What was bloody sunday in russia

It was this organisation that would, unwittingly, set the Revolution in motion. Gapon called for industrial action. Over the coming days over thousand workers in the city went on strike.

Although protests were peaceful, troops were brought in to support existing forces in the city. Father Gapon organised a petition complaining about working conditions in the city and calling for change. It was signed by over thousand people. Unfortunately, Gapon and the protestors never reached the palace that symbolized the Czarist power in Russia.

Thousands of soldiers were already aware of the fact that the crowd was approaching, and they set up blockades along their path. Once the people finally reached the critical points where the army was positioned, all hell broke loose. Soldiers started firing up in the air, probably just waiting to scare away the protestors. But, some of the imperial soldiers did not react like that and started firing directly at Gapon and hundreds of unarmed people.

Gapon was stopped at the Narva Gate, and other protestors could not progress further than the Troitsky Bridge, because the Cossack army on their horses , slashed down the protestors. In another critical region of St. Petersburg, the imperial military even used canon firepower to stop and kill the mass of people approaching the Winter Palace. There were children among the protestors, and despite the very tense situation between the people and the Czar, probably nobody thought that the Czar's army would open fire on unarmed kids.

But, that Sunday in Russia was particularly bloody: more than people died in the direct clash with the Cossacks and Czar's army, and more were wounded. Monument in memory of those killed in the revolution of in St. About people died and were wounded during the march led by Father George Gapon on January 22nd, The march was organised by an Orthodox priest, Father George Gapon, head of the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers, one of several trade unions set up the previous year with the approval of the ministry of the interior to be a safety valve for grievances and to promote loyalty to the regime.

Gapon, however, alarmed the authorities by his socialist attitude and took advice from the Union of Liberation, an organisation of middle-class liberal intellectuals campaigning for parliamentary democracy. At the beginning of January, when four of his members were sacked from their jobs, he started a strike which spread rapidly until , workers were out.

Dressed in their Sunday best, with the women and children at the front, the marchers carried icons, crosses or pictures of the Tsar.