Nicholas II's reaction to Bloody Sunday. "Bloody Sunday" - a tragedy that became a banner

Somehow it was quickly forgotten that the impetus that became the main cause of the first Russian revolution of 1905 was the shooting on January 9, 1905 in St. Petersburg by imperial troops of a peaceful demonstration of workers led by , which was later called Bloody Sunday. In this action, by order of the “democratic” authorities, 96 unarmed demonstrators were shot and 333 were wounded, of whom another 34 then died. The figures are taken from the report of the Director of the Police Department A. A. Lopukhin to the Minister of Internal Affairs A. G. Bulygin on the events of that day.

When the shooting of a peaceful demonstration of workers took place, I was in exile, the Social Democrats had no influence at all on either the course or the result of what happened. Subsequently, communist history declared Georgy Gapon a provocateur and a villain, although the memoirs of contemporaries and the documents of Priest Gapon himself indicate that there was no treacherous or provocative intent in his actions. Apparently, life was not so sweet and rich in Rus', even if priests began to lead revolutionary circles and movements.

In addition, Father George himself, driven at first by good feelings, later became proud and imagined himself to be some kind of messiah, dreaming of becoming a peasant king.

The conflict, as often happens, began with a banality. In December 1904, 4 workers, members of Gaponov’s “Meeting of Russian Factory Workers,” were fired from the Putilov plant. At the same time, the foreman told those fired: “Go to your “Assembly”, it will support and feed you.” The workers followed the offensive “advice” of the master and turned to Gapon. An investigation carried out on behalf of Father Georgy showed that three of the four were fired unfairly and illegally, and the master himself was biased towards members of Gapon’s organization.

Gapon quite rightly saw in the master’s action a challenge posed to the Assembly by the plant administration. And if the organization does not protect its members, it will thereby lose credibility among members of the assembly and other workers.

On January 3, a strike began at the Putilov plant, which gradually spread to other enterprises in St. Petersburg. Participants in the strike were:

• From the pipe factory of the Military Department on Vasilyevsky Island - 6 thousand workers;
• From the Nevsky Mechanical and Shipbuilding Plants - also 6 thousand workers;
• From the Franco-Russian plant, the Nevskaya thread factory, and the Nevskaya paper spinning manufactory, 2 thousand workers each left their jobs;

In total, more than 120 enterprises with a total workforce of about 88 thousand people took part in the strike. Mass strikes, for their part, also served as the reason for such a disloyal attitude towards the workers’ march.

On January 5, Gapon made a proposal to turn to the Tsar for help. In the following days, he drafted the text of the appeal, which included economic and several political demands, the main one being the involvement of people's representatives in the constituent assembly. A religious procession to the Tsar was scheduled for Sunday, January 9.

The Bolsheviks tried to take advantage of the current situation and involve the workers in the revolutionary movement. Students and agitators came to the departments of Gapon’s Assembly, scattered leaflets, tried to give speeches, but the working masses followed Gapon and did not want to listen to the Social Democrats. According to one of the Bolsheviks, D.D. Gimmera Gapon checkmate the Social Democrats.

Communist history has been silent for many years about one event, incidental, but which influenced the subsequent outcome of Sunday. Perhaps they considered it insignificant or, most likely, the hushing up of this fact made it possible to expose the tsarist government as bloodthirsty monsters. On January 6th the Epiphany water blessing took place on the Neva. Nicholas II himself took part in the event. One of the artillery pieces fired towards the royal tent. This gun, intended for training shooting ranges, turned out to be a loaded live shell that exploded almost next to the tent. It produced a number of other damages. Four windows in the palace were broken and a policeman, coincidentally the emperor's namesake, was wounded.

Then, during the investigation, it turned out that this shot was accidental, fired due to someone’s negligence and oversight. However, he seriously frightened the tsar, and he hastily left for Tsarskoye Selo. Everyone was convinced that a terrorist attack had been attempted.

Father George assumed the possibility of clashes between demonstrators and the police, and, wanting to avoid them, wrote 2 letters: to the Tsar and to the Minister of Internal Affairs P. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky.

In a letter to His Imperial Majesty, Father George wrote:

The priest called on Nicholas 2 to come out to the people “with a courageous heart,” and announced that the workers would guarantee their safety “at the cost of their own lives.”

In his book, Gapon recalled how difficult it was for him to convince the workers' leaders to give the emperor this guarantee: the workers believed that if something happened to the king, they would be obliged to give up their lives. The letter was delivered to the Winter Palace, but it is not known whether it was handed over to the Tsar. In a letter to Svyatopolk-Mirsky, composed in approximately the same words, the priest asked the minister to immediately inform the tsar about the upcoming event and familiarize him with the workers’ petition. It is known that the minister received the letter and on the evening of January 8 took it along with the petition to Tsarskoe Selo. However, no response was received from the king and his minister.

Addressing the workers, Gapon said: “Let’s go, brothers, let’s see if the Russian Tsar really loves his people, as they say. If he gives him all freedom, it means he loves, and if not, then it’s a lie, and then we can do with him as our conscience dictates...”

On the morning of January 9, workers in festive clothes gathered on the outskirts to move in columns to the palace square. The people were peaceful and came out with icons, portraits of the Tsar and banners. There were women in the columns. 140 thousand people took part in the procession.

