Uprising at the Putilov plant 1905. “Bloody Sunday” - the beginning of the First Russian Revolution
This day in history: 1905 - "Bloody Sunday"
January 9 (22), 1905, St. Petersburg - events known as “Bloody Sunday” or “Red Sunday” occurred - the dispersal of a procession of workers to the Winter Palace, which had the goal of presenting a collective Petition to the sovereign about workers’ needs.
Where it all started
It all started with the fact that at the end of December 1904, 4 workers were fired at the Putilov plant. The plant carried out an important defense order - it made a railway transporter for transporting submarines. Russian submarines could change the course of the naval war in our favor, and for this they had to be delivered across the country to Far East. This could not be done without the transporter ordered from the Putilov plant.
Three were fired for actual absenteeism, and only one person was actually treated unfairly. But this occasion was happily taken up by the revolutionaries, and they began to escalate passions. It should be noted that the Socialist-Revolutionary P. Rutenberg, who was part of G. Gapon’s inner circle, also worked at Putilovsky (as the head of a tool workshop).
By January 3, 1905, an ordinary labor conflict escalated into a general factory strike. Then the factory management was presented with the demands. But the workers’ petition spoke not so much about the reinstatement of their comrades as about a wide list of economic and political demands that the administration could not fulfill for obvious reasons. In the blink of an eye, almost all of St. Petersburg went on strike as a sign of solidarity. The police reports spoke of the active participation of Japanese and British intelligence services in spreading the riot.
Details of the provocation
The idea of going to the Tsar with a petition was submitted by the priest Georgy Gapon and his entourage on January 6, 1905. However, the workers who were invited to go to the Tsar for help were introduced only to purely economic demands. Gaponov's provocateurs even began to spread the rumor that Nicholas II himself wanted to meet with his people. The provocation scheme was as follows: revolutionary agitators, allegedly on behalf of the Tsar, conveyed the following to the workers: “I, the Tsar by God’s grace, am powerless to cope with officials and bars, I want to help the people, but the nobles do not give. Rise up, Orthodox, help me, the Tsar, to overcome my and your enemies.”
Many eyewitnesses spoke about this (for example, the Bolshevik Subbotina). Hundreds of revolutionary provocateurs walked among the people, inviting people to come to Palace Square at two o'clock in the afternoon on January 9, declaring that the Tsar would be waiting for them there. As you know, the workers began to prepare for this day as a holiday: they ironed their best clothes, many planned to take their children with them. In the minds of the majority, this was a kind of procession to the Tsar, especially since a priest promised to lead it.
What is known about the events between January 6 and 9 is that: On the morning of January 7, Minister of Justice N.V. Muravyov attempted to enter into negotiations with Gapon, who was already in hiding by that time, who, according to the conviction of the St. Petersburg mayor, General I., who had known him for many years. A. Fullon, could bring calm to the ranks of the strikers. Negotiations took place in the afternoon at the Ministry of Justice. The ultimatum nature of the radical political demands of Gaponov's petition made continuation of negotiations pointless, but, fulfilling the obligation assumed during the negotiations, Muravyov did not order the immediate arrest of the priest.
On the evening of January 7, the Minister of Internal Affairs Svyatopolk-Mirsky held a meeting in which Minister of Justice Muravyov, Minister of Finance Kokovtsov, Comrade Minister of Internal Affairs, Chief of the Gendarme Corps General Rydzevsky, Director of the Police Department Lopukhin, Commander of the Guards Corps General Vasilchikov, St. Petersburg mayor General Fullon. After the Minister of Justice reported unsuccessful negotiations with Gapon, the possibility of arresting the latter was considered at the meeting.
But “in order to avoid further aggravation of the situation in the city, they decided to refrain from issuing an arrest warrant for the priest.”
On the morning of January 8, Gapon composed a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs, which was transferred by one of his associates to the ministry. In this letter, the priest stated: “Workers and residents of St. Petersburg of different classes wish and must see the Tsar on January 9, Sunday, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Palace Square, in order to directly express to him their needs and the needs of the entire Russian people. The king has nothing to fear. I, as a representative of the “Assembly of Russian Factory Workers” of the city of St. Petersburg, my fellow workers, comrades, even the so-called revolutionary groups of various directions guarantee the inviolability of his personality... Your duty to the Tsar and the entire Russian people is to immediately, today, bring to information from His Imperial Majesty, both all of the above, and our petition attached here.”
Gapon sent a letter of similar content to the emperor. But, due to the arrest of the worker who delivered the letter to Tsarskoe Selo, it was not received by the tsar. On this day, the number of workers on strike reached 120,000 people, and the strike in the capital became general.
On the evening of January 8, the Minister of the Imperial Court, Baron Fredericks, who arrived from Tsarskoye Selo, conveyed to Svyatopolk-Mirsky the Highest command to declare martial law in St. Petersburg. Soon Svyatopolk-Mirsky convened a meeting. None of those present had any idea that the movement of the workers would have to be stopped by force, much less that bloodshed might occur. Nevertheless, at the meeting they decided to arrest the priest.
Georgy Gapon and I. A. Fullon in “Meeting of Russian Factory Workers”
General Rydzevsky signed an order to the St. Petersburg mayor Fullon for the immediate arrest of Gapon and 19 of his closest associates. But Fullon considered that “these arrests cannot be carried out, because this would require too many police officers, whom he cannot divert from maintaining order, and because these arrests cannot but be associated with outright resistance "
After the meeting, Svyatopolk-Mirsky went with a report on the situation in St. Petersburg to the tsar - this report, which aimed to get the emperor to lift martial law in the capital, was of a calming nature and did not give an idea of the severity and complexity of the situation in St. Petersburg on the eve of an unprecedented scale and radicalism political demands for mass action by workers. The Emperor was also not informed of the intentions of the military and police authorities of the capital for the coming day. For all these reasons, on January 8, 1905, a decision was made - the tsar would not go to the capital tomorrow, but would remain in Tsarskoe Selo (he lived there permanently, and not in the Winter Palace).
The sovereign's abolition of martial law in the capital did not at all mean that he had canceled the order to arrest Georgy Gapon and his main associates in organizing the general strike. Therefore, fulfilling the instructions of the Minister of the Imperial Court Fredericks, the head of his office, General Mosolov, on the night of January 9 called Comrade Minister of Internal Affairs Rydzewski to obtain information on this matter.
