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Report from the head of the St Petersburg branch of the Okhrana to the Minister of Internal affairs concerning the mass strikes
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No.112

Report from the head of the St Petersburg branch of the Okhrana to the Minister of Internal affairs concerning the mass strikes in St Petersburg

9 July 1914

Secret

Following my report of 8 July inst. (No.14341) I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that on 9 July inst. the protest strikes against the authorities in the industrial enterprises of St Petersburg have continued. 117,000 workers from the 259 enterprises named on the attached list took strike action.

On July 9 most of the strikers were workmen from large enterprises. Instead of starting work they left their factories and the demonstrations and incidents listed below occurred:

1. At about 8 o’clock in the morning a crowd of about 250 workers gathered on Deminskii Street and started singing revolutionary songs. When a police detail arrived the workers attacked them with stones. Four officers were slightly wounded. The police dispersed the crowd and no arrests were made. Later in the day police superintendent Moshkovtsov received slight injuries when in the course of their duties police were stoned by youths in a crowd of workers gathered on Shlissel’burgskii Prospect. The attack took place from the cover of fences and other defended positions. Most of the workers of the central electricity generating station, which supplies the city’s tram network stopped work.

2. At about 9 o’clock in the morning a crowd of about 100 people gathered on the Polinstrovskii Quay and shut down the state-owned wine shops, beer halls and bars. The workers then returned to their factories with beer, and waggoners from the Novaia Bavaria factory distributed the beer around the city.

3. At about 10 o’clock in the morning a crowd of about 1,000 people from various enterprises gathered near the Pal’ factory in the Smolensk suburb and began to sing the ‘Marseillaise’. They were dispersed by the police and two arrests were made.

4. In the morning office staff from the Moskovskii, Peterburgskii and Vasileostrovskii tram depots reported that they were afraid to restart tram services following the stoning of office staff by workers the previous day, and because of incidents early in the day on the corner of Bol’shoi Prospect and Gavan’ Street when workers halted the trams by removing their driving handles.

5. From morning onwards strikes paralysed almost all industrial enterprises in the Suvorovskii precinct of the Vasil’evskii district. The workmen sang revolutionary songs as they left their factories and were dispersed by detachments of mounted police. Mounted police officer Burov was injured in the left leg by a stone. At about 1 o’clock in the afternoon a crowd of workers gathered near a plant making pneumatic equipment and began to smash the factory’s windows with stones. Lenk, an American citizen and the owner of the factory, ran out into the street and discharged two shots from a revolver. A passing cab driver, peasant Porochkin from Kashinskii district, was slightly injured in the foot. The police made no arrests.

6. At about 9 o’clock in the morning a crowd of about 300 workers gathered on Simanskii Street singing revolutionary songs. The crowd proceeded to shut down shops and stores on Gavan’ Street and Malii Prospect. A detachment of mounted police was sent to the scene. No arrests were made.

7. At about midday on the corner of Bol’shoi and Malii Dvorianskii Streets in the third precinct of the Petersburgskii district a crowd was discovered closing down shops and stores by force. The police made three arrests. On the corner of Bol’shoi Ruzheinii Street and Pevcheskii Street at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, whilst carrying out his duties, Captain Terpelevskii, the divisional inspector of police, assisted by a detachment commanded by Cornet Chebotarev and one police officer and five constables, met with a crowd of between 400 and 500 persons carrying a red flag and singing revolutionary songs. When the police issued an order to disperse the crowd started throwing stones and empty bottles seized from nearby houses. A second order to disperse was met with further stone throwing and two or three shots rang out. Following this incident the police opened fire on the crowd and were then forced to retreat in order to save themselves. At this time the police fired off almost all the cartridges in their possession. The divisional inspector of police and the cornet left in a passing cab and the majority of the police also successfully slipped away from the crowd. During the retreat and in the course of his duty officer Verzhbitskii suffered minor bruising. Police officer Shilkin received serious head wounds and fell unconscious to the ground. The crowd seized his sword and Mauser revolver. Two members of these police detachments who are also under the jurisdiction of my department, Petrov and officer Malinskii (officer No.2801), were subjected to persistent victimization by the crowd and were forced to hide in the basement of a house on the corner of Pevcheskii and Bol’shoi Ruzheinii Streets. The basement was full of water, undergrowth and straw, under which they concealed themselves and thus escaped the notice of the workers who were searching for them. It is not known how many members of the crowd were injured in this affray, but by nightfall rumour in the city put the figure at five workers killed and eight persons injured.

