Celebrations and events across the empire marked 23 February, demanding rights for women and applauding their contributions. In the factories of Petrograd, radicals gave speeches on the situation of women, the iniquity of the war, the impossible cost of living. But even they did not expect what happened next. As the meetings ended, women began to pour from the factories onto the streets, shouting for bread. They marched through the city’s most militant districts – Vyborg, Liteiny, Rozhdestvensk – hollering to people gathered in the courtyards of the blocks, filling the wide streets in huge and
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