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Labor Violence and Regime Brutality in Tsarist Russia: The Iuzovka Cholera Riots of 1892

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Theodore H. Friedgut
Theodore H. Friedgut*
Affiliation:
Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Extract

Recent monographs on Russian social development have raised a number of hypotheses regarding our general understanding of processes of political and social change. In his volume on the early history of Russian workers Reginald Zelnik, for instance, proposes that moderate labor unrest reinforced traditional repressive patterns, while extreme conflicts motivated innovative reform. In the work of Robert E. Johnson and of Victoria Bonnell we find the suggestion that workers in small-scale enterprises and artisan shops were often more radical and organized than those in larger industrial enterprises. The fragmented and antagonistic nature of Russian society, with multiple splits of both an intergroup and intragroup nature, has been noted in the work of both Roberta Manning and Allan Wildman. Diane Koenker, focusing her research on the period of the 1917 revolutions, has brought out the moderating and integrating effect of the urban setting on Russian workers. These are only a few of the many thought-provoking hypotheses that have been raised.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , Summer 1987 , pp. 245 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1987

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References

1. Zelnik, Reginald E., Labor and Society in Tsarist Russia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UniversityPress, 1971), p. 199 Google Scholar; Johnson, Robert E., Peasant and Proletarian (New Brunswick, N.J.: RutgersUniversity Press, 1979), p. 155ff Google Scholar; Bonnell, Victoria E., Roots of Rebellion (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1983, pp. 443–445 Google Scholar. Regarding antagonism between uezdniki and the third elementsee Manning, Roberta T., The Crisis of the Old Order in Russia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress, 1982), pp. 51–53 Google Scholar. See Wildman, Allan K., The Making of a Workers’ Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967 Google Scholar, regarding problems of relations between workers, workerintelligenty, and intelligentsia. Both Johnson and Zelnik also touch on this problem, one that appearscentral to the Russian revolutionary movement. For an extensive list of works in Russian labor andsocial history see Ronald Grigor Suny, “Violence and Class Consciousness in the Russian WorkingClass,” Slavic Review 41 (Fall 1982): 436 nn. 1, 2. Diane Koenker's research can be found in Moscow Workers and the 1917 Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 54–55, 92–93.

2. An exception is Suny's, Ronald Grigor The Baku Commune (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress, 1972)Google Scholar, which deals with the 1917 revolutionary period and focuses on relations betweennational groups along with working-class conditions and organization.

3. This article is part of a book-length study tentatively titled “Iuzovka and Revolution: Politicsand Society in the Donbass, 1869–1924. “

4. For the industrialists’ point of view see Zemstvo i gornaia promyshlennost’ (Khar'kov: Sovetsoiuza gornopromyshlennikov iuga Rossii, 1908). A reading of the Vestnik Ekaterinoslavskago zemslva, 9 Ekaterinoslav weekly, for the years 1903–1905 shows the zemstvo-industrialist friction in all itsramifications. See also Liberman, L. A., V ugol'nom tsarstve (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 102–103.Google Scholar

5. Koenker, Diane, “Collective Action and Collective Violence in the Russian Labor Movement.” Slavic Review 41 (Fall 1982): 44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 14, citing Tugan-Baranovskii.

6. Potolov, S. I., Rabochie Donbassa v XIX veke (Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk, 1963), p. 106 Google Scholar.

7. Lukomskaia, I. M., “Formirovanie promyshlennogo proletariata Donbassa: 70-e i nachalo80-kh godov XIX v.,” Iz istorii razvitiia rabochego i revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia (Moscow: Akademiianauk SSSR, 1958, p. 296 Google Scholar.

8. Vestnik flnansov, promyshlennosti i torgovli (St. Petersburg), no. 1 (1908): 11–12.

9. Report of the Ekaterinoslav commandant of the gendarmes, in Pankratova, A. M., ed., Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii 4 vols. (Mosow: Izdatel'stvo sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoi literatury, 1963) 3 (pt.2): 214 Google Scholar.

10. Sbornik statisticheskikh svedenii po Ekaterinoslavskoi gubemii, vol. 3, Slavianoserbskii uezd (Ekaterinoslav, 1886), p. 363.

11. Sviatlovskii, V. V., Khar'kovskii fabrichnyi okrug—otchet za 1885 g. (St. Petersburg: Ministerstvofinansov, 1886), p. 117 Google Scholar.

12. See, for instance, Iakovlev, P. N., “Rabochie Nelepovskago kamennougol'nago rudnika,” Meditsinskii zhurnal, no. 6 (1905): 30–31 Google Scholar.

13. Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 2 (pt. 1): 574; see also Moiseenko, P. A., Vospominaniia starogo revoliutsionera (Moscow, 1966), p. 165 Google Scholar; Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 134. Istoriia rabochikh Donbassa (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1981) 1: 131, names four such schools in 1900, but two of these, Mariupol’ and Lisichansk, are on the fringes of the Donbass and may not have been counted byPotolov.

14. Garshin, E. M., “Poezdka na Iuzovskii zavod i poputnyia zametki o tekhnicheskom obrazovaniiv Donetskom kamennougol'nom raione,” Trudy komissii po tekhnicheskomu obrazovaniiu, 1890–1891, vypusk 3 (St. Petersburg, 1891), pp. 10–11 Google Scholar.

15. Manning, Crisis of the Old Order, p. 53.

16. Trudy s “ezda gornopromyshlennikov iuga Rossii: XV, 1890 (Khar'kov, 1891), p. 102. Grantingof permission came nine years later; see Gomo-zavodskii listok, no. 15 (1899): 3, 913.

17. McKay, John P., Pioneers for Profit (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 247 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. Cited in Los', F. E., ed., Istoriia robitnichnogo klasi Ukrain'skoi RSR (Kiev, 1967) 1: 128 Google Scholar.

19. Trudy s “ezda gornopromyshlennikov iuga Rossii, Ekstrennyi s “ezd, August 1893 g. (Khar'kov, 1894), p. vii. Although the chairman's report cited here attributes the exodus of workers solely to theharvest season, stenographic records of the session (e.g., p. 78) note the cholera epidemic as a factor.

20. Sbornik statisticheskikh svedenii 3: 363. This survey found two such mines out of nineteenvisited.

21. Gonimov, I. A., Staraia luzovka (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1967), p. 95 Google Scholar. The story, andmost certainly the precise words of the dialog, are probably apocryphal. The purist may well balk ataccepting a povest’ containing unsubtantiated dialogue as a historical source. Gonimov is, however, as rewarding as he is problematic. He has clearly made extensive use of such local archival resourcesas Hughes's correspondence, factory records, and a church journal kept by the local priest. WhereverGonimov's writing can be checked against published documents and memoirs he proves to be honestin his use of the sources. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 6, writes that Gonimov's work far surpassesother academic histories. Lukomskaia, “Formirovanie,” p. 292, nn. 14, 17, cites the 1937 edition ofStaria luzovka in her essay, which in my opinion is impressively documented and thoroughly scholarly.While such elements as quotations of direct dialogue should be taken as illustrative of atmosphererather than as historically precise conversation, the opportunity of using Gonimov as a channel fromwhich to draw on the resources of the Donetsk oblast’ historical archive should not be rejected. Inaddition, Gonimov's povest’ appears at points to give a more accurate rendering of events than dosome of the official reports of civil servants.

22. Bervi-Flerovskii, V. V. Polozhenie rabochego klassa v Rossii (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoesotsial'no-ekonomicheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1938), p. 353 Google Scholar.

23. Kolpenskii, V., “Kholernyi bunt v 1892 g.” Arkhiv istorii truda v Rossii 3 (Petrograd, 1922): 105 Google Scholar.

24. See, for instance, Pasiuk, A. N., “Rabochee dvizhenie na predpriatiiakh novorossiiskogoobshchestva, 1875–1905,” Letopis’ revoliutsii, no. 3 (May-June 1927): 208.Google Scholar

25. Rashin, A. G., Formirovanie rabochego klassa Rossii (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo sotsial'no-politicheskoiliteratury, 1958), p. 30 Google Scholar.

26. Pasiuk, “Rabochee dvizhenie,” p. 208. See also Kharechko, Taras, “Sotsial-demokraticheskiisoiuz gornozavodskikh rabochikh,” Letopis’ revoliutsii, no. 3 (1925): 9.Google Scholar

27. Brower, Daniel, “Labor Violence in Russia in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Slavic Review 41 (Fall 1982): 423–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. Kolpenskii, “Kholernyi bunt,” p. 108.

