What triggered the February 1917 Revolution in Petrograd?

• A. Massive strikes, bread shortages, and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II leading to a provisional government.
• B. A successful Bolshevik coup.
• C. The signing of a peace treaty with Germany.
• D. The creation of the Duma.

Answer: (A)

The key idea is that the February 1917 upheaval in Petrograd was sparked by a collapse of Tsarist authority under wartime pressure and domestic hardship. Widespread strikes, bread shortages, and rising costs turned the city into a stage for mass protest, and the regime proved unable to restore order or sustain legitimacy. As the protests grew, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, and a Provisional Government emerged to take the place of the autocracy, backed by the city’s soviet authorities. This sequence—mass unrest culminating in the autocrat’s abdication and the provisional government taking power—defines the February revolution.

The other events don’t fit as the trigger for this uprising: a Bolshevik coup happened later in October; a peace treaty with Germany did not occur until 1918; and the Duma was created earlier, around 1905–1906, not as the spark that started the 1917 revolution.