When Things Fall Apart

a brief chronicle of the first 1917 revolution

February 18

(March 3, new style)

Workers at the Putilov Factory in Petrograd go on strike.

The Putilov Factory, manufacturer of trains and munitions, was one of Russia’s industrial giants. Founded in 1801 as a state factory, it was purchased in 1868 by the engineer Nikolai Putilov. After the revolution, it became the Krasny Putilovets [Red Putilov Worker], and in 1934 it was renamed for the recently-murdered Leningrad party boss, Sergei Kirov.

February 23

Unrest flares up in bread lines. More and more of Petrograd’s population is joining riots started by women tired of queuing for food. 

A great throng of workers pours through a grimy working-class district. Another throng joins them from a side street. Lots of women, and they’re the angriest of all. By the time they pass a one-story factory, they’re a crowd of hundreds – they themselves don’t know what they’re doing. It’s up in the air. Workers are watching them through the glass, through the ventilation windows. The crowd starts to shout.

“Hey you, munitions worker! Outta’ there! Come join us. Bread!”

They stop by the windows to urge them on.

“Enough, munitions worker! How can you work so long as we got these lines? Bread!”

For some reason, the munitions worker doesn’t care, he even walks away from the window.

“Uncaring bitches! You’re sittin’ pretty, is that it? So, every man for himself? I’ll tell you what – the glass! The glass!”

The smashing of glass. A big guy, a foreman steps outside, without a hat.

“What kind of fooliganism are you up to? We all have our own heads. You think we’re making ourselves corn hoppers in here?”

Someone launches a chunk of ice at him. “Your own head?”

The foreman clutches his head.

The crowd guffaws.

March 1917

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

February 24-25

A general strike begins in Petrograd.

From the memoirs of Pavel Milyukov: 

On February 23, when up to 87,000 workers at 50 enterprises went on strike because of the bread shortage, Protopopov asked Khabalov to tell the people that, “There is enough bread,” and “The unrest has been stirred up by provocateurs.” On February 24, 197,000 workers went on strike. Khabalov announced that “there should be no shortage of bread.” Apparently “a lot of people are buying bread to store as rusks.” The government decided to “delegate the problem of food to municipal authorities.”

Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov was an outstanding Russian historian and leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party, known as the “Cadet” party. March 1917, when he was appointed foreign minister of the provisional government, was the apogee of his political career. But by the end of April he was forced to resign because of what came to be known as the Milyukov Note, in which he promised the Allies that Russia would uphold tsarist commitments to prosecute the war against Germany to its conclusion. After the Bolshevik victory he left for the Don region – a destination for many fleeing Bolshevik control – and then went to Kiev, where he tried to negotiate with the German command, hoping to win their support against the Bolsheviks. These negotiations outraged the majority of Cadets and Milyukov stepped down as party chairman. Later, from emigration, Milyukov called on his comrades to accept the changes that had taken place in Russia and abandon any hope of a military overthrow of the Bolsheviks. He counted on the internal degeneration of Bolshevism and a rebirth of the empire. He died in 1943 in France. 

Alexander Dmitriyevich Protopopov, who had been active in provincial self-government, serving in the zemstvo and as a district marshal of the nobility, was a member of the Octobrist Party and a deputy in the third and fourth Dumas. He was also active in many charitable organizations and the Russian Geographical Society and authored a number of technical books on the textile industry and agriculture. In 1917, he was Internal Affairs minister. He worked out a plan to prevent riots in Petrograd by dividing the city into districts and putting Guards units in charge of each one. During the final days of February, the other ministers wanted to remove Protopopov from the government, given his extreme unpopularity and the fact that his name alone was an obstacle to reaching agreement with the Duma. They were hesitant to do this, however, and merely announced that Protopopov had fallen ill. On February 28, the minister himself came to the Tauride Palace, where the Duma was meeting, and was detained. The next day he was imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress. After the Bolsheviks came to power, Protopopov was hospitalized with a “nervous disorder” and later moved to Taganka prison. In 1918 he was shot. 

February 25, evening

A telegram from the tsar to Khabalov reads “Hereby command to put an end to riots in capital, impermissible in time of war with Germany and Austria.”

Sergei Semyonovich Khabalov, the general in charge of the Petrograd military district in February 1917, attempted to put down the uprising, but his troops did not obey his commands. On February 28 he was imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress. In October 1917 the case against him was dropped, days before the Bolsheviks took power. In November, Khabalov was dismissed from the army, and in 1919 he left for the south of Russia. In 1920 he emigrated to Salonika, Greece. He died in 1924. 

