Women textile workers began the 1917 International Women's Day demonstrations in Petrograd.
On 8 March 1917 in the Gregorian calendar—23 February under Russia's then-used Julian calendar—women textile workers in Petrograd walked out and began demonstrating. Their action helped turn local industrial unrest into the February Revolution, which eventually brought down the Romanov monarchy.
The city was suffering from severe wartime shortages. Food prices had risen sharply, bread queues were long, and transport and fuel supplies were unreliable. Many women workers also carried the burden of supporting families while men served at the front. Their protests therefore combined demands for bread and relief from wartime hardship with broader political anger.
The demonstrations quickly drew in male factory workers and other residents. Strikes spread across Petrograd, and soldiers sent to suppress the crowds increasingly refused to fire or joined the protesters. Within days, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated.
Petrograd was the name of Saint Petersburg from 1914 to 1924. It was later renamed Leningrad and restored to Saint Petersburg in 1991, so modern accounts may use different names for the same city.