Bloody Sunday 1905 briefly. Bloody Sunday (1905) – briefly

01/09/1905 (01/22). – Provocation " Bloody Sunday" - the beginning of the "first Russian revolution"

Provocation "Bloody Sunday"

“Bloody Sunday” on January 9, 1905 was a planned provocation and became the beginning of the “first Russian revolution”, to incite which, taking advantage, the world behind the scenes threw a lot of money.

The organizer of the “peaceful march” on January 9, a former priest (banned from serving and then defrocked) Gapon, was associated with both the security department (ostensibly to keep the demands of the workers in a law-abiding direction) and with the socialist revolutionaries (through a certain Pinchas Rutenberg), then there played a double role. Having called the workers to a peaceful demonstration at the Winter Palace with a petition to, the provocateurs were preparing a far from peaceful clash with the shedding of blood. The workers were announced about the Procession of the Cross, which, indeed, began with a prayer service for the health of the Royal Family. However, the text of the petition, without the knowledge of the workers, included demands for an end to the war with Japan, the convocation, separation of Church and state, and “the Tsar’s oath before the people” (!).

The night before, January 8, the Tsar became familiar with the contents of Gapon’s petition, in fact a revolutionary ultimatum with impossible economic and political demands (abolition of taxes, release of all convicted terrorists), and decided to ignore it as unacceptable in relation to state power. At the same time, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Prince P.D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky reassured the Tsar, assuring him that, according to his information, nothing dangerous or serious was expected. Therefore, the Tsar did not consider it necessary to come from Tsarskoe Selo to the capital.

Gapon understood perfectly well that he was preparing a provocation. He said at a rally the day before: “If... they don’t let us through, then we will break through by force. If the troops shoot at us, we will defend ourselves. Some of the troops will come over to our side, and then we will start a revolution. We will set up barricades, destroy weapons stores, break up the prison, take over the telegraph and telephone. The Social Revolutionaries promised bombs... and ours will take it."(report on the demonstration in Iskra No. 86)...

After the bloodshed that had been achieved, Gapon was frank in his memoirs:

“I thought it would be good to give the whole demonstration a religious character, and immediately sent several workers to the nearest church for banners and images, but they refused to give us them. Then I sent 100 people to take them by force, and in a few minutes they brought them. Then I ordered a royal portrait to be brought from our department in order to emphasize the peaceful and decent nature of our procession. The crowd grew to enormous proportions... “Should we go straight to the Narva outpost or take a roundabout route?” - they asked me. “Straight to the outpost, take heart, it’s death or freedom,” I shouted. In response there was a thunderous "hurray". The procession moved to the powerful singing of “Save, Lord, Thy people,” and when it came to the words “To our Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich,” representatives of the socialist parties invariably replaced them with the words “save Georgy Apollonovich,” while others repeated “death or freedom.” The procession walked in a solid mass. My two bodyguards walked ahead of me... Children were running along the sides of the crowd... when the procession moved, the police not only did not interfere with us, but themselves, without hats, walked with us... Two police officers, also without hats, walked ahead us, clearing the road and directing the passing crews to the side". The procession went to the city center in several columns from different sides, their total number reached 200 thousand people.

At the same time, inflammatory leaflets were distributed in the city, then telephone poles were toppled and barricades were built in several places, two gun shops and a police station were destroyed, and attempts were made to seize the prison and telegraph office. During the procession, provocative shots were fired at the police from the crowd. The troops, completely unprepared to counter such mass uprisings of the urban population, found themselves forced to withstand the pressure of crowds from different sides of the city and make decisions on the spot.

All this must be taken into account in order to understand the fear of those who ordered to shoot at the advancing crowd (according to official police reports, on January 9 and 10, 96 people were killed and more than 333 were injured; the final figures are 130 dead and 299 injured, including police and the military; TSB gives a false figure from a revolutionary leaflet of that time: “more than a thousand killed and over two thousand wounded”). Even before the bloody events, he made a speech at a meeting of the Free Economic Society, declaring: “Today a revolution has begun in Russia. gives 1000 rubles for the revolution, Gorky - 1500 rubles...” However, the plan collapsed due to the fact that the troops did not go over to the side of the rebels. In some places, workers beat up agitators and barricade organizers with red flags: “We don’t need this, it’s the Jews who are muddying the waters...”.

Speaking about the hasty order of the frightened authorities who ordered the shooting, we should also remember that the atmosphere around the royal palace was very tense, because three days earlier an attempt had been made on the Emperor’s life. On January 6, during the Epiphany blessing of water on the Neva, a fireworks display was fired in the Peter and Paul Fortress, during which one of the cannons fired a live charge towards the Emperor. A shot of grapeshot pierced the banner of the Naval Corps, hit the windows of the Winter Palace and seriously wounded the gendarmerie police officer on duty. The officer commanding the fireworks immediately committed suicide, so the reason for the shot remained a mystery. Immediately after this, the Emperor and his family left for Tsarskoe Selo, where he remained until January 11. Thus, the Tsar did not know about what was happening in the capital, he was not in St. Petersburg that day, but revolutionaries and liberals attributed the blame for what happened to him, calling him “Nicholas the Bloody” from then on.

Meanwhile, the Emperor, having received news of what had happened, wrote in his diary that day, somewhat violating his usual dry style of summarizing current events: “Hard day! Serious riots occurred in St. Petersburg due to the workers’ desire to reach the Winter Palace. The troops were supposed to shoot at different places city, there were many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and difficult!..”

By order of the Sovereign, all victims and families of those killed were paid benefits in the amount of one and a half years' earnings of a skilled worker. On January 18, Minister Svyatopolk-Mirsky was dismissed. On January 19, the Tsar received a deputation of workers from large factories and factories of the capital, who already on January 14, in an address to the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, expressed complete repentance for what had happened: “Only in our darkness did we allow that some persons alien to us expressed political desires on our behalf” and asked convey this repentance to the Emperor.

However, the revolutionary provocateurs achieved their goal, now all that remained was to exaggerate passions. On the same night, January 9, Gapon (he fled from the procession at the first shots) published a call for a riot, which, due to the blood shed and mainly due to the incitement of most of the press, caused unrest in many places in Russia that lasted more than two years. In October, the entire country was paralyzed by a strike, which caused many casualties...

“The most regrettable thing is that the unrest that has occurred was caused by bribery from the enemies of Russia and all public order. They sent significant funds in order to create civil strife among us, in order to distract workers from work to prevent timely sending to Far East naval and ground forces, complicate the supply of the active army and thereby bring untold disasters to Russia...”

The name of the provocateur “Pop Gapon” became a household name, but his fate was unenviable. Immediately after the provocation, he fled abroad, but by the fall he returned to Russia with repentance and, whitewashing himself, began to expose the revolutionaries in print. Head of the St. Petersburg security department A.V. Gerasimov describes in his memoirs that Gapon told him about the plan to kill the Tsar when he came out to the people. Gapon replied: “Yes, that’s true. It would be terrible if this plan came true. I found out about it much later. It was not my plan, but Rutenberg’s... The Lord saved him...”

On March 28, 1906, Gapon was executed by the same Rutenberg in the village of Ozerki, by decision of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. “The Moor did his job...” - and was removed to hide traces of provocation. According to a Jewish source, Rutenberg after this “underwent a rite of return to Judaism in Italy in 1915 with the scourging due to him, became close with Jabotinsky, then with Weizmann and Ben-Gurion, participated in an attempt to organize the Jewish Legion... In 1922 moved to Palestine forever."

Discussion: 68 comments

Please tell me in what month did Bloody Sunday end???

But, unfortunately, many people are still deceived and believe that the Holy Tsar was to blame for all the troubles of Russia and always blame Bloody Sunday on him!
To Anton: uh, why are you asking such stupid questions, my friend?

Excellent. Otherwise you live with garbage in your head, which
They poured it there back in Soviet school.

I have a question
Why was the king not in the city? and why weren’t the scoundrel revolutionaries arrested in advance and the marches allowed? Who and where fired from the crowd and how many policemen and soldiers died?

This article raises more questions than it answers. What kind of king is this if he doesn’t know what’s going on in his state? What merits do you praise the king for today? after all, murder is a grave sin, be it committed by the tsar (albeit indirectly) or by the Bitsevsky maniac

Save us, Lord, from idiots and anti-Semites! By the way, author! Emperor Nicholas II began to be called “bloody” not since 1905, but long before that. Our last tsar received this nickname after his coronation in 1896, when there was a mass stampede on Khodynka. A lot of people died.

Please respond to my review, maybe I'm wrong?

Well, it’s true that the uterus hurts the eyes, and the moderator???

The truth doesn't hurt our eyes. Only there is no truth in your malice. We can post any opinions based on facts, but not blasphemy against St. Sovereign. Unfortunately, it is impossible to sweep away your garbage within the framework of short responses. We suggest opening a discussion on our forum - they will answer you in detail there. Here we will answer only the main question: why did the Tsar not prevent the tragedy. Because no ruler can “know” and control everything and everyone. In addition, to anticipate and prevent all the insidious actions of attackers, provocateurs and demons acting secretly and without rules. If this were possible, there would be “heaven on earth.” A war was then started against Orthodox Russia by all the united anti-Russian forces using all unexpected provocative methods. When this became clear, the response to these forces, on behalf of the Emperor, was given by Stolypin. But on January 9, 1905, no one could yet know that the “first revolution” was being prepared. And one cannot blame the Tsar for the fact that the Jews started this vile war against him, including sowing slanderous garbage into the heads of both the people and the intelligentsia. And the best representatives of the ruling class and law enforcement agencies simply began to be shot - more than 10 thousand. And not everyone was able to find a replacement...

There is only one answer to the question of why Bloody Sunday happened:
Every nation deserves its own ruler.
Why Lenin: see above.
Why Stalin: see even higher.
And so on.
If the people themselves do not want to leave serfdom, then no Gapon will give them freedom.

Once again: every nation deserves its own ruler.

I am teaching at school now. We are just going through this topic, God only knows how hard it is! Of course, that’s not what they say in textbooks!

It’s sad that the current Bolshevik bastards howl to the evil cries of the Jews, who hate everything Russian, Orthodox and, of course, our Tsar, the holy martyr and passion-bearer, to the point of diarrhea. He is a martyr because he was killed by the Jews, and a passion-bearer because his Russian compatriots not only did not prevent this vile ritual crime, but also contributed to it. As with the overthrow of the legitimate authority of the Anointed of God, so now “there are lies, cowardice and deceit all around.” The duty of honest teachers is to convey the truth about our Sovereign, the purest and most merciful of all Russian sovereigns.
I can say to Andrey-11: yes, he is worthy, and therefore now the descendants of the same Judas and Jews are in power instead of the Orthodox Tsar, as after 1917. That is why now the Russian land is populated by stray migrants, tumbleweeds, and holy places and the graves of ancestors are in reproach.

The article is an example of dishonest journalism and has no relation to history. For some reason Multatuli in in this case didn’t sign, although the text is obviously his. I write this even though I have nothing in common with Marxism and revolutionism. The problem is that most of the facts in this article were pulled out of thin air by the author, it is no coincidence and there are no links to sources. It would not hurt Pyotr Valentinovich to master at least a little source study. Copying something from a tabloid newspaper or a dubious memoir does not mean establishing a fact. Otherwise the experts will laugh at him. And no correct Orthodox beliefs will help him.

Thank you for your attention. Multatuli has nothing to do with this article, it is written by the calendar compiler based on various sources(zh-l “Veche”, etc.). And the “Church historian” should point out possible errors (they can never be excluded; we would be grateful for corrections) and sign the criticism with his name so that we can judge its quality. So far, his unsubstantiated remark has no value here. And it has nothing to do with history.

I read your links - thank you. I didn’t find any errors, but I added some facts and quotes. However, I cannot agree with your proposed “moral assessment” of the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints of the MP, that “a certain share of responsibility for the tragic events of January 9, 1905 can be assigned to the Sovereign from both historical and moral points of view.” Such provocations are precisely designed to create an “immoral” image of the authorities. And, unfortunately, the Synodal Commission of the MP also succumbed to this to a certain extent.

thanks but the information is false

The article is good, and most importantly, truthful. I say this as a historian. It’s sad that even now there are people who believe the Soviet interpretation.

It’s very painful and scary that all this happened in our Russia. It’s upsetting to tears!!! Thank you for the article, very interesting and informative.

This is the truth!!! And SHAME on the moderator for oppressing the truth!!! FOR GREAT Rus'!!!

thanks for the truth. I knew that the Emperor could not shed innocent blood!

To confirm what was written, I would like to see Gapon’s memoirs. I searched on the Internet and couldn’t find it. Without confirmation, this article cannot be taken seriously.

Horror! do you all really believe this? Haven’t you realized yet that the Russian Orthodox Church is an ordinary sect extracting money from us! Gentlemen, come to your senses, there is no God!

I completely agree with the author of the article in the truth he conveys, but not in the specific truth. Better article rework so that they are compatible (the article, for example, talks about the abolition of taxes in general, while the workers ask for the abolition of only indirect ones).
Original text of the petition of St. Petersburg workers:

And I completely agree: the demands are impossible! 8 hour work day? With low labor productivity, this is impossible, but the owner also needs to eat. A salary of 1 ruble a day? To wander around restaurants? No way. And in general, my great-great-grandfather told me that Putilov’s workers drank champagne in buckets. No, the Emperor did everything right, he thought about preserving the purity, deep asceticism and splendor of the people’s body!

ROC - The Russian Orthodox Church is not a bunch of OFFICIALS IN CASSBALLS, but the SUMMARY OF ALL CHRISTIANS, both living and dead. From the fact that you are very embittered by the thievery of a number of officials in cassocks, it does not at all follow that there is no God! On the contrary, for our sins the Lord ALLOWS such, so to speak, “hierarchs”, so that we, having delved into the Truth, can finally SEE THE ROOT of our troubles...

Unfortunately, the patriotic movement is now teeming with GAPONs, which contributes to disunion into small groups and “deviation from the route” (military)

Here is what the poet Konstantin Balmont wrote:
But it will happen - the hour of reckoning awaits.
Who began to reign - Khodynka,
He will end up standing on the scaffold.

When the obscene Roma Trachtenberg was buried (with a rabbi) at the St. Petersburg JUDIAN CEMETERY NAMED AFTER THE VICTIMS OF JANUARY 9, many Russian simpletons finally thought: it’s strange why the victims of “Bloody Sunday” are entirely Jews? How could they go “with portraits of the Tsar and icons” if...? But the “Church historians” are apparently going to rest in the neighborhood of Trachtenberg!

