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# Revolutionary intelligentsia and class-conscious proletarians, who would most probably have armed themselves, could not but shun the Zubatov movement, could not but keep away from it
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/intelligentsiia-revoliutsionnaia-i-soznatelnye-proletarii-kotorye-vsego-skoree-by-veroiatno-zapaslis-oruzhiem-ne-mogli-ne-chuzhdatsia-zubatovskogo-dvizheniia-ne-mogli-ne-storonitsia-ot/
- Published: 2020-02-29T14:44:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:43:02.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Observations, Society, Saint Petersburg

Revolutionary intelligentsia and class-conscious proletarians, who would most probably have armed themselves, could not but shun the Zubatov movement, could not but keep away from it. The government thus had an especially free hand and was playing a game it could not lose: THE MOST PEACEFUL, THE LEAST ORGANISED, THE GREYEST workers WILL, IT IS SAID, GO OUT TO DEMONSTRATE; OUR ARMY WILL HAVE NO TROUBLE AT ALL DEALING WITH THEM, and a good lesson will be taught to the proletariat; THE PRETEXT FOR SHOOTING DOWN in the street one and all WILL BE MAGNIFICENT; the victory of the reactionary (or grand-ducal) party at court over the liberals will be complete; THE REPRESSION THAT FOLLOWS WILL BE OF THE FIERCEST KIND.

This, incidentally, is from Lenin's notes "Revolutionary Days" in the newspaper "Vperyod" of 31 January 1905.

Well, does none of it sound familiar?

In essence, Lenin writes that the government was merely looking for a pretext to shoot people in the streets, which means that Bloody Sunday was no accident but a planned performance. The suppression of the demonstration was needed to show that any step against the authorities' course would bring the most monstrous consequences, even for peaceful protesters.

With communist greetings, your Mockingbird