The revolution of February is the first stage of the Russian Révolution of 1917. It leads to the Abdication Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, to the collapse of the imperial Russia and at the end of the Dynastie of the Romanov. A provisional government directed by the Georgy Lvov replaces the mode tsarist, then Alexandre Kerensky replaces prince Lvov after the days of July.

The revolution of February burst in spontaneousness and the improvisation. The tensions which accumulated finally exploded in the form of a Révolution, with Petrograd like hearth of the activity. It was followed the same year by the Révolution of October, involving the takeover by the Bolcheviks and a change in the social structures of the Russia, while opening the way with the creation of the the USSR.

Causes

The First World War put Russia, incompetent economically to support a long test, in a state of crisis from which the revolution left 1917. After fast successes of the Russian troops during the first year, the situation changed because of the difficulties of adaptation to a saving in modern war. In May 1915, the Russian armies had had to move back then, during the winter 1915-1916, the face was stabilized. With the back, the interior situation was degraded; the strikes multiplied in the factories (more than one million strikers in 1916), as well as the fixings with the police force. Measurements of mobilization caused in 1916 a terrible revolt with the Kazakhstan. The weakness of the government and the discredit of tsarism explain the significance of the events of February 1917.

The month of February 1917 gathers all the characteristics for a popular revolt: particularly cold winter, food shortage, lassitude vis-a-vis the war… a report/ratio of the Okhrana on the situation in the capital with beginning of the year 1917 was concluded as follows: the company “aspires to find an exit with an abnormal political situation which becomes, of day in day, increasingly abnormal and tended”.

A popular and spontaneous revolution

All starts at the time of spontaneous Grèves, at the beginning of February, of the workmen of the factories of the capital Petrograd. The first important incidents burst on February 20th, after the advertisement by the authorities of Petrograd of the installation of a system of rationing. The same day, more the large company of Petrograd, the arms factory Poutilov, in rupture of provisioning, announces the dismissal of thousands of workmen. Economic requirements (“Of the bread, work! ”) are the release of a spontaneous protest movement which, at the beginning, does not have anything revolutionist.

February 23rd, for the international Day of the women, several processions of women (coeds, employees, workers of the textile of the working suburbs of Vyborg) express in the downtown area of Petrograd to claim bread. Their action is supported by workmen, who leave work to join expressing them. The rows of the demonstrators grow bigger, the slogans take a more political tonality. With the cries against the war, the strikers mixed with the “Sharp Republic! ” and of ovations for a regiment of cossacks refusing to intervene. The following day, the protest movement extends: nearly one hundred fifty thousand workmen strikers converge towards the downtown area. Not having received any precise instruction, the Cosaques are overflowed and do not manage any more to disperse the crowd of the demonstrators.

Meetings are improvised and, on February 25th, the strike is general. The demonstrations are developing. The slogans are increasingly radical: “With bottom the war! ”, “With bottom the Autocracy! ”. Confrontations with the police force cause deaths and casualties on the two sides. Vis-a-vis this popular movement and spontaneous, the rare revolutionary leaders present at Petrograd remain careful, estimating, like the Bolchevik Alexandre Chliapnikov (member of the Central committee of the party), which it is more than one riot of the hunger that a revolution moving. In the evening of the 25, the Nicolas II orders “to put an end to by the force, before tomorrow, the disorders with Petrograd”. The refusal of any negotiation, from very compromised will make rock the movement in a revolution.

The Tsar mobilizes the troops of the garrison of the city to subdue the rebellion. February 26th, about midday, the police force and the troop open fire on a column of demonstrators. More than one hundred fifty people are killed, crowd ebbs towards the suburbs. But the soldiers start to pass in the camp of the demonstrators: the 4th company of the Pavlovski regiment opens fire on the assembled police force. Disabled, not having more the means of controlling, the Tsar proclaims the state of siege, orders the reference of the Douma and names a provisional committee. The Insurrection could have stopped there but, in the night from February 26th to 27th, an event makes rock the situation: the Mutiny of two regiments of elite, traumatized to have shot at their “working brothers”. The mutiny is spread in the space of a few hours. In the morning of February 27th, soldiers and workmen fraternize, seize the arsenal, distribute rifles to crowd and occupy the strategic points of the capital. During the day, the garrison of Petrograd (approximately 150  000 men) passed on the side of the insurrectionists.

Formation of a double capacity

The revolutionary militants then try to organize and channel the movement. As during the Revolution of 1905, the creation of a Soviet to federate working and soldiers is essential. In the afternoon of February 27th, about fifty militants of different revolutionary tendencies - Bolsheviks, Mencheviks, Socialist-revolutionists - organize a provisional Executive committee of the working deputies. This committee decides creation of a newspaper, the Izvestia , and calls the workmen and the soldiers of the garrison to elect their representatives. It is the birth certificate of the Soviet of the working deputies and delegated soldiers of Petrograd, assembly of six hundred people approximately. The Soviet is directed by an executive committee made up of eleven revolutionists who co-opted themselves and chaired by the menchevik Tchkhéidzé. In Moscow, the news of Petrograd starts the general strike and causes the election of a provisional revolutionary Committee.

Parallel to the constitution of this Soviet, another body of being able is set up. A group of deputies of the Duma form, the same day, a provisional Committee for “the re-establishment of the governmental and public order”. For this committee, the priority is with the return to the order, and initially, with the return of the soldiers mutinés in their hutments. Between this committee and the Soviet of Petrograd, long negotiations lead, on March 2nd, 1917, with a compromise. The Soviet recognizes, while waiting for the convocation of a constituent Assembly, the legitimacy of a provisional government with liberal tendency , mainly made up of representatives of the democratic constitutional Parti (and not counting any Socialist in its rows). However, the provisional government is summoned to apply a vast program of democratic reforms, based on the granting of fundamental freedoms, the Vote for all, the abolition of any form of discrimination, the suppression of the police force, the recognition of the rights of the soldier-citizen and an immediate amnesty of all the political prisoners.

The compromise of March 2nd, 1917 marks the birth of a double capacity, where two designs different from the future of the Russian company are opposed. On a side, the provisional government is anxious to make of Russia a liberal great power and Capitaliste and to direct the Russian political life towards the way of the Parlementarisme. Other, the Soviets try to found another way of doing of the policy, by representing in a more direct way the “masses”.

Until this compromise, uncertainty reigned on the attitude which were going to adopt Nicolas II and the military chiefs. Finally, with the general surprise, the staff makes pressure on the Tsar so that this one abdicates “in order to save the independence of the country and to ensure the safeguard of the dynasty”. The general Alexéïev, supported by the commanders of the five faces, it convinces while supporting that abdication would be the only means of continuing the war against the Germany. March 2nd, Nicolas II gives up the throne in favor of his brother, the large-duke Mikhaïl Alexandrovich Romanov. In front of the popular protest, this one gives up the crown the following day. In five days, as the historian Martin Malia summarizes it, “without to have been able to offer least resistance, the Old Russian Mode collapses like an house of cards”.

It is in fact the end of tsarism, and the first elections with the Soviet of the workmen of Petrograd. The first episode of the revolution made hundreds of victims, in majority among the demonstrators. But the fast and unexpected fall of the mode, at a cost rather limited, causes in the country a liberalization and wave of enthusiasm, which testifies to the disaffection of the people with respect to tsarism.

Sources

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