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Russian Peasants in the Factory 1892–1904

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Theodore H. Von Laue
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside

Extract

The character and revolutionary potential of Russian factory labor in the early phases of industrialization have been a source of controversy for over two generations. While no longer a matter of the utmost consequence, the problems of analysis and the conclusions involved in this debate have retained their significance not only for the study of the Russian revolutions but also for our contemporary experience with labor in underdeveloped countries. The following pages, dealing with the crucial years around 1900, intend to apply a modern approach to an ancient subject, starting with the question of the relationship between peasants and workers in the Russian factories and advancing to the problem of the “exploitation” of the workers by the “capitalists.”

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1961

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References

1 Cited in Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii v xix v. Sbornik dokumentov, III, Part 2, 1890–1894 (Moscow, 1952), 567 ff.Google Scholar

2 Pogozhev, A. V., Uchet chislennosti i sostava rabochykh v. Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1906), p. 101.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., see particularly chart #18.

4 Maslov, P., Agrarnyi vopros v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1906, 3rd ed.), p. 379.Google Scholar

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6 Pogozhev, Uchet chislennosti, p. 102.

7 I have grave doubts whether one can go as far as P. I. Liashchenko (Istoriia narodnago khoziaistva SSSR, II, 165), who says that one half of the Russian industrial workers belonged to the hereditary proletariat.

8 Liashchenko, Istoriia, II, 92.

9 Ibid., p. 165 (94.2%).

10 Pogozhev, Uchet chislennosti, p. xiv, footnote 1.

11 A. M. Pankratova, “Proletarizatsiia krestianstva i ee rol v formirovanii promyshlennago proletariata Rossii,” Istoricheskie zapiski, #54, p. 213.

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17 S. N. Prokopovich, “Krestianstvo i poreformennaia fabrika,” in Velikaia reforma, VI, 171.

18 Ibid. Prokopovich's deductions from these statistics are, perhaps, somewhat weak. All the same, they were part of the narodnik case.

19 Cited by Bernshtein-Kogan, S., Chislennost, sostav i polozhenie peterburgskikh rabochikh. Opyt statisticheskago izsledovaniia (St. Petersburg, 1910), p. 53 ff.Google Scholar

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23 For a discussion of the fines fund, see the author's article, “Factory Inspection under the Witte System,” American Slavic and East European Review, XIX, no. 3, 359.

24 Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 610 ff; in the investigation of the strike at the Gusev Manufaktur of Nechaev-Maltsev in 1894.

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27 Bernshtein-Kogan, Chislennost, p. 64.

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34 Gvozdev, Zapiski, p. 153.

35 For a Marxist's approval of this development see, for instance, Lenin, , Razvitie kapitalizma v Rossii (Moscow, 1952), p. 204, also p. 497.Google Scholar

36 Gvozdev, Zapiski, p. 149/150, the description of a factory village.

37 Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 533, also p. 511, for the strike at Zindel's.

38 For a sample, ibid., p. 270; see also Lenin's pamphlet, ibid., p. 545, containing the same phrase.

39 I. Kh. Ozerov, Politika po rabochemu voprosu v Rossii za poslednyie gody, p. 104.

40 Varzar, , Statisticheskiia svedeniia o stachkakh rabochikh na fabrikakh i zavodakh za desiatiletie 1895–1904 goda (St. Petersburg, 1903).Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 8; on the duration of strikes, p. 38.

42 Ibid., pp. 9–10.

43 Ibid., p. 11.

44 Ibid., p. 27.

45 Ibid., p. 27, cf. also p. 14; only one half of the workers were involved, on the average, in a strike.

46 Ibid., p. 16 ff. See also the article by Skrobot, S. S.: “Stachechnaia borba peterburgskikh rabochikh v 1891–1895 gg,” Istoriia SSSR, #5 (1958), p. 105 ff.Google Scholar

47 Varzar, Statisticheskiia svedeniia, p. 11.

48 Ibid., p. 52.

49 Ibid., p. 12. See also Fenin's opinion that, under identical conditions otherwise, a strike was likely only in large, not in small mines; (Fenin, A. I., Vospominaniia inzhenera. K istorii obshchestvennago i khoziaistvennago ravitiia Rossii (1882–1906), p. 147.Google Scholar

50 On the relations between the government and the workers see Rimlinger, G. V., “Autocracy and the Factory Order,” Journal of Economic History, XX, no. i, 6792.Google Scholar

51 Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 296 ff.

52 Ibid., p. 511 ff.

53 Ibid., p. 307 ff.

54 Varzar, Statisticheskiia svedeniia, p. 20.

55 Fenin, Vospominaniia, p. 149.

58 Promyshlennyi mir, #7, 16 February 1902, p. 164.