29. Ibid., p. 113, Levus', “Iz istorii revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Donetskom Basseine,” Narodnoe delo, sbornik 3 (Paris, 1909), pp. 50–51; Kharechko, “Sotsial-demokraticheskii soiuz,” p. 9.

30. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 216.

31. For details of the 1874 and 1875 strikes see ibid., pp. 180–184. Note that Pasiuk begins hischronicle of the luzovka labor movement “Rabochee dvizhenie,” only in 1875, omitting the 1874strike altogether.

32. Khrushchev, Nikita S., Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown), p. 287 Google Scholar; Sliozberg, Genrikh B., Deta minuvshikh dnei (Paris, 1934), 2: 139 Google Scholar.

33. Frieden, Nancy M., Russian Physicians in an Era of Reform and Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 143–158 Google Scholar, discusses in some detail the wave of violence againstdoctors in 1892 and the physicians’ vain efforts to prevent or escape such violence.

34. Rude, George, The Crowd in History (New York: John Wiley, 1964, p. 245 Google Scholar.

35. Quoted in Silenko, A. F., V. V. Veresaev (Tula: Tul'skoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1956), p. 21 Google Scholar.The miners had no evident reason to be unhappy with Veresaev as a doctor, for of the eight minerswho fell ill, only two died. Both the incidence of illness and the death rate are well below the averagefor the Donbass. The Karpov mines employed about one thousand miners at the time.

37. See copy of the telegram in ibid., p. 271.

36. N. S. Avdakov, reporting on the July anticholera session, in Trudy s “ezda, 17th Congress (November 1892), p. 225.

38. Ibid., pp. 240–241. The list of those attending is in ibid., p. 226. A few additional representatives, including Ivor Hughes for the New Russian Company, were invited and sent their approval of the meeting but did not attend. Gonimov is mistaken in dating the meeting as 11 May and in writingthat Hughes actually attended.

39. Ibid., p. 229, pp. 234–236; Gonimov, Staraia Iuzovka, pp. 92, 96.

40. Avdakov's report is in Trudy s “ezda, 17th Congress (November 1892), pp. 233–234.

41. Financial report of A. F. Mevius in ibid., pp. 263–264.

42. Ibid. See the correspondence on pp. 291–295. The mines involved ranged from small peasantmines whose owners refused to put out money for the construction of isolation barracks to a mine ofthe South Russian Coal Company that employed 2, 500 workers and the Pavlovka mines with 2, 000workers.

43. Brower, “Labor Violence in Russia,” p. 417.

44. The account given by Ekaterinoslav governor Shlippe in Pankratova, ed., Rabochee divzhenie 3 (pt. 2): 209 differs only in that the claim is made that the woman requested hospitalization and that the riot began on the bazaar square rather than in Pazhitnov, Sobachevka. K. A., Polozhenie rabochego klassa v Rossii, 2nd ed. (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol'za, 1908), p. 176 Google Scholar, presents the entire episode as a strike, virtually ignoring the element of cholera. The “folklore” of a strike committee andan intended strike thus antedates the Soviet historiography of the riots.

45. See Inspector Ivanov's testimony reported in Russkiia vedomosti, no. 326 (25 November1892), p. 4. See also Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, pp. 211–212, n. 126.

46. Donskaia rech', 20 September 1892, p. 3.

47. Russkiia vedomosti, no. 326 (25 November 1892), p. 4, for Dr. Kazas's testimony. Ibid., no.327 (26 November 1892), p. 3, has a similar account by special missions clerk Zhitkovskii.

48. Report of the Ekaterinoslav governor to the minister of the interior, December 1892, inPankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 561. Kolpenskii, “Kholernyi bunt,” p. 113, gives a morecomplete version of what appears to be the same document. Kolpenskii identifies Governor Shlippeas the author but gives no details of source or context. For a similar view of the degrading nature ofthe Donbass workers* lives see P. Surozhskii, “Krai uglia i zheleza,” Sovremennik no. 4 (1913), p.297.

49. Confirmation of the date and the purpose of the meeting are in Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2), p. 212. The content of the discussion is from Kolpenskii, “Kholernyi bunt,” p. 112.Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 213, accepts the version that no demands were put forward during the riots. Gonimov, Staraia luzovka, p. 107, is alone in claiming that the riot leaders demanded better living conditions and better treatment for cholera victims. The only testimony that could possibly beconstrued as substantiation of Gonimov's position is Zhitkovskii's statement in court that just beforethe outbreak of the riot, the crowd around the house of the cholera-stricken Mrs. Pavlov expressed dissatisfaction with local anticholera measures. See Russkiia vedomosti, no. 327 (26 November 1892), p. 3.

50. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 215.

51. Rude, The Crowd in History, pp. 216, 227.

52. Levus', “Iz istorii,” p. 50.

53. Gonimov, Staraia luzovka, p. 100.

54. Political survey for 1892 by the Ekaterinoslav guberniia commandant of gendarmes in‘ankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 214. See also Brower, “Labor Violence in Russia,” ). 418.

55. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 202.

56. Gonimov, Staraia luzovka, p. 94; Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 198–199.‘otolov, Rabochie Donbassa, pp. 210–211, mentions disturbances in Makeevka but in the mines andactory of luzovka only the voicing of demands and “an inclination towards organizing a strike,” vhich were contained successfully by admonitions of the factory management.

57. Pasiuk, “Rabochee dvizhenie,” p. 208; Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 213, n. 130, castsloubt on the claim that such a committee existed. Despite acceptance of the strike committee's xistence by Modestov, Kharechko, Pasiuk, Gonimov, and others and his own quotation from officialeports regarding the workers’ earlier inclination towards a strike, Potolov insists that no documentaryvidence indicates the existence of a strike committee during the cholera riots.

58. Gonimov, Staraia luzovka, p. 101. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 213, names Andrei Korteev (later condemned to death for his part in the riots) and Efim Sherepin, “along with a largerowd of others” as raising steam in the factory boilers and sounding an alarm blast on the factorythistle. Suvorov does not enter into his account.

59. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 213.

60. Pankratova, ed., Rabochie dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 210.

61. Donskaia rech', 26 November 1892, p. 2.

62. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 213. Inspector Ivanov in his testimony claimed that 600demonstrators demanded the release of the prisoners, but this statement was part of his justificationfor giving in to the mob's demands.

63. Ivanov, L. M. and Volin, M. S., eds., Istoriia rabochego klassa Rossii, 1861–1900 (Moscow;Nauka, 1972), pp. 181–182 Google Scholar. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 213, uses similar terminology.

64. Russkiia vedomosti, no. 329 (28 November 1892).

65. Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 210.

66. Avdakov's report in Trudy s “ezda, 17th Congress (November 1892), p. 233; Kolpenskii, , “Kholernyi bunt,” p. 112; Donskaia rech', 27 August 1892, pp. 2–3Google Scholar; Moskovskiia vedomosti, 26 August1892, p. 3; Shuvalov's report, cited in Gonimov, Staraia Iuzovka, p. 114; Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, pp. 212–213.

67. Donskaia rech', 10 September 1892, p. 3.

68. See, for instance, the summing up by Gonimov, Staraia Iuzovka, p. 107.

69. Levus’ “Iz istorii,” p. 50.

70. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 212.

71. The sequence of events at the beginning of the riot is not entirely clear. The governor's report in Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 209, claims explicitly that a number of shopsand taverns were already ablaze when the first troops arrived on the scene. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, whose source is a report of the Khar'kov prosecutor whose office conducted the investigationfollowing the riots, concurs. Gonimov, Staraia Iuzovka, p. 101, who, in addition to the published documents, used the local church journal, (known also to Potolov) writes that the clash with the cossacks preceded any burning. Gonimov's version is supported by the testimony of Inspector Ivanovas reported in Russkiia vedomosti, no. 326 (25 November 1892), p. 4.

72. Gonimov, Staraia Iuzovka, p. 105; Russkiia vedomosti, no. 330 (29 November 1892).

73. Donskaia rech', 10 September 1892, p. 3. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 213, claims thatthere was no damage whatsoever to the factory, while Pazhitnov, Polozhenie, p. 176, writes that oneblast furnace and a workers’ barracks were severely damaged.

74. Cited from Shlippe's report in Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 210. See also Donskaia rech', 27 August 1892, pp. 2–3, citing the Ekaterinoslavskie gubernskie vedomosti (probably apublished version of Shlippe's report to the minster of the interior) as its source. Both the governor's official report and Potolov's detailed study omit any mention of the pogrom, except to note that asynagogue was one of the buildings burned.

75. Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 211. Brower, “Labor Violence in Russia,” p.417, writes of twenty-seven killed and twelve wounded.