“I asked him if Gapon had been arrested,” General Mosolov later recalled, “he told me that no, due to the fact that he had holed up in one of the houses in the working-class district and for his arrest he would have had to sacrifice at least 10 police officers.” . They decided to arrest him the next morning, during his speech. Having probably heard in my voice a disagreement with his opinion, he said to me: “Well, do you want me to take on my conscience 10 human victims because of this filthy priest?” To which my answer was that in his place I would take it on my conscience and all 100, because tomorrow, in my opinion, threatens with much greater human casualties, which in reality, unfortunately, turned out ... "
The imperial standard over the Winter Palace was lowered at half-mast on January 9, as was always done in the absence of the emperor in the Winter Palace. In addition, Gapon himself and other leaders of workers’ organizations (not to mention the Socialist Revolutionaries from Gapon’s inner circle) knew that the code of laws Russian Empire provided for the submission of petitions to the king different ways, but not during mass demonstrations.
Nevertheless, it is possible to assume that I could have come to St. Petersburg and reached people if not for 4 circumstances:
Some time before the events described, the police were able to find out that Socialist-Revolutionary terrorists had appeared in Gapon’s immediate circle. Let me remind you that the Charter of the Union of Factory Workers prohibited the entry of socialists and revolutionaries into it, and until 1905 Gapon (and the workers themselves) strictly observed this Charter.
The law of the Russian Empire did not provide for the submission of petitions to the Tsar during mass demonstrations, especially petitions with political demands.
These days, an investigation began into the events of January 6, and one of the main versions was an attempt to assassinate Nicholas II.
Almost from the very morning, riots began in some columns of demonstrators, which were provoked by the Social Revolutionaries (for example, on Vasilievsky Island, even before the shooting in other areas).
That is, if there were no Socialist-Revolutionary provocateurs in the ranks of the demonstrators of the Union of Factory Workers, if the demonstration had been peaceful, then around noon the emperor could have been informed about the purely peaceful nature of the demonstration, and then he could have given the appropriate orders to allow the demonstrators to Palace Square and appoint your representatives to meet with them, or go to St. Petersburg, to the Winter Palace, and meet with representatives of the workers.
Provided, of course, if there were no other three circumstances.
If not for these circumstances, the sovereign could have arrived in the capital in the afternoon; peaceful demonstrators could be allowed onto Palace Square; Gapon and several representatives of the workers could be invited to the Winter Palace. It is likely that after the negotiations the tsar would have gone out to the people and announced that some decisions had been made in favor of the workers. And in any case, if not for these 4 circumstances, then representatives from the government appointed by the Sovereign would have met with Gapon and the workers. But the events after January 6 (after Gapon’s first calls to the workers) developed so rapidly and were organized by the Socialist Revolutionaries standing behind Gapon in such a provocative manner that the authorities did not have time to either properly understand them or react correctly to them.
So, thousands of people were ready to come out to meet the sovereign. It was impossible to cancel the demonstration - newspapers were not published. And until late in the evening on the eve of January 9, hundreds of agitators walked around working-class areas, exciting people, inviting them to Palace Square, declaring again and again that the meeting was being hindered by exploiters and officials.
Striking workers at the gates of the Putilov plant, January 1905.
The St. Petersburg authorities, who gathered on the evening of January 8 for a meeting, realizing that it was no longer possible to stop the workers, decided not to allow them into the very center of the city. The main task was to prevent unrest, the inevitable crush and death of people as a result of the flow of huge masses from 4 sides in the narrow space of Nevsky Prospect and to Palace Square, among the embankments and canals. In an effort to prevent a tragedy, authorities issued an announcement banning the January 9 march and warning of the danger. The revolutionaries tore off sheets with the text of this announcement from the walls of houses and again repeated to people about the “intrigues” of officials.
It is obvious that Gapon, deceiving both the sovereign and the people, hid from them the subversive work that his entourage was carrying out. He promised the emperor immunity, but he himself knew very well that the so-called revolutionaries, whom he invited to participate in the procession, would come out with the slogans “Down with autocracy!”, “Long live the revolution!”, and in their pockets there would be revolvers. In the end, the priest’s letter was of an unacceptably ultimatum character - a Russian person did not dare speak to the sovereign in such a language and, of course, would hardly have approved of this message - but, let me remind you, Gapon at rallies told the workers only part of the petition, which contained only economic demands .
Gapon and the criminal forces behind him were preparing to kill the Tsar himself. Later, after the events described, the priest was asked in a narrow circle of like-minded people:
Well, Father George, now we are alone and there is no need to be afraid that dirty linen will be washed out in public, and that’s a thing of the past. You know how much they talked about the event of January 9 and how often one could hear the judgment that if the Tsar had accepted the delegation with honor, if he had listened to the deputies kindly, everything would have turned out all right. Well, what do you think, oh. George, what would have happened if the king had come out to the people?
Absolutely unexpectedly, but in a sincere tone, the priest answered:
They would have killed in half a minute, half a second.
The head of the St. Petersburg security department, A.V. Gerasimov, also described in his memoirs that there was a plan to kill Nicholas II, which Gapon told him about during a conversation with him and Rachkovsky: “Suddenly, I asked him if it was true that on January 9 there was a plan to shoot the emperor when he came out to the people. Gapon replied: “Yes, that’s true. It would be terrible if this plan came to fruition. I found out about him much later. It was not my plan, but Rutenberg’s... The Lord saved him...”
Representatives of the revolutionary parties were distributed among separate columns of workers (there were eleven of them - according to the number of branches of Gapon's organization). Socialist Revolutionary militants were preparing weapons. The Bolsheviks put together detachments, each of which consisted of a standard bearer, an agitator and a core that defended them (i.e., in fact, militants). All members of the RSDLP were required to be at the collection points by six o'clock in the morning. Banners and banners were being prepared: “Down with autocracy!”, “Long live the revolution!”, “To arms, comrades!”
January 9, 1905 – beginning of Bloody Sunday
On January 9, early in the morning, workers began gathering at assembly points. Before the start of the procession, a prayer service for the health of the Tsar was served in the chapel of the Putilov plant. The procession had all the features of a religious procession. In the first rows they carried icons, banners and royal portraits. But from the very beginning, long before the first shots were fired, at the other end of the city, on Vasilievsky Island (as well as in some other places), groups of workers close to the Socialist Revolutionaries, led by revolutionary provocateurs, built barricades from telegraph poles and hoisted red flags on them.
