers on the Nevskill Prospekt
• Cossacks (loyal military unit of the tsar in southern Russia and Ukraine) refused to attack civilians later when ordered

Question 6

What happened Sunday 26th February?

Answer 6

Rodzianko, duma leader, sent the tsar a warning of the situation in Petrograd but he ignored it and resolved to dissolve the duma the next day

Question 7

What happened Monday 27th February?

Answer 7

• Tsar ordered major - general Khabalov, commander of Petrograd military district to restore order by military force
• 40 demonstrators were killed
• Mutiny in Volynskii regiment where a sergeant shot his commanding officer
• 66,000 mutinied soldiers joined protestors with 40, 000 rifles leading to the death of 40 people
• Police headquarters were attacked
• Prisons were opened
• Despite the tsar’s orders, 12 - man provisional committee Duma meeting was set up to overthrow the government
• Army’s high commander had ordered troops to restore stability but followed the Duma instead
• Revolutionaries set up soviets to over throw the government but their first aims was organising food supplies for the city

Question 8

What happened Tuesday 28th February?

Answer 8

Nicholas left military headquarters in the Volynskii regiment and he sent a telegram to Rodzianko to share power with the duma. The reply was, “the measure you propose are too late. The time for them has gone. There is no return.”

Question 9

Why was the revolution spontaneous?

Answer 9

• Lenin and Martov were in Zurich
• Trotsy was in New York
• Chernov was in the social revolutionary party in Paris

Question 10

What other forms of leadership emerged from the revolution?

Answer 10

• Milykov and Guchkov believed the situation was out of control as workers groups grew in the Vyborg district
• Major towns and cities began to also set up soviets
  -The Petrograd committee agreed to pressure from soldiers and mutineers at the Kronstadt naval base that each regiment should elect committees and soviet representatives

Question 11

What the Order no 1, a charter of soldiers rights on the 1st of March?

Answer 11

• All units would elect a deputy to the soviet and agree political control
• Weapons would be controlled by elected soldiers’ committees
• All soldiers enjoyed full citizens’ rights when off duty
• No honorific titles for officers
• Officers and those higher on the military hierarchy were not to address each other in the ty form (used for peasants)
• The military commission of the Duma to be obeyed, only if it agreed with soviet orders

Question 12

What was the official title of the Petrograd soviet?

Answer 12

The soviet of workers and soldiers’ deputies

Question 13

How many members were there by the 10th of March?

Answer 13

3000

Question 14

Who dominated the executive committee of the soviet?

Answer 14

Social intellectuals like Kerensky

Question 15

Why did Nicholas never return to Petrograd?

Answer 15

Railway workers diverted his train 200 miles away to Pskov

Question 16

How did General Alexeev pressure the tsar to abdicate?

Answer 16

On the 1st of March, he proposed that a provisional government would be formed by members of the Duma with support from the Petrograd soviet. He also suggested that his son Aleksei should become tsar which Nicholas’s brother Mikhail as regent

Question 17

What did the tsar agree to on the 2nd of March?

Answer 17

• The workings of the provisional governemnt and the soviet together
  -Mikhail to lead the country in complete union not his son
• By the time, members of the Duma reached Pskov on the 2nd of March, the plans were agreed upon and Mikhail declined to be tsar leading to Nicholas and his family to be placed under house arrest

Question 18

What happened across Russia during this period?

Answer 18

• In Moscow and other industrial cities, workers seized control of factories, set up soviets and deposed of bosses sometimes into the river
• Discontent had spread to Finland, Poland, Ukraine and the Caucasus
• In the countryside, Petrograd soviets were formed leading them to attack landowner’s property and illegally felled trees
• In June 1917, an all - Russian congress of Soviets met in Petrograd with representatives from 350 towns, villages and military bases