In pursuit.
It dawned on me: the “historian of the Church” is, after all, Georgiy Mitrofanov himself, welcome to the site?! Log in, my friend!

Here we still need to figure out what kind of agents of the BACKSTAGE, entrenched then almost at the very Throne, CANCELLED all security measures during the Coronation and introduced GOAT PROVOCATORS into the people's crowd, who acted in the same way as on January 9.
And Mr. Balmont was very far from looking at the ROOT, for hatred of the Autocrat overshadowed his mind, as well as his other fellow intellectuals...

the Tsar is guilty, he could not have known about the upcoming execution of the working people

The emperor did not know about the execution of the workers. He was not in St. Petersburg. My great-grandfather served in the cavalry regiment of Nicholas II. He lived 92 years, dying, in oblivion, “fought” for the Tsar and the Fatherland in Russo-Japanese War- he had dying visions and again saw himself as a young non-commissioned officer at the front. When on January 9, senior officers gave the order to shoot into the crowd, Nicholas II’s cavalry regiment fired into the air, because it was obvious to them that this was treason and a provocation, designed to denigrate the Tsar in the eyes of Russia.

Thank you so much for being there. I have been looking for like-minded people for a long time. In the face of the growing danger of the resuscitation of Leninism, duping the population and depriving it of its historical roots, only our unity based on the Holy Orthodox Church and the Russian Idea can and, I am sure, will save our Fatherland. WE ARE TOGETHER!

What is especially interesting is that the first blood was shed not by the workers, but by the soldiers. Something to think about!!!

We are still waking up! and glory to the Lord!
Nicholas II is God's anointed and the redeemer of Russia before the Lord! If it weren’t for Him, there wouldn’t be us, Russia, i.e.
in Him is our salvation, and in our repentance for our betrayal of the Orthodox Faith and the Tsar-Father!
and he alone is the legitimate Sovereign of the Russian land to this day! (autocracy and autocracy are different things) he is already gathering his army from those walking on our land, in whom there still lives true love for our Lord and selfless devotion to the Orthodox Faith, in order to come and forever establish the power of God on Russian land and save us from the Judeo-Masonic yoke and ecumenist heresy!
Get ready, prepare your heart and soul! I woke up myself - help someone else!
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and slander you in every way unjustly because of Me.
Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven: just as they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Gospel of Matthew 5.6; 5.10; 5.11-12)

I’ll probably say this harshly, but the nameless author would have been a huge success in Komsomol times - in Soviet agitprop. This propaganda, with careful spelling of the word “Sovereign” with a capital letter, with pink monarchical saliva, is ideal for fighters against Jews and lovers of the “tsar-redeemer” - facts are not so important to them. I can’t say that this is a complete lie, no, everything is written in the best traditions of the Soviet Union: we take some superficial fact and from it we develop a picture that is completely untrue. I'll give an example to make it clearer.

In this anonymous article:

“On January 19, the Tsar received a deputation of workers from large factories and factories of the capital, who already on January 14, in an address to the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, expressed complete repentance for what had happened: “Only through our darkness did we allow that some persons alien to us expressed political desires on our behalf” and asked to convey this repentance to the Emperor"

Is that how it was? Yes, BUT: no mention was made of a “small” detail: these 34 “deputies” were forcibly recruited by the police from among, so to speak, “reliable elements” according to lists drawn up in advance, and urgently taken to the emperor, and they were searched and even banned communicate with each other.

There's a difference, isn't there?

“The head of the St. Petersburg security department, A.V. Gerasimov, describes in his memoirs that Gapon told him about the plan to kill the Tsar 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..."

So? Yes - BUT again there is a “small nuance”: besides Gerasimov, not a single source (and there are a lot of them) confirms this, and Gerasimov certainly cannot be considered an objective source.

And so the anonymous author, in general, wrote his entire text: pulled up, arranged and presented - just to a properly engaged public. But not for those who are interested in how it really happened.

But how did everything really happen, Dmitry? It seems to you that you know this for certain... Are you a long-liver hiding from the media, a participant in that very “peaceful” march? Open our dark eyes to what is happening. The author, a champion and zealot of the Orthodox Autocracy, would have had enormous success during the times of the atheistic Soviet regime... You are right more than ever. He would undoubtedly have been immediately awarded the Stalin Prize and enthusiastically received at all the most high levels and would provide him with all the conditions for a peaceful and serene life in a Soviet concentration camp. Dimitri, you combine incompatible things in your head. This is a warning sign.

I was interested in this tragedy a lot. At first glance, for uninquiring minds, the accusation against the king is obvious, and not many have understood the truth. I am grateful to the author of the article, because this is the truth.

I found valuable information! My grandfather, Chief Engineer of the Putilov Plant, was on that deputation that was received by the Tsar on January 19, 1905. I know for sure that he was immediately imprisoned and we don’t know anything else about him. Since his wife Anna Konstantinovna Govorova is my grandmother .His name was Sergei, unfortunately I don’t even know his middle name. If anyone has any information, please share!!!

I didn’t find anything in the reviews about the question I was interested in! I would like to add. By that time my grandfather Sergei Govorov already had three children and the fourth was my mother Olga Sergeevna Govorova, born on July 24, 1905. half a year later her husband was arrested. And my grandmother gave birth not in St. Petersburg, but in Dnepropetrovsk. With “Comrades” in the Social Democratic Party. I believe that my grandfather suffered politically. I am stating facts not for discussion. You can’t redo history! I just want to know. What happened to him?

Nicholas 2 was called “bloody” not because of January 9, 1905, but because of the day of his coronation on the Khodynka Field, when more than 3,000 people died in a stampede during the distribution of gifts. If an error is given in such trifles, can you trust all the information???

There is no mistake here. It doesn't matter when someone called first. It is important when, why and for what purpose this label was stuck on and began to be actively exaggerated as a revolutionary slogan precisely in connection with “Bloody Sunday” - to justify and promote the revolution. If this is not clear to you, then please reserve your teachings for more justified examples of my mistakes. I am always grateful for their corrections.

Thank you very much for the article. I knew that “Bloody Sunday” was a provocation, but had no evidence of this, I doubted it. Our textbooks do not contain such information, teachers teach in a different direction. When I read this article, I was very pleased that at least someone is telling the truth, the truth erased from the consciousness of our people during the years of the Soviet period. Thank you very much!

So, what has changed since then in Russia? Nothing...

Thank you*)

Bloody Sunday is a pure provocation thanks for the article

“Bloody Resurrection” is not an isolated incident taken out of time.
According to the 4th State Duma, from 1901 to 1914 tsarist troops opened fire more than 6 thousand times (almost every day), including artillery, on peaceful rallies and demonstrations of workers, on gatherings and processions of peasants. The number of victims exceeded 180 thousand people. Another 40 thousand people died in prisons and hard labor.
One thing is obvious: those marching (Jan 9) were not armed.
Naturally, a variety of revolutionary and oppositional forces tried to use this grandiose demonstration-march-religious procession for their own purposes.

It turns out that in almost every village the tsarist troops fired artillery at peasant gatherings?.. Doesn’t your number of victims exceed the number of participants in the gatherings? This digital information about the evil tsarist troops is clearly from the same kitchen as the “millions killed” during the Baptism of Rus'.

This is not what “comes out” for us. This is according to the State Duma of the IV convocation.
/IV State Duma. On February 25, 1917, Emperor Nicholas II signed a decree to terminate the Duma until April of the same year; Being one of the centers of opposition to Nicholas II, the Duma refused to submit, meeting in private meetings.../
And don’t distort: ​​“including artillery” does not mean “only artillery”
My opinion: The Tsar did a lot to prevent the revolutionary breakdown of the foundations of the state, but you cannot change the course of History. The withdrawal was overdue and it happened.
P.S. And foundations are always broken with blood, be it baptism (the essence of rebaptism into a different faith) or a change of system.

Well, yes, in this State Duma only lovers of truth gathered who did not slander the Tsar and did not prepare a revolution... Therefore, one must certainly believe in the “honesty” of the 180 thousand victims of “evil tsarism” they indicate, how could it be otherwise...

I didn’t say anything “about the evil tsarist troops” or about “evil tsarism” - these are your words.
For me, whether it’s the Tsar or the Secretary General... I’m interested in facts.
However, it is important for believers to believe, not to know.

Pop Gapon defended the rights of the working people, which means he was against the authorities and against the church feeding on the authorities.
The Bolsheviks did not need any defenders of the people other than themselves.
Both those, and others, and others, without agreement, enlisted Gapon as a provocateur.
Listen to some - the revolution in Russia began with Priest Gapon!
........................
Nicholas II was very unlucky - his reign fell at a turning point in history. Fodalism in Russia was replaced by wild and unbridled capitalism, which led the country to revolution.

nonsense, the church would not have canonized the Tsar if everything happened as they say in history books

The strange holiness of the king, under whom the power collapsed.

The fact that the organization “Meeting of Russian Factory Workers”, which was headed by Gapon, is not mentioned is very strange. Meanwhile, this organization was created with the participation of an official of the police department, Zubatov. So there is no need to attribute everything to essayers. The police were obviously aware. I will soon believe that the police gentlemen and others like them were the authors of this provocation. According to one version, in February 1917, they also wanted to delay several trains with bread to Petrograd, provoke unrest, and suppress them for the sake of raising wages (Nicholas had previously refused to raise them - there was a war after all). So to speak, demonstrate your need. (doesn't seem true?)
And Gapon, apparently a very controversial person, decided to hope that there would be no bloodshed. But I miscalculated.
As for the execution of Gapon, it is unclear. By that time, he again began communicating with officials - write it yourself. Everything he could give out he could give out. So there was no need to hide any ends.

<<По одной из версий в феврале 1917 они тоже хотели задежали несколько поездов с хлебом в Петроград, спровоцировать беспорядки, и подавить их ради повышения зарплаты>>
There was hardly any need to provoke riots.
Abolished, but preserved serfdom - the land remained with the landowners; the chaos of young Russian capitalism plus war - leading the people to poverty... everything was boiling, everything was cracking, everything was coming apart at the seams.
Again - first promotion, and then suppression - first money, then chairs! And everyone knows that wages are not raised during war.

That’s when the truth is revealed, he has lived. And they still hide a lot from us!

Certainly! The “pink and fluffy” Tsar, the “royal passion-bearer,” herded several tens of thousands of soldiers and gendarmes into the city, hoping that they would “politely” ask the desperate workers to get off the streets, and he himself fled to Tsarskoe. A fool understands that in this situation shooting will begin! And then this “holy man” had the audacity to “forgive” the workers! It’s disgusting that now they are trying to fill our brains with stories about the “good” Sovereign and stupid workers who fell under the corrupting influence of certain forces hostile to Russia, seeking to destroy it from the inside! We had something like this recently, if you strain your memory... Thus, the new round of history, which is now being actively rewritten, is no different from the previous one. And we will step on the same rake again!

No one is messing with your brains, my dear; they have long been cemented by Bolshevik propaganda. Read more, although it may be useless. But speaking about the Emperor, who suffered a painful death, in such a tone is not permissible and shows you not with the best side. Solzhenitsyn gave the definition of EDUCATION to people like you.

Thank you! I really liked the article. It’s nice that they write the truth. These Soviet school textbooks are impossible and unpleasant to read.. I am the only student who reads additional information that contradicts the absurdity in the textbook. The rest accept the “truth.” And the teacher is actively promoting communism.

Governor General Trepov and Metropolitan Yuvinaliy immediately, without delay, identified those who organized the provocation: it turned out that they were the Japanese, to whom Russia had just lost the war (I wonder who was to blame for this defeat? Probably Lenin and Gapon together). Ask ,why the Japanese? very simple: Trepov still did not know anything that in a few years another force would appear - the Bolsheviks. Since the one who wrote the article forgot about the Japanese, but knew about the Bolsheviks what they were at the end of 17, he decided not to philosophize and call them provocateurs ... Ignoring the speech of the people is like ignoring diarrhea: not from a great mind..

The king knew everything perfectly well, he could not help but know! And Bloody Sunday is also on his conscience... Such a crowd could only be contained by gunfire, otherwise they would have destroyed and burned St. Petersburg. Now the royal family is ranked among the Holy Passion-Bearers, but... Nicholas II and his family were shot in the same way as the workers in 1905... That is, the evil returned to the king 13 years later. In February 1917, the Tsar abdicated the throne and Russia, which was unthinkable for God’s anointed to do! They also demanded renunciation from Paul the First, but he went to his death, but did not sign the renunciation! Even though Paul was considered an eccentric, a tyrant, and a hysterical woman, at a tragic, fatal moment for himself, he remained faithful to the throne and Russia.

Thank you for the truth. Glory to the great King!

yes guys. Now we have lost more than 12 million people; on leaving the union there were 160 million due to all kinds of stupidity; and Lenin and the Jews were not enough, the Russian authorities and most importantly, I don’t remember that in the USSR someone tried to pinch us, like the Caucasians, everyone was cultured and the Russian people did not die out like mammoths.

Ignoring the demands of the people, it is impossible to ignore the laws of class struggle.

There are some inconsistencies here and there and the material, in my opinion, needs improvement)

According to her, Nicholas II was a kind and honest person, but lacking strength of character. In his imagination, Gapon created the image of an ideal tsar who had no opportunity to show himself, but from whom only one could expect the salvation of Russia. “I thought,” Gapon wrote, “that when the moment came, he would show himself in his true light, listen to his people and make them happy.” According to the testimony of the Menshevik A. A. Sukhov, already in March 1904, Gapon willingly developed his idea at meetings with workers. “Officials are interfering with the people,” said Gapon, “but the people will come to an understanding with the tsar. Just you have to not achieve your goal by force, but by asking, in the old-fashioned way.” Around the same time, he expressed the idea of ​​appealing to the king collectively, “the whole world.” “We all need to ask,” he said at one meeting of workers. “We will walk peacefully, and they will hear us.”

March "Program of Five"

The first draft of the petition was drawn up by Gapon in March 1904 and in historical literature was called "Programs of Five". Already at the end of 1903, Gapon established relations with an influential group of workers from Vasilievsky Island, known as Karelin group. Many of them passed through Social Democratic circles, but had tactical differences with the Social Democratic Party. In an effort to attract them to work in his “Assembly,” Gapon convinced them that the “Assembly” was aimed at the real struggle of workers for their rights. However, the workers were greatly embarrassed by Gapon’s connection with the Police Department, and for a long time they could not overcome their mistrust of the mysterious priest. To find out Gapon's political face, the workers invited him to directly express his views. “Why aren’t you, comrades, helping?” - Gapon often asked them, to which the workers replied: “Georgy Apollonovich, who are you, tell me - maybe we will be your comrades, but until now we don’t know anything about you.”

In March 1904, Gapon gathered on his apartment of four workers and, obliging them with their word of honor that everything that would be discussed would remain secret, outlined to them his program. The meeting was attended by workers A. E. Karelin, D. V. Kuzin, I. V. Vasiliev and N. M. Varnashev. According to the story of I. I. Pavlov, Karelin once again invited Gapon to reveal his cards. “Yes, finally, tell us, oh. Georgy, who are you and what are you? What is your program and tactics, and where and why are you taking us?” “Who am I and what am I,” Gapon objected, “I already told you, and where and why I’m taking you... here, look,” and Gapon threw on the table a paper covered in red ink, which listed the items of need working people. This was the draft petition of 1905, and then it was considered as a program of the leading circle of the “Assembly”. The project included three groups of requirements: ; II. Measures against people's poverty And , - and was subsequently included in its entirety in the first edition of Gaponov’s petition.

After reading the text of the program, the workers came to the conclusion that it was acceptable to them. “We were amazed then,” recalled A.E. Karelin. - After all, I was a Bolshevik, I didn’t break with the party, I helped it, I figured it out; Kuzin was a Menshevik. Varnashev and Vasiliev, although they were non-partisan, were honest, devoted, good, understanding people. And so we all saw that what Gapon wrote was broader than the Social Democrats. We understood then that Gapon was an honest man, and we believed him.” N.M. Varnashev added in his memoirs that “the program was not a surprise to any of those present, because partly they were the ones who forced Gapon to develop it.” When the workers asked how he was going to make his program public, Gapon replied that he was not going to make it public, but intended to first expand the activities of his “Assembly” so that as many people as possible could join it. Numbering thousands and tens of thousands of people in its ranks, the “Assembly” will turn into a force that both capitalists and the government will necessarily have to reckon with. When an economic strike arises on the basis of general discontent, then it will be possible to present political demands to the government. The workers agreed to this plan.

After this incident, Gapon managed to overcome the distrust of the radical workers, and they agreed to help him. Having joined the ranks of the “Assembly”, Karelin and his comrades led a campaign among the masses for joining Gapon’s society, and its numbers began to grow. At the same time, the Karelinians continued to ensure that Gapon did not deviate from the planned program, and at every opportunity they reminded him of his obligations.

Zemstvo Petition Campaign

In the fall of 1904, with the appointment of P. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky as Minister of Internal Affairs, a political awakening began in the country, called the “spring of Svyatopolk-Mirsky.” During this period, the activities of liberal forces intensified, demanding restrictions on autocracy and the introduction of a constitution. The liberal opposition was led by the Union of Liberation, created in 1903, which united wide circles of intellectuals and zemstvo leaders. At the initiative of the Liberation Union, a large-scale campaign of zemstvo petitions began in the country in November 1904. Zemstvos and other public institutions appealed to the highest authorities with petitions or resolutions, which called for the introduction of political freedoms and popular representation in the country. An example of such a resolution was the Resolution of the Zemsky Congress, held in St. Petersburg on November 6-9, 1904. As a result of the weakening of censorship allowed by the government, the texts of zemstvo petitions found their way into the press and became the subject of general discussion. The general political upsurge began to affect the mood of the workers. “In our circles they listened to everything, and everything that happened worried us a lot,” recalled one of the workers. “A fresh stream of air made our heads spin, and one meeting followed another.” Those around Gapon began to say whether it was time for the workers to join the common voice of all of Russia.

In the same month, the leaders of the St. Petersburg Liberation Union established contact with the leadership of the Assembly of Russian Factory Workers. At the beginning of November 1904, a group of representatives of the Liberation Union met with Georgy Gapon and the leading circle of the Assembly. The meeting was attended by E. D. Kuskova, S. N. Prokopovich, V. Ya. Yakovlev-Bogucharsky and two more people. They invited Gapon and his workers to join the general campaign and appeal to the authorities with the same petition as the representatives of the zemstvos. Gapon enthusiastically seized on this idea and promised to use all his influence to carry it through at workers' meetings. At the same time, Gapon and his comrades insisted on performing with their special working petition. The workers had a strong desire to “offer their own, from the bottom,” recalled meeting participant A.E. Karelin. During the meeting, the Osvobozhdenie members, examining the charter of Gapon’s “Assembly”, drew attention to some of its dubious paragraphs. In response, Gapon stated “that the charter is just a screen, that the real program of society is different, and asked the worker to bring the resolution they had developed of a political nature.” This was the March “Program of Five”. “Even then it was clear,” recalled one of the meeting participants, “that these resolutions coincided with the resolutions of the intelligentsia.” Having familiarized themselves with Gaponov’s program, the Osvobozhdeniyites said that if they go with such a petition, then this is already a lot. “Well, it’s a good thing, it will make a lot of noise, there will be a big rise,” said Prokopovich, “but they’ll arrest you.” - “Well, that’s good!” - the workers answered.

On November 28, 1904, a meeting of the heads of departments of Gapon's society was held, at which Gapon put forward the idea of ​​​​presenting a workers' petition. Those gathered were to adopt the "Program of Five" under the name of a petition or resolution to publicly state the demands of the workers. Participants in the meeting were asked to weigh the seriousness of the step being taken and the responsibility assumed, and if they were not sympathetic, to calmly step aside, giving their word of honor to remain silent. As a result of the meeting, it was decided to issue a working petition, but the question of the form and content of the petition was left to the discretion of Gapon. N.M. Varnashev, who chaired the meeting, in his memoirs calls this event a “conspiracy to speak out.” After this event, the leaders of the “Assembly” led a campaign among the masses to make political demands. “We quietly introduced the idea of ​​presenting a petition at every meeting, in every department,” recalled A.E. Karelin. At meetings of workers, zemstvo petitions published in newspapers began to be read and discussed, and the leaders of the “Assembly” interpreted them and connected political demands with the economic needs of the workers.

The struggle to file a petition

In December 1904, a split occurred in the leadership of the “Assembly” over the issue of filing a petition. Part of the leadership, led by Gapon, seeing the failure of the zemstvo petition campaign, began to postpone filing the petition for the future. Gapon was joined by workers D.V. Kuzin and N.M. Varnashev. Gapon was confident that filing a petition, not supported by an uprising of the masses, would only lead to the closure of the “Assembly” and the arrest of its leaders. In conversations with workers, he stated that the petition was “a dead matter, condemned to death in advance,” and called supporters of the immediate filing of the petition "skoropoliticians". As an alternative, Gapon proposed expanding the activities of the “Assembly”, spreading its influence to other cities, and only after that come forward with his demands. Initially, he planned to coincide with the expected fall of Port Arthur, and then moved it to February 19, the anniversary of the liberation of the peasants under Alexander II.

In contrast to Gapon, another part of the leadership, led by A.E. Karelin and I.V. Vasiliev, insisted on an early presentation of the petition. They were joined by the internal “opposition” to Gapon in the “Assembly”, represented by Karelin’s group and workers who had a more radical way of thinking. They believed that the right moment to petition had arrived and that the workers should act in concert with representatives of other classes. This group of workers was actively supported by intellectuals from the Liberation Union. One of the propagandists of the idea of ​​the petition was assistant attorney at law I.M. Finkel, who gave lectures on the work issue at the “Assembly”. Being a non-party member, Finkel was associated with the St. Petersburg Mensheviks and the left wing of the Liberation Union. In his speeches, he told the workers: “Zemstvo residents, lawyers and other public figures draw up and submit petitions outlining their demands, but the workers remain indifferent to this. If they don’t do this, then others, having received something according to their demands, will no longer remember the workers, and they will be left with nothing.”

Concerned about Finkel's growing influence, Gapon demanded that he and other intellectuals be removed from meetings of the leading circle of the Assembly, and in conversations with workers began to turn them against the intelligentsia. “The intellectuals are shouting only to seize power, and then they will sit on our necks and on the peasant,” Gapon convinced them. “It will be worse than autocracy.” In response, supporters of the petition decided to act in their own way. According to the memoirs of I. I. Pavlov, the opposition hatched a conspiracy aimed at “toppling Gapon from his pedestal as a ‘worker leader’.” It was decided that if Gapon refused to present a petition, the opposition would go to speak without him. The conflict in the leadership of the “Assembly” escalated to the limit, but was stopped by the events associated with the Putilov strike.

Economic demands of workers

On January 3, a strike was declared at the Putilov plant, and on January 5 it was extended to other enterprises in St. Petersburg. By January 7, the strike had spread to all plants and factories in St. Petersburg and turned into a general one. The initial demand to reinstate dismissed workers gave way to a list of broad economic demands presented to the administrations of factories and factories. During the strike, each factory and each workshop began to put forward their own economic demands and present them to their administration. In order to unify the demands of different factories and factories, the leadership of the “Assembly” compiled a standard list of economic demands of the working class. The list was reproduced by hectographing and in this form, signed by Gapon, was distributed to all enterprises in St. Petersburg. On January 4, Gapon, at the head of a deputation of workers, came to the director of the Putilov plant, S.I. Smirnov, and acquainted him with the list of demands. At other factories, deputations from workers presented a similar list of demands to their administration.

The standard list of workers' economic demands included items: an eight-hour working day; on setting prices for products together with workers and with their consent; on the creation of a joint commission with the workers to examine the claims and complaints of workers against the administration; on increasing pay for women and unskilled workers to one ruble a day; on the abolition of overtime work; about respectful attitude towards workers from the outside medical personnel; on improving the sanitary conditions of workshops, etc. Subsequently, all these demands were reproduced in the introductory part of the Petition on January 9, 1905. Their presentation was preceded by the words: “We asked for little, we wanted only that without which there would be no life, but hard labor, eternal torment.” The reluctance of the breeders to fulfill these demands motivated the appeal to the tsar and the entire political part of the petition.

Workers' resolution on their urgent needs

On January 4, it became finally clear to Gapon and his employees that the breeders would not fulfill economic demands and that the strike is lost. The lost strike was a disaster for Gapon's "Assembly". It was clear that the working masses would not forgive the leaders for unfulfilled expectations, and the government would close the Assembly and bring down repression on its leadership. According to factory inspector S.P. Chizhov, Gapon found himself in the position of a man who had nowhere to retreat. In this situation, Gapon and his assistants decided to take an extreme measure - to take the path of politics and turn to the tsar himself for help.

On January 5, speaking in one of the departments of the Assembly, Gapon said that if the factory owners prevail over the workers, it is because the bureaucratic government is on their side. Therefore, the workers must turn directly to the tsar and demand that he eliminate the bureaucratic “mediastinum” between him and his people. “If the existing government turns away from us at a critical moment in our lives, if it not only does not help us, but even takes the side of entrepreneurs,” said Gapon, “then we must demand the destruction of a political system in which only one thing falls to our lot.” lack of rights. And from now on let our slogan be: “Down with bureaucratic government!” From that moment on, the strike acquired a political character, and the question of formulating political demands came up on the agenda. It was clear that the supporters of the petition had the upper hand, and all that remained was to prepare this petition and present it to the king. Starting from January 4-5, Gapon, who was opposed to the immediate filing of the petition, became its active supporter.

On the same day, Gapon began preparing a petition. According to the agreement, the petition was to be based on the March “Program of Five”, which expressed general requirements working class and has long been considered as a secret program of Gapon’s “Assembly”. On January 5, the "Program of Five" was made public for the first time and read out in workers' meetings as a draft petition or resolution to appeal to the Tsar. However, the program had significant drawback: it contained only a list of workers’ demands without any prefaces or explanations to them. It was necessary to supplement the list with a text containing a description of the plight of the workers and the motives that prompted them to address their demands to the tsar. For this purpose, Gapon turned to several representatives of the intelligentsia, inviting them to write a draft of such a text.

The first person Gapon turned to was the famous journalist and writer S. Ya. Stechkin, who wrote in Russkaya Gazeta under the pseudonym N. Stroev. On January 5, Stechkin gathered a group of party intellectuals from among the Mensheviks in his apartment on Gorokhovaya Street. According to the memoirs of I. I. Pavlov, having arrived at the apartment on Gorokhovaya, Gapon declared that “events are unfolding with amazing speed, the procession to the Palace is inevitable, and for now this is all I have...” - with these words he threw it on the table three sheets of paper covered with red ink. It was a draft petition, or rather, the same “Program of Five”, which had been kept unchanged since March 1904. Having familiarized themselves with the draft, the Mensheviks declared that such a petition was unacceptable for the Social Democrats, and Gapon invited them to make changes to it or write their own version of the petition. On the same day, the Mensheviks, together with Stechkin, drew up their draft petition, called “Resolutions of the Workers on Their Urgent Needs.” This text, in the spirit of party programs, was read out on the same day in several departments of the Assembly, and several thousand signatures were collected under it. The central point in it was the demand for the convening of a Constituent Assembly; it also contained demands for a political amnesty, an end to the war and the nationalization of factories, factories and landowners' lands.

Drawing up Gapon's petition

The “Resolution of the Workers on Their Urgent Needs” written by the Mensheviks did not satisfy Gapon. The resolution was written dryly, business language, there was no appeal to the king, and the demands were presented in a categorical form. As an experienced preacher, Gapon knew that the language of the party revolutionaries did not find a response in the souls of the common people. Therefore, on the same days, January 5-6, he approached three more intellectuals with a proposal to write a draft petition: one of the leaders of the Liberation Union V. Ya. Yakovlev-Bogucharsky, writer and ethnographer V. G. Tan-Bogoraz and journalist newspaper “Our Days” to A. I. Matyushensky. Historian V. Ya. Yakovlev-Bogucharsky, who received the draft petition from Gapon on January 6, refused to make changes to it on the grounds that at least 7,000 workers’ signatures had already been collected. Subsequently, he recalled these events, speaking about himself in the third person:

“On January 6, at 7-8 o’clock in the evening, one of the Osvobozhdeniye activists who knew Gapon (let’s call him NN), having received information that Gapon was giving workers to sign some kind of petition, went to the department on the Vyborg side, where he met with Gapon. The latter immediately gave NN the petition, informing him that 7,000 signatures had already been collected under it (many workers continued to give their signatures in the presence of NN) and asked him to edit the petition and make changes to it that NN would find necessary. Having taken the petition to his home and studied it carefully, NN was fully convinced - which he insists on now in the most decisive manner - that this petition was only a development of those theses that NN saw in Gapon's written form back in November 1904. The petition really needed changes, but due to the fact that workers’ signatures had already been collected under it, NN and his comrades did not consider themselves entitled to make even the slightest changes to it. Therefore, the petition was returned to Gapon (at Tserkovnaya, 6) the next day (January 7) by 12 noon in the same form in which it was received from Gapon the day before.”

