This book explores the impact of the 1917 Revolution on factory life

in the Russian capital. It traces the attempts of workers to take

control of their working lives from the February Revolution through
to June 1918, when the Bolsheviks nationalised industry. Although
not primarily concerned with the political developments of the
Revolution, the book demonstrates that the sphere of industrial
production was a crucial arena of political as well as economic
conflict.
Having discussed the structure and composition of the factory
workforce in Petrograd prior to 1917 and the wages and conditions
of workers under the old regime, Dr Smith shows how workers saw
the overthrow of the autocracy as a signal to democratise factory life
and to improve their lot. After examining the creation and activities
of the factory committees, he analyses the relationship of different
groups of workers to the new labour movement, and assesses the
extent to which it functioned democratically.
The central theme of the book is the factory committees'
implementation of workers' control of production. Dr Smith rejects
the standard Western interpretation of this movement as
'syndicalist', showing that its ideological perspectives were close to,
but not identical with, those of the official Bolshevik party.
Essentially, workers' control was a practical attempt to maintain
production and to preserve jobs in a situation of deepening economic
chaos. On coining to power in October, the Bolsheviks envisaged an
expansion of workers' control, and the committees pressed for
nationalisation and workers' management. The collapse of industry
and the reluctance of employers to continue their operations,
however, convinced the Bolshevik leadership that workers' control
was inadequate as a means of restoring order in the economy, and
they subordinated the committees to the trade unions in 1918.
Dr Smith assesses the extent to which the Bolsheviks' capacity to
carry out a genuinely revolutionary programme was limited by their
own ideology or by the economic and social conditions in which the
revolution was born. Throughout, he places the struggle in the
factories in the context of an international and comparative
perspective. The book will thus appeal not only to historians of
Russia and the Russian Revolution, but also to students of labour
history and of revolutionary theory.

S.A. SMITH is Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex. He

studied at the Universities of Oxford, Birmingham, Moscow and
Beijing.
 RED PETROGRAD
REVOLUTION IN THE FACTORIES
I917-I918

SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES

Editorial Board

JULIAN COOPER, KAREN DAWISHA, LESLIE HOLMES, MICHAEL KASER,

ALISTAIR MCAULEY, MARTIN MCCAULEY, FRED SINGLETON

The National Association for Soviet and East European Studies exists for the
purpose of promoting study and research on the social sciences as they relate
to the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. The Monograph
Series is intended to promote the publication of works presenting substantial
and original research in the economics, politics, sociology and modern history
of the USSR and Eastern Europe.
 SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES

Books in the series

A. Boltho Foreign Trade Criteria in Socialist Economies

Sheila Fitzpatrick The Commissariat of Enlightenment
Donald Male Russian Peasant Organisation before Collectivisation
P. Wiles, ed. The Prediction of Communist Economic Performance
Vladimir V. Kusin The Intellectual Origins of the Prague Spring
Galia Golan The Czechoslovak Reform Movement
Naum Jasny Soviet Economists of the Twenties
Asha L. Datar India's Relations with the USSR
and Eastern Europe, 1953-1969
T. M. Podolski Socialist Banking and Monetary Control
Rudolf Bicanic Economic Policy in Socialist Yugoslavia
S. Galai Liberation in Russia
Richard B. Day Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation
G. Hosking The Russian Constitutional Experiment: Government
and Duma 1907—14
A. Teichova An Economic Background to Munich
J. Ciechanowski The Warsaw Rising of 1944
Edward A. Hewett Foreign Trade Prices in the Council
for Mutual Economic Assistance
Daniel F. Calhoun The United Front: the TUC and the Russians 1923—28
Galia Golan Yom Kippur and After: the Soviet Union
and the Middle East Crisis
Maureen Perrie The Agrarian Policy of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary
Party from its origins through the revolutions of 1905—1907
Gabriel Gorodetsky The Precarious Truce: Anglo-Soviet Relations 1924—27
Paul Vysny Neo-Slavism and the Czechs 1898-1914
James Riordan Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport
and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR
Gregory Walker Soviet Book Publishing Policy
Felicity Ann O'Dell Socialisation through Children's Literature:
The Soviet Example
Stella Alexander Church and State in Yugoslavia since 1945
Sheila Fitzpatrick Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921—1934
T. H. Rigby Lenin's Government: Sovnarkom 1917-1922
M. Cave Computers and Economic Planning: The Soviet Experience
Jozef M. van Brabant Socialist Economic Integration; Aspects of contemporary
economic problems in Eastern Europe
R. F. Leslie, ed. The History of Poland since 1863
M. R. Myant Socialism and Democracy in
Czechoslovakia, 1945-1948
Blair A. Ruble Soviet Trade Unions: Their Development in the 1970s
Angela Stent From Embargo to Ostpolitik:
The Political Economy of West
German—Soviet Relations 1955—1980
D. A. Dyker The Process of Investment in the Soviet Union
 RED PETROGRAD
REVOLUTION IN THE FACTORIES
1917-1918

S. A. SMITH
Senior Lecturer in History, University of Essex

The right of the

University of Cambridge
to print and sell
all manner of books
was granted by
Henry VIII in 1534.
The University has printed
and published continuously
since 1584.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE
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Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge GB2 IRP
32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia

© Cambridge University Press 1983

First published 1983

First paperback edition 1985

Library of Congress catalogue card number: 82-12885

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Smith, S. A.
Red Petrograd: revolution in the factories,
1917-18.—(Soviet and East European studies)
1. Leningrad—Politics and government
2. Russia—Politics and government—1894-1917
3. Soviet Union—Politics and government—1917-1936
I. Title II. Series
9 4 / 4 5 DK265.8.L/
ISBN o 521 24759 4 hard covers
ISBN o 521 31618 9 paperback

Transferred to digital printing 2003

To my mother and father
 Contents

A cknowledgements X

Introduction 1

A profile of the Petrograd working class on the

eve of 1917 5
Petrograd: the city and its industry 5
The size and distribution of the factory workforce
in 1917 9
The social composition of the Petrograd working class 14
Peasant workers and 'cadre' workers 14
Sexual and age divisions 23
Skill divisions 27
Conclusion 35

The tsarist factory

The administration of the tsarist factory 37
Conditions of work 41
The standard of living during the war 44
The strike movement during the war 48

The February Revolution: A new dispensation in

the factories 54
Democratising the factory order 54
The eight-hour day 65
Wage struggles 68
Management strategy after the February Revolution 74
vii
viii Contents

4 The structure and functions of the factory

committees 80
The structure of the factory committees 80
Factory committees and the organisation of food supply 86
Factory committees and labour discipline 88
Factory committees and the campaign against
drunkenness 92
Factory committees and cultural policy 94
Factory militias and Red Guards 98

5 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 103

Craft unionism and industrial unionism 103
The political composition of the trade unions 109
Strikes and inflation 116
The campaign for collective wage contracts 119
The metalworkers' contract 121
The wage contracts: key features 129
Relations between workers and Sluzhashchie 134

6 The theory and practice of workers' control of

production 139
The theory of workers' control 139
Anarchism, syndicalism and the Petrograd labour
movement 142
Workers' control as a response to economic chaos 145
The politics of workers' control: February to October
1917 H9
Menshevik, SR and anarchist perspectives on control
of the economy 151
The Bolsheviks and workers' control 153
The factory committee conference debates on
workers' control 156
The politics of workers' control at factory level 160

7 Deepening economic chaos and the intensification

of workers9 control 168
Economic crisis and industrial relations 168
 Contents ix

Workers resist attempts to evacuate industry 171

The factory committees against redundancies 174
Workers' control becomes more radical 176
The relationship of the factory committees to the trade
unions 185

8 T h e social structure of the labour movement 1 go

The social composition of labour protest and labour
organisation 190
Women workers 192
Peasant and unskilled workers 196
Young workers 19 7
Democracy and bureaucracy in the trade unions and
factory committees 200
Democracy in the trade unions 200
Democracy in the factory committees 203

9 T h e October Revolution and the organisation of

industry 209
The decree on workers' control 209
The role of the trade unions 216
The subordination of the factory committees to the
trade unions 219
Towards a socialist economy 223
Lenin, the Bolsheviks and Workers' control after
October 225

10 The economic crisis and the fate of workers'

control: October 1917 to June 1918 230
From workers' control to workers' self-management 230
Economic catastrophe and the dissolution of the
working class 242
The labour organisations and the crisis of labour
discipline 246

Conclusion 253
Notes 266
Bibliography 308
Index 328
 Acknowledgments

This book began life as a Ph.D. thesis undertaken at the Centre for
Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham.
I wish to thank everyone there for providing a stimulating atmos-
phere in which to work, especially Professor Moshe Lewin, now of the
University of Pennsylvania, who provided much of the inspiration for
this work when it was in its early stages. I would like to express my
warm thanks to Maureen Perrie, also of CREES, who supervised the
final stages of this work. I am most grateful to the British Council for
granting me an exchange studentship to Moscow University in the
academic year 1976-7, and to Professor V. Z. Drobizhev of the
Faculty of History, who gave me advice and hospitality. I would like
to record my indebtedness to the librarians of INION and the Lenin
Library in Moscow, the newspaper room of the BAN Library in
Leningrad and, above all, to Jenny Brine, librarian of the Baykov
Library, CREES.
I would like to thank the University of Essex for granting me study
leave during the Autumn term of 1979, and all my colleagues in the
History Department for providing a congenial atmosphere in which
to teach. Mary McAuley, Geoffrey Crossick, Geoffrey Hosking and
Rose Glickman all made helpful comments on parts of this book in an
earlier form. Professor Yoshimasa Tsuji of Waseda University read
the whole manuscript, and made many useful criticisms. I am
grateful to all of them, though none bears any responsibility for any
errors that remain. Finally, I would like to say thank-you to all my
friends in Birmingham, Moscow, Leningrad, Colchester and else-
where, who offered me the personal support without which I could
not have written this book. Special thanks to Bob Lumley, Kevin
Halliwell, Karl Goswell, Elia Michael, Peter Baxter and, above all,
Philip Jakes.
 Introduction

Revolutions are centrally about the breakdown of state power, the

elimination of old political elites and institutions, and the ultimate
reconstitution of a new state power and a new elite.1 The history of
revolutions is thus, intrinsically, a political history, and the history of
the Russian Revolution of 1917 is no exception. It begins in February
with the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, continues with the 'dual
power5 of the Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet, culmin-
ates in the Bolshevik seizure of power and eventuates in a one-party
dictatorship. Yet revolutions entail more than the collapse of state
power: they engender a whole-scale restructuring of social relations.
Only recently, have historians begun to pay attention to the profound
changes which took place in the society, culture and economy of
Russia during the revolutionary years. The manifold transformations
of social relations were dependent on the collapse of state power, but
they in turn shaped the processes whereby centralised, bureaucratic
state power was reconstituted. Power was thus directly at issue in all
the multiple changes which rent the fabric of tsarist society, and it is
for this reason that any 'social history' of the Russian Revolution
cannot but also be a political one.
The present study is concerned with the relationships between
class power as it was manifest in the world of work and the broader
processes of the Russian Revolution. It seeks to explore the impact of
the revolution on factory life in Petrograd during 1917 and the early
part of 1918. Its central theme is the struggle of workers to abolish the
autocratic order of the tsarist factory, their efforts to establish
workers' control of production, and their groping attempts to
reorganise life in the factory. This study is not primarily concerned
with tracing the emergence of a revolutionary political consciousness
2 Red Petrograd

among Petrograd workers, and thus the events, political parties and
personalities which dominate other accounts of the revolution recede
into the background of the present study.2 Nevertheless, in deliber-
ately foregrounding the activities of workers around work and
production, it is hoped to shed new light on the wider political
developments of 1917, in particular, by demonstrating that the sphere
of production was itself an important arena of political as well as
economic conflict.
Although the separation of the economy and polity is a particular
feature of modern capitalist society, the unequal distribution of power
within production is crucial to the maintenance of class power in
society at large. If one defines power as the capacity of a group to
control the physical and social environment and to thus make its
interests prevail over those of other groups, then it is clear that
management and workers do not enjoy equal power within the
production process.3 The two sides of industry do not have equal
access to and control over resources and sanctions, be they material or
ideological. In 1917 the unequal distribution of power within
production was a central concern of Petrograd workers, and their
struggle for greater power in industry had major implications for the
balance of class forces in society at large and for the eventual
consolidation of a new state power.
This perspective has implications for the way in which we analyse
working-class activity in 1917, for it means that we must jettison any
simple dichotomy between the 'economic' and 'political' struggles of
workers, i.e. between struggles which take place within the sphere of
production and those which take place on the terrain of the state. In
Marxist discourse this dichotomy appears in the guise of the Leninist
distinction between 'trade-union' and 'Social-Democratic' struggles.
Although he was not absolutely consistent in this view, Lenin tended
to argue that the spontaneous struggles of workers for the improve-
ment of wages and working conditions could only generate a
'trade-union' consciousness, the chief characteristics of which are
sectionalism and economism, and that only through the intervention
of a revolutionary party could workers develop a revolutionary
awareness of capitalist society.4 The experience of 1917 suggests that
this rigid dichotomy is in need of modification. In that year, in a
context of economic crisis and acute class conflict, the attempts of
workers to defend their living standards and to preserve jobs led
them, to a large extent 'spontaneously', to see in the revolutionary
 Introduction 3
options offered by the Bolsheviks the 'natural' solution to their
immediate problems. Moreover, the Leninist thesis overlooks issues
of power and control within production. In most work-situations
there is resistance by workers to the authority of the employer, so that,
in the words of Carter Goodrich, the 'frontier of control5 is constantly
shifting.5 An orthodox Leninist might argue that such conflicts over
job-control are but a variant of economistic struggles, since they
encroach on, but do not transcend, managerial authority. Yet even at
their most defensive, such conflicts testify to the desire of workers to
impose their definitions upon the work-situation. The experience of
1917 again suggests that when the power of the state is relatively
ineffective, defensive struggles by workers to control production can
quickly become offensive struggles to take power from management,
and that these struggles have profound implications for the balance of
power within society as a whole. The present study suggests that it
was the struggles of workers in the world of work, and the activities of
work-based organisations, such as the factory committees and trade
unions, which were of central importance in promoting revolutionary
consciousness in 1917. This is not to suggest that consciousness
developed solely on the basis of the experience of work. In 1917
revolutionary feeling grew in response to the wide range of problems
that faced the Russian people - problems of war, governmental
ineptitude and the crisis in the countryside. Nor is it to suggest that
revolutionary consciousness grew in a purely 'spontaneous' fashion.
Bolshevik agitation played a crucial part in articulating this con-
sciousness. Nevertheless the Bolsheviks did not themselves create
revolutionary feeling; it developed primarily out of attempts by
workers to grapple with problems of survival.
This study concentrates almost exclusively on factory workers in
Petrograd. It ignores important groups such as railway workers,
transport workers, workers in public utilities, postal and telegraphic
workers, shop workers, construction workers, domestic servants,
small artisans and others. This is not because these workers were
defined apriorias somehow less 'proletarian' than factory workers. It
was decided to concentrate on factory workers, partly to keep down
the length of the book, and partly because factory workers did
constitute the major element within the industrial labour force and
within the labour movement in Petrograd in 1917. Perhaps something
should be said to justify the inclusion of printers in the category
'factory workers'. It is true that of the sixty-four print works (tipografii)
4 Red Petrograd

in Petrograd for which we have information, twenty-seven employed

less thanfiftyworkers; but even if one excludes the huge State Papers
print works, which employed 5,784 workers, the average print works
still employed 136 workers, so it was more of a 'factory' than a small
workshop.6 It should not be supposed that factory workers, in any
sense, constituted a homogeneous social group. They were divided
among themselves by industry and trade, degree of proletarian-
isation, skill, sex, age etc. These divisions are important in under-
standing the dynamics of the labour movement in 1917, and are
explored in Chapters 1 and 8.
A word should be said about periodisation. The first two chapters
discuss the structure of the working class, and life in the tsarist factory
before February 1917. The main body of the text (Chapters 3 to 8) is
concerned with developments between February and October, but
since the main theme of the work - the attempt of workers to take
control of their working lives - continues beyond October, it was
decided to pursue the analysis into the middle of 1918, though in a less
detailed way than for 1917. The account thus stops at the point when
the Bolsheviks decided to nationalise industry at the end ofjune 1918,
but this is more a convenient finishing point, than a real historical
break, for it was some time before workers' control of production
disappeared, and some time before nationalisation was a reality.
The capital of Russia is called by St Petersburg when referring to
the period before 18 August 1914. On that date the tsarist govern-
ment, in a fit of anti-German fervour, changed the name of the city to
the less German-sounding Petrograd. This study follows suit. When
referring to the period beyond Lenin's death in 1924, the city is called
by its modern name of Leningrad. This study uses old-style dates of
the Julian calendar until 14 February 1918 (i.e. 1 February 1918),
which was the date when the Bolshevik government changed to the
Gregorian calendar. All dates thereafter are given in the new style.
Except in quotations, measures of weight have been translated into
metric units. The currency of rubles and kopecks is abbreviated to 'r.'
and 'k.'.
 1
A profile of the Petrograd working class
on the eve of 1917

PETROGRAD: THE CITY AND ITS INDUSTRY

Petrograd was a city of sharp contrasts. It was the capital of the

Russian Empire, yet closer culturally to Western Europe than to the
rest of Russia. It was at once a city of elegant grandeur, lauded by
Pushkin, and a city of eerie squalor, abhorred by Dostoevsky.
Petrograd was both symbol of tsarist power and of popular revolt.
Here the Imperial Court headed an army of 70,000 civil servants; here
in 1905 the first Soviet had headed a general strike. Along the avenues
and canals of the city centre stood palaces, splendid emporia, banks
and company offices. Across the river stood bleak tenements and
teeming factories. Not a stone's throw from the University and the
Academy of Sciences thousands of people lived in appalling ignorance
and misery. Petrograd was home to rich and poor, to a thriving
revolutionary underground and to the Holy Synod, to the liberal
opposition and to the Black Hundreds. Here in February 1917 a
revolution erupted which was to have world-shattering reverbera-
tions.
In 1917 Petrograd had a population of 2.4 million, making it the
fifth largest city in Europe. 1 The Russian Empire had about 182
million inhabitants, less than a fifth of whom lived in towns.2
Petrograd was by far the largest city in the Empire; between 1897 and
1914 its population had grown from 1.26 million to 2.21 million - a
very high rate of growth, compared to the average for the country as a
whole. 3 This growth was largely due to the immigration of peasants
from the countryside. Every year thousands of peasants flocked to the
city in search of work - some to stay for a short while, others to settle
permanently. In 1910, no fewer than 68% of the population had been
born outside the city.4
6 Red Petrograd

The huge scale of peasant migration to St Petersburg gave the city's

population a distinctive demographic structure. The birth-rate in the
capital was low by Russian standards, though high by Western
European standards. 5 The death-rate was lower than the national
average, but this was deceptive, since in almost every age-group it
was actually higher than average. Only the preponderance of young
adults in the population depressed the overall death-rate. Even so,
mortality in St Petersburg was extremely high by European stan-
dards. The large proportion of young adults in the city was paralleled
by very small proportions of children under 10 and of people over 50.
This reflected the tendency for children to be brought up in the
countryside, and for older people to retire there. Since greater
numbers of men than women left the countryside in search of work,
there was an imbalance in the population in favour of males, though
the proportion of women grew rapidly after 1900. Finally, a majority
of both men and women were single. The marriage-rate in St
Petersburg was low both by Russian and European standards, and
late marriage was the norm. These distinctive demographic patterns
suggest that the 'typical' inhabitant of St Petersburg on the eve of the
First World War was, therefore, a single, male peasant in his twenties.
The census of 1910 provides the fullest information on the social
structure of St Petersburg. This classified the city's population of
1,881,000 by social estate (soslovie), revealing that 7.2% were nobility,
0.5% clergy, 4.1% honorary citizens, 0.7% merchants, 15.5% 'lower
middle class' (meshchane) and 68.7% peasants. 6 This latter category
included most wage-earners. Workers comprised about 27% of the
capital's population, and consisted of 234,000 factory workers; 77,000
white-collar workers in commercial and industrial enterprises
(sluzhashchie); 52,000 transport workers; 25,000 in the catering trade
and 41,000 who worked in public utilities and city organisations. In
addition, there were about 260,000 servants in private or public
employment and 58,000 artisans. Financial and industrial business-
men comprised less than 1% of the population, and there were about
21,000 owners of small businesses, including shops and restaurants. 7
In 1914 Petrograd was the foremost financial and industrial centre
in a country where two-thirds of the population still engaged in
agriculture. The city's banks controlled the metallurgical and coal
industries of the South, the oil industry of Baku, Urals copper,
Siberian gold, Ukrainian sugar, Turkestan cotton and Volga
steamships. 8 By 1917 the assets of Petrograd's private commercial
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 7
banks amounted to three-quarters of the entire assets of Russia's
commercial banks.9 These banks financed the major industrial
companies of the capital, most of which were concentrated in the
metalworking and engineering sector. The Discount and Loan bank,
for example, financed the Nobel-Lessner engineering group, the
American-Russian rubber company and the Skorokhod shoe
company.10 Since two-thirds of the assets of Russian commercial
banks were foreign-owned, foreign capital played a crucial part in
Petrograd industry.11 In 1917, however, only fifteen firms in the
capital were owned outright by foreign companies.12 The industry of
Petrograd was distinguished not so much by its dependence on
foreign capital as by its dependence on the state.
Underpinning the economy of the city was a tight nexus of large
monopolies, finance capital and government orders. From the
industrial crisis of 1900-3 onwards, companies began to form
syndicates in order to exercise monopoly control over the market.13
This process of monopolisation was given a sharp boost by the First
World War, which made Petrograd the main centre of armaments
production. By 1917 sixty of the largest firms in the capital were
organised into syndicates or trusts. During the war, the government
farmed out orders for ammunition and some types of ordnance to
these syndicates. The Russian-Asiatic bank organised a War Indus-
tries syndicate which distributed orders to the Baranovskii engineer-
ing company, the Russian Optical Company and the Russian
Company for the Manufacture of Shells and Military Supplies.
Snaryadosoyuz, a private syndicate comprising six firms, produced
shells directly for the Artillery Administration. The transport-
engineering syndicates Prodparovoz and Prodvagon were treated by
the Ministry of Communications more or less as official government
contractors. S.N. Vankov headed a state-capitalist organisation
which produced three-inch shells directly for the Artillery Adminis-
tration by sub-contracting orders to four large companies in
Petrograd.14
As well as providing orders for the major private companies, the
state directly owned several large enterprises in Petrograd. From its
foundation in 1703, St Petersburg had been a major centre of
government-sponsored industry. By 1917 there were 31 state-owned
or state-controlled enterprises in the city and the surrounding region,
which provided a large part of the cartridges, revolvers, machine-
guns and other types of ordnance required by the army and navy. Ten
8 Red Petrograd

enterprises were run by the Artillery Administration, the largest of

which were: the Pipe works (Trubochnyi zavod) with a workforce of
18,942 in January 1917; the Cartridge works (Patronnyi zavod) with
some 10,000 workers; the Okhta explosives works with 10,200
workers; the Sestroretsk works, situated 34 km from the capital,
which had 6,228 workers. In all, 53,000 workers were employed by
the Artillery Administration. In addition, a further 36,000 workers
worked in five large factories run by the Naval Ministry. These
included the Obukhov works, which employed 12,954 workers in
January 1917; the Izhora works at Kolpino, which had 8,902 workers;
the Baltic shipbuilding works, which had 7,645 workers. The rest of
the state enterprises were made up of miscellaneous ports, arsenals
and railway workshops.15 In 1917 there were also two large com-
panies which were state-controlled, though not state-owned. These
were the massive Putilov works, with its workforce of around 30,000,
and the Nevskii shipbuilding company, which employed more than
6,000 workers. In 1916 the government sequestered both firms, by
appointing new boards of management, although each continued to
be privately owned.16
In both state and private sectors, Petrograd industry was remark-
able for its advanced technology. From the start of industrial
'take-off' in the 1890s, most branches of industry in the capital were
highly mechanised. This was a response to the high labour-unit costs
in Russia, which reflected low labour-productivity, the cost of raw
materials and marketing, and the relatively restricted market for
sales.17 After 1907 Petrograd was caught up in the 'Second Industrial
Revolution', which saw the emergence of new industries, such as
chemicals, the rise of mass production, the restructuring of the labour
process and the invasion of workshops by electric power. By 1914
Petrograd industry had attained a high level of technological
sophistication.18 Its largest firms lagged little behind those of
America and Western Europe. The Putilov works exchanged tech-
nical information and patents with the Schneider, Armstrong-
Whitworth, Paul Girault and A.G. Duisberg companies.19 There
was, however, considerable variation in technological level between
different factories and different industries: machine-tool construction
and machine construction, for example, were somewhat archaic,
compared to the electro-technical and engine-building industries.20
The technical efficiency of Petrograd industry was put to stringent
test by the war and, on the whole, was not found wanting.21
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 9
Enterprises were reorganised and re-equipped, and massive amounts
of capital were injected into them. Mass-production techniques were
introduced in the armaments factories and in some machine-
con truction plants. The conversion of private factories to production
of shells, hand grenades, detonators and mortars was very successful.
Production of guns was less successful, but adequate. Most engineer-
ing industries coped well, but could not always meet demand.
Production of engines increased and simple machine-tool production
expanded both quantitatively and qualitatively. Production of auto-
mobiles and aircraft was established, but production of precision
instruments remained weakly developed.22
Industrial output in the capital doubled between 1914 and 1917. In
1916 Petrograd factories fulfilled military orders worth 1.5 million
rubles. In the metalworking industry, 81% of enterprises and 98% of
the workforce worked on war orders.23 Until the later part of 1916,
therefore, in spite of some weaknesses, Petrograd industry managed
to satisfy the voracious appetite of the Russian war machine.
Thereafter, it found it increasingly hard to maintain output in the
teeth of declining supplies of fuel and raw materials and growing
chaos in the transport system.24
On the eve of the Russian Revolution, the structure of industry
in Petrograd was altogether remarkable, unparalleled except in
Germany. Petrograd represented an island of technologically soph-
isticated state-monopoly capitalism in a country whose mode of
production still consisted in the main of rudimentary capitalist and
pre-capitalist forms, albeit under the overall dominance of large
capital. The economy of the city was being convulsed by a colossal
boom which was entirely a consequence of the slaughter daily taking
place at the Front. War, however, could not go on for ever. This was
an economy living on borrowed time: as soon as the mighty powers
had glutted themselves with carnage and destruction, the economy of
Petrograd would deflate like a pricked balloon. No end to the war was
as yet in sight, but already the signs of imminent collapse were on the
horizon.

THE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE FACTORY WORKFORCE

IN 1917
Between 1890 and 1914, the number of factory workers in St
Petersburg grew from 73,200 to 242,600.25 Between 1914 and 1917, it
 10 Red Petrograd

grew by 150,000 to reach 392,800 - or 417,000, if one includes the

factories situated on the outskirts of the city.26 About one-third of the
workforce of the city and its suburbs, i.e. 134,464 workers, worked in
state enterprises. 27 At the beginning of 1917, the factory workers of
Petrograd represented about 12% of Russia's 3.4 million industrial
workers.28 During the first half of that year, the number of workers in
the capital continued to grow - possibly by as much as 10%. From the
summer onwards, however, the workforce began to contract, as
economic crisis set in. 29
The huge expansion of the Petrograd workforce between 1914 and
1917 took place almost entirely in industries producing for the war
effort. In the metal industry the workforce grew by 135%; in
chemicals by 99% and in clothing by 44%. In textiles the workforce
remained constant in size, and in the food, printing and paper
industries the workforce shrank. 30 By 1917 the distribution of the
Petrograd workforce by industry was as follows:

Table 1 .

Branch of Number of Number of % of total

Industry enterprises workers workforce

Metalworking 379 237369 60.4

Textiles 100 44^5 11.2
Chemicals 58 40087 10.2
Printing and Paper 218 26481 6.8
Food 70 15773 4.0
Woodworking 81 6754 i-7
Leather and footwear 50 12627 3-2
Minerals 32 3900 1.0
Miscellaneous 23 5722 i-5
TOTAL 1011 392828 100.0

Source: Z. V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda vperiodpodgotovkiprovedeniya oktyabr'

skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), p.29.

The most astonishing feature of this table is the extraordinary

predominance of metalworkers. Whereas metalworkers had com-
prised only one-third of the Petrograd workforce in 1908, nine years
later they comprised almost two-thirds. 31 In the same period
textileworkers grew in number, but dwindled as a proportion of the
workforce from 22% to n % . 3 2
Russia was renowned for its large factories. In 1914 54% of workers
 Table 2: % Distribution of workers in Petrograd according to size of enterprise

Enterprises of Enterprises of 51 Enterprises of 101 Enterprises of 501 Enterprises of

Year under 50 workers to 100 workers to 500 workers to 1000 workers over 1000 workers

Average for
1901-19051 6.7% 8.1% 31.8% 155% 37-9%
19062 7.0% 7.2% 3i-3% 18.6% 36.5%
19102 6.8% 7.3% 31.0% 19.4% 35-5%
19142 5.6% 5.6% 24.8% 14.8% 49.2%
[1913P [5%] [5%] [20%] [i5%] [55%]
I9I7 4 3.0% 3.2% i5-9% 10.0% 67.9%

1. These figures are based on enterprises under the Factory Inspectorate in the whole of St Petersburg province.
Source: S.N. Semanov, Peterburgskie rabochie nakanune russkoi revolyntsii (Moscow, 1966), p.37.
2. These figures are based on enterprises under the Factory Inspectorate in the whole of St Petersburg province.
Source: A. I. Davidenko, ' K voprosu o chislennosti i sostave proletariata Peterburga v nachale XX veka' in Istoriya rabochego
klassa Leningrada, issue 2 (Leningrad, 1963), pp.98—9.
3. The figures in square brackets are based on private and state enterprises in the city.
Source: E.E. Kruze, Peterburgskie rabochie igi2—i4gg. (Moscow, 1961), p.71.
4. The figures are based on private and state enterprises in the city and its suburbs.
Source: A.G. Rashin, Formirovanie rabochego klassa Rossii (Moscow, 1958), p. 105.
12 Red Petrograd

in Russia were employed in factories of over 500 workers, compared to

32.5% in the USA.33 Concentration of production was largely a
response to the shortage of skills and to low labour productivity. In
Petrograd in 1917 there was an average of 409 workers per enterprise
- 40% more than the average for Russian industry as a whole.34 Such
a high degree of concentration of the workforce made Petrograd quite
unique in the world. No fewer than 70% of workers were employed in
factories of over a thousand, and two-thirds of this number worked in
thirty-eight huge enterprises, each of more than 2,000 workers.35 It is
apparent from Table 2 that the trend towards concentration of plant
size was a long-term trend which was merely intensified by the war.
In the metal industry concentration was especially high, and an
average of 2,923 workers worked in each of the 72 largest metal works
of the capital and its suburbs.36 Textile production was somewhat
smaller in scale, but 78% of textileworkers worked in 25 mills with an
average workforce of i,372.37 This suggests that concentration in
large units cannot have been the key factor promoting the greater
militancy of metalworkers vis-a-vis textileworkers in 1917, since both
groups worked in factories which by Western European standards
were extremely large.
The concentration of factory workers in large units of production
was paralleled by their concentration in particular areas of the city.
James Bater has shown that residential mixing rather than residential
segregation of social classes was the norm in St Petersburg up to
1914.38 The poor were to be found throughout the city, even in the
wealthy, central-city districts of Admiralty and Kazan, where they
tended to live in the cellars and garrets of buildings. In a socially more
mixed district, such as Vasilevskii Island, the poor inhabitants of the
Harbour district and of Malyi and Srednyi Prospekts lived cheek-by-
jowl with the officials and intelligentsia of Bol'shoi Prospekt. Most
factory workers, however, lived close to their place of work and were
concentrated in the areas where industry was. In 1917 18% of
workers lived on Vyborg Side, where the metal factories were located,
and this figure rises to 25%, if one includes the adjoining suburban
districts of Lesnoi and Polyustrovo. Some 20% lived in the Narva and
Peterhof districts, where the giant Putilov works lay; 14% lived on
Vasilevskii Island; 11% in Nevskii district and 10% on Petrograd
Side.39 In social terms the proletarian districts were worlds apart
from the aristocratic districts of the city centre, but in geographical
terms they were very close to one another. From Vyborg Side one had
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 13
only to cross the Alexander II bridge to arrive at the Central Law
Courts, and from there it was but a stone's throw to Nevskii Prospekt.
The contrast in the living conditions of rich and poor was glaringly
apparent in St Petersburg, because of both social mixing and the
proximity of working-class and upper-class districts. Class divisions
were more visible than in Western European cities, where suburba-
nisation and residential segregation had long been under way. This
must have been a factor promoting class consciousness among the
workers of St Petersburg.
The appalling statistics on mortality bear stark testimony to the
reality of class division in the city. In 1915 the death rate per thousand
in the working-class areas of Vyborg, Narva and Kolomenskaya was,
respectively, 24.8, 22.8 and 26.5; in the Admiralty, Kazan and
Liteinaya districts it was 8.7, 11.2 and 11.7.40 About a quarter of all
babies born in the capital died before the age of one. For those who
survived, the biggest killers were tuberculosis, pneumonia, typhoid,
spotted fever, smallpox, stomach and intestinal diseases.41 In 1908 an
epidemic of infectious diseases accounted for a staggering 47% of all
deaths.42 Such epidemics were a constant hazard, owing to the
contamination of the water supply and the heavy pollution of the river
Neva.
Living conditions in the proletarian districts were sordid and filthy.
In 1920 42% of homes were without a water supply or sewage
system.43 Rubbish in the streets and open cesspools posed a grave
danger to health. No proper roads or pavements existed in working-
class areas, which meant that public thoroughfares turned into
quagmires of mud during the winter. Street lighting was extremely
bad or non-existent. Open spaces were few. Overcrowding was rife.
The chairman of the Vyborg duma sanitation committee claimed that
local residents had less space than those buried in the nearby
cemetery.44 Throughout the city an average of 3.2 persons lived in
each room in single-room apartments, and 3.4 persons in each cellar;
this was double the average for Berlin, Vienna or Paris. Around the
Putilov works there sprawled a fetid slum; here an average of 4.1
people lived in each rented room. In the third ward of Aleksandr-
Nevskaya district the correspondingfigurewas 4.6.45 The majority of
workers thus lived in cramped rooms, often damp and inadequately
ventilated.
Although the standard of rented accommodation was frightful, it
was by no means cheap. Rents in Petrograd were among the highest
14 Red Petrograd

in Europe. In the decade up to 1914 they rose by 30% on average, and

then doubled or trebled during the war. 46 Exorbitant rents reflected
the desperate shortage of accommodation in the city, which had been
a problem since the 1860s, owing to the massive influx of immigrants.
According to S.N. Prokopovich's survey of 1908, only a quarter of
workers could afford to rent a flat of one or two rooms, and those who
could, usually sub-let a part of it. About 70% of single workers and
40% of workers with families lived in shared rooms. Many single
workers made do with just a bunk, which they shared with workers on
other shifts.47 It was common for peasant workers to live as an-artel',
sharing rent and living expenses and organising shopping and
cooking collectively. In 1912 150,000 people lived in shared rooms,
and during the war the number increased. 48 In Petrograd only a small
proportion of workers lived in barracks accommodation or on factory
premises (7% in 1918). This was in contrast to factories in rural areas
where such accommodation was common. 49

THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PETROGRAD WORKING CLASS

Peasant workers and 'cadre' workers

Since the industrial labour force in Russia was recruited overwhelm-

ingly from the countryside, the working class had a peculiar 'peasant'
character which distinguished it from most Western European
working classes, whose roots were more urban and artisanal.
Whether one can even speak of a 'working class' in Russia before 1917
is still a matter of historical controversy, a controversy which goes
back to the debates in the last quarter of the nineteenth century
between Russian Narodniks and Marxists.
Crudely speaking, one can discern two groups within the work-
force. The first consisted of peasants who worked in industry, but who
still retained strong ties with the countryside. The second consisted of
workers who lived solely by wage work and who were fully committed
to factory life. Soviet historians call this latter group 'cadre' workers.
They comprised either peasants, who had settled in the towns and
severed their ties with the land, or second-generation workers who
had been born into working-class families. Historical controversy
revolves around two related problems. The first concerns the relative
weight of each of these two groups within the labour force, i.e. the
extent to which peasant workers outnumbered 'cadres'. The second
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 15
concerns the extent to which a process of proletarianisation was under
way, whereby more and more workers were cutting their links with
agriculture and coming to identify with the industrial working class.
Between 1910 and 1917 the proportion of immigrants in the
population of Petrograd rose from 68% to 73.6%. 50 The overwhelm-
ing majority of these were peasants, forced from the land by acute
land scarcity, indebtedness and chronic poverty, or attracted to the
big city by the prospect of making a better life for themselves. Many
peasants came to the city with the intention of staying for only a short
time, although in 1910 seasonal migrants, i.e. those who came during
the winter months and returned to their villages in the summer,
comprised only 10% of peasants in the capital. 51 Many more came
with the intention of staying until they had earned enough money to
make the family farm once more a viable undertaking. 52 Many,
however, came with the intention of starting a new life and settling in
the city. In 1910 25% of peasants had lived in the capital for ten years
or more, and a further 25% had actually been born there. 53 Thus only
about half the peasant population were recent arrivals to the city.
Peasants who migrated to Petrograd came from provinces distant
from the capital, whereas in Moscow they came from contiguous
areas. Most came from the non-black-earth central provinces and
from the north-western provinces, particularly from Tver', Pskov,
Vitebsk, Novgorod, Smolensk, Kostroma, Vilna, Yaroslavl' and
Ryazan'. Only 9% came from Petrograd province itself.54 It was
common for peasants from the same locality to work in the same
factory, for it was difficult to get taken on at a factory unless one had
inside connections. At the Baltic works, for example, many workers
came from Tver' province, and in the boat shop most came from
Staritskii uezd within that province, since the foreman was a native of
the area. At the Triangle works there were large numbers of workers
from Vasilevskii volost' in Tver' uezd, Tver' province.55. Peasants from
the same locality (zemlyahi) tended to work together and often lived
together as an artel'. Zemlyak networks, however, did not necessarily
insulate the peasants from new cultural pressures, but served instead
to ease their transition into an urban-industrial environment. These
networks were sometimes important means of organising labour
protest, and in 1917 formally-organised zemlyachestva sprang up
which played an important role in politicising peasant workers and
soldiers.56
It is difficult to determine the number of workers who had close ties
16 Red Petrograd

to peasant society, not just because of the paucity of data, but also
because the concept of a 'tie' to the countryside is a nebulous one.
Many workers who had worked for years in industry, and who had no
association with farming, may have felt a vague kinship with the
peasants, a spiritual 'tie' to their place of birth. This, however, would
hardly warrant our categorising them as 'peasant workers'. Nor were
familial ties with peasant society necessary evidence that a worker
was not fully proletarianised. Many who had dug up their rural roots
in early life would still have parents or relatives in the countryside.
Only if workers had immediate family dependants in their native
village — a wife or child - could they properly be considered 'peasant
workers'. Even then, it was only if this familial tie had an economic
underpinning that such workers were 'peasant workers' in the fullest
sense. For in the last analysis, it was the ownership and cultivation of
land, either directly or indirectly, which most crucially characterised
a 'peasant worker'. In an attempt to estimate the proportion of
'peasant workers' in the factory workforce, therefore, two variables
have been examined: firstly, the number of workers sending money to
relatives in the countryside; secondly, and more importantly, the
number of workers who owned and farmed land.
In 1908 the economist S.N. Prokopovich undertook a survey of 570
mainly skilled metalworkers in St Petersburg. This revealed that 42%
of married workers and 67% of single workers sent money to the
countryside.57 Although a smaller proportion of married workers
than single workers sent money to relatives, married workers tended
to send a bigger portion of their earnings than single workers. A
survey of St Petersburg textileworkers in 1912 showed that single
women sent home 6.5% and single men 8% of their earnings, whereas
married workers sent 28%. 58 One youth explained that he sent
money regularly to his family 'so that my father will not summon me
back to the countryside'.59 A contemporary worker, P. Timofeev,
wrote that the unskilled low-paid workers would often starve
themselves in order to send as much as a fifth or a quarter of their
earnings back home, but as their earnings were so miserably low,
these savings could not substantially ease the plight of their rural
dependants. If an unskilled worker managed to get a better job,
preferably paid on piece-rates, he would start to find the tie with the
countryside irksome, since visits home were costly. He would try,
therefore, to bring his family out of rural poverty to live in the town.
The skilled, well-paid worker would tend to do likewise.60
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 17

Table 3: Proportion of workers in Leningrad who owned and fanned land

% of total % of total %
who owned land who farmed land with no land

1918 16.7% (17.2)1 9.5% (10.8) 83.2% (82.8)

1926 u.8% 2 4.4% 88.2%
1929 9.8%3 - 91.2%

Sources:
1. Ts.S.U., Trudy, xxvi, no. 2, pp. 118—19. My calculations. The figures in
brackets are those in V. Z. Drobizhev et al., Rabochii klass sovetskoi Rossii v
pervyi god proletarskoi diktatury (Moscow, 1975), p. 97.
2. S. Krasil'nikov, 'Svyaz' leningradskogo rabochego s zemlyei', Statistiches-
koe Obozrenie, 4 (1929), pp. 107-8. This is my recalculation of the figures for
single and married workers.
3. A. G. Rashin, Sostav fabrichnogo-zavodskogo proletariata (Moscow, 1930),
p.25. This is my recalculation of the figures for the proportion of
textileworkers and metalworkers with land.
The proportion of workers in 1917 who owned land is difficult to
estimate. The 1918 industrial census is the source closest to that year,
but it covers only 107,262 workers in Petrograd - less than a third of
the 1917 workforce. This was because the census was taken at a time
when factory closures and the promise of land in the countryside had
led to a gigantic exodus of workers from the capital. Consequently,
the figures from the 1918 census (see Table 3) should be treated with
caution, since it is reasonable to assume that those workers who held
land in the countryside in 1917 would have gone back to it before the
census was taken. Those workers surveyed by the census were asked
not only whether they still owned land, but also whether they had
owned land prior to the October Revolution. 16.5% of the workers
said that they had held land prior to October 1917, and 7.9% had
farmed it.61 This was considerably lower than the national average,
for the census revealed that 31% of workers, nationally, owned land.
Despite the fact that the 1918 census almost certainly underesti-
mates the extent of land-ownership among Petrograd workers in
1917, especially among single workers (see Table 4), information
from the 1926 and 1929 censuses suggests that the underestimation
was only slight.
Using data from Prokopovich's 1908 survey of metalworkers and
from the 1918 and 1926 censuses, Table 4 provides further evidence
that only a small minority of workers owned land, and only a minority
i8 Red Petrograd

Table 4: '% of workers who owned land

% single workers who: % married workers who:

owned land farmed land owned land farmed land

19081 50% 32% 33% 12%

19182 12.5% 7-3% 13.7% 6.6%
19263 21.3% 6.6% 8.8% 3-7%

Sources:
1. S. N. Prokopovich, Byudzhety peterburgskikh rabochikh (St Petersburg, 1908),
P-7-
2. Drobizhev et al., Rabochii klass sovetskoi Rossii, p.95.
3. Krasil'nikov, 'Svyaz' s zemlei', p. 107.

of these actually farmed it. It shows too that single workers were more
likely to own land than married workers. This is probably due to the
fact that the majority of peasant migrants to the capital were single. If
they married, they would be under pressure to choose either to try to
make a living on the land, or to sell up and move as a family to the
town.
The censuses of 1918, 1926 and 1929 give some information on
land-ownership among metalworkers and textileworkers (see Table5).
It emerges from this table that metalworkers were no less attached to
the land than other groups of workers. The 1929 census figures proved
to be an embarrassment to the Stalin government, since they
disclosed that there were more land-owners among the 'vanguard' of
the proletariat, the metalworkers, than among the 'backward'
textileworkers. An even more interesting finding emerged from this
census. Figures showed that the proportion of land-owners was
Table 5: % of total workforce who owned land

metalworkers textileworkers

19181 18.7% 18.6%

19262 10.2% 11.6%
1929s 12.4% 4.4%

Sources:
1. Drobizhev et al., Rabochii klass sovetskoi Rossii, p.98.
2. Krasil'nikov, 'Svyaz' s zemlei', p. 108.
3. Rashin, Sostav fab. zav. prol., p.30.
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 19

Table 6: % of workers owning land who began work:

Leningrad Leningrad
textileworkers metalworkers
x
prior to 1905 8.0% 7-5%
between 1906 and 1913 4.6% 14.6%
between 1914 and 1917 3.6% 12.3%

Source: Rashin, Sostav fab. zav. prol., p.30.

highest among groups with the longest service in industry (see Table
6). It is thus apparent that long service in industry did not necessarily
erode the tie with the countryside. Yet workers who had worked in
industry for twenty-five years were obviously 'proletarian', regardless
of the fact that they owned land. This is borne out by a further finding
of this census, which showed that a quarter of workers who owned
land had been born into working-class rather than peasant families.62
This suggests that by itself land-ownership is not an adequate index of
proletarianisation.
Tables 3, 4, 5 and 6 all attest that the proportion of workers in
Petrograd who owned land declined significantly over time. Further
evidence that the working-class was becoming increasingly prole-
tarianised is found by examining data on the numbers of hereditary
workers, i.e. workers one or both of whose parents were themselves
workers, and data on the numbers of settled workers, i.e. on average
length of service in industry.
According to the 1918 census, 20% of metalworkers and 24.8% of
textileworkers had one or both parents a worker.63 The 1929 census
correlated the social origin of Leningrad metalworkers and textile-
workers with the year of their entry into industry. Whilst these data
are scanty, they point clearly to an increase over time in the
proportion of workers in Petrograd born into working-class families
and a corresponding decline in the proportion born into peasant
families (see Table y).64
The data on length of service in industry is sparser and more
difficult to interpret. Soviet historians usually assert that it took about
five years for a worker new to industry to become a fully-fledged
proletarian. It is, of course, impossible to estimate with scientific
precision the length of time which it took a peasant to become
socialised into factory life. It may have taken as long as ten years for a
2O Red Petrograd

Table 7

Year of entry Proportion of Born into Born into

into industry total sample who working class peasant
entered industry families (%) families (%)
in the period:

textile- metal- textile- metal- textile- metal-

workers workers workers workers workers workers

before 1905 22% 22% 44.5 43.1 52.7 52.0

between 1906
and 1913 18% 17.9% 53.8 52.2 42.2 42.0
between 1914
and 1917 10.4% 11.8% 56.2 56.9 39.6 37.3

Source: Rashin, Sostavfab. zav. prol., pp. 19,2 1 .

peasant to overcome his rustic habits of work, the instinctive rhythm

of hard and slack work, the dislike of close routine and his longing for
the freedom of the outdoors.65 For a young worker, however, it
certainly would have taken far less time. One must therefore be
cautious in interpreting the data.
In 1908 a survey of 5,720 metalworkers showed that 28% had
worked less than two years in industry; 34% between two and five
years and 39% five or more years. In the large factories with a
workforce of more than a thousand, however, the proportion of
workers withfiveor more years of service rose to 53% .^ These figures
suggest that a majority of workers were new to industry, yet this need
not mean that the labour force was obviously 'peasant5 in character.
We know that it took very little time for some peasants to submit to
the cultural pressures of town life and factory work. In view of this,
Soviet historians may well be right to allow only five years as the
average period it would take a worker to become acculturated to
industrial and urban life, but the problem is very under-researched.
The preceding review of data on land-ownership and second-
generation workers clearly reveals that a process of proletarianisation
was taking place among the workers of St Petersburg. The proportion
of 'cadre' workers in the workforce was increasing, owing to the
decay of ties with the land and the growing number of hereditary
workers. It is, however, more difficult to try to quantify the proportion
of'cadre' workers on the eve of the war. The data on land-ownership
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 21
and sending money to the countryside suggest that, at most, a third of
workers had real economic links with peasant society, but these were
not the sum of 'peasant workers'. In addition, there were peasants
who had only just arrived in industry and who would soon lose
contact with the countryside, but who had not yet acclimatised to
factory life. In thefiveyears up to 1914, nearly 85,000 workers entered
the factories of the capital, so that on the eve of the war about
one-third of the total factory workforce had entered industry within
the previous five years.67 One can perhaps hazard that in 1914,
'peasant workers' and new workers (not all of whom were peasants)
together comprised nearly half the factory workforce. Cadre workers,
therefore, i.e. those who had severed their ties with peasant society
and who had considerable industrial and urban experience, were
probably in a slight majority.
The war led to a decline in the proportion of'cadre' workers in the
industrial workforce of the capital. This was caused partly by
conscription, and partly by the massive influx of new workers into the
factories. Throughout Russian industry about 400,000 to 500,000 (or
20% to 25% of the 1914 workforce) were conscripted into the army.68
In Petrograd the proportion was much less, since workers there were
needed to produce for the war effort. Leiberov and Shkaratan
estimate that about 40,000 industrial workers in Petrograd were
conscripted - or 17% of the 1914 workforce.69 Those conscripted were
mainly young workers without a great deal of experience of industry.
Fully-proletarianised 'cadre' workers usually had some skill and so
were less affected, since their skills were in desperately short supply.
In later mobilisations, however, known militants and strike leaders
were drafted into the army as punishment for participation in
industrial and political protest. Leiberov and Shkaratan estimate that
as many as 6,000 workers may have been conscripted on political
grounds.70 They conclude, nevertheless, that the 'cadre' proletariat
was preserved during the war. The proportion of 'cadres' within the
workforce was reduced not so much by conscription, as by the influx
of new workers caused by the wartime expansion of production.
Between 1914 and 1917 the workforce of Petrograd grew by 150,000;
making allowance for the 40,000 who were conscripted, this means
that some 190,000 workers must have entered industry. These
comprised four main groups: male and female peasants; working-
class women and youth; rural artisans and urban petit-bourgeois
(meshchane); and evacuees. About 68,200 women came into Petrograd
industry during the war, bringing the total number of women workers
22 Red Petrograd

to 129,800 by 1917. If one assumes that the 31,800 workers who were
under the age of eighteen in 1917 had entered industry during the
war, then the total number of female and young recruits was about
ioo,ooo. 71 Many of these may have been from working-class families
where the male breadwinner - husband, father or brother- had been
sent to the Front, and was thus no longer able to support the family. A
majority, however, were almost certainly from the countryside.
Although there are no statistics on the social origin of newcomers to
industry, it has been estimated that between one-half and three-
quarters of the newcomers were from the peasantry. 72 About 25,000
to 30,000 recruits to Petrograd industry were drawn from the rural
and urban petit-bourgeoisie.73 When the war broke out, many small
traders, shopkeepers, landlords, porters, domestic servants, artists
and others took jobs in munitions factories in order to escape
conscription. A check on reservists at the Putilov works in August
1917 led to the 'voluntary' departure of 2,000 workers, described as
'book-keepers, shop-owners, tailors, artists, jewellers, corn-
chandlers, coopers, landlords, and cafe-owners'.74 There were var-
ious jingles about such workers which were current in the factories
during the war:
Once he was a yardkeeper
sweeping footpaths,
Now he's in the factory
making shrapnel.75
Leiberov and Shkaratan estimate that such workers comprised 5% to
7% of the factory workforce in Petrograd. 76
Between 40,000 and 50,000 recruits were workers evacuated from
the Baltic provinces and Western parts of Russia. Some twenty
factories were evacuated from Riga - with a combined workforce of
over 6,000 - and about twenty-five from Lithuania. 77 In addition,
many Polish workers were removed to the capital. There were around
5,000 Poles at Putilov in 1917. Relatively few Chinese, Korean,
Central Asian or Persian workers came to Petrograd, although scores
of thousands were drafted into the mines of the Donbass, Urals and
Siberia, but there were several hundred in the state enterprises of the
capital. 78 If the 1918 industrial census is reliable for 1917, then 15.8%
of the factory labour force in Petrograd were non-Russians in 1917,
though by no means all of these had come to the capital during war.
The largest group were Poles (who comprised 5.8% of the total
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 23

labour force),followed by Latvians and Lithuanians (2.6%), Finns

(2.3%), Germans (0.5%), Jews (0.3%) etc. 79
Leiberov and Shkaratan conclude that if one subtracts the 190,000
workers who came into industry during the war from the total factory
workforce in 1917, one is left with the number of'cadre' workers -
between 200,000 and 220,000 (assuming that most evacuees were
'cadre' workers). This leads them to conclude that a majority of the
factory workforce in Petrograd in 1917 - 50% to 52% - were 'cadres'.
But this assumes that by 1917 all those workers who had been
working in industry in 1914 were 'cadres'. This seems an un-
warranted assumption, in view of the fact that at least 40% of the
workforce in 1914 had either less than five years' experience in
industry or were peasant workers. Making some allowance for this,
therefore, it is likely that by 1917 'cadres' no longer comprised a slight
majority of the workforce, as they had done in 1914, but had shrunk to
perhaps as little as 40% of the total workforce.80

Sexual and age divisions

By January 1917 129,800 women worked in the factories of the

capital. 81 This compared to 83,000 domestic servants, mostly women,
who worked in dire conditions for shockingly low wages.82 Perhaps
50,000 women worked in offices and similar establishments, and a
similar number worked in shops and in the wholesale and retail
trade. 83 Other women worked in the clothing trade and in various
kinds of workshops and sweatshops. The proportion of women in the
factory labour force rose from 20.8% in 1900, to 25.7% in 1913 to
33.3% in 1917 (see Table 8). The war thus led to a big increase in the
number of women in Petrograd industry, though this was not as large
an increase as in Russian industry as a whole, where the proportion of
women soared from 26.6% in 1914 to 43.2% in 1917.84
The Petrograd textile industry had the highest proportion of
women workers. After the 1905 Revolution millowners had deliber-
ately increased the number of women employees. In 1907 the annual
report of factory inspectors noted: 'the increase in the application of
female labour is particularly sharply reflected in the cottonweaving
industry, where women weavers have ousted men. The reasons for
this are as before: their greater industry, attentiveness and abstinence
(they do not drink or smoke), their compliance and greater reason-
24 Red Petrograd

Table 8: Sexual and age breakdown of Petrograd workforce

0 of workers % increase
Branch of Industry Year - of women and
men women youths youths 1913-17

1913 66.2 25-7 8.1

All branches 8.2 7-7
1917 58.5 333
1913 91.2 2.7 6.1
Metalworking 18.1
1917 73-1 20.3 6.6
1913 96.9 2.0
Woodworking 25-1
1917 71.8 20.7 7-5
Textiles and 1913 32.0 II.O
Sewing 18.7 68.6 12.7 13-3

1913 51.8 40.7 7-5

Food 66.0 11.8
29.6
22.2

Leather and shoes 1913 71.1 20.5 8.4 24.8

46.3 42.8 10.9
1913 56.1 41.6 2.3
Chemicals 46.8 46.7 9-3
IQI 7 6.5
IQI ^ 76.2 16.7 7-1
Minerals 17.2
IQI 7 59° 20.6 20.4

Source: Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.34.

ableness in respect of pay'.85 The textile workforce was composed
mainly of young single women. A survey of 7,000 textileworkers in
Petrograd in 1918 revealed that 18% were aged 17 or under; 17%
aged 18 to 20; 28% aged 21 to 30; 18% aged 31 to 40; and 19% aged 41
and over. 69% of women were under the age of 30 compared to 39% of
men, most of the latter being boys under 17.86 Amongst the male
textileworkers, who comprised only 13% of the total, 70% were
married, 2% widowed and 28% single. Amongst the women,
however, only 33% were married, 11% widowed and 56% single.
This reflected the large share of young girls in the industry, and also
the fact that the marriage rate had gone down as a consequence of the
war. This was particularly striking among women textileworkers
aged 20 to 30. In 1909, 74% of this group were married, whereas nine
years later, only 49% were.87
By 1917 more women in Petrograd worked in the metal industries
than in textiles - approximately 48,000 as against 30,000. The
proportion of women in the metal industries rocketed from 2.7% in
1913 to 20.3% (see Table 8). These women worked in mass-
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 25
production factories producing cartridges, shells, shrapnel, etc. Some
18,000 women worked in the 'chemicals' industry, of whom over
10,000 were employed at a single plant — the giant Triangle
rubber-works, which produced everything from galoshes to gas
masks. A further 10,000 women were employed in the food and
tobacco industries. Finally, about 5,000 women worked in the leather
industry, including 3,000 at the Skorokhod shoe factory which made
boots for soldiers. All these jobs had one thing in common, they were
unskilled and badly-paid. The distribution of women in factory jobs
thus reflected the fact that the sexual division of labour within the
patriarchal peasant household had been transposed into a factory
setting.88
Prior to the war, the employment of children was less widespread in
the capital than in Russian industry generally. In 1914 about 8% of
the workforce under the Factory Inspectorate in St Petersburg
consisted of youths aged 15 to 17. In addition, about 2,000 children
aged 12 to 15 were employed in porcelain and glass factories,
printshops and other small enterprises.89 In the course of the war the
number of young workers in Petrograd grew, but less than the
national average. The number of under-18s rose from 22,900 to
31,800, but their proportion within the factory labour force remained
about the same (see Table 8). Although the proportion of young
workers was the greatest in the textiles, food and leather industries,
young workers were most numerous in the metal industries. It was
this industry which provided a base for the youth movement in
Petrograd in 1917.
The labour force in Russia was remarkable for the low proportion
of middle-aged workers and the almost complete absence of elderly
workers in its ranks. In 1900 23% of St Petersburg factory workers
were aged 16 to 20; 52% were aged 21 to 40; and only 12% were older
than 40.90 The First World War dramatically changed this age
balance. The fullest data on this question are provided by the
industrial census of 1918, but because of the collapse of industry in the
first half of that year, these data can be applied to 1917 only with some
caution. The census showed that among male workers, 4.2% were
under 15; 6.3% were 16 to 17; 6.5% were 18 to 20; 41.7% were 21 to
39; 38.4% were 40 to 59 and 2.9% were 60 or more.91 This
represented an enormous increase in the proportion of over~4os and a
significant decline in the proportion of workers aged 21 to 40. This
was an obvious consequence of conscription. Among women workers,
26 Red Petrograd

2.7% were under 15; 7.8% were 16 to 17; 18.4% were 18 to 20; 52.7%
were 21 to 39; 17% were 40 to 59 and 1.3% were 60 or over. Women
workers thus had a younger age profile than men in 1918, with a
bigger proportion of under-2is and a far smaller proportion of
over-4os.92
In 1918 60% of industrial workers in Russia were married or
widowed. This compared to 63% of male and 46% of female
metalworkers in Petrograd in the same year. 93 Late marriage was the
norm: 45% of male and 48% of female workers aged 21 to 30 were
unmarried in Petrograd in 1918.94 Among the more highly-paid
groups of workers, the marriage-rate and average family size were
greatest. A survey of metalworkers in 1908 showed that 46% of those
earning less than i-5or. a day were single, compared to 21% of those
earning more than 2-5or. a day. 95 In 1918 married male workers in
Petrograd had an average of 2.4 dependants, but skilled metalworkers
had 3-7.96 Whereas in 1897 only 30% of married metalworkers had
lived with their families, in 1918 three-quarters of skilled fitters in
Petrograd did so. 97 In that year 71 % of all married workers lived with
their families - an important indication of the extent to which workers
had broken ties with the countryside since 1897.
One Soviet anthropologist has suggested that women had a higher
status in the working-class family than in the peasant family, and that
there was a more equal division of labour within the former than the
latter. She cites as evidence the opinion of M. Davidovich, surveyor of
St Petersburg textile workers, who wrote in 1909: 'While the woman
hurries straight home from the factory to the children, the husband
goes off to market and to the shops to buy provisions for supper and
next day's dinner . . . in his spare time the husband must always look
after the children.' 98
Yet there is a good deal of other evidence to suggest that domestic
labour remained as much the responsibility of the woman in the
'proletarian' family, as it was in its peasant counterpart. A. Il'ina,
writing in the journal of the textile workers, Tkach, gives this agonising
description of the lot of the working mother:

Having finished work at the factory, the woman worker is still not free. While
the male worker goes off to a meeting, or just takes a walk or plays billiards
with his mates, she has to cope with the housework - to cook, to wash and so
on ... she is seldom helped by her husband. Unfortunately, one has to admit
that male workers are still very prejudiced. They think that it is humiliating
for a man to do 'woman's' work [bab'yu rabotu]. They would sooner their sick,
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 27

worn-out wife did the household chores [barshchinu] by herself. They would
rather tolerate her remaining completely without leisure — illiterate and
ignorant - than condescend to help her do the housework. And on top of all
these yokes and burdens, the woman worker has still the heavy load of
motherhood . . . Today for a working class woman, having a baby is no joy —
it's a burden, which at times gets quite unbearable."

For single women who left their families, factory work may have
brought a measure of economic independence,100 but for married
women, the burdens of being a housewife and mother, as well as a
wage-worker, were onerous in the extreme. Low wages, together with
the obligation to perform unpaid domestic labour, made married
women economically dependent on the wages of their husbands.

Skill divisions

The definition of'skill' is a thorny problem. Skill refers to the quality

of work: a skilled job demands greater precision, dexterity and mental
exertion than an unskilled job. Skill differences are rooted in the
labour process - in the physical and intellectual requirements of
particular operations within the process of production. Some writers
have argued that it is possible to measure skill by comparing the
length of training necessary for different jobs.101 The problem is,
however, that while skills do have real existence in the requirements
of a job and in the capabilities of the worker, they are also partially
determined by class struggle. Workers' organisations can 'artificially'
create skills, by restricting access to particular jobs; they can control
the institutions and practices whereby skills are acquired, trans-
mitted and recognised.102 Because skill determination is a site of class
struggle, the usefulness of criteria such as length of apprenticeship or
relative wage levels as 'objective' measures of skill must be fairly
limited.
The origins of the St Petersburg metal industry go back to the first
quarter of the eighteenth century, but the modern metallurgical and
metalworking industries came into existence only in the 1890s. From
the first, they were machine-based industries, fairly advanced in
technology, but still dependent on the manual skills of craftsmen. The
sociologist, Alain Touraine, has distinguished three phases in the
organisation of work: the first was the old system which relied on
craftsmanship and required only universal machines, such as lathes,
not limited to the production of a single product; the second saw the
28 Red Petrograd

break-up of a job into its component parts, the development of

mechanisation and the feeding of machines by unskilled workers; the
third phase is the phase of automation, where direct productive work
by human beings is eliminated.103 One could say that in the decade
prior to 1917 the metalworking industry of Petrograd was moving
from the first to the second of Touraine's phases.
Skilled craftsmen (masterovye) played a crucial role in the labour
process in the metal industry of Petrograd. Highly-skilled workers,
such as instrument-makers, pattern-makers, milling-machine oper-
ators, electricians, platers or engravers, performed complex precision
work, working independently from technical drawings and using
sophisticated measuring instruments. Beneath them were many
skilled workers who were fully trained and who could work from
technical drawings, but whose work was not especially complex or
precise. These included most fitters (slesari), turners (tokari), electri-
cians, mechanics, planers, mortisers, etc.104 These highly-skilled and
skilled men (there were no women in these trades) were directly
involved in production: the rapidity of their reflexes, their visual,
auditory and tactile sensibilities were crucial to the operation of the
machine or tool. They were deeply knowledgeable of their work, used
to taking decisions about their work, used to thinking for themselves
and to exercising control over their jobs. They were respected by
other workers and by management for their manual and intellectual
skills. As such, they were not unlike craftsmen at Armstrong-
Whitworth, the Schwarzkopf works in Berlin or at Fiat-Centro in
Turin.
One should not imagine, however, that the skilled metalworker in
St Petersburg was a 'labour aristocrat'. Some of the most highly-paid
men did constitute a small 'aristocracy', but the average skilled
man was far removed from the craftsman one might associate with
the British 'new model' unions of the mid-nineteenth century. Firstly,
Petersburg metalworkers were not organised into exclusive craft
unions, capable of controlling entry to the trade, of imposing
standard pay and conditions and of regulating workshop matters
through 'custom and practice'.105 Secondly, metalworkers did not
serve a formal five- or seven-year apprenticeship. A survey of fitters
at the Putilov works in 1918 showed that 67% had served an appren-
ticeship, averaging 3.3 years and starting at about the age of 15 or 16;
32% had trained on the job as assistants to craftsmen (podruchnye), for
4.5 years on average.106 Thirdly, unlike British engineers in the
nineteenth century, the metalworkers of St Petersburg did not rely so
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 29

exclusively on manual skill: they operated up-to-date drilling

machines, turret lathes, vertical boring mills, self-acting planing
machines and horizontal milling machines. There were, of course,
still turners who were masters of the parallel lathe, but there were
many who worked automatic lathes which required them only to
assemble parts, measure their dimensions and sometimes to regulate
tools. Similarly, there were traditional fitters, who fitted parts with a
file and scraper, ran the bearings and assembled all the parts
themselves, but limit-gauges were already dealing a blow to their
skills. The skilled metalworkers of St Petersburg were thus distant
from British 'labour aristocrats', but neither were they yet the
'mass-production' workers of the modern assembly plant.
The masterovye of the metal trades were distinguished by their
craft consciousness. Many worker-memoirists remark on this. A.M.
Buiko, who worked at the Putilov works at the turn of the century,
recalled:
In those days it was felt that if a worker did not master his trade, did not
become a good craftsman, then he was not a proper fellow. This point of view
had its roots in the days of kustarshchina, when old craftsmen regarded
unskilled workers as a casual element in their midst. A worker who had not
mastered his trade was scornfully called a 'master at earning his bread'
If a young man began a conversation with an older skilledfitteror turner he
would be told: 'Learn first how to hold a hammer and use a chisel and a knife,
then you can begin to argue like a man who has something to teach others.'
For many years we had to put up with this. If you wanted to be an organiser,
then you had to know your job. If you did, then they would say of you — 'He's
not a bad lad — he works well and he's got a smart brain when it comes to
politics.'107
A. Buzinov, who worked at the Nevskii works as a foundryman,
remembered:
Every branch of production, and even each craft [to&A], infects the worker
with professional or craft patriotism. He sings the virtues of his own trade
[remeslo] and spits on all the rest. Metalworkers felt themselves to be
aristocrats among the rest of the working class. Their profession demanded
more training and so they looked down on weavers and others, as though
they were inferior bumpkins - today they are at the mill, tomorrow they go
off to plough the land. Everyone recognised the superiority of metalworkers,
with all the advantages that that implied ... The oddness of textileworkers
hit me in the eyes. Many of them still wore peasant clothes. They looked as
though they had wandered into the town by mistake and tomorrow would
find their way back to their native village. Women predominated among
them and one never lost an opportunity to pour scorn on them. Alongside the
textileworkers, the metalworkers appeared to be a race apart, accustomed
to life in the capital and more independent ... The more I grew into the
30 Red Petrograd

factory family [zavodskuyu sem'jyu], the more it became clear just how much
variety there was even within one factory. Soon I began to feel that the
workers in the engineering shop — fitters and turners - looked down on me.
Later I realised that workers in the 'hot' shops - the foundry, the rolling-mill
and the forge - had a low status. Then for the first time I saw that the people
there were heavy and awkward in speech and gait. In each face, through the
deep tan of the furnace, coarse features were clearly visible, which seemed to
say that strength, not wit, was what was required in their work. I soon
realised that next to the most experienced foundryman, even a poor fitter
seemed an educated, thinking man. 108

In these two passages one sees the classic elements of craft ideology:
the pride of the craftsmen in the mastery of their trade; 109 the esteem
they enjoy because of their knowledge of processes and materials and
their manual dexterity; their condescension towards labourers and
unskilled workers; their disdain for the peasants and their boorish
way-of-life; their scorn of callow youth; their oppressive attitudes
towards women; their measuring a person's moral integrity — indeed
their political credibility - in terms of their mastery of their trade.
Such craft pride was to take a knock, as the position of these skilled
workers was undermined by technological change.
Most skilled workers were to be found in the machine-building and
engineering sectors of the metal industry. Less skilled workers were to
be found in metallurgical sectors, and in the so-called 'hot' shops of
the large metal works. In a mammoth enterprise, such as the Putilov
works, where there were 41 different workshops in 1917, the division
between 'hot' shops, such as the foundries, the 'Martin' shop (named
after the Siemens-Martin process of open-hearth steel-making), the
crucible shop or rolling mills, and the 'cold' shops, such as the pattern
shop, the machine shops, the gun or gun-carriage shops, was crucial.
In the 'hot' shops the work was extremely arduous and most of the
workers were peasants. The worker P. Timofeev described the work of
an unskilled labourer (chemorabochii) in such a shop:

The chief characteristic of the work of a chemorabochii is that it is shockingly

hard. It is one of the meanest, roughest, heaviest jobs which one finds in the
factories. Apart from sheer muscle-power, nothing significant is required -
neither literacy, skill, nor even simple quick-wittedness, since the gang-leader
or senior chemorabochii will provide this. To carry iron, to load and unload
wagons, to lift two hundred pudy of cast iron, to fetch and carry all kinds of
heavy weights, to dig and prop up pits - these are some of the tasks of the
chemorabochii. But his chief task is to be able to survive on seventy kopecks a
day, to support a family, or from time to time to send ten or fifteen rubles to
the countryside.110
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 31
The years after 1908 saw the emergence of a new layer of
semi-skilled workers in the metal industry - mainly machine-
operators of one kind or another. The appearance of semi-skilled
workers was bound up with the introduction of new technology and
the reorganisation of production. After 1909 the economy picked up,
there was limited introduction of assembly lines, standardised
calibres and interchangeable parts. At the Putilov works a shipyard
was built, a new turret shop and gun shop were constructed, the
factory was fully electrified and cranes began to be used for loading
furnaces. 111 Other factories began to implement F.W. Taylor's
techniques of'scientific management'. By 1917 Russia was, after the
USA, the country where scientific management was most widely
applied. 112 The outbreak of war in 1914 gave a big boost to the
transformation of work processes and work organisation. The
whole-scale introduction of mass-production processes substantially
changed the skill profile of the metal workforce, greatly expanding the
ranks of the semi-skilled.
The influx of peasants and women into semi-skilled jobs potentially
threatened the position of the masterovye. Yu. Milonov, a leader of the
metalworkers' union, described the process thus:
The technology of production during the war was characterised by the broad
application of automatic machines. The whole of war production was done on
them ... This caused sharp changes in the professional make-up of workers in
the metal-working industry. Alongside a reduction in the number of skilled,
specialist masterovye as a result of the numerous mobilisations, the number of
workers operating machines increased. And so the metalworkers' unions
which arose after the February Revolution differed in their occupational
make-up from the unions in the pre-war period. No longer did masterovye
predominate in them, but the unqualified workers.113

Petrograd metalworkers were experiencing what in the British

context was called 'dilution', i.e. the introduction of semi-skilled
workers into jobs formerly done by skilled male workers, but also
'dilution' in the sense of a decrease in the specific weight of fully-
proletarianised elements within the workforce. James Hinton has
shown that in the British engineering industry, craftsmen whose
status and privileges were still intact when the war broke o u t - mainly
those on Clydeside and in Sheffield - led a class-wide offensive against
'dilution'. C. Goodey has suggested that 'dilution and de-skilling
were almost as much at issue in Petrograd as they were on
Clydeside'. 114 Yet what is surprising about the Russian experience is
32 Red Petrograd

precisely the absence of any militant opposition from the masterovye.

