The February Revolution¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter Digest: The February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 did not erupt from bread queues, though this myth persists. As Trotsky insisted, such explanations confuse immediate cause with deeper historical necessity; after October, far worse shortages failed to produce a new revolution. The true precondition was the slow, invisible accumulation of mass anger—what Trotsky termed the "molecular process of revolution"—against war, economic collapse, fuel shortages, railway breakdown, military defeat, and court scandals. By January 1917, Petrograd had already witnessed a strike wave of 270,000 workers, with 145,000 mobilised on 9 January alone in what amounted to a dry run for insurrection.
The revolution proper began on 23 February, International Women's Day, when women workers led mass demonstrations. Within twenty-four hours, 200,000 workers were on strike. On 25 February, workers' leaders met to establish a soviet. The Tsar ordered the disorders crushed by force; troops fired on crowds on 26 February, but the Pavlovsk regiment instead opened fire on police. Within days, the regime's forces melted away. The working class, drawing the peasant-soldiers behind it, overthrew tsarism from a single city.
Yet here lay the central paradox: power fell into workers' hands, but they lacked the organisation and consciousness to complete the revolution. The bourgeoisie played no revolutionary role whatsoever. The Provisional Government, formed on 2 March, consisted of big landlords and industrialists—Prince Lvov, Milyukov, Guchkov, and others—whose sole aim was to halt the revolution with cosmetic changes while preserving the old regime's economic power, bureaucracy, officer caste, and monarchy. They manoeuvred to replace Nicholas II with his son under a regency.
The Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, convinced that the bourgeoisie was the only class qualified to rule, handed power to this terrified reactionary gang. They argued that ruling without capitalists would destroy the revolution. Workers and soldiers distrusted the bourgeois politicians but trusted their Menshevik and SR leaders, who urged patience. This gnawing distrust grew more intense daily, preparing the ground for October.