Opposition To Autocracy And Political Collapse Feb 1917

• By the winter of 1917, the streets of Petrograd were tense with the pent-up frustrations of the unemployed, the starving and the desperate. A demonstration by 150,000 Petrograd workers on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday in January 1917 was a hint of things to come.
• Monday 14th February

  • Around 100,000 workers from 58 different factories go on strike in Petrograd. News that bread would be rationed from 1 March brings long round the-clock queues and vilent exchanges. The police, who struggle to keep order, are attacked.
• Thursday 23rd February (International Women's day)

  •  90,000 workers are on strike and a number of factories close. These workers join a traditional march of women from the Petrograd suburbs to the city centre along with militant students and women from the bread queues. Order is restored by a desperate police force.
• Saturday 25th February

  • Violence escalates as Police Chief Shalfeev, in charge of the mounted police, tries to control the masses. He is set upon, dragged from his horse, beaten and shot. Some Cossacks refuse to attack a procession of strikers when ordered to do so.
• Sunday 26th February

  • Rodzianko, the Duma President, sends the Tsar a telegram: 'The situation is serious'. The capital is in a state of anarchy. The government is paralysed and the transport service has broken down; the food and fuel supplies are completely disorganised. There is wild shooting in the streets. Troops are firing at each other. It is urgent that there is a formation of a new government. There must be no delay. 'Hesitation is fatal.'
• Nicholas notes in his diary, 'That fat-bellied Rodzianko has written some nonsense to which I shall not even bother to reply. His only response is to tell the Duma to stop meeting.
• Monday 27th February

  • The Tsar orders the Commander of the Petrograd military district, to restore order by military force. However, a mutiny begins in the Volynskii regiment, where a sergeant shoots his commanding officer dead. 66,000 soldiers mutiny and join the protestors. Police headquarters are attacked and prisons opened.
• Monday 27th February continued 

  • Despite the Tsar's orders,Duma sets up a 12-man provisional committee to take over the government. The army's High Command, which has already ordered troops to march to the capital to restore stability, change their minds and order them to halt and give support to the Duma committee. The same evening, revolutionaries set up the Petrograd Soviet,which also intends to take over the government. It begins to organise food supplies for the city.
• Tuesday 27th February

  • Nicholas Il makes his way back to Petrograd. He sends a telegramme to Rodzianko, offering to share power with the Duma. The leader replies, 'The measures you propose are too late. The time for them has gone. There is no return.'