Question

The March Revolution
In March 1917, women textile workers in Petrograd led a citywide strike. In the next five days, riots flared up over shortages of bread and fuel. Nearly 200,000 workers swarmed the streets shouting, “Down with the autocracy!” and “Down with the war!” At first the soldiers obeyed orders to shoot the rioters but later sided with them.
▲ Soldiers fired on unarmed workers demonstrating at the czar’s Winter Palace on “Bloody Sunday.”
Revolution and Nationalism 869

The Czar Steps Down The local protest exploded into a general uprising—the March Revolution. It forced Czar Nicholas II to abdicate his throne. A year later revolutionaries executed Nicholas and his family. The three-century czarist rule of the Romanovs finally collapsed. The March Revolution succeeded in bringing down the czar. Yet it failed to set up a strong government to replace his regime.
Leaders of the Duma established a provisional government, or temporary gov- ernment. Alexander Kerensky headed it. His decision to continue fighting in World War I cost him the support of both soldiers and civilians. As the war dragged on, conditions inside Russia worsened. Angry peasants demanded land. City workers grew more radical. Socialist revolutionaries, competing for power, formed soviets. Soviets were local councils consisting of workers, peasants, and soldiers. In many cities, the soviets had more influence than the provisional government.
Lenin Returns to Russia The Germans believed that Lenin and his Bolshevik supporters would stir unrest in Russia and hurt the Russian war effort against Germany. They arranged Lenin’s return to Russia after many years of exile. Traveling in a sealed railway boxcar, Lenin reached Petrograd in April 1917.