February Revolution

The February Revolution refers to the wave of strikes, mutinies, and street protests in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in late February 1917 by the Julian calendar still used in Russia at the time, corresponding to early March 1917 by the Gregorian calendar. Triggered by acute bread shortages, wartime exhaustion from World War I, and long-standing autocratic rule, the unrest escalated when the Petrograd garrison refused orders to fire on demonstrators and instead joined them.

Key events included International Women's Day marches on 23 February (8 March), mass strikes spreading across the capital, and the mutiny of the Volynsky and other regiments. Faced with collapsing authority and pressure from his generals and the State Duma, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on 2 March 1917 (15 March Gregorian) aboard the imperial train at Pskov. His brother Grand Duke Michael declined the throne the following day, ending more than three centuries of Romanov rule.

Power then split between two bodies in what Lenin later called dvoevlastie ("dual power"):

• The Provisional Government, formed from a Duma committee and initially led by Prince Georgy Lvov, then from July by Alexander Kerensky.
• The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which commanded the loyalty of much of the garrison and issued Order No. 1 democratizing military command.

The Provisional Government extended civil liberties, granted amnesty, and committed to a constituent assembly, but its decision to continue the war and postpone land reform eroded its support. This vacuum enabled the Bolshevik seizure of power in the October Revolution later that year. For IR and history researchers, the February Revolution is a canonical case study in regime collapse under wartime stress, the politics of dual sovereignty, and the conditions preceding revolutionary radicalization.