Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [38]
In 1905, in Petersburg, in the midst of these Zubatov-inspired workers’ unions, Father Georgy Gapon appeared. During these difficult years of military defeats and shortages, Gapon called on the workers to take a petition to the tsar to tell him about the problems of the simple people and the oppressions of the factory owners.
A workers’ march was slated for January 9. Carrying banners, portraits of the tsar, and holy icons, thousands of loyal workers under Gapon’s leadership went to their tsar.
The very idea of this demonstration was the embodiment of Nicholas’s cherished dream—“the people and the tsar”—which had brought him to call upon Klopov. Now it had come true: the simple people themselves were seeking protection from the autocrat. It had come true!
And then suddenly, on the eve of the march, the tsar left the capital for Tsarskoe Selo.
An unsettling event had occurred just three days before the planned march. It was Epiphany. “Jordan” had been erected on the Palace Embankment as the site for the annual consecration of the water. Under an elegant canopy—blue with gold stars topped by a cross—Nicholas assisted the metropolitan in the ceremony, after which, according to tradition, the cannon of the Fortress of Peter and Paul, located directly opposite the “Jordan” on the other side of the Neva, was supposed to fire ceremonial blanks. To the horror of those gathered, the cannon turned out to be loaded with live ammunition. By a miracle the tsar was not hit, but a policeman was injured, and his name was Romanov!
The police, who would normally have exaggerated something like this, declared the incident an annoying accident. But someone’s intended effect had been achieved: Nicholas was reminded of his grandfather’s terrible end, and the policeman’s name resounded like an omen. The shot gave Nicholas a good scare.
The Department of Police was extremely well informed about the loyal inclinations of the march because Gapon, who had arranged the demonstration, was a department agent (he would be unmasked subsequently by the Socialist Revolutionaries’ terrorist group). The secret police was beginning to frighten the tsar. The police leaked dark rumors: during the demonstration there would be bloody riots prepared by the revolutionaries, perhaps a seizure of the palace. Grand Duke Vladimir, who commanded the Petersburg garrison, was talking about the beginning of the French Revolution.
Nicholas left to join his family at Tsarskoe Selo.
The night before the march they started to pass out bullets in the barracks. The route Gapon had devised made the march an extraordinarily convenient target. First aid stations were readied, and Gapon gave his final speech to the workers. The police provocateur called on the workers to go to the palace.
Thus was readied Bloody Sunday.
In the morning, thousands of people set out for Palace Square. Portraits of the tsar floated over the crowd, which included many children. In the lead was Gapon. Troops waiting on the approaches to the square ordered the march to disperse. But the people did not believe them. Gapon had promised that the tsar was awaiting them. So they stepped onto the square. Shots rang out. More than a thousand were killed and two thousand wounded. Children’s corpses lay in the snow. In the afternoon sledges dispersed throughout the city with corpses tied down by ropes.
The night after the firing Gapon addressed the workers: “Blood brothers. Innocent blood has been shed! The bullets of the tsar’s soldiers … have riddled our portraits of the tsar and killed our faith in him. We must take revenge for our brothers on the tsar, cursed by the people, and on all his wicked breed, the ministers, and all the plunderers of the unhappy Russian land. Death to them….”
“The tsar, cursed by the people”—this is what the Police Department provocateur had written. Bullet-riddled portraits of the tsar.
At Tsarskoe Selo the police reported