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Labour Truth, Our Workers’ Newspaper
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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 street protests by workers in St Petersburg

11 July 1914

Secret

Following my report of 10 July inst. (No.14405) I have the honour to inform Your Excellency [that] on 11 July inst. the protest strikes against the authorities in the industrial enterprises of St Petersburg have continued. 111,000 workers from the 179 enterprises named on the attached list took strike action.

Today the majority of workers arrived for work as normal but, finding that the owners had closed the factories indefinitely, returned home peacefully.

There has been a marked decline in the mood of extreme excitability amongst the workers evident in recent days, and the day passed comparatively quietly.

Tram services and wheeled traffic started as usual and continued to operate normally throughout the day. Tram services were suspended at 1 o’clock but this>
Today workers appeared on the city’s streets only in highly disciplined groups and demonstrations occurred only in the outlying districts of the city, and then only on two occasions. The details are as follows:

1. At about 9 o’clock in the morning a crowd of several hundred workers approached the Engineer Semenov sawmill (located at 125 Blagoveshchenskii Street) and demanded that the labourers stop working. This ugly scene was accompanied by threats of violence.

Two detachments of city police arrived at the mill – one mounted – and exhorted the crowd to end the disturbance and disperse. The admonition did not have the desired result; instead the cry was heard, ‘Get stones and let them have it!’ A volley of stones descended on the police and two shots were fired off.

In response the mounted police detachment opened fire but without effect: the crowd continued throwing stones, all the while closing in and surrounding the detail. In their attempt to block the detachment’s avenue of retreat and stop two more mounted police officers joining the beleaguered detail, the workers drove in a cartload of logs. At this the police horses shied back. The crowd then used the waggon and logs to build a barricade obstructing Blagoveshchenskii Street.

At this time Radchenko, the district’s senior assistant police captain, arrived on the scene accompanied by several municipal police officers and ten members of the police cavalry guard’s third section commanded by Cornet Rakitskii.

Noticing that the police presence had strengthened the workers ran for cover into nearby housing blocks, from within two of which two shots were fired at the police. The police dismantled the barricade, and scanning the Staroi Derevni – the adjacent street – searched the blocks where the shots came from and arrested seventy persons involved in the disorders, all of them workers from the Semenov sawmill.

No members of the police were hurt in the engagement. One worker was injured on the right side of the head by a blow from a whip.

2. At about 3 o’clock in the afternoon in the fourth precinct of the Narvskii district 200 striking workers from various factories and enterprises went to the Germanovskii brickyards (at 62 Moskovskii Highway). They tried to stop the yard’s labourers working and attacked them with stones. Arriving at the scene of this disturbance a platoon of Cossack cavalry under the command of an officer was unable to find the furious crowd in the brickfields. The crowd had taken advantage of a large hollow full of water next to the fields, which blocked the advance of the mounted detachment. From the cover of the hollow the crowd continued behaving outrageously, shouting threats and curses at the Cossacks. The officer’s order to disperse, frequently repeated, was ignored, and consequently the order was given to discharge several volleys of rifle fire. Two workers were killed and three injured. Only by taking these measures was the crowd dispersed and order restored. Four of those involved in the disturbance were arrested.

The above account of the day’s disturbances is indicative of a sudden and significant change in the mood of the working class. There is no doubt that it signals the beginning of the gradual decline of the strike movement in general, and in particular in the frequency of public demonstrations by young hooligans.

Aside from the evident reduction in the number of street disorders the emergence of a conciliatory mood is confirmed by information received from secret agents. These sources characterize the situation in the following manner:

Underground party circles have concluded that the explosive and elemental actions of the workers are in reality of little consequence, and that there is no possibility of turning the movement into an armed rising. Furthermore, they consider that the failing strength of the workers obliges party circles to dissipate their energies and leads to a decline in the authority of party cells. In consequence, as reported in my submission of 9 July inst. (No.14363), the revolutionaries are calling for an end to the strike. A hectographed proclamation to this effect has today been issued by the Petersburg committee of the RSDRP, a copy of which is attached.

It is abundantly clear that underground revolutionary organizations have failed to lead the strike movement. Additionally, since they have been weakened by the continual arrests of their activists, they have neither the strength, the authority nor the influence required to persuade the worker masses to end the strike.

In the main this was due to the searches and arrests conducted on 8 July inst. Acting on information supplied by agents, fifty representatives from district party organizations meeting in the editorial offices of the socialist press were detained.

Following these arrests the legal newspapers Labour Truth, Our Workers’ Newspaper and The Living Thoughts of Labour – which had such a harmful influence on the workers – have ceased publication until such time as new editors can be found. In consequence the workers are deprived of their usual sources of advice and instruction. The detention of representatives from district organizations has severed the link between different districts. The net result of all this is the further disorganization of the revolutionary underground.

The chaos surrounding the situation has strengthened the hand of moderate elements amongst the workers, and currently – particularly in view of the appearance of considerable numbers of troops in the working-class districts – increasing numbers of them are thinking of ending the strike and returning to work.

It is equally important that spokesmen for the revolutionary underground are now calling for an end to the strike, and it is therefore reasonable to suppose that in the near future – in all likelihood from Monday onwards – factories and other industrial enterprises will be working as normal. The only circumstance, which could hinder a return, to work would be the declaration of an indefinite lockout by the factory owners and by the owners of those enterprises that are presently closed.

In order that matters should return to normal, and to avoid the rise of unemployment and dissuade the hungry and the idle from contemplating any further action, I have today petitioned the Governor of St Petersburg asking him to insist that the factories should open as soon as is practicable, and in any case by July 14 inst. at the latest.

Appendix: list of industrial enterprises in the city of St Petersburg affected by strike action on 11 July inst. and copy of the hectographed proclamation.

Colonel Popov