Important problem national history beginning of the twentieth century - was the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907, and therefore the whole revolutionary era the result of deep social problems, or a tragic misunderstanding that threw Russia down the slope of history?
The key event that is at the center of this discussion is " Bloody Sunday" The consequences of this event for subsequent history are enormous. In the capital Russian Empire the blood of the workers was suddenly shed, which undermined the confidence 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. The Workers' Mutual Aid Society was created in St. Petersburg mechanical production St. Petersburg". “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 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 comrades 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 Winter Palace and hand over to Nicholas II a petition with work 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 conditions labor. 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 for popular demands could sharply increase his authority, lead the country along the path of social reforms, creation 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 aggravated by the national issue (the problem of the development of various ethnic cultures in a multinational state in the context 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.
Read also:
Ivan Zatsarin. Why didn't they become the empire? To the 221st anniversary of Lithuania's accession to Russia
Andrey Sorokin.
Andrey Smirnov. Tasks, successes and failures of Ivan the Terrible’s reforms: what you need to know about it
Ivan Zatsarin.
Klim Zhukov, Dmitry Puchkov. About the formation of Kievan Rus
Ivan Zatsarin. Why are they with us? To the 101st anniversary of the genocide
Ivan Zatsarin.
Alexander Shubin.
Ivan Zatsarin. Russia, which they sawed up. To the 98th anniversary of the Transcaucasian Federation
Egor Yakovlev, Dmitry Puchkov. From war to war. Part 4: about the struggle with England for Constantinople
1. The author does not use documents of the era for analysis, and in general the sources are extremely few and one-sided. In this regard, I would like to compare this article (4 sources without any connection to the text, one source from 1925, the rest after 1991) with an article on Wikipedia (136 sources, verifiable links in the text, the presence of links to investigation documents and eras before 1917 ). If the quality of the materials presented about events, and this presupposes the genre of an encyclopedic article, will be so obviously inferior to the work of amateurs, and in terms of the number of articles, the same Wikipedia will be more diverse in genre, then why is this resource needed at all?
2. The author draws significant conclusions about the causes of the ensuing tragedy (by which, probably, means the revolution and Civil War), which have at least debatable value for the present Russian Federation.
In particular, he writes
“due to the selfishness, intransigence and slowness of the Russian authorities, the solution to these problems went through turmoil”
However, the text does not show examples of intransigence and selfishness. The author simply ignored all the processes of negotiations between Gapon and the authorities. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that the unrest could have been prevented by implementing such demands of the petition as convening a constituent assembly and ending the war with Japan. Logically transferring the events and actions of the authorities to the present time, we can conclude that V.V. Putin admits selfishness and slowness, ignoring the demands of the mass rallies of the “snow revolution” to create a government of people’s trust and stop the “aggression against Ukraine.”
3. The text itself contains mutually exclusive statements:
"However, Nicholas II did not intend to meet with representatives of the workers. His style of thinking was deeply elitist. Crowds of people frightened him."
“It would seem that these are normal working conditions. But for Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, these requirements were revolutionary.”
Wed
“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.”
Because the author does not provide any confirmation at all for his conclusions from the first part, it is not clear
- did the authorities and the tsar generally consider the demands for improving the life of the working person to be revolutionary or did they stop thinking so only after the January events;
- has the king been healed of selfishness and has he overcome fear and disgust towards to the common man by the time of his meetings with the monarchist-minded masses, or did it through force for show.
- what demands of the workers were still significant and what minor concessions the tsarist regime did make.
I criticized this article in more detail and emotionally on the “However” site.
However, here too I am forced to speak critically. Because if the purpose of the resource is to provide knowledge about the history of the Fatherland, then the quality of knowledge should be head and shoulders above Wikipedia. If the purpose of the resource is to justify provocations and revolutionary changes to the legitimate political regime, then it is not entirely clear whether the relevant ministries and professional communities are participating in this project by mistake or whether they are planning a possible coup.
For a discussion platform where any opinions can exist, there are too few discussions and opinions here. For historical truth - too little of the latter.