Two other representatives of the intelligentsia who received the draft petition turned out to be more accommodating than Bogucharsky. According to some reports, one of the versions of the text was written by V. G. Tan-Bogoraz, however, both its content and further fate remained unknown. The latest version of the text was written by Our Days employee, journalist A.I. Matyushensky. Matyushensky was known as the author of articles about the life of Baku workers and the Baku labor strike. On January 6, he published in the newspapers his interview with the director of the Putilov plant S.I. Smirnov, which attracted the attention of Gapon. Some sources claim that it was the text written by Matyushensky that Gapon took as a basis when drawing up his petition. Matyushensky himself subsequently stated that the petition was written by him, but historians have strong doubts about this statement.

According to the researcher of the petition A. A. Shilov, its text is written in the style of church rhetoric, which clearly indicates the authorship of Gapon, who was accustomed to such sermons and reasoning. Gapon's authorship is also established by the testimony of participants in the events of January 9. Thus, worker V.A. Yanov, chairman of the Narva department of the “Meeting,” answered the investigator’s question about the petition: “It was written by Gapon’s hand, was always with him, and he often remade it.” The chairman of the Kolomna department of the “Collection” I. M. Kharitonov, who did not part with Gapon in the days before January 9, argued that it was written by Gapon, and Matyushensky only corrected the style at the beginning and at the end of the text. And the treasurer of the “Assembly” A.E. Karelin in his memoirs pointed out that the petition was written in a characteristic Gaponov style: “This Gaponov style is special. This syllable is simple, clear, precise, gripping the soul, like his voice.” It is possible, however, that Gapon still used Matyushensky’s draft when composing his text, but there is no direct evidence of this.

One way or another, on the night of January 6-7, Gapon, having familiarized himself with the options offered to him by intellectuals, rejected them all and wrote his own version of the petition, which went down in history under the name Petition of January 9, 1905. The petition was based on the March “Program of Five”, which was included in the first edition of the text without changes. At the beginning, an extensive preface was added to it, containing an appeal to the tsar, a description of the plight of the workers, their unsuccessful struggle with the factory owners, a demand to eliminate the power of officials and introduce popular representation in the form of a Constituent Assembly. And at the end there was added an appeal to the king to go to the people and accept the petition. This text was read in the “Collection” departments on January 7, 8 and 9, and tens of thousands of signatures were collected under it. During the discussion of the petition on January 7 and 8, some amendments and additions continued to be made to it, as a result of which the final text of the petition took on a more popular character. On January 8, this last, edited text of the petition was typed in 12 copies: one for Gapon himself and one for 11 departments of the Assembly. It was with this text of the petition that the workers went to the Tsar on January 9, 1905. One of the copies of the text, signed by Gapon and the worker I.V. Vasiliev, was subsequently kept in the Leningrad Museum of Revolution.

Structure and content of the petition

Priest Georgy Gapon

According to its structure, the text of Gaponov’s petition was divided into three parts. First part The petition began with an appeal to the king. In accordance with the biblical and ancient Russian tradition, the petition addressed the tsar with “You” and informed him that the workers and residents of St. Petersburg had come to him to seek truth and protection. The petition further spoke about the plight of the workers, their poverty and oppression, and compared the situation of the workers with the situation of slaves, who must endure their bitter fate and remain silent. It was also said that the workers endured, but their situation became worse and worse, and their patience came to an end. “That terrible moment came for us when better death than the continuation of unbearable torment."

Then the petition set out the history of the litigation of workers with factory owners and factory owners, who were collectively called masters. It was told how the workers quit their jobs and told their employers that they would not work until they met their demands. It then set out a list of demands made by the workers against their employers during the January strike. It was said that these demands were insignificant, but the owners refused to even satisfy the workers. The petition further indicated the reason for the refusal, which was that the workers' demands were found to be inconsistent with the law. It was said that, from the point of view of the owners, every request from the workers turned out to be a crime, and their desire to improve their situation was unacceptable insolence.

After this, the petition moved on to the main thesis - to an indication of lack of rights workers as main reason their oppression by their masters. It was said that the workers, like the entire Russian people, are not recognized with a single human right, not even the right to speak, think, gather, discuss their needs and take measures to improve their situation. Mention was made of repression against people who defended the interests of the working class. Then the petition again turned to the king and pointed out to him the divine origin of royal power and the contradiction that existed between human and divine laws. It was argued that existing laws contradict divine decrees, that they are unjust, and that it is impossible for the common people to live under such laws. “Isn’t it better to die—to die for all of us, the working people of all Russia? Let the capitalists and officials-treasury thieves, robbers of the Russian people live and enjoy.” Finally, the reason for the unjust laws was also pointed out - the dominance of officials who usurped power and turned into mediastinum between the king and his people.

The petition then moved on to its second part- to present the demands with which the workers came to the walls of the royal palace. The main demand of the workers was declared destruction of the power of officials, which became a wall between the king and his people, and the admission of the people to govern the state. It was said that Russia is too large, and its needs are too diverse and numerous for officials alone to govern it. From this the conclusion was drawn about the need for popular representation. “It is necessary for the people themselves to help themselves, because only they know their true needs.” The Tsar was called upon to immediately convene people's representatives from all classes and all estates - workers, capitalists, officials, clergy, intelligentsia - and elect a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal, direct, secret and equal suffrage. This requirement was announced main request workers, “in which and on which everything is based,” and the main cure for their sore wounds.

Further, the demand for popular representation was supplemented by a list of additional demands necessary to heal the people's wounds. This list was a statement of the March “Program of Five,” which was included in the first edition of the petition without changes. The list consisted of three paragraphs: I. Measures against ignorance and lawlessness of the Russian people, II. Measures against people's poverty And III. Measures against the oppression of capital over labor.

First paragraph - Measures against ignorance and lawlessness of the Russian people- included the following points: freedom and inviolability of the person, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience in matters of religion; general and compulsory public education at state expense; responsibility of ministers to the people and guarantee of the legality of government; equality before the law for everyone without exception; immediate return of all victims of their convictions. Second paragraph - Measures against people's poverty- included the following points: abolition of indirect taxes and replacing them with direct, progressive and income taxes; abolition of redemption payments, cheap credit and gradual transfer of lands to the people. Finally, in the third paragraph - Measures against the oppression of capital over labor- included items: labor protection by law; freedom of consumer-productive and professional labor unions; eight-hour working day and normalization of overtime work; freedom of struggle between labor and capital; participation of representatives of the working class in the development of a bill on state insurance for workers; normal wages.

In the second and final version of the petition, with which the workers went to the Tsar on January 9, several more points were added to these demands, in particular: separation of church and state; execution of orders from the military and naval departments in Russia, and not abroad; ending the war by the will of the people; abolition of the institution of factory inspectors. As a result, the total number of demands increased to 17 points, with some of the demands being strengthened by the addition of the word “immediately”.

The list of demands was followed by the last one, final part petitions. It contained another appeal to the tsar with an appeal to accept the petition and fulfill its demands, and the tsar was required not only to accept, but also to swear to their fulfillment. “Command and swear to fulfill them, and You will make Russia happy and glorious, and You will imprint Your name in the hearts of us and our descendants for eternity.” Otherwise, the workers expressed their readiness to die at the walls of the royal palace. “If you don’t command, don’t respond to our prayer, we will die here, in this square, in front of your palace. We have nowhere else to go and no need to! We have only two paths - either to freedom and happiness, or to the grave." This part ended with an expression of readiness to sacrifice their lives for suffering Russia and the assertion that the workers do not feel sorry for this sacrifice and they willingly make it.

Reading and collecting signatures on a petition

"Gapon reads a petition at a workers' meeting." Drawing by an unknown artist.

Beginning on January 7, Gapon’s petition was read in all departments of the workers’ Assembly. By this time, there were 11 departments of the “Collection” in St. Petersburg: Vyborg, Narvsky, Vasileostrovsky, Kolomensky, Rozhdestvensky, Petersburg, Nevsky, Moscow, Gavansky, Kolpinsky and on the Obvodny Canal. In some departments, the petition was read by Gapon himself, in other places the reading was carried out by department chairmen, their assistants and ordinary activists of the “Assembly”. These days, Gapon's departments became a place of mass pilgrimage for St. Petersburg workers. People came from all areas to listen to speeches in which for the first time in their lives in simple words political wisdom was revealed. These days, many speakers emerged from the working environment who knew how to speak in a language understandable to the masses. Lines of people came to the departments, listened to the petition and put their signatures on it, and then left, giving way to others. The departments became the centers of working life in St. Petersburg. According to eyewitnesses, the city resembled one mass meeting, at which such broad freedom of speech reigned as St. Petersburg had never seen.

Typically, the reading of the petition was carried out as follows. The next batch of people was allowed into the department premises, after which one of the speakers made an opening speech, and the other began reading the petition. When the reading reached specific points in the petition, the speaker gave each point detailed interpretation, and then addressed the audience with the question: “Is that right, comrades?” or “So, comrades?” - “That’s right!.. So!..” - the crowd answered in unison. In cases where the crowd did not give a unanimous answer, the controversial point was interpreted again and again until the audience was brought to agreement. After this, the next point was interpreted, then the third, and so on until the end. Having achieved agreement with all points, the speaker read the final part of the petition, which spoke of the workers’ readiness to die at the walls of the royal palace if their demands were not met. Then he addressed the audience with the question: “Are you ready to stand up for these demands to the end? Are you ready to die for them? Do you swear to this? - And the crowd answered in unison: “We swear!.. We will all die as one!..” Such scenes took place in all departments of the “Assembly.” According to numerous testimonies, an atmosphere of religious exaltation reigned in the departments: people cried, beat their fists against the walls and vowed to come to the square and die for truth and freedom.

The greatest excitement reigned where Gapon himself spoke. Gapon traveled to all departments of the Assembly, took control of the audience, read and interpreted the petition. Finishing reading the petition, he said that if the tsar did not come out to the workers and accept the petition, then he is no longer king: “Then I will be the first to say that we do not have a king.” Gapon's performances were expected for many hours in the bitter cold. In the Nevsky department, where he arrived on the evening of January 7, a crowd of thousands gathered, which could not fit into the department premises. Gapon, together with the chairman of the department, went out into the courtyard, stood on a tank of water and, by the light of torches, began to interpret the petition. A crowd of thousands of workers listened in grave silence, afraid to miss even one word of the speaker. When Gapon finished reading with the words: “Let our lives be a sacrifice for suffering Russia. We do not regret this sacrifice, we willingly make it!” - the whole crowd, as one person, burst out with a thunderclap: “Let it go!.. It’s not a pity!.. We’ll die!..” And after the words that if the tsar does not accept the workers, then “we don’t need such a tsar,” a roar of thousands was heard : “Yes!.. Don’t!..”

Similar scenes took place in all departments of the “Assembly”, through which tens of thousands of people passed these days. In the Vasileostrovsky department, one elderly speaker said: “Comrades, do you remember Minin, who turned to the people to save Rus'! But from whom? From the Poles. Now we must save Rus' from the officials... I will go first, in the first rows, and when we fall, the second rows will follow us. But it cannot be that he will order to shoot at us...” On the eve of January 9, it was already said in all departments that the tsar might not accept the workers and send soldiers against them. However, this did not stop the workers, but gave the whole movement the character of some kind of religious ecstasy. In all departments of the “Assembly” the collection of signatures for the petition continued until January 9. The workers believed so much in the power of their signature that they attached magical meaning to it. The sick, old people and disabled people were brought in their arms to the table where signatures were collected to perform this “holy act”. The total number of signatures collected is unknown, but it was in the tens of thousands. In one department alone, journalist N. Simbirsky counted about 40 thousand signatures. The sheets with the workers’ signatures were kept by the historian N.P. Pavlov-Silvansky, and after his death in 1908 they were confiscated by the police. Their further fate is unknown.

Petition and the tsarist government

Graves of the victims of Bloody Sunday

The tsarist government learned about the contents of Gapon’s petition no later than January 7. On this day, Gapon came to an appointment with the Minister of Justice N.V. Muravyov and handed him one of the lists of the petition. The minister surprised Gapon with the message that he already had such a text. According to Gapon’s recollections, the minister turned to him with the question: “What are you doing?” Gapon replied: “The mask must be removed. The people can no longer bear such oppression and injustice and are going to the king tomorrow, and I will go with him and tell him everything.” Having looked through the text of the petition, the minister exclaimed with a gesture of despair: “But you want to limit the autocracy!” Gapon stated that such a restriction is inevitable and will be for the benefit of not only the people, but also the tsar himself. If the government does not give reforms from above, a revolution will break out in Russia, “the struggle will last for years and cause terrible bloodshed.” He urged the minister to fall at the feet of the king and beg him to accept the petition, promising that his name would be written down in the annals of history. Muravyov thought about it, but replied that he would remain true to his duty. On the same day, Gapon tried to meet with the Minister of Internal Affairs P. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, whom he contacted by telephone. However, he refused to accept him, saying that he already knew everything. Subsequently, Svyatopolk-Mirsky explained his reluctance to meet with Gapon by the fact that he did not know him personally.

The next day, January 8, a government meeting was held, which brought together the highest officials of the state. By this time, all members of the government had familiarized themselves with the text of Gapon’s petition. Several copies were delivered to the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At the meeting, Minister of Justice Muravyov informed the audience about his meeting with Gapon. The minister characterized Gapon as an ardent revolutionary and a socialist convinced to the point of fanaticism. Muravyov put forward a proposal to arrest Gapon and thereby decapitate the emerging movement. Muravyov was supported by the Minister of Finance V.N. Kokovtsov. The Minister of Internal Affairs Svyatopolk-Mirsky and the mayor I. A. Fullon weakly objected. As a result of the meeting, it was decided to arrest Gapon and set up barriers of troops to prevent workers from reaching the royal palace. Then Svyatopolk-Mirsky went to Tsar Nicholas II in Tsarskoye Selo and acquainted him with the contents of the petition. According to Muravyov, the minister characterized Gapon as a “socialist” and reported on the measures taken. Nikolai wrote about this in his diary. Judging by the tsar's records, the minister's messages were of a reassuring nature.

