Bloody Sunday: troops fire on a peaceful petition march
A priest leads unarmed workers to ask the Tsar for reform. Soldiers open fire outside the Winter Palace instead.
Quick facts
- Date
- 22 January 1905
- Location
- Winter Palace, St. Petersburg
- Casualties
- Over 1,000 killed, about 2,000 wounded
What happened
On 22 January 1905, Father Georgy Gapon led a march of St. Petersburg workers and their families toward the Winter Palace to present Tsar Nicholas II with a petition bearing some 150,000 signatures. Gapon had organized the marchers through the state-sanctioned Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers, and the petition asked for an eight-hour day limit, better wages, land for peasants, and a constituent assembly, among other reforms. As the unarmed crowd approached the palace and ignored orders to disperse, infantry troops stationed outside opened fire and Cossack cavalry charged into the marchers. Over 1,000 people were killed and about 2,000 more wounded.
Why it matters
Bloody Sunday shattered the popular myth of the Tsar as a protective father figure who simply did not know about his people's suffering; ordinary Russians now held Nicholas II personally responsible. The massacre triggered a wave of strikes and unrest across the empire that became the Revolution of 1905.
How we know
World History Encyclopedia's account of Bloody Sunday, drawing on the contemporary record of the petition and the massacre, gives the casualty figures and the sequence of the crowd's approach, the order to disperse, and the shooting.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Bloody Sunday in 1905: The Massacre at the Tsar's Winter Palace · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Bloody Sunday in 1905: The Massacre at the Tsar's Winter Palace · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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