Not only the workers were preparing for the religious procession, but also the tsarist government. Troops and police units were deployed to St. Petersburg. The city was divided into 8 parts. 40 thousand military and police were involved in suppressing popular unrest. Bloody Sunday has begun.

Results of the day

On this difficult day, gun salvos thundered on the Shlisselburgsky tract, at the Narva Gate, on the 4th line and Maly Prospekt of Vasilievsky Island, next to the Trinity Bridge and in other parts of the city. According to military and police reports, shooting was used where workers refused to disperse. The military first fired a warning salvo into the air, and when the crowd approached closer than a given distance, they opened fire to kill. On this day, 2 policemen died, not a single one from the military. Gapon was taken from the square by the Socialist Revolutionary Ruttenberg (the one who would later be held responsible for Gapon’s death) to the apartment of Maxim Gorky.

The number of killed and wounded varies in different reports and documents.

Not all relatives found the bodies of their loved ones in hospitals, which gave rise to rumors that the police were underreporting the victims who were buried secretly in mass graves.

It can be assumed that if Nicholas II had been in the palace and had come out to the people, or had sent (at worst) a confidant, if he had listened to the delegates from the people, then there might not have been any revolution at all. But the tsar and his ministers chose to stay away from the people, deploying heavily armed gendarmes and soldiers against them. Thus, Nicholas 2 turned the people against himself and provided carte blanche for the Bolsheviks. The events of Bloody Sunday are considered to be the beginning of the revolution.

Here is an entry from the emperor's diary:

Gapon had a hard time surviving the execution of the workers. According to the recollections of one of the eyewitnesses, he sat for a long time, looking at one point, nervously clenching his fist and repeating “I swear... I swear...”. Having recovered a little from the shock, he took the paper and wrote a message to the workers.

It’s somehow hard to believe that if the priest were in the same basement with Nicholas 2, and if he had a weapon in his hands, he would begin to read sermons about Christian love and forgiveness, after everything that happened on that fateful day. He would have picked up this weapon and shot the king.

On this day, Gorky also addressed the people and intelligentsia. The end result of this Bloody Sunday was the beginning of the first Russian revolution.

The strike movement was gaining momentum, not only factories and factories were on strike, but also the army and navy. The Bolsheviks could not stay away, and Lenin returned to Russia illegally in November 1905, using a false passport.

After what happened on Bloody Sunday on January 9, Svyatopolk-Mirsky was removed from his post and Bulygin was appointed to the post of Minister of Internal Affairs. The position of Governor General of St. Petersburg appeared, to which the Tsar appointed D.F. Trepov.

On February 29, Nicholas II created a commission that was designed to establish the reasons for the discontent of the St. Petersburg workers. It was declared that political demands were unacceptable. However, the commission’s activities turned out to be unproductive, since the workers put forward demands that were political in nature:

• Openness of commission meetings,
• Release of those arrested;
• Freedom of the press;
• Restoration of 11 closed Gapon groups.

A wave of strikes swept across Russia and affected the national outskirts.

It is unlikely that in the Russian history of the 20th century there will be a more callous and more deceitful myth than the myth of the “bloody “resurrection”. In order to get rid of this historical event heaps of dirty and deliberate lies, it is necessary to record several main points related to the date “January 9, 1905”:

1. This was not a spontaneous event. This was an action that had been prepared for many years, for the financing of which significant funds were allocated and significant forces were involved in its implementation.

More about this: http://cont.ws/post/176665

2. The very term “Bloody Sunday” was thrown into print on the same day. This term, by the way, was invented by an English journalist of that time, named Dillon, who worked in a semi-socialist newspaper (I don’t know who but I strongly doubt the spontaneity of such a term, especially from an Englishman).

3. It is necessary to place several important, in my opinion, accents in relation to the events immediately preceding the tragedy of January 9:

1) The Russo-Japanese War was going on, industry was already set up to produce military products. And so precisely at this moment, precisely at defense enterprises, St. Petersburg, strikes begin, provoked by false information about the alleged mass layoffs of workers at the Putilov plant.

The plant fulfills an important defense order. This is a special railway transporter for transporting submarines to the Far East. Russian submarines can change the unsuccessful course of the naval war in our favor, but to do this they must be transferred to the Far East across the entire country. This cannot be done without the conveyor ordered from the Putilov plant.

After this, using "Meeting of factory workers" The Social Revolutionaries organize a wave of strikes. The strikes are organized according to a plan developed by Trotsky, who was still abroad at that time.

The principle of chain transmission is used: workers from one striking plant rush into another and agitate for a strike; Threats and physical terror are used against those who refuse to go on strike.

“In some factories this morning, workers wanted to start work, but people from neighboring factories came to them and convinced them to stop work. After which the strike began." (Minister of Justice N.V. Muravyov).

Police reports spoke of the active participation of Japanese and British intelligence services in spreading the riot.

The strike began on January 4 at the Obukhovsky and Nevsky factories. 26 thousand people are on strike. A leaflet was issued by the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP “To all workers of the Putilov plant”: “We need political freedom, we need freedom of strikes, unions and meetings...”.

On January 4 and 5 workers joined them Franco-Russian shipyard and Semyannikovsky plant.

Myself Gapon Subsequently, this is how he explained the beginning of the general strike in St. Petersburg by the workers of these particular factories. “We decided...to extend the strike to the Franco-Russian shipbuilding and Semyannikovsky factories, where there were 14 thousand workers. I chose these factories because I knew that just at that time they were fulfilling very serious orders for the needs of the war."

