Father Gapon¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter examines the contradictory figure of Father Gapon and his Assembly, situating it as both a police-sponsored safety valve and an involuntary engine of revolutionary upheaval. Gapon’s union, established in April 1904, was ostensibly a friendly society offering insurance, libraries, and social events, with politics strictly forbidden. Its declared aims included fostering ‘national consciousness’ and ‘sensible views’ among workers, while revolutionaries were systematically excluded. Yet the chapter argues that the police’s attempt to contain working-class militancy within legal constraints was doomed by the rising tide of discontent during the Russo-Japanese War. By autumn 1904, mass meetings under Gapon’s auspices drew thousands of raw, politically untutored workers—far exceeding the reach of the Social Democratic organisations, which numbered at most 600 members in Petersburg.
The core argument is that Gapon’s movement cannot be dismissed as mere police provocation or simple spontaneity. The chapter directly polemicises against the Stalinist Short Course, which baldly labelled Gapon an agent provocateur who deliberately provided a pretext for the massacre of 9 January 1905. Instead, it presents Gapon as a deeply contradictory figure: mixed up with the police at the union’s founding, yet marching alongside the Social Revolutionary Rutenberg on Bloody Sunday, later sheltered by Gorky, and holding discussions with Lenin, who was convinced of his ‘childlike sincerity’. Gapon’s eventual demoralisation, gambling, and return to Russia—where he attempted to resume police contacts before being assassinated by the same SR who had marched beside him—are cited as evidence of his confusion.
The chapter’s key theoretical claim is that Gapon’s contradictory character reflected the mentality of a new generation of workers, freshly arrived from the villages and only half-assimilated into the proletariat, carrying with them monarchist prejudices and religious hopes. His blend of militancy and religion, class struggle and faith in the ‘Little Father’, corresponded to the first gropings towards consciousness of the most downtrodden layers. The chapter insists that the 1905 Revolution was not purely spontaneous: the events leading to 9 January were planned in advance by Gapon’s leading group, acting under pressure from workers who had been touched by Marxist propaganda in the strikes of the 1890s. The strike at the Putilov arms works, sparked by the dismissal of four union activists in December 1904, is presented as the explosion of accumulated rage that pushed even Gapon’s leadership towards more militant positions, culminating in the fateful petition and massacre.