ON PALACE SQUARE. A LETTER FROM AN EYEWITNESS.
The German Social Democratic newspaper “Vorwärts” publishes
the following private letter from a St. Petersburg lawyer:
“In the morning of January 9 (22), I made my way along Nevsky Prospekt toward Palace Square, where workers had gathered to present petitions* directly to the Tsar himself. But I was unable to reach the square itself. At first, I stood near the General Staff Building, whose façade faces both Nevsky Prospekt and Palace Square. I could not see what was happening on the square, for an cavalry detachment stood before me, separating the crowd on Nevsky Prospekt from the throngs gathered on Admiralty Square and in Alexander Garden. From time to time, shouts of ‘Hurrah!’ could be heard—now from one side, now from the other. Overall, the crowd behaved with remarkable calm and restraint. Many protested against the cries of ‘Hurrah!’, which might have provoked acts of violence. Twice I saw squadrons of cavalry, their weapons drawn, ride from Palace Square toward Admiralty Street. We have learned that the sacred procession of workers bearing a cross—a procession led by Father Gapon, with petitions in hand—was dispersed, and that the workers were driven back everywhere. The workers standing near me said, ‘Yes, it’s clear now: we will receive no help from the Tsar. We asked for bread,* but all we got in return were bullets.’ From Palace Square and from Alexander Garden, not a single sound could be heard—but this was only the calm before the storm. Suddenly, volleys rang out on Palace Square: one shot, then another, then a third. From the crowd standing before us, the wounded and the dead began to be carried away. I witnessed with my own eyes many killed and wounded—among them, a young woman who had been slain, and a youth who had been struck down. The dead and wounded were carried along Nevsky Prospekt. We brought one young woman—likely a student, a kursistka—to the courtyard of a neighboring house and laid her upon a bench, which was soon stained with blood. There was a wound on her forehead, but there was probably another injury as well, for the slain lay faceup.
[We] carried the wounded woman into a nearby apartment, washed her wound, applied a bandage—there were still faint signs of life—and then they took her away. The people’s anger and indignation reached their highest point. The crowd literally occupied every available space along Nevsky Prospekt and Gogolevskaya Street, mercilessly beating any soldier who passed by in a sleigh. I saw the crowd beat two gendarme officers and two artillery ensigns until they bled. One officer had his sabre snatched from him and his epaulettes torn off; the other managed to escape by fleeing. The crowd fell upon a foot officer, upon a guardsman, and seized his sabre as well. An elderly general was struck in the forehead with a bottle; his epaulettes were ripped from his shoulders, and his kepi was flung aside amid shouts of ‘Hurrah!’ They beat a naval captain. All of this occurred in close proximity to troops who could do nothing to intervene. On Nevsky Prospekt, not far from Morskaya Street, the crowd [spontaneously] convened a large public assembly without any prior preparation. I heard two impassioned speeches. One ended with the cry: ‘Down with autocracy!’—a cry that the crowd picked up with fervent enthusiasm. The other speech concluded with the call: ‘To arms!’ The crowd greeted this call with great sympathy. But then one company of riflemen appeared, followed shortly by another. The crowd was split in two and pushed back toward the Moika embankment. The riflemen occupied the Police Bridge. I stood apart, near the exit of the Noble Assembly (Adelsklub).
Suddenly, a volley rang out from the opposite bank of the Moika, and within minutes the wounded were being carried away, drenched in blood. On the other side of the river, too, a large crowd had gathered. It remained utterly calm—apparently unroused by the clamor of battle; all were overcome by the weight of their experiences and stood in profound sorrow (voll der grössten Trauer). Yet even these people were not spared.
Another volley sounded. One of the two

women, standing some distance apart near the pharmacy, collapsed without uttering a single sound. The riflemen, it seemed, had deliberately targeted these two women. The other let out a desperate cry and bent over her beloved corpse. At the corner of the Moika embankment and Nevsky Prospekt, several corpses already lay scattered. When I passed through that area a little later, I saw blood everywhere around me. At five o’clock in the evening, I walked along Gorokhovaya Street, which had been transformed into a veritable military encampment. I did not see what was happening in other parts of the city, but I was told that far greater horrors were unfolding on Vasilyevsky Island. There, the workers had erected several barricades. In the evening, I attended a public meeting. Maxim Gorky reported that Father Gapon had neither been arrested nor wounded—he had been killed. He instructed the workers to convey that he blessed them for the revolution that must now begin; the workers must now launch the revolution, for otherwise it would be impossible to achieve anything. I went out onto the street.”
“Yes,” the German Social Democrats’ newspaper confirms—“yes, the workers’ day of January 9 truly marked the beginning of the revolution in Russia.”