I. Gordienko, who worked as a moulder at the Lessner works, wrote:
During the time of my short absence, big changes took place. The turning
shop was filled with machines (mechanical assembly lines and vices) and new
workers, including many women, youths and the sons of those who could
afford to buy them out of the army. The mood of the cadre workers was
indifferent.115

This indifference to 'dilution' was probably the result of several

factors. First, the extent of'dilution' should not be exaggerated. Some
rather doubtful calculations by S.G. Strumilin purport to show that
the average skill-level in the Petrograd metal industry fell by 17%
during the war, and by 12% among fitters and turners.116 Secondly,
it is unlikely that skilled metalworkers were directly displaced by
semi-skilled women; the latter went into new sectors of production. In
the short term the opportunities for many craftsmen increased, owing
to the massive expansion of production. Thirdly, although working
conditions deteriorated and the intensity of work increased, the
Petrograd metal industry was one of the few industries in Russia
where real wages increased between the autumn of 1914 and the
winter of 1916, owing to the fact that the skills of the metalworkers
were in critically short supply. Together these factors helped blunt
opposition to 'dilution'.
In spite of some wartime de-skilling, the proportion of skilled
workers in the metal industry remained higher than in other
industries in 1917. The only data on skill-composition relate to 1918,
and must thus be treated with caution, in view of the tremendous
changes which took place in 1918 as a result of the rapid demobilisa-
tion of the war industries. Classifying the 21,792 metalworkers in
Petrograd enterprises of more than 500 workers according to the skill
categories used by the metalworkers' union. Strumilin calculated that
22.7% were highly skilled; 23.1% were skilled; 21.1% were semi-
skilled and 29% unskilled.117 Even after wartime changes, the most
numerous occupational category in the industry remained that of
'fitter', a relatively unspecialised craftsman, who could turn his hand
to several jobs.
The skill structure of the textile industry was far less differentiated
than that of the metal industry. Skilled workers comprised only 6% of
the workforce. They were nearly all men, who performed fine
spinning and weaving and specialised carding operations. The
overlookers and mechanics were also mainly men. Semi-skilled
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 33

workers comprised 72% of the workforce. These were mainly women

who tended jennies and fly-frames or operated power looms. About
20% of the workforce were classed as unskilled, who comprised
mainly young girls and boys who worked as 'piecers', bobbin-tenders,
heddlers, twisters, sorters and cleaners of raw wool or cotton. 118
In 1917 there were 19,400 workers employed in the different
branches of the printing industry of Petrograd. 119 During the war the
number of printers had fallen by over 3,000, and the proportion of
women in the industry had grown from 23% to 35%. 1 2 0 Although all
large and many medium-sized print-works were mechanised to some
extent, the print trade relied predominantly on manual skill.
Typesetters comprised over a third of the workforce. Their skills and
wages varied considerably, but as a group they were distinguished
from other trades, such as paper-feeders, pressmen, machinists,
lithographers or binders, by their high earnings, by the control which
they exercised over their jobs, and by the fact that they regarded
themselves as a cut above other workers in the industry. Newspaper
compositors and the aktsidentnye, who did specialised and complex
compositing, were better-paid than the strochnye, who typeset
books. 121 Typesetters often worked in a hompaniya (company) in order
to expedite a particular job as quickly as possible. They would
organise the work among themselves and appoint a steward (starosta)
to supervise discipline, hours and wages. The kompaniya enjoyed a
high degree of job-control and was not subject to close supervision by
management. The wages which could be earned by a member of a
kompaniya were extremely high- 150 r. a month in 1916, as opposed to
the 50 r. earned by an average typesetter - but it was not high wages
per se which made the typesetters of the kompaniya into an 'aristocracy'
so much as their position within the authority-structure of the
enterprise and the distinct cultural world which they inhabited.
According to Tikhanov, himself a printer, 'the kompaniya was a state
within a state; no one knew what it did, and it did not care to know
about anybody else'. 122 Most typesetters were born in the city. Many
came to work on bicycles, wore starched shirts, went to the theatre
and horse-races and generally tried to maintain a 'good tone'. Others
drank heavily and sometimes ended up penniless in the doss-
house. 123 The typesetters enjoyed close personal relations with their
employers, many of whom were themselves former printers. Em-
ployers addressed their staff as 'Mister', and gave long-service medals
and civic honours to loyal employees. The print trade was thus one of
34 Red Petrograd

the few industries in which there was a sizeable 'labour aristocracy'.

The 1897 census revealed that only 21% of the total population of
European Russia was literate. This was mainly because of the
appallingly low level of literacy in the countryside- 17% compared to
45% in the towns. 124 The spread of schooling in the next two decades
helped boost the rate of literacy, so that by 1920 a third of the
population was literate, including 42% of men and 25.5% of
women. 125 In St Petersburg the rate of literacy was the highest in the
country. As early as 1900, 70% of the population aged six or over was
literate; by 1920 this had risen to at least 80%. 126
Working-class literacy was higher than the average for the
population as a whole. By 1918 89% of male workers and 65% of
females in Petrograd were literate, compared to 79% and 44%,
respectively, of workers in the country as a whole.127 Working-class
literacy was heavily influenced by sex, age and occupation. A survey
of 3,998 textileworkers in Petrograd in 1918 showed that only 50%
were literate, but 74% of men were literate compared to 45% of
women. 128 Younger women, however, were more literate than older
women (see Table g).
A survey of 12,000 metalworkers in Petrograd in the same year
revealed that overall literacy was 88%: 92% among men and 70%
among women. 8 1 % of women under 20 could read and write,
compared to 48% of women aged 40 to 50, and 26% of women over
50. Only a quarter of metalworkers aged 55 or over were literate. 129 A
survey of 724 skilled fitters at Putilov showed that literacy was as high
as 94.7%, 130 but in the boiler-plate shop at the Baltic shipworks in
April 1917, no fewer than 12 out of 93 masterovye (13%) marked a
petition demanding the removal of the shop director with a cross
instead of their signature, which suggests that literacy among skilled
fitters at Putilov may have been exceptionally high. 131
A majority of workers in Petrograd in 1917 had had some kind of
schooling. Primary education made great strides in Russia in the
decades prior to the war, but in 1911 still only a third of Russian boys
aged 7 to 14 and 14% of girls of the same age were attending school.132
In St Petersburg primary education was more widespread, and
between 1906 and 1916 the number of primary school pupils doubled
to reach 62,418, while the number of secondary school pupils rose to
10,480.133 Although most working-class boys and some working-class
girls attended school at some time, only a tiny minority ever
completed their primary education. In 1914 a mere 22% of children
 The Petrograd working class on the eve of igiy 35

Table 9: The relationship of age and sex to literacy among textileworkers in

Petrograd in igi8

Age group Male Female Both

under 20 83% 67% 69%

21-30 86% 45% 48%
31-40 83% 22% 33%
41-50 68% 9% 31%
over 50 54% 1% 24%

Source: Vestnik professional'nykh sqyuzov, 2 (1918), p.9.

in St Petersburg stayed the full course of primary school.134 Strumilin

estimated that on average most factory workers had had three to four
years' schooling, but most women would have had less.135 Parents
were under great economic pressure to send their children out to
work, and once children were set on at the factory, it was difficult for
them to continue their education. Even where they worked a six-hour
day, and where some provision was made for evening classes, few
youngsters had the stamina to begin to study after a hard day's work.
In any case, although the ability to read and write was an important
prerequisite to becoming a skilled worker, length of factory experi-
ence, rather than length of schooling, counted for more in getting a
skilled job.136

CONCLUSION

Combined and uneven development of capitalism in Russia left its

mark on the working-class itself. The economy of Petrograd was an
articulated system of advanced and rudimentary forms of capitalist
production under the dominance of state-monopoly capital. A
majority of wage-earners in the capital worked in factory industry,
mainly in vast, technologically-sophisticated enterprises, run by
private capital or by the state. In 1917 the city's industry was geared
totally to the war, and the overwhelming majority of its workers
produced for the war effort. In an economic sense, the city was one of
the most modern in the world, but in a social and political sense
Petrograd was decades behind other world cities. It was still a city
36 Red Petrograd

of peasants, and the huge scale of peasant migration brought the

infrastructure of the city to the point of collapse. The city fathers
proved unable to meet the challenge, since the incubus of tsarist
absolutism had stifled civic initiative. The result was staggering levels
of death and disease, massive overcrowding, and appalling squalor
and poverty.
The workforce was recruited from the peasantry and lacked urban
and artisanal traditions. The fact that many workers had a peasant
culture and mentality did not necessarily inhibit their participation in
labour protest: indeed, their grievances as industrial workers may
have been fed by deeper peasant discontents.137 Moreover we shall
see that Russian workers experienced the horrors of early indus-
trialisation in the particular political context of autocracy. They thus
grew up acutely aware of the 'political question', particularly
susceptible to radical political ideas, and not so responsive to
reformist, economistic or craft ideologies.138
Within the industrial workforce there were important social
divisions, according to degree of proletarianisation, skill, sex and age.
Social differentiation within the working class was probably greater
than in the working classes of the West, though wage and skill
hierarchies may not have been so steep.139 For the working class did
not yet reproduce itself, and there was thus a crucial cleavage between
'cadre' workers and peasant workers. In Petrograd this cleavage may
have been losing its significance in the decade prior to the war, but the
influx of peasants into the workforce during the war reinforced its
salience. Overlaying this division, however, were other divisions
between skilled and unskilled, male and female, old and young
workers. These divisions had their autonomy, and in the specific
conjunctures of the revolutionary process of 1917, could become
'over-determined'.140 Nevertheless, one can think of the working class
in Petrograd in 1917 as being roughly divided into two: on the one
hand, were peasant workers, women workers and workers new to
industry, who comprised around 60% of the workforce; on the other,
were older, proletarianised, skilled, male workers. We shall see that
these two groups had a different relationship to the organised labour
movement and to revolutionary politics in 1917. Chapter 8 explores
the interaction of these two groups and the modalities of their
revolutionary development.
 The tsarist factory

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE TSARIST FACTORY

The power of the tsarist autocracy did not rest on its ability to
maintain ideological hegemony among the Russian people. Although
it sought to procure the consent of the governed, the government was
constantly compelled to resort to force. This was nowhere more
apparent than in the sphere of industrial relations. Although
working-class unrest exercised the tsarist administration from the
1870s onwards, it tried to ignore the existence of a 'labour problem',
preferring to promote a strategy of paternalism, judiciously mixed
with repression.1 Anxious that harsh exploitation of workers might
push them in a revolutionary direction, the government entreated
employers to show greater solicitude towards their employees, and
offered workers a measure of legal protection. In 1882 and 1885 laws
restricting female and child labour were passed; in 1885 a Factory
Inspectorate became fully operative, and the following year hiring
practices were regulated; in 1897 the working hours in private
factories were limited to eleven-and-a-half hours a day.2 Even the
experiments in 'police socialism', which were radical by the standards
of the autocracy, especially the Zubatov scheme of 1901, were
motivated more by paternalism than by commitment to the reform of
industrial relations.3 The autocracy remained adamant that workers
should not be permitted to organise collectively in defence of their
interests. Where labour unrest occurred, it was seen as a deliberate
subversion of the peace, and was dealt with accordingly by the police
or troops. Workers had few illusions in the neutrality of the state,
since police intervention to crush strikes revealed the identity of
interests between employers and the authorities.4 During the 1905

37
38 Red Petrograd

Revolution, there was a shift towards a more liberal industrial

relations policy, as witnessed by the limited legalisation of the trade
unions.5 Thereafter the regime reverted from its unhappy liberal
mode to the more homely paternalist one. Once more, strikes and
unions became unlawful, and workers brave enough to participate in
them risked the knout, jail or exile.
At factory level employers relied mainly on the 'stick' rather than
the 'carrot' to run their enterprises. In all countries repressive
methods of labour discipline were typical of the first phase of
industrialisation, and Russia was no exception.6 Draconian forms of
discipline, however, were as much a reflection of the political culture
of Russia as of capital's need to socialise labour into the norms of
factory life. The violent exercise of management power within the
factory mirrored the violent exercise of power without.
The 1886 law made it obligatory for every factory to have a written
code of rules which were printed in the wage book of each worker.
These rules covered every aspect of factory life. Some were designed
to combat labour turnover, lateness and absenteeism, others to create
a docile workforce which would not offer collective resistance to
management. At the Northern Cotton Mill, paragraph 25 of the
factory rules laid down that workers might not meet together in the
shops, leave work before time, shout or fight, show disobedience or
disrespect to management, play games or read newspapers, bring in
or take out items without the director's special permission, bring in
vodka or alcohol, smoke in unauthorised places, go near or touch
machines in operation, go through the boiler room or engine room,
send apprentices or other workers to buy things without the
permission of the manager.7 At the nearby New Cotton-Weaving Mill
the rules stated: 'Workers must not express demands whilst in the
shops nor go in a crowd to complain at the office. Each worker must go
personally with his complaint to the manager.'8 Infringement of
factory rules usually entailed a fine deducted from one's wages and,
occasionally, a beating or even dismissal.
During the 1905 Revolution the autocratic structure of power
within the factories was partially dismantled, under the pressure of a
mass strike movement.9 The beating of workers ceased, and the
searching of workers as they left the factory - a ritual of degradation
much resented - virtually disappeared.10 After 1905 these practices
were revived. Fines once more became ubiquitous, but the great
majority were now exacted for bad workmanship rather than for
 The tsarist factory 39

infraction of factory rules. 11 In some factories employers sought to

modify the system of coercion by introducing incentive schemes.
American bonus systems were in operation in sixteen factories by
1908 - a sign that the real subordination of workers within the labour
process was being achieved.12 Right down to 1917, however, despite
growing interest in scientific management, factory administrations
ruled by fear rather than by material or moral incentives.
The tsarist enterprise was administered in a strictly hierarchical
fashion. At the top was a board of directors, which in state enterprises
consisted of naval and army officers. Below them were section
managers, followed by shop managers and their assistants, and
finally by foremen (mastera) and their assistants (podmaster'ya). In
most factories the system of administration was still a 'craft' one, i.e. a
decentralised system in which the foreman took most decisions.13 The
foreman had an office in the workshop and was responsible for hiring
and firing workers, for fixing time and piece-rates and for supervising
the distribution and execution of work. He ruled the workers' lives in
a direct way, and was regarded as occupying the bottom rung of the
management ladder. 14 His assistants were usually promoted from
among the skilled workers; they helped the foreman carry out his
tasks and reported any breach of workshop regulations by the
workers. There was some doubt as to whether they were part of the
management hierarchy, but in 1910 the metalworkers' union refused
them membership on the grounds that they were.15 In large shops in
the metal works there might be desyatniki or starshie interposed
between the foreman's assistants and the workers: the former were in
charge of a group often or so workers; the latter were gang-masters in
charge of a partly a of perhaps fifteen workers. The starshie formed a
'labour aristocracy', for they earned up to three times as much as the
average member of the partlya, who was often an apprentice. They
were, however, considered to be part of the workforce rather than
management. 16 In the years up to the war, the larger enterprises of St
Petersburg moved towards a more bureaucratic system of adminis-
tration, characterised by detailed centralised planning, communica-
tions-processing departments and the proliferation of specialised
clerical, technical and supervisory personnel. 17 This shift was
registered in a reduction in the functions of the foreman. Where bonus
systems were introduced, rate-fixers began tofixwage-rates instead of
foremen. Similarly, draughtsmen and technicians, instructors, in-
spectors and quality-controllers took over other aspects of the
4-O Red Petrograd

foreman's job. 1 8 The foreman's tasks thus became largely super-

visory.
Sluzhashchie were an extremely heterogeneous social category. The
term is best translated as 'salaried employees', since it embraced
clerical and technical staff in industrial and commercial enterprises
and in government and public institutions; but it also referred to
non-productive workers in the service sector, such as shopworkers
and transport workers. Rashin estimated that in 1917 there were
250,000 clerical and technical staff employed in Russian factory
industry, 19 and as many as a fifth of these may have worked in the
factories of Petrograd. 20 They were overwhelmingly concentrated in
the metalworking, chemicals and electrical industries, where the ratio
of workers to sluzhashchie in 1918 was, respectively, 6.6, 4.3 and 2.4,
compared to 25 in the textile industry. 21 Sluzhashchie occupied a
contradictory class location. 22 In many ways they were similar to
manual workers, since they sold their labour-power, often for wages
below those of skilled workers, and had little real power in the
enterprise. Some, such as draughtsmen, were close to the skilled
workers by virtue of the work they did. Yet although they may have
been 'objectively' close to manual workers, subjectively, most
sluzhashchie felt separate from them. They were at the bottom of the
administrative hierarchy, but they depended on that hierarchy for
their livelihood. Although separated by a great distance from senior
management, they never lost hope of rising to an exalted position.
They preferred to try to improve their lot by seeking promotion,
rather than by organised defence of their collective interests, and
because they frequently performed semi-administrative functions,
they tended to adopt a management viewpoint.23 Management,
moreover, actively encouraged sluzhashchie to be antagonistic towards
the workforce.
For the workers on the shop floor, it was not so much the tyranny of
the directors which was resented, as the petty despotism of the lower
ranks of the management hierarchy. The foremen, supervisors,
engineers all exercised their power in the same arbitrary way,
untrammelled by any notions of workers' rights. It is thus not
surprising that workers who lacked any broad conception of the social
system should have identified their main enemy not as the factory
owner, but as the low-level administrators who were the bane of their
everyday working lives. Strikes to remove foremen and their assist-
ants were endemic prior to 1917, and demands for polite
 The tsarist factory 41
treatment by administrative staff figured prominently in strike
demands. In January 1905, for example, strikers at the Baltic
shipworks raised twenty demands, including ones for an eight-hour
day, a ban on overtime and a review of piece-rates. Three demands
concerned 'dignity' issues: specifically, a demand that management
deal honestly with workers without resorting to deception; a demand
that foremen and their assistants treat the workers 'as people and not
as things'; and a demand that Mikhail Denisov befiredfor being rude
and insolent when hiring chernorabochie off the street.24 Commenting
on the importance of'dignity' issues, the worker Timofeev said 'the
workers value proper treatment... and if they get it, are often ready to
put up with many of the darker aspects of their conditions and the
discomforts of their work'.25

CONDITIONS OF WORK

Conditions of work in Petrograd's factories before 1917 were

exceedingly miserable. Employers paid little heed to standards of
safety and hygiene and provided few facilities for their workforces.
There were decent factories, such as the foreign-owned Parviainen
and Siemens-Schukert works, but these exceptions merely underlined
the general awfulness of conditions elsewhere. Conditions were
notoriously bad at two factories subject to the Naval Ministry in the
Okhta district. In December 1912 an explosion occurred at the Okhta
explosives factory which killed five workers and injured more than
fifty. The director, General Somov, did his best to prevent the Social
Democratic deputies in the Duma from undertaking an investigation
into the accident. 'Such accidents do happen', he argued, 'and will go
on happening. I for one never enter the factory without first making
the sign of the cross.'26 He proved to be correct in his forecast, for in
April 1915a further explosion occurred in the melinite shop of the
explosives works, which blew up two workshops and eight houses
killing 110 people and injuring 220.27 A woman described conditions
in the melinite shop where 3,000 women worked: 'In the part where
they do the washing and spraying, the air is so suffocating and
poisonous that someone unused to it could not stand it for more than
five or ten minutes. Your whole body becomes poisoned by it.'28 On
31 March 1917 yet another explosion occurred at the Okhta
explosives works which killed four workers and injured two. A few
days later a worker from the factory told the conference of representa-
42 Red Petrograd

tives from factories under the Artillery Administration: 'We are

working on top of a volcano. The whole factory is overloaded with
explosives, bombs and shells . . . but the administration says it's not
their responsibility and refers us to the Artillery Administration.' 29
Conditions at the Okhta works were notoriously bad - women who
worked there could be identified by their yellow skins - but they were
not exceptional. At the Putilov works there was no ventilation in the
gun shop or galvanising shop, where workers handling acid were
given no protective clothing.30 In the gunpowder department of the
Admiralty works, noxious fumes, lead and antimony dust caused
vomiting and pulmonary disease among the workers. The manager of
the department described conditions thus: 'great congestion, a mass
of machines, burning oil, night work, poor diet and the excessive
intensity of work caused by piece-rates have resulted in general
exhaustion, acute anaemia and a huge number of lung and heart
diseases'. 31
Petrograd had the highest industrial accident rate of any region in
Russia. In 1913 there were 14,300 accidents reported to the Factory
Inspectorate, and rates were highest in the metalworking industry,
especially in state factories, and in textiles.32 During the war the
accident rate increased. At the Putilov works, up to September 1914,
there was an average of fifteen accidents per month; thereafter this
increased to twenty-one. At the Lessner works there were 180
accidents in 1914 and 312 in 1915.33 This increase in the rate of
industrial accidents was linked to a general increase in the rate of
illness among factory workers caused by more overtime, greater
utilisation of female and child labour, speed-ups, insanitary condi-
tions and worsening diet. Between 1913 and 1917 the rate of sickness
and injury in Petrograd factories increased between one-and-a-half
and two times. 34 In 1914 the number of cases of sickness and injury at
the Metal works was 60.3 per 100 workers; by 1915 it had risen to
118.4. At the Putilov works the corresponding figures were 64.3 and
35
9 8.2.
Insurance provision for workers who were injured at work, or who
fell sick, was grossly inadequate. Between 1901 and 1904 workers in
state enterprises secured sickness and injury benefits. In private
industry individual employers were liable after 1903 to pay similar
benefits, but it was difficult to prove their liability.36 Up to 1912
workers in the state sector were better protected than their counter-
parts in private industry - not least, because they also qualified for
 The tsarist factory 43

long-service pensions. The Insurance Law of 1912, however, put

them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis workers in private industry, since it
did not apply to the state sector.37 This law provided sickness benefit,
but not invalidity or unemployment benefit, for about a fifth of all
industrial workers in Russia. 38 Workers donated 2% of their wages
into the fund, and employers paid a sum equal to two-thirds of the
total contribution made by the workers. The size of benefit paid was
half to two-thirds of the normal wage of a married man and a quarter
to a half that of a single worker - not a lot, given soaring inflation.39
Medical funds (bol'nichnye kassy) were set up to administer the
distribution of benefits, and were run jointly by workers' and
employers' representatives. By 1917 there were 80 medical funds in
Petrograd, with a membership of 176,ooo.40 Nineteen of the better-
organised funds set up four clinics during the war. 41 The Bolsheviks
played an active part in the funds, using them partly as a front behind
which to organise working-class resistance.42
As late as 1914 Russian workers still worked significantly longer
hours than their Western-European counterparts. The 1905 Revolu-
tion had reduced hours noticeably, in spite of the fact that it had been
defeated precisely at the moment when the demand was raised for the
immediate legalisation of the eight-hour day. In 1905-6 the average
working day in Russia was ten hours, or sixty hours a week, but this
figure does not include overtime, which was widespread. 43 During the
Years of Reaction, although pressure for a shorter working day
declined, the average working day appears to have shrunk slightly. By
1913 Russian workers worked an average of 9.7 hours a day,
excluding overtime; in St Petersburg the average stood at 9.54
hours. 44 There was considerable variation by industry however.
Workers in the food and paper industries tended to work the longest
hours - around twelve hours a day - followed by textile workers.45 In
1914 most workers in Petrograd worked about ten hours a day and
seven hours on Saturdays. In addition, overtime working was
widespread, except where shift systems were operative, such as in the
metallurgical enterprises. Overtime was frequently compulsory and
often paid at the standard rate. 46
In 1913, according to Strumilin, 270 days were worked each year in
Russian industry - twenty to thirty fewer than in Britain, Germany or
the USA. 47 This was due to the large number of religious holidays
enjoyed by Russian workers. In St Petersburg, however, some 290 or
more days were worked each y e a r - an index of the 'modernity' of the
44 Red Petrograd

industry of the capital. This meant that the number of hours worked
each year, as well as each week, was gruellingly long by Western
European standards.
During the war working hours increased substantially in Petro-
grad, owing to its central importance to the war effort. In January
1917 the average working day in Petrograd was 10.1 hours, compared
to 9.9 hours in Russia's private industry.48 Overtime working was
greatly extended in the capital, and in 1915 restrictions on night work
for women and children were lifted. There was considerable variation
between industries, with the longest hours in metalworking, textiles
and leather.49 In the metal industry workers in the 'hot5 shops worked
an eight-hour day, since the work was so exhausting; skilled workers
in the 'cold' shops worked ten to eleven hours, and chernorabochie
worked up to fourteen hours.50

THE STANDARD OF LIVING DURING THE WAR

On the eve of the First World War wages in Russian industry were
significantly lower than those in Western industry.51 Strumilin
estimated that in 1913 the average Russian factory-worker earned 283
rubles per annum, but that when one took into account wages
received in kind — as welfare provision, housing, etc. - this rose to
295 r, or about 25 r a month.52 In St Petersburg in the same year, cash
wages were about 40% higher than the national average, but the cost
of living in the capital was also considerably higher.53 In human
terms, these wages spelt chronic poverty. Prokopovich estimated that
one needed about three times the average annual wage to support a
family in the city.54 How therefore did workers manage?
The largest portion of a worker's budget was spent on food. In
1908, 49% of a married worker's income and 37% of a single worker's
income was spent on food. In 1912 in textileworker families where the
mother worked outside the home, 52% of income was spent on food,
compared to 60% where the mother worked in the home. In poorer
textileworker families as much as two-thirds of income was spent on
food.55 A survey of the budgets of members of the works committee at
the Baltic shipyard in 1917 showed that 60% of income was spent on
food and lighting. The second largest item of expenditure for
working-class families was accommodation. Prokopovich's survey
revealed that the majority of workers lived in partitioned rooms.
Single workers spent 15% of their income on rented accommodation
 The tsarist factory 45
56
and married workers 2i%. Among textile workers, single women
spent 16% of their income on accommodation, compared to only 8%
spent by single men. Families where the mother was at home spent
19% of their income on accommodation, compared to 12% spent by
families where the mother worked outside the home.57 In 1917
members of the Baltic works committee spent 14% of their income on
accommodation.58 The third largest item of working-class expendi-
ture was clothing. Workers dressed shabbily. Men wore a dark shirt
or blouse, with a standing collar buttoned to the side, a rough woollen
jacket and trousers tucked inside high boots. In winter they wore very
heavy, coarse cloth coats, a dark cap with a patent leather visor or a
fur hat. Shirts and ties were unknown, except among skilled workers
who wished to look respectable. Women wore a long skirt, a cotton
blouse, a cotton kerchief, or in winter a woollen one, but no hat.59
According to Prokopovich's survey, single workers spent 14% and
married workers 12% of their income on clothing.60 Single male
textile workers spent 10% of their income on clothing and single
females 17%. In textileworker families 15% or 16% of the budget was
spent on clothing.61 In 1917 the Baltic works committee members
spent 12% of their income on clothing.62
The outbreak of war unleashed rampant inflation. It is very
difficult to produce an index of the rise in prices, partly because of
regional variations, and partly because of the discrepancy between
official prices and market prices. M.P. Kokhn produced what is
probably the most conservative national price index for the war years.
He estimated that if one takes the index of prices in 1913 as being
equal to 100, then it reached 221 at the end of 1916, and 512 by the end
of 1917.63 There is no comprehensive price index for Petrograd, but
patchy data suggest that prices in the capital followed the national
pattern, starting to rise as soon as war broke out and then rocketing
from the second half of 1916 right through 1917 and into 1918.64 The
prices of basic subsistence items were two to three times their pre-war
level by the end of 1916, and at least four times this level by the middle
of 1917.65 To compound the problems of survival, in the autumn of
1915 and again in the winter of 1916, flour, meat, sugar and butter
vanished from the shops, and people were forced to queue for long
hours to buy bread.
Wages rose rapidly during the war, partly due to the rise in the cost
of living, and partly to the fact that more overtime was being worked.
The national average wage in enterprises subject to the Factory
46 Red Petrograd

Inspectorate rose from 257 rubles (1913) to 322 r. (1915) to 478 r.

(1916). In defence enterprises average annual earnings rose from
393 r- ( I 9 I 3)5 t o 594 r- {l9lb)> t o 9 1 2 r - ( I 9 1 ^)- 66 According to data
from the 1918 Industrial Census, average earnings in Petrograd
doubled between 1914 and 1916, from 405 r. to 809 r. per annum. 67
Given the rising cost of living, what did these wage increases mean in
real terms?
There seems little doubt that, nationally, real wages fell during the
war - very slowly during 1914 and 1915, and then increasingly
rapidly as 1916 wore on. The crucial importance of defence industries
in the capital meant that Petrograd was probably the only area in
Russia where overall real wages rose throughout industry until the
winter of 1916. Thereafter, however, real wages began to fall rapidly,
and by the time of the February Revolution were probably 15% to
20% below the level of 1913.68
There were enormous variations in the wage movements of
different industries. In only two Petrograd industries - metals and
chemicals - did real wages increase between 1913 and 1916.69 In all
other industries they fell - a fall that was particularly dramatic in the
case of printers, formerly the highest-paid industry. This meant that
compared to other industrial groups, metalworkers were better off in
1916 than in 1913. In 1913 average earnings in the Petrograd metal
industry were 63% higher than in textiles, 49% higher than in food
and 42% higher than in chemicals. In 1917 the ratios were
respectively 106%, 109% and 5 1 % . This pattern holds true for
Russian industry as a whole. 70 The 30% of the Petrograd labour force
who worked in textiles, printing, food, woodworking, leather and
minerals were thus not only worse off in real terms as a result of the
war, but also worse off relative to the high-wage metal industries. 71
It is difficult to determine how the war affected the wages of
different categories of workers in the metal industry. Firstly, there
were almost 300 different occupations within industry, and rates for
the job varied between factories. This variation, combined with the
different skill-composition of individual factory workforces, meant
that average wage-levels between factories could vary considerably.
Average wages in the private sector of Petrograd's metal industry
were higher than in the state sector- 127 r.50 k. a month compared to
114 r.27 k. in August 1916.72 Within each sector, however, inter-
factory variations could be very great. In January 1917 average
monthly earnings at the Obukhov works and the Baltic works - both
 The tsarist factory 47

run by the Naval Ministry - were, respectively, 171 r. and 86 r.73 A

second problem arose from the fact that complex piece-rate systems
were the norm in the majority of factories. These assigned groups of
workers a basic hourly rate (tsekhovoe), and then determined a sliding
scale of bonuses which linked output to time saved. Workers disliked
these bonus systems, since they were difficult to understand. Piece
and bonus systems meant that those skilled workers on the highest
hourly rates did not always earn the highest monthly earnings;
sometimes semi-skilled machinists might earn as much or more than
them. A further complication is added by the fact that, in addition to
standard bonus schemes, a special war-bonus came into operation in
Petrograd factories in October 1915 for good timekeeping.74
Bearing these problems in mind, one can generalise as follows. For
a layer of very skilled workers, whose skills were in short supply, it was
possible to earn extremely high wages during the war. At the Putilov
works the daily earnings of such groups as caulkers and moulders rose
dramatically. Other skilled groups, such as metal-rollers and mortise-
makers, however, experienced a relative decline.75 It is almost
certainly the case that the differential between the highest and lowest
earnings in the metal industry widened during the war, but it is more
difficult to say whether the differential between the earnings of skilled
and unskilled workers in general increased. Strumilin argued that the
position of chernorabochie, vis-a-vis skilled workers, improved during the
w a r - largely on the basis of a study of wages at the Parviainen works,
which paid among the highest wages in Petrograd. 76 Evidence from
the Putilov, Obukhov and Metal works, however, suggests that in
most factories differentials between skilled and unskilled workers
widened. 77 Generalising from the rather exiguous data, it seems that
the majority of metalworkers improved their real earnings up to the
winter of 1916-17, but that the unskilled generally failed to keep
abreast with inflation. From the winter of 1916, a sudden acceleration
in price rises, brought about by food shortages, led to a sharp fall in
the real wages of all metalworkers, and this was an important cause of
the February Revolution.
One final point needs to be made about the wages of women
workers during the war. Women were concentrated in low-paid jobs,
and where they did the same jobs as men, rarely got equal pay. The
print trade was an exception to this, but there few women did the
same jobs as men. In 1914 adult female wages were on average half
those of adult males; young boys earned about 40% of the adult male
48 Red Petrograd

wage and young girls earned about a third.78 In spite of the increased
demand for female labour during the war, women's wages fell in
relation to those of men. Between 1914 and the beginning of 1917, the
ratio of men's wages to women's wages throughout Russian industry
increased from 1.96 to 2-34.79 In Petrograd certain women who
worked in armaments factories on piece-rates may have earned
tolerable wages, but in 1916 the overall wage of women in the metal
industry was only 40 r. a month, compared to the average wage of
105 r.80 In the textile industry a semi-skilled jenny-operator earned
49.3 r. a month in January 1917, which represented 90% of her real
wage in July 1914; she now spent 63% of this on food compared to
57% prior to the war.81 In the printing industry women earned a
pittance of 20 to 25 r. a month.82 For these women, therefore, the war
brought them from poverty to the brink of destitution.
To conclude, one can say that from the outbreak of war until the
winter of 1916—17, the wages of a slight majority of workers in
Petrograd improved, although this improvement came about largely
as a result of increased labour-intensity and a deterioration in
working conditions. For a large minority however - at least a third —
the already low wages of 1914 failed to keep pace with the rise in
prices, and by February 1917 they were teetering on the verge of
starvation.

