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Russia's Railwaymen, July-October 1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Wilson R. Augustine
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Extract

The All-Russian Union of Railwaymen, formed in April 1917, was the largest labor association in revolutionary Russia and by far the most strategically located. The railway workers bestrode the system which carried troops to a crumbling military front and grain to great cities on the edge of famine. Exhausted Russia was so close to catastrophe that the railwaymen enjoyed the power to produce incalculable social effects merely by a stoppage of rail traffic for a few days. They had, moreover, an impressive revolutionary history. In 1905 their hastily and illegally formed organization had led all Russia in a general strike which quickly paralyzed the country and had been directly responsible for wringing a constitution from the autocracy.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 666 - 679
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1965

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References

1 A contraction of (All- Russian Executive Committee of Railwaymen).

2 (New York), May I960 (No. 741), p. 97.

3 (Leningrad, 1928), pp. 324-25.

4 (Moscow, 1924), pp. 6-7.

5 (1st ed.), Vol. X (1928). Also 1917-1920 rr.,» an unpublished manuscript excerpted and translated in R. Browder and A. Kerensky, The Russian Provisional Government 1917: Documents, II (Stanford, 1961), 762.

6 , 1917 i. (Moscow, 1958), p. 852 (in series ).

7 Naglovsky, quoted in Browder and Kerensky, II, 762. C. (New York, 1962), p. 20, records that the executive committee elected by this conference comprised four Mensheviks, four Popular Socialists, one Ukrainian Social Democrat, and three nonparty men. It would have been unusual for a Russian workmen's organization in 1917 to elect a more right-wing group.

8 (Moscow, 1923), p. 175.

9 , p. 10.

10 The splitting off of the left SR's in September was long preceded by ideological division in the party. See Oliver, Radkey, The Agrarian Foes of Bolshevism (New York, 1958)Google Scholar.

11 Trotsky's party, which was at the time of the Congress preparing to merge with the Bolsheviks.

12 , p. 176. The July Days were July 3 and 4. The Congress opened on July 15.

13 , p. 10.

14 (Moscow, 1957), p. 9. This source gives full details of the wage schedule worked out by the Congress.

15 August 17, 1917, p. 6; excerpted and translated in Browder and Kerensky, II, 756.

16 The minutes of the meeting of the Saratov Soviet in (Moscow, 1957), p. 9 (in series ).

17 August 19, 1917, p. 3; in Browder and Kerensky, II, 757.

18 , p. 11.

19 “Appeal of the Minister President to the Railroadmen in Connection with the Threatened Strike of September,” in Browder and Kerensky, II, 758.

20 September 24, 1917, pp. 4-5; in Browder and Kerensky, II, p. 759.

21 , p. 12.

22 September 24, 1917, pp. 4-5; in Browder and Kerensky, II, p. 759. It is interesting to compare the hesitancy of this proclamation with the enthusiastic response of ordinary union members, for example, in the proclamations of railwaymen's organizations condemning Kerensky and vowing to carry through the strike to a successful conclusion; see 1917 i. (Moscow, 1961), pp. 322 and 336 (in series ).

23 September 24, 1917, pp. 4-5; in Browder and Kerensky, II, 760.

24 ,September 27, 1917, pp. 5-6; in Browder and Kerensky, II, 761.

25 1917 i., p. 337.

26 Ibid., p. 348. The editors mention, without presenting any documentation, that similar demonstrations took place on the Moscow-Windau-Rybinsk, the Samara-Zlatoust, and “a few other” lines (p. 563).

27 (Moscow,1961), p. 240 (in series ).

28 Ibid., p. 290.

29 , p. 339. It is worth recalling here (indeed this reflection is relevant to the entire study of Vikzhel’ and its union) that no complete study has ever been done on this subject, nor are the archives for the period open to all. The author therefore is at the mercy of Soviet scholars and editors for information and documents which form only a part of the whole story. Thus it is impossible to estimate the number of instances of resistance to the ending of the strike. But, in my judgment, the instances of which we know represent only part of a large number, and the premature ending of the strike is of great importance in the story of the alienation of the workers from Vikzhel'.

30 Compare , p. 10, with , p. 177.

31 Radkey, pp. 413 ff.

32 , p. 8.

33 Ibid., p. 12.

34 , pp. 134-38.

35 Piatnitsky reports that there were other prerevolutionary cells on the Kursk, Kazan, and Aleksandrovsk lines; see (Moscow, 1923),pp. 23 and 82.

36 Naglovsky, quoted in Browder and Kerensky, II, 763.

37 , p. 54.

38 For example, see p. 306.

39 Naglovsky, in Browder and Kerensky, II, 763.

40 , ed., p. 6.

41 , p . 30.

42 , p. 13.

43 , p. 381.

44 1917 i., p- 174. Of course abstention was necessary, since Vikzhel’ had not yet pronounced on the subject, leaving its loyal followers without guidance.

45 , pp.98-100.

46 For evidence of Lenin's intense interest in railway matters at this meeting, see the article by (Moscow, 1957), p. 374 (: »).

47 , p. 100.

48 Ibid., p. 98.

49 H. p. 10.