The St. Petersburg Society of Workmen of Factories and Workshops Established

In December, 1904, this society took a prominent part in the shutdown of the Putilov Works.

Continuing The Russian Revolution of 1905.
Today is our final installment from Prince Peter Kropotkin and then we begin the second part of the series with Arthur Cassini. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Russian Revolution of 1905.

Time: 1905
Place: Russia

An organizing hand is seen in these outbreaks, and there is no doubt that this is the hand of the Monarchist party. It sent a deputation to Peterhof, headed by Prince Scherbatoff and Count Sheremetieff, and after the deputation had been most sympathetically received by Nicholas the Second, they openly came forward in the Moscow Gazette and in the appeals of the bishops Nikon and Nikander, calling upon their sympathizers to declare an open war on the Radicals.

Of course it would be unwise to imagine that autocracy, and the autocratic habits which made a little Czar of every police official in his own sphere, would die out without showing resistance by all means, including murder. The Russian revolution will certainly have its Feuillants and its Muscadins. And this struggle will necessarily be complicated in Russia by race-hatred. It has always been the policy of the Russian Czardom to stir national hatred, setting the Finns and the Karelian peasants against the Swedes in Finland, the Letts against the Germans in the Baltic provinces, the Polish peasants (partly Ukrainian) against the Polish landlords, the Orthodox Russians against the Jews, the Mussulmans against the Armenians, and so on. Then, for the last twenty years it has been a notable feature of the policy of Ignatieff, and later on of Plehve, to provoke race-wars with a view of checking Socialist propaganda. And the police in Russia have always taken advantage of all such outbreaks for pilfering and plundering. . . . Consequently, a few hints from above were enough — and several reactionary papers and two bishops went so far as to openly give such hints — to provoke the terrible massacres at Odessa, and the smaller outbreaks elsewhere.

Happily enough, there is a more hopeful side to the Russian revolution. The two forces which hitherto have played the leading part in the revolution — namely, the working men in the towns fraternizing with the younger “intellectuals,” and the peasants in the country — have displayed such a wonderful unanimity of action, even where it was not concerted beforehand, and such a reluctance from useless bloodshed, that we may be sure of their ultimate victory. The troops have already been deeply impressed by the unanimity, the self- sacrifice, and the consciousness of their rights displayed by the workmen in their strikes; and now that the St. Petersburg workmen have begun to approach in a spirit of straightforward propaganda those who were enrolled in the “Black Gangs,” that other support of autocracy will probably soon be dissolved as well. The main danger lies now in that the statesmen, enamored of “order” and instigated by timorous landlords, might resort to massacres for repressing the peasant rebellions, in which case retaliation would follow to an extent and with consequences which nobody could foretell.

The first year of the Russian revolution proved that there is in the Russian people that unity of thought without which no serious change in the political organization of the country would have been possible, and that capacity for united action which is the necessary condition of success. One may already be sure that the present movement will be victorious. The years of disturbance will pass, and Russia will come out of them a new nation; a nation owning an unfathomed wealth of natural resources, and capable of utilizing them; ready to seek the ways for utilizing them in the best interest of all; a nation averse to bloodshed, averse to war, and ready to march toward the higher goals of progress. One of her worst inheritances from a dark past, autocracy, lies already mortally wounded, and will not revive; and other victories will follow.

Arthur Cassini

Now we begin the second the second part of our series with our selection from an speech as Ambassador by Arthur Cassini published in . The selection is presented in 2.5 easy 5 minute installments.

Count Arthur Cassini (1836-1919) was a career diplomat for Imperial Russia. He served the Czars as Ambassador to China, to the United States, and to Spain. He retired in 1909. His life-long service representing the Czar’s interests is exemplified in this piece.

In the beginning of 1904, according to the petition presented by the workmen of several factories and workshops of St. Petersburg, there was established the charter of the St. Petersburg Society of Workmen of Factories and Workshops, the establishment of which was authorized for the purpose of allowing the workmen to make use of their leisure hours in a more useful way as regards religious and intellectual enlightenment. Having this purpose in view, in compliance with the petition of the organizers of the society, the chaplain of the St. Petersburg prison, George Gapon, was instituted president of the above-mentioned society. Beginning his activity by holding religious meetings in the various branch institutions of the society, Gapon and his assistants, some of the workmen who were the organizers of the society, gradually merged into deliberating at their meetings upon the condition of workmen in various factories and workshops of the capital, and endeavoring to influence the owners in misunderstandings arising between these latter and their employees.

In December, 1904, this society took a prominent part in opposing the dismissal from the Putilov Works of four work men, members of their society, considering this dismissal as a desire on the part of the administration of these works to get rid of men belonging to their association. Although it was found out later that two of the dismissed workmen had left the works according to their own desire, and that the third had been dismissed for staying voluntarily away, the Putilov section of the society, headed by Gapon, considering the dismissal of the four workmen from the standpoint of personal feeling, succeeded in influencing the majority of the workmen of the Putilov Works, and the works were stopped entirely on January 2, 1905.

[That is, January 15th. The dates used by Count Cassini are Russian Old Style and are thirteen days later than the New Style used in America.]

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