9th of January by Maxim Gorky
RevSocialist اش... —Tue, 04/13/2010 - 08:10
This short story (28pg) by Gorky is about the 9th of January 1905 mass procession of workers to the Tsar's Winter Palace led by Priest Georgy Gapon, which intended to present a petition to the Tsar. The workers in the procession were peaceful, but the army stationed around the Winter Palace opened fire several times on the peaceful, defenseless workers and slaughtered hundreds of them. This is also known as "Bloody Sunday," and was the start of the 1905 Russian Revolution.
As always, Gorky is elequent and passionate, and portrays the crackdown and betrayal very well. As you will notice when you read the story, Gorky makes the point of singling out the priest Georgy Gapon for the censure of the workers in the procession. The thing to realize about Gapon is that he was a traitor, he worked for the Tsarist secret police, and was excecuted in 1906 by socialist-revolutionists who discovered he was a traitor and informing piece of shit.
Also, this story is another great expression of Gorky's commitement to writing about and for the proletariat and poor, another great example of his proletarian literature. Enjoy comrades:
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