Thus, under a deliberately far-fetched pretext, it was at defense enterprises, using methods of threats and intimidation, that a mass strike was organized, which was the predecessor of January 9.

2) The idea to go with a petition to the Tsar was submitted by the worker Gapon and his entourage on January 6-7.

But the workers, who were invited to go to the Tsar for help, were introduced to purely economic and, one might say, reasonable demands.

Having accepted the incident with the restraint characteristic of him in acute situations, The Emperor, after the reception of foreign diplomatic representatives scheduled for that day at the Winter Palace, at 16:00 on the same day, left with his family for Tsarskoe Selo.

However, an artillery shot on January 6 finally intensified the actions of the military-police authorities in St. Petersburg.

Considering it as a possible attempt to assassinate the Sovereign, which testified to the existence of a secret terrorist organization in the capital garrison, the leadership of the Police Department was inclined to consider these events as the results of the activities of a well-conspiracy revolutionary organization operating on an all-Russian scale, which had begun to implement its plan to seize power in capital.

This may also be why the commandant still distributed live ammunition, despite the decision of his superiors.

Until January 8, the authorities did not yet know that another petition with extremist demands had been prepared behind the workers’ backs. And when they found out, they were horrified.

The order is given to arrest Gapon, but it is too late, he has disappeared. But it is no longer possible to stop the huge avalanche - the revolutionary provocateurs have done a great job.

On January 9, hundreds of thousands of people are ready to meet the Tsar. It cannot be canceled: the newspapers were not published. And until late in the evening on the eve of January 9, hundreds of agitators walked through working-class areas, exciting people, inviting them to a meeting with the Tsar, declaring again and again that this meeting was being hindered by exploiters and officials.

The workers fell asleep with the thought of tomorrow's meeting with Father the Tsar.

The St. Petersburg authorities, who gathered for a meeting on the evening of January 8, realizing that it was no longer possible to stop the workers, decided not to allow them into the very center of the city.

The main task was not even to protect the Tsar (he was not in the city, he was in Tsarskoe Selo), but to prevent riots, the inevitable crush and death of people as a result of the flow of huge masses from four sides in the narrow space of Nevsky Avenue and Palace Square, among the embankments and canals. Tsarist ministers remembered the Khodynka tragedy

Therefore, troops and Cossacks were gathered in the center with orders not to let people through and to use weapons if absolutely necessary.

In an effort to prevent a tragedy, authorities issued an announcement banning the January 9 march and warning of the danger.

Despite the fact that the flag over the Winter Palace was lowered and the whole city knew that the Tsar was not in the city, some also knew about the order prohibiting the procession.

ATTENTION: ON THE EVE OF JANUARY 9, THE ENTIRE PRESS WENT ON STRIKE, WHICH DEPRESSED THE AUTHORITY TO DISTRIBUTE AN ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE BAN OF THE PROCESS, BUT IMMEDIATELY AFTER THIS EVENT, ACCOUNTING ARTICLES WERE INSTANTLY PULL OUT IN A HUGE CIRCULATION, AS AS PREPARED IN ADVANCE.

5. The very nature of the procession was not initially peaceful.

The beginning of a mass procession of workers of St. Petersburg in the part of the city where the priest himself was located G. Gapon.

The procession from the Narva outpost was led by Gapon himself, who constantly shouted: "If we are denied, then we no longer have a King."

He himself described it in his memoirs as follows: “I thought that 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 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 either 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 ran to the sides of the crowd... when the procession moved, the police not only did not interfere with us, but they themselves walked with us without hats...”

As is clear from the above description, from the very beginning of the workers’ march under the leadership of G. Gapon, the Orthodox-monarchist paraphernalia in this procession was combined with a very active desire of the representatives of the revolutionary parties participating in it to direct the actions of the workers along the path of their harsh confrontation with representatives of the authorities, even though there were women and children among the workers

Representatives of all parties were distributed among separate columns of workers (there should be eleven of them - according to the number of branches of Gapon's organization).

Socialist Revolutionary militants were preparing weapons. The Bolsheviks put together detachments, each of which consisted of a standard bearer, an agitator and a core that defended them (i.e. the same militants).

They prepared banners and banners: “Down with Autocracy!”, “Long live the revolution!”, “To arms, comrades!”

The first meeting of workers with the troops and police took place at 12 noon near the Narva Gate.

A crowd of workers, approximately 2 to 3 thousand people, moved along the Peterhof highway to the Narva triumphal gates, carrying with them portraits of the Tsar and Queen, crosses and banners.

Police officials who came out to meet the crowd tried to persuade the workers not to go into the city and repeatedly warned that otherwise the troops would shoot at them.

When all the exhortations did not lead to any results, the squadron of the Horse Grenadier Regiment tried to force the workers to return back.

At that moment, Lieutenant Zholtkevich was seriously wounded by a shot from the crowd, and the police officer was killed.

As the squadron approached, the crowd spread out on both sides, and then two shots from a revolver were fired from its side, which did not cause any harm to any of the squadron’s people and only grazed the horse’s mane. In addition, one of the workers struck a platoon non-commissioned officer with a cross.

As you can see, the first shots were fired not from the troops, but from the crowd, and the first victims were not the workers, but the police and army officials.