There were several tens of thousands of people in individual columns. This huge mass fatally moved towards the center and the closer it came to it, the more it was subjected to the agitation of revolutionary provocateurs. Not a single shot had been fired yet, and some people were spreading the most incredible rumors about mass shootings. Attempts by the authorities to call the procession to order were rebuffed by specially organized groups.
The head of the police department, Lopukhin, who, by the way, sympathized with the socialists, wrote about these events as follows: “Electrified by agitation, crowds of workers, not succumbing to the usual general police measures and even cavalry attacks, persistently strove for the Winter Palace, and then, irritated by the resistance, began attack military units. This state of affairs led to the need to take emergency measures to restore order, and military units I had to act against huge crowds of workers with firearms.”
The procession from the Narva outpost was led by Gapon himself, who kept shouting: “If we are refused, then we no longer have a Tsar.” The column approached the Obvodny Canal, where its path was blocked by rows of soldiers. The officers suggested that the increasingly pressing crowd stop, but it did not obey. The first salvos were fired, blanks. The crowd was ready to return, but Gapon and his assistants walked forward, dragging the crowd with them. Combat shots rang out.
Events unfolded in approximately the same way in other places - on the Vyborg side, on Vasilievsky Island, on the Shlisselburg tract. Red banners and revolutionary slogans began to appear. Part of the crowd, excited by trained militants, smashed weapons stores and erected barricades. On Vasilyevsky Island, a crowd led by the Bolshevik L.D. Davydov seized Schaff's weapons workshop. “In Kirpichny Lane,” Lopukhin later reported to the sovereign, “a crowd attacked two policemen, one of them was beaten. On Morskaya Street, Major General Elrich was beaten, on Gorokhovaya Street, one captain was beaten and a courier was detained, and his engine was broken. The crowd pulled a cadet from the Nikolaev Cavalry School who was passing by in a cab from his sleigh, broke the saber with which he defended himself, and inflicted beatings and wounds on him...”
Consequences of Bloody Sunday
In total, on January 9, 1905, 96 people were killed (including a police officer), and up to 333 people were wounded, of whom another 34 people died before January 27 (including one assistant police officer). So, in total, 130 people were killed and about 300 were wounded. The pre-planned action of the revolutionaries had such consequences.
One must think that many of the participants in that demonstration eventually understood the essence of the provocation of Gapon and the Socialist Revolutionaries. Thus, there is a known letter from worker Andrei Ivanovich Agapov (a participant in the events of January 9) to the newspaper “Novoye Vremya” (in August 1905), in which he, addressing the instigators of the provocation, wrote:
...You deceived us and turned the workers, loyal subjects of the Tsar, into rebels. You put us under fire on purpose, you knew it would happen. You knew what was written in the petition, allegedly on our behalf, by the traitor Gapon and his gang. But we didn’t know, and if we had known, then not only would we not have gone anywhere, but we would have torn you to shreds together with Gapon, with our own hands.
1905, January 19 - in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, the sovereign received a deputation of workers from capital and suburban plants and factories consisting of 34 people, accompanied by the St. Petersburg Governor General D.F. Trepov, telling them, in particular, the following:
I called you so that you could personally hear My word from Me and directly convey it to your comrades.<…>I know that the life of a worker is not easy. Much needs to be improved and streamlined, but have patience. You yourself, in all conscience, understand that you should be fair to your employers and take into account the conditions of our industry. But telling Me about your needs in a rebellious crowd is criminal.<…>I believe in the honest feelings of working people and their unwavering devotion to Me, and therefore I forgive them their guilt.<…>.
Nicholas II and the Empress allocated 50 thousand rubles from their own funds to provide assistance to family members of “those killed and wounded during the riots on January 9th in St. Petersburg.”
Of course, Bloody Sunday on January 9 produced The royal family very difficult impression. And the revolutionaries are unleashing the Red Terror...
Important problem national history beginning of the twentieth century - was the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907, and therefore the entire revolutionary era, the result of deep-seated social problems, or a tragic misunderstanding that threw Russia down the slope of history?
The key event that is at the center of this debate is Bloody Sunday. The consequences of this event for subsequent history are enormous. In the capital of the Russian Empire, the blood of workers was suddenly shed, which undermined the trust of the broad masses in the autocracy.
Power: imitation of “public dialogue”
The history of the demonstration on January 9, 1905 stems from two historical circumstances: the “spring of Svyatopolk-Mirsky” and the attempts of supporters of the autocracy to establish contacts with the working class.
After the assassination of the Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. on July 15, 1904 by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Plehve new minister P.D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky preferred to pursue a more liberal policy. He prepared a draft of reforms that involved the creation of a legislative parliament. Public gatherings were allowed. The liberal intelligentsia began to organize banquets that attracted the public. At these banquets toasts were made to the constitution and parliamentarism. The Congress of Zemstvo Leaders also advocated the election of deputies from the people and the transfer of part of their legislative powers to them.
Following the intellectuals, the workers also became more active. The formation of the labor movement at the very beginning of the century was facilitated by the police. In 1898-1901, the head of the Moscow security department, Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov, managed to convince his leadership that the autocracy could rely on the workers in the fight against the liberal intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie.
In 1902, Zubatov headed the Special Department of the Police Department and began to encourage the creation of “Zubatov” workers’ organizations throughout the country. In St. Petersburg, the “Mutual Aid Society of Mechanical Production Workers of St. Petersburg” was created. “Zubatov’s” organizations were primarily engaged in organizing cultural leisure, and in case of contradictions with employers, they turned to the official authorities, who looked into the matter and sometimes supported the workers.
But sometimes “Zubatovites” took part in strikes. It became clear that the labor movement was getting out of control. Plehve demanded that Zubatov “stop all this,” and in 1903 he dismissed Zubatov, accusing him of involvement in organizing the strike movement and other sins. “Zubatov’s” organizations disintegrated, the workers’ activists came under the control of opposition socialists.
Gapon: democracy from below
But in St. Petersburg the movement survived thanks to the activities of the young priest Georgy Apollonovich Gapon, whom Zubatov attracted to propaganda among the workers. Gapon gained wide popularity among them.
