The Russian Revolution of 1905 challenged the absolute power of Tsar Nicholas II (reign 1894-1917) as ruler of the Russian Empire. Bloody Sunday in 1905 started the year disastrously for the tsar when soldiers fired upon an unarmed crowd outside the Winter Palace. Strikes, protests, and mutinies followed, which involved peasants, industrial workers, the urban middle class, intellectuals, students, and elements of the military. The tsar held on to power by promising reforms and a new representative parliament, but he soon lapsed back into his autocratic ways until he was deposed in the Russian Revolution of 1917.
More about: Russian Revolution of 1905Definition
Timeline
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22 Jan 1905Bloody Sunday in 1905, when peaceful demonstrators against the Tsar's authoritarian rule were fired upon and massacred in St. Petersburg.
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23 Jan 1905A General strike is called in Russia following the shock of Bloody Sunday in 1905. Peasants also revolt and students conduct acts of protest. Social unrests runs through until the summer.
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14 May 1905The Russian Baltic Naval Fleet is destroyed at the battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War.
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15 Jun 1905Martial law is declared in Odessa, the day the battleship Potemkin, taken over by mutineers, arrives in port.
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Aug 1905To calm revolutionaries, Tsar Nicholas II issues a list of reforms, his August Manifesto. It is rejected as being too weak.
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19 Sep 1905Printers begin a strike in Moscow which is soon joined by other professions.
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3 Oct 1905Moscow railway workers go on strike and are soon joined by colleagues elsewhere, bringing transport to a halt across Russia.
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17 Oct 1905Tsar Nicholas II proposes reforms in his October Manifesto. Accepted by some liberals, it divides participants in the Russian Revolution of 1905.
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Dec 1905A strike in Moscow turns into an armed uprising against Tsar Nicholas II. The uprising is brutally quashed by the army.
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Apr 1906The first meeting of the Russian Duma, the first elected parliament.
