Father Gregory Gapon

On Sunday, January 22, 1905, thousands of demonstrators led by Orthodox priest Father Gregory Gapon marched toward the Russian Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, singing hymns and patriotic songs, intending to deliver a petition to the Tsar. As the demonstrators approached the Palace, they were met by 10,000 Russian soldiers. The day would be remembered in history as “Bloody Sunday.”

It was a time of great unrest in Russia. Humiliating and costly defeats in the Russo-Japanese War, an absence of political freedom, and most of all dissatisfaction with unfair and unsafe working conditions, had combined to create an unsettled and potentially explosive situation across the country. To help workers organize and advocate for reform, Father Gapon had founded “The Assembly of the Russian Factory and Mill Workers of the City of St. Petersburg.” When six factory workers in the city were fired for becoming members of the Assembly, a wave of sympathy strikes spread across St. Petersburg. By January 22, well over a hundred thousand workers were on strike and many of the city’s essential services were shut down.

Gapon hoped that his petition might influence the Tsar to take action on the workers’ behalf. The petition called for an end to the war with Japan, reduction of the work day to 8 hours, fairer pay, safer working conditions, and universal suffrage. But the petition was not to be delivered.

Despite the fact that many of the troops and police confronting the marchers were sympathetic to their demands, the demonstration soon became violent, then became a massacre. Cossacks charged the marchers, attacking them with sabers. At the famous Narva Gate, the group being led by Father Gapon was fired upon. The demonstration dissolved into chaos, with the soldiers firing multiple volleys into the panicked crowd. Exactly how many people were killed or wounded is unknown, with estimates ranging from several hundred to over 4,000.

Bloody Sunday is generally regarded as the beginning of the Russian Revolution of 1905—a wave of violence, strikes, and uprisings that swept across the country that year, leaving thousands dead before petering out in December 1905. Vladimir Lenin called the Revolution of 1905 a great dress rehearsal for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

St. Petersburg’s Bloody Sunday occurred 118 years ago today (but note that the date was January 9 in Russia, which was still using the Julian Calendar).

The image depicts Father Gapon leading the demonstrators toward the Narva Gate.