By the autumn of 1905, the strike struggle of the workers became more and more persistent and organized. Under the influence of the Bolsheviks, the strikes quickly acquired a political character. In Moscow on September 23, striking workers took to the streets with red flags. Political demonstrations and rallies took place in many areas of the city. The speakers called for the overthrow of the autocracy.

The authorities decided to suppress the strike and disperse demonstrations and rallies. Cossacks and police were thrown against the workers. They shot at people and beat demonstrators with whips. The workers defended themselves with stones and sticks. There were real battles between the strikers and the troops on September 24 and 25. But the forces were unequal. Unarmed workers could not resist the troops for long.

The strike continued. At the call of the Bolsheviks, on October 7, the railway workers of the Kazan railway stopped working. The authorities tried to prevent the strike, and on the same day troops and police occupied all Moscow train stations. At 12 o'clock at the Kazansky, Yaroslavsky and Kursky stations, the drivers left the locomotives, and the dispatch of passenger trains stopped. By October 10, only the Nikolaevskaya road, connecting Moscow with St. Petersburg, was working, and then under heavy security. A large group of railway workers burst into the Nikolaevsky station and, in front of the confused police and soldiers, released steam from all the locomotives, and removed the workers and employees of this railway from work. Railway communication between Moscow and the entire country was interrupted.

Following the Moscow railway workers, the railway workers stopped working Nizhny Novgorod, Kharkov, Kyiv, Saratov, Tula, and on October 12 the strike covered all the country's railways.

On October 10, the Moscow City Conference of Bolsheviks decided to declare a general political strike under the slogan: “Down with the tsarist government!”, “Long live the popular uprising!”

The next day, one enterprise after another stopped working, trams and horse-drawn cars stopped, the telephone did not work, the electricity was turned off, pharmacies, banks, educational establishments. By October 17, the strike in Moscow had become general.

“Moscow in these days,” one of the leaders of the Moscow Bolshevik Organization S. Mitskevich later recalled, “represented an eerie and menacing picture, especially in the evening - the city seemed to have died out - complete darkness on the streets, dark in the houses, closed shops, restaurants, passers-by it’s almost impossible to see, only in higher educational institutions there are rallies under the faint light of candles.”

The initiative of the Moscow proletariat was taken up by workers in other cities. The workers on the outskirts of St. Petersburg became alarmed. The strike struggle was led by metal workers. Following their example, already on October 13, most factories and factories in the capital went on strike. The workers were joined by employees of many government agencies. By October 17, the strike in St. Petersburg had become general. The Bolshevik newspaper “Proletary” described St. Petersburg these days: “... the city has an alarming appearance, there is no electric lighting: the streets are illuminated by the fluctuating reddish glow of fires; shops are boarded up; There are patrols everywhere - foot and horse; pharmacies are closed; fear for the water supply; the telephone message was restored only for the needs of the administration; Nevsky Prospekt is illuminated from the Admiralty.”

Following Moscow and St. Petersburg, a general strike began in Kharkov, Kyiv, Chelyabinsk and Irkutsk. It covered the Baltic states, the Volga region, the Urals, Ukraine, Siberia, the Far East and other regions of the country and became all-Russian. All over the country, trains stopped, the post office and telegraph did not work, all the factories and factories stood still. The striking workers were joined by students, minor employees, lawyers, engineers, and doctors. The number of strikers throughout Russia exceeded 2 million people. There were political demonstrations everywhere under the slogan: “Down with autocracy!” During these days, Soviets of Workers' Deputies were created in many cities.

Characterizing the political situation in the country, V.I. Lenin wrote: “The barometer shows a storm!.., everything and everyone has already been torn from its place by a gigantic whirlwind of a solidary proletarian onslaught. The revolution is moving forward with amazing speed, unfolding an amazing wealth of events... Before us are breathtaking scenes of one of the greatest civil wars, wars for freedom that humanity has ever experienced, and we must hurry to live in order to devote all our strength to this war.”

General political strike shocked the whole country. Russia was on the verge of an armed uprising. The tsarist government was in panic. It tried to drown the growing revolution in blood: new military units were sent to large industrial centers, receiving orders “not to fire blank volleys and not to spare cartridges.”

But the revolutionary wave continued to grow. Seized with fear, the ruling clique awaited its end. The royal yacht "Polar Star" stood ready to take the king and his family abroad. Then the tsarist minister S. Yu. Witte proposed to “pacify” the people by promising them freedom. Unable to suppress the revolution, fearing an impending armed uprising, tsarism resorted to deception and tricks.

On October 17, Nicholas II signed a manifesto in which he promised the people civil liberties and the convening of a legislative duma - a representative body elected by all classes of society.

The bourgeoisie greeted the tsar's manifesto with delight. She achieved her goal and now sought, together with tsarism, to stop further development revolution.

The Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, having received the October 17 manifesto with satisfaction, saw in it the crown, the pinnacle of the revolution

And only the Bolsheviks patiently explained to the people that the tsar’s manifesto could not give political freedom; it could only be achieved by overthrowing tsarism and establishing a democratic republic. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, addressing the people of Russia, wrote: “The king of bullets and whips, prisons and gallows, the king of spies and executioners signed a manifesto on the constitution, on the rights of the people. The Tsar speaks about freedom, about the rights of citizens, about the participation of the people in governing the country. Should I trust the king? No. The original enemy of the people, defeated by their strength, could not become their friend.” The manifesto was a kind of maneuver with the help of which the autocracy sought to gain time to gather strength and go on the offensive against the revolution. Tsarism had no intention of fulfilling the promises it made in the manifesto.

The warnings of the Bolshevik Party were not in vain. The very next day after the manifesto was published, proclamations were hastily printed in the basement of the police department in St. Petersburg, calling for pogroms and bloody reprisals against revolutionary workers and intellectuals. The authorities provided all possible assistance and support to the thugs from the reactionary “Union of the Russian People” - a gangster organization of tramps, merchants, clerks and various kinds of scum of society, called by the people the “Black Hundred”. The Tsar himself was an honorary member of this “Union”.

