The Czar gave from his private purse fifty thousand rubles for the relief
of the families of the victims of Bloody Sunday. On the 19th of January he
received a deputation of carefully selected "loyal" working-men and
delivered to them a characteristic homily, which infuriated the masses by
its stupid perversion of the facts connected with the wanton massacre of
Bloody Sunday. Then, at the end of the month, he proclaimed the appointment
of a commission to "investigate the causes of labor unrest in St.
Petersburg and its suburbs and to find means of avoiding them in the
future." This commission was to consist of representatives of capital and
labor. The working-men thereupon made the following demands:

(1) That labor be given an equal number of members in the commission with
capital;

(2) That the working-men be permitted to freely elect their own
representatives;

(3) That the sessions of the commission be open to the public;

(4) That there be complete freedom of speech for the representatives of
labor in the commission;

(5) That all the working-people arrested on January 9th be released.

These demands of the working-men's organizations were rejected by the
government, whereupon the workers agreed to boycott the commission and
refuse to have anything to do with it. At last it became evident to the
government that, in the circumstances, the commission could not accomplish
any good, and it was therefore abandoned. The Czar and his advisers were
desperate and vacillating. One day they would adopt a conciliatory attitude