The February Revolution in Petrograd

Women's action changed the direction of the movement. Exam tip: write women's participation as an active force of revolution.

Loss of control over the capital broke the power of rule. Exam tip: understand the capital as the centre of power crisis.

The movement moved from workers' areas on the right bank to power centres on the left bank. Exam tip: connect geography with political struggle.

Workers moved from the right bank toward the centre where official buildings stood. Exam tip: study geography and class together.

A lockout occurs when employers close a workplace and prevent workers from working. When a lockout in Petrograd’s right-bank factories led to strikes spreading across the city, the event demonstrated solidarity among workers: employees in other factories treated the original dispute as part of a common struggle. Thus option B is correct. Option A is too narrow because the response went beyond one locality. Option C is wrong because the Tsarist authorities generally opposed revolutionary industrial action, and option D has no basis in the event. The spread of strikes shows collective action and shared class grievances.

The bread crisis turned public anger into open protest. Exam tip: connect economic crisis with political crisis.

Women workers gave momentum to the movement and spread it to the streets. Exam tip: see them as active force not spectators.

The early February movement shows that a revolution does not always begin with a party giving detailed instructions. In Petrograd, shortages, rising prices, war hardships, and anger against the government had affected large numbers of people. Because dissatisfaction was widespread, workers and other citizens began protesting and striking even without active direction from a political party. Their action was spontaneous in its immediate organisation, although it grew from serious social and economic conditions.

The correct choice is A because it connects the absence of party leadership with broad public discontent. It does not mean that workers were ignorant, that every political party belonged to the Tsar’s army, or that the Duma had controlled the entire movement from the beginning. Those claims are unsupported or incorrect. The important lesson is that deep, shared grievances can produce collective action before formal political leadership takes charge.

A curfew is intended to keep people off the streets and make organised protest easier to suppress. If people return to the streets despite that order, the government is unable to enforce its restriction and restore normal authority. In the February Revolution, repeated public action despite repression showed that popular anger was strong and that the Tsarist regime was losing practical control. The failure was therefore political as well as administrative.

Option B is correct because the regime could not stop people even after imposing repression. Option A reverses the meaning: the event did not prove the strength of democratic institutions. The palace’s wealth and foreign trade had no direct connection with the protest. Continued mobilisation under a curfew exposed the weakening of Tsarist authority.

The government tried to stop the movement by force rather than dialogue. Exam tip: understand it as state repression.

The Duma was an elected representative body. Suspending it on 25 February suggested that the Tsarist government was suppressing political representation rather than responding to public grievances. This further weakened the regime’s legitimacy and isolated it from the people. It did not solve the bread shortage or end workers’ protests. Exam tip: link the suspension of the Duma with the legitimacy crisis of Tsarism during the February Revolution.

Criticism by Duma leaders showed the political isolation of Tsarism. Exam tip: remember the widening of opposition.

The governing concept is the continuity and widening of a mass movement. The return of demonstrators on 26 February showed that repression, fear, and official pressure had not broken public participation. Instead, workers and other citizens continued to assemble, making the protest more persistent and politically significant. Therefore, option C is correct: the movement was still growing despite pressure. Option A is incorrect because the demonstrations did not end. Option B is too narrow because the unrest increasingly included opposition to the government and the war, not only food shortages. Option D reverses the direction of the movement, since the protests challenged the Tsarist regime rather than strengthening it.

A police headquarters is part of the apparatus used by a state to monitor, arrest, control, and suppress opposition. When it is attacked during a revolution, the incident suggests that the government’s coercive institutions are being challenged and may no longer be secure. The significance is therefore connected to the state’s ability to maintain order, rather than to culture, taxation alone, or foreign relations.

Option D is correct because the attack appeared to weaken the state’s repression and control system. It does not directly show that cultural policy, foreign policy, or only tax collection had failed. Police authority was one practical foundation of Tsarist rule, so damage to it symbolised the wider breakdown of state power during the February Revolution.

These demands linked hardships of common people and workers. Exam tip: write economic and labour causes together.

The demand for democracy challenged autocratic power. Exam tip: write political demand along with economic demand.

When army support broke the grip of Tsarism weakened. Exam tip: treat soldiers' mutiny as a decisive cause.

A government may call soldiers to suppress a protest because soldiers are expected to obey official commands and restore order. If those same soldiers mutiny, refuse orders, or move away from repression, the government loses control over its own coercive instrument. Protesters then face less immediate force, while the authorities appear divided and weak. This turns a public demonstration into a deeper crisis of political authority.

Option A is correct because the forces called for repression were themselves withdrawing from obedience. Soldiers did not solve the bread crisis merely by mutinying, and the question does not describe them closing the Duma or privatising factories. The central point is internal breakdown: the state could no longer reliably use its army to defend Tsarist rule.

The Petrograd Soviet was a council representing workers and soldiers, formed during the collapse of Tsarist authority in 1917. Its creation mattered because it gave organised political voice to groups that had previously been excluded from direct state power. Therefore option C is correct. It became an alternative centre of authority alongside the Provisional Government, producing the situation later described as dual power. The Soviet did not build a palace for the Tsar, unite foreign banks, or win the war immediately. Its importance lay in representation, mobilisation and control over popular forces in the capital.

The Soviet forming in the Duma building symbolised a new form of power. Exam tip: remember the symbolism of place.

The Tsar's abdication resulted from a wider crisis of rule. Exam tip: understand it as a political result not a personal decision.

When senior military commanders advised Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate, they showed that even the military leadership no longer believed the monarchy could survive through force. This was a decisive sign that the crisis had reached the highest levels of the state, so option B is correct. The advice did not mean that the Duma had disappeared; rather, political and military pressures were converging. It also did not turn the bread shortage into a rumour or indicate support from the Petrograd Soviet. The loss of military confidence removed a crucial pillar of Tsarist rule.

Monarchy ended in February and Bolshevik power came in October. Exam tip: keep the sequence of both revolutions clear.

Both the Provisional Government and Soviets were influential. Exam tip: treat dual power as instability of 1917.

The direct answer is B: bread queues were public proof of supply failure and daily humiliation. A long queue for bread was not merely a line at a shop; it showed that the government and distribution system could not provide a basic necessity reliably. The reasoning is: bread is an essential food; people had to wait for long periods and still could not be sure of receiving enough; this made shortages visible to everyone; repeated waiting produced frustration, humiliation, and anger; citizens then questioned whether the ruling system was competent and deserving of obedience. Option A is wrong because queues caused by scarcity do not strengthen public trust; they usually weaken it. Option B is correct because the queues visibly displayed failure of supply and the hardship imposed on ordinary people. Option C is wrong because these queues were connected with food shortage and social distress, not merely religious processions. Option D is wrong because they did not show successful foreign trade; they showed problems in domestic supply and distribution. Legitimacy means the belief that a government has the right and ability to rule. When it cannot provide bread, that belief may decline. Memory cue: failure to provide basic needs can become a crisis of legitimacy.