The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

by Daniel Yergin

“Russia’s internal situation” required something drastic, said the Minister of Interior. “We need a little victorious war to stem the tide of revolution.” It was obvious that war was only a matter of time. The Russo-Japanese War began in January 1904 with Japan’s successful surprise attack against the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. Thereafter, the Russian forces lurched from one military disaster to the next, culminating in the burial at sea of the entire Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. The war did not stem the tide of revolution, but rather hastened it. In December 1904, the Baku oil workers went out on strike again, and won their first collective labor agreement. A few days after the strike ended, revolutionaries put out a proclamation, “Workers of the Caucasus, the hour of revenge has struck.” Its author was Stalin. The next day, in St. Petersburg, police fired on a group of workers marching on the Winter Palace to submit a petition to their Czar. This was Bloody Sunday, the beginning of the Revolution of 1905—what Lenin called the Great Rehearsal.