Let us note the same behavior as one of the “believing” participants in the demonstration: he beats a non-commissioned officer with a cross!

When the squadron met armed resistance and, unable to stop the movement of the crowd, returned back, the officer commanding the troops warned three times about opening fire, and only after these warnings had no effect, and the crowd continued to advance, more than 5 volleys were fired, whereupon the crowd turned back and quickly dispersed, leaving more than forty people killed and wounded.

The latter were immediately given assistance, and all of them, with the exception of the slightly wounded who were taken by the crowd, were placed in the Aleksandrovskaya, Alafuzovskaya and Obukhovskaya hospitals.”

Events developed in approximately the same way in other places - on the Vyborg side, on Vasilievsky Island, on the Shlisselburg tract.

Red banners and slogans appeared: “Down with Autocracy!”, “Long live the revolution!” (this is war time!!!)

Isn’t this picture strikingly different from the sadistic execution of an unarmed crowd carried out by forced soldiers under the command of officers who hate the common people?

Two more powerful columns of workers followed towards the center from the Vyborg and St. Petersburg sides.

Bailiff of the 1st precinct of the St. Petersburg part of Krylov, stepping forward, addressed the crowd with exhortations to stop moving and turn back. The crowd stopped but continued to stand. Then the companies, with closed bayonets, moved towards the crowd shouting “Hurray!” The crowd was pushed back and began to disperse. There were no casualties among her.

On Vasilievsky Island the crowd behaved aggressively and revolutionary from the very beginning.

Even before the first shots were fired, the crowd, led by a Bolshevik L.D. Davydov, seized Schaff's weapons workshop. 200 people destroyed the headquarters of the 2nd precinct of the Vasilyevskaya police unit.

Major General Samghin reported: “Around 1 o’clock in the afternoon, the crowd on the 4th line, having increased significantly in number, began to set up barbed wire, build barricades and throw out red flags. The companies moved forward. (...) While the company was moving, bricks and stones were thrown from house No. 35 on the 4th line, as well as from a house under construction opposite it, and shots were fired.

On Maly Prospekt the crowd rallied and began shooting. Then one half company of the 89th infantry. The White Sea Regiment fired 3 salvos. (...)

During these actions, one student was arrested for making a defiant speech to the soldiers, and a loaded revolver was found on him. During the actions of the troops on Vasilyevsky Island, the troops detained 163 people for robbery and armed resistance.”

It was such a “peaceful” crowd that the troops on Vasilievsky Island had to act against! 163 armed militants and robbers are in no way similar to peaceful, loyal citizens.

By the way, the greatest number of casualties on both sides was caused not by the pacification of the demonstrators in the first half of the day, but by skirmishes with pogromists on Vasilyevsky Island, when the militants tried to hold arsenals and local weapons stores.

All this clearly shows that any statements about a “peaceful” demonstration are lies.

The crowd, excited by trained militants, smashed weapons stores and erected barricades.

“In Kirpichny Lane,” Lopukhin subsequently reported to the Tsar, “a crowd attacked two policemen, one of them was beaten. On Morskaya Street, Major General Elrich was beaten, on Gorokhovaya Street, one captain was beaten, and a bailiff was killed.”

It should be noted that there were such militants in all work columns.

It should be noted that the troops, wherever they could, tried to act with exhortations and persuasion, trying to prevent bloodshed.

Where there were no revolutionary instigators, or where there were not enough of them to influence the crowd, the officers managed to avoid bloodshed.

Thus, in the area of ​​the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and the Rozhdestvenskaya part there were no casualties or clashes. The same is true in the Moscow part.

None of the columns of demonstrators reached Palace Square.

The columns did not even cross the Neva (those who moved from Vasilyevsky Island, the Petrograd and Vyborg sides) and the Fontanka (those who moved from the Narvskaya Zastava and the Shlisselburg tract).

The most numerous of them, marching under the leadership of Gapon from the Putilov plant, was scattered near the Obvodny Canal. To disperse the columns, weapons were also used at the Shlisselburg fire station and at the Trinity Bridge.

On Vasilievsky Island there was a real battle with revolutionaries entrenched on the barricades (these are no longer “columns of a peaceful march”).

Nowhere else were they shooting into the crowd. This is a historical fact, confirmed by police reports.

Small groups of hooligan "revolutionaries" actually infiltrated the city center. On Morskaya Street they beat Major General Elrich, on Gorokhovaya Street they beat one captain and detained a courier, and his car was broken. A cadet from the Nikolaev Cavalry School, who was passing by in a cab, was pulled from his sleigh, the saber with which he defended himself was broken, and he was beaten and wounded. But these “freedom fighters” fled from one sight of Cossack patrols that appeared in the distance.

Later, after the events of January 9, Gapon asked in a small circle: “Well, Father George, now we are alone and there is no need to be afraid that dirty linen will be washed out in public, and that’s a thing of the past. You know how much they talked about the event of January 9 and how often one could hear the judgment that, if the Sovereign accepted the deputation honor, listen to the deputies kindly, everything would have worked out well. Well, what do you think, Father George, what would have happened if the Emperor had come out to the people?”

Completely unexpectedly, but in a sincere tone, Gapon replied: “They would kill in half a minute, half a second!”

