Red Sunday, or Bloody Sunday, January 9 1905 (January 22 according the Gregorian calendar) - Bloody repression of a peaceful popular demonstration in St. Petersburg. Starting point of the 1905 Revolution.
The bloody repression of this peaceful demonstration marks a radical break between the Russian population and the tsarist autocracy.
The war against Japan (1904-1905) began with the indifference of the Russians. Nicholas II wanted to divert public attention from domestic problems by waging a war that he believed would be easy against those he called "the monkeys". But very quickly military setbacks, tax increases to finance the conflict, and levies of men came to undermine the very foundations of the regime. The repeated announcement of military setbacks benefited the opposition, which denounced the government's adventurism. The Union for Liberation organized banquets everywhere intended to define the program of the liberal bourgeoisie. The petty bourgeoisie was eminently frustrated by political authoritarianism and the little place it was given in Russian society. For its part, the student world also wanted to see a constituent assembly emerge. Nicholas II, unable to give ground, added fuel to the fire by stating that any demonstration that undermined public order and tranquility played into the hands of the enemy and would therefore be "repressed by all legal means at the disposal of the authorities". The war had encouraged the emergence of a bourgeois liberal opposition. This was quickly overtaken by workers' demands.
In 1904, a zemstvo assembly was held. It was the first national assembly in Russian history. A constitution was demanded. The provincial marshals of the nobility (who were usually the most conservative statesmen) themselves held a congress to approve the idea of a national assembly. Inspired by the Parisian banquets that had preceded the revolution of 1848, professional organizations organized public banquets, at which speakers demanded political reforms and a constitution. Maxim Gorky attended the largest banquet, in Pavlova Hall (St. Petersburg); there were 600 guests, among them members of the intelligentsia, members of the zemstvos, writers, lawyers. In his testimony (a letter he wrote to his wife), he states: “There were blunt speeches and people chanted in unison: ‘Down with autocracy! Long live the Constituent Assembly! Give us a constitution!’ A resolution was unanimously adopted calling for the election of a Constituent Assembly by universal suffrage. It was all very heated and democratic. For the first time, a woman even stood up to speak. She said that universal suffrage would give the police the right to vote, but no one had yet mentioned women. All this time, they have been fighting alongside men, and now they have been forgotten. What a shame! Her speech was excellent”. Prince Mirski, the Minister of the Interior, presented Nicholas II with a summary of the resolutions of the Zemstvo Assembly, hoping to convince the Tsar to introduce some reforms, including allowing elected Zemstvo representatives to sit on the State Council. The Zemstvo Assembly also proclaimed that the old patrimonial order with its ideas of personal power had been dead since the 1860s. It was proclaimed that Russia should no longer be the personal property and fiefdom of its sovereign, but an "impersonal state with its own body politic, public interest, and public opinion, which makes it distinct from the person of the sovereign." In response, Nicholas II expressed his refusal to establish a representative government. In December 1904, a decree was adopted promising to "strengthen the rule of law, relax restrictions on speech and the press, and expand the rights of the Zemstvos." However, the decree did not address the issue of a parliamentary body, on which concessions were essential if the Tsar did not want to see a revolution break out...
In the days leading up to Red Sunday, on January 3, 1905, the workers of the Putilov factories went on strike. The next days, Gapon, an Orthodox priest sensitive to the workers' demands, wrote the petition repeating the demands or grievances of the Petersburg workers.
Petition of the workers of St. Petersburg to Nicholas II (January 5th, 1905) :
"Sovereign !
We, workers and residents of the city of St. Petersburg of various classes, our wives, and children, and helpless elderly parents, have come to you, sovereign , to seek justice and protection. We have become impoverished, we are oppressed, burdened with backbreaking labor, we are abused, we are not recognized as people, we are treated as slaves who must endure their bitter lot and remain silent. We have endured, but we are pushed further and further into the abyss of poverty, lawlessness and ignorance, we are strangled by despotism and tyranny, and we are suffocating. There is no more strength, sire. The limit of patience has come. For us, that terrible moment has come when death is better than continued unbearable torment. And so we quit work and told our bosses that we would not start working until they met our demands. We did not ask for much, we only wanted that without which not life, but hard labor, eternal torment. Our first request was that our bosses discuss our needs with us. But we were refused this - we were denied the right to speak about our needs, which the law does not recognize for us. Our requests were also unlawful: to reduce the number of working hours to 8 per day; to set the price for our work together with us and with our consent; to consider our misunderstandings with the lower administration of the factories; to increase the wages of unskilled workers and women for their work to 1 ruble per day; to abolish overtime work; treat us carefully and without insults; arrange the workshops so that we could work in them, and not find death there from terrible drafts, rain and snow. Everything turned out, in the opinion of our owners and the factory and plant administration, to be illegal, any request of ours is a crime, and our desire to improve our situation is insolence, offensive to them. Sire, there are many thousands of us here, and all of us are people only in appearance, only in appearance, - in reality, for us, as well as for the entire Russian people, not a single human right is recognized, not even the right to speak, think, gather, discuss needs, take measures to improve our situation. We have been enslaved, and enslaved under the patronage of your officials, with their help, with their assistance. Anyone of us who dares to raise our voices in defense of the interests of the working class and the people is thrown into prison, sent into exile. They punish us as if we were committing a crime for having a kind heart, for having a sympathetic soul. To pity a downtrodden, disenfranchised, tormented person is to commit a grave crime. The entire working people and peasants are at the mercy of a bureaucratic government consisting of embezzlers and robbers who not only do not care about the interests of the people, but trample on these interests. The bureaucratic government has brought the country to complete ruin, brought a shameful war upon it, and is leading Russia further and further to destruction. We, the workers and the people, have no voice in the spending of the enormous levies collected from us. We do not even know where and for what the money collected from the impoverished people is spent. The people are deprived of the opportunity to express their desires, demands, participate in the establishment of taxes and their spending. Workers are deprived of the opportunity to organize into unions to protect their interests.