With respect and best wishes.
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 the last Russian Emperor broke 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 pay 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 government military orders: “The construction of ships, which, according to the government, is a powerful sea power, is happening before the eyes of the workers, and they clearly see how a whole gang, from the heads of state-owned factories and directors of private factories down to apprentices and lower employees, robs people's money and forces the workers to build ships that are clearly unsuitable for long-distance voyages, with lead rivets and putties seams instead of embossing.” 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.”
On January 22 (9 old style), 1905, troops and police dispersed a peaceful procession of St. Petersburg workers who were marching to the Winter Palace to present Nicholas II with a collective petition about the needs of the workers. As the demonstration progressed, as Maxim Gorky described the events in his famous novel “The Life of Klim Samgin,” ordinary people also joined the workers. Bullets flew at them too. Many were trampled by the crowd of demonstrators, maddened with fear, who began to flee after the shooting began.
Everything that happened in St. Petersburg on January 22 went down in history under the name “Bloody Sunday.” In many ways, it was the bloody events of that weekend that predetermined the further decline of the Russian Empire.
But like any global event that turned the course of history, “Bloody Sunday” gave rise to a lot of rumors and mysteries, which, after 109 years, hardly anyone will be able to solve. What kind of riddles are these - in the RG collection.
1. Proletarian solidarity or cunning conspiracy?
The spark that ignited the flame was the dismissal of four workers from the Putilov plant in St. Petersburg, famous for the fact that at one time the first cannonball was cast there and the production of railway rails was established. “When the demand for their return was not satisfied,” writes an eyewitness to what was happening, “the plant immediately became very friendly. The strike was quite sustained in nature: the workers sent several people to protect the machines and other property from any possible damage from the less conscientious. Then They sent a deputation to other factories with a message of their demands and an offer to join." Thousands and tens of thousands of workers began to join the movement. As a result, 26 thousand people were already on strike. A meeting of Russian factory workers in St. Petersburg, led by priest Georgy Gapon, prepared a petition for the needs of the workers and residents of St. Petersburg. The main idea there was the convening of popular representation on the basis of universal, secret and equal voting. In addition to this, a number of political and economic demands were put forward, such as freedom and inviolability of the person, freedom of speech, press, assembly, freedom of conscience in matters of religion, public education at public expense, equality of all before the law, responsibility of ministers to the people, guarantees legality of government, replacement of indirect taxes with a direct progressive income tax, introduction of an 8-hour working day, amnesty for political prisoners, separation of church and state. The petition ended with a direct appeal to the tsar. Moreover, this idea belonged to Gapon himself and was expressed by him long before the January events. Menshevik A. A. Sukhov recalled that back in the spring of 1904, Gapon, in a conversation with workers, developed his idea: “Officials are interfering with the people, but the people will come to an understanding with the tsar. Only we must not achieve our goal by force, but by request, in the old way.”
However, there is no smoke without fire. Therefore, subsequently, both monarchist-minded parties and movements, and the Russian emigration assessed the Sunday procession as nothing other than a carefully prepared conspiracy, one of the developers of which was Leon Trotsky, and the main goal of which was the murder of the Tsar. The workers were simply, as they say, set up. And Gapon was chosen as the leader of the uprising only because he was popular among the workers of St. Petersburg. No peaceful demonstrations were planned. According to the plan of the engineer and active revolutionary Pyotr Rutenberg, clashes and a general uprising were to occur, weapons for which were already available. And it was supplied from abroad, in particular, Japan. Ideally, the king should have come out to the people. And the conspirators planned to kill the king. But was it really so? Or was it just ordinary proletarian solidarity? The workers were simply very annoyed that they were forced to work seven days a week, were paid little and irregularly, and on top of that they were being fired. And then off we go.
2. Provocateur or agent of the Tsarist secret police?
There have always been many legends around Georgy Gapon, a half-educated priest (he abandoned the Poltava Theological Seminary). How could this young man, who, according to the recollections of his contemporaries, had a bright appearance and outstanding oratorical qualities, become a leader of the workers?
In the notes of the prosecutor of the St. Petersburg Judicial Chamber to the Minister of Justice dated January 4-9, 1905, there is the following note: “The named priest has acquired extreme importance in the eyes of the people. Most consider him a prophet who came from God to protect the working people. To this are added legends about him invulnerability, elusiveness, etc. Women talk about him with tears in their eyes. Relying on the religiosity of the vast majority of workers, Gapon captivated the entire mass of factory workers and artisans, so that currently about 200,000 people are participating in the movement. Using precisely this side moral strength Russian commoner, Gapon, in the words of one person, “gave a slap in the face” to the revolutionaries, who had lost all significance in these unrest, publishing only 3 proclamations in a small number. By order of Fr. Gapon's workers drive away agitators and destroy leaflets, blindly following their spiritual father. Given this direction of the crowd’s way of thinking, it undoubtedly firmly and confidently believes in the correctness of its desire to submit a petition to the Tsar and have an answer from him, believing that if students are persecuted for their propaganda and demonstrations, then an attack on the crowd going to the Tsar with a cross and priest, will be clear evidence of the impossibility of the king’s subjects asking him for their needs.”
During the USSR historical literature The prevailing version was that Gapon was an agent provocateur of the Tsarist secret police. “Back in 1904, before the Putilov strike,” said the “Short Course of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks,” “the police, with the help of the provocateur priest Gapon, created their own organization among the workers - the “Meeting of Russian Factory Workers.” This organization had its branches in all districts of St. Petersburg. When the strike began, priest Gapon at meetings of his society proposed a provocative plan: on January 9, let all the workers gather and, in a peaceful procession with banners and royal portraits, go to the Winter Palace and submit a petition (request) to the Tsar about their needs. Tsar, they say, he will go out to the people, listen and satisfy their demands. Gapon undertook to help the tsarist secret police: to cause the execution of the workers and drown the labor movement in blood."
Although for some reason Lenin’s statements were completely forgotten in the “Short Course”. A few days after January 9 (22), V. I. Lenin wrote in the article “Revolutionary Days”: “Gapon’s letters, written by him after the massacre of January 9, that “we have no tsar,” his call to fight for freedom etc. - all these are facts that speak in favor of his honesty and sincerity, because the tasks of a provocateur could no longer include such powerful agitation for the continuation of the uprising.” Lenin further wrote that the question of Gapon’s sincerity “could only be resolved by developing historical events, just facts, facts and facts. And the facts decided this issue in Gapon’s favor.” After Gapon’s arrival abroad, when he began preparing an armed uprising, the revolutionaries openly recognized him as their comrade-in-arms. However, after Gapon returned to Russia after the Manifesto of October 17, the old enmity flared up with renewed vigor.
Another common myth about Gapon was that he was a paid agent of the Tsarist secret police. Research by modern historians does not confirm this version, since it has no documentary basis. Thus, according to the research of historian-archivist S.I. Potolov, Gapon cannot be considered an agent of the Tsarist secret police, since he was never listed in the lists and files of agents of the security department. In addition, until 1905, Gapon legally could not be an agent of the security department, since the law strictly prohibited the recruitment of representatives of the clergy as agents. Gapon cannot be considered an agent of the secret police on factual grounds, since he has never been involved in undercover activities. Gapon is not involved in extraditing to the police a single person who would have been arrested or punished on his tip. There is not a single denunciation written by Gapon. According to historian I. N. Ksenofontov, all attempts by Soviet ideologists to portray Gapon as a police agent were based on juggling facts.
