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Soviet Union [USSR] REVOLUTIONS AND CIVIL WAR
The February Revolution
By early 1917, the existing order in Russia verged on collapse.
The country's involvement in World War I had already cost millions
of lives and caused severe disruption in Russia's backward economy.
In an effort to reverse the steadily worsening military situation,
Emperor Nicholas II commanded Russian forces at the front,
abandoning the conduct of government in Petrograd (St. Petersburg
before 1914; Leningrad after 1924) to his unpopular wife and a
series of incompetent ministers. As a consequence of these
conditions, the morale of the people rapidly deteriorated.
The spark to the events that ended tsarist rule was ignited on
the streets of Petrograd in February 1917 (according to the old
Julian calendar [see Glossary] then in use in Russia). Provoked by
shortages of food and fuel, crowds of hungry citizens and striking
workers began spontaneous rioting and demonstrations on March 7
(February 23, according to the Julian calendar). Local reserve
troops, called in to suppress the riots, refused to fire on the
crowds, and some soldiers joined the workers and other rioters. On
March 12, with tsarist authority in Petrograd rapidly
disintegrating, two separate bodies emerged, each claiming to
represent the Russian people. One was the Executive Committee of
the Duma, which the
Duma (see Glossary) had established in defiance
of the tsar's orders of March 11. The other body was the Petrograd
Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, founded on the model of
the St. Petersburg Soviet of 1905. With the consent of the
Petrograd Soviet, the Executive Committee of the Duma organized the
Provisional Government on March 15. Delegates of the new government
met Nicholas that evening at Pskov, where rebellious railroad
workers had stopped the imperial train as the tsar attempted to
return to the capital. Advised by his generals that he lacked the
support of the country, Nicholas informed the delegates that he was
abdicating in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Michael. When
Michael in turn refused the throne on March 16 (March 3), the rule
of tsars and emperors in Russia came to an end.
Data as of May 1989
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