Inspired by the writings of Karl Marx (1818-1883), who foresaw a revolt in which laborers would become the ruling class, revolutionary figures, such as Lenin, continued to agitate against the tsar.

Many others viewed the October Manifesto as too little, too late. These concessions appeased enough of the revolutionaries for Nicholas to stay in power. He issued the October Manifesto, which laid the groundwork for the protection of civil rights, the creation of a constitution, and the establishment of a parliament called the Duma. In the fall of 1905 Tsar Nicholas finally compromised. The revolt continued throughout the year. The Romanov family was held in a house in Yekaterinburg until July 1918, when Nicholas, his wife, and their five children were murdered in the cellar. Not even his abdication in March 1917 would save him from the Bolsheviks. His decision to take supreme command of the armed forces-and the influence of the sinister monk Rasputin over his wife-lost Nicholas crucial support. The cocktail of war and revolt would prove his undoing a decade later, even though Russia entered World War I in 1914 on a surge of patriotism.

RussiaвЂ™s 1904-05 war with Japan ended in humiliation and revolution in the streets of St. When Nicholas became tsar in 1894, he understood little of modern Russia, whose ever more educated, urban, and restless society was on a collision course with his autocratic instincts. His son worshipped his father, even though Alexander openly regarded Nicholas as a weakling and nicknamed him вЂњgirlie.вЂќ Tsar Nicholas II Romanov-born Nikolay Aleksandrovich in 1868-had grown up in the shadow of his father, the bearded, burly Alexander III. Petersburg in January 1905, protesters were fired on and killed, an event that triggered months of protests. In 1905 the tsarвЂ™s popularity was ebbing due to continuing domestic problems as well as an unpopular war with Japan. Reigning from 1894, Nicholas had inherited RussiaвЂ™s colossal empire and the autocratic ideas of his family, the Romanov dynasty. The pressures of industrialization were worsened by the actions of Tsar Nicholas II. In the cities, the appalling exploitation and squalor suffered by the workers triggered waves of protests and strikes. During a devastating famine in the early 1890s, the inability of the government to provide sufficient relief had fanned revolutionary fervor in the country. Shlyapnikov observed on February 25: вЂњGive the workers a pound of bread and the movement will peter out.вЂќ Hunger, War, RageДespite initial doubts that the growing February protests would amount to much, many observers at the time-including LeninвЂ™s Bolsheviks, Russian liberals, and foreign diplomats-were nevertheless certain that a revolution was only a matter of time. Aleksandr Shlyapnikov was a leading figure of the Bolshevik movement, whose leader, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, had been living outside Russia for long periods of time since 1900. Even as disaffected and hungry workers, male and female, joined in the protests, some revolutionaries remained skeptical. Crowds of female factory workers gathered in the center of Petrograd, the Russian capital (formerly known as St. The first sign that something big was happening was on International WomenвЂ™s Day-February 23, 1917, in the old Russian calendar.

Victoria 2 communist flags