Factory conditions were unsafe and dangerous, with frequent accidents. If there was an accident, workers received little compensation for their injuries. Factory workers labored as much as 15 hours a day, under harsh policies from those running the factories. Factory owners essentially treated factory workers like serfs -- so having been emancipated from serfdom meant little or nothing. And workers' strikes were illegal.
When the workers approached the Winter Palace in 1905 to petition the tsar, the result was catastrophic. Imperial troops fired on them, in what has become known as "Bloody Sunday."