In 1904, on the initiative of Gapon, with the approval of the authorities (including the St. Petersburg mayor I.A. Fullon), a large workers' organization was created in St. Petersburg - the Assembly of Russian Factory Workers. On February 15, Plehve approved its charter, believing that this time the situation would be under control.
Having learned about Gapon's ideas, the officials who patronized him refused to provide further support to the meeting. But the Social Democrats collaborated with Gapon.
Work on the organization's program began in March 1904. To force the monarchy to make concessions, Gapon planned to hold a general strike and, if necessary, even an uprising, but only after careful preparation, expanding the work of the assembly to other cities. But events got ahead of his plans.
On January 3, 1905, members of the assembly led a strike at the Putilov plant. The reason for the strike was the dismissal of four workers - members of the organization. They decided not to abandon their own. Discussing this case, the leaders of the meeting came out to discuss the intolerable conditions in which Russian workers find themselves. At first, Gapon and his comrades tried to resolve the matter peacefully, but the plant administration and government officials rejected their proposals. The strikers responded by putting forward broader demands, including an 8-hour working day, the abolition of overtime, increased wages for unskilled workers, improved sanitation, etc. The strike was supported by other metropolitan enterprises.
Gapon's petition: last chance for the monarchy
Gapon and his associates decided to draw the tsar’s attention to the troubles of the workers - to bring the masses of workers to a demonstration on Sunday, January 9, to come to the Winter Palace and present Nicholas II with a petition with workers’ demands.
The text of the petition was written by Gapon after a discussion with the opposition intelligentsia, primarily Social Democrats and journalists (S. Stechkin and A. Matyushensky). The petition was written in the style of a church sermon, but contained contemporary social and political demands of the time.
The document spoke about the plight of people who create the country’s wealth with their labor:
“We are impoverished, we are oppressed, burdened with backbreaking labor, we are abused, we are not recognized as people, we are treated like slaves who must endure our bitter fate and remain silent.
We have endured, but we are being pushed further into the pool of poverty, lawlessness and ignorance, we are being strangled by despotism and tyranny, and we are suffocating. There is no more strength, sir! The limit of patience has come. For us, that terrible moment has come when death is better than continuation of unbearable torment.”
But under the existing order, there is no way to resist oppression through peaceful means: “And so we quit work and told our employers that we would not start working until they fulfilled our demands. We asked for little, we wanted only that without which there would be no life, but hard labor, eternal torment.
Our first request was that our hosts discuss our needs with us. But we were denied this. We were denied the right to talk about our needs, finding that the law does not recognize such a right for us...
Sire, there are many thousands of us here, and these are all people only in appearance, only in appearance - in reality, we, as well as the entire Russian people, are not recognized with a single human right, not even the right to speak, think, gather, discuss needs, take measures to improve our situation. We were enslaved, and enslaved under the auspices of your officials, with their help, with their assistance. Any of us who dared to raise our voices in defense of the interests of the working class and the people are thrown into prison and sent into exile. They are punished as if for a crime, for a kind heart, for a sympathetic soul...”
The petition called on the king to destroy the wall between him and his people by introducing popular representation. “Representation is necessary, it is necessary for the people themselves to help themselves and govern themselves. After all, he alone knows his true needs. Do not push away his help, accept it, they commanded immediately, now to call on representatives of the Russian land from all classes, from all classes, representatives and from workers. Let there be a capitalist, a worker, an official, a priest, a doctor, and a teacher - let everyone, no matter who they are, elect their representatives. Let everyone be equal and free in the right to vote, and for this, it was ordered that elections to the constituent assembly take place under the condition of universal, secret and equal voting.
This is our most important request, everything is based on it and on it; this is the main and only plaster for our painful wounds, without which these wounds will ooze heavily and quickly move us towards death.”.
Before its publication, the petition included demands for freedom of speech, the press, separation of church and state, and an end to the Russo-Japanese War.
Among the measures proposed by the petition “against people’s poverty” are the abolition of indirect taxes and their replacement with progressive taxation, and the creation of elected workers’ commissions at enterprises to resolve controversial issues with entrepreneurs, without whose consent layoffs are impossible. The workers asked to “reduce the number of working hours to 8 per day; set the price for our work together with us and with our consent, resolve our misunderstandings with the lower administration of the factories; increase wages for unskilled workers and women for their work to one ruble per day, abolish overtime work; treat us carefully and without insults; arrange workshops so that you can work in them, and not find death there from terrible drafts, rain and snow.” It would seem that normal working conditions. But for Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, these demands were revolutionary.
If these problems were far-fetched, then the petition describing the severe social crisis at Russian enterprises would not have found widespread support. But the workers in 1905 did not live in the ideal “Russia that we lost,” but in really, extremely difficult conditions. Several tens of thousands of signatures were collected in support of the petition.
The petition left Nicholas II the opportunity for a compromise: “Look carefully at our requests without anger, they are directed not towards evil, but towards good, both for us and for you, sir. It’s not insolence that speaks in us, but the awareness of the need to get out of a situation that is unbearable for everyone.”. This was a chance for the monarchy - after all, the tsar’s support of the people’s demands could sharply increase his authority and lead the country along the path of social reforms and the creation of a social state. Yes - at the expense of the interests of the propertied elite, but ultimately - and for the sake of its well-being, too, according to the principle: “Give up the rings, otherwise your fingers will be cut off.”
Amendments to the document were made until January 8, after which the text was printed in 12 copies. Gapon hoped to present it to the Tsar if the workers’ delegation was allowed to see him. Georgy Apollonovich did not rule out that the demonstration could be dispersed, but the very fact of putting forward an opposition program on behalf of the mass movement was important.
Execution: a turn towards disaster
However, Nicholas II did not intend to meet with workers' representatives. His style of thinking was deeply elitist. Crowds of people frightened him. Moreover, the crowd could have been led by revolutionaries (and they really were surrounded by Gapon). What if they storm the palace? The day before, an unpleasant misunderstanding occurred in the capital - a cannon that fired fireworks in the presence of Nicholas II turned out to be loaded with a live shell. Was there any intent for a terrorist attack here? The Emperor left the capital on the eve of important events. He could have met with Gapon and a small delegation, but did not take this chance. Order must remain unshakable, despite any trends of the times. This logic led the Russian Empire to disaster.