Although Gapon, of course, collaborated with the Police Department and even received from it large sums money. But this cooperation was not of the nature of undercover activity. According to the testimony of generals A.I. Spiridovich and A.V. Gerasimov, Gapon was invited to cooperate with the Police Department not as an agent, but as an organizer and agitator. Gapon's task was to combat the influence of revolutionary propagandists and convince workers of the advantages of peaceful methods of fighting for their interests. In accordance with this attitude, Gapon and his students explained to the workers the advantages of legal methods of struggle. The police department, considering this activity useful for the state, supported Gapon and from time to time supplied him with sums of money. Gapon himself, as the leader of the "Assembly", went to officials from the Police Department and made reports to them on the state of the labor issue in St. Petersburg. Gapon did not hide his relationship with the Police Department and the receipt of money from it from his workers. While living abroad, in his autobiography Gapon described the history of his relationship with the Police Department, in which he explained the fact of receiving money from the police.
Did he know what he was leading the workers to on January 9 (22)? This is what Gapon himself wrote: “January 9 is a fatal misunderstanding. In this, in any case, it is not society’s fault with me at the head... I really went to the Tsar with naive faith for the truth, and the phrase: “at the cost of our own lives we guarantee the inviolability of the individual.” sovereign" was not an empty phrase. But if for me and for my faithful comrades the person of the sovereign was and is sacred, then the good of the Russian people is most valuable to us. That is why I, already knowing the day before 9 that they would shoot, went in the front ranks, at the head, under the bullets and bayonets of soldiers, in order to testify with their blood to the truth - namely, the urgency of renewing Russia on the principles of truth." (G. A. Gapon. Letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs").
3. Who killed Gapon?
In March 1906, Georgy Gapon left St. Petersburg along the Finnish railway and didn't come back. According to the workers, he was sent to business meeting with a representative of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. When leaving, Gapon did not take any things or weapons with him, and promised to return by evening. The workers became worried that something bad had happened to him. But no one did much searching.
Only in mid-April did newspaper reports appear that Gapon had been killed by a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Pyotr Rutenberg. It was reported that Gapon was strangled with a rope and his corpse was hanging on one of the empty dachas near St. Petersburg. The reports were confirmed. On April 30, at Zverzhinskaya’s dacha in Ozerki, the body of a murdered man was discovered, in all respects similar to Gapon. Workers of Gapon's organizations confirmed that the murdered man was Georgy Gapon. An autopsy showed that death was due to strangulation. According to preliminary data, Gapon was invited to the dacha by a person well known to him, was attacked and strangled with a rope and hung on a hook driven into the wall. At least 3-4 people took part in the murder. The man who rented the dacha was identified by the janitor from a photograph. It turned out to be engineer Pyotr Rutenberg.
Rutenberg himself did not admit the charges and subsequently claimed that Gapon was killed by workers. According to a certain “hunter of provocateurs” Burtsev, Gapon was strangled with his own hands by a certain Derenthal, a professional killer from the entourage of the terrorist B. Savinkov.
4. How many victims were there?
The “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)” contained the following data: more than 1,000 killed and more than 2,000 wounded. at the same time, in his article “Revolutionary Days” in the newspaper “Forward,” Lenin wrote: “According to the latest newspaper news, on January 13, journalists submitted to the Minister of Internal Affairs a list of 4,600 killed and wounded, a list compiled by reporters. Of course, this too the figure cannot be complete, because even during the day (let alone at night) it would be impossible to count all those killed and wounded in all the skirmishes.”
In comparison, the writer V.D. Bonch-Bruevich tried to somehow justify such figures (in his article from 1929). He proceeded from the fact that 12 companies different regiments 32 salvoes were fired, a total of 2861 shots. Having made 16 misfires per salvo per company, for 110 shots, Bonch-Bruevich missed 15 percent, that is, 430 shots, attributed the same amount to misses, received the rest of 2000 hits and came to the conclusion that at least 4 thousand people were injured. His method was thoroughly criticized by the historian S. N. Semanov in his book “Bloody Sunday.” For example, Bonch-Bruevich counted a volley of two grenadier companies at Sampsonievsky Bridge (220 shots), when in fact they did not fire at this place. At the Alexander Garden, not 100 soldiers shot, as Bonch-Bruevich believed, but 68. In addition, the uniform distribution of hits was completely incorrect - one bullet per person (many received several wounds, which was recorded by hospital doctors); and some of the soldiers deliberately shot upward. Semanov agreed with the Bolshevik V.I. Nevsky (who considered the most plausible total figure of 800-1000 people), without specifying how many were killed and how many were wounded, although Nevsky gave such a division in his article of 1922: “Figures of five thousand or more, "which were called in the first days are clearly incorrect. You can approximately estimate the number of wounded from 450 to 800 and killed from 150 to 200."