On October 18, in Moscow, in broad daylight, rabid Black Hundreds killed the Bolshevik Nikolai Ernestovich Bauman, a remarkable revolutionary, one of the founders of Lenin’s Iskra. At the call of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party, about 100 thousand workers and students escorted the body of the murdered revolutionary to the Vagankovskoye cemetery. Slogans fluttered above the menacingly closed columns: “Down with autocracy!”, “Down with the Black Hundred!”, “Workers of all countries, unite!” The authorities did not dare to interfere funeral procession, but when the funeral was over, a group of returning students at the Manege was attacked by a gang of Black Hundreds. Shooting began and there were new victims.

Together with the police in many cities of the country, the Black Hundreds organized pogroms against Jews, brutally dealt with demonstrators and strikers, and killed the leaders of the revolutionary people. In this situation, the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies, which was dominated by the Mensheviks, decided to end the strike. The Bolsheviks' attempts to improve the situation were unsuccessful. And in the twentieth of October the general political strike ended. Tsarism won.

However, the October strike awakened broad sections of the people and raised them to fight the autocracy. It showed the strength and unity of the working class. One of the features of the October political strike was that it was a strike of the proletarians of all the peoples of Russia, acting under the leadership of the Russian working class. The general strike brought the masses close to an armed uprising.

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The world has never known such a huge strike. In October 1905, more than 2 million people stopped working in Russia - approximately 1.5 million industrial workers and railway workers, 200 thousand officials and employees, students, teachers, doctors, engineers, and lawyers. And on everyone’s lips these days there was the same call: “Down with autocracy! Long live political freedom!

The general strike of railway workers, supported at the call of the RSDLP by other detachments of the Russian proletariat, raised the entire country to its feet. On October 6-7, the Moscow-Kazan road went on strike. On October 10, the Moscow conference of Bolsheviks decided to start a general political strike, and by the middle of the month the strike had already assumed an all-Russian character.

"Bloody hand on the manifesto." Satire on the Tsar’s manifesto of October 17, 1905. Drawing from the magazine “Machine Gun”. 1905

The strike covered Central Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Poland, the Urals, the Caucasus, the Volga region, Siberia, and the Far East. It was led by workers from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Trains stopped all over the country, post and telegraph offices, factories, shops and pharmacies did not work. Power plants went on strike, and in the evenings the cities plunged into darkness. In St. Petersburg, the central streets were illuminated by bonfires, and Nevsky Prospect by a spotlight installed on the Admiralty building.

The strike paralyzed the economic life of the country, cut off the capital from the provinces, and deprived the government of the opportunity to transfer military units to suppress new centers of revolution. The proletariat convincingly proved the correctness of the words of the hero of Gorky’s play “The Bourgeois,” the driver Nile, who proudly said: “The owner is the one who works.”

Grand rallies were held in higher educational institutions and factories, which attracted thousands of workers, students, and office workers. Revolutionary proclamations were distributed here, and money was collected for weapons.

“The barometer shows a storm! - Lenin wrote at the height of the strike. - ...Everything and everything has already been torn from its place by a gigantic whirlwind of the solidarity of the proletarian onslaught. The revolution is moving forward with amazing speed, unfolding an amazing wealth of events, and if we wanted to present to our readers the detailed history of the last three or four days, we would have to write a whole book.”

The logic of the struggle brought the working class close to an armed uprising. In Kharkov, Ekaterinoslava, and Odessa, a general political strike spontaneously escalated into barricade battles.

It was during this period that Soviets of Workers' Deputies arose in many cities and workers' settlements (in October - December 1905 there were more than 50 of them), which, according to Lenin, were to become, according to Lenin, the organizers of a growing and maturing armed uprising, the embryo of a new, revolutionary power of workers and peasants.

At first the government tried to suppress the strike by force. On October 13, St. Petersburg Governor General Trepov issued his famous order: “Do not fire blank volleys, do not spare cartridges.” But already on October 17, Nicholas II was forced to sign a manifesto in which he promised the people “the unshakable foundations of civil freedom on the basis of real personal inviolability, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and unions,” as well as the convening of a legislative Duma. And three days later, on October 21, a political amnesty was declared, and the bloody executioner Trepov received his resignation. The revolution won its first major victory.

However, the forces of tsarism were not yet broken. On the contrary, the October 17 manifesto served as an impetus for the intensification of the counter-revolution. The autocracy decided to mobilize all its supporters. The so-called “Black Hundred” took to the streets - pogromists and murderers from the “Union of the Russian People”, of which the Tsar himself was an honorary member. Main role Landowners, merchants, kulaks, and clergy played in this reactionary monarchical organization, and the executors of their plans were the most obscure and politically backward elements of the urban petty bourgeoisie, the tramps and scum of society.

Using the support of the tsarist authorities, the Black Hundreds killed revolutionaries and class-conscious workers with impunity, staged pogroms against Jews, and brutally dealt with demonstrators and strikers. On October 18, in Moscow, the remarkable revolutionary Leninist Nikolai Ernestovich Bauman fell at the hands of a Black Hundred. In Ivanovo-Voznesensk, one of the most experienced and popular leaders of the labor movement, F.A. Afanasyev, was killed. In just less than a month after the publication of the manifesto on October 17, the Black Hundreds killed about 4 thousand people, wounded and mutilated more than 10 thousand. Thus, the autocracy took revenge on the people for the concessions that the revolution wrested from the tsar.

That is why the Bolsheviks urged the people not to believe the tsar’s promises. “We do not need paper promises, but reliable guarantees of freedom,” they said. These guarantees - the immediate arming of the people, the convening of the Constituent Assembly, the abolition of the class system, the 8-hour working day - all this, the Bolsheviks said, still needs to be won, and therefore the people’s struggle must continue! The next step was now an armed uprising.

