100 years ago, on February 23 (March 8) 1917, the revolution began in the Russian Empire. Spontaneous meetings and strikes at the end of 1916 - beginning of 1917, caused by various socio-economic reasons and the war, developed into a general strike in Petrograd. Beatings of the police began, the soldiers refused to shoot at people, some of them supported the protesters with weapons. On February 27 (March 12), 1917, the general strike escalated into an armed uprising; the troops, who went over to the side of the rebels, occupied the most important points of the city, government buildings. On the night of February 28 (March 13), the Provisional Committee of the State Duma announced that it was taking power into its own hands. On March 1 (14), the Provisional Committee of the State Duma received recognition from Great Britain and France. On March 2 (15), Nicholas II abdicated.
In one of the last reports of the Security Department, from the police provocateur Shurkanov, introduced into the RSDLP (b), on February 26 (March 11), it was noted: “The movement broke out spontaneously, without preparation, and solely on the basis of a food crisis. Since the military units did not interfere with the crowd, and in some cases even took measures to paralyze the initiatives of the police officials, the masses gained confidence in their impunity, and now, after two days of unhindered walking the streets, when the revolutionary circles put forward the slogans "Down with the war" and “Down with the government,” - the people were convinced that the revolution had begun, that success was with the masses, that the government was powerless to suppress the movement due to the fact that military units, not today or tomorrow, would openly stand on the side of the revolutionary forces, that the movement that had begun would not subside, but it will grow without interruption until the final victory and coup d'état."
In conditions of mass disorder, the fate of the empire entirely depended on the loyalty of the army. On February 18, the Petrograd Military District was separated from the Northern Front into an independent unit. General Sergei Khabalov, appointed commander of the district, was given broad powers to fight the "unreliable" and "troublemakers." This decision was made due to the threat of new strikes and riots against the backdrop of growing general dissatisfaction with what is happening in the country. At that time, there were only a few thousand policemen and Cossacks in Petrograd, so the authorities began to draw troops to the capital. By mid-February, their number in Petrograd was about 160 thousand people.
However, the troops did not become a factor of stability, as, for example, during the First Revolution of 1905-1907. On the contrary, the army at this time had already become a source of turmoil and anarchy. The recruits, having heard enough of the horrors about the front, did not want to go to the front line, as did the wounded and sick who were recovering. The cadre of the tsarist army was knocked out, the old non-commissioned officers and officers remained in the minority. The new officers recruited already during the war were mainly from the intelligentsia, which for the most part traditionally held liberal and radical positions and was hostile to the tsarist regime. It is not surprising that in the future a significant part of these officers, as well as cadets and cadets (students), supported the Provisional Government, and then various democratic, national and white governments and armies. That is, the army itself was a source of instability; all that was needed was a fuse for an explosion.
The government foresaw the inevitable unrest, having developed a plan to combat possible riots in January-February 1917. However, this plan did not provide for a mass mutiny of the reserve battalions of the guards regiments stationed in Petrograd. According to Lieutenant-General Chebykin, commander of the military protection and guards spare parts of Petrograd, it was planned to allocate "the most selective, the best units - training teams, consisting of the best soldiers trained for non-commissioned officers" to suppress the riots. However, these calculations turned out to be wrong - the uprising began precisely with the training teams. In general terms, the plan to suppress the impending revolution was drawn up by mid-January 1917, based on the experience of successfully suppressing the 1905 revolution. According to this plan, the police, gendarmerie and troops stationed in the capital were assigned to districts under the unified command of specially appointed headquarters officers. The main support of the government was to be the Petrograd police and training teams of the reserve battalions, numbering about 10 thousand from the 160 thousand garrison. If the police remained generally loyal to the government, the hopes for the training teams of the reserve battalions did not materialize. Moreover, with the beginning of the revolution, the insurgent soldiers began to seize weapons en masse, cracking down on the officers and guards who tried to hinder them and easily crushed the resistance of the police. Those who were supposed to suppress the turmoil themselves became sources of chaos.
Major milestones
On February 21 (March 6), street riots broke out in Petrograd - people standing in the cold in long lines for bread began to smash shops and shops. In Petrograd, there were never any problems with the supply of basic products, and the long standing in the "tails", as the queues were then called, because of bread against the background of talk about the possible introduction of cards, caused a sharp irritation among the townspeople. Even though the shortage of bread was observed only in certain regions.
The grain riots in Petrograd became a logical development of the crisis in grain procurement and transport. On December 2, 1916, the “Special Meeting on Foodstuffs” introduced surplus appropriation. Despite the tough measures, instead of the planned 772, 1 million poods of grain were collected in the state bins only 170 million poods. As a result, in December 1916, the norms for soldiers at the front were reduced from 3 to 2 pounds of bread per day, and in the front line to 1.5 pounds. Bread cards were introduced in Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Chernigov, Podolsk, Voronezh, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and other cities. In some cities, people were starving. There were rumors about the introduction of ration cards for bread in Petrograd.
