The revolutions of
                      1917–1918

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521811446.006

4 - The revolutions of 1917–1918

from Part I - Russia and the Soviet Union: The Story through Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

S. A. Smith

Edited by

Ronald Grigor Suny

Show author details

Ronald Grigor Suny: Affiliation:
University of Chicago and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Book contents

Get access

Summary

On 23 February 1917 thousands of female textile workers and housewives took to the streets of Petrograd to protest against the bread shortage and to mark International Women’s Day. Their protest occurred against a background of industrial unrest – only the day before, workers at the giant Putilov plant had been locked out – and their demonstration quickly drew in workers, especially in the militant Vyborg district. By the following day, more than 200,000 workers were on strike. The leaders of the revolutionary parties were taken by surprise at the speed with which the protests gathered momentum, but experienced activists, who included Bolsheviks, anti-war Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and non-aligned Social Democrats, gave direction to the movement in the working-class districts. By 25 February students and members of the middle classes had joined the crowds in the city centre, singing the Marseillaise, waving red flags and bearing banners proclaiming ‘Down with the War’ and ‘Down with the Tsarist Government’. Soldiers from the garrison proved reluctant to clear the demonstrators from the streets. On Sunday, 26 February, however, they were ordered to fire on the crowds and by the end of the day hundreds had been killed or wounded. The next day proved to be a turning-point. On the morning of 27 February, the Volynskii regiment mutinied and by evening 66,700 soldiers had followed their lead. Demonstrators freed prisoners from the Kresty jail, set fire to police stations, ‘blinded’ portraits of the tsar and ‘roasted’, that is, set alight, the crowned two-headed eagle, symbol of the Romanov dynasty.

Keywords

soviet power Bolshevik government peasantry February Revolution war industries

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Russia , pp. 114 - 139

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521811446.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Astrakhan, Kh. M., Bol’sheviki i ikh politicheskie protivniki v 1917 godu (London: Lenizdat, 1973).

Druzhinin, N. P., Meshchanskoe dvizhenie 1906–17 gg. (Iaroslavl’, 1917).

Edmondson, Linda, Feminism in Russia, 1900–17 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press; London: Heinemann, 1984).

Figes, Orlando, Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution (1917–1921) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

Friedgut, Theodore, Iuzovka and Revolution: Life and Work in Russia’s Donbass, 1869–1924, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989–94).

Gerasimenko, G. A., Pervyi akt narodovlastiia vRossii: obshchestvennye ispolnitel’nye komitety 1917 g. (London: NIKA, 1992).

Haimson, Leopold, ‘The Problem of Social Stability in Urban Russia, 1905–1917’, pt. 1, Slavic Review 23, 4 (Dec. 1964)24, 1 (Mar. 1965).Google Scholar

Kolonitskii, B. I., ‘Antibourgeois Propaganda and Anti-Burzhui Consciousness in 1917’, Russian Review 53, 2 (1994).Google Scholar

Kornakov, P. K., ‘Simvolika i ritualy revoliutsii 1917 g.’, in Anatomiia revoliutsii: 1917 god v revoliutsii – massy, partii, vlast’ (London: Glagol’, 1994)Google Scholar

Kowalski, Ronald I., The Bolshevik Party in Conflict: The Left Communist Opposition of 1918 (London: Macmillan, 1991).

Kupaigorodskaia, A. P., ‘Petrogradskoe studenchestvo i oktiabr’, in Oktiabr’skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde (London: Nauka, 1980).Google Scholar

Lih, Lars T., Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990).

Longley, David A., ‘Divisions in the Bolshevik Party in March 1917’, Soviet Studies 24, 1 (1972–3).Google Scholar

Mandel, David, The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet Seizure of Power: From the July Days 1917 to July 1918 (London: Macmillan, 1984).

McDaniel, Tim, Autocracy, Capitalism, and Revolution in Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

Melancon, Michael, The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Russian Anti-War Movement, 1914–1917 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990).

Munck, J. L., The Kornilov Revolt: A Critical Examination of Sources (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1987).

Protasov, L. G., Vserossiiskoe uchreditel’noe sobranie: istoriia rozhdeniia i gibeli (Moscow: Rosspen, 1997).

Rabinowitch, Alexander, The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd (New York: Norton, 1976).

Radkey, O. H., The Agrarian Foes of Bolshevism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958).

Reed, John, Ten Days that Shook the World (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970).

Rosenberg, William, Liberals in the Russian Revolution: The Constitutional Democratic Party, 1917–1921 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974).

Service, Robert, The Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study in Organisational Change, 1917–1923 (London: Macmillan; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1979).

Shishkin, V. F., Velikii Oktiabr’ i proletarskii moral’ (London: Mysl’, 1976)

Smirnov, N. N., ‘The Soviets’, in Edward, Acton et al. (eds.), Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921 (London: Arnold, 1997).Google Scholar

Smith, S. A., Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories, 1917–18 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

Steinberg, Mark D., Voices of Revolution, 1917. Documents, trans. Schwartz, Marian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).

Stone, Norman, The Eastern Front, 1914–1917 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975; New York: Penguin, 1998).

Swain, Geoffrey, The Origins of the Russian Civil War (London and New York: Longman, 1996).

Tokarev, Iu. S., Petrogradskii sovet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov v marte i aprele 1917 g. (London: Nauka, 1976).

Vostrikov, N. I., Bor’ba za massy: gorodskie srednie sloi nakanune oktiabria (London: Mysl’, 1970).

Wade, R. A., The Russian Revolution, 1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

White, Howard, ‘1917 in the Rear Garrison’, in Edmondson, Linda and Waldron, Peter (eds.), Economy and Society in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1860–1930 (London: Macmillan, 1992).Google Scholar

White, James D., ‘The Kornilov Affair – A Study in Counter-Revolution’, Soviet Studies 20, 2 (1968–9).Google Scholar

Wildman, A. K., The End of the Russian Imperial Army: The Old Army and the Soldiers’ Revolt (March–April 1917) The End of the Russian Imperial Army: The Road to Soviet Power and Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980, 1987).

Znamenskii, O. N., Intelligentsiia nakanune velikogo oktiabria fevral’–oktiabr’ 1917g. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1988).

Book contents

4 - The revolutions of 1917–1918

Summary

Keywords

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive