The people in Russia were ready for something to happen, yet the way it happened took everybody by surprise. The Women’s Day was being observed in Russia, on February 23, 1917, and the suffering women of Russia decided to take matters in their hands. Women workers in Petrograd came out to the streets to protest, leaving their factories.
It was a huge procession, of about 90,000 women. The streets filled with their shouts of “Bread!” and “Down with the autocracy!” It was the voice of suffering women who were weak with hunger and angry. Their husbands and fathers were mostly away, fighting in World War I, and these poor women had to work long, miserable hours to feed their families. This daring agitation of women grew rapidly into something bigger. The next day, more than 1, 50,000 men and women came out to join the protest. The numbers kept increasing and, by February 25, no one was working in Petrograd.
Initially, the crowds had to face some incidents of firing from the police and soldiers. But the police and the soldiers soon joined the protesters, too. By March 1, it became clear that this marked the end of the tsarist regime. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on March 2, 1917.
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