THE STRIKE MOVEMENT DURING THE W A R

The wartime wage-increases in Petrograd were not granted by the
employers out of the kindness of their hearts; they had to be fought for.
Although it is not the purpose of the present work to describe the
labour movement during the war, a short account of the wartime
strike movement must be given in order to provide background to the
preceding analysis of wage movements, and as a preface to the next
chapter, which describes the response of Petrograd's factories to the
February Revolution.
After the outbreak of war the government toyed with the idea of
'militarising' labour by fixing wages, prohibiting strikes and transfer-
ring workers to sectors where they were required. The Duma and
employers' organisations resisted the idea, since they resented state
interference in industry and were sceptical of its efficacy. Workers
whose conscription into the army was deferred, so that they might
work in defence industry, were prevented from changing jobs.83
 The tsarist factory 49
Soldiers and sailors were sent to the factories to do the most
unpopular jobs under military discipline, and received rates of pay
lower than those of civilian workers. It is important to bear in mind
the military discipline of the defence factories when analysing the
pattern of wartime strikes.
Table io'is based on work by the Soviet historian, I. P. Leiberov, and
provides a comprehensive breakdown of the strike movement in
Petrograd during the war.84 Leiberov follows the Factory Inspector-
ate and Okhrana in classifying strikes as either 'economic' or
'political'. This classification should be treated with caution. The
bulk of strikes in each category are unproblematic: most 'economic'
strikes concerned wages, hours or conditions; and 'political' strikes
took place on occasions such as the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, or
to protest against government plans for the militarisation of labour,
the threatened execution of Kronstadt sailors or the arrest of the
Workers Group of the War Industries Committee. Some strikes
involved both economic and political demands. Leiberov classifies
these as political, so there is a bias in the table towards overstating the
number of political strikes. Finally, one should remember that the
economic/political distinction refers to the demands of the strikers
rather than to the strikers' motives. It might have taken a certain level
of political consciousness to go on any kind of strike during the war, at
a time when the press, public opinion, and even socialists like
Plekhanov, considered strike action to be treasonous. One thus
cannot impute types of consciousness to workers on the basis of this
table.
The table shows unambiguously that the outbreak of war in
August 1914 defused the insurrectionary mood which had been
building up in the working-class areas of Petrograd during the
preceding six months. A wave of patriotic support for the war,
combined with repression by the authorities, led to the virtual
disappearance of strikes until July 1915. The few small, badly-
organised strikes which did occur were provoked by management
attempts to cut wage-rates. The few political strikes during the first
year of the war — to protest against Bloody Sunday and the trial of the
Bolshevik Duma deputies - were organised by socialists, and involved
tiny numbers of workers.85 The tide began to turn in July 1915, when
a successful wage strike by New Lessner workers prompted similar
strikes in other metal works on Vyborg Side. News of the massacre of
striking textileworkers in Ivanovo-Voznesensk led to political strikes
 50 Red Petrograd

Table 10: Number of strikes in Petrograd, igi4-igi7

Political Strikes Economic Strikes

No. of No. of
working working
days lost days lost
No. of No. of through No. of No. of through
Month strikes strikers strikes strikes strikers strikes

1914
July 1-18 - 160,099 - - 580 -
July 19 26 27,400 48,540 16 10,942 76,914
August - - - - - -
September 1 1,400 280 3 905 1,180
October - - - 2 160 42
November 2 3^5O 1,260 3 785 785
December - - - 2 1,020 1,240
1915
January 14 2,595 2,488.5 2 115 565
February 6 340 183.5 2 120 85
March - - - 6 461 3"
April - - - 7 4,064 9,988
May 10 ^259 899 7 2,57i 1,607
June - - - 9 1,141 53i
July - - - 29 17,934 33,9655
August 24 23,178 24,574-5 16 11,640 15,879
September 70 82,728 176,623.5 13 7,470 12,730.5
October 10 11,268 34,911-5 21 i3,35o 69,031.5
November 5 11,020 6,280 19 6,838 7,509-5
December 7 8,985 5,624-5 26 13,284 15,261
1916
January 68 61,447 64,566 35 16,418 37,749-5
February 3 3,200 170 55 53,723 220,026.5
March 5i 77,877 386,405.5 16 11,811 81,162.5
April 7 14,152 87,019 48 25,112 47,758
May 3 8,932 2,282 42 26,756 125,496
June 6 3,452 3,062.5 37 15,603 72,191-5
July 2 5,333 60,025 27 20,326 26,004
August 4 1,686 2,761 18 6,259 I
o,934-5
September 2 2,800 2,400 33 24,918 84,7835
October 177 174,592 452,158.5 12 15,184 12,912
November 6 22,950 8,283 24 18,592 30,204.5
December 1 1,000 25 7 8,798 29,835
1917
January 151,886 144,116 34 24,869 59,024.5
Feb. 1-17 85 123,953 i37,5 o 8 19,809 62,647
TOTAL 1,044 826,593 1,652,446.5 585 380,978 1,148,354

I. P. Leiberov, 'Stachechnaya bor'ba petrogradskogo proletariata v period pervoi

mirovoi voiny (19 iyulya I9i4g.-i6 fevralya 1917g.)', Istorvya rabochego klassa Leningrada,
issue 2 (Leningrad, 1963), pp.166, 177, 183.
 The tsarist factory 51
in August, again based on militant metalworking factories on Vyborg
Side, such as Lessner, Aivaz, Baranovskii, Nobel and Parviainen.
These strikes, together with protests against rising food-prices, so
alarmed the police that sweeping arrests of worker-activists were
made between 29 August and 2 September 1915. This repression
provoked protest strikes among metalworkers on Vyborg Side, at
Putilov and in other districts, mostly under leftist slogans, but some
pledging support to the Duma and calling for the creation of a
responsible Ministry.86
Between August 1915 and August 1916 there was a big increase in
the number of strikes. Many workers celebrated the anniversary of
Bloody Sunday in January 1916, and February witnessed the largest
number of economic strikes of any month during the war. Unrest
centred on the Putilov workers, where demands for a 70% wage-
increase became widespread. In spite of a lockout at the factory, and
the drafting of 2,000 militants into the army, significant wage-rises
were achieved. Some 70,000 workers at the beginning of March
came out in support of the Putilovtsy, and a strong anti-war mood
developed The crushing of these strikes led to a decline in the
movement during the summer of 1916.
In the autumn of 1916 the strike movement exploded on a scale
unprecedented since June 1914. The roots of the unrest lay in acute
food shortages and rising prices, but three-quarters of the strikes
between September 1916 and February 1917 voiced political opposi-
tion to the autocracy and the war. On 17 October workers on Vyborg
Side marched to the Finland station singing the Marseillaise.
Significantly, they were joined by soldiers from the 181st infantry
regiment, who were quartered in the area and who had been the
target of Left Socialist Revolutionary (SR) and Bolshevik propa-
ganda. The arrest of the insurgent soldiers spread the strike and
caused the authorities to bring Cossacks and mounted police into
the proletarian areas. After news came through of the threat to
execute revolutionary sailors in Kronstadt, more factories went on
strike so that by 28 October, 77 factories had stopped work for
clearly political reasons. A lockout was imposed at fifteen factories
and 106 militants were arrested, but the interruption of supplies to
the Front forced the government to climb down for the first time
since war broke out.87
In the first six weeks of 1917 stoppages, go-slows88 and strikes
occurred in response to plummeting real wages and shortages of
52 Red Petrograd

bread. The increased failure-rate of the economic strikes reflects the

fact that workers in small enterprises were entering into struggle for
the first time. On 9 January, 132 enterprises struck to commemorate
Bloody Sunday. The success of this demonstration encouraged the
Workers' Group of the War Industries Committee to redouble its
efforts to persuade workers to put pressure on the Progressive Bloc in
the Duma. The authorities reacted by arresting eleven of the sixteen
members of the Workers' Group on 27 January. On 14 February, 58
factories obeyed the summons of the Defencist labour leaders to
strike. Within the next week a large strike broke out at Putilov in
support of wage-increases, which provoked a lockout on 22 February.
This proved to be an important step in the immediate run-up to the
general strike which precipitated the overthrow of the autocracy.89
If one examines the factories which participated in the wartime
strike movement, it is possible to group them into three 'divisions',
according to the extent to which they participated in strikes.90 In the
first, most strike-prone division was a group of private metal works in
the Vyborg district, making munitions, weapons and engineering
products. The territorial proximity of these factories, together with
the fact that they were medium-large rather than vast, facilitated the
coordination of strikes. The workforce of these factories had grown
rapidly during the war, often tripling in size; the New Lessner, Nobel
and Puzyrev works were exceptions to this. Nevertheless, in spite of
an influx of new workers, a core of skilled, experienced workers
remained intact. These workers were members or sympathisers of the
Bolshevik party. This is borne out by the fact that after February
1917, it was these 'first division' factories, such as Aivaz, Baranovskii,
Vulcan, Nobel, New Lessner, Phoenix and Puzyrev, which were the
first to swing to the Bolshevik party. Exceptions were the Dinamo,
Old Lessner, Erikson, New Parviainen and Promet works, which at
first supported the Mensheviks and SRs, but none of these was slow to
go Bolshevik in 1917.
The second division of factories consisted, firstly, of private
metal-works of a rather specialist kind, less engaged in the production
of munitions. Here the pattern of wartime growth was less uniform
than in thefirstdivision, though all combined an intact core of'cadre'
workers with a majority of new workers. Bolshevik activists were less
in evidence here, and these factories tended to be rather slower in
coming to support the Bolsheviks in 1917, though they were by no
means as slow as state enterprises. It has been suggested that young
workers were important in leading the wartime strike movement,
 The tsarist factory 53
91
particularly those of urban origin. While the activism of young
workers in 1917 is not in doubt, an analysis of strike-prone factories
during the war does not suggest that the presence of young workers
was a factor of paramount significance. It is true that the two most
strike-prone state enterprises, the Baltic and Putilov shipyards (both
in the second division), had high proportions of young workers, as did
the Metal works. Other factories in the second 'division', however,
such as Renault, Rozenkrantz, Langenzippen, Wagon-Construction
and Siemens-Schuckert, had very few. The last-named factory is of
particular interest in this regard, since its sister factory, the Siemens-
Halske works, had a much higher percentage of young workers (20%
compared to 7%) but a low level of strike activity during the war. A
second group within the second 'division' consisted of cotton-
spinning and weaving mills, such as Sampsionevskaya, Leontiev,
Nevka, Okhta and Pal'. These factories employed mainly women, but
as they did not expand during the war, the women would have been
workers with industrial experience. The textile strikes were in pursuit
of economic demands, and there is no evidence of a Bolshevik
connection.
The third 'division' was more varied, consisting mainly of metal
works, some textile mills and a few wood or leather factories. State
enterprises, such as the Nevskii shipbuilding works, the Obukhov
works, Franco-Russian works and Arsenal, fell into this category.
Military discipline discouraged strike action in state factories, as did
the 'defencist' Mensheviks and SRs, who were strong in this sector. If
one compares the state factories which did participate in the strike
movement with vast state munitions works, such as the Pipe or
Cartridge works, which did not, then it is clear that in the latter, the
minority of 'cadre' workers was engulfed in a sea of workers new to
industry, and was thus unable to mobilise them into organised
activity. Moreover the 'cadres' in these vast state enterprises tended
to be stalwarts of the Workers' Group of the War Industries
Committee, and thus ill-disposed to take strike action during
wartime. This rather cursory analysis of strike-prone factories
suggests that factories were most likely to go on strike,firstly,if there
was an organised Bolshevik cell in the enterprise and, secondly, if
there was a core of proletarianised men or women with some
experience of strikes, sufficiently numerous and cohesive to organise
new workers. We shall see that in 1917 new workers were quite
capable of being militant, without any help from 'cadre' workers, but
during the war this does not seem to have been the case.
 The February Revolution: a new
dispensation in the factories

DEMOCRATISING THE FACTORY ORDER

On 23 February 1917 thousands of housewives and factory women,

angry at the bread shortage, surged onto the streets, ignoring pleas
from labour leaders to stay calm. By the next day, 200,000 workers in
Petrograd were on strike. By 25 February, huge armies of demonstra-
tors were clashing with troops, and a revolution had commenced. On
27 February, the critical point was reached, when whole regiments of
soldiers began to desert to the insurgents. The same day, the worthy
members of the Duma refused to obey an order from the Tsar to
disperse, and instead set up a Provisional Government. Meanwhile
the Petrograd Soviet of workers' and soldiers' deputies came into
existence, thereby creating an extraordinary situation of 'dual
power'. By 3 March it was all over: the Tsar had abdicated and
Russia was free.1
The toppling of the Romanov dynasty inspired workers with
euphoria. They returned to their factories determined that the ancien
regime would be swept aside in the workplaces, just as it had been
swept aside in society at large. They resolved to create, in the place of
the old 'absolutist' order, a new 'constitutional' order within the
enterprises. They set to work at once by tearing up the old contracts of
hire, the old rule books, and the vicious blacklists. Just as the agents of
the autocracy had been driven from the police stations and govern-
ment offices, so the workers set about expelling those who had been
most identified with the repressive administration of the factories.
Throughout the factories of Petrograd workers clamoured for the
removal of all members of the management hierarchy who had made
their lives miserable under the ancien regime, who had behaved
54
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 55
tyrannically, who had abused their authority, who had taken bribes
or acted as police informers.2 Sometimes administrators were re-
moved peacefully, sometimes by force. At the Putilov works, the
director and his aide were killed by workers and their bodies were
flung in the Obvodnyi canal; some forty members of management
were expelled during the first three 'days of freedom'.3 In the
engine-assembly shop, Puzanov, quondam chief of the factory's Black
Hundreds, was tossed in a wheelbarrow, red lead was poured over his
head, and he was ignominiously carted out of the factory and dumped
in the street. In the brickyard of the same plant, A.V. Spasskii, the
foreman, was deprived of his duties by workers for:
(i) rude treatment of workers,
(ii) forced overtime, as a result of which such incidents occurred as when the
worker, S. Skinder, having worked overtime, collapsed at midnight of
exhaustion and had to be taken to hospital ... 4
At the Baltic shipyard at least sixty members of the administration
were demoted, transferred or carted out of the factory in
wheelbarrows. 5 At the Cartridge works up to 80% of technical staff
were expelled and the factory committee refused them leave to appeal
to a conciliation chamber. 6 At the Admiralty, New Admiralty and
Galernyi Island shipyards forty-nine technical employees were
expelled by general meetings of the workers. Management insisted
that each employee had the right to appeal to a conciliation chamber,
but the chamber was forced to accept the fait accompli.1 At the Pipe
works the director and fourteen senior managers were temporarily
relieved of their duties by the factory soviet.8
The purge extended to private factories. At the Thornton textile
mill women workers chased thirty factory police from the premises.9
At the Baranovskii engineering works twenty-five members of the
administration were fired by the workers, eighteen of them being
carted from the factory for having acted like 'hangmen' in the past. 10
After long disputes, twelve members of management at the Skor-
okhod shoe factory and sixteen at the Tentelevskii chemical works
were dismissed at the insistence of the respective workforces.11 The
reasons why workers compelled the removal of administration were
multifarious. At the Triangle works on 5 March, a general meeting of
shop stewards agreed that 'all foremen who are disorganising
production by hiding tools, etc. must not be allowed into work. We
ask comrades to inform the soviet of workers' deputies of this.' 12
At the Nevskii shipyard a list was drawn up of twenty-five foremen
56 Red Petrograd

and their assistants who had abused their authority in the past. The
Menshevik-dominated factory committee forbade the expulsion of
these people until their cases had been examined by a conciliation
chamber. In only one shop - the boiler room - did the workers refuse
to accept the factory committee decision. On 30 March the factory
committee allowed those threatened with dismissal to return to the
factory pending appeal. One case which came before the conciliation
chamber concerned the manager of the metallurgical section, who
had come to the Nevskii works in 1908 as a foreman. He had openly
boasted that he would 'sweep out of the workshop all the sedition
remaining from 1905', he had collected information on the politics of
the workers, established a network of informers and forced the
workers to work unpaid overtime. The conciliation committee found
that there was no case to answer against him, but so great was the
hatred felt by the workers towards him that the chamber was
powerless to make them take the foreman back.13 The inability of
conciliation chambers to settle cases of expulsion by peaceful
arbitration was a general phenomenon. At the Kersten knitwear
factory the conciliation committee recommended the reinstatement of
all but one of the administrators expelled by the workers. On 16
March, for example, it announced:
We are convinced that V.V. Zhuchaevich is a nervous irascible character
who cannot restrain himself in the way that moral tact dictates. However we
consider that the charges made against him of contemptuous cruelty, of
humiliating workers and, in particular, of giving promotion only to his fellow
Poles, are totally without foundation.
The chamber found in relation to another worker that 'the charge of
rude, shameless abuse of women workers is not supported by the
testimony of witnesses and therefore we consider it unproven'.14 In
neither of these cases was the committee able to overcome the
opposition of workers and secure the reinstatement of the personnel.
Carting administrators out of the factory in a wheelbarrow was a
well-established form of protest in the Russian labour movement.
Prior to 1917 the working class had had precious few institutional
means at its disposal with which to defend its interests. In the absence
of formal means of defensive organisation, workers devised other,
informal, ways of defending themselves. One of these was to dump a
particularly hated administrator in a wheelbarrow and cart him out
of the factory. To contemporary leaders of the organised labour
movement this form of action was seen as little more than an
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 57

expression of blind rage, but it had a deeper symbolism. 'Carting out'

was a symbolic affirmation by workers of their dignity as human
beings and a ritual humiliation of those who had deprived them of this
dignity in their day-to-day working lives. Ironically, it was the
employers' newspaper, Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, which came
closest to recognising this symbolic dimension when it commented
that 'carting out' had the same significance in the factory as did
tearing off an army-officer's badges of rank.15
The expulsion of the old administration was but the negative side of
democratising factory life. The positive, and far more important side
consisted in creating factory committees to represent the interests of
the workforce. Factory committees sprang up mushroom-like in the
vertiginous days of the revolution. The apparent 'spontaneity' with
which they appeared is something of an optical illusion, for there was
a strong tradition within the Russian working class of electing
stewards (starosty) to represent workers before management. This
tradition had its origins in the countryside, where villagers were
accustomed to elect a headman to represent them. In the factories, the
workers elected starosty not only to represent them in conflicts with the
management but to carry out such apparently trivial activities as
collecting money to buy oil for the icon lamps in each workshop.16 In
1903, in a vain attempt to palliate working-class anger at its refusal to
countenance formal trade-union organisation, the government
sought to institutionalise the starosty, as a rudimentary form of labour
representation. The 1903 law permitted workers to propose candi-
dates for the job ofstarosta, from whom management would then make
a final choice. The powers of the starosta were strictly circumscribed,
for he could not seek to modify the contract of hire and he enjoyed no
legal protection.17 Workers disliked the law, for starosty were rarely
able to give decisive leadership in working-class struggles since they
were too vulnerable to victimisation by employers and by the state.
The factory-owners of St Petersburg also disliked the law, since they
saw in it a dangerous precedent.18
It was the 1905 Revolution which signalled the immense possibili-
ties of shopfloor organisation. As the general strike swept across the
country, starosty and strike committees developed dramatically as
organs of working-class self-activity and self-expression. In the
autumn, 'factory commissions' proliferated, which adumbrated the
factory committees of twelve years later. These commissions began to
take charge of all matters affecting the internal life of the factory,
58 Red Petrograd

drawing up collective wage agreements and overseeing the hiring and

firing of workers. In the print-trade an astonishing development took
place in the spring of 1906, when 'autonomous commissions' were
created. Although printshop owners sat on these commissions, they
comprised a majority of workers elected by the entire workforce, and
were responsible for drawing up the internal rules of the printshop,
seeing to their implementation and for the hiring and firing of
workers. 19 After 1907, however, few autonomous commissions,
factory commissions or starosty survived. During the 'Years of
Reaction', workers found it almost impossible to maintain repre-
sentative institutions.
The invigorating experience of 1905 was riot forgotten by worker
militants. From time to time after 1910 individual factories tried to
revive the starosty. At the Phoenix engineering and Sestroretsk arms
works, starosty existed intermittently right down to 1917.20 During the
war, the elected members of the medical funds (bol'nichnye kassy) and
the worker members of the War Industries Committees functioned, to
some extent, as workers' representatives. Attempts by the latter to
revive the starosty came to grief, although they did re-emerge in a
handful of factories in 1916 (the Aivaz, Erikson and Pipe works).
Nevertheless class-conscious workers kept alive the memory of
electing shopfloor delegates to represent their interests during the
grim years between the two revolutions. Once the police apparatus of
tsarism had been smashed, they set about building on the starosta
tradition.
The new factory committees were the offspring of older elective
institutions. In many enterprises the committees were initially called
'sovety starost\ or 'stewards' committees'. In some factories, like the
Pipe works, the Siemens-Halske or New Admiralty works, a stewards'
committee and a factory committee existed side by side. At the New
Admiralty works, the committee had the job of overseeing factory
management, whereas stewards represented the workers in indi-
vidual shops and settled any conflicts which arose. 21 At the Triangle
rubber works, a 'soviet of workers' deputies' (i.e. factory committee),
dominated by the SRs, existed in fierce rivalry with a stewards'
committee, whose executive was led by Bolsheviks.22 In general,
factory committees were elected by the whole workforce and had
general responsibilities of 'control' (supervision and inspection)
throughout the enterprise; the stewards' committees consisted of
representatives of each workshop and dealt with wages and
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 59
workshop-conditions. In many enterprises, stewards' committees
changed their name to factory committees in the course of the spring.
Organisations similar to the Russian factory committee arose in
many countries during the First World War. In the British engineer-
ing industry, particularly on Clydeside and in Sheffield, a powerful
shop-stewards' movement emerged to combat 'dilution' and the
militarisation of industry engendered by the war.23 In Germany, the
revolutionary shop stewards (Obleute) in the metalworking industries
of Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig, Halle and elsewhere, led struggles
against the class-collaborationist policies of the leaders of the Free
Unions, which spilled over into anti-war demonstrations, support for
the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) and, finally, into the
workers' and soldiers' councils (Rate). During the German Revolu-
tion of 1918-19 it was the young semi-skilled workers in the large
metal-works of the Ruhr and Halle who were most active, although
skilled craftsmen in the iron and steel industries of older industrial
areas, such as Remscheid and Solingen, played a prominent role.24 In
Italy 'internal commissions' (commissioni interne) in the metal and
engineering industries of Milan and Turin evolved from organs of
arbitration into defenders of shopfloor autonomy against the reform-
ist bureaucracy of the metalworkers' federation (FIOM) and, finally,
into the mighty workers' councils which led the factory occupations of
the 'Biennio Rosso' of 1919-20.25
These movements had much in common. They were shopfloor
movements, based in the metalworking and armaments industries,
led by skilled workers who were opposing the effects of war-
mobilisation on their industries. In crucial respects, however, the
movements were very different from one another. 'Dilution' was less
of an issue in Russia than in Britain, and so it cannot be considered a
key cause of the emergence of the factory committees. In Germany
and Italy much of the momentum behind the council movement came
initially from the struggle by rank-and-file workers against the
sclerotic trade-union bureaucracy, but in Russia this clearly was not a
factor, since trade unions were virtually illegal, and since there had
never existed within tsarist society the economic and political space
for a successful reformist strategy to be pursued by an oligarchical
trade union leadership.
In the aftermath of the February Revolution it was in the state
sector of Petrograd industry that factory committees most firmly
established themselves. Here, in the first weeks of March, the
60 Red Petrograd

committees in effect took over the management of the state enter-

prises, achieving a degree of power which made factory committees in
the private sector look weak by comparison. Given the fact that state
enterprises had not been in the van of labour struggles before
February 1917 why did they suddenly become such an important
base of the factory committees?
It has been suggested that the committees developed out of the
traditions of job-control exercised by skilled craftsmen.26 There is
much truth in this, for the committees were set up by skilled workers
who understood how production worked, who were literate and who
were used to organising themselves. On the eve of the war, however,
job-control was not as highly developed in Russia as, for example, in
Britain, partly because modern technology had dispensed with the
skills of the traditional craftsman, and partly because in the West
job-control was premissed on forms of craft organisation which were
illegal in Russia. Nevertheless the process of rationalisation and
de-skilling which was going on in Petrograd industry, particularly in
the state sector, had caused skilled workers to feel extremely insecure,
and the February Revolution allowed them to combat that insecurity
by forming new organisations.
There was also an important political motive for the establishment
of the factory committees. Paradoxically, the activities of the
committees were boldest precisely in those enterprises where Bolshe-
vik agitation and strike-militancy had been least in evidence during
the war. The state enterprises were strongholds of defencism, and it
was, in the main, defencist workers who spearheaded the creation of
factory committees. The crucial reason why factory committees took
over the running of state enterprises was to ensure that production for
the war effort was not jeopardised. Nevertheless it would be wrong to
conclude that the political motive of those who created the com-
mittees was simply a conservative, pro-war one. They were also
motivated by revolutionary ambitions, albeit of a democratic kind.
For although skilled workers in the state enterprises had been among
the better-off sections of the working class during the war, they had
had grievances aplenty. They had suffered greatly as a result of the
intensification of labour, brought about by the mobilisation of the war
industries, and they had also been subject to a military discipline
which their comrades in the private sector had been spared. They
thus had experienced in a very direct fashion the repressive nature of
the tsarist state, and when the latter was overturned in February,
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 61
militants in the state sector saw this as a signal for a root-and-branch
overhaul of factory administration. Fearing precisely such an over-
haul, many of the naval and army officers who ran the state
enterprisesfledduring the revolution, and so on their return to work,
militants faced not only the task of creating a radically new structure
of administration, but also the urgent task of maintaining production
for the Front.
In the absence of management, the factory committees took
responsibility for running the state enterprises by setting up 'execu-
tive committees', comprising workers5 representatives, engineers,
technicians and, in some cases, members of the old administration. At
the Cartridge works, the executive appointed Captain V.D. Meshch-
erinov temporary director, and set up two commissions: one consist-
ing largely of technical staff, to deal with urgent practical business;
the other consisting of workers to deal with the formation of
a new administrative structure and the strengthening of internal
order.27 At the Sestroretsk arms works the stewards' committee
appointed a new director and technical director, and set up a
revolutionary committee to oversee production.28 At the Pipe works a
committee, consisting offivemembers of the factory soviet and four
members of the former administration, took charge of production,
wages and the security of the factory.29 At the Okhta explosives works
the committee simply declared itself the new administration. Later,
reporting on the early weeks of its activity, the committee noted that:
'because of the novelty of things, the committee got lost in its business
for a time. The immediate tasks of the committee were unclear, so it
took on not only the task of controlling the factory administration, but
the duties of the latter.'30 Thus, for a few weeks in March 1917 the
factory committees found themselves virtually in charge of state
enterprises. This situation was not to last, but the experience was
crucial in giving birth to the idea of'workers' control of production'.31
On 13 March factories run by the Artillery Administration met to
discuss what demands they should put on the Administration. They
resolved to demand an eight-hour day, a minimum wage, and
payment for the days they had spent toppling the Romanov regime.32
This proved to be thefirstof a series of meetings of factory committee
representatives and officials of the Artillery Administration. An
Organisation Bureau, consisting of delegates from different enter-
prises, was set up to coordinate the work of the factory committees in
the Artillery sector. Its members were moderate Bolsheviks and
62 Red Petrograd
33
radical SRs, in the main. At about the same time, the factories run
by the Naval Ministry also began to organise. On 18 March factory
committee representatives met to discuss the condition of workers in
naval enterprises and to demand the democratic reorganisation of the
council responsible for the industry.34 Regular meetings began to take
place, to which the directors of the naval enterprises came after 26
April. The workers' leaders at these meetings were overwhelmingly
defencist in their politics.
At the beginning of April, 28 delegates from the naval enterprises
met to discuss the role of the factory committees. They were
addressed by a member of the Petrograd Soviet Executive Com-
mittee, G.E. Breido, a Menshevik and former member of the
Workers' Group of the War Industries Committee. He denounced the
attempts of some factory committees to run the naval enterprises by
themselves, arguing that the committees should confine themselves to
'control' (i.e. supervision) of the activities of management.35 A heated
discussion ensued concerning the boundaries of such 'control'. At the
Obukhov works, the committee reserved to itself the right to make
enquiries of management and to inspect accounts. At the Izhora
works, the workers had elected a new administration, and the
committee had set up a commission to improve the technical side of
production. 'Control' had gone furthest at the Baltic works, where the
administration had been elected by the workers, and where the
committee participated in management to the extent of keeping the
financial accounts. Breido severely censured the Baltic arrangement,
expressing a preference for the minimalist programme of the
Obukhov works.36
On 15 April representatives from factories under the Artillery
Administration and Naval Ministry met together to discuss further
the role of the factory committees. Both sectors had already discussed
this matter, and several important problems had emerged. Thefirstof
these concerned the desirability of 'self-management', i.e. of the
factory committees actually running the state enterprises lock, stock
and barrel, as they were doing at the Gun works, Okhta explosives,
the Cartridge and the Baltic works. At the first meeting of Artillery
Administration representatives in March, the delegate from the
Cartridge works had urged 'self-management by workers on the
broadest possible scale'.37 The majority of delegates at the confer-
ence, however, whilst cursing the 'ancient fetters which have bound
the workers in state enterprises so tightly to the authorities by means
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 63
5
of military discipline , rejected the idea of the committees usurping
the place of the official administration. In their resolution, the
delegates declared: 'Until such time as full socialisation of the
national economy, both state and private, shall occur, workers shall
not take responsibility for the technical and administrative-economic
organisation of production, and shall refuse to take part in the
organisation of production.'38 The first meeting of representatives of
Artillery Administration enterprises had thus repudiated 'self-
management', and declared for an official administration to be
responsible for production, complemented by a factory committee to
be responsible for all other aspects of the internal order (vnutrennyi
rasporyadok) of the enterprise.
The joint conference of 15 April confirmed that the factory
committees should take no responsibility for production. It proceeded
to try to define the responsibilities of the factory committees more
closely, by drawing up a constitution for the committees. This called
for 'collegial management' in the enterprise, which it defined as
meaning that: 'committees of workers' representatives ... shall direct
and manage the whole life of the factory'.39 Yet how the committees
were to exercise 'directing and managing' functions, and still abstain
from actual management, was unclear. The draft constitution
assigned total responsibility for matters of'internal order', such as the
regulation of wages, hours and hiring and firing, to the committees,
and complete responsibility for administrative, economic and tech-
nical matters to the official administration. This apparently simple
division of labour was complicated, however, by the fact that the
committees were to have powers of 'control' over the
administration.40 The nature of this 'control' was to be 'information-
al' (osvedomitel'nyi), rather than 'responsible' (otvetstvennyi), and en-
tailed the committees having representatives on all administrative
organs for purposes of information, and access to all official docu-
ments and accounts, without thereby assuming any responsibility for
production. This constitution appears to have been a compromise
designed to satisfy both the radical delegates who, if they could not
have 'self-management', wanted 'responsible' control, and those
moderate elements who would have preferred to drop the idea of
'control' altogether. In the ensuing weeks, particularly after the
enactment of a law on factory committees on 23 April, the moderate
workers' leadership of the naval factories largely succeeded in
clipping the wings of the committees, confining their activities to
64 Red Petrograd

those of a purely 'trade-union' type, and jettisoning any notion of

'control5.41
A further problem concerned the extent to which the principle of
election should apply within state enterprises. In almost all factories,
workers had insisted in the wake of the February Revolution on
electing their foremen and other members of the shop administration.
In a few factories, such as the Baltic and Izhora works, all levels of
administration were elected by the workforce in early March,
reflecting strong rank-and-file feeling that a completely elected
administration was necessary if workplace democracy were to be
meaningful.42 The constitution ratified by the joint conference on 15
April carefully skirted this issue, but, in effect, came out against a
fully-elected administration. It spoke of directors, shop-directors and
engineers being 'accepted with the agreement of the factory commit-
tee5, and of the workers5 right to 'object5 (otvod) to those who could not
guarantee normal relations with the workers.43 It was this right to
'object5, rather than to elect, which became rooted in factory-
committee practice.
In the course of March, the councils running the Artillery
Department and Naval Ministry were democratised. They proceeded
to appoint new administrations to all state enterprises, and thereupon
the factory committees ceased to play a direct role in management. In
most naval enterprises, the factory committees henceforth exercised
only minimal control over the administration, though more ambi-
tious control was practised at the Baltic and New Admiralty works. In
Artillery Department enterprises workers5 control was more system-
atic, though it varied in scope from modest (Putilov) to far-reaching
(Military-Horseshoe and Arsenal works). Nevertheless, throughout
the state sector, a degree of workers5 control continued to exist which
was not matched by factory committees in the private sector until the
summer and autumn of 1917.
In the private sector, the factory committees functioned essentially
as 'trade-union5 organisations in the spring of 1917. It was several
months before proper trade unions began to function, and the
committees were at the forefront of the battles to achieve an
eight-hour day and to improve wages. Before examining these
struggles, however, it is worth noting one area in which the factory
committees transcended the 'normal5 sphere of trade-union activity
from the first. This was in the realm of 'control5 of hiring and firing
workers.
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 65
After the February Revolution, one of the first demands posed by
workers was to 'control5 the hiring and firing of workers. At the
Phoenix engineering works the shop stewards' committee insisted
that no worker be hired without the knowledge of the committee 'in
view of the fact that undesirable elements may get in, such as looters,
former servants of the old regime or people convicted of theft and
other unworthy deeds'.44 At the Okhta explosives works the commit-
tee established control of hiring and firing 'so that there'll be no
patronage and people will be recruited according to a worked-out
plan, and notfiredat the whim of an individual'.45 At the Tentelevskii
chemical works the committee proposed to management that 'as a
general rule, no worker may be hired, dismissed or transferred
from one job to another without preliminary consultation with the
factory committee'.46 At the Putilov works, the Baltic, the Admiralty
works and elsewhere, factory committees managed to reinstate
workers, fired from their jobs during the war for strike and antiwar
activity.47
It is probable that the motive behind these demands was as much a
concern with job-security as a concern with limiting management
power, but it was regarded by employers as an intolerable challenge
to their right to manage. To them, the demand to control hiring and
firing represented the wedge which would crack the unitary authority
of the employer in the enterprise and open the way to a terrifying form
of 'dual power'. They resisted it ferociously, and it is thus not
accidental that thefirstof the Minister of Labour's circulars designed
to curb the power of the factory committees, issued on 23 August,
should have aimed to stop committees from interfering in hiring
policy (see Chapter 7).

THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY

Having failed to achieve an eight-hour day in 1905, the workers

returned to the factories in the second week of March determined that
this time things would be different. The demand for the immediate
introduction of an eight-hour working day was top of the agenda for
workers at the Putilov works, the Metal works, Cable works, New
Lessner, Skorokhod and many other factories. Most of these factories
implemented the eight-hour day immediately, often without the
formal agreement of the employers. The workers argued that the
66 Red Petrograd

eight-hour day was necessary not merely to diminish their exploita-

tion, but also to create time for trade-union organisation, education
and involvement in public affairs.48 Many workers expressed doubts
lest a reduction in the working day adversely affect production for the
war effort. At the Cartridge works the workers agreed: 'to recognise
the eight-hour day as basic ... but in view of the imminent danger, to
try by all means to support our brothers at the Front and to work more
than eight hours without question - up to twelve hours or more - if
necessary'.49 At the Nevskii shipbuilding works the factory 'soviet of
workers deputies', which comprised two Mensheviks, two Bolsheviks
and one SR, met with the director on 6 March to discuss the
eight-hour day. The director argued that it was impossible to
introduce an eight-hour day in the foundries and engineering shops
for technical reasons, and that it was practicable only for mechanised
shell production. The soviet agreed that 'any disruption of the
existing technical system at the factory will involve a decrease in
productivity and so we must begin work at the normal time, but take
the eight-hour day as basic and consider any hours worked over that
to be overtime'.50 Although the Menshevik-dominated factory com-
mittee took exception to the 'tactlessness' of the factory soviet in
deciding this question without consulting them, they affirmed its
correctness.51 Most factories took a similar position at this time: they
introduced an eight-hour day, but were prepared to work overtime in
support of the war effort.
Employers were reluctant to agree to the eight-hour day, and in
some areas put up a good deal of resistance to it. In Petrograd,
however, most were in a more conciliatory frame of mind, although it
was the pressure of the workers which pushed them into making this
concession so speedily. The Menshevik and SR leaders of the Soviet
believed that the political gains of the revolution should be consoli-
dated before economic demands were put forward, but they were
ignored by the workers. As soon as factory committees began to
implement the eight-hour day unilaterally, the Society of Factory and
Works Owners (SFWO) entered into negotiations with the Soviet
regarding a reduction in working hours. On 10 March the two sides
agreed to the eight-hour day, the recognition of factory committees
and the establishment of conciliation chambers in the factories.52 On
14 March the SFWO sent a circular to its members calling on them to
recognise the eight-hour day as an 'historically necessary measure',
'capable of ensuring the future spiritual development of the working
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 67
class, by providing time for self-education and trade-union organisa-
tion, and of establishing correct lawful relations between labour and
capital'.53
The introduction of the eight-hour day led to a diminution of the
average working day in the Petrograd area from 10.2 hours to 8.4
hours.54 In the metal industry it decreased from 10.4 hours to 8.6
hours; in chemicals from 9.6 hours to 9.1 hours; in textiles from 9.5
hours to 8 hours; in the paper industry from 11.6 to 9.8 hours; in
woodworking from 9.8 to 8.2 hours and in the food industry from 10.2
to 8.6 hours.55 In non-factory industries, particularly in shops and
small workplaces, the standard working day continued to be well in
excess of nine or ten hours, owing to the poor organisation of the
employees and to the fact that an eight-hour day was not legally
binding on employers.56 Overtime working continued to be wide-
spread after February. In almost all factories, however, labour
organisations insisted on their right to control the operation of
overtime working. At the 1886 Electric Light Company the factory
committee agreed to overtime only in case of accidents, urgent repair
work or the absence of key personnel.57 Elsewhere factory committees
pressured management to take on extra workers instead of extending
overtime working. From the first, there were a few factories which
refused to work overtime on principle, regardless of the war. At the
Nevskaya footwear factory the factory agreed at its very first meeting
to abolish overtime Tor ever'.58 At the Promet armaments factory the
Menshevik-dominated factory committee voted 20 against 12 in
favour of continuing overtime, but a general meeting of 3,000 workers
overwhelmingly overrode its decision.59 Women workers, in particu-
lar, were adamant that an eight-hour day meant precisely that. A
complete ban on overtime was called for by women in Moscow
district of the capital on 7 March and by laundrywomen on 19
March.60 At the Vyborg spinning mill the average number of hours
worked by male workers fell from 11.4 hours in January 1917 to 8.7
hours in July - including one hour's overtime. The hours worked by
women workers, however, fell from 10 hours to 7.8 hours, with almost
no overtime.61 Women's refusal to work overtime sprang from the fact
that domestic labour consumed so large a proportion of the time not
spent at the factory.
As the first signs of economic crisis appeared later in the year, the
labour leaders took up the fight against overtime. At the Third
Conference of Trade Unions in June, the Bolshevik leader of the
68 Red Petrograd

metalworkers' union, V. Schmidt, urged: 'At the present time, the

eight-hour day is only a norm of payment and has not actually been
put into practice. Overtime is done everywhere, but it must be
allowed only in exceptional circumstances with the agreement of
the unions.'62 The woodturners' union tried to limit the amount
of overtime, but not always without opposition from its low-
paid members.63 The same was true of the printers' union which
took a firm stand against overtime working because of the worrying
level of unemployment in the print-trade.64 This policy had
considerable success later in the year as closures and redundancies
increased. By October there was very little overtime working in
Petrograd.

