House of Romanov (1881–1894), and Nicholas II (1894–1917). Constantine Pavlovich and Michael Alexandrovich, both morganatically married, are occasionally counted among Russia's emperors by historians who observe that the Russian monarchy did not legally permit interregnums. But neither was crowned and both actively declined the throne. The February Revolution of 1917 resulted in the abdication of Nicholas II in favor of his brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. The latter declined to accept imperial authority save to delegate it to the Provisional Government pending a future democratic referendum, effectively terminating the Romanov dynasty's rule over Russia. After the February Revolution, Nicholas II and his family
The Revolution Betrayed known by his pseudonym Leon Trotsky, was one of the top leaders of the 1917 October Revolution which brought a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (the Bolsheviks) (RSDLP) to power in Russia. Trotsky had long been one of the leading Marxist revolutionaries in Imperial Russia, sentenced in 1900 to exile in a distant part of Siberia for his activities against the regime. After a period of European exile, Trotsky returned to Russia during the abortive 1905 Russian Revolution, where his electric oratory made him a leading figure in the St. Petersburg Soviet until his arrest in December