So, when the enemies of the government then wrote that the Emperor “should have gone out to the crowd and agreed to at least one of its demands” (which - about 9 constituent assembly?) and then “the whole crowd would have knelt before him” - this was the grossest distortion of reality.

Now that we know all these circumstances, we can take a different look at the events of January 9, 1905 itself.

The revolutionaries' plan was simple: Several columns of provoked worker demonstrators, in whose ranks the revolutionary terrorists were supposed to be hiding for the time being, intended to be led to the Winter Palace to hand over the petition personally to the Tsar.

Other columns were not to be allowed to reach Palace Square, but were to be shot on the approaches to the city center, which would fuel the indignation of those gathered near the palace. At the moment when the Sovereign would appear for a pacifying call, the terrorist had to commit the assassination of the Emperor.

Part of this diabolical plan was carried out.

On the evening of January 9 Gapon writes a slanderous inflammatory leaflet: "January 9, 12 o'clock at night. To the soldiers and officers who killed their innocent brothers, their wives and children and to all the oppressors of the people, my pastoral curse; to the soldiers who will help the people achieve freedom, my blessing. Their soldier's oath to the traitor Tsar, who ordered the shedding of innocent blood folk, I authorize. Priest Georgy Gapon."

Subsequently, in the printed organ of the Social Revolutionaries “Revolutionary Russia” this false priest called: “Ministers, mayors, governors, police officers, policemen, policemen, guards, gendarmes and spies, generals and officers who order to shoot at you - kill... All measures so that you have real weapons on time and dynamite - you know, accepted... Refuse to go to war... Rise up on the instructions of the battle committee... Water pipelines, gas pipelines, telephones, telegraph, lighting, horse cars, trams, railways destroy..."

Further street clashes were stopped almost within one day. On January 11, the troops were returned to the barracks, and the police, reinforced by Cossack patrols, again began to control order on the streets of the city.

January 14, 1905 condemned the riots Holy Synod:

“It’s already been a year since Russia has been waging a bloody war with the pagans for its historical calling as the planter of Christian enlightenment in the Far East... But now, a new test of God, a grief worse than the first, has visited our beloved fatherland...

The criminal instigators of ordinary working people, having in their midst an unworthy clergyman who boldly trampled on the holy vows and is now subject to the judgment of the Church, were not ashamed to give into the hands of the workers they had deceived the honest cross, holy icons and banners forcibly taken from the chapel, so that, under the protection of the shrines revered by believers , or rather lead them to disorder, and some to destruction.

Toilers of the Russian land, working people! Work according to the commandment of the Lord by the sweat of your brow, remembering that he who does not work is not worthy of food. Beware of your false advisers... they are accomplices or mercenaries of the evil enemy seeking the ruin of the Russian land."

The Emperor dismissed the ministers: Svyatopolk-Mirsky and Muravyov. General was appointed as the new Governor General Trepov, who stopped the riots in the city without bloodshed.

The general gave the troops the famous order: “Don’t spare cartridges!”, but at the same time he did everything to ensure that this order became widely known. The riots stopped.

“Unfortunate events with sad but inevitable consequences of unrest occurred because you allowed yourself to be misled and deceived by traitors and enemies of our Motherland. I know that the life of a worker is not easy. Much needs to be improved and streamlined” (from the speech of Nicholas II before a deputation of workers on January 19, 1905).

You allowed yourself to be drawn into delusion and deception by traitors and enemies of our homeland...Strikes and rebellious gatherings only excite the crowd to the kind of disorder that has always forced and will force the authorities to resort to military force, and this inevitably causes innocent victims. I know that the life of a worker is not easy. A lot needs to be improved and streamlined... But for a rebellious crowd to tell me their demands is criminal.”

Already on January 14, the strike in St. Petersburg began to decline. On January 17, the Putilov plant resumed work.

On January 29, a “Commission was created to find out the reasons for the discontent of workers in St. Petersburg and its suburbs and to find measures to eliminate them in the future,” which over time achieved complete pacification of the workers of the capital.

Thus ended the first act of the pre-planned bloody anti-anti-Russian unrest, later called the “Russian Revolution.”

Socialist Revolutionary militants were preparing another assassination attempt on the Tsar which was to take place at the ball. Terrorist Tatyana Leontyeva managed to ingratiate herself with the organizers of one of the social balls and received an offer to engage in charity flower sales. She offered to personally commit regicide. However, the ball was cancelled.

From the diary of Nicholas II:

“January 9th. Sunday. Tough day! Serious riots occurred in St. Petersburg due to the desire of the workers to reach Winter Palace. The troops were supposed to shoot at different places city, there were many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and difficult! ..."

According to official statistics, on January 9, 96 people were killed, including police officials, and 233 were wounded. According to other sources, killed There were 130 people, 311 were injured.

Nicholas II donated 50 thousand rubles from his personal funds in favor of the workers who suffered on January 9, and gave large monetary compensation to all the families of the victims. (Back then you could buy a good cow for 25 rubles, and families received an average of 1,500 rubles).

The revolutionaries took advantage of the situation and spread a rumor that in fact about five thousand people were killed and wounded...

But the primary source on which the capital’s journalists relied was a leaflet distributed in St. Petersburg as early as 5 o'clock in the afternoon on January 9 . It was there that it was reported that “thousands of workers were shot on Palace Square.”