According to numerous testimonies, no one in the government assumed that the workers would have to be shot. Everyone was confident that the crowd could be dispersed by police measures. The question of accepting the petition was not even raised. The content of the petition, which demanded restrictions on autocracy, made it unacceptable to the authorities. A government report described the petition's political demands as "audacious". The very appearance of the petition was unexpected for the government and took it by surprise. Deputy Minister of Finance V.I. Timiryazev, who participated in the meeting on January 8, recalled: “No one expected such a phenomenon, and where has it been seen that in twenty-four hours a crowd of one and a half hundred thousand was gathered to the palace and that in twenty-four hours they were given a Constituent Assembly , - after all, this is an unprecedented thing, give it all at once. We were all confused and didn’t know what to do.” The authorities did not take into account either the scale of the events or the consequences of possible shooting at unarmed people. Due to the government's confusion, the initiative passed into the hands of the military authorities. On the morning of January 9, 1905, masses of workers, led by Gapon, moved from different parts of the city to the Winter Palace. On the approaches to the center they were met by military units and scattered by cavalry and rifle fire. This day went down in history under the name “Bloody Sunday” and marked the beginning of the First Russian Revolution. A year later, in January 1906, in a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Georgy Gapon wrote: “January 9 happened, unfortunately, not in order to serve as the starting point for the renewal of Russia peacefully, under the leadership of the Sovereign, whose charm has increased a hundredfold, but in order to to serve as a starting point for the beginning of the revolution."

The petition in the assessments of contemporaries

The petition of January 9, 1905 was not published in any legal Russian publication. The drafting of the petition took place during a general strike in which all enterprises in St. Petersburg were drawn in. On January 7, all printing houses went on strike, and newspaper production ceased in the capital. On January 7 and 8, Gapon negotiated with publishers, promising to employ printing workers if the publishers agreed to print the petition. It was assumed that it would appear in all newspapers and be distributed throughout St. Petersburg in thousands of copies. However, this plan was not implemented due to lack of time. After January 9, when newspapers began to be published, the government prohibited them from publishing any materials about the events that took place, except for official reports.

As a result, the content of the petition remained unknown to the majority of the Russian population. According to the recollections of one of the officials, the order not to print the petition came from the Minister of Internal Affairs. The official noted with regret that the non-publication of the petition gave rise to rumors that the workers were going to the tsar with a complaint about their low earnings, and not with political demands. At the same time, the text of the petition in the first edition was published in a number of illegal publications - in the magazine “Osvobozhdenie”, in the newspapers “Iskra”, “Forward” and “Revolutionary Russia”, as well as in the foreign press. Representatives of the revolutionary and liberal intelligentsia discussed the petition and gave it different assessments.

Liberals in their comments pointed out the identity of the demands of the petition with the demands of the zemstvo resolutions of the end of 1904. According to liberals, the petition marked the joining of workers to the voice of the public, demanding popular representation and political freedoms. Representatives of revolutionary parties, on the contrary, found the influence of revolutionary propaganda in the petition. The Social Democratic newspapers claimed that the political demands of the petition were identical to the minimum program of the Social Democrats and were written under their influence. V.I. Lenin called the petition “an extremely interesting refraction in the minds of the masses or their little-conscious leaders of the program of social democracy.” It has been suggested that the petition was the result of an agreement between Gapon and the Social Democrats, who insisted on including political demands in exchange for their loyalty to Gapon's movement. Unlike the liberals, the Social Democrats emphasized the revolutionary nature of the petition's demands. L. D. Trotsky wrote that in the solemn notes of the petition, “the threat of the proletarians drowned out the request of the subjects.” According to Trotsky, “the petition not only contrasted the vague phraseology of liberal resolutions with the refined slogans of political democracy, but also infused them with class content with its demands for freedom to strike and an eight-hour working day.”

At the same time, the revolutionaries emphasized the dual nature of the petition, the contradiction between its form and content. The leaflet of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP dated January 8 stated that the demands of the petition imply overthrow of the autocracy, and therefore it makes no sense to contact the king with them. The king and his officials cannot give up their privileges. Freedom is not given for nothing, it is won with arms in hand. Anarchist V. M. Volin noted that the petition in its final form represented the greatest historical paradox. “With all his loyalty to the tsar, what was required of him was nothing more or less than to allow - and even commit - a revolution that would ultimately deprive him of power... Decidedly, this was an invitation to suicide.” Similar judgments were made by liberals.

All commentators noted the great internal power of the petition, its impact on the broad masses. French journalist E. Avenard wrote: “The resolutions of the liberal banquets, even the resolutions of the zemstvos seem so pale next to the petition that the workers will try to present to the tsar tomorrow. It is filled with reverent and tragic importance." St. Petersburg Menshevik I. N. Kubikov recalled: “This petition was drawn up with talent in the sense of adapting its style to the level and mood of the St. Petersburg working masses of that time, and its irresistible effect on the most gray listener was clearly reflected on the faces of the workers and their wives.” Bolshevik D. F. Sverchkov called the petition “the best artistic and historical document, which reflected, as in a mirror, all the moods that gripped the workers at that time.” “Strange but strong notes were heard in this historical document,” recalled the Socialist Revolutionary N.S. Rusanov. And according to the Socialist Revolutionary V.F. Goncharov, the petition was “a document that had an enormous, revolutionary impact on the working masses.” Many emphasized practical significance petitions. “Its historical significance, however, is not in the text, but in the fact,” noted L. Trotsky. “The petition was only an introduction to an action that united the working masses with the specter of an ideal monarchy - united in order to immediately contrast the proletariat and the real monarchy as two mortal enemies.”

Historical significance of the petition

The events of January 9, 1905 marked the beginning of the First Russian Revolution. And just nine months later, on October 17, 1905, Emperor Nicholas II signed the Manifesto, which granted political freedoms to the people of Russia. The October 17 Manifesto satisfied the main demands made in the January 9 Petition. The manifesto granted the population personal integrity, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association. The manifesto established popular representation in the form of the State Duma and granted voting rights to all classes. He recognized the right of people's representatives to approve laws and oversee the legality of the actions of the authorities. Contemporaries noted the connection between the events of January 9 and the Manifesto of October 17. Journalist N. Simbirsky wrote on the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”: “On this day, the workers went to gain freedom for the Russian people with their breasts... And they got it by littering the streets of St. Petersburg with the corpses of their best fighters...” A columnist for the newspaper “Slovo” noted: “Not This mass carried death with them, it was not destruction that these heroes were preparing - they carried a petition for freedom, that very freedom that is now only little by little being realized.” And the main author of the petition, Georgy Gapon, in an open letter to citizens reminded that the workers, heroes of January 9, “with their blood paved for you, citizens of Russia, a wide road to freedom.”

Contemporaries noted the historical uniqueness of the Petition of January 9, 1905. On the one hand, it was made in the spirit of a loyal request addressed to the monarch. On the other hand, it contained revolutionary demands, the implementation of which meant a complete transformation of the social and political system of the state. The petition became a historical milestone between the two eras. She was the last one in Russian history petition and at the same time the first revolutionary program brought to the square by hundreds of thousands of people. Bolshevik D.F. Sverchkov, comparing the petition with the program of the Social Democratic Party, wrote:

“And now, for the first time in the history of the world, the program of the revolutionary workers’ party was written not in a proclamation directed against the Tsar, but in a humble petition full of love and respect for this very Tsar. For the first time, this program was carried out into the streets by hundreds of thousands of workers, not under the red banners of the revolution, but under church banners, icons and royal portraits; for the first time, during the procession of workers who signed this petition, singing was heard not of the “Internationale” or the workers’ Marseillaise, but of the prayer “Save, Lord.” , Thy people...”, for the first time, at the head of this demonstration, unprecedented in the number of participants, revolutionary in essence and peaceful in form, a priest walked in vestments and with a cross in his hands... Such a procession had never before been seen by any country or one era."

Publicist I. Vardin noted the radicalism of the social demands of the petition, which anticipated the slogans of the October Revolution of 1917. The program set out in the petition was not an ordinary, bourgeois program, but a hitherto unprecedented workers’ and peasants’ social revolution. This program was directed not only against autocratic bureaucratic political oppression, but at the same time and with equal force - against economic oppression, against the omnipotence of landowners and capitalists. “On January 9, 1905, the most advanced, most complete revolution of all that had previously occurred began in Russia. That's why she shocked the whole world."

One of the leaders of the Liberation Union, E. D. Kuskova, called the petition Russian People's Charter. “The charter listed in detail those rights of the people that were to be secured to them as inalienable rights... Having been born under the bullets of a dispassionate army, the Russian People's Charter has since been following all sorts of paths towards its implementation... The martyrs of January 9 are sleeping quietly in their graves . The memory of them will live for a long time in the people’s consciousness, and for a long time they, the dead, will show the way to the living: to the people’s charter, which they carried and for which they died...”

Petition text

• // Red Chronicle. - L., 1925. - No. 2. - P. 30-31.
• // Red Chronicle

Notes

1. Adrianov P. Last petition // Leningradskaya Pravda. - L., 1928. - No. 19 (January 22). - P. 3.
2. Karelin A. A. Ninth (22nd) January 1905. - M., 1924. - 16 p.
3. Shilov A. A. On the documentary history of the petition of January 9, 1905 // Red Chronicle. - L., 1925. - No. 2. - P. 19-36.
4. // Red Chronicle. - L., 1925. - No. 2. - P. 33-35.
5. Report of the Director of the Police Department A. Lopukhin on the events of January 9, 1905 // Red Chronicle. - L., 1922. - No. 1. - P. 330-338.
6. Pavlov-Silvansky N. P. History and modernity. Lecture // History and historians: Historiographic Yearbook. 1972. - M., 1973.
7. Gurevich L. Ya. // Past. - St. Petersburg. , 1906. - No. 1. - P. 195-223..
8. Svyatlovsky V.V. Professional movement in Russia. - St. Petersburg. : Publishing house of M. V. Pirozhkov, 1907. - 406 p.
9. Gapon G. A. My life story = The Story of My Life. - M.: Book, 1990. - 64 p.
10. Sukhov A. A. Gapon and Gaponovism // E. Avenar. Bloody Sunday. - Kharkov, 1925. - P. 28-34.
11. Manasevich-Manuilov I. F. // New time. - St. Petersburg. , 1910. - No. dated January 9.
12. Karelin A. E. From the memories of a participant in Gaponov’s organization // January 9: Collection ed. A. A. Shilova. - M.-L., 1925. - P. 26-32.
13. Pavlov I. I. From memories of the “Workers’ Union” and the priest Gapon // Past years. - St. Petersburg. , 1908. - No. 3-4. - P. 21-57 (3), 79-107 (4).
14. Varnashev N. M. From start to finish with Gaponov’s organization // Historical and revolutionary collection. - L., 1924. - T. 1. - P. 177-208.
15. Karelin A. E. The ninth of January and Gapon. Memories // Red Chronicle. - L., 1922. - No. 1. - P. 106-116.
16. // I. P. Belokonsky. Zemstvo movement. - St. Petersburg. , 1914. - P. 221-222.
17. I. P. Belokonsky Zemstvo movement. - M.: “Zadruga”, 1914. - 397 p.
18. Potolov S.I. Georgy Gapon and the liberals (new documents) // Russia in the XIX-XX centuries. Collection of articles for the 70th anniversary of the birth of R. Sh. Ganelin. - St. Petersburg. , 1998.
19. Petrov N.P. Notes about Gapon // World Newsletter. - St. Petersburg. , 1907. - No. 1. - P. 35-51.
20. Kolokolnikov P. N. (K. Dmitriev). Excerpts from memories. 1905-1907 // Materials on the history of the professional movement in Russia. - M., 1924. - T. 2. - P. 211-233.
21. Protocol of interrogation of V. A. Yanov / On the history of the “Meeting of Russian factory workers of St. Petersburg.” Archival documents // Red Chronicle. - L., 1922. - No. 1. - P. 313-322.
22. // New time. - St. Petersburg. , 1905. - No. 10364 (January 5). - P. 4.

According to her, Nicholas II was a kind and honest person, but lacking strength of character. In his imagination, Gapon created the image of an ideal tsar who had no opportunity to show himself, but from whom only one could expect the salvation of Russia. “I thought,” Gapon wrote, “that when the moment came, he would show himself in his true light, listen to his people and make them happy.” According to the testimony of the Menshevik A. A. Sukhov, already in March 1904, Gapon willingly developed his idea at meetings with workers. “Officials are interfering with the people,” said Gapon, “but the people will come to an understanding with the tsar. Just you have to not achieve your goal by force, but by asking, in the old-fashioned way.” Around the same time, he expressed the idea of ​​appealing to the king collectively, “the whole world.” “We all need to ask,” he said at one meeting of workers. “We will walk peacefully, and they will hear us.”

March "Program of Five"

The first draft of the petition was drawn up by Gapon in March 1904 and in historical literature was called "Programs of Five". Already at the end of 1903, Gapon established relations with an influential group of workers from Vasilievsky Island, known as Karelin group. Many of them passed through Social Democratic circles, but had tactical differences with the Social Democratic Party. In an effort to attract them to work in his “Assembly,” Gapon convinced them that the “Assembly” was aimed at the real struggle of workers for their rights. However, the workers were greatly embarrassed by Gapon’s connection with the Police Department, and for a long time they could not overcome their mistrust of the mysterious priest. To find out Gapon's political face, the workers invited him to directly express his views. “Why aren’t you, comrades, helping?” - Gapon often asked them, to which the workers replied: “Georgy Apollonovich, who are you, tell me - maybe we will be your comrades, but until now we don’t know anything about you.”

In March 1904, Gapon gathered four workers in his apartment and, obliging them with their word of honor that everything that would be discussed would remain secret, outlined to them his program. The meeting was attended by workers A. E. Karelin, D. V. Kuzin, I. V. Vasiliev and N. M. Varnashev. According to the story of I. I. Pavlov, Karelin once again invited Gapon to reveal his cards. “Yes, finally, tell us, oh. Georgy, who are you and what are you? What is your program and tactics, and where and why are you taking us?” “Who am I and what am I,” Gapon objected, “I already told you, and where and why I’m taking you... here, look,” and Gapon threw on the table a paper covered in red ink, which listed the items of need working people. This was the draft petition of 1905, and then it was considered as a program of the leading circle of the “Assembly”. The project included three groups of requirements: ; II. Measures against people's poverty And , - and was subsequently included in its entirety in the first edition of Gaponov’s petition.

