The humiliation of defeat helped spark off the 1905 revolution in Russia. In 1905 the workers of St. Petersburg protested hardships due to cyclical downturns in the economy.
By the beginning of the second week of January 1905, over 100,000 St. Petersburg workers were on strike. On Sunday, January 9, 1905, many of them, still believing in the old myth of the benevolent tsar, marched to his Winter Palace to present him with a petition, begging him to sue hos royal authority to relieve their desperate conditions.
Urban workers appealed to the Tsar as “little father” for relief for their hardships. The tsar never received the petitioners, for he was outside the city at his Tsarkoe Selo residence. But troops near the palace and on snowy avenues leading to it did greet them – with shots and swords. A thousand were killed, including many women and children, who were appealing to the tsar for relief.
This was ‘Bloody Sunday’ or ‘Vladimir’s Day’. The event set-off a revolution that spread to Moscow and the countryside.
Bloody Sunday opened the Revolution of 1905. The reception given the marches destroyed all popular faith in the tsar; henceforth, he and his bureaucrats were lumped together as responsible for the nation’s ill.
The immediate reaction to Bloody Sunday in Russia at large was a widespread outbreak of disorder, which increased as the year went on. Strike occurred in all the major cities and towns.
History of Russian Bloody Sunday (1905)