According to the same Semanov, the government first reported that only 76 people were killed and 223 were wounded, then they made an amendment that 130 were killed and 229 were wounded. To this it must be added that the leaflet issued by the RSDLP immediately after the events of January 9 stated that “at least 150 people were killed and many hundreds were wounded.”
According to the modern publicist O. A. Platonov, on January 9, a total of 96 people were killed (including a police officer) and up to 333 wounded, of which another 34 people died by January 27, according to the old style (including one assistant police officer). Thus, a total of 130 people were killed or died from their wounds and about 300 were wounded.
5. The king go out onto the balcony...
“It’s a hard day! There were serious riots in St. Petersburg due to the workers’ desire to reach the Winter Palace. The troops had to shoot in different places of the city, there were many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and difficult!” wrote Nicholas II after the events in St. Petersburg .
Baron Wrangel’s comment is noteworthy: “One thing seems certain to me: if the Tsar had gone out onto the balcony, if he had listened to the people one way or another, nothing would have happened, except that the Tsar would have become more popular than he was... How the prestige of his great-grandfather, Nicholas I, strengthened, after his appearance during the cholera riot on Sennaya Square! But the Tsar was only Nicholas II, and not the Second Nicholas..." The Tsar did not go anywhere. And what happened happened.
6. A sign from above?
According to eyewitnesses, during the dispersal of the procession on January 9, a rare natural phenomenon was observed in the sky of St. Petersburg - a halo. According to the memoirs of the writer L. Ya. Gurevich, “in the lingering whitish haze of the sky, the cloudy red sun gave two reflections near itself in the fog, and it seemed to the eyes that there were three suns in the sky. Then, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, a bright rainbow, unusual in winter appeared in the sky, and when it dimmed and disappeared, a snow storm arose."
Other witnesses saw a similar picture. According to scientists, a similar natural phenomenon is observed in frosty weather and is caused by the refraction of sunlight in ice crystals floating in the atmosphere. Visually, it appears in the form of false suns (parhelia), circles, rainbows or solar pillars. In the old days, such phenomena were considered as heavenly signs foreshadowing trouble.
» Society of factory workers, headed by a priest Georgy Gapon. A personality apparently not particularly outstanding, but with great ambition, he soon fell under the influence of his socialist environment and “went with the flow.” With the beginning of the liberal government of the minister Svyatopolk-Mirsky Gapon's activities acquired the character of systematic propaganda. He became even closer to the left-wing intelligentsia and promised them to prepare a working speech. The fall of Port Arthur, which undermined the prestige of power, was considered a convenient moment for him.
On December 29, 1904, the leaders of the Gapon society at the Putilov defense plant presented the directorate with a demand to fire one foreman, who allegedly dismissed four workers without reason. On January 3, 1905, the whole of Putilovsky went on strike. The strikers' demands were still of an economic nature, but such that if they were met, the entire domestic industry would fall (8-hour working day, high minimum wage). Gaponov's society apparently had considerable funds at its disposal. It was rumored that the money came to him from hostile Russia Japanese sources.
The strike began to spread throughout the capital. Large crowds of strikers went from factory to factory and insisted that work stop everywhere, threatening violence otherwise. On January 5, 1905, at a meeting with the participation of Social Democrats, a political program movements. On January 6, they drafted a petition to the Tsar. On the same day, a shot was fired with grapeshot at Nicholas II, who came to the blessing of water.
