World War I
Hunger and Defeat, 1915-1917 		The October Revolution






Russia
The February Revolution



In March 1917, the population in Russia was disillusioned. The workers of St. Petersburg went on strike. CZAR NICHOLAS II. ordered force to be used to end the strikes, and Russia's parliament, the DUMA, to be dissolved. The Duma refused to dissolve. It declared the Czar's reign ended and placed itself in charge of political affairs (the FEBRUARY REVOLUTION). Czar Nicholas abdicated. The Duma formed a provisional government, first under PRINCE LVOV, then electing young ALEXANDER KERENSKY premier (July 4th). He was a leader of the MENSHEVIKS (literally the minority faction of Russia's social democratic party, because once they had been just that. By the time of the revolution they held the clear majority). St. Petersburg, renamed PETROGRAD, was governed by a SOVIET (soldiers' and workers' council). Kerensky was loyal to the cause of the Entente and favoured another Russian offensive (the 3rd BRUSSILOV OFFENSIVE, June/July 1917). It failed again.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		The February Revolution, from Library of Congress, Country Studies : Russia
The Russian Revolution of 1917, from The Corner
DOCUMENTS Images from Chronik 2000 Bilddatenbank : February Revolution in Russia
Alexander Kerensky
REFERENCE Arthur Ransome, The Crisis in Russia, NY : B.W. Huebsch 1921, online book posted by authorama
Article : Russia, in : Statesman's Year Book 1918 pp.xlv-xlvii, 1205-1233 [G]


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on September 15th 2008

Click here to go Home
Click here to go to Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster
Click here to go to Statistics