INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 1917
Martyn Whittock
Freelance historian, commentator, columnist. Specialising in the impact of history, and also faith, on contemporary life, politics, culture. Lay Minister in the Church of England.
Today – Monday 8th March 2021 – is International Women’s Day. On this day, in 1917, an event occurred which kick-started the Russian Revolution.
In March 1917, (February in the calendar then in use in Imperial Russia) long term dissatisfaction with the inefficient and autocratic rule of Tsar Nicholas II, combined with the catastrophic effects of the worst war in European history to bring down the Romanov dynasty. Strikes, food shortages and demonstrations mounted. Then, an unseasonal improvement in the weather encouraged larger than expected crowds to support the International Women’s Day marches. As the police struggled to control the situation, the crowds reached as high as 240,000 over several days. Within three days of the original women’s marches, troops fired on the crowds but the soldiers were beginning to question their orders.
Isolated from the reality of the situation at military headquarters, the tsar ordered the garrison at Petrograd (now St Petersburg) into action to clear the demonstrators off the streets. It was not to be. Within a day, the very soldiers who had first opened fire on the crowds had reconsidered their position and mutinied. Other regiments joined them and things spiralled out of control. When the tsar then refused a petition from the duma (parliament) to create a cabinet reflecting the makeup of the duma and to extend its sitting, some influential members formed a committee which became the focus of an alternative government. They hoped to establish a form of liberal democracy in Russia.
After meeting high ranking army officers and members of the duma, the tsar abdicated. On the same day a Provisional Government was established which aimed to rule the new republic of Russia until elections could be held to a ‘Constituent Assembly’, which would decide the future government. It failed because, in October, the Bolsheviks (Communists) staged a coup, despite lacking popular support for this action.
But it had all started on International Women’s Day. Never underestimate the power of women.
Some interesting insights into the events of 1917 can be found here:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/russias-february-revolution-was-led-women-march-180962218/