After reading the text of the program, the workers came to the conclusion that it was acceptable to them. “We were amazed then,” recalled A.E. Karelin. - After all, I was a Bolshevik, I didn’t break with the party, I helped it, I figured it out; Kuzin was a Menshevik. Varnashev and Vasiliev, although they were non-partisan, were honest, devoted, good, understanding people. And so we all saw that what Gapon wrote was broader than the Social Democrats. We understood then that Gapon was an honest man, and we believed him.” N.M. Varnashev added in his memoirs that “the program was not a surprise to any of those present, because partly they were the ones who forced Gapon to develop it.” When the workers asked how he was going to make his program public, Gapon replied that he was not going to make it public, but intended to first expand the activities of his “Assembly” so that as many people as possible could join it. Numbering thousands and tens of thousands of people in its ranks, the “Assembly” will turn into a force that both capitalists and the government will necessarily have to reckon with. When an economic strike arises on the basis of general discontent, then it will be possible to present political demands to the government. The workers agreed to this plan.

After this incident, Gapon managed to overcome the distrust of the radical workers, and they agreed to help him. Having joined the ranks of the “Assembly”, Karelin and his comrades led a campaign among the masses for joining Gapon’s society, and its numbers began to grow. At the same time, the Karelinians continued to ensure that Gapon did not deviate from the planned program, and at every opportunity they reminded him of his obligations.

Zemstvo Petition Campaign

In the fall of 1904, with the appointment of P. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky as Minister of Internal Affairs, a political awakening began in the country, called the “spring of Svyatopolk-Mirsky.” During this period, the activities of liberal forces intensified, demanding restrictions on autocracy and the introduction of a constitution. The liberal opposition was led by the Union of Liberation, created in 1903, which united wide circles of intellectuals and zemstvo leaders. At the initiative of the Liberation Union, a large-scale campaign of zemstvo petitions began in the country in November 1904. Zemstvos and other public institutions appealed to the highest authorities with petitions or resolutions, which called for the introduction of political freedoms and popular representation in the country. An example of such a resolution was the Resolution of the Zemsky Congress, held in St. Petersburg on November 6-9, 1904. As a result of the weakening of censorship allowed by the government, the texts of zemstvo petitions found their way into the press and became the subject of general discussion. The general political upsurge began to affect the mood of the workers. “In our circles they listened to everything, and everything that happened worried us a lot,” recalled one of the workers. “A fresh stream of air made our heads spin, and one meeting followed another.” Those around Gapon began to say whether it was time for the workers to join the common voice of all of Russia.

In the same month, the leaders of the St. Petersburg Liberation Union established contact with the leadership of the Assembly of Russian Factory Workers. At the beginning of November 1904, a group of representatives of the Liberation Union met with Georgy Gapon and the leading circle of the Assembly. The meeting was attended by E. D. Kuskova, S. N. Prokopovich, V. Ya. Yakovlev-Bogucharsky and two more people. They invited Gapon and his workers to join the general campaign and appeal to the authorities with the same petition as the representatives of the zemstvos. Gapon enthusiastically seized on this idea and promised to use all his influence to carry it through at workers' meetings. At the same time, Gapon and his comrades insisted on performing with their special working petition. The workers had a strong desire to “offer their own, from the bottom,” recalled meeting participant A.E. Karelin. During the meeting, the Osvobozhdenie members, examining the charter of Gapon’s “Assembly”, drew attention to some of its dubious paragraphs. In response, Gapon stated “that the charter is just a screen, that the real program of society is different, and asked the worker to bring the resolution they had developed of a political nature.” This was the March “Program of Five”. “Even then it was clear,” recalled one of the meeting participants, “that these resolutions coincided with the resolutions of the intelligentsia.” Having familiarized themselves with Gaponov’s program, the Osvobozhdeniyites said that if they go with such a petition, then this is already a lot. “Well, it’s a good thing, it will make a lot of noise, there will be a big rise,” said Prokopovich, “but they’ll arrest you.” - “Well, that’s good!” - the workers answered.

On November 28, 1904, a meeting of the heads of departments of Gapon's society was held, at which Gapon put forward the idea of ​​​​presenting a workers' petition. Those gathered were to adopt the "Program of Five" under the name of a petition or resolution to publicly state the demands of the workers. Participants in the meeting were asked to weigh the seriousness of the step being taken and the responsibility assumed, and if they were not sympathetic, to calmly step aside, giving their word of honor to remain silent. As a result of the meeting, it was decided to issue a working petition, but the question of the form and content of the petition was left to the discretion of Gapon. N.M. Varnashev, who chaired the meeting, in his memoirs calls this event a “conspiracy to speak out.” After this event, the leaders of the “Assembly” led a campaign among the masses to make political demands. “We quietly introduced the idea of ​​presenting a petition at every meeting, in every department,” recalled A.E. Karelin. At meetings of workers, zemstvo petitions published in newspapers began to be read and discussed, and the leaders of the “Assembly” interpreted them and connected political demands with the economic needs of the workers.

The struggle to file a petition

In December 1904, a split occurred in the leadership of the “Assembly” over the issue of filing a petition. Part of the leadership, led by Gapon, seeing the failure of the zemstvo petition campaign, began to postpone filing the petition for the future. Gapon was joined by workers D.V. Kuzin and N.M. Varnashev. Gapon was confident that filing a petition, not supported by an uprising of the masses, would only lead to the closure of the “Assembly” and the arrest of its leaders. In conversations with workers, he stated that the petition was “a dead matter, condemned to death in advance,” and called supporters of the immediate filing of the petition "skoropoliticians". As an alternative, Gapon proposed expanding the activities of the “Assembly”, spreading its influence to other cities, and only after that come forward with his demands. Initially, he planned to coincide with the expected fall of Port Arthur, and then moved it to February 19, the anniversary of the liberation of the peasants under Alexander II.

In contrast to Gapon, another part of the leadership, led by A.E. Karelin and I.V. Vasiliev, insisted on an early presentation of the petition. They were joined by the internal “opposition” to Gapon in the “Assembly”, represented by Karelin’s group and workers who had a more radical way of thinking. They believed that the right moment to petition had arrived and that the workers should act in concert with representatives of other classes. This group of workers was actively supported by intellectuals from the Liberation Union. One of the propagandists of the idea of ​​the petition was assistant attorney at law I.M. Finkel, who gave lectures on the work issue at the “Assembly”. Being a non-party member, Finkel was associated with the St. Petersburg Mensheviks and the left wing of the Liberation Union. In his speeches, he told the workers: “Zemstvo residents, lawyers and other public figures draw up and submit petitions outlining their demands, but the workers remain indifferent to this. If they don’t do this, then others, having received something according to their demands, will no longer remember the workers, and they will be left with nothing.”

Concerned about Finkel's growing influence, Gapon demanded that he and other intellectuals be removed from meetings of the leading circle of the Assembly, and in conversations with workers began to turn them against the intelligentsia. “The intellectuals are shouting only to seize power, and then they will sit on our necks and on the peasant,” Gapon convinced them. “It will be worse than autocracy.” In response, supporters of the petition decided to act in their own way. According to the memoirs of I. I. Pavlov, the opposition hatched a conspiracy aimed at “toppling Gapon from his pedestal as a ‘worker leader’.” It was decided that if Gapon refused to present a petition, the opposition would go to speak without him. The conflict in the leadership of the “Assembly” escalated to the limit, but was stopped by the events associated with the Putilov strike.

Economic demands of workers

On January 3, a strike was declared at the Putilov plant, and on January 5 it was extended to other enterprises in St. Petersburg. By January 7, the strike had spread to all plants and factories in St. Petersburg and turned into a general one. The initial demand to reinstate dismissed workers gave way to a list of broad economic demands presented to the administrations of factories and factories. During the strike, each factory and each workshop began to put forward their own economic demands and present them to their administration. In order to unify the demands of different factories and factories, the leadership of the “Assembly” compiled a standard list of economic demands of the working class. The list was reproduced by hectographing and in this form, signed by Gapon, was distributed to all enterprises in St. Petersburg. On January 4, Gapon, at the head of a deputation of workers, came to the director of the Putilov plant, S.I. Smirnov, and acquainted him with the list of demands. At other factories, deputations from workers presented a similar list of demands to their administration.

The standard list of workers' economic demands included items: an eight-hour working day; on setting prices for products together with workers and with their consent; on the creation of a joint commission with the workers to examine the claims and complaints of workers against the administration; on increasing pay for women and unskilled workers to one ruble a day; on the abolition of overtime work; about respectful attitude towards workers on the part of medical personnel; on improving the sanitary conditions of workshops, etc. Subsequently, all these demands were reproduced in the introductory part of the Petition on January 9, 1905. Their presentation was preceded by the words: “We asked for little, we wanted only that without which there would be no life, but hard labor, eternal torment.” The reluctance of the breeders to fulfill these demands motivated the appeal to the tsar and the entire political part of the petition.

Workers' resolution on their urgent needs

On January 4, it became finally clear to Gapon and his employees that the breeders would not fulfill economic demands and that the strike is lost. The lost strike was a disaster for Gapon's "Assembly". It was clear that the working masses would not forgive the leaders for unfulfilled expectations, and the government would close the Assembly and bring down repression on its leadership. According to factory inspector S.P. Chizhov, Gapon found himself in the position of a man who had nowhere to retreat. In this situation, Gapon and his assistants decided to take an extreme measure - to take the path of politics and turn to the tsar himself for help.

On January 5, speaking in one of the departments of the Assembly, Gapon said that if the factory owners prevail over the workers, it is because the bureaucratic government is on their side. Therefore, the workers must turn directly to the tsar and demand that he eliminate the bureaucratic “mediastinum” between him and his people. “If the existing government turns away from us at a critical moment in our lives, if it not only does not help us, but even takes the side of entrepreneurs,” said Gapon, “then we must demand the destruction of a political system in which only one thing falls to our lot.” lack of rights. And from now on let our slogan be: “Down with bureaucratic government!” From that moment on, the strike acquired a political character, and the question of formulating political demands came up on the agenda. It was clear that the supporters of the petition had the upper hand, and all that remained was to prepare this petition and present it to the king. Starting from January 4-5, Gapon, who was opposed to the immediate filing of the petition, became its active supporter.

On the same day, Gapon began preparing a petition. According to the agreement, the petition was to be based on the March “Program of Five,” which expressed the general demands of the working class and had long been regarded as the secret program of Gapon’s “Assembly.” On January 5, the "Program of Five" was made public for the first time and read out in workers' meetings as a draft petition or resolution to appeal to the Tsar. However, the program had a significant drawback: it contained only a list of workers' demands without any prefaces or explanations to them. It was necessary to supplement the list with a text containing a description of the plight of the workers and the motives that prompted them to address their demands to the tsar. For this purpose, Gapon turned to several representatives of the intelligentsia, inviting them to write a draft of such a text.

The first person Gapon turned to was the famous journalist and writer S. Ya. Stechkin, who wrote in Russkaya Gazeta under the pseudonym N. Stroev. On January 5, Stechkin gathered a group of party intellectuals from among the Mensheviks in his apartment on Gorokhovaya Street. According to the memoirs of I. I. Pavlov, having arrived at the apartment on Gorokhovaya, Gapon declared that “events are unfolding with amazing speed, the procession to the Palace is inevitable, and for now this is all I have...” - with these words he threw it on the table three sheets of paper covered with red ink. It was a draft petition, or rather, the same “Program of Five”, which had been kept unchanged since March 1904. Having familiarized themselves with the draft, the Mensheviks declared that such a petition was unacceptable for the Social Democrats, and Gapon invited them to make changes to it or write their own version of the petition. On the same day, the Mensheviks, together with Stechkin, drew up their draft petition, called “Resolutions of the Workers on Their Urgent Needs.” This text, in the spirit of party programs, was read out on the same day in several departments of the Assembly, and several thousand signatures were collected under it. The central point in it was the demand for the convening of a Constituent Assembly; it also contained demands for a political amnesty, an end to the war and the nationalization of factories, factories and landowners' lands.

Drawing up Gapon's petition

The “Resolution of the Workers on Their Urgent Needs” written by the Mensheviks did not satisfy Gapon. The resolution was written in dry, businesslike language, there was no appeal to the tsar, and the demands were presented in a categorical form. As an experienced preacher, Gapon knew that the language of the party revolutionaries did not find a response in the souls of the common people. Therefore, on the same days, January 5-6, he approached three more intellectuals with a proposal to write a draft petition: one of the leaders of the Liberation Union V. Ya. Yakovlev-Bogucharsky, writer and ethnographer V. G. Tan-Bogoraz and journalist newspaper “Our Days” to A. I. Matyushensky. Historian V. Ya. Yakovlev-Bogucharsky, who received the draft petition from Gapon on January 6, refused to make changes to it on the grounds that at least 7,000 workers’ signatures had already been collected. Subsequently, he recalled these events, speaking about himself in the third person:

“On January 6, at 7-8 o’clock in the evening, one of the Osvobozhdeniye activists who knew Gapon (let’s call him NN), having received information that Gapon was giving workers to sign some kind of petition, went to the department on the Vyborg side, where he met with Gapon. The latter immediately gave NN the petition, informing him that 7,000 signatures had already been collected under it (many workers continued to give their signatures in the presence of NN) and asked him to edit the petition and make changes to it that NN would find necessary. Having taken the petition to his home and studied it carefully, NN was fully convinced - which he insists on now in the most decisive manner - that this petition was only a development of those theses that NN saw in Gapon's written form back in November 1904. The petition really needed changes, but due to the fact that workers’ signatures had already been collected under it, NN and his comrades did not consider themselves entitled to make even the slightest changes to it. Therefore, the petition was returned to Gapon (at Tserkovnaya, 6) the next day (January 7) by 12 noon in the same form in which it was received from Gapon the day before.”

Two other representatives of the intelligentsia who received the draft petition turned out to be more accommodating than Bogucharsky. According to some reports, one of the versions of the text was written by V. G. Tan-Bogoraz, however, both its content and further fate remained unknown. The latest version of the text was written by Our Days employee, journalist A.I. Matyushensky. Matyushensky was known as the author of articles about the life of Baku workers and the Baku labor strike. On January 6, he published in the newspapers his interview with the director of the Putilov plant S.I. Smirnov, which attracted the attention of Gapon. Some sources claim that it was the text written by Matyushensky that Gapon took as a basis when drawing up his petition. Matyushensky himself subsequently stated that the petition was written by him, but historians have strong doubts about this statement.

