Lena massacre
04/18/1912 AD attacked
Striking mine workers were met by soldiers, who began shooting on the crowd by the order of Captain Treshchenkov, resulting in hundreds of dead and wounded. The local newspaper Zvezda, among others, reported 270 dead and 250 wounded.
The incident did much to stimulate revolutionary feeling in Russia, and Alexander Kerensky's reporting of it in the Duma brought him to public notice for the first time.
The miners endured exceptionally harsh working conditions: A 15 - 16 hour workday, and.for every 1000 workers, there were more than 700 accidents. A meager salary was paid in coupons redeemable in stores at the mine itself — less any fines fines levied.
On March 13 the strike triggered at the Andreyevsky goldfield by the distribution of rotten meat at one of these stores.
On March 17, the workers established their demands: an 8-hour workday, a 30% raise in wages, the elimination of fines, and the improvement of food delivery. None of these demands were agreed to by the administration.
On the night of April 17, all members of the strike committee were arrested by tsarist government troops sent from Kirensk to Bodaybo.
The next morning, the workers demanded their immediate release. That afternoon, some 2,500 people marched towards the Nadezhdinsky goldfield to deliver their complaint and the massacre began.