WAGE STRUGGLES

In addition to a significant reduction in working hours, workers

gained large wage increases as a consequence of the February
Revolution. They returned to the factories in March determined that
the overthrow of tsarism should signal a dramatic change in their
working lives. A deputy from the Narva district told the Petrograd
Soviet on 5 March: 'Surely political freedoms are meant to help
workers live like human beings. They should guarantee the minimum
conditions of human existence - the eight-hour day and the minimum
wage. Freedoms are useless if the old conditions persist.'65 He was
undoubtedly expressing a general opinion, for everywhere workers
began to raise demands for large wage-rises, payment for the days
spent toppling the Romanov dynasty, and a minimum wage.
Although the demands raised by different factories tended to be the
same, the struggle to achieve them was conducted on an extremely
localised basis. In the absence of trade unions, it was the factory
committees which led the wages battles, but in some factories there
was very little organisation — merely a free-for-all, in which workers
unused to traditions of organised wage negotiation sought to improve
their wages by the only method they knew — direct action. The result
was considerable variation between factories in the level of achieve-
ment of the struggles.
At the Skorokhod shoe factory, which employed 1,508 men, 2,687
women and 705 young people, workers engaged in a militant, but
relatively organised, battle for better wages. On 9 March the factory
committee demanded: management recognition of the committee; an
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 69
eight-hour working day; a dinner break of one-and-a-half hours; a
minimum daily wage of 5 rubles for men, 2 r.50 k. for women and
2 r. for youths; the continuation of a war bonus introduced in
1915; the abolition of payment for one's own materials; double
pay for overtime; a joint commission to examine wage-rates; pay-
ment for the February Days; payment for deputies to the Soviet;
the dismissal of undesirable elements and control of hiring and
firing. Management refused to countenance a 47-hour week, but
agreed to 48 hours; it resisted with particular stubbornness the
demands concerning minimum wages, at first agreeing only to a
20% increase; it agreed to overtime only at time-and-a-half; it
refused to abolish fines and insisted on the retention of the system
whereby workers bought their own ancillary materials; it agreed
only to the factory committee's right to be informed of hiring and
firing and to its right to request the removal of an administrator.
Management refused to pay members of elected organisations but
offered 300,000 rubles towards the cost of a canteen.66 Almost
immediately, it was forced to back down on hours, fines and
payment of elected representatives, once it became clear what was
happening in other factories. The wage demands were referred to
a conciliation chamber, which recommended a 40% increase in
the minimum wage. The director, A.K. Gartvig, agreed to this,
and promised 10,000 r. to the renascent leatherworkers' union.
The workers' representatives in the conciliation chamber expressed
satisfaction with his magnanimity, but they had not reckoned
with the workers on the shopfloor. On 20 March the latter stop-
ped work and a crowd began to abuse the director. After some
ugly negotiations, during which the workers complained that the
director 'behaved provocatively and used unprintable language',67
Gartvig made some amazing concessions, including a minimum
wage of ten rubles for men and the abolition of piece-rates.68 This
did not prevent the workers from forcing Gartvig to resign in
May, ordering him to clean his apartment before he left!69
In the textile industry the revolution gave vent to a rash of
wage demands, some of which were pursued through explosive,
confrontations with management, others through patient, even
resigned, negotiation. At the two Nevskaya spinning mills women
comprised 81% and 90%, respectively, of the two workforces. No
factory committee existed at either mill until the end of March, and
women drew up extremely moderate lists of'requests' which they put
70 Red Petrograd

to management on a shop-by-shop basis. The most ambitious

demands were those drawn up by women in the scutching-room at the
Koenig mill, who requested of the English director, Harvey, that they
be not asked to sweep thefloorafter they hadfinishedwork (refused);
that machines be stopped for an hour each day for cleaning and oiling
(refused); that new workers be put on the same rate as older ones
('What will the older women say?'); that women be paid six weeks'
maternity leave (referred to medical fund); that they receive equal
pay with men on the same job (no reply); that they be entitled to
retirement and injury pensions (no reply).70 The plaintive tone of the
Koenig women's entreaty was not typical of the majority of workers,
nor was the obtuse intransigence of the English management typical
of employers as a whole.
The month of March saw a plethora of small-scale, short,
sometimes sectional struggles for higher wages. The most effective
were those which were organised by factory committees, but 'spon-
taneous' outbursts of direct action were by no means ineffective in this
period. Most employers were prepared to make far-reaching conces-
sions under pressure, so very few disputes developed into strikes
proper. At the Osipov leather works a strike broke out on 8 March,
and at the Gable works a strike took place from 16-21 March, a
comparatively long time by the standards of this period - but such
strikes were exceptional.71 The result was considerable variation in
the level of wages between different factories, industries and occupa-
tional categories. This makes it difficult to generalise about the size of
the wage rises achieved in the spring of 1917.
During the course of March, monthly earnings rose by between
35% and 50%, and continued to rise over the next two months.72 In
the absence of global data, one can only estimate that by July monthly
earnings were double or treble their January level (see Table u).73
Average hourly earnings rose much more than this, in view of the
change from a ten to an eight-hour day and the reduction in overtime.
The latter changes meant that by July the unit-costs of employers
were perhaps as much as four to five times the level of the previous
year.74 Yet one should not assume that all workers benefited at their
employers' expense. In order to keep abreast of inflation, workers had
to at least double their monthly earnings, and by no means all of them
managed to do so.
How did the wage-rises of spring 1917 affect the relative positions of
skilled and unskilled and male and female workers? Table 11 suggests
 Table 11: Petrograd workers grouped according to wages in January and June

Sample of metalworkers Skorokhod shoe factory Nevka woollen mill

Monthly % males aged

earnings in % of men % of women 16-18 % of males % of females % of males % of females
rubles Jan. June Jan. June Jan. June Jan. June Jan. June Jan. June Jan. June

under 60 rubles 3i-7 1.6 9 1.1 54-2 o-5 83.6

60-89 8.8 0.7 54-2 11.9 28.0 12.5 17-7 1
-5 36.5 i-7 62.4 - 16.3 -
90-119 10.4 3-9 37-4 3 J -9 25.6 25.0 32.6 !-9 7.2 7-4 18.0 - - -
120—149 17.1 7-1 6.9 35-6 8.5 14.1 26.8 4-6 1.0 10.3 8.8 - 81.8
150-179 152 6.7 0.8 11.1 6.1 6-3 9-i 3-7 0.6 76.7 7-3 - - 17.6
180-209 12.6 9-i 0.8 7-4 - 20.3 2.8 5-5 O.I 3-o 2-9 49-0 0.5
210-239 8.5 10.8 - 2.2 - 12.5 1.0 14.8 0.04 0.3 - 29-4 - -
240-269 7.8 12.4 - - - 47 0-5 51.0 - O.I 0.4 14.4 -
270-299 7.0 "•5 - - - 1.6 0.06 95 - 0.04 - 3-7 - -
300-329 4-3 11.4 - - - 1.6 - 2-7 - 0.08 - 1.4 - -
330-359 2-5 9-5 - - - - 1.2 - - - - -
360-389 - l -
2-3 5-o - - - - -3 - - - -
390-419 1.2 3-o - - - - - 0.7 - - - O.I - -
420-449 1.8 7.0 - - - - - - - - - - - -
450 or more 0.4 2.0 - - - - - - - - - - - -
Total number
of workers 1313 1451 131 i35 82 64 1628 2277 2470 205 214 1970 2000

Table based on:

A.P. Serebrovskii, Revolyutsiya i zarabotnaya plata metallicheskoi promyshlennosti, Petrograd, 1917, p.9.
I.A. Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda v period mimogo razvitiya revolyutsii, mart—iyun', igiyg., Leningrad, 1978, p.3.
72 Red Petrograd

that the wages of the low-paid rose proportionately more than did
those of the better-off. This is borne out by evidence from other
factories. At the Parviainen works the hourly rate of a turner rose by
59% between February and May, compared to a 125% rise in the rate
of an unskilled worker.75 In the thirty paper mills of Petrograd, male
wages increased by 214% in the first half of 1917, compared to 234%
for female wages and 261% for young people's wages.76 The
diminution in wage-differentials was the result of conscious policy on
the part of factory committees to try to improve the dire situation of
unskilled workers, women workers and youth. However, the improve-
ment in the relative earnings of the low-paid was not true of all
factories. From Table / / i t appears that at the Nevka spinning mill
men's wages increased more than those of women. And at the Vyborg
spinning mill the average hourly rates of male workers rose by 368%
between January and July, compared to 327% for adult women,
335% for male youths and 321% for female youths. Moreover
better-paid workers of both sexes achieved proportionately bigger
increases than the poorer-paid.77 This suggests that in factories where
workers were not well organised, groups fought for themselves on a
sectional basis. In the textile industry, where factory committees were
weakly developed at this stage, attempts to implement a collective
wages policy, biassed in favour of the low-paid, were few. Women in
the industry, generally lacking the bargaining power of the minority
of skilled men, were the inevitable victims of this situation.
The demand for a minimum wage for the low-paid was valiantly
fought for by workers' organisations. At the Metal works negotiations
between the works committee and management over a minimum
wage became deadlocked, and a member of the committee proposed
that skilled workers should supplement the wages of the unskilled
out of their own pay-packets until the matter was settled: *... We
must show our true mettle. Are we the same as the exploiting
bourgeois, or are we just a bit more aware and willing to help the
chernorabochie? Let us, the masterovye, lend a hand to our starving,
ragged comrades.' 78 At the Putilov shipyard management and
workers agreed to assign 20% of the annual wages bill to help the
lowest-paid, pending a settlement of the minimum wage. 79 The
workers' section of the Soviet took up the pressing question of a
minimum wage at its meetings of 18 March and 20 March.
Representatives from fifty of the largest enterprises described the
sorry plight of the poorly-paid, which had come about as a result of
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 73
inflation. The Menshevik, V.O. Bogdanov, complained about the
number of partial, sectional conflicts in the factories and the
'continued misunderstanding' between capital and labour, to which
the delegate from the Putilov works retorted angrily:
It is the duty of the Soviet to examine our position, to look at all rates and
standards, to revise them and create a tolerable existence for us, and not be
surprised that we raise demands... When the workers arose from their toiling
slumber, they demanded just wages, they put forward just demands, but the
employers cried: 'Guards! They are robbing us!'80
The workers' deputies in the Soviet agreed that a minimum wage of
five or six rubles a day should be made legally binding on employers,
but the SFWO proposed a minimum of 3 r. 20 k. for men and 2 r. 50 k.
for women. 81 The matter was then referred to the Central Concilia-
tion Chamber, at which the workers' representatives argued for a
daily minimum of five rubles for men and four for women. The
employers' representatives at first resisted this, but then conceded it,
recognising that 'from the political point of view, we are now living
through a time when strength lies with the workers'.82 This minimum
was formally announced on 22 April, but the announcement sent few
workers into raptures. It was clear that this minimum was already
inadequate in the face of soaring prices.83
A final word should be said about piece-rates. Piece-rates were
deeply disliked by many workers under the old regime. In 1905 the
metalworkers had pressed for their abolition, as had the printers in
1907.84 In the ensuing years, however, piece-rates had become ever
more widely established as the normal method of payment. After the
February Revolution workers clamoured to eliminate piece-systems.
In the metal works of the private sector, factory committees appear to
have had some success, at least temporarily, in getting piece-rates
abolished.85 In the state sector, especially in enterprises run by the
Naval Ministry, there seems to have been less pressure for their
abolition, and they remained in force.86 In the print-trade, the union
pressed for an end to the system whereby typesetters were paid
according to the number of words they set, and called for a
guaranteed minimum wages.87 They seem to have been fairly
successful. Once the crisis in labour discipline became apparent,
however (see Chapter 4), most unions agreed in principle to the
restoration of piece-rates.
74 Red Petrograd

MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AFTER THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION

In the tsarist era the capitalist class in Russia was characterised by

economic strength and social and political weakness. This arose from
the fact that large capital achieved dominance in the economy in the
1890s, not by challenging the political power of the landowning elite,
but by relying on the economic and political protection of the
autocratic state. The industrial and commercial bourgeoisie thus
never really developed into a political force capable of challenging the
old order. It was to prove a far less dynamic social class than the
proletariat, and this social weakness was mirrored in its internal
divisions and in its underdeveloped sense of class identity.
The capitalist class in Russia was not monolithic. Several fractions
can be distinguished within it, according to industrial and regional
base, degree of dependence on foreign capital, degree of dependence
on the state, differences in industrial and commercial policy and
differences in political outlook. The biggest fraction of the capitalist
class was also the most genuinely Russian, and consisted of those
entrepreneurs of the Moscow region whose wealth derived from
textiles and other light industries, and who were independent of
foreign and government finance.88 The Moscow entrepreneurs
tended to pursue a conservative economic policy, but a liberal policy
in the political arena; they played a minor role in the opposition
movement of the Third Duma and supported the Progressive Bloc
during the war.89 This political liberalism sharply distinguished the
Muscovites from the more reactionary fractions of capital, such as the
mineowners of the Donbass and Krivoi Rog, the semi-feudal
bourgeoisie of the Urals metallurgical industry and the oil magnates
of Baku, all of whom depended heavily on foreign capital.90 In this
respect, the latter were similar to the strongest fraction of the
capitalist class - the industrialists and financiers of St Petersburg,
who derived their wealth from banking and the metalworking
industries and were heavily dependent on state orders and foreign
investment. Because of its dependence on the government, the St
Petersburg bourgeoisie was far less active in the social and political
arena than its Moscow counterpart.
Although the St Petersburg capitalists were obsequiously servile
towards the government prior to 1914, the war put their loyalty to
severe strain. The Moscow industrialists dominated the War Indus-
tries Committees (set up to take responsibility for military supplies
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 75

after the defeat of the army in the summer of 1915), but some
entrepreneurs in Petrograd became increasingly sympathetic to the
committees. Alienated by its inept pursuit of the war and by the
scandalous intrigues of the Rasputin clique, most entrepreneurs in
Petrograd were not sorry to see the passing of the Imperial
government in February 1917.
The mood of a majority of industrialists after the February
Revolution was one of anxious hope. They were confident that the
Provisional Government could establish a liberal parliamentary
regime which would represent their interests, but they were also
acutely aware that the ancien regimehad been liquidated by means of a
popular movement, which, they feared, could easily get out of hand,
and thus endanger the objective of a liberal capitalist system. The
paradoxical character of the February Revolution - a 'bourgeois'
revolution, undertaken by workers and soldiers - brutally exposed the
social weakness of the bourgeoisie, once the crutch of the tsarist state
had been knocked from under it. At a national level, the bourgeoisie
was weak in numbers, internally divided, lacking in class conscious-
ness, politically inexperienced and badly organised. The prime task
for the capitalist class, therefore, was to organise to promote its
interests more effectively and to exert pressure on the new govern-
ment.
In Petrograd the main employers' organisation was the Society of
Factory and Works Owners (SFWO). This had been founded in 1897
and represented all the major firms in the capital. By 1917 it
represented 450 mainly large factories, employing a total workforce of
280,000. It had seven sections - for metalworking and engineering,
chemicals, textiles, paper, wood, printing and for miscellaneous
industries. 91 The first number of the SFWO journal in 1917 defined
the Society's tasks as 'to search for new ways to develop Russian
industry within the framework of capitalism' and to ensure that 'free
citizen industrialists and free citizen workers find a common
language'. 92 In April a new council and presidium were established,
and city district sections were set up; these did not prove successful,
and in summer the SFWO was reorganised along industrial lines.93
The weakness of the SFWO was due not so much to defective
organisation, as to the inherent difficulties in enforcing a common
policy on all members. In spite of the fact that firms who went against
SFWO policy risked heavy fines, there were often good business
reasons why firms should break ranks. In view of the failure to create a
76 Red Petrograd

unified employers' organisation in Petrograd, it is not surprising that

attempts to create a national organisation came to grief, and that a
host of sectional organisations proliferated, each representing
different fractions of industry and commerce.94
In terms of its industrial relations policy, management in Petro-
grad factories was faced with a choice of two strategies after the
February Revolution. On the one hand, lacking moral authority in
the eyes of the working class and inured to a quasi-feudal system of
industrial relations, it could attempt to suppress labour unrest and
restore the status quo ante. This was the strategy chosen by employers in
the Urals and Donbass. On the other hand, deprived of the support of
the autocracy and confronted by a labour force in ferment, manage-
ment could make real concessions in the hope of inaugurating a
system of Western-style labour relations. In Petrograd they chose the
latter, and thus committed themselves to dismantling the system of
industrial relations based on coercion, in favour of one based on
mutual recognition, negotiation and collective bargaining. A circular
from the SFWO to its members on 15 March reads:
Relations between employers and workers have changed radically; speedy,
energetic work is needed to initiate a new order in the factories and to
re-establish normal work on defence as rapidly as possible.95

In practical terms, this meant making four key concessions: firstly,

immediate and sizeable wage increases; secondly, the eight-hour day;
thirdly, recognition of factory committees and trade unions, and,
fourthly, the establishment of conciliation chambers.
This programme coincided felicitously with that of the Provisional
Government. The latter set up a Department of Labour within the
Ministry of Trade and Industry, which was headed by A.I. Konova-
lov. He declared that the government's aim was to 'establish proper
relations between labour and capital, based on law and justice'. On
29 March he announced that the priorities of the government in the
sphere of labour relations were: firstly, the development of trade
unions; secondly, the creation of conciliation chambers, factory
committees and labour exchanges; thirdly, legislation on labour
protection, working hours and social insurance. 96 This programme
had the backing of the SFWO, but it was considered dangerously
socialistic by the mineowners of the Urals. Later, after opposition
began to build up, the government's zeal for reform proved surpri-
singly half-hearted. It refused, for example, to enact a law on the
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 77
eight-hour day, setting up a commission to study the 'complexity' of
the problem instead. This was a portent of the paralysis which was to
overcome the labour policy of the Provisional Government.
Conciliation chambers were the centrepiece of the system of
'constitutional' industrial relations to which both the SFWO and the
Provisional Government aspired. Conciliation chambers had first
appeared in the years 1905-7, particularly in the printing and
construction industries. They died out during the Years of Reaction
and did not emerge again until the end of 1915, when they were
revived by the progressive wing of Moscow industrialists and by the
Workers' Group of the War Industries Committee. Conciliation
chambers were strongly resisted at this time by industrialists in
Petrograd, who considered them to be fetters on their freedom of
action.97 The February Revolution soon changed their minds and
they became staunch advocates of arbitration in disputes.
The Menshevik and SR leaders of the Petrograd Soviet were as
anxious as the SFWO to set up machinery for arbitration and for the
avoidance of unofficial action by rank-and-file workers. In the
agreement between the two bodies of 10 March, it was stated that
conciliation chambers should be set up Tor the purpose of settling all
misunderstandings arising out of labour-management relations'.
They were to consist of an equal number of elected representatives
from both workers and management and were to reach decisions by
joint agreement.98 In the event of agreement not being reached, the
dispute was to be referred to a Central Conciliation Chamber.
Izvestiya, the paper of the 'conciliationist' leadership of the Petrograd
Soviet, explained the significance of this agreement on conciliation as
follows: 'The wartime situation and the revolution force both sides to
exercise extreme caution in utilising the sharper weapons of class
struggle such as strikes and lockouts. These circumstances make it
necessary to settle all disputes by means of negotiation and agree-
ment, rather than by open conflict. Conciliation chambers serve this
purpose.'99
In the early months of the revolution.the conciliation chambers
were very busy, playing an important role in mediating in wages
negotiations. As the unions began to consolidate themselves, how-
ever, the significance of the chambers waned.100 From thefirst,many
workers regarded the conciliation chambers with suspicion, since
they appeared to repress the reality of class struggle and to compete
with the factory committees. The general situation was not favour-
78 Red Petrograd

able to the harmonious resolution of disagreements between workers

and employers, and where class tension was acute, the conciliation
chambers tended to be impotent. The most striking example of this
was the general failure of conciliation committees to achieve the
reinstatement of managers and foremen expelled from their jobs by
the workers.101. It is thus not surprising that as early as March,
dissenting voices should have been heard at a convention of
factory-owners in Vyborg district, warning that 'the conciliation
chambers cannot justify the hopes placed in them, since they do not
enjoy the necessary confidence of the workers and lack a firm
foundation'.102
It is now barely possible to understand why employers should have
conceived the factory committees to be part of their scheme for a
'constitutional' system of industrial relations. At the time, however,
there seemed good grounds for thinking that factory committees
would encourage order in the factories, by acting as safety-valves for
the explosive build-up of shopfloor grievances. It is clear from the
agreement made between the SFWO and the Soviet on 10 March that
industrialists saw the factory committees as an updated version of the
starosty. In a circular interpreting the agreement, the SFWO empha-
sised the need for workers to make a 'careful choice of people who are
able to maintain good relations between the two sides'.103 A week
later a further circular was sent out informing employers that
'working hours spent by these people (i.e. deputies, starosty, members
of the factory committee, and so on), in fulfilling the duties laid down,
must be paid at the normal, i.e. average, daily rate'.104 Until the
autumn most employers financed the factory committees and, in
return for their support, expected them to operate in a manner that
was acceptable. The SFWO therefore put pressure on the Provisional
Government to define the powers of the factory committees by law.
The labour department of the Ministry of Trade and Industry
agreed to set up a commission under Professor M.V. Bernatskii to
draft such a law. The commission received submissions from the
labour department of the Petrograd Soviet and from the SFWO, and
tried to find a compromise between the two. It resisted pressure from
the SFWO to give employers the right to remove members of the
factory committees, specifying that this might only be done by a
conciliation committee. The final law followed the proposals of the
Petrograd Soviet fairly closely, though it did not make factory
committees responsible for safety or deferments of conscription as the
 The February Revolution: a new dispensation 79

Soviet had suggested.105 On 23 April the law was promulgated by the

Provisional Government. It provided for the setting up of factory
committees to represent workers' interests vis-a-vis management on
questions such as pay and hours; to settle disputes between workers;
to represent workers before the government and public institutions
and to engage in educational and cultural work.106 The law thus
defined the functions of the factory committees narrowly: it made no
mention of'control', whether of hiring and firing or of any aspect of
production. The aim of the government, as in the legislation on
conciliation committees, was not to stifle the factory committees, but
to institutionalise them and quell their potential extremism by
legitimising them as representative organs designed to mediate
between employers and workers on the shopfloor.107 Some employers
were disgruntled by what they believed to be the excessive liberalism
of the legislation, but most tried to put it into operation. Workers,
however, were not prepared to have their hands tied by the new law.
Most factory committees in Petrograd were already operating on a
much broader mandate than that allowed for by the law, and so they
simply ignored it. In the naval enterprises of the state sector, however,
the law was used as the excuse for reducing the functions of the factory
and port committees to those of a 'trade-union' type. In many parts of
Russia, the law proved to be a stimulus to workers to set up factory
committees for the first time.
It is easy in retrospect to mock the guarded optimism of the
employers in March and April, but at the time it was not unreason-
able to hope that with the granting of substantial concessions,
working-class unrest would subside. For some time in April, things
did look hopeful.108 By May, however, the omens indicated that the
policy of compromise, favoured as much by the Soviet Executive
Committee as by employers, would prove as bankrupt in the sphere of
industrial relations as it would in the sphere of politics.
 The structure and functions of the
factory committees

THE STRUCTURE OF THE FACTORY COMMITTEES

The bigger a factory, the more likely it was to have a factory

committee. 1 The most comprehensive data on this question do not, at
first sight, appear to bear out this contention, for if one groups the
delegates to the First Conference of Petrograd Factory Committees
(30 May-3 June), according to the size of the factory from which they
came, it emerges that the biggest proportion of delegates came from
medium-sized factories of 100-500 workers, rather than large ones.2
If, however, one compares the number of factories of a given size,
represented at the conference, to the total number of factories of that
size in Petrograd, then it becomes clear that a direct correlation exists
between the size of an enterprise and the likelihood of its being
represented. 3 Thus 100% of factories with a workforce of more than
5,000 (18 in number) were represented at the First Conference,
whereas less than 5 % of factories with 50 workers or less were so. 200
workers seems to have been the critical size, for over half the factories
of that size or larger sent delegates to the conference. In enterprises
of less than 200 workers, it seems that workers were either less
interested or less able to set up committees. There is evidence that,
notwithstanding the fact that factory owners were obliged by law to
recognise the committees, some small employers prevented their
workers organising such committees. At the tiny Glazer leather
workshop, the nineteen workers formed a committee in March, but
its members were fired by the boss and, as a result, the committee
collapsed.4 Even at the relatively large Kan printworks, with a
workforce of 850, committee members were victimised, and the
committee survived only because of support from the printers' union. 5
80
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 81

The size of factory committees varied considerably.6 The April

conference of representatives of state enterprises recommended that
in a factory of 500— 1 ,000 workers, the committee should comprise
11—13 members; that in one of 3,000-6,000, it should consist of 13—15
members, and so on. 7 It was envisaged that the committee would be
supplemented either by a network of shop stewards or by shop
committees. These norms of representation were ratified by the
Second Conference of Petrograd Factory Committees (7—12
August) .8 The size of factory committees seldom conformed to this
pattern. At the Admiralty shipyard 800 workers elected a committee
of 24 members. At the Obukhov works, 12,900 workers had a
committee of 12 members, supplemented by 40 starosty.9 At the Baltic
shipyard the works committee originally consisted of 103 members,
but proved so elephantine that it had to be cut down to 40.
In large enterprises, the works committee was supported by a
structure of workshop committees. The Putilov works was one of the
first enterprises to set up shop committees, although, interestingly, it
had been late in establishing a factory committee. This seems to have
been due to the fact that the giant enterprise so dominated the life of
the Narva-Peterhof district of Petrograd, that the local soviet of
workers' and soldiers' deputies at first functioned as a committee of
the Putilov works.10 In addition, it seems that the non-party and
Menshevik majority of the Narva soviet were hostile to the idea of a
separate works committee at Putilov, feeling that it might operate as a
rival centre of power.11 Elections to a works committee were
eventually held between 10 and 14 April, and six Bolsheviks, six
non-party persons, one Menshevik-Internationalist, two SRs, one
anarchist and five whose political affiliation was unknown were
elected.12 On 24 April, the new works committee issued detailed
instructions on the setting up of shop committees, prefaced by the
following remarks:
In view of the fact that the practical business of organising shop committees is
a new affair, it is necessary that these committees, which look after life at the
grass roots, should display as much independence and initiative as possible.
The success of the labour organisations in the factories fully depends on this.
By becoming accustomed to self-management [samoupravlenie], the workers
are preparing for that time when private ownership offactories and works will
be abolished, and the means of production, together with the buildings
erected by the workers' hands, will pass into the hands of the working class as
a whole. Thus, whilst doing the small things, we must constantly bear in mind
the great overriding objective towards which the working people [rabochii
narod] is striving.13
82 Red Petrograd

This passage, which is typical of working-class discourse at the time,

cannot be interpreted as reflecting a spirit of shop sectarianism; it
rather expresses a commitment to grass-roots democracy and to
self-activity which is characteristic of 1917. Nor can it be viewed as a
concession by the works committee to rank-and-file pressure for shop
autonomy. The rest of the declaration makes clear that the motive for
setting up shop committees is largely practical, i.e. the works
committee cannot deal with the huge volume of business facing it, and
is thus farming out all business concerning individual shops to the
shop committees. There is no intention of encouraging federalism -
still less, anarchy: the declaration spells out unequivocally that shop
committees are subordinate to the works committee.14
Nearly forty shop committees were set up at the Putilov works.
Their tasks were defined as being to defend the workers of the shop; to
observe and organise internal order; to see that regulations were
being followed; to control hiring and firing of workers; to resolve
conflicts over wage-rates; to keep a close eye on working conditions; to
check whether the military conscription of individual workers had
been deferred, etc. 15 At the Baltic shipyard, the functions of the shop
committees were similarly defined. They were to consider all
socio-economic matters and demands aimed at improving the
workers' lot, although final decisions on such matters rested with the
works committee; they were empowered to warn people, including
management, if they were violating factory regulations or working
carelessly or unconscientiously; they were to represent workers before
management; they were to suggest ways of increasing production and
improving working conditions; they had the right to request from
management all memoranda and information concerning their shop;
they were to settle conflicts between workers or between the workers
and the shop management; they were to carry out the decisions of the
labour organisations and ensure that all wage agreements were
implemented. 16
Western historians have placed considerable emphasis on the local,
decentralised aspect of the factory committee movement, but their
depiction of a diffuse, centrifugal movement, harnessed after October
into centralist channels, is in need of qualification. For whilst the
committees were characterised by greater decentralisation and local
autonomy than the trade unions, from the first, there were pressures
towards centralisation and higher-level coordination within the
movement. Centralisation was not imposed from above by a
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 83
triumphant Bolshevik government, it arose from below, at the behest
of the committees themselves.
As early as the beginning of March the communications and
organisation commission of the Izhora works committee was estab-
lished to 'coordinate the actions of the workers' committee with the
actions of other workers' committees'. Coordination with other
factories was discussed by workers at the Atlas engineering works on 4
March, and at San Galli the works committee quickly established
contact with other works committees.17 In April, the Chief Commit-
tee of representatives of factory committees in state enterprises was
inaugurated. 18 At the beginning of May factory committees in the
Nevskaya yarn company set up a body Tor joint organisation and
practical work', and a week later workers at the six textile factories in
the Voronin, Lyutsh and Cheshire group formed a central committee
Tor close contact and information about the operations of each
factory'.19
Simultaneous with this process of inter-factory coordination went a
process of coordinating factory committee activities in each district of
the capital. The first district council of factory committees was
created on Vasilevskii Island on 29 March. Workers at the Arsenal
and at Old Lessner proposed the setting-up of a district council of
factory committees on Vyborg Side but nothing seems to have come of
it, for the council did not get off the ground until 4 September. 20 A
more successful council was set up in Nevskii district in May, which
represented 34 factory committees. In general, however, the attempt
to establish a district level of factory committee organisation came up
against various obstacles, causing the Second Conference of Petrog-
rad Factory Committees (7th August) to propose that the middle-
level organisation of factory committees be on the basis of branch of
industry rather than geographical district. It proved even harder to
organise on an industrial basis, and the Third Conference of
Petrograd Factory Committees (5-10 September) once again pro-
nounced in favour of territorial organisation and urged all districts to
form district councils of factory committees.21 By October fully
operational district councils existed in Nevskii, Peterhof and
Vasilevskii districts and others were beginning to function.22
These district councils gave help to individual factory committees
in the practical work of workers' control and in settling disputes.
Some had control commissions which supervised the administrative,
financial and technical sides of production; others had commissions
84 Red Petrograd

which distributed fuel and raw materials, and others dealt with the
demobilisation of industry, i.e. the transfer to civilian production.23
On the whole, however, the district councils of factory committees
cannot be counted a success. In contrast to the trade unions, where
city-district organisation was of crucial importance, district organisa-
tions of the factory committees seem to have been fairly redundant.
The bulk of factory-committee business related to the individual
factory, and was of no concern to neighbouring factories. Where
broader coordination of forces was necessary, this seems to have been
best achieved at city level, rather than at city-district level.
The supreme expression of the centralising tendency within the
factory committee movement was the Petrograd Central Council of
Factory Committees (CCFC), which was set up in June after the First
Conference. From its inception, the CCFC was a bulkwark of
Bolshevism, consisting of nineteen Bolsheviks, two Mensheviks, two
SRs, one Mezhraionets (the so-called Interdistrict Group of Social
Democrats of which Trotsky became leader after his return from the
USA in May 1917), and one syndicalist.24 In its early days, the CCFC
was involved mainly in diverting threatened factory closures and in
wage disputes. It then settled down to the task of coordinating
workers' control of production.25 Its members sat on government
economic organs - in particular, the supply committees and the
Factory Convention - but refused payment for their work, on the
grounds that this would make them state officials.26 By October, the
CCFC had the following commissions: communications and person-
nel, economic, finance, literary and editorial, agitation, conflict; the
following departments: technical-production control and demobilisa-
tion, administrative-financial control, raw materials and metals
supplies, fuel supplies, energy; and the following sections: evacuation,
agricultural equipment for the countryside, cultural-educational,
instruction. Some 80 people worked in these different commissions,
departments and sections.27 In view of the enormous scope of its
work, there are no grounds for saying, as does Solomon Schwarz, that
the Bolsheviks deliberately obstructed the economic work of the
CCFC, using it instead for the political ends.28 If the CCFC failed in
its central aim of restoring order to the economy via workers' control,
this was not through lack of trying, but because the odds were stacked
massively against it.29
At the grass roots, too, factory committees quickly developed an
enormous volume of business and were forced from the first to create
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 85
commissions to deal with specific areas of work. At the 1886 Electric
Light Company the new committee set up three commissions on 2
March: a commission of internal order, which received notices from
management saying what needed to be done, and then organised the
execution of this work; a food commission and a militia commission.
On 26 April a further two commissions were created: an education
commission and a commission of enquiry into disputes between
workers. 30 The works committee at the Nevskii shipyard had six
commissions, including a militia commission responsible for the
security of the factory, a food commission, a commission of culture
and enlightenment, a technical-economic commission responsible for
wages, safety, first-aid and internal order, a reception commission
responsible for the hiring and firing of workers, and finally, a special
commission which dealt with the clerical business of the committee.
At the Baltic shipyard the works committee had seven commissions,
and at the Izhora works ten commissions operated. 31 At the Metal
works no less than 28 different commissions existed, involving some
200 workers, in addition to the sixty shop stewards. 32 At the Putilov
works, some 400 workers were involved in the commissions of the
works committee.
Factory committees dealt with every aspect of life, as an examina-
tion of the minutes of any factory committee will reveal. In the first
two weeks of its existence the committee at the 1886 Electric Light
Company dealt with matters as diverse as food supplies, the factory
militia, arbitration of disputes, lunch breaks, overtime and the factory
club. 33 In a typical week the committee of the gun shop at Putilov
dealt with the hiring of workers, wear-and-tear of machinery, wage-
fixing, financial help to individual workers and the experiments of
a worker-inventor trying to invent a new kind of shell.34 Much factory
committee business was of a fairly trivial kind. On 28 July the Baltic
works committee discussed what to do with a consignment of rotting
fish. On 29 September the New Admiralty works committee dis-
cussed whether or not to buy scented soap for use in the factory.35
Precisely because of this concern with the detail of everyday life at the
factory, however, the committees were considered by the workers to
be 'their5 institutions - far closer to them than the unions or the
Soviets, and consequently more popular. Workers did not hesitate to
turn to the committees for help and advice. The wife of a worker at the
Sestroretsk arms works turned to the works committee when her
husband threw her out, although the committee was unable to do
86 Red Petrograd

much. 36 Rather than attempt to describe the work of the committees

in all its breadth, the rest of this chapter deals with five specific areas
in which most factory committees were active.