But, excuse me, how could it be written, replicated by this time, especially since the printing houses were not open on Sunday, distributed to the districts and distributed to distributors? It is obvious that this provocative leaflet was prepared in advance, no later than January 8, i.e. when neither the location of the execution nor the number of victims was known to the authors.

According to the results of a study carried out by Doctor of Historical Sciences A. N. Zashikhin in 2008, There are no grounds for recognizing this figure as reliable.

Other foreign agencies reported similar inflated figures. Thus, the British Laffan agency reported 2,000 killed and 5,000 wounded, the Daily Mail newspaper reported more than 2,000 killed and 5,000 wounded, and the Standard newspaper reported 2,000-3,000 killed and 7,000-8,000 wounded.

Subsequently, all this information was not confirmed.

The magazine "Liberation" reported that a certain " organizing committee Institute of Technology" published "secret police information" that determined the number of killed at 1,216 people. No confirmation of this message was found.

Gapon was stripped of his church title and declared the most notorious criminal of the Orthodox Church. He was accused by the clergy of the fact that, (I quote) “called to inspire the Orthodox with the words of truth and the Gospel, obliged to distract them from false directions and criminal aspirations, he, with a cross on his chest, in clothes

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In 1905, peaceful workers who were led to the emperor by priest Gapon died in St. Petersburg. From this day the collapse of Tsarist Russia began

On this day one of the significant events in Russian history. It weakened, if not completely buried, the people's centuries-old faith in the monarchy. And this contributed to the fact that after twelve years, Tsarist Russia ceased to exist.

Anyone who studied in a Soviet school knows the interpretation of the events of January 9 at that time. Okhrana agent Georgy Gapon, following the orders of his superiors, led the people out under the soldiers' bullets. Today, national patriots put forward a completely different version: supposedly the revolutionaries secretly used Gapon for a grandiose provocation. What really happened?

Crowds gathered for the sermon

« Provocateur" Georgy Gapon was born on February 5, 1870 in Ukraine, in the family of a priest. After graduating from a rural school, he entered the Kyiv seminary, where he showed himself to be a man of extraordinary abilities. He received an appointment to one of the best Kyiv parishes - a church in a rich cemetery. However, the liveliness of his character prevented the young priest from joining the orderly ranks of the provincial clergy. He moved to the capital of the empire, where he brilliantly passed the exams at the Theological Academy. Soon he was offered a position as a priest in a charitable organization located on the 22nd line of Vasilievsky Island - the so-called Blue Cross Mission. It was there that he found his true calling...

The mission was dedicated to helping working families. Gapon took up this task with enthusiasm. He walked through the slums where the poor and homeless lived and preached. His sermons were wildly successful. Thousands of people gathered to listen to the priest. Together with personal charm, this provided Gapon with entry into high society.

True, the mission soon had to be abandoned. Father started an affair with a minor. But the way up had already been paved. The priest meets such a colorful character as gendarme colonel Sergei Zubatov.

Police socialism

He was the creator of the theory of police socialism.

He believed that the state should be above class conflicts and act as an arbiter in labor disputes between workers and entrepreneurs. To this end, he created workers' unions throughout the country, which, with the help of the police, tried to defend the interests of workers.

However, this initiative was truly successful only in the capital, where the Assembly of Russian Factory Workers of St. Petersburg arose. Gapon slightly modified Zubatov's idea. According to the priest, workers' associations should primarily be engaged in education, the fight for popular sobriety, and the like. Moreover, the clergyman organized the matter in such a way that the only link between the police and the Assembly was himself. Although Gapon did not become an agent of the secret police.

At first everything went very well. The congregation grew by leaps and bounds. More and more sections were opened in different areas of the capital. The desire for culture and education among skilled workers was quite high. The Union taught literacy, history, literature and even foreign languages. Moreover, the lectures were given by the best professors.

But Gapon himself played the main role. People attended his speech as if they were attending a prayer. He, one might say, became a working legend: in the city they said that he had been found people's defender. In a word, the priest received everything he wanted: on the one hand, an audience of thousands in love with him, on the other, a police “roof” that ensured him a quiet life.

Attempts by the revolutionaries to use the Assembly for their propaganda were unsuccessful. The agitators were sent away. Moreover, in 1904, after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, the Union adopted an appeal in which it branded with shame “revolutionaries and intellectuals who are splitting the nation at a difficult time for the Fatherland.”

Workers increasingly turned to Gapon asking for help in solving their problems. At first it was saying modern language, local labor conflicts. Some demanded that the master who gave free rein to his fists be expelled from the factory, others demanded that a fired comrade be reinstated. Gapon resolved these issues through his authority. He came to the director of the plant and started small talk, casually mentioning that he had connections in the police and in high society. Well, in the end, he unobtrusively asked to deal with the “simple business.” In Russia, it is not customary for a person who soars so high to be denied such trifles.

The situation is heating up...

Gapon's intercession attracted more and more people to the Union. But the situation in the country was changing, the strike movement was growing rapidly. The mood in the working environment became increasingly radical. In order not to lose popularity, the priest had to follow them.

And it is not surprising that his speeches became more and more “cool”, corresponding to the mood of the masses. And he reported to the police: there is peace and quiet in the Assembly. They believed him. The gendarmes, having flooded the revolutionary parties with agents, had practically no informants among the workers.