February 26

A clash takes place between revolting soldiers and troops loyal to the government. 

A February 26 telegram from Rodzianko to the tsar:

The situation is serious. The capital is in a state of anarchy. The government is paralyzed; the transport service has broken down; the food and fuel supplies are completely disorganized. Discontent is general and growing. There is wild shooting in the streets; troops are firing at each other. It is urgent that someone enjoying the confidence of the country be entrusted with the formation of a new government. There must be no delay. Hesitation is fatal.

Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko was one of the founders and leaders of the Union of October 17, otherwise known as the Octobrist Party. In 1917 he was chairman of the Duma. Tsarina Alexandra had a strong dislike for Rodzianko, which complicated interactions between the Duma and the government. Via telegraph, he conducted negotiations with the Army Headquarters that culminated in the abdication of Nicholas II. He did not serve in the provisional government, remaining chairman of the Duma until it was dissolved in October 1917. After the Bolsheviks took over, he went to the Don region and became one of the founders of the White movement. He later emigrated to Yugoslavia and died in 1924. 

February 27

Troops in Petrograd begin to support the rebellion. 

The Provisional Committee of the State Duma is created. 

February 28

The tsar attempts to return to Tsarskoe Selo from Army Headquarters in Mogilev, a town in present-day Belarus, but he is unable to, because the railway lines have been blocked. 

March 1

The tsar arrives in Pskov, where he hopes to find support from General Ruzsky, commander of the northern front. 

Nikolai Vladimirovich Ruzsky, the general commanding the northern front in 1917, put pressure on Nicholas II, along with other commanders, forcing him to abdicate the throne. In April 1917, Ruszky was forced to step down for health reasons, although his resignation was probably also precipitated by the impact political turmoil was having on the army. He underwent treatment in the spa resort of Kislovodsk in the northern Caucasus, and in September 1918 was captured by the Caucasus Red Army. In October 1918 he was shot, after being forced to dig his own grave. 

From the memoirs of General Brusilov:

I received detailed telegrams from headquarters reporting on the course of the rebellion and finally was called to a direct line by Alexeyev, who told me that the newly-formed Provisional Government had informed him that if Nicholas II refused to abdicate, it was threatening to cut off the army’s food and munitions supply; therefore Alexeyev asked me and all the top commanders to telegraph the tsar asking him to step down. I told him that from my perspective this measure was essential and that I would immediately do as he asked and right away I sent a telegram to the tsar in which I asked him to renounce the throne. 

Alexei Alexeyevich Brusilov was the general who orchestrated the renowned Brusilov Offensive in 1916 (Russian Life, May 2006). After commanding the southwestern front in early 1917, in May-June 1917 he was made Army Commander-in-Chief. He attempted an offensive that failed because the army was already in a state of complete disarray. He was removed from his post to make way for an advocate of harsher measures, Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov. Brusilov lived in Moscow, and in 1920 he agreed to serve under the Bolsheviks. He died in 1926. Soviet historians have always held Brusilov in high esteem. 

Mikhail Vasiliyevich Alexeyev was the son of a career soldier who advanced to the rank of general. After serving as chief of staff for the Commander-in-Chief, from March through May 1917 he was put in charge of the Russian army, in which capacity he attempted to halt its disintegration. Soldier self-governing committees were being established throughout the army, undermining discipline. Alexeyev believed that if such committees were being created, they should include officers, who would be able to influence the soldiers. After the Bolshevik takeover, he left for the Don region, where he was one of the founders of the White movement. He created the Volunteer Army, with whom he endured the difficult Ice March, a retreat across the frozen Don steppe in the dead of winter. He died of heart disease in September 1918 in Yekaterinodar (present-day Krasnodar). He was laid to rest in Belgrade. 

March 2  

The tsar decides to abdicate the throne. The rightful heir is his son Alexei. 

Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich was the sole, long-awaited son of Nicholas II, born in 1904 after being preceded by four sisters. It soon became evident that the boy suffered from the incurable disease of hemophilia. Tsarevich Alexei was shot along with his parents and sisters during the earliest hours of July 17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg. 

The evening of March 2, at the train station in the town of Dno, where the tsar’s train had been blocked from continuing, two envoys arrived representing the Duma: Alexander Guchkov and Vasily Shulgin. 