FACTORY COMMITTEES AND THE ORGANISATION OF

FOOD SUPPLY

One of the most urgent problems facing the factory committees was
that of food supply. This had become a growing problem during the
war, for since 1914 the area under seed had shrunk owing to the fact
that 14 million peasants had been conscripted into the army. In
addition, peasants were no longer marketing as much grain, since
there were fewer manufactured goods to buy. 37 Moreover the
distribution of such grain as was marketed, was hampered by growing
disruption of the transport system. In Petrograd grain shortages
became particularly acute in the winter of 1916, and this was a major
cause of the February Revolution. In the spring of 1917 grain supplies
improved, after the Provisional Government established a grain
monopoly and set up a State Food Committee and local food
committees to organise supplies.38 By July, however, the food
situation in the capital was again grave. By the beginning of August
there was only two days' bread supply left in Petrograd. The situation
improved as the harvest was brought in, but the harvest was not a
particularly good one, and attempts by the government to induce
peasants to sell more grain, by doubling fixed prices, had only a
limited effect. By the beginning of October, grain supplies were lower
than ever; meat stocks were depleted, and livestock was dying off
owing to lack of animal-feeds. Sugar, milk and most other staple
commodities were in dangerously short supply. To make matters
worse, chaos on the transport system was aggravating the food
shortages. On 14 October there was only three-and-a-half days'
supply of grain left in the capital, yet 13,000 tonnes were stranded on
the railways and canals outside the city limits. The food in 1,200
wagons at the Nikolaev railway depot had to be thrown away after it
went rotten while waiting to be unloaded. 39
In 1916, according to data collected by Dr Gordon, the average
worker in Petrograd ate between 800 and 1,200 grams of bread each
day, 400 grams of potatoes or 200 grams of kasha, a little milk, a few
onions and no meat. 40 In February 1917 citizens of the capital were
rationed to 500 grams of bread per day, and in summer rationing was
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 87

extended to a kilo of sugar, 200 grams of buckwheat, 600 grams of fats,

800 grams of meat and 20 eggs per month. 41 There was not enough
food in the capital to meet these rations. According to official ration
estimates, some 4,000 tonnes of meat were required each week in
Petrograd, but in the monthoiMay only 885 tonnes were delivered. By
October the bread ration had been reduced to 300 grams per day and
a further reduction to 200 grams was imminent. These rations
represented only what people were allowed to buy at official prices,
but many could no longer afford to buy food even at fixed prices.
Buying food on the open market was out of the question, since food
prices had soared into the stratosphere. People were thus competing
for an ever-diminishing stock of food, the price of which was rising
ever higher. Queues were to be seen everywhere. The Ministry of
Internal Affairs noted that queues 'have in fact turned the eight-hour
working day into a twelve- or thirteen-hour day, because working-
class women and men go straight from the factory or workplace to
stand in queues for four or five hours'. 42 The inevitable result was that
workers were eating far less. Nationally, Strumilin estimated that the
calorie intake of workers was down by 22% on the 1913 level, but in
Petrograd things were worse. Binshtok estimated that a worker doing
medium to hard work needed more than 3,000 calories a day and that
in Petrograd in the summer of 1917 such a worker consumed about
half of this amount. 43
The democratically-elected central and district food committees
dealt with the supply of rationed products, but a host of different
popular organisations threw themselves into the grim business of
staving off hunger. The consumer cooperative movement was less
developed in Russia than in western Europe, but it grew rapidly in the
course of 1917. In February 1917 there were 23 workers' cooperatives
in Petrograd, run mainly by Mensheviks. During 1917 membership
grew from 50,000 to 150,000.^ The worker cooperatives worked
closely with district Soviets, trade unions and factory committees in
procuring food and in organising its distribution. At the Okhta
explosives works the committee set up a works canteen to serve 2,500
cheap meals each day; it also ran two shops and a bakery, looked after
80 pigs and a fish-pond and grew potatoes. 45 At the Cable works the
food commission of the works committee ran a canteen which
produced 1,200 dinners a day. 46 At the Pipe works no fewer than 110
workers were actively involved in procuring and distributing food. In
months of particularly acute food-shortage, such as May, July and
88 Red Petrograd

October, some factory committees attempted to buy food indepen-

dently.47 The Izhora works committee bought fish and potatoes
from local peasants, and the Putilov works committee sent thirty-nine
workers into the countryside to try to purchase food.48 At the Putilov
works, tension ran particularly high. When meat suddenly
appeared in local restaurants in the Peterhof district, starving
workers from Putilov attacked members of the district cooperative
society and sacked food shops. Only prompt action by the works com-
mittee and district soviet prevented the spread of disturbances.49
Such initiatives by grass-roots organisations were utterly puny
compared to the colossal scale of the food crisis. This simply got worse
through the winter of 1917-18, until mass starvation drove hundreds
and thousands out of the capital. Nevertheless one day's dinner
meant a great deal to a hungry worker, and the fact that the factory
committees did all in their power to provide such meals, immeasur-
ably enhanced their prestige in the working class.
FACTORY COMMITTEES AND LABOUR DISCIPLINE
The deterioration in the diet of workers was one cause of the decline in
productivity in industry in the course of 1917. By early summer the
gross output of Petrograd Factory industry had fallen dramatically.
This was a consequence largely of the shortages of fuel and raw
materials, partly of the reduction in working hours and partly of a
decline in labour productivity. The causes of the latter were a subject
of sharp dispute. The colossal expansion of output during the war had
placed acute strains on the infrastructure of industry; machinery was
worn out, stocks were depleted, organisation within the enterprise
was breaking down. These were key factors behind the decline in
labour productivity, but it was also abundantly clear that labour
intensity had dropped sharply. Workers were making less effort to
produce, but whether this was because they had less energy, since
they were eating less, or whether it was because they were less
disciplined, was unclear.
As early as March, there were signs that the abolition of punitive
sanctions for infringing workshop regulations was leading to prob-
lems of indiscipline among the workforce. In the second week of
March, the 'soviet of workers' deputies' at the Pipe works declared:
We believe that production has declined because many workers, on various
pretexts, are avoiding work and ignoring the instructions of foremen and
others responsible for output.
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 89
The soviet declares that it will take every measure against those who
neglect their duties, including dismissal. A council of starosty is being set up to
watch over the course of work, to resolve questions affecting relations between
workers and also relations between workers and management... The council
of starosty in each shop will act in full accord with the administration of the
shop, on whom lies full responsibility for output.50
A group of anarchist workers promptly reacted to this statement on
13 March:
The soviet of workers' deputies of the Pipe works, instead of making concrete
proposals and raising questions for discussion by the general meeting, issues
orders and threatens us with punishment, including the sack, if we do not
carry them out ... Formerly, we were slaves of the government and of the
bosses, but now there is a new despotic government in the shape of our elected
representatives, who, in a touching display of unity with the management, are
executing the police task of supervising the conduct and work of the
workforce.51
In May the mainly SR shop-stewards' committee at the Franco-
Russian works rejected management complaints about a deteriora-
tion in labour discipline, but promised that its technical-economic
commission would investigate. The latter came to the unwelcome
conclusion that 'the workers have become undisciplined and do not
want to work'. In consequence, the stewards agreed by 61 votes, with
none against and four abstentions, to recommend a return to
piece-rates. 52
Absenteeism was a particular problem. A survey by the Ministry of
Trade and Industry showed that the turn-out of workers to work in
March 1917 was 6.6% below the January level, and 11.4% below in
the metal industry. 53 . In January about 10% of the workforce at
Putilov were absent for various reasons; by September, this had risen
to 25% and by November to 40% of the workforce.54 In July a general
meeting of the gun shop at Putilov condemned certain young workers
who were deliberately breaking their machines; the shop committee
began to fine and even dismiss workers for slackness or absenteeism.55
By September, a crisis of labour discipline extended throughout the
Putilov works. A Menshevik worker at the plant reported to the
district committee of his party:
There is not even a shadow of discipline in the working masses. Thanks to the
replacement of professional guards by soldiers, who are not quite familiar
with the rules for letting workers in and out of the factory, thefts have become
more frequent recently. The number of instances of workers being drunk is
also increasing. But what is most terrible, is the sharp fall in the productivity
90 Red Petrograd
of labour. Just how low this is, is shown, for example, by the fact that formerly
200 gun-carriages were produced each month, but now at most there are 50 to
60. The situation is complicated by purely objective factors, the most
important of which is the shortage of fuel and materials, and also the fact that
many people of doubtful qualifications have entered the workforce. The
Putilov works is in debt to the state to the tune of about 200 million rubles and
is hurtling towards the abyss. It is already in a catastrophic state.56
The Menshevik district committee, after discussion, passed the
following resolution:
(1) Putting aside all party strife, the conscious workers must develop
self-discipline in order to give a shining example to the mass of the workforce;
(2) Measures must be taken, even of a repressive character, such as imposing
fines, in order to eliminate carelessness and an unserious atitude towards
work;
(3) The introduction of piece-rates must be sought. This latter measure,
although contradicting the party programme, is necessary, for the time being,
as the only radical measure which will raise productivity.57
Factory committees tried to create a moral climate in which
workers would voluntarily develop a collective self-discipline at work.
They issued countless exhortations to work conscientiously, many of
which were coloured by defencist political sentiments in the spring of
1917. At the New Parviainen works, at Putilov, the Franco-Russian
works and the Admiralty works general meetings passed resolutions
which condemned negligence at work, and called for self-sacrifice in
the interests of the revolution. 58 From the first, however, it was clear
that ideological exhortation and moral suasion could not by them-
selves ensure that inexperienced workers, suddenly liberated from
despotism, would work assiduously. Certain formal sanctions had to
be enforced.
Factory committees drew up new internal regulations and set
penalties for infraction of these. Often such penalties were stiff. At the
1886 Electric Light Company the committee announced on 16 March
that 'all abuses and individual actions which undermine organisation
and disrupt the normal course of work will be punished as follows:
such workers will be suspended from work for two weeks and their
names will be made known to the workers of Petrograd through the
press'. 59 The committee, which had seven Bolshevik, two Menshevik
and two SR members, fired a peasant worker on 23 May for
absenteeism and drunkenness. 60 At the Nevskaya cotton mill the
largely Menshevik committee warned that any worker stopping work
before time would be 'punished without mercy'. 61 At the Koenig mill
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 91

a general meeting on 25 May agreed that 'in order to reduce

absenteeism and carelessness, a worker should receive strict censure
for a first offence, one ruble fine for a second (the fine to go to a
workers' newspaper) and dismissal for a third offence'. After three
warnings a woman was sacked for 'bad behaviour'. 62 As the year wore
on, more and more factories tightened up labour discipline. On 15
September the Voronin, Lyutsch, and Cheshire cloth-print factory
agreed to reintroduce periodic searching of workers in view of the
alarming increase in stealing.63 On 3 October the workers' organisa-
tions at Izhora decided that 'every order of the foremen, their
assistants and senior workers must be unconditionally carried o u t . . .
In all cases of doubt about the validity of an order, you must
immediately inform the shop committee, without any arbitrary
opposition or resistance to carrying out the order.' 64
There are several comments to be made on the factory committees'
activities in the sphere of labour discipline. In the first place, these
activities ill-accord with the image of the committees dominant in the
Western literature, which projects them as chaotic, anarchic,
elemental organisations hell-bent on undermining capitalist produc-
tion. Secondly, although in most cases disciplinary measures were
agreed by a general meeting of the workforce, and not just by the
committees, the latter did have responsibility for implementing
disciplinary measures. The committees were dominated by skilled,
experienced, relatively well-paid workers who were used to making
'effort bargains' with the employers, even if they were never as
committed to the notion of a 'fair day's work for a fair day's pay' as
were their British counterparts. 65 The new wartime recruits, in
contrast, had no such experience of'effort bargaining', and it is thus
not accidental that problems of indiscipline appear to have been
particularly common among women and young workers. In their
efforts to inculcate discipline among the less-experienced workers, the
committees could easily appear to be a privileged layer of workers
dominating the less privileged - a new management to replace the
old.
Finally, it was often asserted by enemies of the Bolshevik party that
they had 'poisoned the psychology of workers' that workers became
'corrupted by sheer idleness'. 66 In fact, the Bolshevik-dominated
factory committees seem to have been just as concerned as commit-
tees dominated by moderate socialists to maintain labour productivity
- even before October. It is true that in the spring of 1917 some of the
92 Red Petrograd

concern to uphold discipline was motivated by a political concern to

maintain output for the war effort, but Bolshevik opposition to the
war did not lead them officially to encourage workers to disrupt
production or refuse to work. The difference between the Bolsheviks
and the moderate socialists lay in the fact that the Bolsheviks linked
demands for labour discipline with demands for workers to have a
greater say in production. As Yu. Larin so eloquently put it in the
Bolshevik press: 'Whoever talks of the necessity of labour discipline
and does not demand workers' control of capitalist enterprises is a
hypocrite and a windbag.'67

FACTORY COMMITTEES AND THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST

DRUNKENNESS

Heavy drinking was deeply rooted in the popular culture of Russia. In

the towns, especially, working men tended to spend their few leisure
hours drinking. A survey of 1909 revealed that 92% of workers in St
Petersburg drank alcohol.68 In 1908 5.4% of the income of a married
male metalworker was spent on drink and tobacco, and single male
textile workers spent as much as 11% of their income in this way.69
Women workers, however, spent hardly anything on alcohol, and
married women had to fight hard to prevent their husbands
squandering their wages on vodka. Several worker-memoirists recall
how wives would stand outside the factory on pay-day in order to
catch their husbands before they had a chance to spend their wages at
the local bar.70 During the 1905 Revolution, women textile workers
launched the Popular Campaign against Drunkenness in Nevskii
district. This initially elicited the scorn of male workers, but soon
factory meetings were passing resolutions against vodka.71 The
campaign, along with other temperance campaigns by the Church
and middle-class organisations, had few lasting effects.
Although per capita consumption of alcohol was higher in some
European countries than in Russia, in the years preceding the First
World War (1909-13), consumption in Russia rose steadily.72 It was
partly in response to this, that the government introduced prohibition
in 1914. The ban on liquor had an immediate effect, in that the
number of registered cases of alcoholism fell by nearly 40%.73 In
Petrograd the sale of wine and beer was forbidden in December 1914,
and in 1915 there was a drop in the number arrested for being drunk
and disorderly. As the war dragged on, however, and as the diet of
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 93

workers deteriorated, so the sale of alcoholic substitutes, particularly

methylated spirits, increased.74
After the February Revolution, alcohol became more freely
available. In the first heady months of spring, there seems to have
been little public concern about alcohol, but from May contem-
poraries began to warn of a disturbing increase in heavy drinking. In
that month the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet
deplored a recent wave of drunkenness. 75 At the Okhta explosives
works, concern was expressed at the incidence of drunkenness in the
factory, particularly among workers making trotyl. 76 At the Atlas
metal works, the committee ofstarosty claimed that insobriety was rife:
They drink methylated spirits, varnish and all kinds of other substitutes.
They come to work drunk, speak at meetings, bawl inappropriate exclama-
tions, prevent their more class-conscious comrades from speaking, paralyse
organisational work, and the result is chaos in the workshops. Thanks to
alcoholism, class-conscious workers are being suffocated; they don't have the
strength to work, when every step they take brings them up against some
obstacle. But what is more shameful is that some class-conscious, advanced
[peredovye] workers are now taking part in this vile activity.77

Whether there was an objective increase in the scale of drunken-

ness or simply an increased awareness about the problem is
unclear. Certainly all workers' organisations appear to have deve-
loped a heightened sensitivity to the problem of working-class
insobriety.
On 23 May the Baltic works committee decided that any elected
workers' representatives who were found drunk would immediately
be relieved of their duties; two promptly were. 78 The Sestroretsk
works committee suspended an adjuster in the box shop for drunken-
ness, and dismissed two workers in the machine shop for stealing two
quarts of methylated spirits from the laboratory. 79 Factory commit-
tees elsewhere deprived workers of their wages for being drunk, and in
serious cases dismissed them. 80 On 10 October the Nevskii district
council of factory committees proposed high fines for drunkenness
and card-playing, the proceeds of which were to go to orphan
children. 81 Trade unions too fought against drunkenness. The
conflict commission of the metalworkers' union upheld a decision at
the Triangle works to impose fines on workers who appeared drunk at
work.82 The Petrograd Council of Trade Unions ratified the sacking
of a worker at the Siemens-Halske works for repeated drunkenness. 83
This tough action by labour organisations cannot have had much
94 Red Petrograd

effect, however, for the October uprising set off an orgy of mass
drunkenness.
The campaigns against drunkenness and labour indiscipline
within the labour movement were inspired by a passionate belief that
workers should live in a new way now that the old order had been cast
aside. At the Nevskaya cotton mill on 20 March, the factory
committee appealed to the women workers, who comprised 8 1 % of
the workforce, to cease being rude to one another, to stop fighting and
quarrelling, stealing and going absent without cause. 84 Such aspira-
tions to live in a new way were fed by the well-springs of the culture of
the skilled craftsmen, in particular by deep-rooted notions that work
was an honourable 'calling' which conferred dignity and moral value
on the worker.85 On 23 May, for example, a general meeting of the
gun shop at the Putilov works decided to dismiss Yakov Smirnov, a
worker in the militia who had been caught stealing, 'for bringing into
disrepute the calling of the honest worker'. 86 'Courts of honour' (sudy
chesti) existed at the Shchetinin aeronautics works and at the State
Papers print-works. 87 At the Triangle works, the conciliation cham-
ber had the task of investigating disputes concerning 'honour,
morality and personal dignity'. This notion of'honour' was pivotal to
the morality of the skilled craftsmen, and since they dominated the
labour movement, it was their morality which set the tone for the
working class as a whole. It was partly in an effort to raise the 'mass'
to their level, that the leaders of labour organisations established
commissions for 'culture and enlightenment'.

FACTORY COMMITTEES AND CULTURAL POLICY

It was axiomatic for all socialists to the right of the Bolshevik party in
1917 that workers did not possess a level of culture adequate to
establishing their hegemony throughout society. This was a favourite
theme of the Menshevik-Internationalist group headed by Maxim
Gorkii, which published the daily newspaper Novaya Zhizn'. Gor-
dienko, a moulder at the New Lessner works and treasurer of the
Vyborg district soviet, recalled a visit to Gorkii's home in 1917 where
he met Sukhanov and Lopata. Gordienko and his workmates began to
argue the need for a socialist revolution, at which Lopata pointed out
of the window to a group of soldiers sitting on the lawn. 'See how
they've been eating herrings and have thrown the bones into the
flower-bed. It's with people like them that the Bolsheviks want to
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 95
88
make a socialist revolution.' In 1922, Sukhanov reiterated this
argument in his Notes on the Revolution. Lenin was incensed by the
work, commenting:
You say that the creation of socialism demands civilisation. Very well, But
why should we not at once create such prerequisites of civilisation amongst
ourselves as the expulsion of the landlords and Russian capitalists and then
begin the movement towards socialism? In what books have you read that
such alterations of the usual historical order are inadmissible or impossible?
Remember that Napoleon wrote: 'On s'engage et puis on voit'.89
This is precisely the argument which the Bolsheviks put to their
critics in 1917, although its reiteration by Lenin in 1923 was less than
ingenuous since, by this time, the Bolsheviks had become deeply
anxious about the social and political problems posed to the soviet
regime by the cultural level of the workers and peasants. Lenin
himself constantly complained of the 'semi-asiatic lack of culture, out
of which we have not yet pulled ourselves' and 'the piles of work which
now face us if we are to achieve on the basis of our proletarian gains
even a slight improvement of our cultural level'. 90
The problem of improving the educational and cultural level of the
working class was already a central concern of the new labour
organisations in 1917. This concern was expressed in an appeal by the
Putilov works committee which called on Putilovtsy to enrol in
evening classes:
Let the idea that knowledge is everything sink deep into our consciousness. It
is the essence of life and it alone can make sense of life.91
Some time later the committee urged:
Questions of culture and enlightenment are now most vital burning questions
... Comrades, do not let slip the opportunity of gaining scientific knowledge.
Do not waste a single hour fruitlessly. Every hour is dear to us. We need not
only to catch up with the classes with whom we arefighting,but to overtake
them. That is life's command, that is where itsfingeris pointing. We are now
the masters of our own lives and so we must become masters of all the
weapons of knowledge.92
The factory committees were quick to set up 'cultural-enlighten-
ment commissions' in March 1917. The activities of these commis-
sions covered a wide area. At the Admiralty works the commission
took charge of the factory club, renovating its premises and arranging
a programme of lectures. 93 At the Baltic works the education
commission sponsored theatrical entertainments; arranged for
women workers to be given some teaching by women students from
g6 Red Petrograd

the Bestuzhev courses; gave financial help to the apprentices' club

and to a school for soldiers and sailors; oversaw the running of the
factory club and bought portraits of the pioneers of the labour
movement in Russia.94 At the Sestroretsk works the commission gave
the house and garden of the former director to local children as a
kindergarten, reorganised the technical school and forbade appren-
tices to leave it before they had completed their technical education.95
At the New Parviainen works the factory committee sponsored poetry
readings by Ivan Loginov, an accomplished worker-poet.96 At the
Metal works the committee sponsored a wind band, a string orchestra
and a band of folk instruments.97 At Rosenkrantz, management gave
the committee 10,000 rubles towards the cost of a school; here Olga
Stetskaya ran a literacy class, where she taught workers to read by
writing Bolshevik slogans on the blackboard in big letters.98
One of the areas in which factory committees, trade unions and
political parties were particularly active was in setting up workers'
clubs. Such clubs had arisen in St Petersburg during the 1905
Revolution, and about twenty were in sporadic existence between
1907 and 1914, catering mainly for young, single, skilled and
reasonably educated men.99 During the war most of these clubs
closed down. After the February Revolution, managements at the
Phoenix and Erikson works gave large donations towards re-
establishing them.100 On 19 March, workers at Putilov founded a
club with a small library and buffet. Soon it had 2,000 members and a
management committee, comprising Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and
SRs. The club defined its aim as to * unite and develop the
working-class public in a socialist spirit, to which end are necessary
general knowledge and general development, resting on basic literacy
and culture'.101 On Vasilevskii Island a club named New Dawn was
founded in March which soon had 800 members. As well as lectures,
the club organised a geographical expedition to Sablino, a steamer
excursion to Shlissel'burg for 900 people, a brass band concert and an
entertainment for workers at the Pipe works.102 The opening
ceremony to inaugurate the Gun works club consisted of a recital by
workers of arias from Mussorgsky operas and a performance by the
works band of the Internationale and the Marseillaise. The club
housed a library of 4,000 books, a reading room, a small theatre and a
school. Evening classes were held in literacy, legal affairs, natural
sciences and mathematics.103 By the end of 1917, there were over
thirty clubs in Petrograd, including ones for postal-workers, tram-
workers, Polish workers and Latvian workers.104
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 97
Workers' clubs had sponsored amateur dramatic societies among
the workers of St Petersburg prior to 1914. These staged plays by
Ostrovskii, Tolstoy, Gogol, Hauptmann and lesser-known play-
wrights. Workers liked realistic plays about everyday life, with which
they could identify directly. They disliked religious or didactic plays,
plays about peasant life, fantasy or foreign plays. 105 . After the
February Revolution working-class theatre took on a new lease of life.
At Putilov the works committee took over the factory theatre,
formerly in the charge of the administration. 106 In Sestroretsk local
workers staged Hamlet, Shaw's Candida and a play by Maeterlinck,
but Larissa Reisner, later famous for exploits in the Red Army, lived
in Sestroretsk at the time and complained about the number of crude,
tendentious 'class' plays which they performed.107
A rather cheerless moralism infected some of the cultural work of
the labour movement. Such work aspired to the noble purpose of
developing class consciousness and political awareness, not to
entertain. The theatre group at the Nobel works, for example, defined
its aim thus:
We exist not to amuse [razvlechenie] but to foster spiritual growth, to enrich
consciousness ... to unite individual personalities into one gigantic class
personality. All that does not serve the development of Humanity is vain and
empty. We want theatre to become life, so that in time life will become
theatre.108
There was a widespread belief within the labour movement that
education and amusement were mutually exclusive. Within the youth
movement, for example, there was a fierce battle between the
non-party Labour and Light group, whose 3,000 members went in for
dances and shows, interspersed with educational events, 109 and the
Union of Socialist Working Youth, whose zealots scorned the
l
tantsul'ki\ and defined their aim as 'the preparation of developed,
educated fighters for socialism'.110 A similar conflict occurred in the
workers' clubs, which tended to shun frivolous pursuits in favour of
political meetings and lectures. The Putilov works club held eight
lectures in the first three months of its existence on such themes as
'The Constituent Assembly', 'On Socialism', 'On Cooperation' and
'The Trade Unions and War'. 111 These proved to be very popular,
attracting an average audience of 710, but more and more complaints
were heard that workers, especially women, were sick of an unrelieved
diet of politics, and wanted more entertainment, sporting activities
and events for children. 112 Such murmurings of discontent were
articulated by Mensheviks at the first proletkult conference, 16-19
9,8 Red Petrograd

October; they were denounced by the proletarian puritans for seeking

to divert workers from the struggle for power.113
Related to this conflict was a conflict between those who saw
working-class education as politically neutral - mainly moderate
socialists - and those who saw education as geared to the objective of
socialist revolution. On 19 July representatives from 120 factory
committees met members of the agitation collective of the Petrograd
Soviet to discuss educational work. A Menshevik member of the
collective, Dement'ev, criticised political meetings as a means of
education, arguing that they merely served to inflame the passions of
workers. Factory committee representatives were furious at this, and
the resolution passed by the meeting proclaimed that 'the cultural
enlightenment activity of the factory committees must be revolution-
ary-socialist and must be directed towards developing the class
consciousness of the proletariat'. 114 One can perhaps here detect the
seeds of the later Civil War controversy between those, like Lenin,
who argued that 'we must take the entire culture that capitalism has
left behind and build socialism with it', 115 and the advocates of
Proletkult, who argued that bourgeois culture could not simply be
'adopted' or 'acquired' by the proletariat, but had to be rejected or
radically reworked as part of the development of new, proletarian
culture. 116

FACTORY MILITIAS AND RED GUARDS

The February Revolution witnessed the whole-scale dismantling of

the repressive apparatuses of the tsarist state. Police stations and
prisons were burnt to the ground; up to 40,000 rifles and 30,000
revolvers were seized.117 The overturned police force was replaced by
two rival militias - a civil militia, organised into district and sub-
district commissariats, and a workers' militia, brought into being by
groups offactory workers. Between 28 February and 1 March workers of
Rozenkrantz, Metal works, Phoenix, Arsenal and other factories
formed the first Vyborg commissariat of the workers' militia. 118 In the
Harbour district ofVasilevskii Island the Cable works committee at its
first meeting on 1 March agreed to set up a militia, 'for now the people
itselfmust protect the locality'. 11 asked for 2 70 volunteers over the age of
18, including women, toserve in the militia. 119 Throughout the factories
of Petrograd, workers were elected or volunteered to serve in these
militias in order to maintain law and order in the locality,
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 99
protect life and property and register inhabitants. 120 The factory
committees established militia commissions and appointed commis-
sars to oversee the militiamen. The latter did not leave their jobs
permanently to serve in the local workers' militia, but served
according to a rota drawn up by the factory militia commission. At
the Metal works 470 workers served in the Vyborg workers' militia
between March and July, but only ten served for the whole period.121
At the Arsenal, Cartridge, Radio-Telegraph, Siemens-Schuckert and
Siemens-Halske works, factory committees lost no time in demanding
that management pay workers serving in the militia at the average
wage. 122 Reluctantly, most employers agreed to do so.
From the first, there was rivalry between the workers' militias and
the civil militias, which were subject to the municipal dumas. On 7
March, the Soviet Executive Committee decided that the workers'
militias should be absorbed into the civil militia.123 Only the
Bolsheviks denounced this decision, but they echoed the feelings of
many workers at the grass roots. 124 The Cable workers declared:
'This attack [on the workers' militias], begun by the bourgeois
municipal duma, provokes our deep protest. We suggest that at the
present time, when the democracy is faced with a struggle for a
democratic republic and a struggle against the vestiges of tsarism and
the constitutional-monarchist aspirations of the bourgeoisie, the
workers' militia should be placed at the head of the popular civil
[obyvatel'skoi] militia.' 1 2 5
In areas where strong commissariats of the workers' militia existed,
they managed to resist absorption into the civil militia. At the end of
March some 10,000 militiamen, out of a total of 20,000, were
organised into specifically workers' militias. 126 As the civil militia
came to control most districts of Petrograd, however, increasing
pressure was put on the workers' militias to dissolve. The city and
district dumas urged factory owners to stop paying the wages of
militiamen, in order to force them to become full-time militiamen
employed by the local authority (at much lower rates of pay than they
were getting in the factories) or to go back to their jobs in the factories.
This campaign seems to have had some success, for by the end of May
there were only 2,000 workers left in exclusively workers' militias. 127
In the same period, however, the number of civil militia fell from
20,000 to 6,000, so members of the workers' militias still comprised
about a third of the total.
On 27 May a conference of Petrograd workers' militias took place
i oo Red Petrograd

which heaped obloquy on the Soviet Executive Committee and the

municipal dumas for their efforts to integrate the workers' militias
into the civil militia. The conference claimed that they intended to
impose on the populace 'a police force of the Western-European type
which is hated throughout the world by the majority of the people, the
poorer classes'.128 The conference agreed to Bolshevik proposals for
the reorganisation of the workers' militia 'as a transitional stage
towards the general arming of the whole population of Petrograd'.129
Many factory committees came out in support of the decisions of the
conference, insisting that employers continue to pay the wages of the
workers' militias. These included committees consisting mainly of
Mensheviks and SRs, such as those at the Baltic and Admiralty
works.130
From the first, there were tiny armed groups of workers, calling
themselves 'Red Guards,' who differed somewhat from the workers'
militias, in that they saw their function as exclusively to protect the
gains of the revolution.131 On 17 April a meeting of worker militiamen
elected a commission, made up of two Bolsheviks and three Menshe-
viks, to draw up a constitution for a city-wide organisation of Red
Guards. This commission explained that the Red Guard would be 'a
threat to all counter-revolutionary attempts from whatever quarter,
since only the armed working class can be the real defender of the
freedom which we have won'.132 Certain factory committees also
called for the setting-up of factory Red Guards. On 16 April the
Renault metalworkers, in one of the first resolutions calling for a
soviet government, demanded 'the organisation of a Red Guard and
the arming of the whole people'.133 On 22 April 6,000 workers at the
Skorokhod shoe factory declared: 'Dark forces ... threaten to
encroach on the foundation of free Russia. Since we wish to protect
the interests of the toiling masses, as well as general state interests
(which can only be defended by the people themselves), we declare
that we will call on the Soviet to assist us in obtaining arms to organise
a Popular Red Guard of 1,000 people.'134 Red Guards were set up at
the New and Old Lessner, Erikson, Aivaz and New Parviainen works,
i.e. in that minority of factories where Bolshevik strength was already
great.
On 26 April the Peterhof district soviet called on workers to enrol in
the Red Guards, but warned: 'Only the flower of the working class
may join. We must have a guarantee that no unworthy or wavering
people enter its ranks. Everyone wishing to enrol in the Red Guard
 The structure and functions of the factory committees 101

must be recommended by the district committee of a socialist

party.'135 Two days later, the Vyborg district soviet announced that it
intended to transform the two district workers' militias into a Red
Guard, whose tasks would be:
(a) to struggle against counter-revolutionary, antipopular intrigues by the
ruling class;
(b) to defend, with weapons in hand, all the gains of the working class;
(c) to protect the life, safety and property of all citizens without distinction of
sex, age or nationality.136
On 28 April 156 delegates from 90 factories, most of whom
belonged to no political party, attended a conference to discuss
further the creation of a Red Guard.137 The Soviet Executive
condemned the conference as a 'direct threat to the unity of the
revolutionary forces'. The Mensheviks blamed it on agitation by
'Leninists' and said that the attempt to create Red Guards revealed a
deplorable lack of confidence in the army.138
Although the number of Red Guards may have grown slightly
during May and June, the Soviet Executive successfully blocked
plans for the creation of a city-wide network of Red Guards.139
Because of the political difficulties involved in openly organising Red
Guards, the radicals appear to have rechannelled their energies into
the workers' militias. On 3 June the second conference of workers'
militias elected a Council of the Petrograd Popular Militia. This
consisted of eleven members, including an anarchist chairman, seven
Bolsheviks and at least one Left SR.140 It was this Council, rather
than the embryonic Red Guards, which played a key role in events
leading up to the July Days - the attempted uprising against the
Kerensky government by workers and soldiers. On 21 June the
Council hastily summoned a meeting of workers' militias to discuss
the ejection of anarchists from Durnovo villa, two days previously.
The meeting fiercely denounced the role played by the civil militia in
this incident and resolved to 'defend the elective basis of the popular
militia of revolutionary workers and soldiers by every means, up to
and including armed action'.141 Over the next couple of weeks the
Council whipped up a furore among the workers of Vyborg Side at the
purportedly anti-democratic and counter-revolutionary activities of
the municipal dumas, arguing that 'a blow against the militias is a
blow against the revolution'. In agitating for an armed demonstration
against the government at the beginning of July, the Bolsheviks on the
Council acted quite outside the control of the party Central Com-
102 Red Petrograd

mittee. The Red Guards as such kept a low profile during the July
Days.
Thefiascoin which the July Days ended provided the government
with the opportunity for which it had been waiting. It took action
against the far left, extirpating not only the Council of the Popular
Militia, but all the remaining independent workers' militias. The
factory committees were compelled to recall all workers serving in
such militias and force them to choose between going back to their
benches or enrolling in the civil militia for a paltry salary of 150 r. a
month.142 The July Days thus spelt the end of the workers' militias,
after an adventurous five months' existence.
The workers' militias were a major achievement of the February
Revolution, which guaranteed workers' power in the factories and in
society at large. Workers, in general, never accepted that there were
'bourgeois' limitations on the February Revolution. For them it was a
popular-democratic revolution, which was potentially threatened by
the bourgeoisie. It was crucial that workers organise independently to
defend the democratic gains of the revolution, and it was thus
inconceivable that the workers' militias should be absorbed into a
civil militia under the control of the middle classes. The experience of
the militias illustrates the impossibility of drawing neat distinctions
between the military, economic or political 'aspects' of the workers'
movement. The militias were closely linked to the factory committees
and underpinned workers' power in production. Later, the campaign
to establish Red Guards became intimately bound with the campaign
to establish workers' control of production: the armed workers'
movement represented not only the defence of workers' control of
production, but an attempt to extend workers' control into the public
sphere. Fundamentally, it was the experience of trying to impose
workers' 'control' over the gains of the February Revolution which,
perhaps more than anything else, served to radicalise the politically
conscious minority of workers. The shock of seeing the Soviet
Executive trying to bring an end to the independent existence of the
workers' militias shattered their faith in the moderate socialists, for it
was seen as tantamount to sabotaging the gains of February.
Conversely, it was the Bolsheviks' willingness to support the militias
and workers' control in production which won them growing support.
 Trade unions and the betterment
of wages

CRAFT UNIONISM AND INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM

Trade unionism in Russia was a very different animal from trade

unionism in the West. There the organised labour movement was
more powerful than in Russia - in terms of membership, organisa-
tional resources, industrial muscle and political influence - but a
by-product of the strength of the Western labour movement had been
the emergence of a bureaucratic leadership which, to some extent,
stood as an obstacle to working-class militancy. As early as 1911,
Robert Michels had analysed the apparently inexorable tendency for
a conservative oligarchy to emerge in both socialist parties and trade
unions, as a function of increasing size and organisational complexity,
but it was only with the outbreak of war in 1914 that the full
implications of this development were revealed.1 In return for the
accolade of government recognition, Western European union lead-
ers abandoned any pretensions to transforming society, and agreed to
support their government's policy of Burgfrieden, or civil peace. They
thereby subordinated the interests of the working class to the higher
interests of the Union Sacree.
In Russia trade unionism emerged out of the 1905 Revolution. The
first proper trade union to be founded in Russia was the Moscow
printers' union, set up illegally in 1903. Between 1906 and 1907 trade
unions flourished, but during the 'Years of Reaction' they came in for
considerable persecution. They revived again in the years 1912-14,
but the outbreak ofwar again led to their suppression.2 In March 1917,
therefore, labour leaders faced the enormous task of constructing
a trade-union movement more or less from scratch; paradoxically,
this was to work to the advantage of revolutionary socialists. In
103
104 Red Petrograd

Germany and Italy, when semi-revolutionary situations emerged in

1918-19 and 1919-20, the trade-union and socialist leaders were so
inured to the gradualist pursuit of improvement within the existing
system, that they proved constitutionally incapable of heading the
insurrectionary popular movements, and instead played a crucial role
in restabilising the bourgeois order. 3 In Russia, however, the absence
of an entrenched labour bureaucracy enormously facilitated the
development of a revolutionary socialist labour movement.
In February 1917 eleven unions maintained a shadowy existence in
the Petrograd underground: they were tiny, illegal and much subject
to the depredations of the police. A further three unions - of printing
employees, pharmacy employees and shop assistants - existed
legally, but were as tiny as the illegal unions and almost as
ineffective.4 After the February Revolution trade unions quickly
re-established themselves. In the first two weeks of March about
thirty were refounded. Militants who had been active in the earlier
periods of union construction of 1905-8 and 1912-14 called meetings
of workers in different industries to re-form the unions, which were
advertised in the socialist press. On 11 March a thousand textile-
workers assembled to elect twenty representatives (half of them
women) to take on the task of reconstructing the union.5 The next day
nearly 2,000 metalworkers met to elect an organisation commission,
to which mainly Mensheviks were elected.6 Workers in small enter-
prises had to band together in order to form a group large enough to
elect a deputy to the soviet and, in so doing, they used the occasion to
resuscitate a trade union. This was one reason why the first unions to
get off the ground were those in small-workshop industries, such as
tailoring, hairdressing, gold-, silver- and bronze-smithery and
joinery. 7 In the larger factory industries factory committees initially
promoted workers' interests, and it was thus a couple of months
before the larger industrial unions began to function properly.
The metalworkers' union was particularly slow to get off the
ground. It did not function on a city-wide basis until the middle of
April. Prior to this, metalworkers' unions functioned at district level.
The Bolsheviks organised a union in Narva district, which had 11,000
members by the end of April, and all but one of the district board were
Bolsheviks. Mensheviks set up the Vyborg district union, which by
the end of April had 5,000 members, and they were balanced equally
with the Bolsheviks on the district board. Mensheviks dominated the
Moscow-district union, which had 7,500 members; SRs dominated
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 105
the Nevskii district board. Bolsheviks were instrumental in organis-
ing unions in Petrograd district, the First and Second City districts,
Kolpino and Sestroretsk. By the time the different districts amalga-
mated into a city union they had 50,000 members.8 The slowness of
the metalworkers to organise at a city level was principally a function
of size, reflecting the difficulties of organising so vast an industry. It
seems, however, to have also reflected a certain 'district patriotism',
which had been something of a problem in 1905, when it had taken
until April 1906 to weld the district unions of metalworkers in St
Petersburg into a city-wide organisation. This preference for organis-
ing on a district, rather than city basis, seems to have arisen from a
distrust of trade-union bureaucracy.9
From the beginning of May the major unions of factory workers in
Petrograd grew spectacularly. According to figures published in
1928, which are almost certainly exaggerated,10 the membership of
the major factory-based unions in Petrograd was as follows:

Table 12

Union Membership on Membership on

1 July 1917 1 October 1917
Metalworkers 82,000 190,000 (140,000)
Textileworkers 28,000 32,000 (32,658)
Printers - 25,328 (25,100)
Paperworkers - 6,400 (5,200)
Cardboardmakers - 2,000 (3,100)
Woodworkers 15,000 20,500 (20,500)
Leatherworkers 15^50 16,708 (16,708)
Foodworkers - 13,000 (13,250)
Tobaccoworkers - 14,000 (14,000)
C hemicalworkers — - (17*200)

Source: Professional'noe dvizhenie v Petrograde v 1917g. (Leningrad, 1928),

pp.341—3. Thefiguresin brackets in column three are the official Ministry of
Labour figures for Petrograd membership on 1 October 1917. See Delo
Naroda, 174, 7 October 1917, p.4 and Professional'nyi Vestnik, 3/4, 15 October
1917, p.21.1 have not used the table in Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.50, as
his figures seem to be altogether too high.

