- Started as labor strikes over poor working conditions
- Led to the formation of the Saint Petersburg Soviet, a council of workers and soldiers
- Czar Nicholas II responded with the October Manifesto, promising civil liberties like the right to assemble, freedom of speech and religion, universal male suffrage.
- The Duma, a parliament with limited power, was established
First World War
- Russia joined the Allied powers in 1914, hoping to gain territory from the Ottoman empire.
- High casualties and poor performance of the Russian military led to growing unpopularity of czar
February Revolution
- In February 1917, women textile workers in Petrograd protested for bread and acceptable working conditions.
- Workers began joining soldiers mutinying in the streets
- The Duma established a Provisional Government, headed by Prince Georgy Lvov
Bolshevik Revolution
- The Provisional Government did not address the demands of the workers and peasants.
- Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik party, returned from exile and called for the socialist revolution.
- The Bolshevik party seized control of the government in November 1917, in the second Russian Revolution.