Responding to bourgeois politicians who believed that the October 17 manifesto meant Russia’s entry onto the path of peaceful constitutional development, Lenin wrote: “It was not the “prospects” of a peaceful constitution that was “opened” by October 17, this is a liberal fairy tale, but civil war."

Murder of N. E. Bauman

A thin face with a high forehead of a thinker, lively, intelligent eyes... Such was the wonderful revolutionary, Bolshevik Nikolai Ernestovich Bauman, an agent of Lenin’s Iskra, participant in the Second Congress of the RSDLP, leader of the Moscow Bolsheviks.

In 1904, Bauman was arrested, but on October 8, 1905, the authorities were forced to release him from Tagansk prison. Bauman again became involved in revolutionary work.

On October 18, Nikolai Ernestovich was at a rally at the Moscow Technical School. Here they decided to stage a demonstration and head to the Taganskaya prison to demand the release of political prisoners. The demonstrators moved along Nemetskaya Street (now Baumanskaya). Bauman was in the front row. Then he got into a cab and went to one of the factories to call on the workers to join the demonstration.

Black Hundreds and guards waylaid him. The carriage was stopped. One of the bandits hit Bauman on the head with a piece of iron pipe. The blow turned out to be fatal... The news of the murder quickly spread around Moscow. The workers' indignation knew no bounds.

On October 20, Bauman's funeral took place. At the call of the Moscow Bolshevik Committee, about 300 thousand workers and students, employees, representatives of the democratic intelligentsia escorted the body of the murdered revolutionary to the Vagankovskoye cemetery. They walked in an organized manner, forming threatening columns. The funeral procession stretched for several kilometers. Red banners with the inscriptions fluttered above the sea of ​​heads: “Russian Social Democratic Party of Workers”, “Down with the Autocracy!”, “Workers of all countries, unite!”, “Down with the Black Hundred!”, “Long live the eight-hour working day!”

The authorities did not dare to disperse the procession, but when the funeral was over, at the Manege a group of students returning from the cemetery was attacked by a gang of Black Hundreds. Shooting began, causing new casualties.

Bauman's killer was sentenced to only 1.6 years in prison. However, the bandit did not serve even this term - soon “by the highest order” he was released from prison and he even received monetary “assistance”.

Further rise of the revolution. All-Russian political strike in October 1905. The retreat of tsarism. Tsar's manifesto. The emergence of Soviets of Workers' Deputies.

By the fall of 1905, the revolutionary movement swept the entire country. It grew with enormous force.

On September 19, a strike of printers began in Moscow. It spread to St. Petersburg and a number of other cities. In Moscow itself, the printers' strike was supported by workers in other industries and turned into a general political strike.

At the beginning of October, a strike began on the Moscow-Kazan Railway. A day later the entire Moscow railway junction went on strike. Soon the strike covered all the country's railways. Postal and telegraph services stopped working. Workers in different cities of Russia gathered in rallies of thousands and decided to stop working. The strike spread from factory to factory, plant to plant, city to city, district to district. Small employees, students, and intellectuals - lawyers, engineers, doctors - joined the striking workers.

The October political strike became all-Russian, covering almost the entire country, right down to the most remote areas, covering almost all the workers, right down to the most backward strata. About a million industrial workers alone took part in the general political strike, not counting railway workers, postal and telegraph employees and others, who also gave a large number of strikers. The entire life of the country was suspended. The power of the government was paralyzed.

The working class led the struggle of the masses against the autocracy.

The Bolshevik slogan of a mass political strike yielded results.

The October general strike, which showed the strength and power of the proletarian movement, forced the frightened tsar to issue a manifesto on October 17. The manifesto of October 17, 1905 promised the people “the unshakable foundations of civil freedom: actual inviolability of the individual, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association.” It was promised to convene a legislative Duma and involve all classes of the population in the elections.

Thus, the Bulygin deliberative Duma was swept away by the force of the revolution. The Bolshevik tactics of boycotting the Bulygin Duma turned out to be correct.

And yet, despite this, the manifesto of October 17 was a deception of the masses, a tsar’s trick, a kind of respite necessary for the tsar in order to lull the gullible, gain time, gather strength and then strike at the revolution. The tsarist government, while promising freedom in words, did not give anything significant in reality. Workers and peasants have so far received nothing but promises from the government. Instead of the expected broad political amnesty, on October 21 amnesty was given to a small part of political prisoners. At the same time, in order to divide the forces of the people, the government organized a series of bloody Jewish pogroms, during which thousands and thousands of people died, and to deal with the revolution, it created bandit police organizations: “Union of the Russian People”, “Union of Michael the Archangel”. These organizations, in which reactionary landowners, merchants, priests and semi-criminal elements from the tramps played a prominent role, were dubbed the “Black Hundred” by the people. The Black Hundreds openly beat and killed, with the assistance of the police, advanced workers, intellectual revolutionaries, and students; they set fire to and shot at rallies and meetings of citizens. This is what the results of the tsar's manifesto looked like so far.

At that time, the following song was popular among the people about the Tsar’s manifesto:

“The king got scared and issued a manifesto:

Freedom for the dead, arrest for the living.”

The Bolsheviks explained to the masses that the October 17 manifesto was a trap. They branded the government's behavior after the manifesto as a provocation. The Bolsheviks called on the workers to arms and to prepare for an armed uprising.

The workers began to create fighting squads even more energetically. It became clear to them that the first victory on October 17, wrested by a general political strike, required from them further efforts, further struggle to overthrow tsarism.

Lenin assessed the Manifesto of October 17 as a moment of some temporary balance of power, when the proletariat and peasantry, having snatched the manifesto from the Tsar, not yet able overthrow tsarism, but tsarism can no longer manage only the same funds and is forced promise in words “civil liberties” and “legislative” Duma.

In the stormy days of the October political strike, in the fire of the struggle against tsarism, the revolutionary creativity of the working masses created a powerful new weapon - the Soviets of Workers' Deputies.