By October there was a total trade-union membership of about

390,000 in Petrograd, including non-factory workers such as shop-
106 Red Petrograd

workers, catering workers, postal and railroad workers. Throughout

Russia as a whole there were about two million trade-union members
- about 10% of wage-earners of all kinds. 11
In Britain and the USA in the nineteenth century, craft unions had
proved to be the dominant form of trade-union organisation. 12 They
developed out of the collapse of broader-based unions, such as the
General National and Consolidated Trade Union in Britain and the
Knights of Labor in America. 13 These craft unions were exclusive
unions of skilled men, which tended to ignore the needs of the mass of
factory workers, many of whom were women and children in the
textile industry. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century
trade unionism had begun to expand in France and Germany. Here
industrial unionism proved more resilient. Although the CGT in
France and the Free Unions in Germany were still dominated by
coalitions of skilled trades, they were more easily able to incorporate
factory workers than their Anglo-American counterparts. 14 It was
partly with an eye to this experience, that trade-union leaders in
Russia chose industrial, rather than craft forms of organisation,
though in a context where industry was dominated by factory
production, rather than small-workshop production, industrial
unionism made obvious sense. Although Russian trade unions
recruited mainly skilled and artisanal workers in 1905, by 1912-14
they were beginning to attract broader layers of factory workers.15
Nevertheless craft unionism was by no means a superannuated force
in Russia by 1917.
After the February Revolution workers began by building local and
craft unions. In the metal and allied trades over twenty such unions
appeared in March, but few lasted very long.16 Many of them were
based on workers in small enterprises, and were quickly absorbed into
the metalworkers' union. Unions of foundry workers, machinists and
electricians persisted for several months, but amalgamated with the
metalworkers' union before October. Other craft unions resisted
absorption by the metal union.
In April stokers from the Metal, Rozenkrantz and Phoenix works
formed a union, on the grounds that 'we are weaker than other
masterovye, despite doing one of the most severe, strenuous and
responsible jobs'. 17 On 18 September a meeting was held to discuss a
merger with the metalworkers' union, but this proved abortive since
the stokers' union would not accept the metalworkers' collective
contract. It informed the Petrograd Council of Trade Unions that:
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 107
'The metalworkers' union mistakenly stands for a narrow production
principle, which the Society of Factory and Works Owners exploits in
order to weaken the organisational work of Petrograd trade unions.' 18
The stokers argued that theirs was a growing profession, that many of
their members were outside manufacturing industry and that to join
the metalworkers' union, where there was no independence for each
craft, would be 'suicide'. It did not fuse until August 1918.19
On 30 April a union of welders was formed, which had a mere 700
members by October, but which proved to be a thorn in the side of
the metalworkers' union leadership. Writing in the union journal,
A. Shlyapnikov, the Bolshevik chairman of the union, warned of the
dangers of craft unionism and cited the example of the Gruntal
workshop, where eight welders had joined the welders' union, put
forward a wage demand, and then left the factory when it had been
refused; thereupon the owner had fired the rest of the workforce, who
had never been consulted about the welders' action. 20 The welders'
union paid scant regard to the veiled threats of Shlyapnikov, not
joining the metalworkers' union until 1918. Other unions, such as
those of gold- and silversmiths (1,300 members in October) and
watchmakers (360 members) continued in existence until 1918.21
In the first phase of its existence, from 1906-8, the metalworkers'
union had helped contain pressures towards craft unionism by
allowing different trades to set up professional sections within the
union, which met separately, but which were represented on and
subordinate to the central board of the union. 22 At the first city-wide
meeting of factory delegates, which met on 7 May 1917 to elect a
central board to the metalworkers' union, the 535 delegates rejected a
proposal to set up professional sections within the union.23 This
suggests that it was not merely the leaders of the union who rejected
concessions to craft unionism, but that there was at base growing
sentiment in favour of industrial unionism.24
The Third Trade Union Conference (20-8 June) - the first
national conference of trade unions in 1917 - declared in favour of
industrial unions. There was pressure from some quarters for 'trade'
unions, but Mensheviks and Bolsheviks united to quash this. The
resolution accepted by conference declared that unions should be
constructed according to branch of industry, and that all workers who
worked in the same branch of industry should join the same union,
regardless of the job they did. 25
The only major union to reject the policy of industrial unionism
108 Red Petrograd

was the woodturners' union - a 'trade union', rather than a strict craft
union. By October it had 20,000 members which made it the seventh
largest union in the capital.26 Only a third of its members worked in
woodworking factories and joinery enterprises; the rest worked as
carpenters and joiners in other industries. In spite of its rampant
Bolshevism, the woodturners' union refused to allow woodturners to
join the union of the industry in which they worked. On 8 May a
delegate council of the union rejected a plea to this effect from the
metalworkers' union.27 At the Okhta powder-works woodturners
refused the tariff category into which the chemical workers tried to
put them, and at Putilov carpenters and wood machinists objected to
being placed in category three of the metalworkers' contract. On 1
August the woodturners' union put a wage contract to the SFWO,
which turned it down.28 Six days later a meeting of 57 factory
delegates, having denounced the Kerensky government for imprison-
ing Bolsheviks, passed the following resolution: 'Every regenerated
organisation, if it is to establish its work at the necessary level, must
insist, when working out a contract, that one trade is not competent to
determine the wages of another.'29 After two months of abortive
negotiation with the employers, the union decided to prepare for a
strike. On 12 October it issued a statement saying that a strike would
begin four days later, since 'at present the union does not have the
wherewithal to restrain desperate workers from protests and
excesses.'30 At the Putilov works woodworkers had already gone on a
go-slow in protest at the refusal of management to negotiate with
them separately. The Executive of the Petrograd Council of Trade
Unions agreed to support the strike on condition that it involve only
enterprises where woodworkers comprised a majority of the
workforce.31 A day after the strike had begun, however, an angry
meeting of 8,000 woodworkers rejected this stipulation, calling on all
woodworkers to join the strike.32 This call was condemned by
Shlyapnikov since it disrupted normal working in hundreds of
factories not connected with the wood industry. The strikers rejected
charges of causing disorganisation and appear to have won reluctant
support from other groups of workers. At the Baltic works and the
Okhta explosives works factory committees refused to allow the
carrying-out of work normally done by woodturners and called for
pressure to be put on the employers to compromise.33 The strike was
still going on when the October Revolution supervened and, on 28
October, it was called off.34
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 109
Craft unionism was therefore by no means a spent force in 1917, but
its strength was not great, if one compares Russia to other countries.
By October 1917, Petrograd had one of the highest levels of
unionisation in the world, and at least 90% of trade unionists in the
city were members of industrial unions. Measured against this
achievement, craft unionism must be counted a failure. This failure
was partly due to the fact that the guild tradition had never been
powerful in Russia, whereas in Western Europe craft unions were
heirs to a vital guild 'tradition'.35 More importantly, however, craft
unionism and trade unionism were not suited to an industrial
environment where the majority of wage-earners worked in modern
factories. Even the skilled craftsmen in these factories were not of the
same type as those who had formed the 'new model' unions in Britain
after the demise of Chartism. They therefore tended to see their
interests as being best defended in alliance with less skilled factory
workers, rather than in isolation from them. We shall see that
sectional pressures of all kinds existed within the Russian labour
movement in 1917 and were a force to be reckoned with, but they did
not seriously endanger the project of industrial unionism.

THE POLITICAL COMPOSITION OF THE TRADE UNIONS

Soviet historians are fond of depicting political conflict within the

trade unions in 1917 as a straightfightbetween reformist, economistic
Mensheviks and militant, revolutionary Bolsheviks. In reality the
political history of the Petrograd trade unions was more complex than
this manichaean interpretation allows. Before analysing this history
in detail, it is worth pointing out that the political centre of gravity of
the Russian labour movement was far to the left of that of most
Western labour movements. Prior to 1917 attempts to promote
reformism in the labour movement had been made by intellectuals
(the 'Economists', led by S.N. Prokopovich and E.D. Kuskova), by
the government (the Zubatov and Gapon unions) and by workers
themselves (the Workers of Russia's Manchester in 1899, the Moscow
printers in 1903, the Workers Voice group in St Petersburg in 1905 and
the Union of Workers for the Defence of their Rights in Khar'kov in the
same year). These attempts at home-grown reformism never got very
far, however, for the simple reason that even the most 'bread and
butter' trade union struggles foundered on the rock of the tsarist state;
all efforts to separate trade unionism from politics were rendered
11 o Red Petrograd

nugatory by the action of police and troops. 36 In this political climate

trade unions grew up fully conscious of the fact that the overthrow of
the autocracy was a basic precondition for the improvement of the
workers' lot. It is true that there was a powerful moderating tendency
in the trade unions, represented by right-wing Mensheviks such as
those involved in the Workers' Group of the War Industries
Committee, but even this tendency was verbally committed to a
brand of socialist trade unionism which would have seemed danger-
ously radical to the 'business' unionists of the AFL in the USA, or the
Liberals of the British TUC. It is thus important to bear in mind,
when analysing the conflict between 'left' and 'right' in the Russian
unions in 1917, that even the 'right' was fairly radical by Western
standards, since it was committed to socialism - albeit at some
indefinite time in the future.
The approach to trade unionism of the two major political parties
within the unions in 1917 sprang from their respective diagnoses and
prognoses of the political situation in Russia. The Mensheviks
believed that Russia was in the throes of a bourgeois revolution, and
that therefore the unions should raise demands for the maximum
democratisation of the social and political system.37 They did not
believe in the political 'neutrality' of the unions (they were on the side
of 'democracy' and 'socialism') but nor did they believe that the
unions should take up positions on particular questions, such as the
demand for all power to the Soviets. In contrast, the Bolshevik
position was summarised in the resolution on the party and trade
unions, passed by the Sixth Bolshevik party Congress in August:
The epoch of world war has inevitably become the epoch of sharpening class
struggles. The working class is entering a terrain with vast social horizons,
which culminate in world socialist revolution. The trade unions are faced
with the completely practical task of leading the proletariat in this mighty
battle. Together with the political organisation of the working class, the trade
unions must repudiate a neutral stance towards the issues on which the fate of
the world labour movement now hangs. In the historic quarrel between
'internationalism' and 'defencism' the trade-union movement must stand
decisively and unwaveringly on the side of revolutionary internationalism.38

In Petrograd a conflict between these two perspectives took place

on the Petrograd Council of Trade Unions. On 15 March the
foundations were laid for what became the Central Bureau of the
Petrograd Council of Trade Unions, when eighteen representatives
from different unions met together. Five days later, an executive
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 111
committee was elected, which comprised four Bolsheviks (V.V.
Schmidt, Razumov, D. Antoshkin, N.I. Lebedev), four Mensheviks
(V.D. Rubtsov, I. Volkov, Acheev, G. Gonikberg) and the syndical-
ist, A. Gastev.39 The Central Bureau subsequently formalised its
structure, changing its name to the Petrograd Council of Trade
Unions (PCTU). All unions in Petrograd were invited to send repre-
sentatives to the Council, according to their size. Until June thirty
unions were represented. This later rose to fifty and subsequently
to over seventy. Only 'working-class' unions were allowed onto the
Council, so unions of workers not considered to be proletarian,
such as musicians, writers and theatre employees, were excluded.40
According to its constitution, drawn up in May, the powers of the
PCTU were coordinative rather than directive. The Council did not
have the right to manage or intervene in the affairs of a member
union, but in practice it sometimes did this, for example, by
encouraging industrial unionism or by helping consolidate union
structure. In spite of its self-denying ordinance, the PCTU also
intervened in specific economic disputes, by giving advice, publicity
orfinancialhelp. The range of issues on which the PCTU gave a lead
to individual unions is shown by the following statistics. Between
March and December the Executive Committee of the PCTU
discussed 21 items of a political nature, 101 concerning organisational
construction, 26 concerning representation, 10 concerning education,
8 concerning unemployment and 25 miscellaneous items. The 30
plenary sessions of the PCTU discussed 29 matters of a political
nature, 26 concerning organisational construction, 14 concerning
economic struggles, 4 concerning representation, 3 concerning un-
employment, 3 concerning education and 5 miscellaneous items.41
The vast bulk of PCTU business was practical and did not incite
party conflict. Unlike trade unions in the West, however, the Russian
trade unions were vitally interested in political questions. As politics
became more polarised in Russian society, so political acrimony
between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks on the PCTU increased. The
first sign of this came on 1 May, during discussions on the
constitution. The Bolsheviks insisted on a sentence about 'coordinat-
ing the actions of the unions with the political party of the proletariat'.
The Mensheviks demanded that the word 'party' be in the plural.
When the matter was put to the vote, they lost by 17 votes to g.42 By
May the Bolsheviks could command a majority on the PCTU, by
getting the support of independents like the Mezhraionets, D.B.
112 Red Petrograd

Ryazanov, who joined the party in August, and some of the

Menshevik Internationalists.43 In the May elections to the Executive
Committee, the Bolsheviks won a majority and at the end of the
month the PCTU passed a resolution calling for the transfer of power
to the Soviets. By the beginning of June the Bolsheviks were the
strongest party on the PCTU, but they did not wield supremacy on
this body as they did on the Central Council of Factory Committees,
for the presence of a strong group of Menshevik Internationalists, on
whom the Bolsheviks relied for support, together with disagreement
among the Bolsheviks themselves, meant that the political line of the
PCTU was not always clear-cut. For example, the PCTU supported
the demonstration called by the Soviet EC for 18 June, but it was
taken aback by the Bolshevik success in making this a show of
opposition to the policies of the Soviet EC. Whereas factory
committees busily organised contingents from the factories to march
under Bolshevik banners, only odd unions, such as the needle-
workers, strove to mobilise their membership. During the July Days
the PCTU was completely isolated from the abortive insurrection by
workers and soldiers. On 6 July the PCTU met with the Central
Council of Factory Committees (CCFC) and the boards of the major
unions. Trotsky attended this meeting and vigorously castigated the
Soviet leaders for creating the disillusionment in the masses which
had issued forth in the July Days; he called on the meeting to refuse
any kind of support to the Kerensky government. Ryazanov was less
certain: he argued that the new Coalition government could win back
the support of the masses if it undertook bold measures. For two days
no consensus was reached.44 The final resolution, proposed by three
Bolsheviks (Schmidt, N.A. Skrypnik and N.M. Antselovich),
Ryazanov and two Mensheviks (Astrov and Volkov), was passed
unanimously with four abstentions. It was a milk-and-water affair,
bearing all the hallmarks of compromise and making no mention of a
transfer of power to the Soviets - the main aim of the July
demonstrations .45
During the Kornilov crisis at the end of August, when General
Kornilov attempted to overthrow Kerensky and crush the Soviets, the
PCTU worked in a more resolute fashion than hitherto. On 26 August
a joint meeting of the PCTU and the CCFC passed a motion on the
defence of Petrograd, introduced by A. Lozovskii, which called for a
workers' militia, an end to the persecution of political leaders,
control of military units, public eating places, an end to queueing and
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 113
46
a programme of public works to minimise unemployment. The next
day the joint meeting demanded that the government proclaim a
republic, institute workers' control of production and fight the
counter-revolution. On 29 August the two organisations threw
themselves into the task of arming workers, organising defences
around the city centre, and setting up patrols to guard the city centre,
as news of Kornilov's advance on the capital filtered through.47 The
PCTU put 50,000 r. at the disposal of the military centres, and the
unions of food workers and woodturners also provided help.48
This survey of the political history of the PCTU shows that the
picture which is sometimes painted of a Menshevik-dominated
trade-union movement counterposed to a Bolshevik-dominated
factory-committee movement does not correspond to reality, at least
in Petrograd. Nationally, and in cities like Moscow, the Mensheviks
did enjoy more influence than the Bolsheviks inside the unions, but in
Petrograd this was not so. As early as June the Bolsheviks, with the
support of Menshevik-Internationalists, could ensure that the politi-
cal line of the PCTU was considerably to the left of that of the Soviet
EC. Yet because of this reliance on Menshevik-Internationalists,
political positions were usually arrived at by a process of compromise.
On some of the most controversial questions of the day - such as the
call for a transfer of power to the Soviets - the unions were unable to
adopt a firm stance. Thus Bolshevik influence in the unions was far
less certain than in the factory committees. The great bulk of
trade-union business, however, did not involve politics directly, and
so on a day-to-day basis Bolsheviks and Mensheviks worked together
quite happily.
On the boards of most major trade unions in Petrograd the
Bolsheviks held a majority of places. The political make-up of these
central boards was not necessarily a reflection of the political
sympathies of the membership, for they were not elected directly by
the membership, as were factory committees. Nevertheless the
balance of political forces within the union boards does give an
indication of the strength of the main political parties within the
union movement as a whole.
On the board of the Petrograd metalworkers' union Bolsheviks had
a slight majority of places but Mensheviks comprised a large
minority, mainly due to the prestige of the individual Mensheviks
concerned, rather than because of significant support for their politics
amongst the rank-and-file.49 On the district boards, directly elected
114 Red Petrograd

by factory delegates, Bolsheviks had more influence than their rivals.

They dominated the boards of the Narva, the Petrograd, the I and II
City, the Sestroretsk and the Kolpino districts of the capital. In
Vyborg and Vasilevskii districts they still shared power with a
Menshevik minority. Mensheviks were strong only in the Moscow
district (mainly due to their influence at the Dynamo works) and the
SRs were significant only in Nevskii district. SRs, generally, were a
minor influence in the metal union, most of their industrial members
channelling their energies into the factory committees.50 Menshevik
influence in the union began to wane in the autumn of 1917, and at the
first national congress of the union in January 1918, 75 delegates were
Bolsheviks, 51 belonged to no political party, 20 were Mensheviks, 7
were Left SRs, 5 Right SRs and 3 were anarchists. 51
In the textile unions Bolsheviks were the dominant influence. The
union published a journal, Tkach, which took a strongly revolutionary
line, and at the first national conference in late September, 48
delegates were Bolsheviks, 10 Mensheviks, 4 SRs and two belonged to
no party. The conference called for an energetic struggle to transfer
power to the Soviets.52
Throughout 1917 the woodturners' union was a fortress of
Bolshevism, with a Bolshevik chairman, I.F. Zholnerovich, and
journal packed with articles critical of the conciliationist majority in
the Soviet. In summer the union sent out a questionnaire to
woodworking establishments, asking about the political affiliation of
their workers. About 80 replies were received, of which 38 declared
themselves for the Bolsheviks, 12 for the SRs and one for the
Mensheviks. Replies ranged in formulation from 'we belong to the
Bolshevik party', 'we sympathise with the Bolsheviks', 'we've secretly
joined the Bolshevik party', to 'we have not joined a party, we are
members of the workers' party', 'we beg you to explain what is a
"party" - we do not yet know; we know we are workers'. 53 The union
formed a squad of Red Guards in October, commanded by Zholner-
ovich, which took part in the storming of the Winter Palace. Yet in
spite of its vigorous Bolshevism, the woodturners' union steadfastly
rejected official party policy on industrial unionism.
The Bolsheviks were strong in the union of food workers. A group of
them on 5 March founded the union of flour workers, which was one
of the first unions to publish a journal, Zerno Pravdy. As early as 14
May over 700 flour workers passed a resolution proposed by the
Bolshevik leader of the union, Boris Ivanov, calling for a transfer of
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 115
power to the Soviets. A motion expressing confidence in the Soviet
Executive Committee gained only six votes.54 In July the union of
flour workers amalgamated with the unions of confectionary workers
and butchers to form the food workers' union. The flour workers had
recalled their Menshevik deputy to the Soviet in May and elected two
Bolsheviks and one SR Maximalist instead. The food workers' union
came to be represented by a similar mix of deputies. In early
November a general meeting of food workers elected seven Bolshe-
viks, two SR Maximalists and one anarchist to the Soviet.55
In the leatherworkers' union a meeting on 12 March elected a
board consisting of four Bolsheviks and one sympathiser, five SRs,
one anarchist and two non-party workers. 56 In later months the
Mensheviks Internationalist, Yuzevich, came to be a leading light in
the union. By September there were nine Bolsheviks, six SRs, one
Menshevik-Internationalist, one non-party and a handful of un-
knowns on the board. The political line of the board thus depended
upon the way in which non-party members voted, i.e. with the
Bolsheviks or with the SRs. The contents of the union journal, Golos
Kozhevnika, were unequivocally Internationalist, which suggests that
the SRs in the union were on the left wing of the party.
In the union of chemical workers, the union of employees of
medicine and perfume enterprises and in the union of glass workers,
Menshevik-Internationalists and Mensheviks were the major politic-
al force. The Bolsheviks were weak in all these unions (though not in
Moscow), but in the chemical workers' union, two members did have
some influence.57
A bastion of Menshevism was the printers' union - the oldest and
best-organised union in Petrograd. The peculiarly 'aristocratic'
character of many typesetters predisposed them towards moderation
in politics and a rejection of extremism. During the war most printers
supported the defencist wing of Menshevism, and Mensheviks
continued to dominate the union until the civil war period. In
Petrograd Bolsheviks were rather more influential in the union than
elsewhere, but they had only five places on the city board compared to
the Mensheviks' fifteen.58 The latter tried to steer the union clear of
political involvement, though after the Kornilov rebellion - when
trade unionists everywhere were flocking to the Bolshevik banners -
they adopted the slogan 'Unity in Action by all parties represented in
the Soviet'. In the new elections to the union board in October, 9,000
printers elected eleven Internationalists and fourteen defencists.59 As
116 Red Petrograd

late as 10 April 1918, when the Petrograd board was again re-elected,
6,145 printers voted for the Menshevik/SR/Unemployed Workers'
list, 3,416 voted for the Bolshevik list and 138 ballot papers were
invalid.60
This survey of the main factory unions reveals that the Bolsheviks,
not the Mensheviks, were the most influential political party within
the Petrograd trade unions. Nevertheless, as far as the Bolshevik
leadership was concerned, the trade unions were less reliable allies
than the factory committees, for the presence of significant numbers
of non-Bolsheviks in the trade unions meant that their compliance
with Bolshevik policy could not be guaranteed.

STRIKES AND INFLATION

Although the cost of living had more than tripled between 1914 and
January 1917, the wartime rate of inflation was as nothing compared
to the rate for 1917. Strumilin estimates that in the course of that year
official fixed prices in Petrograd increased 2.3 times, while market
prices rose a staggering 34 times.61 Stepanov, using budget and price
data, reckoned that by October 1917 the cost of living in Petrograd
was 14.3 times higher than the prewar level (mixingfixedand market
prices).62 In Table 13 are reproduced Stepanov's calculations of
monthly real-wage levels in six factories between January and
October 1917. It is apparent that, despite huge increases in nominal
wages, by October real wages were down by between 10% and 60%
on the January level which, of course, was already below the prewar
level.
Not unexpectedly, spiralling inflation had the effect of pushing
more and more workers to strike for higher wages. Nationally, the
monthly number of strikers rose from 35,000 in April, to 175,000 in
June, to 1.1 million in September, to 1.2 million in October.63 The
geographical area covered by strikes broadened out from the
Petrograd and Central Industrial Region in spring, to the whole of
European Russia by autumn. All the time, strikes became more
organised, more large-scale and more militant. Strikes were a
politicising experience for those who took part in them: they saw with
their own eyes how employers were going on investment strike,
engaging in lockouts, refusing to accept new contracts or to repair
plant; how the government was colluding with the employers,
curbing the factory committees and sending troops to quell disorder
 Table 13: Real wages: January-October

Obukhov works Parviainen Baltic works Nevskaya cotton

real wage real wage real wage real ^vage

TV/Ton t h Price nominal nominal
1917 index wage 1in in as% wage in in as% wage in in as% wage in in as%
(i9 I 3= 1) rubles rubles Jan 1917 rubles rubles Jan 1917 rubles rubles ,Jan 1917 rubles rubles Jan 1917

January 3-5 160 46 100 144 41 100 86 24 100 63 18 100

April 4-5 192 43 93 212 47.1 115 142 32 133 130 29 151
June 6.0 319 53 115 282 27 114 112 19 79 135 23 128
August 10.5 326 31 67 313 30 73 144 58 - - -
September 11.4 345 30 65 303 27 66 191 17 70 127 20 Ill
October 14-3 464 32 69 — — — 141 10 42 193 14 78

Month Kersten mill Shaposhnikov tobacco Chernorabochie (Labour exchange data)

January 3-5 33 10 IOO 47 13 100 97 28 100

April 4-5 100 22 220 - - - III 24 86
June 6.0 82 14 140 131 22 169 122 20 71
August 10.5 95 9 90 133 13 100 147 14 50
September 11.4 93 8 80 180 16 123 141 12 43
October 14-3 115 9 90 i55 II 85 167 12 43

Source: Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya oktyabr'shogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965),
PP-54-5-
118 Red Petrograd

in the Donbass. The strikes were important, therefore, in making

hundreds and thousands of workers aware of political matters and in
making the policies of the Bolshevik party attractive to them. Yet
from a practical point of view, strikes were less and less effective.
Their chief aim was to achieve wage-increases in line with the
cost-of-living, but such increases as were achieved merely fuelled
inflation still further. As the economic crisis deepened, employers
were no longer either willing or able to concede huge increases, and
increasingly they preferred the prospect of closure and redundancies
to that of bankruptcy caused by a high wages bill. In Petrograd strike
activity did not conform to the national pattern. There was a plethora
of wage conflicts of a spontaneous, atomised character in the spring,
at a time when the working class nationally was relatively calm. The
economic crisis set in early in the capital, however, and it quickly
became apparent that strikes were no longer an effective weapon for
defending jobs and living standards. The labour movement, there-
fore, from early summer onwards turned its attention to two
alternative modes of struggle: first, a fight for collective wage
contracts to cover all workers in each branch of industry; secondly,
the battle for workers' control of production.
Workers in Petrograd did not stop going on strike after the early
summer, but those workers who struck were not, generally, in the
major factory industries. They were workers who formerly had been
considered 'backward' - workers in non-factory industries, women,
etc. Because the focus of this study is on workers in factory industry,
these strikes will not be examined, but it is important to mention
them, in order to situate the struggle for collective wage contracts
(tariffs) in context. In May and June there was a rash of strikes by
market-stall tenders and shop assistants, envelope-makers and a
threatened strike by railway workers.64 In June many of the strikes
involved extremely low-paid women workers, principally laundry-
women, catering workers and women dye-workers - who were on
strike for four months.65 Others who struck over the summer included
sausage-makers and building workers. All of these strikes were small,
but in spite of the fact that they involved workers with no traditions of
struggle, they were militant and fairly well organised - throwing up
strike committees and trade unions. In September there were three
bigger strikes, led by unions of pharmacy employees, paperworkers
and railway workers.66 Finally, as already mentioned, there was an
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 119
important strike by woodturners in October. These strikes formed the
background to the campaign for collective wage contracts.
The strikes which swept Russia in the summer of 1917 had more
than an economic significance. They were a sign of political
disillusionment - a reflection of the fact that workers felt cheated of
the gains which they had made as a result of the February Revolution.
When the Petrograd woodturners' union sent out a questionnaire to
its members in the summer, which asked what they had achieved as a
result of the February Revolution, only half of the eighty replies
bothered to answer the question. Of the rest, many factories replied
'nothing', 'nothing special', 'nothing has changed' or 'nothing, but
management is better'. Of those replies which mentioned positive
gains, most referred to the eight-hour day: 'we have gone from an
eleven-hour to an eight-hour day, but have made no improvement in
wages'. Several said that they had achieved increases of 50% in
wages. Other factories mentioned the democratisation of the enter-
prise: 'partially autonomous management has been introduced';
'hiring and firing is done by the workers'; 'the management has been
replaced by a collective of employees in which worker-starosty
participate'; 'the foremen have been sacked and are now elected'; 'a
conciliation chamber and factory committee with starosty have been
introduced'.67 It is hard to believe when reading these replies, that
only three months previously, workers had been euphoric about the
February Revolution. There was thus widespread disappointment
among workers at the fact that their economic position had not
improved, and this played an important part in radicalising them.

THE CAMPAIGN FOR COLLECTIVE W A G E CONTRACTS

Collective bargaining, or formal negotiation between organised

groups of workers and employers, was almost unknown in Russia. It
had begun to develop in 1905-6, when some thirty contracts had been
signed, most notably in the St Petersburg printing and bakery trades,
but it had subsequently faded away.68 In Western Europe, too,
collective bargaining, involving more than a single employer and his
workforce, was slow to develop. By 1914 it was probably most
advanced in Britain, but even there, bargaining at a regional or
national level on questions of pay and hours (as opposed to disputes
procedure) was rare.69 Only after the outbreak of war in 1914 did
120 Red Petrograd

national agreements on war bonuses and Whitleyism lead to a big

expansion of centralised collective bargaining in Britain.70 The big
lead enjoyed by Britain over other countries in this sphere, however,
was quickly challenged by Russia in 1917.
The conclusion of collective wage contracts, or 'tariffs' as they were
known, was one of the greatest achievements of the trade unions in
1917. Petrograd led the way in this field. Twenty-five contracts were
signed in the capital up to October, and a further twenty-four up to
July 1918.71 Moscow, Sormovo, Khar'kov and the Donbass slowly
followed the example of the metropolitan unions, though employers'
organisations put up stronger resistance to centralised collective
bargaining in these regions.72
The trade-union leaders of Petrograd were pushed into centralised
collective bargaining by the spontaneous, atomised wages struggles of
spring 1917, which had meant that the less well-organised, less
strategically-placed workers had often been unable to achieve
increases in wages on a par with those achieved by workers who were
better organised and whose skills were in demand. It was in order to
overcome growing unevenness in wage-levels and to help the
low-paid, that unions began to draw up contracts. A further
consideration which disposed the unions towards collective bargain-
ing was the fact that elemental wages struggles stultified efforts to
create an organised, united labour movement. The board of the
metalworkers' union issued a strongly-worded statement in early
summer which said:
Instead of organisation we, unfortunately, now see chaos [jft'A^ryfl]; instead of
discipline and solidarity - fragmented actions. Today one factory acts,
tomorrow another and the day after that the first factory strikes again — in
order to catch up with the second. In individual enterprises, alas, we see not
even purely mechanical factory actions, but irresponsible actions by indi-
vidual sections within the factory, such as when one section delivers an
ultimatum to another. The raising of demands is often done without any prior
preparation, sometimes by-passing the elected factory committee. The
metalworkers' union is informed about factory conflicts only after demands
have been put to management, and when both sides are already in a state of
war. The demands themselves are distinguished by lack of consistency and
uniformity.73
The contracts, which were drawn up by the unions, were designed
to overcome such inconsistency. They sought, first, to specify the
wage rates for all jobs in a particular industry and thus to rationalise
the pay structure; secondly, to diminish differentials in earnings
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 121
between skilled and unskilled workers; thirdly, they aimed to
standardise working hours, improve working conditions, control
hiring and firing and to establish a procedure for the arbitration of
disputes.
Collective bargaining, generally, is a double-edged sword. From
the point of view of labour, it marks an extension of trade-union power
in the sphere of wage bargaining and the recognition by employers of
trade-union legitimacy. From the viewpoint of capital, however,
collective bargaining can be a means of incorporating unions into an
established system of industrial relations and of undercutting the
influence of the union rank-and-file in favour of'responsible' officials.
In Petrograd some sections of employers and some circles of
government were not unaware of the potential advantages of
collective bargaining, 74 but their hopes were quickly dashed, since
the balance of power in 1917 was tilted in favour of the unions. The
SFWO tended to find the wage-rates proposed by the unions
unacceptable and so negotiations proved protracted. Most unions
threatened strike action in the course of negotiations, and several
unions, including the printers' and paperworkers', actively engaged
in strike action. Collective wage contracts were thus not achieved
without a fight.