Sire ! Is this in accordance with the divine laws, by whose grace you reign? And is it possible to live under such laws? Is it not better to die, to die for all of us, the working people of all Russia? Let the capitalists, the exploiters of the working class, and the officials, the embezzlers of the state and the robbers of the Russian people, live and enjoy themselves. This is what stands before us, Sire, and this is what has gathered us to the walls of your palace. Here we seek our last salvation. Do not refuse to help your people, lead them out of the grave of lawlessness, poverty and ignorance, give them the opportunity to decide their own destiny, throw off the unbearable yoke of officials. Destroy the wall between you and your people, and let them rule the country together with you. After all, you were appointed for the happiness of the people, and this happiness is snatched from our hands by officials, it does not reach us, we receive only grief and humiliation. Look without anger, attentively at our requests: they are directed not towards evil, but towards good, both for us and for you, sovereign! It is not insolence that speaks in us, but awareness of the necessity of a way out of a situation that is intolerable for everyone. Russia is too large, its needs are too varied and numerous for officials alone to govern it. People's representation is necessary, it is necessary for the people themselves to help themselves and govern themselves. After all, only they know their true needs. Do not push away their help, order immediately, at once to call representatives of the Russian land from all classes, from all estates, representatives and from the workers. Let there be a capitalist, a worker, an official, a priest, a doctor, and a teacher here - let everyone, whoever they may be, elect their representatives. Let everyone be equal and free in the right to vote - and for this purpose order that the elections to the Constituent Assembly be held on the condition of universal, secret and equal voting. This is our most important request, in it and on it everything is based, this is the main and only plaster for our sore wounds, without which these wounds will ooze strongly and quickly move us to death. But one measure still cannot heal our wounds. Others are necessary, and we speak to you, sir, frankly and openly, as to a father, about them on behalf of the entire working class of Russia. The following are necessary:
I. Measures against the ignorance and lack of rights of the Russian people.
1) Immediate release and return of all those who suffered for their political and religious beliefs, for strikes and peasant unrest.
2) Immediate declaration of freedom and inviolability of the person, freedom of speech, press, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience in matters of religion.
3) General and compulsory public education at state expense.
4) Responsibility of ministers to the people and guarantees of the legality of government.
5) Equality before the law of all without exception.
6) Separation of church and state.
II. Measures against the poverty of the people.
1) Abolition of indirect taxes and their replacement with a direct progressive income tax.
2) Abolition of redemption payments, cheap credit and gradual transfer of land to the people.
3) Execution of orders of the naval department must be in Russia, and not abroad.
4) End of the war by the will of the people.
III. Measures against the oppression of labor by capital.
1) Abolition of the institution of factory inspectors.
2) Establishment of permanent commissions at factories and plants, elected by workers, which, together with the administration, would examine all claims of individual workers. The dismissal of a worker cannot take place otherwise than with the decision of this commission.
3) Freedom of consumer-production and professional workers' unions - immediately.
4) An 8-hour working day and regulation of overtime work.
5) Freedom of labor to struggle against capital - immediately.
6) Normal wages - immediately.
7) Mandatory participation of representatives of the working classes in drawing up a bill on state insurance for workers - immediately.
Here, sir, are our main needs, with which we have come to you; Only by satisfying them is it possible to liberate our Motherland from slavery and poverty, to prosper, to organize workers to defend their interests from the brazen exploitation of the capitalists and the bureaucratic government that robs and strangles the people. Command and swear to fulfill them, and you will make Russia happy and glorious, and your name will be imprinted in our hearts and our descendants' hearts for all time, and if you do not command, if you do not respond to our prayer, we will die here, on this square, in front of your palace. We have nowhere else to go and no reason to. We have only two paths: either to freedom and happiness, or to the grave..."
On Sunday, January 9, 1905, a peaceful march of about 200000 workers took place. This march was organized by Gapon. The protesting workers were to march to the Winter Palace. Gapon, was to present a "Humble and Loyal Address" asking Nicholas II to improve the living conditions of the workers.
