The motive force of the 1905 Revolution was supplied by the mass
strike movement of Russia's urban and industrial workers. In the year
1905 alone, the country witnessed over 13,000 strikes involving some
2.7 million strikers, about seven times as many as occurred in the en-
tire preceding decade. In addition, 33 percent of the factories and
60 percent of the workers struck, compared to fewer than 1 percent
of the factories and 3 percent of the workers in the period from 1895
to 1904. ¹

This vast strike movement was the most distinctive feature of the
revolution in 1905, and workers were the most important single social
group responsible for bringing about the political reforms granted by
the Tsarist regime in response to the disorders. Their mass strikes
supplied most of the force behind the revolutionary alliance against
the autocracy, an alliance that ranged from peasant to professional.
The rapid adoption of the slogans of radical democracy by the strikers
inspired the educated opposition at every turn, encouraging it to be-
lieve that the alliance was more solid than it in fact proved to be. After
October 17, the government's promise of civil liberties and an elected
legislature mollified much of the opposition, and most of the liberals
abandoned militant unity for orderly electoral campaigning as sepa-
rate parties. The strikers, meanwhile, focused on their still unsatisfied
political and workplace demands and, where they did not escalate to
armed revolts, they rallied to the authority of the newly created cen-

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