How Women Workers Started the Russian Revolution

When Russia entered World War One, the Tsar allowed women to get jobs while men were away. This project argues how the working class women of Russia in the early 1900s started the February Revolution by protesting the war and its effects on their lives. Scholars tend to focus on the male leaders of the Revolution. I argue that women played a critical role in the February Revolution, which led to the wider part of the Russian Revolution itself. I draw upon several books, scholarly articles, and first-hand accounts to support my claims. I will argue that these working women grew frustrated with the economic effects of the war, which caused inflation. They were not able to support themselves let alone their family with their husbands away and were forced to take up low-wage work with long hours and harsh conditions. As conditions worsened, they protested for an end to the war, for food, and ultimately for the Tsar to be removed from power. Their decision to protest led to the creation of a new government and eventually the Bolshevik seizure of power. Working women, not men, started the revolution because of the domestic conditions caused by the war.