8. At midday a crowd of about 300 persons gathered on the corner of Bol’shoi Grebetskii Street and Bol’shoi Prospect and started to shut down taverns, beer halls and industrial enterprises, but were dispersed when a police detail arrived. Three members of the crowd were arrested. Simultaneously a crowd on Krestovskii Island’s Peterburgskii Street stopped a horse-drawn tram, smashed the carriage windows and then scattered. No arrests were made.

9. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon 3,800 workers from the Nevskii shipyards (1 Smolensk suburb) failed to start work after their lunch break, walked out of their shops, raised a red flag and left the yards singing. The workers began stoning the police ranks drawn up on the street to block their passage, after which the police drew their sabres and dispersed the crowd. The scattering workers stoned a passing suburban steam tram and knocked out a window in the second waggon. No arrests were made. The tram was forced to stop and workers then started shutting down nearby taverns and beer stalls.

10. In the Narvskii district striking workers on Leikhtenbergskii Street shut down shops and stores, forced the labourers to leave their work in the brickyards (on 62 Moskovskii Street), smashed three machines, demonstrated with a red flag, and dispersed after singing revolutionary songs. The police were not in attendance.

11. At about 10 o’clock in the morning a crowd of about 100 workers gathered on the tracks of the Primorsko-Sestroretskii Railway four versty from St Petersburg. Seizing a saw from a garden shed in Dubenskii village, the workers cut down telegraph poles and flung them across the rails. A red flag was raised between the tracks. At 10.25 am a train from St Petersburg was halted by the obstruction. A member of the crowd, apparently one of the leaders, approached the footplate and, threatening the driver with a revolver, told him to reverse the train to St Petersburg. The driver obeyed. Five minutes later a second train, the passenger express from Lakhta, was likewise forced to return to its point of departure. In response to these incidents the chief of the gendarmerie, twenty gendarme officer-cadets and thirty-two men of the 2nd company/90th foot (Onezhskii regiment) were dispatched by train from St Petersburg at 12.40 pm. When they arrived at the scene the permanent way was examined. No arrests were made. The train continued its journey escorted by troops and officer-cadets riding the footplate and normal service was resumed along the line.

12. In the morning work in the Obukhovskii steel foundry proceeded as normal, but from 3 o’clock in the afternoon one shop after another downed tools and the workers left the factory. The workers came out of the gates singing revolutionary songs but ceased on the orders of the police. As they marched down the street the workers ordered public houses to close. Arriving opposite a cartographical enterprise, the crowd overturned two waggons of the Nevskii suburban tramline. Whilst proceeding along Orenburgskii Street (by block 11) officer Sosin of the St Petersburg city police was beaten by the crowd and received wounds to the head and arms. His sword was taken.

13. Late in the afternoon a crowd of workers on Vasil’evskii Island’s Bol’shoi Prospect chanced upon a cartload of sixty-three barrels of sulphur en route to a rope factory. The workers seized the barrels and built a barricade across the Prospect by block 83. At midnight the barrels ignited due to the emission of inflammable gases from the sulphur. A police detail arrived, extinguished the blaze and dispersed the milling crowd. The crowd then retreated to block 91 and proceeded to attack the police by throwing stones, bottles and other objects. The police discharged five shots into the air. The crowd then smashed two motor vehicles belonging to private citizens. No arrests were made in the course of the suppression of these disorders.

Information received tonight from agents located in the leading circles of the local revolutionary underground reveals that the revolutionaries are utterly confused. They feel helpless and unable to lead the strike movement because of the weakness of their local organizations.

In view of the above situation Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats of all factions and tendencies have decided to take measures to end the current strikes, no matter what the cost to themselves. With this in mind revolutionary organizations in various districts of the city have already passed resolutions aimed at getting the workers back to their factories tomorrow, on 10 July inst.. They have justified this decision by referring to their ‘fear that workers will be shot, and because of the impossibility of turning the current strike movement into an armed uprising due to the absence of adequate supplies of arms’. They are also aware that they themselves have not made sufficient preparations for such an eventuality.

However, it has become apparent that active party cells do not have enough influence to stop the strike movement. The workers are completely out of control and refuse to listen when agitators appeal for an end to the strikes; and, given the absence of appropriate cadres, experienced party workers and adequate material means, underground party organizations are presently quite unable to establish the necessary contacts with the masses.

Consequently the revolutionary underground have decided that if they are unable to stop the development of this elemental movement they will support the struggle by advancing socialist slogans, but will not specify the direction the movement should take. They have decided on this strategy for two reasons: firstly, they wish to preserve their authority with the worker-masses if the movement declines; secondly, should the movement gather strength, they hope to extend the strikes to the railways and then take a series of initiatives aimed at gradually converting the unrest into an armed rising. To this end revolutionary cells have turned their attention to the problem of disarming branches of the uniformed police, and even – if it could be managed – to the capture of the local arsenal.