On that sunday, Nicholas II was not in Petersburg, but in Tsarskoye Selo.
Before the workers reached the Winter Palace, the army fired on the crowd. The column was approaching the gates of Narva, when a squadron of cavalry suddenly charged. Some of the demonstrators scattered, but others continued to advance; the rifles of the infantry were aimed at them. The soldiers began shooting. Gapon was thrown to the ground, and upon rising, proclaimed: "There is no more God. There is no more Tsar". Similar massacres took place in other parts of the city.
At Troitsky Bridge, near the Peter and Paul Fortress, the demonstrators were riddled with bullets. I quote the testimony of Maxim Gorky, who, after Red Sunday or "Bloody Sunday", had joined the Bolsheviks. "The dragon circled around him and, screaming like a woman, waved his sabre in the air. Rushing down on the unfortunate man from his dancing horse, he split his head, from the eyes to the chin. I remember the strangely wide eyes of the worker and the murderer's head, reddened by the cold and excitement, his teeth clenched in a broad smile and the hairs of his moustache standing on end on his raised lip. Brandishing his soiled steel staff, he let out another piercing scream and, with another wheeze, spat on the dead man through his teeth".
The survivors fought their way up Nevsky Prospect "in a last desperate effort" to reach the Winter Palace. The students joined the crowd of about 60,000 demonstrators. Informed of the massacres, they began to advance while jeering at the soldiers. Seeing the rifles aimed at them, the demonstrators knelt down, which did not prevent the soldiers from shooting. A Bolshevik testified: “I looked at the faces around me, and I did not perceive fear or panic. No, the reverential and almost pious expressions gave way to hostility, even hatred. I saw these looks of hatred and vengeance on literally every face – old and young, men and women.”
At the end of the day, the insurgent workers set up barricades around the Winter Palace and in the working-class neighborhoods. They waved red flags. Gapon took refuge with Maxim Gorki, who invited him to the meeting of the Free Economic Society to dispel the rumor of his death... Gapon wrote a speech addressed to what he called these "comrade workers" (which makes him a revolutionary priest, without being a socialist and still less a Bolshevik); he incites them to tear up the portraits of the tsar, and to address to him these words: "Damned be you with all your august reptilian offspring." In the days that followed, Gapon fled Petersburg for Finland...
The official human toll of Red Sunday? 96 dead and more than 300 injured.
The uprising of Red Sunday or Bloody Sunday brought Maxim Gorky closer to the Bolsheviks of the RSDLP. He thus perceived this Sunday demonstration as the starting point of the Russian Revolution (we find his point of view in the letter addressed to his wife Ekaterina). The following Tuesday, he was arrested and accused of belonging to a "revolutionary convention" which had set itself the goal of seizing power and establishing a provisional government (conspiracy). I quote Maxim Gorky's letter to Ekaterina: "So, my friend, the Russian revolution has begun: I send you my sincere congratulations. People died, but don't worry about it, only blood can change the color of history" (reprinted by Orlando Figes).
According to various historians specializing in Russian revolutions (Leon Trotsky, François-Xavier Coquin, Orlando Figes, Kathleen Prevo) the repression of Red Sunday provoked a rapid and large-scale reaction from the Russian working class. Thus, the day after Red Sunday, the police prefect was dismissed, as was the Minister of the Interior Pyotr Sviatopolk-Mirski. The workers of Petersburg went on strike. The strike movement quickly spread to other cities in Russia; it was the beginning of a general strike. More than 400,000 workers rose up. This was an unprecedented workers’ protest. The liberal and democratic opposition continued to protest against the tsarist power. Bloody Sunday had revolted educated society. Alexander Kerensky (who was student in these times) who witnessed the shooting on Nevsky Prospect, wrote a letter of protest to his comrades who were part of the guards. Alexander Pasternak (brother of the poet Boris Pasternak) proclaimed himself a revolutionary, “We are all social democrats”. At Moscow University, 3,000 students held a rally, where they burned a portrait of the Tsar and hung red flags on the faculty buildings.
Leon Trotsky considered that "The most profound and significant effect of the January massacre was on the Russian proletariat. A wave of enormous strikes swept the country from one end to the other, shaking the entire body of the nation. According to rough calculations, the strike spread to 122 cities and towns, several mines in the Donets Basin, and 10 railways. The proletarian masses were moved to the core." (quoted by Kathleen Prevo). Trotsky and other scholars (including François-Xavier Coquin) considered Bloody Sunday to be the spark that ignited the 1905 uprising. According to them, this tragic day had cast Nicholas II as a hateful and bloodthirsty tyrant, and precipitated an insurrectionary process that reached its climax in the general strikes of October and December 1905.
Sources :
François-Xavier Coquin - 1905, the first Russian revolution
Orlando Figes - Russian Revolution : 1891-1924, the tragedy of a people.
Kathleen Prevo - Worker reaction to Bloody Sunday in Voronezh
