The massacre triggered the 1905 Revolution and is seen as a precursor to the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Key Facts
- Date
- 22 January 1905 (O.S. 9 January)
- Location
- St Petersburg, Russia
- Target destination
- Winter Palace
- Petition recipient
- Tsar Nicholas II
- March leader
- Father Georgy Gapon
- Perpetrators
- Soldiers of the Imperial Guard
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Workers and demonstrators, led by Father Georgy Gapon, organized a peaceful march to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. Rising discontent with autocratic rule, poor labour conditions, and political repression in Russia had fuelled broad popular grievances that the marchers sought to address directly with the tsar.
On Sunday, 22 January 1905, soldiers of the Imperial Guard opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators as they marched toward the Winter Palace. The shooting killed and wounded an unknown number of participants, and the day became known as Bloody Sunday or Red Sunday, shocking Russians and the wider world with the violence inflicted on peaceful petitioners.
The killings provoked widespread public outrage and triggered a wave of massive strikes across the industrial centres of the Russian Empire. Bloody Sunday is regarded as the start of the active phase of the Revolution of 1905, and historians consider it one of the pivotal events that contributed to the conditions leading to the Russian Revolution of 1917.