St. Petersburg, or Petrograd as it was named in deference to anti-German sentiment after the outbreak of world war in August 1914, was the main theater of revolutionary activity. But it was by no means the only one. Moscow and numerous other Russian cities figured prominently in the events that brought down the old order. In the final decades of late imperial Russia the changes associated with modernization profoundly altered the Russian city and transformed the conditions of daily life and labor for most of its inhabitants. Urban industrialization obviously played an important role in this general process of social, economic, and, ultimately, political change. In few places were the consequences more plainly to be seen than in the Empire's principal cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, which are the focus of attention in this chapter. My purpose is to describe some features of the urban environment that might serve as a backdrop to the revolution of 1917. Before embarking on this task, however, it is necessary to sketch in broad outline the pattern of population growth and industrial development in the Empire as a whole.

Citizens and cities in late imperial Russia

During the nineteenth century Russia grew significantly both in areal extent and in number of subjects. In the first quarter of the century the Caucasus region with its predominantly Christian, but ethnically diverse and non-Slavic peoples, was brought into the ambit of Empire.