The idea of a petition was probably conceived by Gapon as a way of diverting the movement into safe channels. Possibly Gapon really believed he could act as a mediator between the Little Father and his ‘children’. But once put forward, in a situation of ferment among the masses, even this apparently innocuous idea had a logic of its own. The idea of an appeal to the Tsar and a petition of demands immediately caught the imagination of the masses. Mass meetings were held all over the capital. Gapon dashed from one meeting to another, delivering increasingly radical speeches under the impact of the mood of the masses, who revered him. An eyewitness account gives a vivid impression of the electric atmosphere at these meetings, with their quasi-evangelical character, Gapon calling upon the Almighty to lead the workers in struggle, urging the workers to stand together and, if necessary, die together:
All those present were in a state of rapture – many were weeping, stamping their feet, banging chairs, beating with their fists against the walls and raising their hands on high, they swore to remain firm to the end.
The movement was rapidly turning into a general strike. By 5 January, 26,000 workers were out; by 7 January, 105,000; and the next day, 111,000. It was also acquiring a political character. A mass meeting on 5 January voted for the immediate convening of a Constituent Assembly, political liberty, an end to the war, and the freeing of political prisoners. In all probability, the initiative for these resolutions came from workers who had been influenced by the Social Democrats. Over a long period of Social Democratic agitation, propaganda, and organisation, a considerable number of advanced workers had been in contact, to a greater or lesser extent, with the Social Democratic propaganda circles. A far larger number had been affected by the mass agitation carried out systematically by the Social Democrats for at least ten years prior to 9 January. That the basic slogans of the Marxists had left their mark on the consciousness of the working class was demonstrated by the fact that a number of key Social Democratic demands found their way into Gapon’s famous petition – from the eight-hour day to the demand for a Constituent Assembly.
But although Social Democratic slogans were getting an echo, the Party itself was still completely isolated and without influence. Martov, in his history of the Russian Social Democracy, written only a few years later, confirms that:
…[T]he Social Democracy of both factions could not but notice that the stormy events in Petersburg in January 1905 took place not only outside the immediate leadership of the Social Democracy, but even without a significant participation by it as an organised whole. (Ibid., vol. 2, p. 45 in both quotes.)
This is confirmed from the Bolshevik side by the minutes of the Third Congress which state that:
[T]he January events found the Petersburg committee in an extremely deplorable state. Its links with the working masses had been utterly disorganised by the Mensheviks. Only with great difficulty did they manage to maintain themselves in the city, Vasily Island and the Vyborg district. (Tretiy s’yezd RSDRP (Protokoly), p. 544.)
As always, the watchword of the movement of the masses is ‘unity’. They saw the Social Democrats as alien elements coming from without, and not part of their movement. At one mass meeting, Gapon chided a Social Democratic speaker with the words: “Do not introduce discord: let us march towards our sacred goal under a single peaceful banner, common to one and all.” Gapon’s authority appeared to be unassailable. By contrast, the revolutionary Social Democrats were regarded with suspicion by the workers. The report of the St. Petersburg Bolsheviks to the Third Congress in April admits that they had been very slow to intervene in what they saw as a reactionary police union, only beginning to pay it serious attention when the strike was well underway. In some parts of the city, notably the Vyborg district, they got a sympathetic hearing. But elsewhere in the city, they were given a rough ride. Often the chairman would not even allow them to speak.
“Up to the 9 January,” the Petersburg delegate reported, “the attitude of the workers towards the [Bolshevik] committee was extremely hostile. Our agitators were beaten up, leaflets were destroyed, and the first 500 roubles sent to the Putilov workers by the students were accepted grudgingly.” (Ibid., p. 158 and p. 44.) A Menshevik writer bears this out:
In the Narva district, where the movement had originated, as late as the 8 January, the workers enthusiastically welcomed the political content of Gapon’s petition. When a lone Social Democrat attempted to deliver a political speech, a howl went up from the assembled workers: “Down with him!” “Throw him out!” (Quoted in J.L.H. Keep, The Rise of Social Democracy in Russia, p. 157.)
The numerical weakness and isolation of the Social Democracy at the beginning of the revolution was revealed in the words of Livshits, giving voice to the frustration of the Party activists in Petersburg at their inability to exercise a decisive influence before 9 January:
We Party workers knew very well that the forthcoming peaceful procession would not lead to anything worthwhile and would involve the masses in terrible bloodshed. But where was the force that could have forestalled this terrible misdeed, for which tsarism and clericalism was responsible? Such a force did not exist. (J. Martov et al, Obshchestvennoe Dvizhenie v Rossii v Nachale 20 Vekha, vol. 3, p. 540.)
Yet in 24 hours the whole situation was transformed.