HistoryPod

On the 22^nd January 1905, the Bloody Sunday massacre took place in the Russian capital Saint Petersburg. Soldiers of the Imperial Guard fired on protesters led by the Orthodox Priest Father Georgy Gapon as they marched towards the Winter Palace where they planned to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II.

By 1905 there was growing discontent amongst the urban working class. Father Gapon had established the “Assembly of the Russian Factory and Mill Workers of the City of St. Petersburg” to promote workers’ rights in 1903, but after four Assembly members from the Putilov ironworks were sacked from their jobs in December 1904, workers across the city went on strike. Capitalising on the situation Father Gapon drafted a petition to the Tsar calling for improved working conditions and various other reforms that received 150,000 signatures.

On the morning of the 22^nd January workers marched with the petition to the Winter Palace, alongside religious icons and pictures of the Tsar. Gapon had already notified the authorities of the petition and the march, and in response approximately 10,000 troops from the Imperial Guard were placed around the palace. However, why they began firing on the peaceful march is unclear. Even the number killed or injured is uncertain with estimates ranging from the government’s official figure of 96 dead to revolutionary claims of more than 4,000.

The Tsar was not in the palace at the time, and did not give an order for the troops to fire, but was widely blamed for the massacre. In response strikes and protests spread around the country, and eventually developed into the 1905 Revolution.