The Soviets of Workers' Deputies, representing an assembly of delegates from all factories and factories, were a mass political organization of the working class unprecedented in the world. The Soviets, first born in 1905, were prototype Soviet power created by the proletariat under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party in 1917. The Soviets were a new revolutionary form of folk art. They were created exclusively by revolutionary sections of the population, breaking all sorts of laws and norms of tsarism. They were a manifestation of the initiative of the people who rose up to fight against tsarism.

The Bolsheviks viewed the Soviets as the beginnings of revolutionary power. They believed that the strength and importance of the Soviets depended entirely on the strength and success of the uprising.

The Mensheviks did not consider the Soviets either rudimentary organs of revolutionary power or organs of uprising. They looked at them as if they were organs local government, like democratized city governments.

On October 13 (26), 1905, elections to the Council of Workers' Deputies took place in all factories and factories in St. Petersburg. The first meeting of the Council took place at night. Following St. Petersburg, the Council of Workers' Deputies was organized in Moscow.

The Council of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg, as the Council of the largest industrial and revolutionary center of Russia, the capital of the Tsarist Empire, was to play a decisive role in the 1905 revolution. However, he did not fulfill his tasks due to the poor, Menshevik leadership of the Council. As you know, Lenin was not yet in St. Petersburg, he was still abroad. The Mensheviks took advantage of Lenin's absence, made their way into the St. Petersburg Soviet and seized its leadership. It is not surprising that under such conditions the Mensheviks Khrustalev, Trotsky, Parvus and others managed to turn the St. Petersburg Council against the policy of uprising. Instead of bringing the soldiers closer to the Soviet and uniting them in a common struggle, they demanded the removal of the soldiers from St. Petersburg. Instead of arming the workers and preparing them for the uprising, the Council was marking time and had a negative attitude towards preparing the uprising.

The Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies played a completely different role in the revolution. From the very first days of its existence, the Moscow Soviet pursued a revolutionary policy to the end. The leadership in the Moscow Soviet belonged to the Bolsheviks. Thanks to the Bolsheviks, next to the Council of Workers' Deputies, the Council of Soldiers' Deputies arose in Moscow. The Moscow Soviet became the organ of the armed uprising.

During October–December 1905, Soviets of Workers' Deputies were created in a number of large cities and in almost all workers' centers. Attempts were made to organize Soviets of Soldiers' and Sailors' Deputies and to unite them with the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. In some places Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies were created.

The influence of the Soviets was enormous. Despite the fact that they often arose spontaneously, were not formalized and were vague in their composition, they acted like power. The Soviets carried out freedom of the press by takeover, established an 8-hour working day, and appealed to the people not to pay taxes to the tsarist government. In some cases, they confiscated money from the tsarist government and used it for the needs of the revolution.

October marks another anniversary of the start of the October General Political Strike of 1905 in Russia, which became an important part and stage in the first Russian revolution, covered with the glory and heroic feat of the proletariat, which first raised the banner of socialism in the empire, which struck fear into all the peoples of Europe. In terms of its size and scope (from 2 to 3 million people), this general strike set itself the political goals of overthrowing the autocracy, establishing a democratic republic, legalizing trade unions, legalizing strikes, meetings, freedom of assembly and party formation, as well as introducing an 8-hour working day .

Workers from Uralsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Petropavlovsk, Ridder and other cities of modern Kazakhstan also took part in it. The general strike became the basis for its development into an open armed uprising of workers in Moscow, Rostov, Chita, and a number of other cities. The Russian revolution, in the sense of new historical perspectives, went beyond the traditional bourgeois revolutions of the past and from the narrow national borders, and its character and characteristics arose from the course of the previous development of the country. That is why it is so important today to analyze all its stages and the process of maturation of the working class, and its results for the current movement of the masses towards socialism.

Prerequisites for the revolution

By the end of 1904, all the prerequisites for the events that occurred subsequently had taken shape in Russia.....

The phenomenal specificity of the Russian revolution lay in the complex of reasons that gave birth to it and matured in the womb of Russian absolutism and young domestic capitalism, which entered the stage of its own acute irreconcilable contradictions. In general, they can be classified in the following order.

Firstly, this is, of course, the accumulation of a huge number of feudal-serfdom remnants that were a brake on the socio-economic and political development of Russia. The all-pervasive and suppressive system of tsarist autocracy, class barriers in society, the absence of any civil liberties, brutal repression and suppression of any free political thought and protest movements of various social groups and national outskirts led to the bitterness of almost all the main strata in the empire. The counter-reforms carried out in the 80s and 90s of the 19th century by Alexander III and continued by his son Nicholas II dispelled any illusions about changes and softening of the regime from above, even among the most moderate liberals. “Meaningless dreams!” - the last autocrat responded to another meek petition from the Zemstvo people in 1904. However, it was clearly evident that the state machine, based on an absolute monarchy, was completely rotten and in the near future it would definitely test these rotten walls to their strength.

Secondly, landownership, which concentrated the lion's share of the most fertile lands, continued the incredible exploitation of the peasant masses with numerous elements of serfdom and feudal remnants, and, together with the tsarist government, was interested in the preservation and conservation of the village community. The “Prussian way” of the development of capitalism in agriculture in fact, it slowed down the social stratification of the Russian peasantry and the separation from its midst of a serious layer of medium and large owners, and the strengthening of its oppression and duties as a tax class on the part of the state further contrasted the village as a more or less homogeneous social force and the power of the defending handful of predatory latifundists. Thus, the agricultural issue, unresolved in the 60s and 70s, arose even more acutely at the beginning of the twentieth century, and should have caused an inevitable mass protest movement of peasants and farm laborers.