According to the researcher of the petition A. A. Shilov, its text is written in the style of church rhetoric, which clearly indicates the authorship of Gapon, who was accustomed to such sermons and reasoning. Gapon's authorship is also established by the testimony of participants in the events of January 9. Thus, worker V.A. Yanov, chairman of the Narva department of the “Meeting,” answered the investigator’s question about the petition: “It was written by Gapon’s hand, was always with him, and he often remade it.” The chairman of the Kolomna department of the “Collection” I. M. Kharitonov, who did not part with Gapon in the days before January 9, argued that it was written by Gapon, and Matyushensky only corrected the style at the beginning and at the end of the text. And the treasurer of the “Assembly” A.E. Karelin in his memoirs pointed out that the petition was written in a characteristic Gaponov style: “This Gaponov style is special. This syllable is simple, clear, precise, gripping the soul, like his voice.” It is possible, however, that Gapon still used Matyushensky’s draft when composing his text, but there is no direct evidence of this.

One way or another, on the night of January 6-7, Gapon, having familiarized himself with the options offered to him by intellectuals, rejected them all and wrote his own version of the petition, which went down in history under the name Petition of January 9, 1905. The petition was based on the March “Program of Five”, which was included in the first edition of the text without changes. At the beginning, an extensive preface was added to it, containing an appeal to the tsar, a description of the plight of the workers, their unsuccessful struggle with the factory owners, a demand to eliminate the power of officials and introduce popular representation in the form of a Constituent Assembly. And at the end there was added an appeal to the king to go to the people and accept the petition. This text was read in the “Collection” departments on January 7, 8 and 9, and tens of thousands of signatures were collected under it. During the discussion of the petition on January 7 and 8, some amendments and additions continued to be made to it, as a result of which the final text of the petition took on a more popular character. On January 8, this last, edited text of the petition was typed in 12 copies: one for Gapon himself and one for 11 departments of the Assembly. It was with this text of the petition that the workers went to the Tsar on January 9, 1905. One of the copies of the text, signed by Gapon and the worker I.V. Vasiliev, was subsequently kept in the Leningrad Museum of Revolution.

Structure and content of the petition

Priest Georgy Gapon

According to its structure, the text of Gaponov’s petition was divided into three parts. First part The petition began with an appeal to the king. In accordance with the biblical and ancient Russian tradition, the petition addressed the tsar with “You” and informed him that the workers and residents of St. Petersburg had come to him to seek truth and protection. The petition further spoke about the plight of the workers, their poverty and oppression, and compared the situation of the workers with the situation of slaves, who must endure their bitter fate and remain silent. It was also said that the workers endured, but their situation became worse and worse, and their patience came to an end. “For us, that terrible moment has come when death is better than continuation of unbearable torment.”

Then the petition set out the history of the litigation of workers with factory owners and factory owners, who were collectively called masters. It was told how the workers quit their jobs and told their employers that they would not work until they met their demands. It then set out a list of demands made by the workers against their employers during the January strike. It was said that these demands were insignificant, but the owners refused to even satisfy the workers. The petition further indicated the reason for the refusal, which was that the workers' demands were found to be inconsistent with the law. It was said that, from the point of view of the owners, every request from the workers turned out to be a crime, and their desire to improve their situation was unacceptable insolence.

After this, the petition moved on to the main thesis - to an indication of lack of rights workers as the main reason for their oppression by their employers. It was said that the workers, like the entire Russian people, are not recognized with a single human right, not even the right to speak, think, gather, discuss their needs and take measures to improve their situation. Mention was made of repression against people who defended the interests of the working class. Then the petition again turned to the king and pointed out to him the divine origin of royal power and the contradiction that existed between human and divine laws. It was argued that existing laws contradict divine decrees, that they are unjust, and that it is impossible for the common people to live under such laws. “Isn’t it better to die—to die for all of us, the working people of all Russia? Let the capitalists and officials-treasury thieves, robbers of the Russian people live and enjoy.” Finally, the reason for the unjust laws was also pointed out - the dominance of officials who usurped power and turned into mediastinum between the king and his people.

The petition then moved on to its second part- to present the demands with which the workers came to the walls of the royal palace. The main demand of the workers was declared destruction of the power of officials, which became a wall between the king and his people, and the admission of the people to govern the state. It was said that Russia is too large, and its needs are too diverse and numerous for officials alone to govern it. From this the conclusion was drawn about the need for popular representation. “It is necessary for the people themselves to help themselves, because only they know their true needs.” The Tsar was called upon to immediately convene people's representatives from all classes and all estates - workers, capitalists, officials, clergy, intelligentsia - and elect a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal, direct, secret and equal suffrage. This requirement was announced main request workers, “in which and on which everything is based,” and the main cure for their sore wounds.

Further, the demand for popular representation was supplemented by a list of additional demands necessary to heal the people's wounds. This list was a statement of the March “Program of Five,” which was included in the first edition of the petition without changes. The list consisted of three paragraphs: I. Measures against ignorance and lawlessness of the Russian people, II. Measures against people's poverty And III. Measures against the oppression of capital over labor.

First paragraph - Measures against ignorance and lawlessness of the Russian people- included the following points: freedom and inviolability of the person, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience in matters of religion; general and compulsory public education at state expense; responsibility of ministers to the people and guarantee of the legality of government; equality before the law for everyone without exception; immediate return of all victims of their convictions. Second paragraph - Measures against people's poverty- included the following points: abolition of indirect taxes and replacing them with direct, progressive and income taxes; abolition of redemption payments, cheap credit and gradual transfer of lands to the people. Finally, in the third paragraph - Measures against the oppression of capital over labor- included items: labor protection by law; freedom of consumer-productive and professional labor unions; eight-hour working day and normalization of overtime work; freedom of struggle between labor and capital; participation of representatives of the working class in the development of a bill on state insurance for workers; normal salary.

In the second and final version of the petition, with which the workers went to the Tsar on January 9, several more points were added to these demands, in particular: separation of church and state; execution of orders from the military and naval departments in Russia, and not abroad; ending the war by the will of the people; abolition of the institution of factory inspectors. As a result, the total number of demands increased to 17 points, with some of the demands being strengthened by the addition of the word “immediately”.

The list of demands was followed by the last one, final part petitions. It contained another appeal to the tsar with an appeal to accept the petition and fulfill its demands, and the tsar was required not only to accept, but also to swear to their fulfillment. “Command and swear to fulfill them, and You will make Russia happy and glorious, and You will imprint Your name in the hearts of us and our descendants for eternity.” Otherwise, the workers expressed their readiness to die at the walls of the royal palace. “If you don’t command, don’t respond to our prayer, we will die here, in this square, in front of your palace. We have nowhere else to go and no need to! We have only two paths - either to freedom and happiness, or to the grave." This part ended with an expression of readiness to sacrifice their lives for suffering Russia and the assertion that the workers do not feel sorry for this sacrifice and they willingly make it.

Reading and collecting signatures on a petition

"Gapon reads a petition at a workers' meeting." Drawing by an unknown artist.

Beginning on January 7, Gapon’s petition was read in all departments of the workers’ Assembly. By this time, there were 11 departments of the “Collection” in St. Petersburg: Vyborg, Narvsky, Vasileostrovsky, Kolomensky, Rozhdestvensky, Petersburg, Nevsky, Moscow, Gavansky, Kolpinsky and on the Obvodny Canal. In some departments, the petition was read by Gapon himself, in other places the reading was carried out by department chairmen, their assistants and ordinary activists of the “Assembly”. These days, Gapon's departments became a place of mass pilgrimage for St. Petersburg workers. People came from all regions to listen to speeches in which, for the first time in their lives, political wisdom was revealed to them in simple words. These days, many speakers emerged from the working environment who knew how to speak in a language understandable to the masses. Lines of people came to the departments, listened to the petition and put their signatures on it, and then left, giving way to others. The departments became the centers of working life in St. Petersburg. According to eyewitnesses, the city resembled one mass meeting, at which such broad freedom of speech reigned as St. Petersburg had never seen.

Typically, the reading of the petition was carried out as follows. The next batch of people was allowed into the department premises, after which one of the speakers made an opening speech, and the other began reading the petition. When the reading reached specific points of the petition, the speaker gave each point a detailed interpretation, and then turned to the audience with the question: “Is that right, comrades?” or “So, comrades?” - “That’s right!.. So!..” - the crowd answered in unison. In cases where the crowd did not give a unanimous answer, the controversial point was interpreted again and again until the audience was brought to agreement. After this, the next point was interpreted, then the third, and so on until the end. Having achieved agreement with all points, the speaker read the final part of the petition, which spoke of the workers’ readiness to die at the walls of the royal palace if their demands were not met. Then he addressed the audience with the question: “Are you ready to stand up for these demands to the end? Are you ready to die for them? Do you swear to this? - And the crowd answered in unison: “We swear!.. We will all die as one!..” Such scenes took place in all departments of the “Assembly.” According to numerous testimonies, an atmosphere of religious exaltation reigned in the departments: people cried, beat their fists against the walls and vowed to come to the square and die for truth and freedom.

The greatest excitement reigned where Gapon himself spoke. Gapon traveled to all departments of the Assembly, took control of the audience, read and interpreted the petition. Finishing reading the petition, he said that if the tsar did not come out to the workers and accept the petition, then he is no longer king: “Then I will be the first to say that we do not have a king.” Gapon's performances were expected for many hours in the bitter cold. In the Nevsky department, where he arrived on the evening of January 7, a crowd of thousands gathered, which could not fit into the department premises. Gapon, together with the chairman of the department, went out into the courtyard, stood on a tank of water and, by the light of torches, began to interpret the petition. A crowd of thousands of workers listened in grave silence, afraid to miss even one word of the speaker. When Gapon finished reading with the words: “Let our lives be a sacrifice for suffering Russia. We do not regret this sacrifice, we willingly make it!” - the whole crowd, as one person, burst out with a thunderclap: “Let it go!.. It’s not a pity!.. We’ll die!..” And after the words that if the tsar does not accept the workers, then “we don’t need such a tsar,” a roar of thousands was heard : “Yes!.. Don’t!..”

Similar scenes took place in all departments of the “Assembly”, through which tens of thousands of people passed these days. In the Vasileostrovsky department, one elderly speaker said: “Comrades, do you remember Minin, who turned to the people to save Rus'! But from whom? From the Poles. Now we must save Rus' from the officials... I will go first, in the first rows, and when we fall, the second rows will follow us. But it cannot be that he will order to shoot at us...” On the eve of January 9, it was already said in all departments that the tsar might not accept the workers and send soldiers against them. However, this did not stop the workers, but gave the whole movement the character of some kind of religious ecstasy. In all departments of the “Assembly” the collection of signatures for the petition continued until January 9. The workers believed so much in the power of their signature that they attached magical meaning to it. The sick, old people and disabled people were brought in their arms to the table where signatures were collected to perform this “holy act”. The total number of signatures collected is unknown, but it was in the tens of thousands. In one department alone, journalist N. Simbirsky counted about 40 thousand signatures. The sheets with the workers’ signatures were kept by the historian N.P. Pavlov-Silvansky, and after his death in 1908 they were confiscated by the police. Their further fate is unknown.

Petition and the tsarist government

Graves of the victims of Bloody Sunday

The tsarist government learned about the contents of Gapon’s petition no later than January 7. On this day, Gapon came to an appointment with the Minister of Justice N.V. Muravyov and handed him one of the lists of the petition. The minister surprised Gapon with the message that he already had such a text. According to Gapon’s recollections, the minister turned to him with the question: “What are you doing?” Gapon replied: “The mask must be removed. The people can no longer bear such oppression and injustice and are going to the king tomorrow, and I will go with him and tell him everything.” Having looked through the text of the petition, the minister exclaimed with a gesture of despair: “But you want to limit the autocracy!” Gapon stated that such a restriction is inevitable and will be for the benefit of not only the people, but also the tsar himself. If the government does not give reforms from above, a revolution will break out in Russia, “the struggle will last for years and cause terrible bloodshed.” He urged the minister to fall at the feet of the king and beg him to accept the petition, promising that his name would be written down in the annals of history. Muravyov thought about it, but replied that he would remain true to his duty. On the same day, Gapon tried to meet with the Minister of Internal Affairs P. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, whom he contacted by telephone. However, he refused to accept him, saying that he already knew everything. Subsequently, Svyatopolk-Mirsky explained his reluctance to meet with Gapon by the fact that he did not know him personally.

The next day, January 8, a government meeting was held, which brought together the highest officials of the state. By this time, all members of the government had familiarized themselves with the text of Gapon’s petition. Several copies were delivered to the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At the meeting, Minister of Justice Muravyov informed the audience about his meeting with Gapon. The minister characterized Gapon as an ardent revolutionary and a socialist convinced to the point of fanaticism. Muravyov put forward a proposal to arrest Gapon and thereby decapitate the emerging movement. Muravyov was supported by the Minister of Finance V.N. Kokovtsov. The Minister of Internal Affairs Svyatopolk-Mirsky and the mayor I. A. Fullon weakly objected. As a result of the meeting, it was decided to arrest Gapon and set up barriers of troops to prevent workers from reaching the royal palace. Then Svyatopolk-Mirsky went to Tsar Nicholas II in Tsarskoye Selo and acquainted him with the contents of the petition. According to Muravyov, the minister characterized Gapon as a “socialist” and reported on the measures taken. Nikolai wrote about this in his diary. Judging by the tsar's records, the minister's messages were of a reassuring nature.

According to numerous testimonies, no one in the government assumed that the workers would have to be shot. Everyone was confident that the crowd could be dispersed by police measures. The question of accepting the petition was not even raised. The content of the petition, which demanded restrictions on autocracy, made it unacceptable to the authorities. A government report described the petition's political demands as "audacious". The very appearance of the petition was unexpected for the government and took it by surprise. Deputy Minister of Finance V.I. Timiryazev, who participated in the meeting on January 8, recalled: “No one expected such a phenomenon, and where has it been seen that in twenty-four hours a crowd of one and a half hundred thousand was gathered to the palace and that in twenty-four hours they were given a Constituent Assembly , - after all, this is an unprecedented thing, give it all at once. We were all confused and didn’t know what to do.” The authorities did not take into account either the scale of the events or the consequences of possible shooting at unarmed people. Due to the government's confusion, the initiative passed into the hands of the military authorities. On the morning of January 9, 1905, masses of workers, led by Gapon, moved from different parts of the city to the Winter Palace. On the approaches to the center they were met by military units and scattered by cavalry and rifle fire. This day went down in history under the name “Bloody Sunday” and marked the beginning of the First Russian Revolution. A year later, in January 1906, in a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Georgy Gapon wrote: “January 9 happened, unfortunately, not in order to serve as the starting point for the renewal of Russia peacefully, under the leadership of the Sovereign, whose charm has increased a hundredfold, but in order to to serve as a starting point for the beginning of the revolution."

