After the Bloody Sunday of January 9, 1905, Merezhkovsky's views changed drastically, the defeat of the Imperial Russian Navy by the Imperial Japanese Navy helping him see, as he put it, "the anti-Christian nature of the Russian monarchy." The 1905 Revolution was now seen by Merezhkovsky as a prelude for some kind of a religious upheaval he thought himself to be a prophet of. The writer became an ardent supporter of the civil unrest, writing pro-revolutionary verse, organizing protest parties for students, like that in Alexandrinsky theatre. In October 1905 he greeted the government's 'freedoms-granting' decree but since then was only strengthening ties with leftist radicals, notably, esers.