The tragic decision to respond to the march of the people with violence was not made only by Nicholas II; in this regard, it was natural. Gapon tried to convince the Minister of Justice N.V. of the correctness of his political program. Muravyova. On the evening of January 8, at a meeting at Svyatopolk-Mirsky, the ministers, Fullon and other high-ranking officials decided to stop the workers armed force. The Emperor sanctioned this decision. They were going to arrest Gapon, but this could not be done. All approaches to the center of St. Petersburg were blocked by troops.
On the morning of January 9, hundreds of thousands of workers moved from the outskirts of the capital to the Winter Palace. At the front of the columns, demonstrators carried icons and portraits of the Tsar. They hoped that the king would listen to them and help ease their workload. Many understood that participation in a prohibited demonstration was dangerous, but they were ready to suffer for the workers’ cause.
Having encountered chains of soldiers blocking the way, the workers began to persuade them to skip the demonstration to the Tsar. But the soldiers were ordered to control the crowd - the capital's governor feared that the demonstrators could start riots and even seize the palace. At the Narva Gate, where Gapon was at the head of the column, the workers were attacked by cavalry, and then fire was opened. Moreover, the workers tried to move forward after that, but then fled. The army opened fire in other places where columns of workers were marching, as well as in front of the Winter Palace, where a large crowd had gathered. At least 130 people were killed.
Gapon, who was in the forefront of the demonstrators, miraculously survived. He issued a proclamation cursing the king and his ministers. On this day, the king was cursed by thousands of people who had previously believed in him. For the first time in St. Petersburg, so many people were killed at once, who at the same time expressed loyal feelings and went to the Tsar “for the truth.” The unity of the people and the monarch was undermined.
Rumors of “Bloody Sunday” on January 9 spread widely across the country, and protest strikes broke out in other cities. In St. Petersburg, workers built barricades on the Vyborg side and tried to resist the troops.
However, the strikes soon stopped; many people justified the emperor, blaming the tsar’s entourage and rebel provocateurs for the January tragedy. Nicholas II met with representatives of monarchist-minded workers and took a number of minor measures to ease working conditions. But this did not help restore the authority of the regime. A real revolution, the first in Russian history, gradually began in the country. Unrest broke out here and there. The imperial administration did not draw proper conclusions from the events of January 9 and responded to the mass movement with repression. And this only inflamed passions.
“Bloody Sunday” was only an impetus for a long-pending revolutionary process, the cause of which was the socio-economic crisis and the lag of political transformations behind social changes.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the main crises facing the country were commonly called “issues.” The main reasons for the outbreak of revolutions in 1905 and 1917 were labor and agrarian issues, also burdened by the national question (the problem of the development of various ethnic cultures in a multinational state in the conditions of modernization) and the lack of effective feedback between government and society (the problem of autocracy).
Their solution was the resurrection of Russia, whose old social structure was dying. Alas, due to the selfishness, intransigence and slowness of the Russian authorities, the solution to these problems has gone through turmoil. The problems in the twentieth century were solved by other forces and other elites, but the resurrection turned out to be bloody.
Red Chronicle. L., 1925. No. 2. P. 33-35.
Ksenofontov I.N. Georgy Gapon: fiction and truth. M., 1996.
Pazin M."Bloody Sunday". Behind the scenes of the tragedy. M., 2009.
In 1905 - 1907, events took place in Russia that were later called the first Russian revolution. The beginning of these events is considered to be January 1905, when workers of one of the St. Petersburg factories entered the political struggle. Back in 1904, the young priest of the St. Petersburg transit prison, Georgy Gapon, with the assistance of the police and city authorities, created a workers' organization in the city, the "Meeting of Russian Factory Workers of St. Petersburg." In the first months, workers simply organized common evenings, often with tea and dancing, and opened a mutual aid fund.
By the end of 1904, about 9 thousand people were already members of the “Assembly”. In December 1904, one of the foremen of the Putilov plant fired four workers who were members of the organization. The “assembly” immediately came out in support of the comrades, sent a delegation to the director of the plant, and, despite his attempts to smooth out the conflict, the workers decided to stop work in protest. On January 2, 1905, the huge Putilov plant stopped. The strikers have already put forward increased demands: to establish an 8-hour working day, to increase salaries. Other metropolitan factories gradually joined the strike, and after a few days 150 thousand workers were already on strike in St. Petersburg.
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G. Gapon spoke at meetings, calling for a peaceful march to the tsar, who alone could stand up for the workers. He even helped prepare an appeal to Nicholas II, which contained the following lines: “We are impoverished, we are oppressed, .. we are not recognized as people, we are treated like slaves... We have no more strength, Sovereign... That terrible moment has come for us, when death is better than continuation of unbearable torment. Look without anger ... at our requests, they are directed not towards evil, but towards good, both for us and for You, Sovereign! " The appeal listed the requests of the workers; for the first time, it included demands for political freedoms and the organization of a Constituent Assembly - it was practically a revolutionary program. A peaceful march to the Winter Palace was scheduled for January 9. Gapon insisted that the tsar should go out to the workers and accept their appeal.
On January 9, about 140 thousand workers took to the streets of St. Petersburg. Columns led by G. Gapon headed towards the Winter Palace. The workers came with their families, children, festively dressed, they carried portraits of the Tsar, icons, crosses, and sang prayers. Throughout the city, the procession met armed soldiers, but no one wanted to believe that they could shoot. Nicholas II was in Tsarskoe Selo that day, but the workers believed that he would come to listen to their requests.
On the eve of the tragic events of January 9, 1905, Nicholas II introduced martial law in St. Petersburg. All power in the capital automatically passed to his uncle, the commander-in-chief of the guard troops of the St. Petersburg Military District, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich.
On his birthday, April 10, 1847, Vladimir Alexandrovich was appointed chief of the Life Guards Dragoon Regiment, and was a member of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment and the Life Guards Sapper Battalion. On March 2, 1881, he was appointed commander of the guard troops and the St. Petersburg Military District. By the manifesto of Emperor Alexander III of March 14, 1881, he was appointed regent ("Ruler of the State") in the event of the death of the emperor - until the heir to the throne, Nikolai Alexandrovich, came of age (or in the event of the death of the latter).
From 1884 to 1905, the Grand Duke served as Commander-in-Chief of the Guard troops and the St. Petersburg Military District. During the riots on January 9, 1905 in St. Petersburg, it was he who gave the order to shoot at the crowd.
