The February Revolution in Petrograd

Bread wages working hours and democracy were demanded together. Exam tip: remember the full group of demands.

When soldiers did not obey the order it became ineffective. Exam tip: link state capacity with obedience.

After February the permanent system of rule was not yet decided. Exam tip: connect Constituent Assembly with future politics.

On 27 February the movement became organised and intense. Exam tip: remember this date as a main turning point.

Sequence shows the link between lockout strike mutiny and abdication. Exam tip: make chronology the backbone of the answer.

The governing concept is chronological and causal analysis. A lockout and worsening urban conditions helped produce demonstrations, while women’s strikes on International Women’s Day broadened the protest. The authorities attempted repression, but a section of soldiers refused to fire and mutinied. As the old administration weakened, the Petrograd Soviet was formed alongside the Provisional Government, and the Tsar finally abdicated. Thus option A gives the intended rising sequence from industrial conflict and mass protest to military defection, new institutions, and abdication. Option B places abdication before the causes that produced it. Option C mixes events from different periods, including Bloody Sunday, and option D incorrectly places the October Revolution before the February events.

It began in Petrograd but affected all Russia. Exam tip: distinguish place of beginning and result.

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.