The petition very much reflects this image but what is shown in the image is said in words. It tells of the suffering that the marchers have to put up with and explains how they are very much in need of help. The people in the picture look like they can’t take any more of the conditions they live in now and need change. This is told to the Tsar in the petition. I think that Source D agrees with Source C very well. The way that the marchers are pleading for better lives is portrayed on the faces of the people in the picture and the picture is just one of desperation.
- Source E must be reliable because it is an eyewitness account. Do you agree?
Just because this account is an eyewitness one doesn’t secure its reliability. There are many things that could make this source unreliable considering the situation of its author.
The fact that Gorky joined the Bolsheviks in 1905 definitely questions the sources reliability because the account will be very biased towards the marchers and totally against the soldiers. If this was the case Gorky could have added details that weren’t entirely true making the soldiers seem like total monsters without giving them any credit, if any was due. This could change the perspective on the events of that day and the source could be too over exaggerated. Gorky also could of easily added extra bits of his own imagination to liven up the account to make it more interesting and more gruesome. Another reason why the source could not be entirely reliable is because of the fact that Gorky was a poor man the same as the marchers so he was in exactly the same position as them and was probably supporting the march which is why he was there. This gives Gorky even more reason to exaggerate the truth because if he were to make people believe that the fighting was totally one sided and the ,archers were just innocent people and there was no need for violence he had to add some imagination to make his story more biased towards the marchers case.
Despite this though the source could be fairly reliable because he could not have had to add imagination because what he was describing was the actual events however this is probably very unlikely taking in to account who Maxim Gorky was.
d) How do you think people in France would have reacted to this source?
I think that this picture would cause great support for the Russians because the French had already gone through their revolution and realised the need for a democracy and a good ruler. They would have sympathised with the peasants who only requested better living conditions and more respect from people higher in society. They would have experienced everything that the Russian peasants were going through and many people would have supported the Russians case in living conditions.
In hindsight they could see how bad an autocratic ruler was for a country and how democracy and fairer working and living conditions for all people makes for a better society and respect for the people in power.
On the other hand this could cause fright between people because the sight of a revolution in Russia could give revolutionary groups still alive in France ideas which means people could be scared of another wave of attempts to over throw the government.
The author of this painting could have also been part of a revolutionary group in France and was painted as a message to other people prepared for a revolution in France.
I think that this source would cause many different views and possibly cause some people to get ideas about revolution in France.
- These three sources are not about ‘Bloody Sunday’. How far do you agree they have no use for the historian studying ‘Bloody Sunday’?
Although these sources are not directly related to ‘Bloody Sunday’ and don’t show any obvious link to ‘Bloody Sunday’ they do actually help with the understanding of the march on ‘Bloody Sunday’ and why the march happened.
Source G explains how that the Tsar, the whole of Russia and the rest of the world expected that Russia would win the war against Japan and they hoped that a victory would sway attention away from problems at home and gain much need support for the Tsar. Russia came up against many problems in the war such as the Straits Convention forbidding the Russian fleet to enter the Mediterranean. This led to the unexpected victory for Japan and the outcome that everyone expected had not become so. The effect of this was the total opposite of what the Tsar was out to achieve and the loss just added to Russia’s problems and many people were turned against the Tsar.
The problems that this added to such as lack of food and money for people in poorer areas such as the peasant farmers created large uprising and the loss against the Japanese caused many people to realise the need for change. This loss against the Japanese is actually one of the reasons that caused the uprising on ‘Bloody Sunday’. This means that this source is not totally useless to a historian studying ‘Bloody Sunday’ because it actually details some of the reasons why the march took place in the first place.
Source H is a diagram drawn by exiles of Russia most likely people from revolutionary groups such as the Bolsheviks. This could tell us how the people in the Bolsheviks were felling about the Tsar and his regime. It shows the Royal family at the top with ‘We rule you’, The church with ‘We mislead you’ underneath it, The army with ‘We shoot you’ underneath it, The capitalists with ‘We do the eating’ and the workers underneath all of it holding up the hole of the structure. This shows us that the people in the revolutionary groups do not like the Tsar and feel the workers should be shown more respect. This is loosely linked to Bloody Sunday because it shows us why the people wanted a revolution and what they were doing it for.
Source I shows us the rapid industrialisation that Russia went through between 1890 and 1900. This could lead us to presume many things. One is that the workers that
Made these industries work were made to work extremely hard probably with no extra reward. Also rapid modernisation allows people a lot more free movement which allowed greater widespread communication which aided the organisation of revolutionary groups and created a larger span of hate for the tsar.
So although these 3 sources are not directly linked to ‘Bloody Sunday’ they do tell us some of the causes of Bloody Sunday such as why people felt they need to do it and why there was hate for their ruler. Therefore I think that these sources could be used by a historian to study Bloody Sunday and provide them with some very useful pieces of information.
- How far do these sources support the view that ‘Bloody Sunday’ was caused by poor living and working conditions in St.Petersburg?
Source A and Source B I believe tend to focus on the actual events of the actual day its self instead of all the things that happened to increase the publics enthusiasm for a march and what the Tsar did or in fact didn’t do to make the people want to march for a better life. Source A is the diary extract from he Tsar’s diary. The diary extract only focuses on what happened the day before the incident and what happened on the actual day. The Tsar doesn’t mention anything about why the marchers were actually protesting but what he does say that the people that were on strike were the people that worked in the factories and workshops in St.Petersburg. This gives us a hint that the march could be about working conditions but not really about living conditions. Source B doesn’t at all really tell us anything about why the people were on strike but is more about the actual day itself and what happened.
Source C and D really go together in reinforcing the point that the workers were marching for better living and working conditions. Source C is a part of the petition that detailed the changes that the peasants were hoping for and this basically tells of what the workers were marching for. It tells of the situation at work: ‘we are oppressed and overburdened with work’ and also how the people are treated in society ‘we are insulted, we are not regarded as human beings, but are treated as slaves who must suffer their bitter lot in silence. We have suffered but are driven further and further into the abyss of poverty, injustice and ignorance.’ This shows to us that the peasants were fed up of being treated like they are just work horses and that it didn’t really matter how they were treated. They describe what they feel like about their work and they describe what happens to them in society. This is very strong evidence that they were campaigning for better living and working conditions. Source D is a picture of the scene at ‘Bloody Sunday’. I think that this image backs up source C in what the peasants say about not being respected and how they have come to there last resort and are tired of being disrespected. The image shows many people in desperation and they all look like they are in severe poverty. I think that sources C and D show us very clearly that the peasants were marching for better living and working conditions. Not only because it is in word but because of the image of the people suffering.
As with sources A and B I see that E and F play no part really in telling us that the marchers were campaigning for better living and working conditions. Source E is an account by Maxim Gorky which depicts a situation where a Cossack kills a peasant with his sword. Nowhere in this source can I see it tells us what caused the march or how it happened. Also with Source F I can see no evidence that it shows us why the peasants were marching. All the picture shows us is the stand off between the soldiers and the peasants. Within these sources I can see no indication to details about the reasons of the marches to Winter Palace.
Sources G, H and I do not actually tell us that the marches were caused by poor working and living conditions alone but they do tell us or indicate to us possible other reasons why the marches and strikes took place. Source G tells us how the loss of the Russo-Japanese war caused many people to loom at the Tsar in a different way. This source does though describe the lack of basic food such as bread a reason for aggravation in the city which tells us that the loss of the war worsened the living conditions and this is a cause of the anger of the peasants and workers. Source H does indicate something about living and working conditions but is more about how the peasants were treated in society and how people higher than them saw them. This could have been a reason for aggravation and a reason for the outbreak of strikes. Source I is very vague on what it did to help along the process of strikes, but behind it is a reason. The rapid modernisation and industrialisation just aided communication between people which aided the spread of hatred for the Tsar.
Source J and K again do not really indicate that the strikes and marches were because of the poor working and living conditions but they do indicate other reasons. Source J shows us the willingness of the Tsar to be an autocratic ruler and rule his people fully without choice. This could have annoyed the workers and peasants as they felt they need the choice and they wanted democracy. Source K relates to Source J in that it shows the industrialisation of the country which possibly aided the communication of the revolutionary groups, the workers and the peasants.
Some of these sources appear to tell us that the reasons for the strikes and marches were that the peasants and workers were fed up with the situation they were. On the other end there are the sources that don’t indicate any reasons for the strikes what so ever. In the middle are the sources that don’t show us that the reasons were because of poor living and working conditions but they indicate other reasons such as the industrialisation of Russia.
