- Soldiers of the Bolshevik army marching through Red Square near the Kremlin, Moscow, c. 1917.
But it was the government's inefficient prosecution of World War I that finally provided the challenge the old regime could not meet. Ill-equipped and poorly led, Russian armies suffered catastrophic losses in campaign after campaign against German armies. The war made revolution inevitable in two ways: it showed Russia was no longer a military match for the nations of central and western Europe, and it hopelessly disrupted the economy.
Riots over the scarcity of food broke out in the capital, Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg), on February 24 (March 8), and, when most of the Petrograd garrison joined the revolt, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate March 2 (March 15). When his brother, Grand Duke Michael, refused the throne, more than 300 years of rule by the Romanov dynasty came to an end.
A committee of the Duma appointed a Provisional Government to succeed the autocracy, but it faced a rival in the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The 2,500 delegates to this soviet were chosen from factories and military units in and around Petrograd.
The Soviet soon proved that it had greater authority than the Provisional Government, which sought to continue Russia's participation in the European war. On March 1 (March 14) the Soviet issued its famous Order No. 1, which directed the military to obey only the orders of the Soviet and not those of the Provisional Government. The Provisional Government was unable to countermand the order. All that now prevented the Petrograd Soviet from openly declaring itself the real government of Russia was fear of provoking a conservative coup.
Between March and October the Provisional Government was reorganized four times. The first government was composed entirely of liberal ministers, with the exception of the Socialist Revolutionary Aleksandr F. Kerensky. The subsequent governments were coalitions. None of them, however, was able to cope adequately with the major problems afflicting the country: peasant land seizures, nationalist independence movements in non-Russian areas, and the collapse of army morale at the front.
Meanwhile, soviets on the Petrograd model, in far closer contact with the sentiments of the people than the Provisional Government was, had been organized in cities and major towns and in the army. In these soviets, “defeatist” sentiment, favouring Russian withdrawal from the war on almost any terms, was growing. One reason was that radical socialists increasingly dominated the soviet movement. At the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, convened on June 3 (June 16), the Socialist Revolutionaries were the largest single bloc, followed by the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.
Kerensky became head of the Provisional Government in July and put down a coup attempted by army commander in chief Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov, but he was increasingly unable to halt Russia's slide into political, economic, and military chaos, and his party suffered a major split as the left wing broke from the Socialist Revolutionary Party. But while the Provisional Government's power waned, that of the soviets was increasing, as was the Bolsheviks' influence within them. By September the Bolsheviks and their allies, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, had overtaken the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks and held majorities in both the Petrograd and Moscow soviets.
By autumn the Bolshevik program of “peace, land, and bread” had won the party considerable support among the hungry urban workers and the soldiers, who were already deserting from the ranks in large numbers. Although a previous coup attempt (the July Days; q.v.) had failed, the time now seemed ripe. On October 24–25 (November 6–7) the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries staged a nearly bloodless coup, occupying government buildings, telegraph stations, and other strategic points. Kerensky's attempt to organize resistance proved futile, and he fled the country. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which convened in Petrograd simultaneously with the coup, approved the formation of a new government composed mainly of Bolshevik commissars.
Uprising that was instrumental in convincing Tsar Nicholas II to attempt the transformation of the Russian government from an autocracy into a constitutional monarchy. For several years before 1905 and especially after the humiliating Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), diverse social groups demonstrated their discontent with the Russian social and political system. Their protests ranged from liberal rhetoric to strikes and included student riots and terrorist assassinations. These efforts, coordinated by the Union of Liberation, culminated in the massacre of peaceful demonstrators in the square before the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, on Bloody Sunday (January 9 [January 22, New Style], 1905).
In St. Petersburg and other major industrial centres, general strikes followed. Nicholas responded in February by announcing his intention to establish an elected assembly to advise the government. But his proposal did not satisfy the striking workers, the peasants (whose uprisings were spreading), or even the liberals of the zemstvos (local government organs) and of the professions, who by April were demanding that a constituent assembly be convened.
The revolt spread to non-Russian parts of the empire, particularly to Poland, Finland, the Baltic provinces, and Georgia, where it was reinforced by nationalist movements. In some areas the rebellion was met by violent opposition from the antirevolutionary Black Hundreds, who attacked the socialists and staged pogroms against the Jews. But the armed forces joined in on the side of the revolt as well: army units situated along the Trans-Siberian Railroad line rioted, and in June the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutinied in the harbour at Odessa.
The government decree on August 6 (August 19) announcing election procedures for the advisory assembly stimulated even more protest, which increased through September. The rebellion reached its peak in October-November. A railroad strike, begun on October 7 (October 20), swiftly developed into a general strike in most of the large cities.
The first workers' council, or soviet, acting as a strike committee, was formed at Ivanovo-Vosnesensk; another, the St. Petersburg soviet, was formed on October 13 (October 26). It initially directed the general strike; but, as social democrats, especially Mensheviks, joined, it assumed the character of a revolutionary government. Similar soviets were organized in Moscow, Odessa, and other cities.
The magnitude of the strike finally convinced Nicholas to act. On the advice of Sergey Yulyevich Witte, he issued the October Manifesto (October 17 [October 30], 1905), which promised a constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature (Duma). He also made Witte president of the new Council of Ministers (i.e., prime minister).
These concessions did not meet the radical opposition's demands for an assembly or a republic. The revolutionaries refused to yield; even the liberals declined to participate in Witte's government. But some moderates were satisfied, and many workers, interpreting the October Manifesto as a victory, returned to their jobs. This was enough to break the opposition's coalition and to weaken the St. Petersburg soviet.
At the end of November the government arrested the soviet's chairman, the Menshevik G.S. Khrustalev-Nosar, and on December 3 (December 16) occupied its building and arrested Leon Trotsky and others. But in Moscow a new general strike was called; barricades were erected, and there was fighting in the streets before the revolution was put down. In Finland order was restored by removing some unpopular legislation, but special military expeditions were sent to Poland, the Baltic provinces, and Georgia, where the suppression of the rebellions was particularly bloody. By the beginning of 1906 the government had regained control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and of the army, and the revolution was essentially over.
The uprising failed to replace the tsarist autocracy with a democratic republic or even to convoke a constituent assembly, and most of the revolutionary leaders were placed under arrest. It did, however, force the imperial regime to institute extensive reforms, the most important of which were the Fundamental Laws (1906), which functioned as a constitution, and the creation of the Duma, which fostered the development of legal political activity and parties.