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50 free Russian Revolution trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
In 1917 Russia went through two revolutions in eight months, toppling a 300-year-old dynasty and installing the world's first socialist state, then fought a civil war that did not end until 1922. This quiz covers the whole arc: the 1905 rehearsal and Bloody Sunday, Rasputin and the tsarina, the bread riots that became the February Revolution, the abdication at Pskov, Kerensky and the Provisional Government, Lenin's sealed train and April Theses, the July Days and the Kornilov affair, the storming of the Winter Palace, Brest-Litovsk, the Constituent Assembly, the Cheka and Red Terror, the murder of the Romanovs, Kronstadt and the birth of the USSR. Easy questions ask who led the Bolsheviks and which palace fell in October; harder ones cover Order No. 1, the cruiser Aurora's blank shot, and why the February Revolution happened in March. It suits history students and teachers, readers of Orlando Figes and John Reed, and quiz nights that want a modern-history round with real depth. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the revolutions and the people, treaties and institutions involved, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Petrograd, where the 1917 revolutions played out, regained which name in 1991?
Saint Petersburg
The Soviets, or workers' councils, formed there held domestic power alongside the Provisional Government in the "dual power" of 1917.
Q 02Why is the February Revolution so called when it took place in March by Western reckoning?
Russia still used the Julian dates
The same lag means the October Revolution is celebrated on 7 November.
Q 03Nicholas II abdicated on 15 March 1917 by the Western calendar. How many days behind was Russia's old-style calendar?
13
That made it 2 March in Russia; officials had convinced themselves the unrest would subside once the tsar stepped down.
Q 04At which city, halted on his train, was Nicholas II persuaded to abdicate?
Pskov
Nikolai Ruzsky, Alexander Guchkov and Vasily Shulgin urged him in unison to give up the throne.
Q 05Nicholas II nominated which relative to succeed him, who then declined the throne?
His brother Michael
The 300-year Romanov dynasty ended with that refusal.
Q 06The unrest of early 1917 began when a strike closed Petrograd's largest factory. Which one?
The Putilov works
The next day, rallies for International Women's Day turned into economic and political demonstrations.
Q 07Which liberal aristocrat first chaired the Provisional Government formed in March 1917?
Prince Georgy Lvov
He belonged to the Constitutional Democratic Party, the Kadets.
Q 08What did Kerensky do as war minister and prime minister despite overwhelming public opposition?
Continued the war and launched a new offensive
He also promoted free speech and released thousands of political prisoners, but the offensive failed like its predecessors.
Q 09The Bolshevik slogan that won them popular support promised three things. Which trio?
Peace, land and bread
It meant an end to the war, land for the peasants and an end to famine.
Q 10In which year did the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks split at the Second Congress of the RSDLP?
1903
The break came over Lenin's demand for a small party of professional revolutionaries rather than a broad membership.
Q 11Which Lenin pamphlet of 1901 helped precipitate the split with the Mensheviks?
What Is to Be Done?
It argued for a vanguard party and attacked the "Economists" who wanted reform without political change.
Q 12How did Lenin travel from Swiss exile back to Russia in April 1917?
In a supposedly sealed train through Germany
In fact the train was not truly sealed; passengers spent a night in Frankfurt.
Q 13What did Lenin prepare on the journey back to Russia, outlining core Bolshevik policies?
The April Theses
Q 21Which American journalist wrote the 1919 October Revolution account Ten Days That Shook the World?
John Reed
He wrote it in another ten days and nights, and is buried in the Kremlin wall.
Q 22Which party won the largest vote share in the late-1917 Constituent Assembly elections?
The Socialist Revolutionaries
They took around 57 to 58 percent nationally while the Bolsheviks won the cities, including nearly half of Moscow.
Q 23What did the Bolsheviks do to the Constituent Assembly once it met in January 1918?
Dissolved it following a single day
He announced them on arrival at Petrograd's Finland Station, condemning the Provisional Government outright.
Q 14What is the mass Petrograd demonstration of midsummer 1917, put down by the Provisional Government, called?
The July Days
Over 500,000 people took part, and the Bolsheviks' unpreparedness cost them support with soldiers and workers, though only briefly.
Q 15Which general's attempted march on Petrograd in August 1917 forced Kerensky to seek Bolshevik help?
Lavr Kornilov
Bolshevik influence over railway and telegraph workers stopped the troop movements, and the affair strengthened the party enormously.
Q 16The Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd began on which date, New Style?
7 November 1917
By the old-style reckoning it was 25 October, hence the name October Revolution.
Q 17Which cruiser reportedly fired the blank shot signalling the assault on the Winter Palace?
Aurora
She survived the Russo-Japanese War and has been preserved as a museum ship on the Neva since 1957.
Q 18The Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional Government, fell on which date (New Style)?
8 November 1917
The cadets and 140 volunteers of the Women's Battalion surrendered rather than resist; the assault on the city itself was almost bloodless.
Q 19How did Kerensky escape Petrograd on the morning of the Bolshevik insurrection?
In a car borrowed from the American embassy
He drove off in a Renault, accompanied by a Pierce-Arrow, hoping to find loyal troops outside the city.
Q 20Leon Trotsky, who built the Red Army, was assassinated in 1940 in which country?
Mexico
He had lived in all three of the others after his exile before settling in Mexico in 1937; the killer, Ramón Mercader, was a Stalinist agent.
Lenin went to bed telling the guards to let the deputies "go on chattering" and simply bar the doors the next day.
Q 24The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, taking Russia out of World War I, was signed on which date?
3 March 1918
It was annulled by the Armistice eight months later when Germany surrendered in the west.
Q 25Under Brest-Litovsk, what share of the former empire's population lay in the territories Russia gave up?
34 percent
The lands also held 54 percent of its industry and 89 percent of its coalfields, and Trotsky's stalling policy of "no war, no peace" had failed to prevent it.
Q 26Under pressure from German offensives, the Bolsheviks moved the capital from Petrograd to which city?
Moscow
The new state was proclaimed the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the RSFSR.
Q 27The Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, was founded in December 1917 under which "Iron" leader?
Felix Dzerzhinsky
The founding meeting was held at the Smolny Institute; the organisation hunted "enemies of the people" during the Red Terror.
Q 28The Red Terror followed an attempt on Lenin and the killing of which Petrograd Cheka head on 30 August 1918?
Moisei Uritsky
A young military cadet, Leonid Kannegisser, shot him outside the Cheka headquarters in revenge for executed officers.
Q 29The Romanov family were murdered on the night of 16–17 July 1918 in a house in which city?
Yekaterinburg
The Ipatiev House had been designated the "House of Special Purpose" and the family were held there as hostages.
Q 30Who commanded the squad that shot and stabbed the Romanovs to death?
Yakov Yurovsky
As commandant he had an iron grille fitted after Alexandra kept standing too close to an open window.