The petition in the assessments of contemporaries

The petition of January 9, 1905 was not published in any legal Russian publication. The drafting of the petition took place during a general strike in which all enterprises in St. Petersburg were drawn in. On January 7, all printing houses went on strike, and newspaper production ceased in the capital. On January 7 and 8, Gapon negotiated with publishers, promising to employ printing workers if the publishers agreed to print the petition. It was assumed that it would appear in all newspapers and be distributed throughout St. Petersburg in thousands of copies. However, this plan was not implemented due to lack of time. After January 9, when newspapers began to be published, the government prohibited them from publishing any materials about the events that took place, except for official reports.

As a result, the content of the petition remained unknown to the majority of the Russian population. According to the recollections of one of the officials, the order not to print the petition came from the Minister of Internal Affairs. The official noted with regret that the non-publication of the petition gave rise to rumors that the workers were going to the tsar with a complaint about their low earnings, and not with political demands. At the same time, the text of the petition in the first edition was published in a number of illegal publications - in the magazine “Osvobozhdenie”, in the newspapers “Iskra”, “Forward” and “Revolutionary Russia”, as well as in the foreign press. Representatives of the revolutionary and liberal intelligentsia discussed the petition and gave it different assessments.

Liberals in their comments pointed out the identity of the demands of the petition with the demands of the zemstvo resolutions of the end of 1904. According to liberals, the petition marked the joining of workers to the voice of the public, demanding popular representation and political freedoms. Representatives of revolutionary parties, on the contrary, found the influence of revolutionary propaganda in the petition. The Social Democratic newspapers claimed that the political demands of the petition were identical to the minimum program of the Social Democrats and were written under their influence. V.I. Lenin called the petition “an extremely interesting refraction in the minds of the masses or their little-conscious leaders of the program of social democracy.” It has been suggested that the petition was the result of an agreement between Gapon and the Social Democrats, who insisted on including political demands in exchange for their loyalty to Gapon's movement. Unlike the liberals, the Social Democrats emphasized the revolutionary nature of the petition's demands. L. D. Trotsky wrote that in the solemn notes of the petition, “the threat of the proletarians drowned out the request of the subjects.” According to Trotsky, “the petition not only contrasted the vague phraseology of liberal resolutions with the refined slogans of political democracy, but also infused them with class content with its demands for freedom to strike and an eight-hour working day.”

At the same time, the revolutionaries emphasized the dual nature of the petition, the contradiction between its form and content. The leaflet of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP dated January 8 stated that the demands of the petition imply overthrow of the autocracy, and therefore it makes no sense to contact the king with them. The king and his officials cannot give up their privileges. Freedom is not given for nothing, it is won with arms in hand. Anarchist V. M. Volin noted that the petition in its final form represented the greatest historical paradox. “With all his loyalty to the tsar, what was required of him was nothing more or less than to allow - and even commit - a revolution that would ultimately deprive him of power... Decidedly, this was an invitation to suicide.” Similar judgments were made by liberals.

All commentators noted the great internal power of the petition, its impact on the broad masses. French journalist E. Avenard wrote: “The resolutions of the liberal banquets, even the resolutions of the zemstvos seem so pale next to the petition that the workers will try to present to the tsar tomorrow. It is filled with reverent and tragic importance." St. Petersburg Menshevik I. N. Kubikov recalled: “This petition was drawn up with talent in the sense of adapting its style to the level and mood of the St. Petersburg working masses of that time, and its irresistible effect on the most gray listener was clearly reflected on the faces of the workers and their wives.” Bolshevik D. F. Sverchkov called the petition “the best artistic and historical document, which reflected, as in a mirror, all the moods that gripped the workers at that time.” “Strange but strong notes were heard in this historical document,” recalled the Socialist Revolutionary N.S. Rusanov. And according to the Socialist Revolutionary V.F. Goncharov, the petition was “a document that had an enormous, revolutionary impact on the working masses.” Many emphasized the practical significance of the petition. “Its historical significance, however, is not in the text, but in the fact,” noted L. Trotsky. “The petition was only an introduction to an action that united the working masses with the specter of an ideal monarchy - united in order to immediately contrast the proletariat and the real monarchy as two mortal enemies.”

Historical significance of the petition

The events of January 9, 1905 marked the beginning of the First Russian Revolution. And just nine months later, on October 17, 1905, Emperor Nicholas II signed the Manifesto, which granted political freedoms to the people of Russia. The October 17 Manifesto satisfied the main demands made in the January 9 Petition. The manifesto granted the population personal integrity, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association. The manifesto established popular representation in the form of the State Duma and granted voting rights to all classes. He recognized the right of people's representatives to approve laws and oversee the legality of the actions of the authorities. Contemporaries noted the connection between the events of January 9 and the Manifesto of October 17. Journalist N. Simbirsky wrote on the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”: “On this day, the workers went to gain freedom for the Russian people with their breasts... And they got it by littering the streets of St. Petersburg with the corpses of their best fighters...” A columnist for the newspaper “Slovo” noted: “Not This mass carried death with them, it was not destruction that these heroes were preparing - they carried a petition for freedom, that very freedom that is now only little by little being realized.” And the main author of the petition, Georgy Gapon, in an open letter to citizens reminded that the workers, heroes of January 9, “with their blood paved for you, citizens of Russia, a wide road to freedom.”

Contemporaries noted the historical uniqueness of the Petition of January 9, 1905. On the one hand, it was made in the spirit of a loyal request addressed to the monarch. On the other hand, it contained revolutionary demands, the implementation of which meant a complete transformation of the social and political system of the state. The petition became a historical milestone between the two eras. It was the last petition in Russian history and at the same time the first revolutionary program brought to the square by hundreds of thousands of people. Bolshevik D.F. Sverchkov, comparing the petition with the program of the Social Democratic Party, wrote:

“And now, for the first time in the history of the world, the program of the revolutionary workers’ party was written not in a proclamation directed against the Tsar, but in a humble petition full of love and respect for this very Tsar. For the first time, this program was carried out into the streets by hundreds of thousands of workers, not under the red banners of the revolution, but under church banners, icons and royal portraits; for the first time, during the procession of workers who signed this petition, singing was heard not of the “Internationale” or the workers’ Marseillaise, but of the prayer “Save, Lord.” , Thy people...”, for the first time, at the head of this demonstration, unprecedented in the number of participants, revolutionary in essence and peaceful in form, a priest walked in vestments and with a cross in his hands... Such a procession had never before been seen by any country or one era."

Publicist I. Vardin noted the radicalism of the social demands of the petition, which anticipated the slogans of the October Revolution of 1917. The program set out in the petition was not an ordinary, bourgeois program, but a hitherto unprecedented workers’ and peasants’ social revolution. This program was directed not only against autocratic bureaucratic political oppression, but at the same time and with equal force - against economic oppression, against the omnipotence of landowners and capitalists. “On January 9, 1905, the most advanced, most complete revolution of all that had previously occurred began in Russia. That's why she shocked the whole world."

One of the leaders of the Liberation Union, E. D. Kuskova, called the petition Russian People's Charter. “The charter listed in detail those rights of the people that were to be secured to them as inalienable rights... Having been born under the bullets of a dispassionate army, the Russian People's Charter has since been following all sorts of paths towards its implementation... The martyrs of January 9 are sleeping quietly in their graves . The memory of them will live for a long time in the people’s consciousness, and for a long time they, the dead, will show the way to the living: to the people’s charter, which they carried and for which they died...”

Petition text

• // Red Chronicle. - L., 1925. - No. 2. - P. 30-31.
• // Red Chronicle

Notes

1. Adrianov P. Last petition // Leningradskaya Pravda. - L., 1928. - No. 19 (January 22). - P. 3.
2. Karelin A. A. Ninth (22nd) January 1905. - M., 1924. - 16 p.
3. Shilov A. A. On the documentary history of the petition of January 9, 1905 // Red Chronicle. - L., 1925. - No. 2. - P. 19-36.
4. // Red Chronicle. - L., 1925. - No. 2. - P. 33-35.
5. Report of the Director of the Police Department A. Lopukhin on the events of January 9, 1905 // Red Chronicle. - L., 1922. - No. 1. - P. 330-338.
6. Pavlov-Silvansky N. P. History and modernity. Lecture // History and historians: Historiographic Yearbook. 1972. - M., 1973.
7. Gurevich L. Ya. // Past. - St. Petersburg. , 1906. - No. 1. - P. 195-223..
8. Svyatlovsky V.V. Professional movement in Russia. - St. Petersburg. : Publishing house of M. V. Pirozhkov, 1907. - 406 p.
9. Gapon G. A. My life story = The Story of My Life. - M.: Book, 1990. - 64 p.
10. Sukhov A. A. Gapon and Gaponovism // E. Avenar. Bloody Sunday. - Kharkov, 1925. - P. 28-34.
11. Manasevich-Manuilov I. F. // New time. - St. Petersburg. , 1910. - No. dated January 9.
12. Karelin A. E. From the memories of a participant in Gaponov’s organization // January 9: Collection ed. A. A. Shilova. - M.-L., 1925. - P. 26-32.
13. Pavlov I. I. From memories of the “Workers’ Union” and the priest Gapon // Past years. - St. Petersburg. , 1908. - No. 3-4. - P. 21-57 (3), 79-107 (4).
14. Varnashev N. M. From start to finish with Gaponov’s organization // Historical and revolutionary collection. - L., 1924. - T. 1. - P. 177-208.
15. Karelin A. E. The ninth of January and Gapon. Memories // Red Chronicle. - L., 1922. - No. 1. - P. 106-116.
16. // I. P. Belokonsky. Zemstvo movement. - St. Petersburg. , 1914. - P. 221-222.
17. I. P. Belokonsky Zemstvo movement. - M.: “Zadruga”, 1914. - 397 p.
18. Potolov S.I. Georgy Gapon and the liberals (new documents) // Russia in the XIX-XX centuries. Collection of articles for the 70th anniversary of the birth of R. Sh. Ganelin. - St. Petersburg. , 1998.
19. Petrov N.P. Notes about Gapon // World Newsletter. - St. Petersburg. , 1907. - No. 1. - P. 35-51.
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22. // New time. - St. Petersburg. , 1905. - No. 10364 (January 5). - P. 4.

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 in the city labor organization"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 over 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.

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 have become 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 the continuation of unbearable torment. Look without anger ... at our requests, they are directed not to evil, but to 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 procession to the Winter Palace was scheduled for January 9. Gapon insisted that the tsar should go out to the workers and accept an appeal from them.

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 Tsarskoye 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 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 someone else’s name, he made 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. 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 Socialist Revolutionary Military 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 popular popularity among the workers, the Central Committee demanded that Rutenberg organize the double murder of Gapon and Rachkovsky, so that evidence of treason former priest were present. 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 than others by what happened, 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 this 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 of 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 Imperial permission for the marriage, 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 the Peter and Paul Cathedral, on February 8 - a funeral service and burial there, led by Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg and Ladoga; the emperor and the widow of the deceased were present Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (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 Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria.

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.

January 9 (January 22 according to the new style) 1905 - an important historical event in modern history Russia. On this day, with the tacit consent of Emperor Nicholas II, a 150,000-strong procession of workers who were going to present the Tsar with a petition signed by tens of thousands of St. Petersburg residents asking for reforms was shot.

The reason for organizing the procession to the Winter Palace was the dismissal of four workers of the largest Putilov plant in St. Petersburg (now the Kirov plant). On January 3, a strike of 13 thousand factory workers began, demanding the return of those fired, the introduction of an 8-hour working day, and the abolition of overtime work.

The strikers created an elected commission from workers to jointly with the administration examine the workers' grievances. Demands were developed: introduce an 8-hour working day, abolish mandatory overtime work, establish a minimum wage, not punish strike participants, etc. On January 5, the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDLP) issued a leaflet calling on the Putilov workers to extend the strike, and on the workers of other factories to join it.

The Putilovites were supported by the Obukhovsky, Nevsky shipbuilding, cartridge and other factories, and by January 7 the strike became general (according to incomplete official data, over 106 thousand people took part in it).

Nicholas II transferred power in the capital to the military command, which decided to crush the labor movement until it resulted in revolution. The main role in suppressing the unrest was assigned to the guard; it was reinforced by other military units of the St. Petersburg district. 20 infantry battalions and over 20 cavalry squadrons were concentrated at predetermined points.

On the evening of January 8, a group of writers and scientists, with the participation of Maxim Gorky, appealed to the ministers with a demand to prevent the execution of workers, but they did not want to listen to her.

A peaceful march to the Winter Palace was scheduled for January 9. The procession was prepared by the legal organization "Meeting of Russian Factory Workers of St. Petersburg" led by priest Georgy Gapon. Gapon spoke at meetings, calling for a peaceful march to the tsar, who alone could stand up for the workers. Gapon insisted that the tsar should go out to the workers and accept their appeal.

On the eve of the procession, the Bolsheviks issued a proclamation “To all St. Petersburg workers,” in which they explained the futility and danger of the procession planned by Gapon.

On January 9, about 150 thousand workers took to the streets of St. Petersburg. The columns led by Gapon headed towards the Winter Palace.

The workers came with their families, 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. Emperor Nicholas II was in Tsarskoe Selo that day. When one of the columns approached the Winter Palace, shots were suddenly heard. The units stationed at the Winter Palace fired three volleys at the participants of the procession (in the Alexander Garden, at the Palace Bridge and at the General Staff building). The cavalry and mounted gendarmes cut down the workers with sabers and finished off the wounded.

According to official data, 96 people were killed and 330 wounded, according to unofficial data - more than a thousand killed and two thousand wounded.

According to journalists from St. Petersburg newspapers, the number of killed and wounded was about 4.9 thousand people.

The police buried those killed secretly at night in Preobrazhenskoye, Mitrofanyevskoye, Uspenskoye and Smolenskoye cemeteries.

The Bolsheviks of Vasilyevsky Island distributed a leaflet in which they called on workers to seize weapons and begin an armed struggle against the autocracy. Workers seized weapons stores and warehouses and disarmed the police. The first barricades were erected on Vasilyevsky Island.