Thus, the food supply of the armed forces and the population of the cities sharply deteriorated. So, for December 1916 - April 1917, St. Petersburg and Moscow regions did not receive 71% of the planned amount of grain cargo. A similar picture was observed in the supply of the front: in November 1916, the front received 74% of the necessary food, in December - 67%.
In addition, the transport situation had a negative impact on supply. Severe frosts, which have covered the European part of Russia since the end of January, disabled steam pipes of more than 1,200 locomotives, and there were not enough spare pipes due to mass strikes of workers. Also a week earlier, heavy snow fell in the vicinity of Petrograd, which filled up the railroad tracks, as a result of which tens of thousands of carriages got stuck on the outskirts of the capital. It is also worth noting that some historians believe that the grain crisis in Petrograd did not go without the deliberate sabotage of some officials, including those from the Ministry of Railways, who advocated the overthrow of the monarchy. The Februaryist conspirators, whose coordination went through the Masonic lodges (subordinate to the Western centers), did everything to appeal to the discontent of the population and provoke massive spontaneous unrest, and then take over the government of the country into their own hands.
According to the newspaper "Birzhevye Vedomosti", on February 21 (March 6), the destruction of bakeries and small shops began on the Petrograd side, which then continued throughout the city. The crowd surrounded the bakeries and bakeries and with shouts of "Bread, bread" moved through the streets.
On February 22 (March 7), against the background of growing unrest in the capital, Tsar Nicholas II left Petrograd for Mogilev to the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Before that, he held a meeting with the Minister of Internal Affairs A. D. Protopopov, who convinced the sovereign that the situation in Petrograd was under control. On February 13, the police arrested a working group of the Central Military-Industrial Committee (the so-called “Working Group of the Military-Industrial Committee,” headed by the Menshevik Kuzma Gvozdev). The Military Industrial Committees were organizations of entrepreneurs who came together to mobilize Russian industry to overcome the army's supply crisis. In order to promptly resolve the problems of workers, in order to avoid downtime of enterprises due to strikes, their representatives were also included in the committees. The arrested workers were charged with "preparing a revolutionary movement with the aim of preparing a republic."
The "Working Group" did indeed pursue an ambivalent policy. On the one hand, the "workers' representatives" supported the "war to the bitter end" and helped the authorities maintain discipline in the defense industry, but on the other hand, they criticized the ruling regime and spoke about the need to overthrow the monarchy as soon as possible. On January 26, the Working Group issued a proclamation stating that the government was using the war to enslave the working class, and the workers themselves were called upon to be ready for a "general organized demonstration in front of the Tauride Palace to demand the creation of a provisional government." After the arrest of the Working Group, Nicholas II asked the former Minister of Internal Affairs Nikolai Maklakov to prepare a draft manifesto on the dissolution of the State Duma, which was to resume meetings in mid-February. Protopopov was sure that with these measures he managed to remove the threat of new unrest.
On February 23 (March 8), a series of rallies took place in Petrograd dedicated to the Workers' Day (as the International Women's Day was then called). As a result, the rallies grew into mass strikes and demonstrations. A total of 128 thousand people went on strike. Columns of demonstrators marched with the slogans "Down with the war!", "Down with the autocracy!", "Bread!" In some places they sang "The Workers' Marseillaise" (a Russian revolutionary song to the melody of the French anthem - "The Marseillaise", also known as "Let us renounce the old world"). The first skirmishes between the workers and the Cossacks and the police took place in the center of the city. In the evening, a meeting of the military and police authorities of Petrograd was held under the command of the commander of the Petrograd military district, General Khabalov. As a result of the meeting, the responsibility for maintaining order in the city was assigned to the military.
The report of the Security Department reported: “On February 23, in the morning, the workers of the Vyborgsky district, who appeared at the factories and factories, gradually began to stop work and in droves to go out into the streets, expressing protest and dissatisfaction with the lack of bread, which was especially felt in the named factory district, where, according to observations local police, in recent days, many have absolutely not been able to get bread. … While dispersing the growing crowd, heading from Nizhegorodskaya Street to Finland Station, the junior assistant of the bailiff of the first section of the Vyborg part, the collegiate secretary Grotius, was knocked down, trying to detain one of the workers, and the collegiate secretary Grotius suffered a cut wound on the back of the head, five bruised wounds to the head and injury to the nose. After providing initial assistance, the victim was sent to his apartment. By the evening of February 23rd, through the efforts of police officials and military detachments, order was restored everywhere in the capital."
On February 24 (March 9), a general strike began (over 214,000 workers at 224 enterprises). By 12.00 the Petrograd town governor Balk reported to General Khabalov that the police were not able to "stop the movement and the gathering of people." After that, soldiers of the guards reserve regiments - Grenadier, Keksholm, Moscow, Finland, 3rd rifle regiments were sent to the city center, and the protection of government buildings, the post office, the telegraph office and the bridges across the Neva was strengthened. The situation was heating up: in some places the Cossacks refused to disperse the protesters, the demonstrators beat the police, etc.
On February 25 (March 10), the strike and demonstrations continued and expanded. Already 421 enterprises and more than 300 thousand people were on strike. The French ambassador to Russia, Maurice Paleologue, recalled that day: “[The workers] sang the Marseillaise, wore red banners that read: Down with the Government! Down with Protopopov! Down with the War! Down with the German woman! …”(Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was to blame). There were cases of disobedience of the Cossacks: the patrol of the 1st Don Cossack Regiment refused to shoot the workers and put the police detachment to flight. Police officers were attacked, shot, thrown firecrackers, bottles and even hand grenades.
Tsar Nicholas II demanded by telegram from General Khabalov a decisive end to the riots in the capital. At night, security officers made mass arrests (over 150 people). In addition, the emperor signed a decree postponing the beginning of the next session of the State Duma to April 14. On the night of February 26 (March 11), General Khabalov ordered that notices be posted in St. Petersburg: “Any gatherings of people are prohibited. I warn the population that I renewed the permission for the troops to use weapons to maintain order, without stopping at anything."
On February 26 (March 11), the unrest continued. In the morning, bridges across the Neva were raised, but the demonstrators crossed the river on the ice. All forces of the troops and police were concentrated in the center, the soldiers were given cartridges. There were several clashes with the police. The bloodiest incident took place on Znamenskaya Square, where a company of the Volynsky Life Guards regiment opened fire on demonstrators (only here there were 40 killed and 40 wounded). The fire also opened at the corner of Sadovaya Street, along Nevsky Prospect, Ligovskaya Street, at the corner of 1st Rozhdestvenskaya Street and Suvorovsky Prospekt. The first barricades appeared on the outskirts, workers seized factories, and police stations were destroyed.
In the report of the Security Department for that day, it was noted: “During the riots, it was observed (as a general phenomenon) an extremely provocative attitude of the riotous assemblies towards military outfits, into which the crowd, in response to an offer to disperse, threw stones and lumps of snow chipped from the streets. During the preliminary firing of troops upwards, the crowd not only did not disperse, but met such volleys with laughter. Only through the use of live ammunition shooting in the midst of the crowd was it possible to disperse the gatherings, the participants of which, however, mostly hid in the courtyards of the nearest houses and, after the shooting stopped, went out into the street again.
Unrest began to engulf the troops. There was a mutiny of the 4th company of the reserve battalion of the Life Guards Pavlovsk regiment, which took part in dispersing workers' demonstrations. The soldiers opened fire on the police and on their own officers. On the same day, the rebellion was suppressed by the forces of the Preobrazhensky regiment, but more than 20 soldiers deserted with weapons. The commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress refused to accept the entire company, the composition of which was greatly inflated (1,100 people), saying that he had no room for such a number of prisoners. Only 19 ringleaders were arrested. Minister of War Belyaev suggested that the perpetrators of the mutiny be tribunalized and executed, but General Khabalov did not dare to take such harsh measures, limiting himself only to arrest. Thus, the military command showed weakness or it was deliberate sabotage. The sparks of rebellion in the troops had to be squeezed in the most decisive way.
In the evening, at a private meeting with the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Prince N. D. Golitsyn, it was decided to declare Petrograd in a state of siege, but the authorities did not even manage to paste up the relevant announcements, as they were torn off. As a result, the authorities showed their weakness. It is obvious that there was a conspiracy in the military-political elite of the Russian Empire and high-ranking officials played "giveaway" to the last, giving an opportunity to flare up a "spontaneous" uprising. Nikolai, however, did not have complete information and thought that this "nonsense" could easily be suppressed. Thus, in the early days, when there was still an opportunity to restore order, the top military-political leadership of the empire was practically inactive or deliberately condoned the coup.
At 17.00, the tsar received a panicky telegram from the chairman of the Duma, MV Rodzianko, stating that "there is anarchy in the capital" and "parts of the troops are shooting at each other." The tsar told the minister of the imperial court VB Fredericks to this that "again this fat man Rodzianko is writing all sorts of nonsense to me." In the evening, the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Prince Golitsyn, decided to announce a break in the work of the State Duma and the State Council until April, reporting this to Nicholas II. Late in the evening, Rodzianko sent another telegram to Headquarters demanding that the decree on the dissolution of the Duma be canceled and a "responsible ministry" be formed - otherwise, in his words, if the revolutionary movement develops into the army, "the collapse of Russia, and with it the dynasty, is inevitable." … Copies of the telegram were sent out by the front commanders with a request to support this appeal to the tsar.
The decisive day for the revolution was the next day, February 27 (March 12), when soldiers began to join the uprising en masse. The first to revolt was the training team of the reserve battalion of the Volyn regiment, numbering 600 people, led by senior non-commissioned officer T. I. Kirpichnikov. The head of the team, staff captain I. S. Lashkevich, was killed, and the soldiers seized the tseikhhaus, dismantled the rifles and ran out into the street. Modeled on the striking workers, the insurgent soldiers began to "remove" neighboring units, forcing them to join the uprising as well. The rebellious Volyn regiment was joined by the spare battalions of the Lithuanian and Preobrazhensky regiments, along with the 6th engineer battalion. Some of the officers of these regiments fled, some were killed. In the shortest possible time, the Volynians managed to annex about 20 thousand more soldiers. A large-scale military uprising began.
