March Revolution 1917

A winter of poverty and hunger was followed by several bright spring days. There were rumours of bread rationing in Petrograd. The huge Putilov engineering works there had just shut down. Tens of thousands of workers were jobless.

8 March

• An International Women’s Day demonstration was taken over by marchers demanding bread.
• The Duma had been recently dismissed by the Tsar. It carried on debating in the Tauride Palace, criticising the government.

9 March

• The crowds grew more aggressive.
• Nearly all the industrial plants in the city closed down.
• There were violent clashes: some demonstrators and soldiers died but the trouble was contained.

10 March

• Orders came from the Tsar at Mogilev to suppress the demonstrations by force.
• Control of workers’ quarters was lost.
• Troops fired on demonstrators in Znamenski Square: 40 killed; as many wounded.
• That evening recruits from the Guard regiments, training to go to the Front, mutinied.

They were living in overcrowded conditions and refused to fire on their own people.

12 March

• By 12 March Petrograd was controlled by the ‘peasants in uniform’.
• By the following night Nicholas, marooned in the royal train at Pskov, had abdicated.

Nicholas expected the throne to pass to his brother Michael who refused it.