1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
St Petersburg (Petrograd); Neva River, Peter and Paul Fortress; Nevski Prospect, Finland Bahnhof (Train Station); Taurisches (Tauride) Palace
"'What [Kerensky] had to say on 14 February as the Duma reconvened was a stirring example of playing to the Soviet gallery.'The country now realizes that the Ministers are but fleeting shadows. The country can clearly see who sends them here. To prevent a catastrophe the Tsar himself must be removed, by force if there is no other way . . . If you will not listen to warning now you will find yourself face to face with the facts, not warning. Look up at the distant flashes that are lighting the skies of Russia.'Even as Kerensky was delivering his broadside, outside a massive demonstration of over 90,000 striking workers stormed along the Nevsky bearing aloft anti-war and anti-government banners. In the windows of the bakeries in Petrograd and Moscow the handwritten, whitewashed signs were becoming painfully familiar: 'No Bread Today — And None Expected'. At the Tsar's palace in Tsarskoe-Seloe, Alexandra, incandescent at Kerensky's oratory, called for his arrest and execution. But no one was listening."
The Russian Duma reconvened on February 27 (New Style, the 14th Old Style). Alexander Kerensky was a leading Socialist and member of the Petrograd Soviet. The bitterly cold weeks before Kerensky spoke led to a failure of the transport system and deliveries of food including to Petrograd and Moscow. Bolsheviks and others were active in the military and factories. Nobles and business people privately discussed the removal of Tsar Nicholas, but Kerensky's public call was a new step, one that infuriated Empress Alexandra.
1917: Russia's Year of Revolution by Roy Bainton, page 62, copyright © Roy Bainton 2005, publisher: Carroll and Graf Publishers, publication date: 2005
1917-02-27, 1917, February, Duma, Russian Duma, Kerensky, Alexander Kerensky, Petrograd, Moscow, Nicholas, Tsar Nicholas, Nicholas II, bread, demonstration, food shortage