Relations between proletarians and entrepreneurs became tense. On December 3, 1904, one of the workshops of the Putilov plant went on strike. The strikers demanded the reinstatement of six dismissed comrades. The conflict was, in essence, trivial. But the management followed the principle. As always, Gapon intervened. This time they didn’t listen to him. Business people are already pretty tired of the priest who constantly sticks his nose into their affairs.

But the workers also followed the principle. Two days later, all of Putilovsky stood up. The Obukhov plant joined it. Soon almost half of the capital's enterprises went on strike. And it was no longer just about laid-off workers. There were calls for the establishment of an eight-hour working day, which was then only in Australia, and for the introduction of a Constitution.

The meeting was the only legal labor organization, and it became the center of the strike. Gapon found himself in an extremely unpleasant situation. To support the strikers means to enter into a tough conflict with the authorities, who are very determined. Failure to support means instantly and forever losing your “star” status in the proletarian environment.

And then Grigory Apollonovich came up with what seemed to him a saving idea: to organize a peaceful procession to the sovereign. The text of the petition was adopted at a meeting of the Union, which was very stormy. Most likely, Gapon expected that the tsar would come out to the people, promise something, and everything would be settled. The clergyman rushed around the then revolutionary and liberal parties, agreeing that there would be no provocations on January 9. But in this environment, the police had many informants, and the priest’s contacts with the revolutionaries became known.

...The authorities panicked

On the eve of January 9, 1905, panic began to seize the authorities. Indeed, crowds will move to the city center, led by a person with incomprehensible plans. Extremists have something to do with this. In the horror-stricken “top” there was simply no sober-minded person who could develop an adequate line of behavior.

This was also explained by what happened on January 6th. During the Epiphany bathing on the Neva, which, according to tradition, was attended by the emperor, one of the artillery pieces fired a salvo in the direction of the royal tent. The gun, intended for target practice, turned out to be loaded with a live shell; it exploded not far from the tent of Nicholas II. No one was killed, but a policeman was wounded. The investigation showed that this was an accident. But rumors spread throughout the city about an assassination attempt on the Tsar. The Emperor hastily left the capital and went to Tsarskoe Selo.

The final decision on how to act on January 9 actually had to be made by the capital’s authorities. Army commanders received very vague instructions: do not allow workers into the city center. How, it is unclear. The St. Petersburg police, one might say, did not receive any circulars at all. An indicative fact: at the head of one of the columns was the bailiff of the Narva unit, as if legalizing the procession with his presence. He was killed with the first salvo.

Tragic ending

On January 9, the workers, who were moving in eight directions, behaved exclusively peacefully. They carried portraits of the king, icons, banners. There were women and children in the columns.

The soldiers acted differently. For example, near the Narva outpost they opened fire to kill. But the procession, moving along the current Obukhov Defense Avenue, was met by troops on the bridge over the Obvodny Canal. The officer announced that he would not let people cross the bridge, and the rest was none of his business. And the workers walked around the barrier on the ice of the Neva. It was they who were met with fire on Palace Square.

The exact number of people who died on January 9, 1905 is still unknown. Called different numbers– from 60 to 1000.

We can say that on this day the First Russian Revolution began. The Russian Empire was heading towards its collapse.

→ typical example interference of the church in state affairs. her relationship with the police is also typical 1 January 9, at 10:05 answer

→ good comparison))) -2 January 9, at 10:44 answer

http://www.cofe.ru/blagovest/article.asp?article=5686&he... 1 January 8, at 23:37 answer

→ January 9, 1905

On the morning of January 9, the workers, having served a prayer service in the Putilov Chapel, moved to the city center. They came from four different parts of the city. In total, up to 200 thousand people gathered, despite the fact that the entire population of St. Petersburg barely reached 1.5 million. Gapon himself led the column to the Narva Gate. On the way, on his orders, banners from the Orthodox Church were seized by force.

“I thought it would be good to give the whole demonstration a religious character, and immediately sent the 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 after a few minutes they brought them” (Gapon “The Story of My Life”)

The first meeting of workers with troops took place at the Narva Gate. The head of the Narva-Kolomensk unit (urban areas were then called units), Major General Rudakov, recalled:

“Today, January 9, a crowd of workers moved towards the Narva Gate... Police officials tried in vain to persuade them not to go to the city. When all the exhortations did not lead to any results, a squadron of the Horse Grenadier Regiment was sent... At that moment, the assistant bailiff, Lieutenant Zholtkevich, was seriously wounded, and the police officer was killed" (from the work "The Beginning of the First Russian Revolution"). 2 January 8, at 23:40 answer → So, the first shots are fired from the demonstrators, and the first killed are police officers. In response, a company of the 93rd Irkutsk Infantry Regiment opened fire.

“Then 5 volleys were fired, after which the crowd turned back and dispersed, leaving more than forty people killed and wounded. The latter were immediately provided with assistance, and they were all placed in hospitals: Aleksandrovskaya, Alafuzovskaya and Obukhovskaya” (from the work “The Beginning of the First Russian Revolution”)

It must be said that this picture is strikingly different from the Bolshevik myth about the shooting of an unarmed crowd by forced soldiers under the command of officers who hated the common people. But with this myth, communists and democrats shaped the popular consciousness for almost 100 years.

Immediately after the execution began, Gapon and Rutenberg disappeared.

