The 1905 Uprising in Sormovo — revolutionary events of 1905 that erupted into fighting in the center of Sormovo and Kanavino, the storming of Moscow Railway Station (Nizhny Novgorod) by government artillery, "incidentally, the police burned down the people's canteen in the center of Sormovo. The officers, chilled through after a day's work, got a chance to warm up".
Contemporary Nizhny Novgorod press claims that the unrest was caused from across the ocean: Japan and its "American allies".
History of the Issue
1905. Shaken by its disgraceful defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the country entered a period of deep crisis. Pogroms, barricades, bloody clashes, and a wave of banditry swept every major city, Nizhny Novgorod included. In the Soviet era all of this was called the "bourgeois-democratic revolution."
"Workers are stockpiling weapons on an enormous scale"
In December 1905, as the country's economic situation worsened, a new wave of mass unrest swept through the cities. On December 7 an armed uprising began in Moscow. The people of Nizhny Novgorod, Sormovo residents first among them, as usual did not stand aside. Caught up in extremist ideas, the workers of the Sormovo Plant spent the start of the month not so much working as gathering for rallies and meetings where they discussed plans for revolt.
The rise of extremist sentiment in society in the early twentieth century, coupled with the sheer helplessness of the authorities, was truly striking. Earning 12 to 13 rubles a month, workingmen willingly paid out 15 rubles for a revolver, and the arms trade went on almost openly at the Sormovo market and even on the plant grounds themselves.
Citizens were urged to "donate" toward weapons, as leaflets plastered everywhere made unambiguously clear. The administration of the Sormovo Plant and of Nizhny Novgorod Province, frightened by the unrest and strikes that had continued all year, turned a blind eye to it all, afraid of provoking the people further.
Starting on December 8, workers began making homemade pikes, sabers, daggers, and even bombs right in the workshops, almost openly. Turner Parikov went further still, building a homemade cannon from drawings prepared in advance. Shells for it were cast in the foundry and then assembled in the apartment of a Sormovo woman.
In the end several, in the language of the law, illegal armed formations — or simply gangs — took shape, the most combat-ready of which was the so-called workers' fighting militia led by Pavel Mochalov, numbering about 200 men. Another such "detachment" was formed in Kanavino, led by the notorious "freedom fighter" Sergei Akimov.
The authorities had an inkling of the popular mood, all the more so since the factory inspector stationed at the plant reported directly: "The workers are stockpiling weapons on an enormous scale, the forges and grindstones are in constant use, large amounts of steel are being taken without permission, and files and other tools are being reworked into weapons." On December 11 Governor Baron von Frederiks reported to the capital: "The situation in Sormovo is extremely dangerous. There may be disorder tomorrow. There are no troops."
The Battle in the Center of Sormovo
At 10 o'clock in the morning on December 12, the plant's whistle let out a piercing wail. Many of the workers knew this was not the signal for a shift to begin, but the start of the uprising. "Work" stopped at once, and the entire crowd of many thousands poured out into the street. Detachments then began taking the surrounding area under their control.
The first serious clash with the mounted police took place in the area of today's Center of Sormovo. Skirmishes and exchanges of gunfire continued through the whole day, and both sides suffered losses. The people's canteen, a popular gathering place for Sormovo workers, changed hands several times.
Having finally captured it, the police took out all their fury there: they smashed the furniture and spat all over the revolutionary leaflets hanging on the walls. The "cops" also came away with rich trophies — three buckets of moonshine and 30 bottles of vodka that the workers had stockpiled. It was freezing outside, and to warm themselves the guardians of order drank the lot on the spot.
Fighting in Sormovo continued after that. The storming of Ivan Churygin's house was full of drama. When police burst into the building, the "revolutionary" threw a bomb in the stairwell. The blast killed two people and wounded two more. The workers then fled through the back door, while the assault group that made it into the building mistakenly hacked with their sabers at a student and an old woman who happened to be there, taking them for militants in the smoke.
The situation was becoming critical. On December 13 the head of the gendarmerie, Colonel Levitsky, reported to his superiors: "The telegraph and telephone have been forcibly shut down, the station is in the hands of a committee headed by Akimov. There are barricades in Sormovo, the telephone poles have been sawn down."
The militants, however, failed to seize the strategic crossing — the bridge at Darino (not far from today's "Golden Mile"). Mochalov decided to dig in for defense, with the school building that towered over the surrounding area and a barricade built beside it as its main strongpoint. At the same time, on the governor's order, Cossacks and a company of gendarmes with artillery were brought into Sormovo.
The Landmine on Comintern Street
Early on the morning of December 14 the police began an artillery bombardment. The guns were positioned by the building of the "Employees' Public Assembly" (today a three-story building fenced with a blue fence in the Center of Sormovo), 800 meters from the main barricade. The first three shells flew over the school building; the fourth burst near the barricade.
Parikov's cannon then opened return fire. From the windows on the top floor, the worker militants watched the results of their hits through binoculars and adjusted their aim. The police, however, were still shooting far more accurately. One shell flew straight through a window, pierced the interior partitions, and burst in a rear classroom, killing and wounding six people.
After prolonged shelling the building was seriously damaged and wreathed in smoke, and the barricade too was partly destroyed. Around 2 p.m. the Cossacks advanced on the barricade. But as they drew close to the obstacle, the worker-terrorists detonated a landmine hidden by the roadside. It was set off by an electric detonator operated by two workers holed up in a barbershop.
The force of the blast was such that it blew out every window in houses within a 200-meter radius. This halted the attackers for a time; they took cover behind houses and kept up their fire, gradually working around the school's flank.
In the end the militants' leader Mochalov decided to break off the fight. By nightfall the surviving workers had scattered to their homes and the surrounding woods, and the badly wounded were carried to the plant hospital. Governor Frederiks telegraphed Interior Minister Bulygin: "Yesterday in Sormovo, through the action of artillery, Cossacks, and police, all the barricades were destroyed."
There was also the storming of Moscow Railway Station (Nizhny Novgorod). At noon on December 15 the artillery opened massed fire on the building and the barricades covering the approaches to it. Some of the shells overshot and burst in Gordeyevka. After several hours of continuous bombardment, the remnants of Akimov's militia raised a white flag and laid down their arms.
The barricades, painstakingly built by the workers, were not dismantled — the authorities feared they would simply be rebuilt. They were simply doused with kerosene and set on fire. In the process the police also burned down the people's canteen in the center of Sormovo. The officers, chilled through after a day's work, got a chance to warm up.
Outcomes
Kanavino and Sormovo suffered considerable damage in the fighting — as if a real war had been fought there. In the latter, 15 residential houses were destroyed and 43 residents killed. Additional security measures were introduced in Nizhny Novgorod and Sormovo just before the New Year.
The governorate was placed under a "state of extraordinary security," a curfew was imposed on the streets, movement in groups of more than two people was forbidden, and access to the surrounding forests was also closed off. By order of the governor, every legal and illegal workers' organization was shut down. Arrests and searches continued right up to Christmas, and about 300 people in all were detained.
Worker Shimborsky, who tried to start a fight with his guards, was shot dead right in the street, and his colleague Minin was bayoneted to death. Sormovo's chief terrorist, Pavel Mochalov, however, managed to escape.
The Sormovo Plant, for its part, announced on December 16 that it was temporarily halting operations and dismissing all its workers. Only on January 12, 1906, did the plant announce that it was hiring again. Strict requirements and restrictions were introduced in the process. Those deemed unreliable, who had been seen in the street disturbances, were turned away under various pretexts, and some were arrested on the spot.