What slogan did Petrograd women workers demand on International Women's Day in 1917?

Petrograd women workers demanded “Bread and Peace” on International Women's Day in 1917.

The slogan captured two immediate grievances: hunger at home and the First World War. On 8 March 1917, or 23 February in Russia's Julian calendar, women textile workers in Petrograd went on strike and took to the streets. They protested food shortages and bread rationing while calling for an end to the war.

The demonstrations grew beyond a women's protest. Male industrial workers joined the strikes, crowds confronted the authorities, and soldiers increasingly refused orders to fire on demonstrators. The unrest spread through Petrograd and became the starting point of the February Revolution.

“Bread and Peace” is sometimes reduced to a simple food protest, but the movement also carried political implications. Opposition to wartime hardship merged with hostility to Tsarist rule. The wider revolutionary crisis led to the abdication of Nicholas II and the creation of a Provisional Government.

Another calendar distinction matters here: the Russian event occurred on 23 February according to the Julian calendar then in use, but on 8 March in the Gregorian calendar. That conversion helped make the date central to later International Women's Day observances.