Representing workers and the liberal narrative of modernity

Slavic Review

Volumn 55, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 245-268

  Rosenberg, William G ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 18144374071     PISSN: 00376779     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2501912     Document Type: Article

References (119)

1. Among the most recent contributions, see especially Charters Wynn, Workers, Strikes and Pogroms: The Donbass-Dnepr Bend in Late Imperial Russia, 1870-1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992);
2. Mark Steinberg, Moral Communities: The Culture of Class Relations in the Russian Printing Industry, 1867-1907 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992);
3. Robert Weinberg, The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa: Blood on the Steps (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993);
4. Heather Hogan, Forging Revolution: Metalworkers, Managers, and the State in St. Petersburg, 1890-1914 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993);
5. and Reginald Zelnik, Law and Disorder on the Narova River: The Kreenholm Strike of 1872 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
6. Among the more interesting recent efforts in European labor history see esp. Jacques Rancière, The Nights of Labor: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France, trans. J. Drury (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989);
7. Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991);
8. Laura L. Downs, Manufacturing Inequality: Gender Division in the French and British Metalworking Industries, 1914-1939 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995);
9. and the discussions in Lenard R. Berlanstein, ed., Rethinking Labor History: Essays in Discourse and Class Analysis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993).
10. See, e.g., Charles Timberlake, "The Concept of Liberalism in Russia," in C. Timberlake, ed., Essays on Russian Liberalism (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972), 18-41.
11. A "classic" identification of two principal tendencies in Russian liberal outlooks is M. Karpovich, "Two Types of Russian Liberalism: Maklakov and Miliukov," in E. J. Simmons, ed., Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955), 129-43.
12. Liberal treatises illustrating these differences include, among others, N. I. Astrov, Vospominaniia (Paris: Y.M.C.A. Press, 1941);
13. P. D. Dolgorukov, Velikaia razrukha (Madrid, 1964);
14. I. V. Gessen, Iskaniia obshchestvennago ideala (Berlin: Slovo, 1922);
15. A. S. Izgoev, Russkoe obshchestvo i revoliutsiia (Moscow: Mamontov, 1910);
16. A. A. Kizevetter, Na rubezhe dvukh stoletii (Prague: Orbis, 1929);
17. F. F. Kokoshkin, Ob osnovaniiakh zhelatel'noi organizatsii narodnago predstavitel'stva v Rossii (Moscow: Lissnera, 1906);
18. V. A. Maklakov, Vlast' i obshchestvennost' na zakate staroi Rossii (Paris: Illiustrirovannaia Rossiia, 1936);
19. M. Mandel'shtam, 1905 god v politicheskikh protsessakh (Moscow, 1931);
20. P. N. Miliukov, Rossiia na perelome (Paris: Impr. Voltaire, 1927),
21. and Vospominaniia, 1859-1917 (New York: Chekhov, 1955);
22. V. D. Nabokov, Rechi (St. Petersburg, 1907);
23. and M. M. Vinaver, Nedavnee (Paris: Impr. Voltaire, 1926).
24. See, e.g., R. Pipes, Struve, Liberal on the Left (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 155.
25. Vestnik Partii Narodnoi Svobody [henceforth, VPNS], 1906, no. 4 (March 19): 201.
26. "Iz obshchestvennoi khroniki," Vestnik Evroby, 1906, no. 6: 864-65 (unsigned).
27. See the discussion in Hogan, Forging Revolution, esp. chap. 8.
28. In an article in October 1905 on "the Workers' Question in Baku," for example, the editors of Novoe vremia wondered why industrialists could meet together, organize their associations, and formulate strategies for "dealing with workers" when labor did not have the same prerogatives. If workers could elect delegates for discussions in St. Petersburg, why could they not organize locally to press their needs? See Novoe vremia, 9(22) October,
29. Novoe vremia, 10(23) October 1905. Commonly in this period and later, descriptions of labor protests included some discussion of the material deprivation that underlay the protests, a presentation that at least implicitly encouraged a sympathetic hearing for at least labor protests over wages, working conditions, and issues concerning personal dignity.
30. A long account in 1908 about meetings held by Petersburg workers on the question of commemorating Bloody Sunday, for example, detailed threats by the Society of Factory and Mill Owners to impose double fines, two-week suspensions, and other heavy sanctions. See Novoe vremia, 9(22) January 1908.
31. "Workers," for example, had wives who joined them in demonstrations or supported their strikes, but never husbands; they were frequently drunk on their days off, which "troubled the mothers of their children," but if they were sexually molested or harassed by their foremen, it did not seem to trouble their children's fathers. See, e.g., Novoe vremia, 9(22) January 1907.
