The Revolution of 1905 and the Stolypin Reforms

The Revolution of 1905 broke out amid accumulated social discontent, aggravated by the humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. Bloody Sunday (January 9, 1905) marked its immediate trigger, when tsarist troops fired on a peaceful demonstration led by the priest Georgy Gapon, killing hundreds in front of the Winter Palace. The repression unleashed a wave of strikes, riots, and protests across the empire; the mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin (June 1905) became an emblematic episode of insubordination even within the armed forces, and the first soviets (councils) of workers formed in cities such as St. Petersburg, with Leon Trotsky playing a prominent role in that city's soviet.