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February Revolution
February 23 to early March 1917
International Women's Day demonstrations and strikes brought workers into Petrograd's streets. More workplaces joined, and soldiers in the capital mutinied. A government that had depended on the garrison to restore order could no longer rely on it.
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Petrograd Soviet
February 27, 1917
The Petrograd Soviet brought together delegates from workers and soldiers while members of the old legislature organized their own committee. Each could claim to represent a part of the city. The revolution had produced two centers of power before it had a settled government.
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Petrograd Soviet Order No. 1
March 1, 1917
The Soviet ordered soldiers to elect committees and follow the legislature's military orders only when they agreed with the Soviet's. This is what competing authority looked like on the ground: a soldier could be told to answer to two institutions.
More about Petrograd Soviet Order No. 14
Abdication of Nicholas II
March 2, 1917
Nicholas II gave up the throne for himself and his son. His brother Michael would accept power only if a future elected assembly asked him to. That left Russia to decide its form of government without a ruling Romanov.
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Russian Provisional Government
March 1917
The new government under Prince Georgy Lvov took on the work of running the state while an elected assembly was planned. It also chose to stay in the war. Those two commitments shaped the months that followed: people wanted a say in their future and an answer to a war they were already fighting.
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April Theses
April 1917
Back from exile, Vladimir Lenin argued against supporting the Provisional Government and called for power to pass to the soviets. This was a choice within the revolution, still far from a consensus even among people who wanted to remove the old order.
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April Crisis
April 1917
Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov assured Russia's allies that the new government was committed to carrying on the war. Protests helped bring down the original cabinet arrangement. Socialist ministers entered a coalition, tying more of the revolution's leaders to decisions they had previously been able to criticize from outside.
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First Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada
June 10, 1917
The Central Rada proclaimed Ukrainian autonomy after the Provisional Government rejected its requests. The declaration called for Ukrainians to make their own laws while continuing within Russia. It was a reminder that replacing the tsar had left open how much power the center would retain over the old empire.
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Kerensky offensive
June 1917
An offensive on the Eastern Front briefly renewed hopes that Russia could keep fighting. Its failure left the Provisional Government to defend the war with fewer grounds for promising a military success.
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July Days
July 3–5, 1917
Armed soldiers and workers demonstrated in Petrograd and urged the soviets to take power. The movement failed, and authorities turned against the Bolsheviks. Their eventual victory can make it easy to miss how close they came that summer to being pushed out of the contest.
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Poliksena Shishkina-Iavein
Women's suffrage campaign, March to July 1917
Poliksena Shishkina-Iavein helped organize a march in Petrograd demanding the vote for women. The Provisional Government extended the right to vote that summer. The electorate that chose the Constituent Assembly was larger in part because campaigners had refused to leave this question for a later government.
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Kornilov affair
August 1917
General Lavr Kornilov moved troops toward Petrograd before his plan broke down. The crisis forced the government to seek help from people it had treated as threats, including Bolsheviks, and left the officer corps and the government more divided.
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Russian Republic
September 1, 1917
The Provisional Government formally declared Russia a republic. The announcement settled the question of a monarchy on paper. The harder issue, who would exercise authority and on what mandate, remained open into the fall.
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Leon Trotsky
Born
Bolshevik gains in the Petrograd Soviet, August–September 1917
A Bolshevik resolution won support in the Petrograd Soviet on August 31, and Leon Trotsky was elected its chair on September 25. The party that had faced a crackdown in July now had influence inside one of the capital's main representative bodies.
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October Revolution
October 25–26, 1917 (November 7–8 in the modern calendar)
The Bolshevik-led Military Revolutionary Committee displaced the Provisional Government in Petrograd. Ministers were arrested at the Winter Palace. Power changed hands in the city, while the question of whether the new government spoke for the rest of Russia was still unsettled.
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Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
October 25–27, 1917
The Congress met while power was changing hands. Several moderate socialist delegates walked out in protest. That left the Bolsheviks and those who stayed with greater room to shape the Congress's decisions about what should follow the Provisional Government.
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Decree on Peace
October 26, 1917
The new authorities called for an immediate peace without annexations or indemnities and proposed an armistice. The decree made ending the war official policy. Russia still had to negotiate the terms with other countries.
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Decree on Land
October 26, 1917
The decree abolished landed estates without compensation and put their disposition in the hands of local bodies. For people already contesting ownership in the countryside, the new government offered more than a promise to debate land reform later.
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Council of People's Commissars
October 26–27, 1917
The Congress approved a Council of People's Commissars headed by Lenin. The new council was meant to govern pending the Constituent Assembly. That provisional language became important when the assembly finally met and claimed authority of its own.
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Moscow Bolshevik Uprising
October 25–November 2, 1917
The Bolshevik takeover in Petrograd was followed by a week of fighting in Moscow. The Bolsheviks prevailed on November 2. Taking power in another major city helped turn the events in Petrograd into a revolution with wider reach.
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Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia
November 2, 1917
The new government promised the peoples of the former empire equality and the right to determine their own future, including separation. Just as negotiations with the Ukrainian Central Rada had tested the old government, this declaration set a standard by which the new one could be judged.
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