St. Petersburg enters the book’s account of women’s history as the site of a mass demonstration on March 8, 1917. Women took to the streets demanding bread, peace, and their husbands’ return; the demonstration came only days before the revolution and is later described as a possible trigger, but also as a signal rather than the force that alone determined the outcome.## The March 8 DemonstrationWomen’s participation in the events surrounding the Russian Revolution is presented as part of a wider progression from work and protest to direct political action. During the 1905 strikes, women took part in mass demonstrations and mounted barricades. On March 8, 1917, women in St. Petersburg demonstrated in large numbers, joining immediate demands for bread and peace to the personal demand that their husbands return. Their protest was both political and rooted in everyday hardship.## From Demonstration to RevolutionThe demonstrators acted just days before the revolution, and the book allows that their action may have helped set it in motion. It nevertheless distinguishes a signal from the political transformation that followed: the March 8 protest could announce or precipitate a larger upheaval without being its sole cause. Women also took part in the October insurrection, and between 1918 and 1920 they played important economic and even military roles in the Soviet Union’s struggle against invading forces.## Historical SignificanceSt. Petersburg’s demonstration illustrates both women’s capacity for collective action and the limits the book identifies in their historical power. The women made a public intervention around food, peace, and absent husbands; in the account’s broader interpretation, however, women’s demonstrations gained lasting force when male political decisions carried them forward. The protest thus stands as a consequential moment of women acting together, while also exposing the difference between initiating a signal and controlling the course of political change.