It was 100 years ago yesterday that the first Russian revolution had begun (Jan. 9, 1905, Julian calendar). To be fair, one might as well say it had started with the nationwide strikes in December 1904, but it was on January 9 that the Czar’s troops fired at a large peaceful demonstration (albeit carrying quite a radical petition to the monarch), killing at 120 and wounded around 300 marchers (perhaps many more).
This is known as the “Bloody Sunday.” Public opinion blamed Nicholas II personally for the bloodshed, which had a huge impact on the lower classes’ attitudes to monarchy. The 1905-1907 revolution, with its bloody street fights, brutal suppression “expeditions” and court-martials, gave a foretaste of what was to come ten years later.