Thirdly, rapid industrial development and the consequence of this the emergence of a highly concentrated industrial working class in the 70s and 80s, and especially intensively from the beginning of the 90s. The 19th century, in the St. Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Ural regions, in Poland, the Donbass, Baku and the south of the Empire led to the emergence of proletarian organizations and the beginning of large protests in defense of their socio-economic rights and freedoms. The strengthening of the influence of the young Russian Social Democracy on the workers and the formation of the RSDLP in 1898 and 1903 determined the ideological and political face of this new and rapidly growing class, and the powerful strikes of 1903, which swept from the south to the north of the country and took on an anti-government character, showed everyone about the emergence of a revolutionary segment capable of destroying the entire system that has developed in society. At the same time, the special position of Russian capitalism, the development of which is especially in the sphere large production received the patronage of the autocracy, affected the balance of class forces in the impending revolution, in which the big bourgeoisie, due to its weakness and political lack of independence, turned out to be not only passive, but also a completely reactionary ally of the tsarist government, equally afraid of the scale of the movement of the proletariat and the working masses. And vice versa, the workers, due to their ability to organize and concentrated in cities, turned out to be the only force able to go to the end in their struggle against absolutism and capital.

Fourthly, the oppression and powerless position of peoples who had lost their statehood or were absorbed by the empire led to constant unrest and created on the outskirts those additional elements of discontent in the layers of the intelligentsia, peasantry and workers who complemented revolutionary struggle national slogans of liberation.

The beginning of the imperialist Russo-Japanese War for the redistribution of spheres of influence in Manchuria, Korea and the Far East in 1904 led to shameful defeats of the tsarist troops and navy, revealed not only the inability of the generals to protect the interests and even the country’s own borders, but also showed all the rottenness of the tsarist autocracy, exacerbating to the extreme the existing internal contradictions. The war became precisely that heavy additional weight thrown on the scales of the general uprising against absolutism and feudal remnants that hindered the development of the country.

Thus, by the beginning of 1905, the main reasons had emerged and the main forces had formed that took part in the subsequent open struggle, and a classic situation had developed in which the upper classes could not, and the lower classes did not want to live in the old way.

The beginning of the revolution

The “abscess” burst, as always, where it was most urgent - in the working-class neighborhoods of St. Petersburg. Ironically, the provocation with a loyal demonstration and the submission of a petition to the Tsar Father, directed against the proletariat of the capital and organized by the “Zubatov’s eagles” led by priest Gapon, led to a completely different effect. The reaction needed to show the king that the more he concedes, the wider the sea of ​​fermentation spreads; it was necessary to prepare in Nicholas irritation against society and the people, to force him to give permission to shoot the crowd, to intimidate both the tsar and the country at once. The procession of workers, their wives and children with icons and images of the Tsar on Sunday January 9, 1905 ended mass shooting and beating by the Cossacks. According to incomplete data, more than 1,000 people were killed and about 5,000 were injured. On this day, hundreds of corpses lay on the streets and pavements of St. Petersburg, and the battles of the tsarist troops with the rebel workers who destroyed weapons stores continued for several more days.

But the goal that the government was striving for was not achieved, and the liberation movement won a major victory that day. A whirlwind of labor unrest began across the country. On January 13, a general strike broke out in Moscow, and at the same time there was an uprising in Riga, demonstrations and strikes took place in Helsingfors, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Baku, Samara, Odessa, Kiev, Kharkov, Kovno, Vilna, Warsaw, Lodz at Ural enterprises and mines of Donbass. In January alone, 440 thousand workers went on strike in the country, which was more than in the entire previous decade. Lenin assessed these events as follows: "The working class has learned a great lesson civil war; The revolutionary education of the proletariat has stepped forward in a way that it could not have stepped forward in months and years of gray, everyday life.”

The events of January 9 caused unrest in many layers of society, created an extraordinary political crisis, expressed not only in unrest, but also in the complete inability of the state machine to respond to the needs of society in any way and in the absence of a program of action among the ruling classes.

The revolution is developing

After January 9, revolutionary organizations developed at a rapid pace, starting with the moderate liberal “Union of Liberation”, professor of history Miliukov, who began the so-called in 1904. banquet company, and ending with former populists - people's socialists and radical socialist revolutionaries who chose the tactics of individual terror. But the new Marxist social-democratic trend is beginning to gain the greatest influence among the working masses.

Spring is coming full swing strengthening the structures of the RSDLP. The initiative in holding the Third Congress was taken by the Bolsheviks, grouped around the Bureau of the Majority Committee headed by Lenin and publishing their organ “Forward”. This Congress of Social Democrats took place in April 1905 in London, the convening of which was supported by 21 organizations out of 28 in Russia. The highest party forum, chaired by Lenin, discussed the reports of the Bolsheviks A. A. Bogdanov, L. B. Krasin, P. P. Rumyantsev, N. G. Tskhakai, V. V. Vorovsky, who had come to the forefront. The Leninist idea of ​​the hegemony of the proletariat in the beginning of the revolution, which was then regarded as bourgeois-democratic, put forward at it, became the basis of the entire strategic plan and tactical line of the Bolsheviks in the subsequent events of the first assault on absolutism and capital. The most important resolutions of the Third Congress were “On the attitude towards the peasantry”, “On an armed uprising”, “On the provisional revolutionary government”, “On the attitude towards liberals”, in which the idea of ​​the need to deepen and expand the revolution ran as a red thread, in which they raised demands for support for the peasant movement, preparation of an armed uprising in the cities by the forces of the proletariat and a complete open break with the liberal bourgeois opposition, which is reactionary in nature.

The decisions of the Bolsheviks fell on fertile ground, as in the spring and summer of 1905 the revolutionary labor movement strengthened even more. The Russian proletariat marked the first day of May with massive economic strikes and political demonstrations. The movement covered about 180 cities of the empire. An outstanding event that had a greater impact on the development of the revolution was the mass strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, which from the very beginning acquired a wide scope and political character. Beginning on May 12, 1905, the strike involved not only Ivanovo workers, but also the workers of Shuya, Toikov, Kokhma, and Orekhovo-Zuev. 70 thousand workers took part in the strike. Its leaders were F. A. Afanasyev, S. I. Balashov, A. S. Bubnov, E. A. Dunaev, N. I. Podvoisky and M. V. Frunze. For the first time during the strike, a new body of workers’ self-government arose, which, in essence, became new government- Workers' Council. On July 3, 1905, by order of the governor, tsarist troops shot the workers who had gathered for a meeting on the Talka River. 30 people were killed and many were injured, and the authorities introduced martial law in the city itself.

Strike struggle of the proletariat central regions Russia received the support of the workers of the national outskirts. A particularly acute struggle of the proletariat took place in Poland. In June 1905, a general strike of Lodz workers developed into an armed uprising. The city itself was covered with barricades and fierce fighting raged on its streets for three days. The uprising was also brutally suppressed.

From mid-February, a multimillion-strong movement of the peasant masses began, somewhat lagging behind the labor unrest; it reached its highest rise by the autumn of 1905. The Baltic region rebelled, in which detachments of farm laborers burned the estates of the barons, and in a number of regions of Georgia - Guria, Imereti, Mingrelia - The peasants not only seized the lands of landowners and princes and expelled representatives of the tsarist authorities, but also replaced them with elected bodies from the people. Peasant uprisings also broke out in the central provinces - Chernigov, Saratov, Tambov. During this period, 1041 clashes with troops, 5404 protests against landowners and 99 against kulaks, and a total of 7165 reports of peasant unrest were recorded in the empire.

The summer of 1905 was marked by the first performances in the army and navy. A symbol of this is the uprising on the battleship “Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky” in Odessa, under the leadership of the representative of the “central” (Central Fleet Committee of the RSDLP), Bolshevik G. N. Vakulenchuk. The speech, supported by the workers' strike and the refusal to shoot at the rebellious battleship by the Black Sea squadron, spoke volumes. The moral and political disintegration of the troops and the senseless war threatened an inevitable uprising both in Manchuria and in the units tsarist army in the inner provinces of the empire.

But, despite the temporary paralysis, the tsarist autocracy has been trying since the summer of 1905 to increase the wave of repression. Just like the bourgeois opposition, which felt the social emptiness beneath it, so the forces of reaction protecting absolutism were left alone before the whirlwind of the insurgent urban proletariat and the peasant movement. In this situation, the autocracy initiates, through the gendarmes and the political police, unrest of the most lumpen lower classes and criminal elements against foreigners, Jews, revolutionary organizations and councils. Tsarism needed the Black Hundred associations of Dr. Dubrovin more than ever, both as moral support in the form of “popular anger” and as a cover for white terror. The mass murders of representatives of national minorities and labor activists in Odessa, Moldova, the south of Ukraine, Rostov, the murder of many thousands of peasants by punitive detachments, the death of the leader of the Moscow proletariat, the Bolshevik Bauman, will forever bring shame to the dynasty of Russian autocrats. But repressions and overcrowded prisons did not stop the revolution, but only spurred it to its highest peak.

October strike and Moscow uprising

In September, the industrial regions of Russia began to be covered by the Soviet movement. Following the example of the Ivanovo weavers, new bodies of workers' democracy appear in the Urals, the north and south of the empire and coincide with the highest rise of the revolutionary strike struggle. The aggravation of the class war with capital and autocracy is now entering the open phase of a test of strength - who will win.

The old Bolshevik S.I. Mitskevich recalled: “...On September 7, a strike began on the Moscow-Kazan Railway, and after it on others. The famous political general October strike began in Moscow, which soon became all-Russian... It was started by the drivers of the Kazan road, led by driver Ukhtomsky, who was later shot during the suppression of the December uprising. Subsequent traffic on all railways. the roads have stopped". The railway strike spread to all sectors and spheres of society. More and more groups of workers and entire provinces that had not previously shown activity entered the struggle.

“Schools have been closed since the spring, work stopped at state-owned factories even more often than at private ones, everyone conspired against the government with a word, perhaps only the Minister of Internal Affairs Trepov with the gendarmes and the police department did not succumb to despair in this alarming time. But their hour had not yet come, and Nikolai remained helpless in the face of the impending disaster.”- moderate democrat V.P. Obninsky wrote about those days. At the end of September, a general strike became inevitable, and since October 4, news of new areas and bodies adjacent to it has become continuous. If you believe the data in the book “Half a Year of the Russian Revolution” by Obninsky, then from October 4 to October 19 there were 163 news of joining the general strike, in which, according to the author’s calculations, more than one million, and, according to Soviet historians, over two million strikers, took part. It is also clear from government agency cables that “there was no social group that did not have its representatives among the strikers: students of all kinds of institutions, starting with children school age and ending with students higher schools; railway employees from switchmen to engineers; agricultural workers and factory workers; telegraph operators and postal officials; typesetters in printing houses and editorial offices of newspapers and magazines; doctors; entire military units; zemstvo and city councils; officials of provincial offices and central government institutions, where they did not hesitate to boo ministers, as was the case, for example, in the State Bank; lawyers and judges; domestic servants; restaurant waiters; water supply and gas plant employees; pharmacists and pharmacists; janitors and police, etc., etc.”

Economic life was paralyzed and frozen. Capitals and large cities seemed to have died out. stopped Bank operations, stock exchange values ​​were falling, and the big bourgeoisie was suffering enormous losses. Industrialists and stockbrokers were worried, but they were the only allies of the autocracy in those days.

The general nature of the strike was striking. In fact, in all major cities and workers' settlements there were continuous rallies, meetings, demonstrations and pickets. The most radical economic and political demands were put forward until the establishment of a democratic republic. The police could no longer cope with the crackdown and actually withdrew.

The paralysis of power and the general movement of many social strata, and primarily the proletariat, forced the top of the government, led by Count Witte of Portsmouth, who had recently made peace with the Japanese, to persuade Nicholas II to make declarative concessions of a constitutional nature. On October 17, the tsar's manifesto was announced about the granted freedoms - the possibility of uniting in parties, unions, and elections to the first Russian parliament - the Duma. According to the same V.P. Obninsky: “The manifesto did not make a strong impression, no one attached any importance to the deliberative Duma, everyone understood that it would be completely absorbed by the bureaucracy.” Indeed, it was clear that the temporary concession was intended to reduce the intensity of the struggle.

