The Road to Bloody Sunday: The Role of Father Gapon and the Petersburg Massacre of 1905 (Princeton Legacy Library)

-The massacre by Russian officials of unarmed workers assembled in St. Petersburg on January 9, 1905, inflamed world opinion and paved the way for revolution that year in what Lenin termed the "dress rehearsal" for the drama of 1917. Drawing on all available documents, Walter Sablinsky reappraises the events, especially the role of the volatile and often unpredictable Father Georgii Gapon, the young Orthodox priest who inspired and led the workers' organization. The author shows how he combined pious traditionalism and potentially explosive innovation to gather the workers into activities that began as little more than social events but culminated in the unforeseeable and terrible violence of Bloody Sunday. The Assembly of the Russian Factory and Mill Workers was one of the trade unions originally created by the Russian authorities as a means to deal with the labor problem that resulted from rapid industrial growth. It grew quickly, alarming business leaders as it increased in strength. Conflict was precipitated when several union members were dismissed from a plant. The Assembly violated the law by striking, the officials withdrew support, and the workers who gathered to appeal to the emperor were fired upon by the troops. The author provides a sympathetic but objective reconstruction of the workers' movement.