Bloody Sunday

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On January 22, 1905, a peaceful demonstration of workers in St. Petersburg was dispersed by troops with considerable loss of life. The event triggered the 1905 Revolution.

The demonstration was organized by the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers of St. Petersburg, a labor organization patronized initially by police authorities and led by an Orthodox priest, Father Georgy Gapon. When four members of the Assembly were fired from the giant Putilov Works just before Christmas, the Assembly felt its very existence threatened and decided to resort to the desperate means of an illegal strike. The Putilov Works was struck on the January 16, but by January 20 the entire city of St. Petersburg was paralyzed by the strike. All eleven branches of the Assembly became perpetual meeting places for the strikers. There was much discussion about the workers presenting a petition to Nicholas II, outlining their grievances. At a meeting with some of his lieutenants, Gapon asked if they should not take their petition directly to the tsar himself. The idea was enthusiastically supported and spread like wildfire. When the petition was finished, copies of "The Most Humble and Loyal Address" were sent to important ministers and the tsar. The address was to be delivered at 2 P.M. on Sunday at the Winter Palace Square.

Before the fateful day, the branches of the Assembly held continuous meetings; the petition was read, and workers cried, fell on their knees, and swore to die for their cause. Wound up by the oratory, they were determined to reach the Palace Square. The Minister of the Interior, not realizing the seriousness of the situation, assured Nicholas II that matters were under control and that he was completely confident a show of force would be sufficient to stop the demonstration.

Each branch made its own arrangement to arrive at the Square by 2 P.M. Members of the farthest branch departed in the early morning hours. The largest procession came from the main branch at the Putilov Works, and was led by Gapon. Efforts were made to give it a religious appearance: Religious paraphernalia, icons, and portraits of tsars were carried at the head of the procession. Shortly after eleven o'clock the immense crowd began to move, singing prayers and the national anthem just as church bells were announcing the end of services. The crowd moved along the main thoroughfare toward the Narva Triumphal Arch, where the road across the river was blocked by troops. The commander tried to disperse the crowd with cavalry; then the bugle sounded a warning, followed by a warning volley over the crowd. This seemed only to encourage workers; they closed ranks and, singing louder, began to run at the troops. Soldiers lowered their rifles and began shooting at the crowd. Most of the casualties that day occurred during this procession. Similar events unfolded in several other locations. In some areas the crowds were dispersed without the use of firearms; in others, workers were allowed to pass on their own. On one bridge the officer said he could not let them cross but did not stop workers from crossing on the ice below the bridge.

Despite the shootings, many workers reached the Square, where the Guards barred their way. In the crowd were many survivors of earlier shootings; many were wounded, but all anxiously awaited the appointed hour. The hour came and nothing happened. As the demonstrators were becoming unruly, the commander of the Guards decided to disperse them. A volley was fired near Alexander Garden. The crowd was pushed onto Nevsky Prospect, where some officials in uniforms and policemen were attacked. Troops tried to clear the area, and more shots were fired.

In Russia and abroad, there was universal revulsion at the shooting of peaceful demonstrators. The authorities themselves were shocked; nobody had wanted what happened. The press reported thousands killed, but the official count eventually listed 130 killed, including a policeman. Bloody Sunday, as it became known, began the Revolution of 1905.

Bibliography

Ascher, Abraham. (1988). "Gapon and Bloody Sunday." In his Revolution of 1905, vol. 1. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Sablinsky, Walter. (1976). The Road to Bloody Sunday: Father Gapon and the St. Petersburg Massacre of 1905. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

—WALTER SABLINSKY

For other uses, see Bloody Sunday (disambiguation).

Demonstrators march to the Winter Palace

A still from the Soviet movie Devyatoe yanvarya ("9th of January") (1925) showing line of armed soldiers facing demonstrators at the approaches to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg:(known at the time as Petrograd)

Bloody Sunday (Russian: Кровавое воскресенье) was a massacre on January 22 [O.S. January 9] 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia, where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II were gunned down by the Imperial Guard while approaching the city center and the Winter Palace from several gathering points. The shooting did not occur in the Palace Square. Bloody Sunday was an event with grave consequences for the Tsarist regime, as the disregard for ordinary people shown by the massacre undermined support for the state. The events which occurred on this Sunday were assessed by historians, including Lionel Kochan in his book Russia in Revolution 1890-1918 to be one of the key events which led to the eventual Russian Revolution of 1917.

Contents 1 Preludes 2 Bloody Sunday 3 See also 4 References

Preludes

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011)

The previous December (1904), a strike occurred at the Putilov plant, which made military orders during Russo-Japanese War. Sympathy strikes in other parts of the city raised the number of strikers above 80,000. By January 8 1905, the city had no electricity and no newspapers. All public areas were declared closed. Father Gapon, a Russian priest who was concerned about the conditions experienced by the working and lower classes, organized a peaceful "workers' procession" to the Winter Palace to deliver a petition to the Tsar that Sunday stating reforms they had desperately wanted. The petition, written by Gapon, made clear the problems and opinions of the workers and called for improved working conditions, fairer wages, and a reduction in the working day to eight hours. Other demands included an end to the Russo-Japanese War and the introduction of universal suffrage.

The procession was well stewarded by followers of Gapon and any terrorists and hot-heads were removed and all the participants checked for weapons. Chairman of the Council of Ministers Sergei Witte was implored not to act against the marchers. Troops had been deployed around the Winter Palace and at other key points. The Tsar had left the city on January 8 for Tsarskoye Selo.

Bloody Sunday

On the Sunday, January 22, striking workers and their families gathered at six points in the city of St. Petersburg in Russia. They were organised and led by Father Gapon. Holding religious icons and singing hymns and patriotic songs (particularly "God Save the Czar!"), a crowd of "more than 300,000"^[1] proceeded without police interference towards the Winter Palace, the Tsar's official residence. The army pickets near the palace released warning shots, and then fired directly into the crowds to disperse them. Gapon was fired upon near the Narva Gate. Around forty people surrounding him were killed, but he was not injured.^[2] Although the Czar was not at the Winter Palace, he received the blame for the deaths, resulting in a surge of bitterness towards himself and his autocratic rule from the Russian people.

Soviet painting - Bloody Sunday massacre in St. Petersburg

The number killed is uncertain but the Tsar's officials recorded 96 dead and 333 injured; anti-government sources claimed more than 4,000 dead; moderate estimates still average around 1,000 killed or wounded, both from shots and trampled during the panic. Nicholas II described the day as "painful and sad".^[3] As reports spread across the city, disorder and looting broke out. Gapon's Assembly was closed down that day, and Gapon quickly left Russia. According to one version,^[which?] returning in October, he was assassinated by the order of the Combat Organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party after he revealed to his friend Pinhas Rutenberg that he was working for the Okhrana or Secret Police.^[4]

This event was seen by the British ambassador to inflame revolutionary activities in Russia and contributed to the Revolution of 1905. The writer Leo Tolstoy was also emotionally affected by the incident.^[5]

See also

• Symphony No. 11 (Shostakovich)

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bloody Sunday

1. ^ Gapon, Address to the Tsar, February 1905, in Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, Vol. 1
2. ^ Ascher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UP, 1988. p. 91. Print
3. ^ Kurth, Peter. Tsar: the Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra. Boston: Back Bay, 1998. p. 81
4. ^ Notes on Georgii Appolonovich Gapon (1870-1906), Northern Virginia Community College
5. ^ Rolland, Romain (1911). Life of Tolstoy. London: T. Fisher Unwin. p. 212. 

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