1. The Great War and the February Revolution, 1914-1917

2. Initial patriotic support
Duma deputies
Major cities
Middle-class
Workers stopped striking
Peasants – resignation and misunderstanding
Large-scale anti-German propaganda (popular): e.g. Petrograd
Initial military gains: East Prussia and Galicia

3. But soon ended, not a short war
April-September 1915: Great Retreat from:
Galicia
Prussia
Russian Poland
Lithuania
Latvia
Why?
Germans better armed
Russian generals incompetent
Radicalized soldiers

4. Great Retreat’s effects
Huge losses (G.F. Krivosheev) :
Killed in action 1,200,000
missing in action 439,369
died of wounds 240,000
gassed 11,000
died from disease 155,000
POW deaths 190,000
deaths due to accidents and other causes 19,000
Total war dead 2,254,369
Wounded 3,749,000
POW 3,342,900

5. A Whole Empire Walking (Peter Gatrell)
Massive refugees problem
Military command incompetent
Six million fled front zone
One million forcibly expelled Jews, Germans and other foreigners
Jewish pogroms
‘scorched earth’
Increased ethnic tensions

6. Peasants’ lives transformed
Most soldiers were peasants
50% of working-age men mobilized
Livestock massively requisitioned
Many impoverished
Soldatki
Stolypin land reform protests
Bazaar riots against price controls

7. War’s economic impact Prohibition stopped vodka revenues
Cut off markets
Cut off foreign investment
Impoverished government printed tons of money
Inflation
War effort greatly impeded food supply

8. Greater public participation
All-Russian Union of Zemstvos and Municipal Councils (ZemGor)
Aid to refugees, injured soldiers
Military-Industrial Committees
Involved middle-class, but workers often boycotted.
Led to greater public self-confidence
Progressive Bloc in Duma -- increasingly critical

9. Workers’ war situation
Many mobilized
Increasingly valuable to military production
But real wages fell; by 1917 a quarter of pre-war levels
Food supply and other necessities increasingly expensive and scarce
Illegal to strike
But by summer 1915 strikes began to increase
1915: 1000 strikes
1916: 1600 strikes, increasingly political and assertive demands.

10. Then, Nicholas went to front
Aug 1915: Progressive Bloc demanded a “Government of public confidence”
Nicholas refused, ignored the Duma, went to the front.
Left Alexandra and Rasputin in charge
The “German Woman” and the “Mad Monk”
Ministerial ‘leapfrog’
Left no one else to blame for military failures
Greatly undermined legitimacy of Romanovs

11. Nicholas at the front

12. Alexandra and Rasputin

13. 1 November 1916: “Stupidity or Treason?”
Pavel Miliukov
State Duma
Attacked Sturmer, Rasputin, and “the court party grouped around the young tsarina.”
Nicholas replaced Sturmer with Trepov.
MVD Protopopov remained.
Trepov tried to work with Duma.
Tried to remove Protopopov.
Trepov dismissed.
Liberal opposition united against tsarist government

14. Rasputin murdered, 16/29 December 1916
 Prince Felix Yusupov
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich
Vladimir Purishkevich
Did not solve the problem.

15. February (1917) Revolution
February 23 (March 8), 1917: International Women’s Day
Women joined by locked out Putilov workers
Police over-reacted.
25 February: General strike of 240,000 workers
Key: (27 Feb.) Volynsky regiment mutinied.

16. Revolutionary Petrograd

17. February Revolution, final acts
27 Feb: Temporary Committee of State Duma (Chair: Rodzianko)
1 March: Petrograd Soviet issued Order No. 1
March 2 (15), 1917: Tsar Nicholas II abdicates at Pskov.
March 3 (16): Grand Duke Mikhail declines the throne.

18. End of the Romanov Dynasty, 1613-1917

19. Provisional Government