Talk:George Gapon
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"the Assembly of Russian Factory and Plant Workers of St. Petersburg, which was subsidised by the Department of the Police and the St. Petersburg secret police, Okhranka."
Who says this ? The comunists ? Any proofs of this ? --84.154.105.52 10:45, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- This isn't in dispute and indeed does not show that Gapon was dishonerable - he was a sincere monachist who believed that the Tsar wanted to help the workers too.Dejvid 11:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I think part of this article should be rewritten to reflect the fundamental ambiguity of Pope Gapon... Even the communists at marxists.com seem to accept that he wasn't a "traitor" :
ABOUT THE ASSEMBLY
- Gapon’s “union”, set up in April 1904, was in reality a friendly society which organised insurance schemes, libraries and social activities, such as musical evenings which the workers attended with their families. It was intended as a safety-valve where workers , to some extent, could give voice to their grievances, but where all mention of politics was rigorously prohibited.[...] However, the efforts of the police and their union stooges to clamp the workers’ movement into a straitjacket of legal constraints was doomed to failure. The rising tide of discontent which affected all layers of society in the course of the Russo-Japanese War, began to affect even the most backward strata of the working class.
ABOUT GAPON
- The figure of Gapon himself is shrouded in an enigma. The prevailing opinion in Marxist circles at the time was that he was a simple police agent, who in all probability had deliberately planned the massacre of 9 January 1905 with the authorities. The notorious Stalinist Short Course states baldly that “in 1904, prior to the Putilov strike, the police had used the services of an agent provocateur, a priest by the name of Gapon… Gapon undertook to assist the tsarist Okhrana [secret police] by providing a pretext for firing on the workers and drowning the working class movement in blood”.[6] Gapon was undoubtedly mixed up with the police when the union was set up, and even had contacts with leading members of the government. But his was a very contradictory character. On 9 January, when he narrowly escaped death at the hands of the tsarist troops, he marched side by side with the Social Revolutionary Pinchas Rutenberg. Later he was sheltered by Maxim Gorky, held discussions with Lenin in Geneva and came close to the Bolsheviks. Lenin was convinced of his child-like sincerity. But Gapon’s understanding of the revolution remained on a primitive level. Exile destroyed him, as it destroyed many others. He became demoralised, took to gambling and finally returned to Russia where, it seems, he attempted to resume his contacts with the police, writing a letter to the Minister of the Interior Durnovo. Finally, in March 1906, he was assassinated. Ironically, the bullet that killed him was fired by the same SR who had marched at his side on that fateful Sunday in January.
http://www.marxist.com/bolshevism/part2-1.html
Rdavout 09:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Could someone fix this sentence?
"Following the Bloody Sunday, he anathematized the Emperor and called upon the workers to take action against the regime, but soon after escaped abroad, where he had close ties with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party."69.6.162.160 16:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)Brian Pearson
