The strike of about fifty factories on 23 February 1917 indicated what?

Correct answer: Rapid spread of the workers' movement

Direct answer: Option A, rapid spread of the workers’ movement. On 23 February 1917, according to the Russian calendar used in the textbook, women workers’ demonstrations over bread and wartime hardship expanded into strikes. When about fifty factories joined, the protest was no longer a small complaint from one workplace. Step by step: workers stopped work; more factories joined; crowds entered the streets; economic demands became political opposition; the February Revolution gathered force. Option A describes this spread. Option B is wrong because a strike was opposition to the government, not a victory of the Tsar’s army. Option C is wrong because the event was not a reduction in peasant tax. Option D is wrong because the First World War did not end on that date. Option C? No: the correct letter remains A. Memory cue: many factories striking means a mass movement, not an isolated dispute.