32. One exception was the report of a Kadet committee studying the length of the working day in different industries, in which categorical differences were drawn. See VPNS, 1907, no. 13 (March 19).
33. Rech', 3(16) May 1906.
34. Thus Novoe vremia described agitators at the Putilov works who "forced those who did not want to participate in their meeting to quit work by firing several shots at them." In October 1905, it was the "dark forces," rather than the "workers," who were crying "down with the government"; "students and workers" clashed with "crowds"; striking railroaders who could "be fired at the whim of their supervisors" were "conducting themselves with dignity and order." See Novoe vremia, 24 October (4 November), 14(27) December 1905.
35. Novoe vremia, Ibid., 14(27) December 1905.
36. On the railroads, "revolutionaries" were in "full control, robbing ticket sellers, interfering with goods and passengers . . . and holding court over people they [did] not like, sentencing them to death and immediately, without any hesitation, carrying out the sentence." See, e.g., Russkiia vedomosti, 11 and 15 October 1905;
37. Novoe vremia, 19 December 1905(1 January 1906).
38. Novoe vremia, 10(23) December 1905,
39. Novoe vremia, 12(25) December 1905; 20 December 1905(2 January 1906).
40. A. A. Kizevetter, ed., Napadki na partiiu narodnoi svobody i vozrazheniia na nikh (Moscow, 1906), 93;
41. Rechi F. F. Kokoshkina (St. Petersburg, 1907), 39 (speech given 5 June 1906);
42. Russkiia vedomosti, 11 October 1905.
43. Russkiia vedomosti, 28 October 1905.
44. Birzhevye vedomosti, 9 and 14 December 1905 (o.s.),
45. as reprinted in P. Miliukov, God Bor'by (St. Petersburg, 1907), 174-76.
46. Russkiia vedomosti, 19 December 1905(1 January 1906).
47. VPNS, 1906, no. 2 (March 5): 65.
48. Novoe vremia, 3(16) June 1906.
49. Louis Chevalier, Laboring Classes and Dangerous Classes in Paris during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (New York: H. Fertig, 1973).
50. See, e.g., the attack by G. Aleksinskii, "O Konstitutsionno- demokraticheskoi partii," Obrazovanie, 1906, no. 1: 69-89.
51. GARF, f. 523, op. 3, d. 15, 11. 27-28 [Election appeals and other materials, 1905-07].
52. VPNS, 1906, no. 2 (March 5): 1.
53. VPNS, 1906, no. 10 (May 11).
54. GARF, f. 523, op. 1, d. 27, 1. 52 [Kadet Central Committee Protocols].
55. VPNS, 1906, nos. 33-34 (October 26): 1750.
56. N. I. Astrov, ed., Zakonodatel'nye proekty i predpolozheniia P.N.S. 1905-07 (St. Petersburg, 1907), xi-xix.
57. See Kizevetter, Napadki, 100;
58. Central Committee Protocol no. 15, 19/20 February 1906, in GARF, f. 523, op. 1, d. 27, 1. 54.
59. GARF, f. 523, op. 1, d. 27, 1. 54.
60. Ibid.
61. VPNS, 1906, no. 8 (February 22): 533;
62. VPNS, 1906, no. 10 (March 8): 668.
63. VPNS, 1906, no. 8 (February 22): 533-34;
64. VPNS, 1906, no. 10 (March 8): 668-69, 672.
65. GARF, f. 523, op. 3, d. 14, esp. 11. 7-10 [Theses and various reports]. In 1917, members of the labor commission formed by the Ministry of Trade and Industry would experience a similar claim to evenhandedness when employers demanded legislation legalizing their right to strike along with that of their workers.
66. "Programma Konstitutsionno-demokraticheskoi partii," in Astrov, ed., Zakonodatel'nye proekty, xviii.
67. If the workday exceeded nine hours, a mininum "free break" of not less than one hour was also to be set, "depending on the conditions of production and general local circumstances" [v zavisimosti ot uslovii proizvodstva i voobshche ot mestnykh uslovii]. See VPNS, 1907, no. 10 (March 8): 675-76.
68. The commission also believed, however, that the generally depressed state of industrial production meant that the workday in many places would actually be much shorter even than eight hours. See VPNS, 1907, no. 13 (March 29): 832-33.
69. I. T., "Po povodu proekta zakona o prodolzhitel'nosti rabochago vremeni," VPNS, 1907, no. 13 (March 29): 832.
70. VPNS, 1906, nos. 33-34 (October 26): 1750.
71. VPNS, 1907, no. 17 (May 3): 1098.
72. VPNS, 1907, no. 2 (January 11): 96-97.
73. VPNS, 1907, no. 5 (February 1): 293.
74. Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta Konstitutsionno-Demokraticheskoi Partii, 1905-1911 (Moscow, 1994), t.l, 148.
75. VPNS, 1907, no. 13 (March 29): 848.
76. GARF, f. 523, op. 2, d. 3 [Reports from provincial committees to the Central Committee]. D. I. Shakhovskoi, meanwhile, wanted his colleagues to support the creation of a ministry of labor as an institutional way of assuring that workers' interests were met, rather than subsume them under the aegis of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (as, in fact, continued to be the case until 1917). See Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, 168 (session of 29 October 1906).
77. Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, 150 (session of 29 October 1906).
78. GARF, f. 523, op. 3, d. 15, l. 93 [Kadet election materials].
79. GARF, f. 523, op. 3, d. 15, l. 17 [Kadet election materials]. Emphasis in original.
80. S. A. Smith, "Workers and Civil Rights in Tsarist Russia, 1899-1917," in O. Crisp and L. Edmondson, eds., Civil Rights in Imperial Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 145-70.
81. See, e.g., VPNS, 1907, nos. 33-34 (August 30): 1538ff.
82. N. Iordanskii, "Rabochaia programma i proekty rabochago zakonodatel'stva K. D. partiia," VPNS, 1907, nos. 33-34 (August 30): 1537-40.
83. For example, in January 1908, according to Russkiia vedomosti, St. Petersburg workers demonstrated "very calmly" to mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday in the face of provocations by the city authorities, despite losing their wages. Workers in large factories who stayed at their benches gave a portion of their earnings to support the unemployed. Similarly, the "fifteen to twenty thousand" Moscow workers who demonstrated on 1 May 1908 were "completely calm" and tried to avoid any direct confrontations with the police. See Russkiia vedomosti, 11(24) January 1908;
84. Rech', 3(16) May 1908.
85. See, e.g., A. Malin, "Khronika: Stachki i usloviia truda russkikh rabochikh v 1910 godu," Vestnik Evropy, 1912, no. 1: 292-98. Fines themselves, according to this author, were now averaging more than one-third of a worker's wages; and workers found themselves increasingly vulnerable as economic conditions made strikes an increasingly ineffective weapon.
86. See, e.g., Rech', 6(19),
87. Rech', 7(20) April 1912;
88. Vestnik Evropy, 1912, no. 9 (September): 432-34;
89. Novoe vremia, 10(23) April 1912;
90. Russkiia vedomosti, 8(21),
91. Russkiia vedomosti, 15(28) April 1912.
92. Rech', 7(20) April 1912.
93. Vestnik Evropy, 1912, no. 9 (September): 432-34.
94. Rech', 6(19),
95. Rech', 7(20) April 1912.
96. A. S. Izgoev, "Letniia zabastovki," Russkaia mysl', 1913, no. 8: 1-3.
97. P. Miliukov, Political Memoirs 1905-1917, English edition, ed. A. Mendel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967), 66.
98. P. Miliukov, Political Memoirs 1905-1917, English edition, 1967), 66. Ibid.
99. Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, 92ff. (session of 2 August 1906).
100. Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, Ibid., 150 (session of 29 October 1906).
101. Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, Ibid., 120 (session of 7 September 1906).
102. Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, 120 (1906). Ibid.
103. Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, Ibid., 379 (session of 7 November 1909).
104. Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, Ibid., 381.
105. By 1912, and probably earlier, the Kadet leader himself was no longer a partisan of universal suffrage. The focus of the Central Committee in terms of the "vital social forces" turned entirely on the value and possibility of various electoral blocs. See, e.g., the discussions of 19 September 1911 et seq., Protokoly Tsentral'nogo Komiteta, 430-75.
106. A. Chuzheninov, "Russkoe rabochee dvizhenie," Ezhegodnik gazety rech' na 1913 (St. Petersburg, 1913), 151-64.
107. A. Chuzheninov, Ezhegodnik gazety rech' na 1913 Ibid., 153-57.
108. A. Chuzheninov, Ezhegodnik gazety rech' na 1913 Ibid., 163-64.
109. See, esp., the discussions in the Central Committee on 11 March 1912: GARF, f. 523, op. 1, d. 30, 11. 151-57; 17 November 1912, 24 May 1913, and esp. 9 February 1914, GARF, f. 523, op. 1, d. 31, 11. 3-7, 59-68, 94-99.
110. "[The Duma fraction] will continue to struggle energetically against all attempts to take away from the working class and from the employees in ordinary trades those rights to which they are now entitled by law. We will use all of our power to broaden these rights, by means either of government legislation or by introducing legislation of our own . . ." GARF, f. 523. op. 1, d. 30, l. 168.
111. Indeed, in early 1914 Nekrasov took his colleagues in the Kadet Central Committee directly to task on this issue, arguing that even if one did not believe in the muscular fists of the proletariat (muskulistnye kulaki proletariata), it was impossible for Kadets to ignore the fact that Russian workers were an exceptionally active force. GARF, f. 523, op. 1, d. 31, ll. 104-5. (Central Committee session of 17 February 1914).
112. GARF, f. 523, op. 1, d. 16, ll. 9-11 and d. 31, ll. 104-9.
113. GARF, f. 523, op. 1, d. 31, ll. 105-6.
114. Izgoev, "Letniia zabastovki," 2.
115. Chuzheninov, "Russkoe rabochee dvizhenie," 159.
116. Chuzheninov, "Russkoe rabochee dvizhenie," 159. Ibid.
117. E.g., GARF, f. 523, op. 3, d. 14, ll. 4-5 and d. 15, ll. 28ff. [theses, reports, and various materials relating to Duma activities].
118. Astrov, ed., Zakonodatel'nye proekty, 28.
119. Zakonodatel'nye proekty, Ibid., 29-30.