However, after the publication of the manifesto, there was a clear demarcation of the class and political forces of the revolution. The Russian bourgeoisie greeted the manifesto with jubilation. She viewed it as a political basis for uniting the bourgeoisie with tsarism to eliminate the revolution. Bourgeois parties are created: the “Union of October 17” and the “Constitutional Democratic Party” led by Miliukov (formerly the “Union of Liberation”). The notorious “Union of Unions” is being formed and growing with the money of the liberal bourgeoisie and under the control of the Cadets. The Bolsheviks, who pursued the policy of a “left bloc” with the Socialist Revolutionaries and united committees with the Mensheviks, defining their attitude towards the October 17 manifesto, assessed it as a maneuver of the autocracy, with which it was trying to mislead the masses, split the forces of the revolution, and tear the revolutionary peasantry away from the proletariat, thus to isolate the working class in a way, weaken it, and then, gathering strength, crush the revolution.

And indeed the Bolshevik analysis was confirmed. The working class, not satisfied with the tsar's handout, moved towards an open armed uprising. At the beginning of November, a Council of Workers' Deputies was organized in Moscow, and even earlier, on October 13, a Council appeared in St. Petersburg. The council covers all industrial districts and suburbs of St. Petersburg, negotiates on an equal footing with the head of government, Count Witte, becomes practically the second authority, and its newspaper Izvestia, whose circulation reached 60 thousand copies daily, gains unprecedented popularity among workers. However, the “northern” Soviet never managed to launch an armed uprising, due to the arrest of its deputies on December 3 and the fatigue and unpreparedness of the St. Petersburg proletariat after the October strike. The main battle between the workers and the autocracy took place in Moscow.

On December 6, a meeting of the Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies, controlled by the Bolsheviks, at which there were delegates from 91 productions and representatives of the conference of the trade union of railway workers and postal and telegraph employees, decided to start a general political strike on December 7 at 12 o'clock, which, in fact, turned into an uprising. However, despite the passivity of the garrison, the tsarist authorities managed to summon loyal guards units from St. Petersburg and begin to suppress the workers' uprising.

The unequal battles between the few vigilantes and the Semyonov gangs, led by the Moscow mayor Admiral Dubasov, lasted for ten days. Day after day, with the use of artillery, infantry and Cossacks, district after district was captured, barricades were smashed and the ring of struggle of the Moscow workers' militia narrowed, reaching on December 16 the borders of Krasnaya Presnya - the last stronghold of the uprising. “If we could take one look at Presnya from above, we would be amazed by an extraordinary sight: inside the huge enemy ring that encircled the area, we would see a dozen streets and alleys crossed by barricades and red flags. People scurry between them: men, women, children and old people. There is no one behind the barricades in the center. Only on the outskirts of the ring are small groups of warriors visible, and around this rebellious island there are numerous columns of the tsarist army, armed to the teeth.”- recalls former vigilante worker Blyakhin. However, the rebel workers withstood the onslaught of this colossus throughout December 17th. The fighting squad of the Shmita factory, led by the Bolshevik Nikolaev, showed exceptional resilience that day. But, nevertheless, taking into account the situation, the Moscow Council on December 18 organizedly stopped the uprising.

In addition to Moscow, armed struggle breaks out in other places in December and January. Entire partisan regions arise in the Urals, operating for many months, the Rostov Commune has been fighting for several weeks, the Irkutsk Republic and the Chita Soviet are created in the east, in October in Sevastopol, led by Lieutenant Schmidt, an uprising of sailors and soldiers of the naval base rises, the Caucasus and the Baltic states are on fire. and Poland. Lenin assessed these events as follows: “Before the armed uprising in December 1905, the people in Russia were incapable of a mass armed struggle against the exploiters. After December they were no longer the same people. He was reborn. He received a baptism of fire. He steeled himself in rebellion. He trained the ranks of fighters who won in 1917.”

The results of the revolution and its nature

After the December events and mass government terror, an orgy of military courts, the revolution began to decline. There were still strikes in 1906, which engulfed the backward workers of light and Food Industry those who did not participate in the October strike of the previous year, the uprising in Sveaborg was still raging and peasant riots were still blazing. However, the intensity subsided. And the Duma, as an outlet for letting off steam, completely showed the weakness and insignificance of Russian bourgeois liberalism, which was unable to withstand the dispersal of first the first and then the second Duma on June 3, 1907. The masses turned out to be indifferent to the experiments of the master's parliamentarism. The proletariat retreated, but in order to properly gain strength for the next blow.

And although the revolution turned out to be incomplete, did not achieve its initial goals and was defeated, the young Russian working class nevertheless gained the experience of unforgettable battles with capital and tsarism. For the first time, the proletariat turned out to be capable of a nationwide general strike with political demands, its consciousness grew disproportionately during the armed struggle, its class organizations - trade unions, councils, workers' militia - were formed everywhere and went through the school of opposition. Its party, the RSDLP, with the leading faction of the Bolsheviks, grew and hardened along with the class. A firm understanding has come that the proletariat is capable and must take power, and that it alone was the main driving force of this revolution. And the working class, despite the defeat, became stronger in the fire of raging events, and its outstanding cadres became the basis for future victory.

Together with the proletariat, the revolution awakened millions of downtrodden, oppressed working people of city and countryside to political life and class struggle. The peasant masses, who raised the banner of the agrarian war, by the very logic of the battle with the landowners and tsarism, rallied around the proletariat and broke with the bourgeois parties, becoming a huge inexhaustible reserve of the revolutionary army.

The national outskirts and peoples who fell into the bondage of Russian tsarism felt their ally and liberator in the rebellious proletariat, and for the first time tried to break out of the shackles of eternal insanity and oppression.