Alexander Ivanovich Guchkov lived a life that was not at all typical of his time. He was born into a merchant family and went on to receive an excellent education at the universities of Moscow, Berlin, Vienna, and Heidelberg. He nonetheless chose a military career, which proved tumultuous. He served in the Guards, fought on the side of the Boers in the Boer War, found himself in China during the Boxer Rebellion, and was a representative of the Red Cross during the Russo-Japanese War. Guchkov’s stormy nature manifested itself in his passion for dueling, a practice that was out-of-date by his time. He nevertheless achieved success as an entrepreneur and became a millionaire. Guchkov was active in politics and was one of the founders of the Union of October 17. In March 1917, he became Minister of War, but in April he was forced to step down together with Milyukov, with whom he shared the belief that Russia should continue to fight Germany. Guchkov remained active politically, feeling it was essential to oppose the Bolsheviks. He supported Kornilov, and was even arrested after Kornilov’s rebellion was suppressed, but was released the following day. Soon after the Bolsheviks took over, Guchkov left for the Caucasus. He was the first industrialist to provide financial support to the White movement. In 1919, Guchkov went abroad to represent Denikin in negotiations with the Entente nations. Later, in emigration, Guchkov’s independent nature prevented him from finding a place within any particular political party. He died in Paris in 1936. 

Vasily Vitaliyevich Shulgin was one of the most extraordinary Russian conservatives. He was a proponent of extreme nationalistic views, but at the same time he did not fit the stereotype of a “rabid nationalist.” He published a newspaper named the Kievlyanin [Kievan], where he defended the idea that Ukraine is a Russian land. A highly-cultured, well-educated man, he was nonetheless a stalwart advocate of absolute monarchy. An opponent of anti-Jewish pogroms, he nonetheless inflamed passions with his anti-Semitic articles during the infamous 1913 trial of Mendel Beilis, a Jew accused of ritual murder. After the February revolution, Shulgin first and foremost urged that strong central authority and the territory of the empire be preserved. When the Bolsheviks came to power, Shulgin, who was living in Kiev at the time, devoted his considerable energies and talents to supporting the White cause, which he saw primarily as a monarchical and Russian movement. After the conclusion of the Civil War he emigrated, however he spent some time in Russia during the 1920s, sneaking into the country illegally. In 1944, Shulgin was arrested in Yugoslavia and sent back to the USSR, where he was imprisoned in a labor camp until 1956. It is interesting that, by then, Shulgin’s attitude toward Soviet rule had changed. He now saw in it a transformed continuation of the absolute monarchy in which he so fervently believed. Shulgin died in Vladimir in 1976 at the age of 98.

Nicholas gave Guchkov and Shulgin his signed abdication proclamation.

In the days of the great struggle against foreign enemies, who for nearly three years have tried to enslave our motherland, the Lord God has seen fit to send down on Russia a new heavy trial... In these crucial days in the life of Russia, We thought it Our duty of conscience to facilitate for Our people the closest union possible and a consolidation of all national forces for the speedy attainment of victory. In agreement with the Imperial Duma We have thought it befitting to renounce the Throne of the Russian Empire and to give up supreme power. As We do not wish to part from Our beloved son, We transfer succession to Our brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, and give Him Our blessing to accede to the Throne of the Russian Empire... May the Lord God help Russia!

Signed: Nicholas

Pskov, March 2, 1917, 3 pm

Until the birth of Tsarevich Alexei, Nicholas II’s younger brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, had been considered heir to the throne. Until 1912, he had been second in the line of succession. However, when he married a woman of insufficiently exalted lineage (and on top of that a divorcée), Nicholas II revoked his right of succession. 

There are several different accounts of Mikhail’s demise. One has him being shot in 1918 together with the other Grand Dukes in Perm. It is said of him (and not only of him) that before being shot he took off his boots and threw them at his executioners with the words, “Wear them, kids, they are, after all, royal.” According to another account, Mikhail was killed without trial along with his secretary. There is also a version that ends with the miraculous survival of Mikhail. Pretenders have appeared over the years claiming to be the Grand Duke. 

A heavy burden has been laid upon me by the will of my brother, who has given over to me the imperial throne of All Russia at a time of unprecedented warfare and popular disturbances.

Inspired by the thought, which is shared by all the people, that the good of our native land is above all else, I have taken a firm decision to assume the supreme power only in the event that such is the will of our great people... Therefore, invoking God’s blessing, I ask all citizens of the Russian state to pay allegiance to the Provisional Government, which is to be endowed with full power until such time as the Constituent Assembly, which shall convene as quickly as possible, takes its decision on the form of government as expressed by the will of the people.

March 3, 1917

Signed Mikhail

Petrograd