At
the beginning of the 20th century the Russian industrial employee
worked on average an 11 hour day (10 hours on Saturday). Conditions
in the factories were extremely harsh and little concern was shown
for the workers' health and safety. Attempts by workers to form trade
unions were resisted by the factory owners and in 1903, a priest,
Father Georgi Gapon, formed the Assembly
of Russian Workers. Within a year it had over 9,000 members.
1904
was a particularly bad year for Russian workers. Prices of essential
goods rose so quickly that real wages declined by 20 per cent. When
four members of the Assembly of Russian Workers were dismissed at
the Putilov Iron Works, Gapon called for industrial action. Over the
next few days over 110,000 workers in St. Petersburg went out on strike.
In
an attempt to settle the dispute, Georgi Gapon
decided to make a personal appeal to Nicholas
II. He drew up a petition outlining the workers' sufferings and
demands. This included calling for a reduction in the working day
to eight hours, an increase in wages, an improvement in working conditions
and an end to the Russo-Japanese War.
When
the procession of workers reached the Winter Palace it was attacked
by the police and the Cossacks. Over 100 workers were killed and some
300 wounded. The incident, known as Bloody
Sunday, started a series of events that became known as the 1905
Revolution. Strikes took place all over the country and the universities
closed down when the whole student body complained about the lack
of civil liberties by staging a walkout. Lawyers, doctor, engineers,
and other middle-class workers established the Union of Unions and
demanded a constituent assembly.
In
June, 1905, sailors on the Potemkin battleship, protested against
the serving of rotten meat. The captain ordered that the ringleaders
to be shot. The firing-squad refused to carry out the order and joined
with the rest of the crew in throwing the officers overboard. The
Potemkin Mutiny spread to other units
in the army and navy.
Industrial
workers all over Russia went on strike and in October, 1905, the railwaymen
went on strike which paralyzed the whole Russian railway network.
Later that month, Leon Trotsky and other
Mensheviks established the St.
Petersburg Soviet. Over the next few weeks over 50 of these soviets
were formed all over Russia.
Sergi
Witte, the new Chief Minister, advised Nicholas
II
to make concessions. He eventually agreed and published the October
Manifesto. This granted freedom of conscience, speech, meeting
and association. He also promised that in future people would not
be imprisoned without trial.
Finally he announced that no law would become operative without the
approval of a new organization called the Duma.
As
this was only a consultative body, many Russians felt that this reform
did not go far enough. Leon
Trotsky and other revolutionaries
denounced the plan. In December, 1905, Trotsky and the rest of the
executive committee of the St.
Petersburg Soviet were
arrested.
The
first meeting of the Duma
took
place in May 1906. Several changes in the composition of the Duma
had been changed since the publication of the October
Manifesto.
Tsar Nicholas
II
had
also created a State Council, an upper chamber, of which he would
nominate half its members. He also retained for himself the right
to declare war, to control the Orthodox Church
and to dissolve the Duma. The Tsar also had the power to appoint and
dismiss ministers.
At
their first meeting, members of the Duma
put
forward a series of demands including the release of political prisoners,
trade union rights and land reform. Nicholas
II
rejected
all these proposals and dissolved the Duma.
In
April, 1906, Nicholas II forced Sergi
Witte to resign and
replaced him with the more conservative Peter
Stolypin. Stolypin attempt
to provide a balance between the introduction of much needed land
reforms and the suppression of the radicals.
The next Duma convened in February, 1907. This time it lasted three
months before the Tsar closed it down.
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