We have received the following reports about the events in Łódź, one from June 20 and one from June 21.
(Łódź, June 20, from our correspondent)—Today at 6 p.m. a huge demonstration began, and lasted until 9:30 in the evening.
The Social Democratic workers of Łódź were accompanying to their final resting place the victims of tsarist thuggery who fell last Sunday. On Sunday, June 18, Social Democracy had arranged a so-called May Day–type of outing or excursion (that is, a form of mass meeting, held in the open, outside of the city, which is customary in Russian Poland). It took place in the Lagiewnik Forest, where many agitational speeches were given in front of the assembled crowd of workers. After the close of the meeting, the Social Democratic workers marched with party banners unfurled to the Zgierski Forest. Here, halfway to the city, the banners came down, and the mass march broke up into small groups that made their way separately back to the city. One group kept their banners unfurled all the way into the city. Here, on the corner of Lagiewnik and Müller streets, in the city’s Baluty district, the comrades were attacked by a Cossack patrol, with ten persons being killed and many wounded, including a two-year-old child! The incident stirred up tremendous indignation among the workers. Social Democracy immediately decided to organize a funeral march for the burial of the fallen as a political protest, and at the same time began an energetic agitation in the factories. Nowadays in Warsaw and in Łódź, agitation is carried on openly in the courtyards of the factories, and when Social Democrat speakers appear there, work stops and the workers gather in the yard. Such “factory meetings,” in which hundreds and even thousands of workers participate, take place daily—now in one factory, now in another—so that the police have given up completely on trying to fight against them, and the factory owners, out of fear of the workers, allow the meetings to go on.
By noontime on June 20, some factories had already stopped work, and during the course of the afternoon the rest of them did too. All together, the workers streamed to Church Square. Military forces were also occupying the streets so thickly that you could hardly step into the street. The greatest difficulty for the party was to get hold of the bodies of the murdered workers, which were at different locations, being watched over closely by the police. Finally, five coffins were successfully brought to Brzezińska Street, and from that location the march began. Even at the start it numbered 25,000. Banners were carried at the front, a black one and two red banners of Social Democracy. Confrontation with the Cossacks seemed unavoidable at many places along the way, and at one point panic broke out in one part of the giant march. But the masses were so firm and determined that they would not give way or go back even one step. Around those who were frightened or wavering, shouts went up immediately and loudly: “Not one step back! Don’t weaken! Stand firm as a rock! Make a solid wall!” And the march went on, with the singing of “The Red Banner” and the shouting of revolutionary slogans.
The conduct and mood of this enormous mass on the march, which at every corner crossed paths with a patrol of troops and police, was truly admirable. When the front of the march flowed into the cemetery, the rest of the march had to stop because only part of the huge crowd could fit in the cemetery. The orators of Social Democracy made use of that at once to give two agitational speeches, one about the political situation and the tasks of the revolution, and one about the position taken by Social Democracy toward the soldiers. The speeches were welcomed with roars of enthusiasm. In the cemetery itself, another speech was given—about the conduct of the clergy in the present revolution. Finally, the banners were rolled up and the masses dispersed in small groups without incident.
A second piece of correspondence reports about the bloodbath of the following day:
(Łódź, June 21, from our correspondent)—With awful precision a repetition of the fate of Warsaw’s May Day demonstration was repeated today. We were lured into a trap by the military in the most treacherous way. Today another one of the victims of last Sunday’s butchery was to be buried. By 6 p.m. the workers had already gathered in countless numbers in the Old City. Then it turned out that the police had gotten hold of the corpse and buried it in complete secrecy. At this news, the workers became enraged. The party wanted to call off the demonstration since the planned burial had been thwarted, but the assembled masses would not hear of leaving. Thus, the funeral march began. At Franziskaner Street, the banners were unfurled. Along the way, new masses of people kept streaming in, to join the march, and soon almost all of proletarian Łódź had gathered, and the enthusiasm knew no bounds. Along the way, the military patrols deliberately sought to stay away from our line of march, and even the police wore friendly expressions on their faces and nodded their heads at us. And so, the march succeeded in going from the wide streets of the “better” districts and entered the narrow alleys of the workers’ quarter. From the behavior of the soldiers no one any longer harbored any thought of being attacked, and the workers marched trustfully onward. Now, suddenly, as we pressed into the narrow alleys, it turned out that the Cossacks were blocking the way up ahead and behind us the military had already cut off any retreat. All of the side streets were also thickly occupied by the thugs, making it impossible to escape!
And then the salvos began to crackle, without any order to disperse or the usual warning!
A terrible panic broke out. People pushed and shoved against each other in a vain attempt to get away from the murderous bullets, so that some were nearly suffocated. Many tried to escape through adjoining barbed wire fences. The gates to apartment buildings were broken down and people tried to save themselves in the courtyards. But the gangs of soldiers fired at those in flight, and soon there were heaps of corpses and maimed bodies lying in front of and inside the entrance halls of the buildings. It is impossible at this moment to tell the exact number of victims. It will not be fewer than one hundred, in any case. Right now, we don’t even know how many or which of our agitators have fallen as victims of this butchery; only one thing is certain—we have suffered painful losses. In response to this atrocity, Social Democracy has at this moment proclaimed a general strike for [tomorrow,] Friday, June 23.
No detailed news about the events on Friday has become available. The telephone and telegraph systems seem not to be functioning.