THE EXPLORERS NEWS UNIT-6

                                                                                                                   23/01/1905

BLOODY SUNDAY IN ST. PETERSBURG

Hundreds of people die in a manifestation

  Yesterday, in the city of St. Petersburg, there was a manifestation of 140.000 women, men and children (most of them where peasants) which resulted in the deaths of more than a hundred people. The protesters, who carried religious icons and portraits of the tsar, where leadered by priest Gapon, next to which they headed towards the Winter Palace. Their objective was to ask the tsar for improvements in their laboural conditions such as an eight hour journey and minimum salary of a daily ruble. They also wanted everyone to be "equal and free" by convening a democratically elected constituent assembly.

    At first everything went on peacefully, but the tsar Nicolas II was not inside the Palace as he had gone to spend the weekend outside. In charge of the palace was his aunt the Duke Vladimir Aleksándrovich who ordered the Royal Guard to fire against the crowd, regardless sex or age. This is the reason why the troops fired against the protesters, causing hundreds of deaths and wounded.

   But how did all this situation start? Well, we have been informed and, as you may know, last year ended with several strikes in the city. In the Putilov Factory, the Workers Association was shut down by the patronal. On the 3rd of this month, the workers of this factory went on strike and, on the next day, more and more factories joined. Finally, on January 7th, an amount of 120 000 workers had gone on strike. From then onwards, the idea of a manifestation started to set among the people.

Putilov Strike (December)

   If we go further in time, after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, a new peasant working class emerged in the cities of Russia but, as the peasants couldn't even talk to their employers, they worked for long hours, low wages and lack of safety precautions, facts that had led to strikes during the last 40 years. Thanks to those strikes, some changes were made, such as the obligation of specifying the working conditions for the peasants before the hiring or the appearance of the work inspectors and, finally, the working hours per day were restricted to 11 and 30 minutes.

   But, all of those measures still weren't good enough and, because of that, the priest Gapon decided to create the Assembly of the Russian Factory and Mill Workers of the City of St. Petersburg, whose main objective was to defend workers' rights and to elevate their moral and religious status without violent disruption.

   On the January 19th-20th night, the decision of going on a manifestation was took by the Assembly, where the main problems and opinions of the workers were made clear to state them during the protest (the main ones were the improvement of working conditions with fairer wages and a working day of eight hours). Before going into the manifestation, it was also made very clear and important that it was not a revolutionary or violent protest. But, in an unexpected way, the tsar left the day before yesterday (21st) for Tsarskoye Selo and, before going, he ordered to deploy the troops around the Winter Palace, hoping that with his absence in the city and the presence of the army, the protesters would stop the manifestation.

The Winter Palace (yesterday)

   But it wasn't like that, the protesters kept their idea and, knowing the aforementioned departure of the tsar, the response they obtained was a violent repression that resulted in hundreds of demonstrators killed and thousands injured. 

   This reaction will probably cause a great stir among the peasants, possibly leading to the tsar eventually giving up and giving them what they ask for and deserve so much.

   Whatever happens, The Explorer News will keep you informed.