“Priest Gapon, together with the crowd, moved to the Narva Gate... It should be noted that Father Gapon, having organized a procession, immediately disappeared” (from the report of the head of the St. Petersburg security department). 2 January 8, at 23:41 answer → At 12 noon, two columns approached the Trinity Bridge. Here are excerpts from the report of the bailiff Krylov to the St. Petersburg governor Foulon:

“At my request to stop, the crowd continued to move, and after the third signal, when the crowd still did not stop, one volley was fired... The doctor personally reported that he had taken 5 dead, 10 mortally wounded and the rest more or less seriously wounded to the hospital, and only between 50 and 60 people" (from the work "The Beginning of the First Russian Revolution").

On Vasilyevsky Island, where there were most of the Socialist Revolutionary militants, events unfolded according to a tragic scenario from the very beginning.

“Dear ones, don’t be afraid of death! What death! Isn't our life worse than death? Dear girls, don’t be afraid of death.”
From the speech of V.M. Karelina (one of the prominent figures of the Social Democratic movement) on the morning of January 9 in the Vasilyeostrovsky branch of the Assembly

“At about 1 o’clock in the afternoon the crowd on the 4th line increased significantly in number and began to build barricades. The companies moved forward... While the company was moving, bricks, stones were thrown from house No. 35 along the 4th line, and shots were fired. During the operation of the troops, 163 people were detained for robbery and armed resistance” (from the work “The Beginning of the First Russian Revolution”).

163 armed people do not at all look like a peaceful demonstration of workers. The militants, armed with money provided by Colonel Akashi, were preparing to overthrow the government, and only the resistance provided by the troops of the St. Petersburg garrison did not allow the Social Revolutionaries to complete their plan. 2 January 8, at 23:41 answer → At 2 p.m., an armed clash also occurred on Palace Square. And here, just like at the Narva Gate, the first shots rang out from the crowd blocking the square. Up to 20 demonstrators were killed on Dvortsovaya, after which the crowd dispersed.
The troops tried to act through persuasion wherever they could. Where there were no Socialist Revolutionary militants, bloodshed was avoided. Let us remember that in those days, throughout the world, and not just in Russia, there was no tear gas, no rubber batons, or even banal fire water cannons. However, in the area of ​​the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and in the Moscow part, people calmly dispersed. By evening all the riots were over. According to official statistics, 128 people were killed and 360 wounded. 2 January 8, at 23:42 answer

→ The tragic events of January 9, 1905 entered the history of our country under the name of Bloody Sunday. And indeed, on this sad day, blood was shed on the streets of St. Petersburg. However, the real number of victims of those tragic events differs significantly from the figure that has been present in all history textbooks for many decades. For example, in the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Belarus,” edited by the commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Belarus, the following data are indicated: more than 1,000 killed and more than 2,000 wounded. Where do these numbers come from? Ultimately, they go back to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. And it is quite understandable that Lenin, as a practical revolutionary, sought to maximize the number of victims, to exaggerate the colors in order to arouse a feeling of deep indignation among the readers of his articles, to provoke a protest reaction.

In his article “Revolutionary Days” in the newspaper “Forward”, Lenin wrote:

“According to the latest newspaper news, on January 13, journalists submitted to the Minister of Internal Affairs a list of 4,600 killed and wounded, a list compiled by reporters. Of course, this figure cannot be complete, because even during the day (let alone at night) it would be impossible to count all those killed and wounded in all the skirmishes.” 2 January 8, at 23:43 answer

→ There were many victims, but the culprits should be considered those who, with cold cynicism, exposed the workers to the soldiers’ bullets. Regardless of the death toll on January 9, the death of innocent people is a tragedy. The revolutionaries were unable to overthrow the tsarist government, but the bloody provocation was quite successful. Rutenberg, Gapon, Akashi and their overseas sponsors Schiff and Morgan did their dirty deed - they pitted the Russian people against the Russian Tsar.
On January 9, Nicholas II made the following entry in his diary:

“Hard day! Serious riots occurred in St. Petersburg as a result of the workers’ desire to reach the Winter Palace. The troops had to shoot in different places in the city, there were many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and difficult!”

At the same time, we emphasize once again that the revolt of January 9 took place during the war. Wartime strikes in any country other than Russia would have been suppressed in a bloody manner in the bud. Thus, the British suppressed the Dublin Uprising in 1916 by moving naval monitors to the city and shooting it from heavy ship cannons. The streets were cleared of the rebels with the help of machine guns and tanks that had just appeared in the English arsenal. And no one, not even America, shouted about the bloody English regime. In 1920, the same British, already in peacetime, suppressed a workers' uprising in Manchester with tanks and machine guns. The tsarist Russian government, which suppressed a wartime rebellion organized by Japanese intelligence, was declared bloody. And this despite the fact that not only were no reprisals taken against the participants in the procession on January 9, but each affected family was given 50 thousand rubles from the tsar’s personal funds. In modern money this is approximately 200 thousand dollars. 3 January 8, at 23:44 answer

→ But what if there was an execution, then the regime is not bloody? -1 January 9, at 09:58 answer

→ You are going the right way, comrade! -2 January 9, at 09:59 answer

→ lies -3 January 9, at 10:00 answer

1905 The last of Isabella's house books to survive is in the Cotton MSS. Galba - but it was partially damaged by the fire of the Cotton library in 1731. For excerpts from this book, see Bond: Notes and Dougherty: