The Moscow Uprising occurred 7–17 December 1905; it was centred in the Presnia district and was mainly led by the Bolsheviks. It ended in defeat for the revolutionaries and provoked a swift counter-revolution that lasted till 1907.
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The October Manifesto may have satisfied Russia's liberals with a constitution and free press, but most left-wing revolutionaries saw it as a cynical move by the Tsar to isolate the workers and peasants from the bourgeoisie. Lenin returned from Geneva to St Petersburg on November 8 (21st Gregorian calendar) after months of delaying. He immediately called for an armed uprising, not really caring whether it succeeded or not: "Victory?!...That for us is not the point at all...We should not harbour any illusions, we are realists, and let no-one imagine that we have to win. For that we are still too weak. The point is not about victory but about giving the regime a shake and attracting the masses to the movement. That is the whole point. And to say that because we cannot win we should not stage an insurrection-that is simply the talk of cowards."[1] The final trigger was the arrest of the St. Petersburg Soviet on December 3.
Moscow's Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries planned a revolt on December 5 and hastily called a general strike on December 7. There were four soviets of workers' deputies coordinating the uprising. The governor of Moscow, Vice Admiral Fyodor Dubasov, tried to arrest the ringleaders, which merely provoked a city-wide uprising. The revolt was based in Maxim Gorky's apartment—bombs were made in the study and food for the revolutionaries in the kitchen. Gorky disliked the Bolsheviks' dogmatic collectivism but saw them as an ally against the backward peasants and Tsar. The Joint Council of Volunteer Fighting Squads armed the workers with 800 stockpiled weapons. Barricades were made from whatever people laid their hands on, even overturned trams. 2,000 manned the barricades with 200 guns. The police tried to dismantle them to no avail. Workers were joined by students and even some bourgeois, angered at the violence of the government. December 9: troops shell the Fiedler academy from 10 pm to 3 am. On the evening of the 10th the SRs bombed the HQ of the Moscow Okhrana. December 11: the Bolsheviks issued a handbook on street fighting. December 12: six of the seven railway stations and many districts were in rebel hands, 50 officers were seized as they arrived by train. The troops and artillery were hemmed in the squares and Kremlin. December 15: head of the Moscow[2] Okhrana is assassinated. The Moscow Soviet has its last meeting. Presnia is shelled. December 18: General Min orders the last assault: "Act without mercy. There will be no arrests." December 19: Revolt crushed. August 26 1906: General Min assassinated by a Socialist revolutionary.[3]
The issuing of the October Manifesto and ending of the Russo-Japanese war meant there was no hope for a socialist revolution, but the rebels could well have taken the Kremlin.[4] They failed because each rebel area looked after itself and did not consider the city as a whole. The main rebel district was Presnia, home to 150,000 mainly textile workers. It set up its own police and Soviet rather than attack the Kremlin. Another key failure was that one station, the Nikolaevski station, remained in government hands.[5] This allowed the Semenovsky Regiment (Russia's second oldest)to arrive from St. Petersburg December 15 (the government feared a mutiny if the Moscow garrison were used)[6] It shelled Presnia into submission after two days. On December 18 the uprising was called off, then the General Strike the next day. 35 soldiers died,[7] while 1,059 rebels were killed including 137 women and 86 children.