The first Russian revolution gave impetus to the European labor movement. Mass strikes in Austria, Saxony, France, political demonstrations and the activation of left forces in the Second International indicate that a more powerful working class European countries using the example of the struggle of Russian workers, he is able to rise up to fight for socialism. Moreover, the Russian Revolution revitalized the peoples of the east. Lenin in his work “The Awakening of Asia” pointed to the wave of democratic revolutions in Asia - Turkey, Persia, China, the movement in India writes, - "Global capitalism, and Russian movement 1905 finally woke up Asia. Hundreds of millions of downtrodden, wild people in medieval stagnation woke up to a new life and the struggle for basic human rights, for democracy... The awakening of Asia and the beginning of the struggle for power by the advanced proletariat of Europe marks a new period in world history that opened at the beginning of the twentieth century.”

However, very big disputes regarding the specifics of the Russian revolution emerged in the European revolutionary environment. Already the events of January 9 raised the question in the ranks of Russian Social Democracy about the nature of the revolution that had begun and its main driving forces. And despite the temporary formal organizational unification of the two factions of the RSDLP into single committees, the division in reality between them only worsened and intensified. On supporters of blind adherence to the dogma of the bourgeois nature of the revolution and admiration for the liberal capitalist opposition on the one hand, and on active fighters for independence and the leading role of the labor movement in this revolution, both in setting their own political and social tasks that are different from general democratic ones, and in the issue of taking authorities. The dispute between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks was now clothed not in naked emigrant theoretical discussions, but in different tactics, strategies and actions, in orientation towards different classes and historical forces of society, towards the past and the future, finally.

But the main thing is that in the fire of events and in heated debates, Marxists managed to understand and anticipate the further course and features of the Russian revolution .

The weakness, insignificance and reactionary nature of the Russian bourgeoisie left it no historical prospects. And other left-wing social democrats in Europe also approached this understanding. Rosa Luxemburg wrote: “Thus, the current revolution in Russia in its content goes far beyond the framework of previously occurring revolutions and in its methods is not related either to the old bourgeois revolutions or to the previous parliamentary battles of the modern proletariat. She created new method struggle, corresponding both to its proletarian character and to the connection of the struggle for democracy with the struggle against capital - a revolutionary mass strike. So, in its content and methods it is a completely new type of revolution. Being formally bourgeois-democratic, but in essence proletarian-socialist, it is both in content and in methods a transitional form from the bourgeois revolutions of the past to the proletarian revolutions of the future, in which we will already talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat and the implementation of socialism.”.

Twelve years later, the analysis was completely confirmed, and her proletarian socialist program was laid down by Lenin in the famous “April Theses.” And what 1905 did not manage to accomplish, the seventeenth completed.

Ainur Kurmanov

108 years ago, on October 20 (old style - October 7), 1905, the October All-Russian political strike began - the first general strike in Russia, one of the most important stages of the First Russian Revolution, the beginning of its highest rise.

The October All-Russian political strike completed the process of developing the revolutionary movement that took place in the country in January - September 1905 into a mass all-Russian political strike. The most important role in the preparation of the October All-Russian political strike was played by the Bolsheviks, who based their activities on the decisions of the Third Congress of the RSDLP.

On September 19 (October 2) an economic strike of printers began in Moscow. Following them, bakers, tobacco workers, furniture makers, and tram workers joined the strike. From an economic strike it developed into a political one. “The all-Russian political strike,” wrote Lenin, “this time really covered the entire country, uniting all the peoples of the damned Russian Empire in the heroic rise of the most oppressed and the most advanced class.”

On September 23-25 ​​(October 6-8), clashes between the people and the troops and Cossacks occurred; among the strikers there were killed and wounded. Moscow metalworkers went on strike on September 26 (October 9). Councils of authorized printing workers, carpenters, tobacco workers, metal workers and railway workers were created. At the call of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP, the capital's printers declared a solidarity strike. Rallies and demonstrations took place in other cities.

The Moscow Committee of the RSDLP called for a general strike on the roads of the Moscow railway junction from noon on October 7 (20). Following Moscow, the strike spread to St. Petersburg and other large cities and by October 13 (26) it covered the main industrial centers of the country. Factories, factories, transport, power plants, post offices, telegraphs, institutions, shops, and educational institutions stopped working. The number of strikers reached 2 million people. The October all-Russian political strike developed under the revolutionary slogans: “Down with the Bulygin Duma!”, “Down with the tsarist government!”, “Long live the armed uprising!”, “Long live the democratic republic!”

As a result revolutionary activities masses in October in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv, and then in other cities, Councils of Workers' Deputies were created, trade unions were formed in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Kharkov, Tbilisi, Riga, Vilnius.

The tsarist government attempted to disrupt the political strike through repression, but was forced to give in and issue a Manifesto on October 17, 1905, in which Nicholas II announced the “granting” of civil liberties to the people and promised to recognize the legislative rights of the Duma. Having received the support of the liberal bourgeoisie, who perceived the manifesto as a turn in the development of Russia along the constitutional path, the government launched a decisive offensive against the revolution. Repressions and pogroms began throughout the country. Bolsheviks N.E. were brutally killed by the Black Hundreds. Bauman, F.A. Afanasyev, O.M. Genkina and others. In 110 settlements, up to 4 thousand people were killed, more than 10 thousand people were wounded. In most parts of the country and railways The October All-Russian political strike ended by October 25. At some enterprises it lasted longer and merged with revolutionary uprisings in November 1905.

The October All-Russian political strike demonstrated the strength of the Russian proletariat as the hegemon of the revolutionary liberation movement. It dealt a significant blow to the autocracy; the proletariat wrested the manifesto from the tsar and made it impossible to govern Russia without representative institutions. She gave a powerful impetus to the peasant movement. During the days of the strike, the embryonic forms of a new revolutionary government arose, the organs of armed uprising - the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. It was the prologue to the December armed uprisings.