The February Revolution was not merely chaotic, far from it.
At first, it seemed like just a larger-scale strike (90,000 people). Tsar Nicholas II did not pay much attention to it; after all, there had been many such protests during wartime, with over a hundred thousand participants before.
However, the next day, the number of strikers and demonstrators quickly expanded to 200,000, with many soldiers joining them. Nicholas II was instantly panic-stricken and rushed to deploy the army to suppress it, but to no avail.
On March 10, Nicholas II ordered the shooting of the demonstrators.
On March 11, soldiers from a company of the reserve battalion of the Pavlovsky Regiment, tasked with suppressing the uprising, mutinied, refusing to fire on the demonstrators.
From this day, the strike ceased to be a mere strike; it quietly transitioned into an uprising.