During the execution, Gapon was pulled out from under the bullets by the Socialist-Revolutionary P. M. Rutenberg, and for some time hid in the apartment of A. M. Gorky. With a changed appearance, with his hair cut short, he left the apartment and in the evening of the same day, under a false name, he delivered an accusatory speech at the Free Economic Society. “Brothers, comrade workers!”, edited by Rutenberg in the Socialist-Revolutionary spirit, in which, among other things, he called for terror and, calling the tsar a beast, wrote: “So let us take revenge, brothers, on the tsar cursed by the people and all his viper brood, the ministers, all the robbers of the unfortunate Russian land. Death to them all!"
The events of "Bloody Sunday" shocked all of Russia. Portraits of the king, previously revered as shrines, were torn and trampled on the streets. Shocked by the execution of the workers, G. Gapon exclaimed: “There is no more God, there is no more tsar!” On the night after Bloody Sunday he wrote a leaflet:
Soon after the January events, Georgy Gapon fled abroad. In March 1905 he was defrocked and expelled from the clergy.
Abroad, Gapon enjoyed enormous popularity. He was, in the words of L. D. Trotsky, a figure of almost biblical style. Gapon met with J. Jaurès, J. Clemenceau and other leaders of European socialists and radicals. In London I saw P. A. Kropotkin.
In exile, Georgy Gapon founded the Gapon Foundation, which received donations for the Russian Revolution. In May-June 1905, he dictated his memoirs, which were originally published in translation into English language. Gapon also met with G.V. Plekhanov and V.I. Lenin, and joined the RSDLP.
Regarding rumors about Gapon being a provocateur, Lenin wrote:
Through an intermediary, Gapon received 50 thousand francs from the Japanese envoy to purchase weapons and deliver them to Russian revolutionaries. The steamship John Crafton, which was carrying weapons, ran aground near the Russian coast, and almost all the cargo went to the police. In April 1905, the newly minted Social Democrat held a conference of socialist parties in Paris with the aim of developing common tactics and uniting them into the Fighting Alliance. In May of the same year, he left the RSDLP and, with the assistance of V.M. Chernov, joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party, however, he was soon expelled due to “political illiteracy.”
Return to Russia. The end of the provocateur.
After the amnesty declared by the manifesto on October 17, 1905, he returned to Russia. Wrote a letter of repentance to Witte. In response, the prime minister promised to give permission to restore Gapon’s “Assembly...”. But after the arrest of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies and the suppression of the Moscow uprising in December 1905, the promises were forgotten, and articles appeared in some newspapers incriminating Gapon of having connections with the police and receiving money from a Japanese agent. Perhaps these publications were inspired by the government to discredit Gapon mainly in the eyes of the workers.
In January 1906, the activities of the "Meeting..." were prohibited. And then Gapon takes a very risky step - he invites the head of the political department of the Police Department, P. I. Rachkovsky, to hand over the Social Revolutionary Fighting Organization with the help of his savior P. M. Rutenberg, of course, for free. Minister of Internal Affairs P. N. Durnovo agreed to this operation and allowed him to pay 25 thousand rubles for it. Perhaps Gapon, as was typical of him before, was playing a double game.
However, this time he paid dearly for it: Rutenberg reported Gapon’s proposal to the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, after which the decision was made to kill Gapon. Considering Gapon’s still-preserving popularity among the workers, the Central Committee demanded that Rutenberg organize the double murder of Gapon and Rachkovsky, so that evidence of the former priest’s betrayal would be obvious. But Rachkovsky, suspecting something, did not show up for the meeting at the restaurant with Gapon and Rutenberg. And then Rutenberg lured Gapon to a dacha in Ozerki near St. Petersburg, where he previously hid “Gapon’s” workers. During a frank conversation about extraditing the Combat Organization, angry workers burst into the room and immediately hanged their recent idol. This is the eventual outline of Gapon’s murder, according to Rutenberg’s notes.
Maxim Gorky, no less shocked by what happened than others, later wrote the essay “January 9,” in which he spoke about the events of this terrible day: “It seemed that most of all, cold, soul-dead amazement poured into people’s chests. After all, a few insignificant minutes before that they walked, clearly seeing the goal of the path in front of them, a fabulous image stood majestically in front of them... Two volleys, blood, corpses, groans and - everyone stood in front of the gray emptiness, powerless, with torn hearts.”
The tragic events of January 9 in St. Petersburg were also reflected in the well-known novel by the future classic of Soviet literature, “The Life of Klim Samgin.” They became the day of the beginning of the first Russian revolution, which swept all of Russia.
Another culprit of the bloody events, the Grand Duke and uncle of the Tsar Vladimir Alexandrovich, was soon forced to resign from his post as Commander of the Guard and the St. Petersburg Military District (dismissed on October 26, 1905). However, his resignation was not at all connected with the unjustified use military force against the peaceful demonstration of St. Petersburg workers. On October 8, 1905, the eldest son of the Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich married the divorced Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. There was no marriage Highest resolution, although there was the blessing of the Dowager Empress Maria Pavlovna. Kirill’s bride was the former wife of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna’s brother. Despite this, marriage to a “divorcee” was considered indecent for a member of the imperial family. He deprived Grand Duke Kirill of all rights to the Russian throne and to a certain extent discredited his close relatives.
Vladimir Alexandrovich was a famous philanthropist, patronized many artists, and collected a valuable collection of paintings. Since 1869, comrade (deputy) of the president (Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna), since 1876 - president of the Imperial Academy of Arts, was a trustee of the Rumyantsev Museum. His death on February 4, 1909 was officially announced by the Imperial Manifesto of the same day; On February 7, his body was transported from his palace to Peter and Paul Cathedral, February 8 - funeral service and burial there, led by Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Anthony (Vadkovsky); Present were the emperor, the widow of the late Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (who arrived with Nicholas II), other members of the imperial family, Chairman of the Council of Ministers P. A. Stolypin and other ministers, as well as the Tsar of Bulgaria Ferdinand.
Thus, the instigator of the demonstrations that resulted in mass riots on the streets of St. Petersburg in January 1905 was the double agent Georgy Gapon, and the bloody outcome was initiated by Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. Emperor Nicholas II eventually received only the title “bloody,” although he was least involved in the events described.