The information presented in this report leads to the conclusion that events tomorrow will be characterized by two tendencies: the hooligan element of young workers will continue its disorderly activities, but on the other hand attempts will doubtless be made by the more moderate workers to return to work.

It is my duty to point out that in my judgement the day’s events clearly indicate the urgent necessity of calling upon the army to assist the civil powers. In particular it is necessary to utilize Cossack detachments. Cossacks will be able to arrive at the scene of any disorders before they get out of hand, and they will impose order without the use of firearms. Obviously, when disturbances occur in many places simultaneously, the infantry cannot be everywhere at once, and the longer the disturbances continue unchecked, the more they will spread. Over the past week the police have been in the forefront of the struggle to impose order. They are exhausted and can no longer cope with the situation alone. If the strikers are allowed to continue to act with impunity the situation will deteriorate.

Appendix: list of 259 industrial enterprises in the city of St Petersburg affected by strike action on 9 July inst..


No.115

Report from the head of the St Petersburg branch of the Okhrana to the Minister of Internal Affairs concerning the course of the general strike and demonstrations and the erection of barricades on the Vyborg Side

10 July 1914

Secret

Following my report of 9 July inst. (No.14363) I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that on 10 July inst. the protest strikes against the authorities in the industrial enterprises of St Petersburg have continued. 111,000 workers from the 203 enterprises named on the attached list took strike action.

In some instances the workers arrived on the shop floor as normal but were persuaded by strikers not to start work. In most cases the workers returned home quietly. Demonstrations by striking workers occurred only before the lunch break. They were not as pronounced as in recent days. The following incidents occurred:

1. At 8 o’clock in the morning the 750 workers of the Aivaz joint-stock company (on the Vyborgskii Highway, nos.21/23/25) turned up at the factory as normal, but only a small number started work. The majority, fearing victimization if they started work, quietly left the factory and dispersed to their homes. At eleven o’clock in the morning a small crowd of about forty of these workers set about closing down public houses and stores on the Vyborgskii Highway and Skobelenskii Street. In one of these establishments they knocked out the glass and prevented a bricklayer from working. A police detail was sent to the scene and dispersed the crowd. Three people were arrested for unlawfully closing down stores and public houses.

2. At about 9 o’clock in the morning 6,000 workers from the Obukhovskii plant (on Shlissel’burgskii Prospect) poured out of the factory gates and started singing revolutionary songs but were dispersed by a police detachment. Afterwards part of the workforce, about 400 in number, regrouped by Novo-Aleksandrovskii Street, hoisted a red flag and made for a paper factory (on 10 Selo Aleksandrovskii [Prospect]). The factory’s workforce joined the demonstrators and the crowd moved along the Prospect towards the Shlissel’burgskii district. There they were met and dispersed by a police detail. As the crowd broke up stones were thrown at the police, but no members of the detachment were injured. One worker, his hands full of stones, cried to the crowd as it scattered, ‘Comrades! Don’t be scared of five coppers!’

3. At about 9.30 am a crowd of workers gathered by block 13 on Gavan’ Street in the Gavan’ precinct of Vasil’evskii district and halted trams emerging from the Vasileostrovskii depot. The crowd pushed two number 5 trams off the tracks and paralysed the network. When a police detail arrived the crowd was dispersed. No arrests were made.

4. At 9 o’clock in the morning a crowd of about 1,000 people on the Moskovskii Highway opposite Mariinskii Street raised a red flag and started singing revolutionary songs. Several workers in the crowd blocked the Highway with two logs, which halted the movement of carts and automobiles. The crowd was dispersed by Cossacks and order was restored. Two workers injured by Cossack whips were taken to a Red Cross dressing station and from there to the fourth precinct of the Narvskii district for identification.

5. At 10 o’clock in the morning workers from the San-Galli enterprise (on 60 Ligovskii Street) were joined by hands from the Bligken and Robinson plant (on 52 Ligovskii Street). The resultant crowd began singing revolutionary songs and stoned a number 19 tram proceeding along the street. The tram’s windows were smashed and two conductors injured, one of them seriously. When a police detail arrived the crowd was dispersed, but no arrests were made. Semetskii, the police officer commanding the second precinct/Aleksandro-Nevskii district, and city police officer Staroverov of the same district, have both attested that the crowd was led by a worker from the San-Galli enterprise – one Mairov Mikhail Vasil’ev, a peasant aged 29 from the Potukovskii volost’ of Kashinskii uezd in Tver’ guberniya. He>
6. At 8 o’clock in the morning workers from the Nevskii shipyards (1 Smolensk suburb) left their work and joined striking workers from other enterprises. Singing revolutionary songs, the crowd proceeded along Selo Smolenskii Prospect, but were met by a police detail and dispersed. No arrests were made.