76. Matveevski's figures are given in Gonimov, Staraia Iuzovka, p. 114, as well as in an exhaustive discussion by Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, pp. 212–213, n. 128. Weighing the estimates, ranging from the official account to a high of 200, Potolov supports Matveevski's account as the most accurate. Inspector Ivanov, in his testimony at the trial states that fifty civilians were killed and eighty citizens, twenty-three cossacks, and four police were injured. See Russkiia vedomosti no. 326 (25 November1892), p. 4.

77. Donskaia rech', 10 September 1892, p. 3.

78. Russkiia vedomosti, no. 330 (29 November 1892). The governor's figure is given in Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): 211. The figure of one million rubles for commercial turnover isfrom Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ (St. Petersburg: Brockhaus and Efron, 1904) 81: 327–328. Presumablyit was considerably less in 1892.

79. Pasiuk, “Rabochee dvizhenie,” p. 209.

80. Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, Pasiuk, “Rabochee dvizhenie,” and Gonimov, Staraia Iuzovka, give essentially the same account.

81. Rashin, Formirovanie, p. 30.

82. Donskaia rech', 10 September 1892.

83. Trudy s “ezda, 17th Congress (November 1892), pp. 348–349, and ibid., 18th Congress (August1893), p. 240.

84. Brower, “Labor Violence in Russia,” p. 419.

85. Report of an unspecified provincial governor to the minister of the interior, quoted in Kolpenskii, “Kholernyi bunt,” p. 110.

86. Gonimov, Staraia Iuzovka, p. 109.

87. Shlippe's report in Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie 3 (pt. 2): p. 213.

88. Donskaia rech', 13 December 1892. Surozhskii, “Krai uglia,” p. 304, and Potolov, Rabochie Donbassa, p. 215, give slightly different accounts of the sentences, but none account for the sixaccused who are missing from our list. Possibly they, like Mosin, died while awaiting trial. The fourcondemned were peasants Matveev and Korneev and army reservists Shpigunov and Mikhailov. (Altogether there were twenty-two army reservists among those tried.) The legendary Suvorov, listedby Pasiuk and Gonimov, does not figure in contemporary accounts of the trial. Commutation of thedeath sentences is from Ivanov and Volin, eds., Istoriia rabochego, p. 182, and Pasiuk, “Rabocheedvizhenie,” p. 209.

89. Kolpenskii, “Kholernyi bunt,” p. 112, citing Shlippe. This portion of Shlippe's report doesnot appear in Pankratova, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie.

90. Times of London, 30 August 1892, p. 3, col. 5.

91. Trudy s “ezda, 17th Congress (November 1892), p. 266. It is not clear whether these figuresrefer to all cholera cases in the Donbass or to miners and factory workers only.

92. For Zelnik's hypothesis see Zelnik, Labor and Society, passim. Compare Surozhskii, “Kraiuglia,” with the descriptions in Sviatlovskii, Khar'kovskii fabrichnyi okrug, or the findings in theSbornik statisticheskikh svedenii, vol. 2, Bakhmut uezd, as cited in Liberman, V ugol'nom tsarstve, p. 80.

93. Kolpenskii, “Kholernyi bunt,” p. 113.

94. Modestov, V., Rabochee i professional'noe dvizhenie v Donbasse do Velikoi oktiabr'skoi sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii (Moscow: Profizdat, 1957, p. 21 Google Scholar. See also a similar evaluation in the context ofthe 1905 pogroms in Novoe vremia (St. Petersburg) 31 October 1905.

95. Johnson, Peasant and Proletarian, passim, and Bonnell, Roots of Rebellion, passim, both discuss the propensity of certain groups of workers to organize.

96. Kharechko, “Sotsial-demokraticheskii soiuz,” p. 19.

97. For a description of the extent and effectiveness of police surveillance of workers’ groups see Elwood, Ralph Carter, Russian Social Democracy in the Underground (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1974 Google Scholar.

98. See the descriptions of luzovka in 1912 and 1916 in Surozhskii, “Krai uglia,” p. 300, and Konstantin Paustovskii's autobiographical A Slow Approach of Thunder (London: Harvill, 1965), p. 198.

99. See H. Friedgut, Theodore, “Professional Revolutionaries in the Donbass: The Characteristics and Limitations of the Apparat.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 37 (September 1985): 284–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar