Russian Revolution · FEB 1917
Was February 1917 a revolution or a self-made collapse?
The seminar question: “Was February 1917 a revolution the people made, or a collapse the regime brought on itself — the “leaderless revolution” thesis?”
Russia entered the First World War in 1914 unable to arm or supply its armies, and Tannenberg, the Great Retreat of 1915 and more than 1.8 million dead followed. In February 1917 bread queues in Petrograd swelled into strikes, the garrison deserted the regime, and Nicholas II abdicated at Pskov on 2/15 March.
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Russia sent millions of men to fight in the First World War, but often lacked the rifles and shells to equip them. More than 1.8 million military personnel died. At Tannenberg in 1914 one army was destroyed; the Great Retreat of 1915 cost Russia Poland and Lithuania. The following year Brusilov struck Austria-Hungary hard, but his offensive also consumed Russian reserves the empire could ill afford to lose.
The short answer
- A war the state could not supply. Russia could call millions of men to arms, but industry and transport could not supply a modern war adequately. Rifles and shells ran short while trains had to carry both soldiers and food. More than 1.8 million military deaths showed the cost throughout the country and helped produce a garrison unwilling to march.
- The Tsar takes command. Nicholas assumed supreme command in 1915, making the war's fortunes inseparable from his own. Each retreat now reflected on the monarch, who was away from the capital as it slipped into chaos. The government he left behind, discredited by the Rasputin scandal, lacked respect and obedience.
- Cities starved while grain rotted. Petrograd ran short of bread even though grain remained in the empire. Inflation discouraged peasants from selling for depreciating money, and the railways could not move enough food to the cities. By February the hungry capital also contained armed reservists whose obedience to the government was in doubt.
- A monarchy that had run out of defenders. The groups Nicholas needed had different complaints. Liberals sought a real parliament, generals competent government, workers bread, and peasants land and peace. When his position was tested in 1917, no significant group, including the high command, was willing to fight to keep him. His authority depended on defenders who had withdrawn their support.
THE TURNING POINT
Abdication at Pskov, 2/15 March 1917. At Pskov, Nicholas needed an army willing to restore order in Petrograd. Instead, every front commander advised him to go. Their telegrams settled the dynasty's fate on 2/15 March 1917. The revolution had not defeated the army in battle; the army's commanders declined to defend the Tsar. The force on which his rule relied was no longer available to him.
What it changed
Dual power is born the same week. The Provisional Government of liberal notables held the ministries and claimed legal authority. At the same time, the Petrograd Soviet of workers' and soldiers' deputies had the loyalty of the streets and the garrison. Neither could govern without the other, yet their aims were opposed. This division of authority shaped the course of 1917.
Order No. 1 dissolves the old army. The Soviet's first decree sought to protect the revolution from a counter-coup. It directed soldiers to elect committees and obey officers only when the Soviet agreed. That protection also weakened the old army's discipline. Millions of armed peasants in uniform would increasingly head home toward land.
A dynasty gone, with no plan for what replaces it. The people who inherited power were as surprised as the crowd and had made no preparations to govern. Their authority came from the emergency, and they remained committed to a war the crowd would not fight. The vacuum they could not fill would later give Lenin an opening.
The full answer, argued
Both descriptions capture part of February. No party organized the first rising, and Bolshevik leaders in exile or Siberia were as surprised as anyone. In that sense it was spontaneous and leaderless: the state lost the loyalty of soldiers it needed and fell. But people acted within a history of underground organization, the example of 1905, deliberately encouraged war-weariness and workers' experience of strikes. These helped give the collapse political form. Mass anger became decisive when the regime's coercive core defected; the next question was who could fill the vacuum. In February no one was ready. By October someone was.
An interesting fact
Nicholas first abdicated in favor of his son Alexei. His physician then confirmed that Alexei, who had hemophilia, could not live apart from his parents. That evening Nicholas rewrote the manifesto in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Michael. Approached in a Petrograd apartment the next morning and told his safety could not be guaranteed, Michael declined the crown unless a constituent assembly offered it. Russia had arguably had another tsar for about a day: “Michael II” was never crowned, and jurists doubted whether he was legally tsar at all. The dynasty ended in two abdications.
This is the study layer of February Revolution, chapter 4 of The Russian Revolution, 1855–1924; the full index of the atlas is here.
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