On 2 March 1917 Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, leaving the Provisional Government in control of the country, which declared the Russian Republic.
The Bolsheviks in exile became desperate to return to Russia to help shape the future of the country.
The German Foreign Ministry, which hoped that Bolshevik influence in Russia would help bring the war on the Eastern Front to an end, provided a special train for Armand, Vladimir Lenin and 26 other revolutionaries to travel to Petrograd.

She did not participate in most of the revolutionary events, choosing to take care of her ill son Andrei instead.
It is still unclear why she chose to be inactive during this crucial period of seizing power, although she had interrupted her revolutionary activities for the sake of her children in 1905, 1908 and 1913.
On 19 April, she did attend a Moscow Oblast Conference, in which she made forceful speeches on the necessity of the election of officers and the fraternization of combatant forces, as well as on the opportunism of the Second International's leaders.

After the October Revolution, Armand headed the Moscow Economic Council and served as an executive member of the Moscow Soviet.
She became a staunch critic of the Soviet government's decision to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
On her return to Petrograd, she became director of Zhenotdel, an organisation that fought for female equality in the Communist Party and the Soviet trade unions (Zhenotdel operated until 1930), with powers to make legislative decisions.
She drove through reforms to allow women rights to divorce, abort, participate in government affairs and create the facilities like mass canteens and mother centers.
In 1918, with Sverdlov's assistance against opposition from Zinoviev and Radek, she succeeded in getting a national congress of working women held, with Lenin as a speaker.
According to Elwood, the reason the party leadership agreed to back up Armand’s agitation for communal facilities was that the Civil War required enlisting women into factory work and auxiliary tasks in the Red Army, which created the need to release women from traditional duties.
Armand also chaired the First International Conference of Communist Women in 1920.
The spring of 1920 saw the appearance, again on Armand’s initiative, of the journal Kommunistka, which dealt with "the broader aspects of female emancipation and the need to alter the relationship between the sexes if lasting change was to be effected".
On 2 March 1917 Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, leaving the Provisional Government in control of the country, which declared the Russian Republic. The Bolsheviks in exile became desperate to return to Russia to help shape the future of the country. The German Foreign Ministry, which hoped that Bolshevik influence in Russia would help bring the war on the Eastern Front to an end, provided a special train for Armand, Vladimir Lenin and 26 other revolutionaries to travel to Petrograd.
She did not participate in most of the revolutionary events, choosing to take care of her ill son Andrei instead. It is still unclear why she chose to be inactive during this crucial period of seizing power, although she had interrupted her revolutionary activities for the sake of her children in 1905, 1908 and 1913. On 19 April, she did attend a Moscow Oblast Conference, in which she made forceful speeches on the necessity of the election of officers and the fraternization of combatant forces, as well as on the opportunism of the Second International's leaders.
After the October Revolution, Armand headed the Moscow Economic Council and served as an executive member of the Moscow Soviet. She became a staunch critic of the Soviet government's decision to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. On her return to Petrograd, she became director of Zhenotdel, an organisation that fought for female equality in the Communist Party and the Soviet trade unions (Zhenotdel operated until 1930), with powers to make legislative decisions. She drove through reforms to allow women rights to divorce, abort, participate in government affairs and create the facilities like mass canteens and mother centers. In 1918, with Sverdlov's assistance against opposition from Zinoviev and Radek, she succeeded in getting a national congress of working women held, with Lenin as a speaker. According to Elwood, the reason the party leadership agreed to back up Armand’s agitation for communal facilities was that the Civil War required enlisting women into factory work and auxiliary tasks in the Red Army, which created the need to release women from traditional duties. Armand also chaired the First International Conference of Communist Women in 1920. The spring of 1920 saw the appearance, again on Armand’s initiative, of the journal Kommunistka, which dealt with "the broader aspects of female emancipation and the need to alter the relationship between the sexes if lasting change was to be effected".
Inessa Armand