...For Epiphany we went to the blessing of water in St. Petersburg. After the service in the Church of the Winter Palace, the procession of the cross went down to the Neva to the Jordan - and then, during the salute of the Guards Horse Battery from the Exchange, one of the guns fired real buckshot and doused it next to the Blessing of Water, wounded a policeman, pierced the banner, bullets broke the glass in the lower floor of the Winter Palace and Even on the metropolitan's platform, several fell at the end of their lives.
The salute continued until 101 shots were fired - the Tsar did not move, and no one ran, even though grapeshot could fly in again.
Was it an assassination attempt or an accident - one combatant was caught among the single men? Or is it a bad sign again? If they had been more precise, they would have killed several hundred people...
(A.I. Solzhenitsyn. “August the Fourteenth”, chapter 74.)
January 8 in St. Petersburg on strike last time newspapers came out, and then the idea of going to the Winter Palace was unexpectedly thrown into the agitated working masses. The “workers’ petition” addressed to the Tsar was forged to match the tone of the common people, but it was clear that it was compiled by an experienced Social Democratic agitator. The main demand was not an increase in wages and improved working conditions, but general-direct-equal-secret elections to the Constituent Assembly. There were 13 more points, including all freedoms, ministerial responsibility and even the abolition of all indirect taxes. The petition ended boldly: “Command and swear to fulfill... otherwise we will all die in this square, in front of your palace!”
The authorities were very poorly informed about the nature of the movement. No newspapers were published, the mayor trusted Gapon entirely, the city police were weak and few in number. The mayor tried to post notices around the city banning the procession, but due to a strike by printers, only small, nondescript posters could be produced. Gapon convinced the workers in meetings that there was no danger, that the tsar would accept the petition, and if he refused, then “we don’t have a tsar!” Unable to prevent the demonstration, the authorities placed military cordons on all routes leading from the working-class neighborhoods to the palace.
The Myth of Bloody Sunday
On Sunday, January 9, 1905, crowds of people moved from different parts of the city to the center, hoping to converge at the Winter Palace by two o'clock. The shy tsar was afraid to go out to the people; he did not know how to talk to the masses. Communist authors later falsely wrote that the procession was purely peaceful. However, in reality everything was different. In the city, military cordons, neither warnings, nor threats, nor empty volleys could stop the advancing crowds of workers. People here and there with “hurray!” They rushed at the army formation, the students insulted the soldiers with obscenities, threw stones at them, and fired revolvers. Then, in a number of places, retaliatory volleys were fired at the crowd, which killed 130 people and injured several hundred (in total, 300 thousand took part in the demonstration). Gapon escaped safely.
For several days, terrible confusion reigned in St. Petersburg. The police were in confusion. Lanterns were broken throughout the city, shops and private houses were robbed, and electricity was cut off in the evenings. The Minister of Internal Affairs Svyatopolk-Mirsky and the St. Petersburg mayor Fullon were dismissed from their posts. Fullon's place was firmly taken Dmitry Trepov. Under his leadership, the city began to calm down, people gradually returned to work, although the revolutionaries tried to forcibly prevent this. But the unrest spread to other cities. “Bloody Sunday” on January 9 made a huge impression abroad.
On January 19, Nicholas II received in Tsarskoye Selo a delegation of well-meaning workers from various factories assembled by Trepov.
...You allowed yourself to be drawn into deception by traitors and enemies of our homeland,” said the king. – Rebellious gatherings only incite the crowd to the kind of disorder that has always forced and will force the authorities to resort to military force... I know that the life of a worker is not easy. But for a rebellious crowd to tell me their needs is criminal. I believe in the honest feelings of working people and therefore forgive them their guilt.
50 thousand rubles were allocated from the treasury for benefits to the families of victims. A commission by Senator Shidlovsky was created to clarify the needs of the workers with the participation of elected representatives from among them. However, the revolutionaries managed to get their candidates into this commission, who put forward a number of political demands - the commission was never able to begin work.
On January 22 (January 9, old style), 1905, police and regular troops shot a procession of workers heading to the Winter Palace. Dialogue with the authorities did not work out. The first Russian revolution began with Bloody Sunday.
