The death of Tsar Fyodor on 27 April 1682, came in the middle of the young tsar's attempts to strengthen his political position by his marriage and new Duma appointments. His disappearance from the scene cut that process short, leaving his favorites, Golitsyn, the Iazykovs, and the Likhachevs, high and dry. The plans to ally with the Naryshkins and return Matveev to Moscow were still in the early stages, and even the briefly influential V. B. Sheremetev had died three days before the tsar himself. This was an explosive situation among the great boyars, for the court was still in flux, and there was no reason to believe that Matveev or the Naryshkins would forgive their enemies after the ordeals of 1676–77. At the same time, trouble was brewing among the musketeers, trouble that would soon lead to a bloody revolt and reorganization of power at the Russian court.

The reorganization of power was the result of the revolt, not its aim or its cause. The revolt of the musketeers was the outcome of basic social and military discontent among them, resentment of their exploitation by some of the colonels for private purposes, and the indifference of the government authorities to this exploitation.