The February Revolution in Petrograd

The Duma was a representative political institution, although its powers were limited under Tsar Nicholas II. Suspending or dissolving it showed that the Tsarist government was unwilling to tolerate effective political opposition or allow representative bodies to control policy. This action therefore revealed the repressive and autocratic tendency of Tsarism, making option B correct. Option A is the opposite of what happened because complete democracy requires respect for representative institutions. Option C concerns the agrarian question and was not the meaning of suspending the Duma. Option D relates to military policy, not the constitutional significance of the act. The suspension demonstrated political repression and deepened the crisis of legitimacy.

The Petrograd Soviet emerged as a council of workers and soldiers. Exam tip: see it as new popular power.

Mass movement and broken army loyalty forced the Tsar to abdicate. Exam tip: remember both causes together.

This government formed as an interim arrangement after the Tsar's abdication. Exam tip: remember that provisional means temporary.

Petrograd was a major industrial centre, and its factories brought together large numbers of workers who faced low wages, difficult conditions, food shortages and wartime hardship. Because workers were concentrated in factory districts, news and protest could spread quickly from one workplace to another. Strikes began in factories and developed into wider demonstrations against the Tsarist government. Thus option A is correct: the factories became centres of workers’ strikes and political mobilisation. Options B, C and D misidentify the nature of these places. They were industrial workplaces, not palaces, farms or courts. Their importance came from the organisation and collective strength of industrial workers.

When strikes and demonstrations spread through Petrograd, the Tsarist government viewed them as a threat to public order and its authority. It called soldiers to disperse crowds, stop the strikes and restore governmental control. Therefore, option A is correct. The government was not initially sending troops to distribute bread, organise elections or redistribute land; those alternatives do not explain the repressive purpose of the deployment. A crucial development was that many soldiers were themselves exhausted by war, affected by shortages and sympathetic to the protesters. As a result, some refused to fire and later joined the movement, weakening the government and accelerating the collapse of Tsarist rule.

The demonstrators were mainly opposing the autocratic rule of the Tsar. Under Tsarism, political power was concentrated in the monarch, representative institutions were restricted, dissent was repressed and ordinary people had little control over government decisions. Wartime losses, food shortages and poor working conditions intensified opposition to this system. Thus option B is correct. A democratic republic was not the oppressive authority being challenged; it represented the kind of political change many protesters sought. A workers’ council and a peasant council were not the ruling system of the Russian Empire at that moment. The central political conflict was between popular mobilisation and autocratic Tsarist rule.

Industrial workers began strikes and demonstrations. Exam tip: see workers as the initial force.

Starting from lockout the movement grew to strikes and soldiers' mutiny. Exam tip: remember the sequence of events.

Petrograd is linked with present day Saint Petersburg. Exam tip: do not get confused by changing city names.

Both the Provisional Government and Soviets were influential. Exam tip: connect dual power with instability in 1917.

On 27 February 1917, the revolutionary crisis in Petrograd reached an important turning point. Demonstrators and soldiers attacked or took control of important state facilities, including the police headquarters, weakening the old machinery of repression. On the same day, representatives of workers and soldiers formed the Petrograd Soviet, creating a new centre of political authority. Therefore, option B is correct. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed later, in 1918, and the USSR was formed in 1922. The Tsar’s coronation and a military victory did not occur on this date. The Comintern and Cheka also belong to later developments, so the other options are chronologically incorrect.

The February Revolution brought the rule of the Romanov Tsar to an end. Facing mass protests, strikes, loss of military support and the collapse of administrative authority, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917 according to the Western calendar. A Provisional Government was then established, although power remained contested between it and the Petrograd Soviet. Therefore, option A is correct: monarchy ended after the February Revolution. Option B is false because the Tsar did not regain stronger authority. Option C incorrectly suggests that the monarchy continued ruling from abroad. Option D confuses the later formation of the Soviet Union with the immediate result of the February Revolution.

Long queues outside bread shops showed that the supply of bread and other food items in Petrograd was inadequate. War, transport difficulties, and rising prices worsened this shortage and increased public anger. Palace decoration or successful foreign trade would not cause bread queues. Exam tip: remember the food shortage as a cause of popular unrest in the February Revolution.

After the lockout other workers also joined the strike. Exam tip: treat it as a cause of movement expansion.

Women workers gave momentum to the strikes. Exam tip: remember them as an early force of the Revolution.

The governing historical concept is the use of coercive state measures during a period of unrest. A curfew restricts people from moving freely and gathering in public places. When imposed in the context of a movement or protest, it indicates that the authorities were attempting to control, weaken, or suppress the mobilisation rather than encouraging it. Thus option A is correct. The measure does not prove that land was distributed, that a war had been won, or that the Soviet Union had been formed. Those alternatives describe unrelated political or military developments. The question asks what the government’s action revealed about its intention, so the answer should identify repression or suppression of the movement.

The movement became stronger when soldiers joined. Exam tip: remember the break in army loyalty as decisive.

The Petrograd Soviet was a representative body of workers and soldiers. Exam tip: connect it with new popular power.

Two centres of power created dual power. Exam tip: connect it with political instability in 1917.