Revolution and The Battleship Potemkin

I am up to 1905 in my reading on Russia, the year of the first Revolution. Due to the Famine in 1891-1892, peasants were drawn to the major cities to work in factories. The Revolution was sparked by Bloody Sunday in January, when an estimated 100,000 workers marched peacefully on the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to ask the Tsar for improved working conditions and representative government. The Tsar's army fired at the workers, killing and wounding about 1,000 people.

The unrest soon spread to the countryside and peasants seized and destroyed property. This Revolution caused the Tsar to form the first Duma, or representative government. The Duma ultimately failed around 1912, primarily because the Tsar was unwilling to abdicate his autocracy, believing that he was appointed by God to rule the Russian people as their patriarch.

The unrest also spread to the military. The crew of the battleship Potemkin, in the Black Sea, objected to being fed meat covered with maggots. The ship's doctor said the meat was just fine, and the crew complained to the captain. This resulted in the killing of their spokesman, Vakulenchuk.  The crew mutinied, killed several officers and raised a red flag on the ship.

The Potemkin sailed to Odessa, where the sailors laid the body of Vakulenchuk at the base of a long series of marble steps leading from the city to the harbor, where he was paid tribute by the many workers in Odessa that were on strike. Thousands of people gathered at the site.

The government sent in soldiers, shooting at everyone in their path. An estimated 2,000 people were killed and around 3,000 wounded. The Potemkin left the harbor, and eventually surrendered.(A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes)

The key part of this event was that even some of the military in 1905 was in revolt against the government.

In 1925, the event was immortalized as a propaganda film, the Battleship Potemkin. It is a silent film available as an Instant Play movie on Netflix. You can also read about it here. The scene of the soldiers on the steps to the harbor is chilling. I hope to visit Odessa and see it in person.