(1) Abolition of indirect taxes and introduction of direct income
    taxes on a progressive scale;

    (2) Abolition of the redemption payments, cheap credit, and
    gradual transferring of the land to the people;

    (3) The orders for the naval and military Ministers should be
    filled in Russia and not abroad;

    (4) The cessation of the war by the will of the people.

    III.  Measures against oppression of labor by capital: 

    (1) Protection of labor by legislation;

    (2) Freedom of consumers’ and producers’ leagues and
    trades-unions;

    (3) An eight-hour workday and a regulation of overtime;

    (4) Freedom of struggle against capital (freedom of labor
    strikes);

    (5) Participation of labor representatives in the framing of a
    bill concerning state insurance of working-men;

    (6) Normal wages.

Those are, Sire, the principal wants with which we have come to you.  Let your decree be known, swear that you will satisfy them, and you will make Russia happy and glorious, and your name will be branded in our hearts and in the hearts of our posterity for ever and ever.  If, however, you will not reply to our prayer, we shall die here, on the place before your palace.  We have no other refuge and no other means.  We have two roads before us, one to freedom and happiness, the other to the grave.  Tell us, Sire, which, and we will follow obediently, and if it be the road of death, let our lives be a sacrifice for suffering-wearied Russia.  We do not regret the sacrifice; we bring it willingly.

Led on by the strange, hypnotic power of the mystical Father Gapon, who was clad in the robes of his office, tens of thousands of working-people marched that day to the Winter Palace, confident that the Czar would see them, receive their petitions, and harken to their prayers.  It was not a revolutionary demonstration in the accepted sense of that term; the marchers did not carry red flags nor sing Socialist songs of revolt.  Instead, they bore pictures of the Czar and other members of the royal family and sang “God Save the Czar” and other well-known religious hymns.  No attempt was made to prevent the procession from reaching the square in front of the Winter Palace.  Suddenly, without a word of warning, troops appeared from the courtyards, where they were hidden, and fired into the crowded mass of human beings, killing more than five hundred and wounding nearly three thousand.  All who were able to do so turned and fled, among them Father Gapon.