There was a terrible famine in Russia, in 1891-92. The tsarist government botched the handling of the catastrophe. This deeply undermined public confidence in the political order, and threw fuel on the smoldering revolutionary fire. Do not doubt for a moment how the state’s inability to handle a major public health crisis can shake the political order to its foundations. The American people already have very low confidence in our public institutions. We could be headed into uncharted waters, and indeed, may already be in them, but we just don’t realize it yet.
From The Politics Of Plague, which I came across just after writing the above: