The Real and Original Revolution   

   By Ian Frazier, continued   

   Regiments in St. Petersburg mutiny and join throngs on the streets. The czar's government can find no loyal troops willing to move against the demonstrators.  

   Taking stock, Nicholas's ministers and generals inform him that he has no choice but to abdicate for the good of the country. On March 2, 1917, he complies. 

   Near-chaos ensues. Power is split between the Provisional Government and the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (a collection of socialist affiliations). (In Russian, "soviet" is "council," an essentially political entity.) 

   The February Revolution, as it's called, is the real and original Russian Revolution. February supplied the raw energy for the rest of 1917 - energy that Lenin and the Bolsheviks would co-opt as justification for their coup in October.

   Many classic images of the people's struggle in Russia derive from February. In that month, red became the color of revolution. Sympathetic onlookers wore red lapel ribbons, and marchers...used the red stripe for their long, narrow banner. 

   Even jaded artistic types wept when they heard self-led multitudes break into "The Marseillaise," France's revolutionary anthem, recast with fierce Russian lyrics. 

   Unlike the coup of October 1917, the February uprising had a spontaneous, popular quality. Of the many uprisings in Russia, only the events of February 1917 seemed to partake of joy.

   Lenin was living in Zurich. He kept company with other expatriate socialists and directed the Petrograd (non-German name for St. Petersburg) Bolsheviks by mail and telegram. 

   Leon Trotsky, who would become the other major Bolshevik of the revolution, was living in the Bronx. (Bolshevik is a word for "one of the majority," although the party was never a majority.) Not many Russians, or a majority of socialists, or even all Bolsheviks, shared Lenin's extreme views.

Next week: Seeking world, socialist revolution