We know this day as Bloody Sunday. The guards units then opened fire to kill. The target is civilians, women, children, flags, icons and portraits of the last Russian autocrat.
last hope
For a long time, there was a curious joke among ordinary Russian people: “We are the same gentlemen, only from the underside. The master learns from books, and we from cones, but the master has a whiter ass, that’s the whole difference.” That’s roughly how it was, but only for the time being. By the beginning of the 20th century. the joke no longer corresponds to reality. The workers, they are yesterday's men, have completely lost faith in the good gentleman who will “come and judge fairly.” But the main gentleman remained. Tsar. The same one who, during the census of the population of the Russian Empire in 1897, wrote in the “occupation” column: “Owner of the Russian Land.”The logic of the workers who came out on that fateful day for a peaceful march is simple. Since you are the owner, put things in order. The elite were guided by the same logic. The main ideologist of the empire Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev He said directly: “The basis of the foundations of our system is the close proximity of the tsar and the people under an autocratic system.”
Now it has become fashionable to argue that, they say, the workers had no right either to march or to submit petitions to the sovereign. This is an outright lie. Petitions have been submitted to kings from time immemorial. And normal sovereigns often gave them a go. Catherine the Great, for example, she condemned according to a peasant petition. TO Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Quiet twice, during the Salt and Copper riots, a crowd of Moscow people burst in with collective demands to stop the boyar tyranny. In such cases, giving in to the people was not considered shameful. So why in 1905. So why did the last Russian emperor break with centuries-old tradition?
Here is a list of not even demands, but requests from the workers with which they went to the “trustworthy sovereign”: “The working day is 8 hours. Work around the clock, in three shifts. Normal pay for a laborer is not less than a ruble ( in a day. — Red.). For a female laborer - not less than 70 kopecks. For their children, set up a nursery orphanage. Overtime work is paid at double rate. Medical staff factories must be required to be more attentive to wounded and maimed workers.” Is this really excessive?
World financial crisis 1900-1906 at it's peak. Prices for coal and oil, which Russia was exporting even then, fell three times. About a third of the banks collapsed. Unemployment reached 20%. The ruble fell by about half against the pound sterling. Shares of the Putilov plant, where it all began, fell by 71%. They began to tighten the nuts. This is during the "bloody" Stalin fired for being 20 minutes late - under the “kind” tsar, people were fired from work for 5 minutes of delay. Fines for defects due to bad machines sometimes consumed the entire salary. So this is not a matter of revolutionary propaganda.
Here is another quote from a complaint against the owners of the factories, who, by the way, carried out a government military order: “The construction of ships, which, according to the government, are a powerful naval force, occurs in front of the workers, and they clearly see, like a whole gang, from the bosses state-owned factories and directors of private factories down to apprentices and low-level employees, robs people’s money and forces workers to build ships that are clearly unsuitable for long-distance navigation, with lead rivets and putty seams instead of chasing.” Summary: “The workers’ patience has worn thin. They clearly see that the government of officials is the enemy of the motherland and the people.”
“Why are we doing this?!”
How does the “Master of the Russian Land” react to this? But no way. He knew in advance that the workers were preparing a peaceful demonstration, and their requests were known. The Tsar Father chose to leave the city. So to speak, I recused myself. Minister of Internal Affairs Pyotr Svyatopolk-Mirsky on the eve of the fatal events he wrote down: “There is reason to think that tomorrow everything will work out well.”
Neither he nor the mayor had any intelligible plan of action. Yes, they ordered the printing and distribution of 1,000 leaflets warning against the unauthorized march. But no clear orders were given to the troops.
The result was impressive. “People were writhing in convulsions, screaming in pain, bleeding. On the bars, hugging one of the bars, a 12-year-old boy with a crushed skull drooped... After this wild, causeless murder of many innocent people, the indignation of the crowd reached its extreme. Questions were asked in the crowd: “Because we came to ask the king for intercession, we are being shot! Is this really possible in a Christian country with Christian rulers? This means that we don’t have a king, and that officials are our enemies, we knew that before!” - wrote eyewitnesses.
Ten days later, the Tsar received a deputation of 34 workers specially selected by the new Governor General of St. Petersburg Dmitry Trepov, who immortalized himself with the order: “Don’t spare cartridges!” The king shook their hands and even fed them lunch. And in the end he... forgave them. The imperial couple assigned 50 thousand rubles to the families of 200 killed and about 1000 wounded.
The English Westminster Gazette of January 27, 1905 wrote: “Nicholas, nicknamed the new peacemaker as the founder of the Hague Disarmament Conference, could accept a deputation of peaceful citizens. But he did not have enough courage, intelligence, or honesty for this. And if a revolution breaks out in Russia, then it means that the tsar and the bureaucracy forcibly pushed the suffering people onto this path.”
I agreed with the British and Baron Wrangel, who is difficult to suspect of treason: “If the Emperor had gone out onto the balcony and listened to the people, nothing would have happened, except that the Tsar would have become more popular... How the prestige of his great-grandfather strengthened, Nicholas I, after his appearance during the cholera riot on Sennaya Square! But our Tsar was only Nicholas II, and not the second Nicholas.”
The shooting of a peaceful procession to the Tsar on January 9, 1905 went down in history as Bloody Sunday. This event was neither a revolution nor an uprising, but its influence on the course of Russian history was enormous. What happened changed the consciousness of people and forever “buried” the ideology so carefully created about the unity of the tsar and the people - “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality.” On the anniversary of the tragedy, the site remembered what happened on a January day in St. Petersburg 110 years ago.
Legal trade unions
There were many innocent people in Russia who became victims of the decisions of government officials even before January 9, 1905. Hundreds of random onlookers died on Senate Square in December 1825; in May 1896, the stampede on Khodynskoe Field ended with thousands of corpses. The January demonstration of 1905 turned into the execution of entire families who went to the tsar with a request to protect them from the tyranny of officials and capitalists. The order to shoot unarmed people became the impetus for the first Russian revolution. But most importantly irreversible consequence The tragedy was that the senseless murder destroyed faith in the Tsar and became the prologue to changing the political system of Russia.
Georgy Gapon (1900s) Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
The main participants in the peaceful march were members of a large legal workers' organization St. Petersburg "Meeting of Russian Factory Workers", founded by the popular priest and brilliant speaker Georgy Gapon. It was the “Meeting”, led by Gapon, that prepared the petition of the workers and residents of St. Petersburg and organized a procession to the Tsar.
