The terrible Bloody Sunday of 1905 did not happen suddenly. It was preceded by the movement of both peasants and workers in many regions of the country throughout the whole of 1904. In December, a strike in Baku led to the conclusion of an agreement with the owners of the plant. It discussed salary increases, shorter working hours, annual leave and other issues. The strike at the Putilov factory began on January 3, and on January 8 it became universal.
And the events that happened the next day, January 9, and preserved in history under the name "Bloody Sunday", served as the beginning of the revolution, which lasted another two and a half years. Its development included several stages.
So, the prologue of the revolution was Bloody Sunday and the general strike in St. Petersburg. Under the leadership of Gapon, who was trying to somehow extinguish the uprising, the workers of the plants of St. Petersburg drew up a petition containing a request to improve their financial situation (to make the working day shorter, to provide annual leave and other benefits). There were demands of a political nature in it: to introduce democratic freedoms (conscience, words, immunity), to convene the Constituent Assembly by secret and equal voting.
With this petition, the workers went to the king, confident in his mercy and justice. The Social Democrats could neither dissuade Gapon from the plan, nor soldiers to shoot the workers. The authorities knew about the preparation of the procession, about the content of the petition, but did not openly hinder all this. However, on January 7 and 8, at a meeting with the head of the city, they discussed in detail the location of the tsarist troops. Svyatopolk-Mirsky reported to Nicholas II about the measures that were being taken, after which he left for Tsarskoye Selo.
The columns led by Gapon totaled 140 thousand workers. They held icons, a portrait of the king, sang prayers and advanced to the center of St. Petersburg. A chain of soldiers met the demonstrators in front of the Winter Palace, first with blank salvos, and then with the shooting of people "armed" with only icons and banners.
In the rest of the city, workers were not spared either. As a result, more than a thousand people were killed and five thousand wounded on Bloody Sunday. Such cruel and senseless reprisals against people who went to the tsar with confidence and peaceful intentions (including women, old people and children) provoked indignation of Russians living abroad. Statements that the king was not in the capital and did not give an order to shoot did not help. And on the evening of January 9, Bloody Sunday had a continuation: the workers began to build barricades in the afternoon, the first were built on Vasilyevsky Island. The demonstrators, still completely peaceful in the morning, in the evening were already aggressively attacking gun shops, police stations, and city police stations. The process developed very rapidly. It was clear that Bloody Sunday of 1905 was only the beginning of a great revolution.
The response to the atrocities of the authorities was the protests with the participation of 440 thousand demonstrators. Their main slogan was the call "Down with the autocracy!". Strikes took place in all the largest cities. In Ivanovo-Voznesensk, a Council of authorized deputies was created. Further, mass uprisings from cities spread to villages. A Peasant Union was created, which put forward its demands.
The government, under the onslaught of the growing revolutionary movement, had to make a concession. It, as promised, convened the Bulygin Duma, named after the Minister of the Interior, who was in power at that time. However, the attempt immediately failed, because the legislative body that it wanted to establish too limited the voting rights and opportunities of the ordinary population. Thus ended the first stage of the revolution.