Correct Answer – Option 1 : Nicholas II

The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire and began during the First World War.

Nicholas II was the last Emperor of All Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917.

• The main events of the revolution took place in and near Petrograd (present-day Saint Petersburg), the then-capital of Russia, where long-standing discontent with the monarchy erupted into mass protests against food rationing on 23 February Old Style. 
• The revolutionary activity lasted about eight days, involving mass demonstrations and violent armed clashes with police and gendarmes, the last loyal forces of the Russian monarchy.
• At the end of the “February Revolution“, Nicholas II chose to abdicate on 2 March (O.S.) / 15 March (N.S.) 1917.
• Nicholas thus abdicated on behalf of his son and drew up a new manifesto naming his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the next Emperor of all Russias.
• He issued a statement but it was suppressed by the Provisional Government.
• Michael declined to accept the throne until the people were allowed to vote through a Constituent Assembly for the continuance of the monarchy or a republic.
• During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin.
• He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles.
• Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas’s commitment to autocratic rule, strong aristocratic opposition, and defeats sustained by the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. 
• By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty’s 300-year rule of Russia.

Hence, the correct answer is Nicholas II.

• The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a series of political events in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the system of autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal Provisional Government ( Duma), resulting in the establishment of the Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party.
• This eventually led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which lasted until its dissolution in 1991.
• The Revolution can be viewed in two distinct phases:
  • The February Revolution of 1917, which displaced the autocracy of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last effective Tsar of Russia, and sought to establish in its place a liberal republic.
  • The October Revolution, in which the Bolshevik party and the workers’ Soviets, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government. While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and St. Petersburg, there was also a broadly based movement in the rural areas as peasants seized and redistributed land.