The "Assembly" was one of the associations created at the beginning of the twentieth century to distract workers from political struggle. At the origins of the creation of controlled workers' organizations was an official of the police department, Sergei Zubatov. He planned, with the help of legal organizations, to isolate workers from the influence of revolutionary propaganda. In turn, Georgy Gapon believed that the close connection of organizations with the police only compromises them in the eyes of society, and proposed creating societies modeled on independent English trade unions.
The priest wrote a new charter for the society, sharply limiting police interference in its internal affairs. Gapon considered the principle of independent work to be the key to success. According to the new charter, Gapon, and not the police, controlled all the activities of the society. The charter was personally approved by the Minister of Internal Affairs Vyacheslav Plehve. As a result, Georgy Gapon absolutely officially became a mediator between the workers and the government, and acted as a guarantor of the loyalty of the working class to state policy.
Strikes in St. Petersburg
At the beginning of December 1904, four workers - members of the "Assembly" - were illegally fired from the Putilov plant in St. Petersburg. A rumor quickly spread that they were fired precisely because they belonged to a trade union organization. Members of the organization saw in the dismissal a challenge posed to the “Assembly” by the capitalists. Gapon's pre-existing contacts with the government and police ceased. In early January 1905, a strike began at the plant. Gapon appealed to the plant management with a request to cancel the illegal dismissal of workers, but was refused. On January 6, the leadership of the “Assembly” announced the start of a general strike, and by January 7, all plants and factories in St. Petersburg went on strike. When it became clear that economic methods of struggle were not helping, members of the organization decided to make political demands.
Striking workers at the gates of the Putilov plant. January 1905. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Petition to the king
The idea to appeal to the Tsar for help through a petition arose from several radical members of the “Assembly”. He was supported by Gapon and proposed organizing the presentation of the petition as a mass procession of workers to the Winter Palace. The leader of the organization called on the workers, taking with them icons and portraits of the Tsar, to go to the Winter Palace along with their wives and children. Gapon was sure that the tsar would not be able to refuse to respond to the collective petition.
The petition stated that “workers and residents of St. Petersburg of different classes, with their wives, children and elders, came to him, the sovereign, to seek truth and protection.”
“We have become impoverished,” they wrote, “we are oppressed, burdened with backbreaking labor, we are abused, we are not recognized as people, we are treated like slaves who must endure a bitter fate and remain silent. There is no more strength, sir! The limit of patience has come. For us, that terrible moment has come when death is better than continuation of unbearable torment. We have nowhere else to go and no reason to. We have only two paths: either to freedom and happiness, or to the grave.”
In addition to complaints and emotions, the text listed specific political and economic demands: amnesty, increased wages, gradual transfer of land to the people, political freedoms and the convening of a Constituent Assembly.
From the very beginning of the strike, the Ministry of Internal Affairs believed that the influence that priest Gapon had on the workers would deter them from illegal actions. But on January 7, the government became aware of the contents of the petition. Political demands outraged officials. No one expected the movement to take such a serious turn. The Tsar hastily left St. Petersburg.
On Palace Square, January 9, 1905, photo from the Museum of Political History of Russia. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Shooting of a demonstration
From the very beginning, Gapon tried not to give the authorities a reason to use force and tried to make the procession as peaceful as possible. It was decided that the people would go to the king completely unarmed. But still, in one of his last speeches on the eve of the procession, Gapon said: “Blood may be shed here. Remember - this will be sacred blood. The blood of martyrs never disappears - it gives the germs of freedom.”
On the eve of the procession, a government meeting was held to discuss options for the development of events. Some officials called for the protesting people not to be allowed into Palace Square, recalling how the tragedy on Khodynka ended, others suggested allowing only a selected deputation to approach the palace. As a result, it was decided to place outposts of military units on the outskirts of the city and not allow people into the city center, and in case of a breakthrough, to station troops on Palace Square.
The organizers of the march, although they were prepared for bloodshed, at the last moment decided to warn the authorities about the peaceful nature of the march. Maxim Gorky, who was present at the meeting, proposed sending a deputation to the Minister of Internal Affairs. But time was lost; Peter Svyatopolk-Mirsky also left the city, going to Tsarskoe Selo to the Tsar.
On the morning of January 9, more than 100 thousand people from several working-class districts of St. Petersburg - Narvskaya and Nevskaya Zastava, Vyborg and St. Petersburg sides, from Vasilievsky Island - began to move towards Palace Square. According to Gapon's plan, the columns were supposed to overcome the outposts on the outskirts of the city and unite on Palace Square by two o'clock in the afternoon. To give the procession the character of a religious procession, the workers carried banners, crosses, icons and portraits of the emperor. At the head of one of the streams was the priest Gapon.
January 9, 1905. Cavalrymen at the Pevchesky Bridge delay the movement of the procession to the Winter Palace. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
The first meeting of the procession with government troops took place at the Narva triumphal gates. Despite the gun shots, the crowd continued to move forward under Gapon’s calls. They began shooting at the protesters with targeted fire. By 12 noon the procession on the Petrograd side was dispersed. Individual workers crossed the Neva across the ice and in small groups entered the city center, where they were also met by armed soldiers. Clashes began on Palace Square, on Nevsky Prospect and in other parts of the city.
According to police reports, the shooting was caused by the crowd's unwillingness to disperse. About 200 people were killed, including women and children, and almost 800 were injured. Clashes with police continued throughout the week. Georgy Gapon himself managed to escape; Maxim Gorky hid him in his apartment. According to the recollections of an eyewitness, the poet Maximilian Voloshin, in St. Petersburg they spoke about those events like this: “ Last days have arrived. Brother stood up to brother... The king gave the order to shoot at the icons.” In his opinion, the January days became a mystical prologue to a great national tragedy.
The graves of the victims of “Bloody Sunday” at the Preobrazhenskoye cemetery near St. Petersburg. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
The senseless killing of people served as the impetus for the first Russian revolution. It became the longest in the history of Russia and ended with the restriction of autocracy and serious liberal reforms. According to its results, Russia, as it seemed to many then, was natural and durable, like almost all European countries, took the path of parliamentarism. In fact, in those days a flywheel of revolutionary energy was launched, irrevocably changing the political system into something completely far from a legal democratic state.