ON 2 MARCH 1917 (Note 1) Tsar Nicholas II signed an act of abdication, and the 300-year-old dynasty of the Romanovs effectively came to an end. Less than two weeks earlier, the prospect of such a dramatic outcome had seemed remote and unlikely. Strikes in Petrograd, the Russian capital,2 began on 23 February, and were accompanied by housewives' protests against wartime bread shortages. At first, these events on the streets of the capital did not seem any more dangerous than previous demonstrations that had been suppressed, or had petered out ineffectually. The unrest of February 1917, however, became potentially much more significant when the troops of the Petrograd garrison refused to open fire on the demonstrators when ordered to do so. Some regiments mutinied, turning their guns on their own officers rather than on the protesting civilians. Events might yet have been brought under control if troops loyal to the Tsar's government could have been brought into the city from outside; and this option was seriously considered by Nicholas and his advisers. But orders issued to General Ivanov to move his forces against Petrograd were cancelled, and the Tsar began to negotiate with the politicians in the capital. Nicholas opted for concessions to the critics of his autocratic government, rather than repression. He at first agreed to form a new government, accountable to the elected parliament (the State Duma), but the demands of the revolutionary population of Petrograd became more and more extreme, culminating in a call for the Tsar's abdication.
When the unrest in the capital began, Nicholas had been at the General Headquarters of the Russian army at Mogilev, in the western part of the Empire. He attempted to return to Petrograd but, because of striking railway-workers, his train was diverted, and he ended up in the town of Pskov, the headquarters of the northern front. Poor communications with the capital meant crucial delays in the Tsar's responses to the series of demands issuing from Petrograd. His closest advisers, both at Mogilev and Pskov, were army generals: it was they who persuaded him to make political concessions rather than attempt military repression. Nicholas's abdication, however, led to a much more unstable and potentially dangerous situation than these advisers had expected. A Provisional Government of liberal politicians associated with the Duma was formed in the capital, but at the same time there came into existence the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, dominated by socialist intellectuals. The rivalry for power between these two institutions was to last throughout the spring and summer of 1917, and to lead to the Bolsheviks' seizure of power in a new revolution in October.
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