The Decembrists: Russia’s First Revolution

On the cold morning of 14 December 1825 a group of Russian army officers led 3,000 soldiers to Senate Square in central St Petersburg in an attempt to force the tsar’s senate to read their manifesto to the people. That manifesto stated that the tsar had renounced the throne and that the government had been overthrown. It called for a constitution, the abolition of serfdom, and civil rights. After the troops had stood for hours in the wintry square, Tsar Nicholas I, having ascended to the throne just over two weeks earlier, ordered cannons to be brought forward and opened fire on the insurgents. Most were arrested and sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg. Two weeks later a second revolt flared up among officers of Russia’s Second Army in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. This uprising was brutally crushed by government forces. Following a six-month investigation, 121 ‘Decembrists’, as they later became known, were sentenced to hard labour and exile in Siberia and five of the leaders were executed.