Prerequisites
The immediate reason for the workers’ march was the “Putilov Incident” - the unfair dismissal in December 1904 of four workers, members of the “Assembly of Russian Factory Workers of St. Petersburg” under the leadership of priest Georgy Gapon, the largest legal workers' organization countries. It should be noted that the “Workers' Meeting” was founded on the initiative of the head of the Special Department of the Police Department S.V. Zubatov and was under the patronage of the St. Petersburg mayor, General I.A. Fullona. However, by January 1905, Zubatov had long been retired, control over the “Assembly” was lost, and it itself had undergone a radicalization of sentiment.
Another reason is the refusal of the management of the Putilov plant to introduce an eight-hour working day from the New Year. The company goes on strike. The Putilovites are supported by workers from other factories. A large-scale workers' strike breaks out in St. Petersburg.
The decision to hold a Sunday procession to convey the demands of the workers directly to the tsar was made on the afternoon of January 6 at a meeting of “Assembly” activists. The initial text of the petition was compiled by priest Georgy Gapon, the then leader of the protest. The next day, January 7, after Gapon’s meeting with representatives of the revolutionary parties, the text was revised and in its final form it actually represented an ultimatum to Nicholas II and the government; political demands began to prevail over economic demands: immediate convocation Constituent Assembly, separation of Church and State, are clearly unacceptable for the authorities.
The government's reaction
The security forces missed the situation with the start of the strike movement in the capital. The then heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Justice - Prince P.D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky and N.V. Muravyov were awaiting resignation and were preparing to transfer affairs to their successors. The Emperor and his retinue were busy celebrating the Epiphany.
Only on January 7, a meeting between the Minister of Justice N.V. Muravyov and the priest Gapon finally took place, but the parties could not agree. On the same day, at a meeting of representatives of law enforcement agencies, the issue of the immediate arrest of Gapon was discussed, but it was decided not to provoke the workers. On the evening of January 8, martial law was declared in St. Petersburg, and they decided to detain Gapon and his closest supporters. That evening, after a conference with the Emperor, martial law was lifted. Already after midnight, another meeting of the security forces: they discussed the disposition of the troops, a decision was made - not to disturb the procession of workers through the city, but under no circumstances to allow them onto Palace Square. Only on the night of the 9th did the security forces fully realize that bloodshed was inevitable, but they did not prepare another meeting for the striking workers.
Nicholas II
In all likelihood, the king was poorly aware of the seriousness of the situation. Nicholas II was in Gatchina; a diary entry he made on January 8 reads: “Since yesterday, all plants and factories have gone on strike in St. Petersburg. Troops were called from the surrounding area to reinforce the garrison. The workers have behaved calmly so far. Their number is determined at 120,000 people. The workers' union is headed by some socialist priest, Gapon. Mirsky came in the evening to report on measures taken" That's all. It seems that at first those around the Sovereign themselves did not understand what was going on, and when it became clear, no one found the courage to report on the true state of affairs.
The main column of workers, led by priest Georgy Gapon, dressed in a ceremonial cassock and holding a cross in his hands, moved towards Palace Square from the Narva Gate. Many workers walked with their families, carrying icons and portraits of the Tsar and Tsarina in their hands. The demonstrators sang. When until Arc de Triomphe With no more than a hundred steps left, cavalry suddenly attacked the workers. Then the soldier chain fires five targeted salvos. They shoot to kill. When the crowd thins out and many workers remain lying on the pavement, the soldiers lower their sights and finish off the wounded.
Gapon miraculously escapes. Some work columns still reach Palace Square, where they are stopped no less brutally. On this day, shots are heard throughout the city. On Vasilyevsky Island, hundreds of Cossacks swoop down on the workers. The troops' actions are poorly coordinated, two policemen - Zholtkevich and Shornikov - will be mistakenly killed by soldiers' shots.
Only by the evening of January 9 (22) was the procession completely dispersed, small pockets of resistance suppressed. Gapon's proclamations appear in the city and begin to quickly spread, cursing the traitorous Tsar and condemning soldiers and officers.