Simultaneously 1,047 workers from the Aleksandrovskii Machine Factory (in Smolensk suburb) downed tools, raised a red flag and singing revolutionary songs proceeded along Zheleznodorozhnii Street towards the Nikolaevskii Railway Company’s repair yards. They were joined by a further 2,012 workers – also singing revolutionary songs – and moved off towards Moskovskii Street. Here the crowds were met by a police detachment and dispersed. One worker was arrested.

7. At 11.30 am a crowd of about fifty workers gathered on the corner of Srednii Prospect and Gavan’ Street on Vasil’evskii island. They bombarded the Turin restaurant with stones and broke its windows. When the police arrived the crowd scattered. No arrests were made.

8. At approximately 9 o’clock in the morning a crowd of about 300 striking workers from the Kirkhner factory approached the Kan factory (on 21 Kronverkskii Street) and tried to force the factory’s hands to down tools, but the crowd was dispersed when a police detachment arrived on the scene. One of the workers, who was nevertheless determined to force his way into the factory, was arrested by police officer Zhivtsov.

Two officers of the city’s police, escorting the arrested worker to the local police station, were set upon by a crowd of about 200 workers on M. Belozerskii Street. The crowd pelted the police with stones and tried to rescue the prisoner. Two shots were fired by the police in the course of this assignment, and the arrested man was successfully delivered to the station. No one was injured.

9. At about 10 o’clock in the morning 870 workers from the Geisler and Co. electrical engineering plant (on 12 Griaznii Street) and 450 people from the Vefers Lithographic Works (at 8 Griaznii Street) walked out of their shops and quietly went home. A number of these workers – for the most part adolescents – made their way to Tatarskii Street singing revolutionary songs. They were confronted by two members of the city’s police force who demanded that they immediately cease singing. When the order was ignored the police drew their swords and dispersed the crowd. Members of the crowd responded by throwing stones and municipal police officer Ivanov received injuries to the hand. No arrests were made.

10. At 9 o’clock in the morning in the third precinct of the Moskovskii district a crowd of about 100 workers approached the Bogdanov tobacco factory (on 16 Kabinetskii) and attempted to persuade the workmen to down tools, but were dispersed by a police detail. The crowd regrouped on Ivanovskii Street and started singing revolutionary songs. When the police arrived they were pelted with stones. As a result police officer Ivanov and officer Afanas’ev, a member of the city’s factory police force, received slight injuries. The police restored order and made four arrests.

11. At midday in the first precinct of the Vyborgskii district a crowd of about 200 workers tore down a telegraph pole, threw it across the junction of Bezborodkinskii Prospect and Mineral’nyi Street (by block 17/2) and started to build barricades. When a police detachment arrived on the scene the crowd was dispersed and order restored, but no arrests were made.

12. In the Petergofskii district at 2.15 pm a crowd of striking workers from various factories and enterprises went to the Ekateringofskii Spinning Mill (located at 1 Volynkino village). After smashing the mill’s windows they carried on throwing stones – this time at the workers – and menaced them with knives. As a result they forced 950 of the mill’s operatives to abandon their work and leave the factory. When Cossacks and police arrived at the mill the rioters had already departed.

Because the demonstrations have slackened today wheeled traffic has restarted almost everywhere, except in the working-class districts.

According to official information received no workers were wounded by firearms in the course of the day’s disturbances. As far as is known only two workers suffered whip injuries severe enough to warrant medical attention. One police officer and four members of the city’s police force were hurt by stones, and also two tram conductors, one of whom received serious injuries. In the course of the disturbances the police arrested sixty-one people for stone throwing, closing down stores and breaches of public order. In addition forty individuals well known for their revolutionary activities were located and arrested by order of the Okhrana.

According to information received this night from one of our agents the majority of workers have no objection to starting work tomorrow, but in view of the difficulty of predicting whether or not there will be a resumption of normal working, the following sign is on display outside many industrial concerns: ‘In consequence of the unwarranted withdrawal of labour by the workforce the factory is closed indefinitely’.

In addition, according to the agent mentioned above, a meeting of party members was held on the premises of the ‘Science and Life’ society at 1 o’clock in the morning of 9[10] July inst.. The meeting resolved to utilize the elemental rising of the proletariat and issue a proclamation calling for an armed insurrection on the morning of 11 July inst.. Warrants for the location and arrest of a number of these individuals have been issued and dispatched tonight. Urgent steps are being taken to obtain warrants for the arrest of the others.

Appendix: list of 203 industrial enterprises in the city of St Petersburg affected by strike action on 10 July inst..