Stolypin's land reform happened at the same time as his repressions of peasant unrest and worker strikes. There was constant police repression of trade unions and revolutionary groups.
Then in 1912, a year after Stolypin's assassination, there was a massacre of strikers at the Lena goldfields in Siberia
Working conditions for the gold miners along the Lena river had been terrible. One day, workers from one mining gang protested about the rotten horse meat they were supposed to eat. This lead to a strike that spread throughout the goldfields.
A number of strike leaders were arrested. The event turned into a mass protest of workers who brought lists of demands to their managers
As the huge crowd approached, troops fired into the crowd. Between 200 and 500 workers were killed, with hundreds more wounded
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The Lena Goldfields Massacre
The Lena Goldfields massacre kick-started a storm of protest throughout Russia
After the massacre, nearly 2,000 workers went on strike
The reaction to the Lena Goldfields massacre showed that none of the reasons for discontent with the tsarist rule had gone away
Instead of Russia moving towards better conditions and freedom, the tsar and his government continued to hold on to autocratic power, using the police and army to crush any opposition
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