The government, headed by Count Witte, in its endeavor to break the vigor of the revolutionary proletariat, came to the support of capital, thus turning the question of an eight-hour workday in St. Petersburg into a national problem.  The consequence has been that the working-men of St. Petersburg are unable now, apart from the working-men of the entire country, to realize the decree of the Council.  The Council of Workmen’s Deputies, therefore, deems it necessary to stop temporarily the immediate and general establishment of an eight-hour workday by force.

The Councils inaugurated general strike after general strike.  At first these strikes were successful from a revolutionary point of view.  Soon, however, it became apparent that the general strike is a weapon which can only be used effectively on rare occasions.  It is impossible to rekindle frequently and at will the sacrificial passion necessary to make a successful general strike.  This the leaders of the proletariat of Russia overlooked.  They overlooked, also, the fact that the masses of the workers were exhausted by the long series of strikes in which they had engaged and were on the verge of starvation.  The consequence was that most of the later strikes failed to accomplish anything like the ends sought.

Naturally, the government was recovering its confidence and its courage in proportion to the class divisions and antagonisms of the opposition.  It once more suppressed the revolutionary press and prohibited meetings.  Once more it proclaimed martial law in many cities.  With all its old-time assurance it caused the arrest of the leaders of the unions of workmen and peasants, broke up the organizations and imprisoned their officers.  It issued a decree which made it a crime to participate in strikes.  With the full sanction of the government, as was shown by the publication of documentary evidence of unquestioned authenticity, the Black Hundreds renewed their brutality.  The strong Council of Workmen’s Deputies of St. Petersburg, with which Witte had dealt as though it were part of the government itself, was broken up and suppressed.  Witte wanted constitutional government on the basis of the October Manifesto, but he wanted the orderly development of Russian capitalism.  In this attitude he was supported, of course, by the capitalist organizations.  The very men who in the summer of 1905 had demanded that the government grant the demands of the workers and so end the strikes, and who worked in unison with the workers to secure the much-desired political freedom, six months later were demanding that the government suppress the strikes and exert its force to end disorder.