THE METALWORKERS CONTRACT

The following account of the conflict between the metalworkers'

union and the metalworking section of the SFWO over the contract is
interesting not just for what it shows about the relationship between
organised labour and capital, but also for what it shows about the
complex and often tense relationship between the labour leadership
and the rank-and-file. It reveals how a section of the working class,
considered to be one of the most 'backward', i.e. the chernorabochie
(unskilled labourers) of the metal industry, organised in pursuit of
their economic welfare and developed a revolutionary political
consciousness through the experience of this essentially 'economic'
struggle. At the same time, the account shows how the militancy of
the chernorabochie came close to jeopardising the contract being
negotiated on their behalf by the union leaders.
In May a special rates commission was set up by the board of the
metal union to collect information about wages in the 200 different
metal works of Petrograd and to investigate the 166 different claims
122 Red Petrograd

which had been made by metalworkers in March and April. The task
of drawing up a contract was by no means easy, since there were
about 300 different jobs in the metal industry. 75 Nevertheless, after
nearly two months' work, the union produced a contract which
divided metalworkers into four groups - highly skilled, skilled,
semi-skilled and unskilled. In calculating wage rates for each job, the
union employed three criteria: firstly, the necessary minimum for
subsistence; secondly, the skill, training and precision required by
each job; thirdly, the difficulty, arduousness or danger of the job.
Each of the four skill groups was sub-divided into three categories to
take into account differences in length of work experience.76 The
union hoped to persuade the SFWO to accept the wage rates
proposed for each of the four categories in return for a promise of no
further conflict while the contract was in force.
An explosive conflict had been building up among the low-paid
workers of the metal industry which centred on the Putilov works.
Accelerating inflation was rendering the situation of the low-paid ever
more desperate. Recognising that their weak position on the labour
market was aggravated by lack of organisation, chernorabochie in a few
factories had begun as early as March to band together, and on 9
April they met to form a union. 77 This existed only for a couple of
months and then dissolved into the metalworkers' union in June. It
was a short-lived but significant development, for it signalled that
unskilled workers, having taken little part in the labour movement up
to this time, were beginning to move. It was at the Putilov works,
where some 10,000 chernorabochie were employed, that the unskilled
were most active. Wages at Putilov were lower than average and those
of the unskilled were barely enough to keep body and soul together.
The works committee was in negotiation with management in April
and May over a wage rise, which would have given unskilled men a
wage of six rubles a day and unskilled women five rubles, but no
agreement could be reached on whether the new rates should be
backdated. 78 On 21 April the works committee appealed to cherno-
rabochie 'to refrain from careless and ill-considered actions at the
present time and peacefully await the solution of the problem by the
works committee'. 79
During May prices began to climb and food shortages became
acute. By the beginning of June the distress of chernorabochie was
severe. On 4 June chernorabochie from nine metal-works on Vyborg
Side met to formulate the demands which they wished the metal-
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 123

workers' union to include in its forthcoming contract. Although they

feared that the skilled leaders of the union might be unresponsive to
their plight, they agreed to: 'recognise the necessity of conducting an
organised struggle together with all workers in the metalworking
industry and to decisively repudiate sectional actions except in
exceptional circumstances'. They voted for a daily wage of twelve
rubles for heavy labouring and ten rubles for light labouring; equal
pay for women doing the same jobs as men; a sliding scale of
wage-increases to keep abreast of inflation, and an end to overtime. 80
At the Putilov works the wage dispute dragged on. At the beginning
of June several shops announced that they intended to go on strike.
On 8 June the works committee begged them not to, since they were
about to refer the wage claim to arbitration by the Ministry of
Labour. The committee secretly met Gvozdev, who was now in the
Ministry of Labour, to press for his support. This annoyed the leaders
of the metal union, who had promised the SFWO to freeze all wage
negotiations from 1 June, pending settlement of the contract. 81 On 19
June the Ministry of Labour turned down the rates proposed by the
works committee. In a flash, the Putilovtsy came out on strike.82 The
works committee called on the charismatic Bolshevik agitator, V.
Volodarskii, to persuade the workers to return to work. The next day
he managed to persuade most shops to end their strike, but those with
high proportions of unskilled workers embarked on a go-slow.
On 20 June the Petersburg Committee of the Bolshevik party held
an emergency meeting to discuss the situation at Putilov. S.M.
Gessen described how seething economic discontent at the factory
was feeding political radicalism:
The Putilov works has come over decisively to our side. The militant mood of
the Putilov works has deep economic roots. The question of wage increases is
an acute one. From the very beginning of the revolution, the workers'
demands for wage increases were not satisfied. Gvozdev came to the factory
and promised to satisfy their demands but did not fulfil his promises. On the
18 June demonstration the Putilovtsy bore a placard saying, 'They have
deceived us' ... We will be able to restrain some Putilovtsy, but if there are
actions elsewhere, then the Putilov works will not be restrained and will drag
other factories behind it.83

This proved to be a remarkably prescient analysis, since it correctly

forecast the catalytic role which would soon be played by the
Putilovtsy in bringing about the July Days.
On 21 June a meeting took place at the Putilov works of repre-
124 Red Petrograd

sentatives from 73 metal works committees, from the union and from
the socialist parties, to discuss the contract which the union was to
begin to negotiate with the SFWO the following day. This meeting
agreed unanimously to make preparations for joint action in support
of the contract, including a general strike if necessary; only a Baptist
worker from the Baltic factory demurred to this proposal. 84 The
meeting passed a fiery resolution by 82 votes to 4, with 12 abstentions,
pledging support to the Putilovtsy but warning of the dangers of
trying to go it alone:
Partial economic action under present economic conditions can only lead to a
disorganised political struggle by workers in Petrograd. We therefore propose
that the Putilov workers restrain their justified displeasure at the conduct of
the ministers who have delayed the solution of the conflict by every means.
We believe it is necessary to prepare our forces for a speedy and general
action. Furthermore we propose to the Putilovtsy that they let the metal-
workers' union conduct negotiations with the employers and ministers
concerning their demands ... We believe that even if the wage increases are
now granted, the uninterrupted rise in the price of commodities and of
accommodation will render this gain worthless. And so a decisive struggle is
necessary to establish workers' control of production and distribution, which,
in turn, requires the transfer of power into the hands of the Soviets.85
A Putilov worker, reporting on the conference for Pravda explained
how the three-month struggle for better wages had radicalised his
fellow-workers: 'We have seen with our own eyes . . . how the present
Provisional Government refuses to take the resolute measures against
the capitalists, without which our demands cannot be satisfied. The
interests of the capitalists are dearer to it than the interests of the
working class.' 86 By the end of June the labour organisations of
Putilov could not contain the militancy of the low-paid, and found
themselves in danger of being sucked into the maelstrom of dis-
content. On 26 June the works committee and the district soviet set up
a 'revolutionary committee' to keep order at the factory. A Bolshevik
member of the works committee, I.N. Sokolov, reported: 'The mass of
workers in the factory . . . are in a state of turmoil because of the low
rates of pay, so that even we, the members of the works committee,
have been seized by the collar, dragged into the shops and told: "Give
us money.'" 87 By 3 July the labour organisations could restrain the
workers no longer. Having made contact with revolutionary regi-
ments, they emptied onto the streets. 88
The imbroglio of the July Days seems to have had little effect on the
movement of the low-paid. On 1 July the first proper delegate
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 125

conference of chernorabochiehad taken place, with representatives from

29 of the largest factories. This demanded fixed prices on subsistence
commodities and voted against action by individual factories.89 On 7
July the chernorabochie at Putilov met together to declare that they
could no longer live on 6 r.20 k. a day. They demanded ten rubles and
a 'curb on the rapacious appetites of those blood-suckers and pirates
who speculate in everyday necessities'.90 Three days later the second
delegate conference of chernorabochie met to discuss the deadlock which
had overtaken negotiations on the contract.
Negotiations between the metal union and the SFWO had begun
on 22 June. They almost immediately reached an impasse, because of
what Shlyapnikov described as 'the groundless rejection by our
factory delegates of all the SFWO proposals, particularly the point
about guaranteed productivity norms'. 91 According to Gastev, only
four out of the 200 delegates voted for the productivity clause on 25
June. 9 2 Only after the board threatened to resign did a further
delegate meeting on 2 July agree to accept productivity clauses as a
way of 'maintaining production at a proper level' and of 'removing
the necessity for trivial personal supervision by members and organs
of administration'. The delegates furthermore agreed that the fixing
of norms of output 'puts on the agenda the question of workers'
control of production as the necessary guarantee of both labour
productivity and the productivity of the enterprise as a whole'. 93
Having gained agreement in principle to a productivity clause in the
contract, the union went back to the negotiating table on 12 July.
It was only on 8 July that the SFWO was told the rates of pay being
proposed by the metal union. The draft contract recommended
average hourly earnings of 2 r. to 2 r.20 k. for the highly skilled, 1 r.
90 k. for skilled workers; 1 r.75 k. for semi-skilled workers and rates of
between 1 r. and 1 r.50 k. for unskilled male workers, falling to 80 k.
for unskilled female workers.94 The SFWO did not object to the rates
proposed for skilled categories, but rejected outright the rates
proposed for the unskilled, since the relative cost of conceding the
wage-increases to the low-paid would have been much greater than
the cost of the increases to the highly-paid. Instead the employers
proposed an hourly rate of 70 k. to 1 r. for unskilled men, falling to
60 k. for unskilled women, and between 1 r.30 k. and 1 r.50 k. for
semi-skilled workers.95 Stalemate ensued and it was agreed on 14 July
to ask the Ministry of Labour to arbitrate.
Against the advice of the Bolshevik Central Committee, which had
126 Red Petrograd

not yet recovered from the battering it received at the hands of the
Kerensky government after the July Days, the leaders of the
metalworkers' union began to prepare for a general strike. The
blockage of the contract negotiations had created a further ground-
swell of discontent among metalworkers and convinced the union
leadership of the need for action. At Putilov around 17 July,
mortisemakers, borers, planers and saddlemakers were all on strike —
to the annoyance of the shop and works committees - but it was not
until 22 July that general unrest blew up, with young workers in the
gun-shop wrecking machinery. 96 On that day the government
arbitration commission announced its decision: chernorabochie were to
get around 20% less, and semi-skilled workers around 15% less than
had been proposed by the union, but more than was on offer from the
SFWO. 97 The latter immediately announced that it would not accept
the decision.
On 24 July a city-wide meeting of union delegates agreed, with one
vote against and one abstention, to call a general strike. The next day
152 chernorabochie from 52 factories backed this decision. They also
passed a political resolution which condemned the government for
fawning to the capitalists and Kadets and for persecuting the
Bolsheviks, and called for the transfer of power to the Soviets.98 No
sooner had the commitment to a general strike been made, than the
Ministry of Labour announced that the settlement would be made
binding on the employers. On 26 July a further meeting of union
delegates met to discuss whether or not to go ahead with the strike, in
view of the government's decision. The feeling expressed by most
factory delegates was that it would be very difficult to sustain a strike
in the existing conditions. The union and all the socialist parties
recommended acceptance of the arbitration settlement. But whilst
the delegates agreed to call off the strike, they voted unanimously,
with ten abstentions, not to accept the 20% reduction in the wage
rates for chernorabochie." In spite of this, the board of the union
accepted the reduced offer made by the arbitration commission, and
managed to cajole a delegate meeting into accepting that the offer was
the best they could hope to achieve. On 7 August the contract was
duly signed.100
In the state sector there was strong opposition to the metal
contract. Workers in enterprises subject to the Artillery Administra-
tion insisted that the original rates proposed by the union be
accepted, and the Administration reluctantly agreed on 26
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 127
101
September. A conference of workers in Naval Department enter-
prises accepted the principles of the tariff on 11 September, but again
argued for the original union rates. This led to wrangles between the
Naval Department, the works committees and the metalworkers'
union, and a decision was made to hold a ballot of all workers under
the Naval Department. At the Baltic works on 16 October the works
committee discussed whether or not to accept the contract. A
Bolshevik resolution recommending acceptance was passed by 29
votes to 15, against an anarchist resolution supporting higher rates
and smaller differentials.102 The result of the general ballot, however,
was to reject the final contract by 27,000 votes to 23,000.103 A
settlement had still not been reached in the enterprises of the Naval
Department at the time of the October uprising.
The compromise reached between the metal union and the SFWO
cost the chernorabochiedear•. Rocketing inflation meant that by the time
the contract came into force, the rates for the unskilled barely covered
subsistence needs. In general, however, the chernorabochie resigned
themselves to the contract, feeling that even an inadequate increase
was better than none at all. At the Putilov works the chernorabochie
initially refused to accept the terms worked out by the arbitration
commission, but they later changed their minds. A further round of
emeutes broke out at the factory, however, after management refused to
backdate the contract to 9 June - in direct contravention of the
contract's terms. Dissatisfaction with the contract, together with
political frustration caused by the government's failure to tackle the
pressing problems afflicting the Russian people, encouraged chernor-
abochie in the metal industry to continue meeting. During August
three conferences took place to discuss redundancies, the growing
counter-revolutionary threat and the crisis of the Kerensky govern-
ment. After the Bolsheviks came to power the chernorabochie began to
press for a revision of the rates of the tariff, some even arguing for
equal pay for all workers. 104 In November the chernorabochie refused to
accept a new minimum of 10 r. a day, insisting on 12 r. Revised rates
were finally implemented on 19 January 1918, and the least skilled
were given the biggest percentage increases.105 The intention of the
metalworkers' contract was thus finally realised, but it was a pyrrhic
victory, for by this time thousands of workers were being made
redundant every day.
To implement the contract, rates commissions were created in the
factories. These were to distribute workers into skill-categories and to
128 Red Petrograd

fix piece-rates. They consisted of equal numbers of worker and

management representatives. Any unresolved disputes were to be
referred to a Central Rates Commission, consisting of equal numbers
from the metal union and the SFWO. 106 With inflation soaring
wildly, it was understandable that workers should have attempted to
achieve as high a wage classification for themselves as possible. The
refusal of the rates commissions to capitulate to such sectional
pressure engendered bitter conflict. At the Putilov works a general
meeting of planers, borers and mortisemakers called on workers in
these three crafts in all factories to come to a conference to discuss
their low categorisation in the contract. 107 In the crucible-shop
workers walked out in mid-September when they learnt the category
to which they had been assigned. A general meeting of workers in the
gun-shop called on them to return to work, saying 'your strike only
plays into the hands of the employers and disorganises the solid ranks
of Putilov workers'. 108 At the New Parviainen works some 200 fitters
and turners in the repair department went on strike to protest their
contract classification at the beginning of October- an action lauded
by anarchists but deplored by the Bolshevik factory committee. 109
Some time later chernorabochie at the factory demanded an equal wage
for all workers regardless of skill - a demand turned down by a general
factory meeting. 110 At the Rosenkrantz works contract disputes had
to be referred to the Central Rates Commission, which finally an-
nounced its decision in early November. When the decision became
known, several groups of workers placed in category three appeared
at the director's office armed with rifles to demand reclassification.
When the director pointed out that they were flagrantly con-
travening the decision of the Commission, the workers retorted: 'We
spit on the union and on its rates commission.' 111 At the Cable, Anchar
and Baranovskii works chernorabochie engaged in brief strikes in pro-
test against the low rates of the contract. 112 In a few factories man-
agement was coerced into paying more than the going rate, but the
metalworkers' union strongly opposed this, suggesting to the SFWO
that it fine any of its members who did not abide by the contract. 113
As early as August, Shlyapnikov wrote a stern article in the union
journal condemning sectional opposition to the contract:

We propose to comrades dissatisfied with the rates commissions to send

petitions directly to the union and not to try to settle disputes out of court, so
as not to bring disorganisation into our ranks . . . Our contract does not open
the gates to the kingdom of socialism . . . it is an agreement between two
warring sides and thus has force only in so far as each side is organised.114
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 129
Three months later Shlyapnikov imputed such sectionalism to
exclusive groups of craft workers in the industry:
There cannot be several unions in one enterprise - all trades must unite in one
family ... Every attempt by individual trades to use the 'right moment' to
raise separate, particularist demands is inadmissible. The conscious layers of
skilled metalworkers - fitters, turners, etc. - understand this beautifully, and
refrain from any separate demands. The same position is taken by the very
unfortunate, badly-paid chernorabochie. Despite the severity of their situation,
separate demands by chernorabochie are rare. Particularism is apparent chiefly
among small trades such as welders, who scarcely exceed a thousand people
in the whole of Piter, also patternmakers, stokers, draughtsmen, who
constitute an extremely limited number, but who are imbued with prejudices
to the effect that their own profession is qualitatively different from any other,
and that they cannot collaborate with others in the defence of their
interests.115
Whilst craft consciousness may have played a part in fostering
sectional opposition to the metalworkers' contract, it is clear that
many of the groups hostile to the contract were those whose earnings
had fallen in real terms during the war. This was true, for example, of
the importunate planers, borers and mortisemakers in the Putilov
works.116. One should thus not exaggerate the extent to which craftist
sentiment motivated opposition to the contract. The union faced
considerable sectional opposition to the contract, but its ultimate
success in implementing it in the majority of factories by October was
no mean achievement, given the intractability of the industrial crisis.
This achievement attests the fact that pressures towards class unity
were, in the last analysis, stronger than those towards craft par-
ticularism.

THE WAGE CONTRACTS! KEY FEATURES

A central aim of union policy in drawing up contracts was to reduce

wage-differentials in each industry. The printers' union was a pioneer
in this respect. It was the first union in Petrograd to draw up a
collective wage contract in March and it fought hard against section-
alism within the print workforce. Printers had been almost unique
among skilled workers in Petrograd in suffering a sharp decline in real
wages during the war and in suffering from unemployment.117 There
was thus a considerable head of pressure behind economic demands
in March. The union leaders determined to reduce wage-differentials
by raising the rates of unskilled printers by 90% to 100%, compared
to an increase of 50% for skilled printers. This provoked opposition
130 Red Petrograd

from a minority of typesetters, mainly those in state print-works.

They set up a liaison committee of state print-works which tried to
negotiate a separate wage contract, involving vast increases of 75 r. to
87 r. a month for the highly skilled, compared to 20 r. to 30 r. for the
unskilled.118 One angry member of this committee wrote to the union
journal lambasting it for 'putting the wretched water-carrier's nag on
a par with the drayman'sfinemare'.119 The union rode the storm, but
when it came to renegotiating the contract in June, opposition again
burst forth. Debate raged in the pages of the union journal as to the
virtues of a 'levelling' tariff. K.P. Tik gave a classic defence of
wage-differentials, arguing that typesetters were not getting reward
for their skills and were scarcely better off than 'bums' [khamy) who
spent their time playing cards and getting drunk. A union spokesman
delivered a vigorous counterblast, asking why typesetters should be
different from other skilled workers, and why unskilled workers
should not also live decently.120
The second contract increased wage-differentials slightly, which
suggests that the printers' leaders were forced to make some
concession to craft pressure.121 Negotiation of the contract went less
smoothly than in March. When the employers refused to backdate the
contract to 1 August, the union brought out twenty print-works,
employing 3,000 printers, in a well-organised strike.122 The em-
ployers agreed to backdate the contract, but were criticised by the
SFWO for so doing. In return, the union agreed to drop earlier
demands for formal recognition of the right to control hiring and
firing and for longer holidays. This concession provoked discontent
among some radical printers (at the Kan works and elsewhere) and
among envelope-makers, which the Bolsheviks did not fail to exploit.
Nevertheless the union had the solid backing of the majority of
printers - 90% of whom were union members, thus making them the
most highly unionised group of industrial workers.123
The attempt to reduce differentials was central to the tariff policy of
all major unions, as Table 14 makes clear. Differentials were highest in
the glass industry, owing to the very high earnings of an elite of
glassblowers, but they diminished dramatically after October. In the
metal industry differentials had increased during the war, and the
union tried to combat this trend by assigning larger percentage
increases to the low-paid than to the higher-paid. The diminution in
wage-differentials which came about was not just the result of tariff
policy, but of market forces and inflation. The collapse of industry in
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 131

Table 14: Wage-differentials among factory workers in Petrograd igiy—18

The daily wage of the highest-paid category of workers expressed as a
percentage of the daily wage of the lowest-paid category (= 100)

Collective Wage °/<> Difference

Ortntmct
1 June 1 Oct. 1 Jan. 1 April 1 July
1917 1917 1918 1918 1918

Textiles:
spinning & weaving - 2059 140.7 140.7 126.3
cloth-printing & dyeing - 235-3 150.0 150.0 131.6
sewing - 116.7 125.0 125.0 138.9
- J J
Paper-makers 94-4 94-4 157-7 138.9
Envelope-makers 220 216.7 160.0 160.0 J38.9
Printers 212.5 250 250.0 250.0 187.5
Woodturners - 216.7 244.4 173.1 130.6
Metalworkers - 244.4 173.1 138.9
Glass-makers 333-3 333-3 192.1 192.3 138.9
Leatherworkers 209.7 173-9 173.9 156.5 138.9
Foodworkers 203.1 203.1 J73- 1 1731 141.7
Tobaccoworkers 160.0 200 200 200 184.2
C hemical workers — — 184.6 184.6 1398

Source: Materialy po statistike truda, issue 6, 1919 pp.22-3.

early 1918 produced a reduction in differentials, which was especially

marked in the wood, glass, leather, print and chemical industries.
By April 1918 the metal union felt that this 'spontaneous' levelling
had gone too far and, in an effort to create incentives for skilled
workers, increased differentials from 139 to 175 between July and
September. 124
A second interesting aspect of contracts concerned their policy on
piece-rates. Before 1917 the labour movement had generally opposed
piece-rates, seeing them as the neplus w/£raof the capitalist work-ethic
and profoundly inimical to socialism. In 1907, for example, the first
national conference of printers had urged their abolition.125 After the
February Revolution piece-rates were abolished in many factories in
the private sector, and the first contracts sought to formalise this
abolition. The leather union contract initially demanded an end to
piece-rates, but on 15 August the union dropped this demand in
return for the SFWO's acceptance of the rest of the contract. 126 The
rapid fall in labour-productivity seems to have persuaded other
132 Red Petrograd

unions that piece-rates were inevitable. Clause six of the metal-

workers' contract declared that: 'work must be done by piece in all
cases where factory management finds such a method of work
possible and technically necessary for the maintenance of produc-
tion'. 127 The rates commissions were to so determine piece-rates as to
ensure that workers earned the hourly rates proposed by the tariff.128
In early October a meeting of 217 members of factory rates-
commissions in the metal industry agreed that piece-rates need not be
a means of'wringing sweat' from the workers. 129 The woodturners'
contract also specified that piece-rates, determined jointly by the
SFWO and the unions, should be the norm. 130 There is no doubt that
piece-rates were a powerful factor disposing the SFWO to accept
contracts. In early September the employers' newspaper opined:
'The other extremely important point in our collective wage contracts
concerns the introduction of piece-rates . . . against which the workers
fought so energetically until recently. This is dictated by the necessity
of raising labour-productivity, which has fallen so low.' 131
One of the most controversial aspects of the contracts was their
productivity clauses. Employers were implacable in their insistence
that in return for a guaranteed wage there should be guaranteed
output. As we have seen, metal union leaders had to overcome strong
opposition from rank-and-file delegates to get this principle accepted.
The chemical workers' contract included a productivity clause almost
identical in wording to that of the metalworkers' contract. 132 The
paperworkers' contract specified that norms of output should be
agreed jointly by management and workers and that in case of
non-fulfilment of norms, workers should receive only two-thirds the
agreed rate. 133 In September the Provisional Central Committee of
the national metalworkers' union urged local branches to pay greater
heed to productivity:
We must be sure that the organised masses bring into the new world which we
are making a definite level of production, we must be confident that the
working masses will enter the new system with a culture of production
[proizvodstvennaya kul'tura] which will guarantee them from chaos under the
new, free forms of economic management.134
One can here discern the key elements of a discourse of 'productiv-
ism', which was particularly associated with the metal union in
1917-18. This construed socialism as rooted in production, as
intimately bound up with the creation of a 'labour-culture'; it lauded
the 'producer', 'planning', 'expertise' which derived from large-scale
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 133
machine production and welcomed technical innovation.135 It was
propounded, in particular, by a group of metalworkers around A.
Gastev, who briefly formed the Platform of Labour Industrialism
group in 1918.136 Although this group rejected the possibility of an
immediate advance to socialism in Russia, many of their ideas were
taken up by the Bolshevik leadership in the spring of 1918 (see
Chapter 10). Increasingly in 1918, however, the stress on maintaining
productivity, with its concomitant acceptance ofTaylorism and piece-
rates, became divorced from a concern with 'new, free forms of
economic management'.
Onefinalaspect of the contracts concerns their policy on equal pay
for women workers. 'Equal pay for equal work5 was a phrase which
appeared in most contracts, but it is difficult to assess what it meant in
practice. The demand for equal pay did not figure much in the
struggles of women workers prior to 1917.137 The RSDLP, in contrast
to the German SPD, did not include a demand for equal pay in the
party programme.138 This may have reflected the fact that very few
Russian women did jobs identical to those of men. In 1917 women
began to raise the demand. When the metalworkers' union drew up
plans for a contract, a meeting of delegates from the Vyborg district
warned the leadership not to forget equal pay.139 The metal contract
included a clause on equal pay but, significantly, the rates for
unskilled women were lower than those for unskilled men. The same
was true of the textileworkers', printers', woodturners' and paperwor-
kers' contracts; it may also have been true of the leatherworkers' and
chemical workers' contracts, although both included equal-pay
clauses.140 Because the majority of women continued to do jobs
different from those of men, it appears that the commitment to equal
pay remained an abstract one. The contracts did little to improve the
status of women workers, even though they raised their pay.
It is difficult to evaluate the overall success of the contracts. In
terms of their overriding objective, they were a depressing failure, for
improvements in wages were devoured by ravaging inflation almost
before the ink had dried on the contracts. In other respects,
particularly in the sphere of working-hours and holidays, gains were
more substantial, but the unions made concessions in return for these
gains. They agreed to reductions in rates, to 'no-strike' clauses and to
the restoration of piece-rates. The contracts thus in no sense
represented an unalloyed victory of labour over capital. In other, less
tangible respects, however, the contracts represented an important
134 Red Petrograd

achievement of the labour movement. Firstly, they overcame the

situation of spring 1917 in which different groups each fought for
themselves; they introduced an element of rationality into wage-
determination. Secondly, they succeeded, in spite of considerable
sectional opposition, in reducing the gap between the highest- and
lowest-paid workers. Thirdly, they helped to strengthen the unity of
the working class. This may, at first sight, seem paradoxical, since
collective bargaining entails particular groups of workers selling their
labour as advantageously as possible on a given job-market, and thus
tends to promote sectionalism or 'job' consciousness. In 1917,
however, trade-union negotiators were well aware of the danger of
institutionalising sectionalism. They consulted with one another and
negotiated with the objective of improving the position of the working
class as a whole within the capitalist system. Moreover they sought,
via the contract-negotiations, to increase union membership and to
strengthen members' identification with the union. By consulting
with their members, union negotiators managed to create a sense that
the union mattered, and that it was responsive to the needs of the
members.

RELATIONS BETWEEN WORKERS AND SLUZHASHGHIE

The period between February and October 1917 saw a surge of

organisation and militancy among white-collar workers in the
factories. The February Revolution was crucial in severing some of
the bonds which bound white-collar workers to management, and in
encouraging them to form independent organisations of a trade-union
type. In the honeymoon period of the revolution, i.e. in the months of
March and April, clerical and technical personnel went to great
lengths to repair relations with workers on the shop floor, to make a
fresh start. This was exemplified in some factories by the desire of
white-collar workers to be represented on the factory committees. In
early March officeworkers at the Triangle and Rosenkrantz works
elected delegates to the works committees. At the Arsenal works a
representative of the foremen sat on the committee.141 At the
Admiralty works white-collar workers were allowed four representa-
tives on the committee, but in April it was reported that they were not
attending meetings.142 Generally speaking, white-collar workers set
up their own committees independent of the workers' committees. At
the Baltic works white-collar workers not only had a works committee
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 135

but also committees in each shop. 143 At the Nevskii shipyard,

sluzhashchie refused to sit on the factory committee, challenged its right
to dismiss administrative and technical staff, and declared themselves
'depressed' by the director's willingness to attend factory committee
meetings. 144
Both the First and Second Conferences of Factory Committees
called for the representation of clerical and technical staff on all
workers' committees.145 At the Tentelevskii chemical works on 1
August workers and salaried employees did agree to dissolve their
separate committees. 146 At the Triangle works the three committees
of manual, clerical and technical staff formed a joint executive in
September. 147 At the beginning of October committees of workers
and salaried employees in factories under the Naval Department
amalgamated. Yet these were not typical. In most, though by no
means all factories in the capital, manual and white-collar workers
continued to have separate organisations at enterprise level right up
to October.
In the wake of the February Revolution, sluzhashchie, like manual
workers, began by creating starosta-type organisations rather than
trade unions. The Central Council of Starosty of Factory Sluzhashchie
(CCSFS) was founded on 24 March and consisted of stewards elected
by white-collar workers in each factory. By May white-collar workers
in over 200 factories were affiliated to the CCSFS, which aspired to
represent sluzhashchie both inside and outside industry, but in practice
represented mainly sluzhashchie in industry, since those in commercial
and governmental institutions tended to organise through their trade
unions. The leaders of the CCSFS - the Menshevik-defencist,
Novakovskii, and the Menshevik (but one-time Bolshevik) Yakovlev
- formulated a series of radical demands at the beginning of April, for
a six-hour working day, wage-increases, a minimum wage of 150 r. a
month, equal pay for women, overtime at time-and-a-half, recogni-
tion of the committees of sluzhashchie and control of hiring and
firing. 148 These demands were put to the SFWO, which took
exception to the demands for a six-hour day, equal pay and control of
hiring and firing. After abortive negotiation the CCSFS resolved to
call a strike on 16 May. 149 In the event, a strike was averted by the
intervention of Gvozdev at the Ministry of Labour, who persuaded
the SFWO at the end of May to agree to wage rises and the six-hour
day, although it would not concede the right to control hiring and
firing.150 Having achieved a partial victory, the CCSFS rapidly went
136 Red Petrograd

into decline. It had been held together mainly by the duumvirate of

Novakovskii and Yakovlev, and when both went to work in the
Ministry of Labour, the CCSFS fell apart. By October the rocketing
cost of living was causing individual strikes of white-collar workers at
the Nevskii shipyard, Tudor, Aivaz and Ippolitov works, but neither
the CCSFS nor the clerical workers' union offered much in the way of
leadership. 151
The growth of trade unionism among sluzhashchie was remarkable.
In the spring and summer of 1917 about thirty unions of sluzhashchie
sprang to life in Petrograd which, by a process of fusion, decreased in
number to around fifteen by October. White-collar workers in
factories were organised into a number of different unions. Some were
members of the largest union of sluzhashchie, the union of commercial
and industrial employees (Soyuz Torgovo-promyshlennykh Sluzhashchikh),
which by October had about 26,000 members. Most of the latter's
members were shopworkers, however, which meant that many
clerical and technical staff felt unhappy about joining this union
('What has an officeworker in common with a sausagemaker?' being a
prevalent attitude). 152 In addition, the union had a strong Bolshevik
leadership, which alienated some white-collar workers and encour-
aged a group of Mensheviks to form a breakaway 'union of factory
sluzhashchie', which had a limited success in the Petrograd Side and
Vasilevskii districts of the capital. 153 The largest of the solely
white-collar unions was the union of clerical workers, which by
October had a membership of around 20,000, and included many
workers in factory offices.154 The union of factory foremen and
technicians had about 6,000 members by October, and the union of
draughtsmen about 2,000. A small union of accountants also
existed.155
It is difficult to generalise about the extent to which workers and
sluzhashchie supported one another in their struggles. At the Putilov
works on 2 June the works committee supported the demands raised
by the CCSFS, but warned white-collar workers at the factory from
taking any partial action pending the outcome of the Ministry of
Labour's arbitration. 156 A couple of weeks later clerical and technical
personnel voted not to take joint action with the workers in support of
the metalworkers' tariff, arguing that this would be a 'stab in the back
to organised revolutionary democracy and to our valiant revolution-
ary army which has shed its blood for free Russia'. At the Putilov
shipyard white-collar workers applauded the June Offensive and
 Trade unions and the betterment of wages 13 7

expressed admiration for Kerensky. 157 On 19 July a general meeting

of clerical workers went on strike because they objected to a bonus
system negotiated by the office workers' union. Over half of the
clerical staff were still earning a paltry 80 r. to 160 r. a month at this
time. The works committee condemned the strike as a 'disorganising'
move, but the attempt to continue normal working whilst the clerical
staff were on strike caused disagreement on the committee. Several
members accused the clerical staff of seeking to set up an 'office
republic', of flaunting class principles and of philistine, petit-
bourgeois attitudes. The sanguinary Bolshevik, Evdokimov, was all
for dispersing the strikers at gun-point: 'Let a thousand perish, for
40,000 will be saved', but other Bolsheviks on the committee took a
less inflammatory line. A resolution was passed by 14 votes to one,
with three abstentions, calling on the clerical staff to end their strike,
since it was doomed to failure and would merely encourage similar
sectional strikes by other groups of workers. 158
A couple of weeks later, after the clerical workers' strike had
collapsed, the works committee at Putilov felt it incumbent to issue a
declaration to the workers, warning amongst other things against:
'the erroneous view that people not engaged in physical labour are not
to be tolerated, that they are basically drones and parasites.
Comrades who argue thus lose sight of the crucial fact that in
industry, in technical production, mental labour is as indispensable
as physical labour.' 159 This prejudice against white-collar workers
was linked to the prevalent attitude within the working class that only
manual labour was authentic work, conferring dignity and moral
worth on the worker.
At the Skorokhod shoe factory relations between workers and
sluzhashchie were better. From the first, junior employees cooperated
closely with workers, and after the factory committee supported the
CCSFS struggle, senior employees also swung towards the workers.
On 18 May they published a declaration which announced: 'We, the
sluzhashchie of Skorokhod, do not regard ourselves as sluzhashchie, but
as mental workers, and we will go hand in hand with our worker
comrades in other occupations.' 160 The practical support given to the
sluzhashchie by workers at Skorokhod, Petichev cable works and
elsewhere in their wage campaign alarmed the SFWO. 1 6 1 In
September it called on the government to ban joint committees of
workers and sluzhashchie, though the government took little notice.
On the whole, despite the fears of the SFWO, it does not seem that
138 Red Petrograd

the unity of manual and mental workers, which labour leaders sought
to forge, was making much headway. There were instances of fruitful
cooperation, but these were outnumbered by instances of visceral
antagonism. The general situation was probably summed up fairly
accurately by a draughtsman in September, who wrote: 'In the
majority of factories, the workers have their own organisation and the
sluzhashchie theirs; each side keeps to itself and decides things for itself
... there is no common understanding, but mutual disregard and
animosity.'162
 The theory and practice of workers5
control of production

THE THEORY OF WORKERS CONTROL

The whole subject of workers' control in the Russian Revolution is

awash in confusion. There is not even an agreed theoretical definition
of what constitutes 'workers' control of production'. Precisely what
kinds of activities should we conceive as 'workers' control'? Can all
the activities of the factory committees - which included struggles for
higher wages, shorter hours and for the organisation of food supplies -
be seen as part of workers' control? Soviet historians, such as V.I.
Selitskii and M.L. Itkin, answer in the affirmative.1 Yet if one sees
workers' control as relating to struggles over control of the production
process, rather than struggles over the degree of exploitation, as
argued in the introduction, then it becomes obvious that not all the
activities of the factory committees can be subsumed into the category
of'workers' control'. Z.V. Stepanov is correct to define as workers'
control only those measures, 'implemented by proletarian organisa-
tions, and linked directly to intervention in the productive and
commercial activity of the industrial enterprise, to the organisation of
multilateral accounting and to control of the whole of production'.2 It
is difficult to go beyond this rather vague definition. 'Workers'
control' is not a concept which can be determined with great
theoretical rigour, for in reality it took a plurality of forms, and
changed radically in character within a short space of time. Not all the
forms of workers' control fit neatly into the category of struggles
around capitalist control of the production process: indeed, the slogan
raised by workers in 1917 was for workers' control of production and
distribution, and factory committee activities in the procurement and
distribution of food and fuel, for example, related as much to the
139
140 Red Petrograd

sphere of consumption as to production. Nevertheless the advantage

of this definition is that it excludes from analysis the important
struggles around wages and hours which were taking place, and
orients us towards examining the various struggles at the point of
production, i.e. around the labour-process and the social organisation
of production in the enterprise. Theory, however, can take us no
further, for under the impact of revolutionary events workers' control
soon ceased merely to operate at the point of production and spilt over
into a struggle for the abolition of the capitalist system itself.
The second problem of a theoretical nature relates to whether the
struggle for workers' control is an 'economic' or 'political' struggle. In
What Is To Be Done? (1902),3 Lenin had argued that there is a clear
disjunction between the spontaneous 'economic' struggles, which
generate 'trade union consciousness', and political struggles, which
are based on Social Democratic ideology introduced 'from outside'.
Soviet historians have racked their brains trying to decide whether or
not the struggle for workers' control is 'economic' or 'political'. In
faithfulness to orthodoxy, they conclude that the movement was
essentially economic, but politicised by the 'outside' intervention of
the Bolshevik party. Western historians appear to be divided on the
question. Paul Avrich sees the movement for workers' control as
essentially political, but sees its politics as syndicalist rather than
Bolshevik.4 William Rosenberg writes: 'the movement for workers'
control throughout the period was primarily a struggle for economic
security and material betterment rather than a political movement'. 5
A cursory glance at the factory committees, however, shows that
whilst the initial impulse behind workers' control may have been
'economic', it engaged with politics from the first. In fact, the
theoretical argument in the introduction shows the inadequacy of
Lenin's economics/politics dichotomy. Lenin may have been right to
argue that 'economic' struggles in general can only generate 'trade
union consciousness', since they do not challenge the status of labour
as a commodity and express the reality of class society rather than
challenge it, but he overlooked an entire realm of'economic' struggles
over control of the production process. Such struggles may have been
motivated by 'economic' concerns, but they raised, implicitly or
explicitly, questions of power. In a context such as that of 1917, where
state power was paralysed, it was possible for such struggles for
control to extend into struggles for control of the economy as a whole.
The struggle for workers' control of production was thus economic and
political and can be reduced to neither one nor the other.
 The theory and practice of workers3 control of production 141
Although theoretical confusion abounds in discussions of workers'
control, historical interpretation of workers' control in Russia is
remarkably consistent. Most Western historians portray the move-
ment as a syndicalist one which sought to oust the bosses and allow
the workers to run the factories themselves. Paul Avrich sees the
working class as inspired by a kind of chiliastic syndicalism. 'As the
workers' committees acquired a greater measure of power in the
factories and mines, the vision of a proletarian paradise seemed to
grow more distinct and the labouring masses [became] impatient to
enter their "golden age".' 6 In practice, according to Avrich, 'the
factory committees [contributed] to a form of "productive anarchy"
that might have caused Marx to shudder in his grave'. 7 Employers
desperately tried to erect a breakwater against 'the syndicalist tide
[that] was carrying Russia to the brink of economic collapse',8 but to
no avail. In the same vein, John Keep discusses the meaning of
workers' control: 'There is little doubt that the majority of delegates
[at the First All-Russian Conference of Factory Committees] took this
slogan in its literal sense, as meaning a real transfer of power within
the enterprise to the men's chosen representatives, who were to
exercise the functions of management in the interests of their electors.
Needless to add, they showed no concern whatever for the effects
which the full "democratisation" of industrial relations would be
bound to have on productivity and the national economy as a whole.' 9
Frederick Kaplan goes even further and asserts categorically that
workers actually took over the factories:'... it becomes clear that the
workers conceived of control as ownership. Having seized the
factories, the workers instituted "a type of cooperative association, a
shareholding workers' society", in which all the workers and
employees of a particular factory owned a portion of the enterprise
and shared in the profits.'10
It will be argued that this dominant interpretation fundamentally
misreads the reality of workers' control in Petrograd, where the
movement was most developed. Whilst it would be idle to deny that
there were syndicalist elements within the movement, or that there
were instances of workers taking over their factories, or of factory
committees exacerbating economic chaos, to put these phenomena at
the centre of one's picture is gravely to distort the history of the
committees and their efforts to control the economy. We shall begin
this critique, firstly, by briefly examining the extent of syndicalist and
anarchist influence in the Petrograd labour movement prior to
October. We shall then go on to examine the practice of workers'
142 Red Petrograd

control in its initial stages, before going on finally to survey the

political debates about workers' control of production.

ANARCHISM, SYNDICALISM AND THE PETROGRAD LABOUR

MOVEMENT

The slogan of 'workers' control' arose 'spontaneously' among the

workers of Petrograd in the spring of 1917. The Bolsheviks had
nothing to do with it and, in so far as it had any ideological progenitor,
it was an anarcho-syndicalist rather than social-democratic one. The
idea of workers' control had its genesis in the writings of early-
nineteenth-century Utopian socialists such as Charles Fourier and
Robert Owen, who saw small producer-cooperatives as the means of
escaping the alienation of large-scale industrial society. The same
theme is echoed later in the nineteenth century by the great Russian
anarchist Peter Kropotkin especially in his Fields, Factories and
Workshops of 1898.11 It was in France, however, in the last decade of
that century that skilled workers, fighting to defend their job-control
against attack by the employers, first formulated 'workers' control' as
a fighting slogan. Out of this experience the revolutionary syndicalists
developed a revolutionary praxis which rejected political parties and
political struggle and emphasised the primacy of the industrial class
struggle, which would be waged through the syndicats and bourses du
travail to the point where a general strike would bring the state and Big
Business crashing down. The future society would be organised
without a central political state on the basis of local economic units
run by the producers themselves.12 The De Leonite socialists and
'Wobblies' in America and Guild Socialists in Britain were to develop
the notion of workers' control further.13 It is difficult to say which of
these influences was crucial in introducing the notion of workers'
control into the Russian labour movement, but small bands of
anarcho-syndicalists emerged during the 1905 Revolution, princi-
pally in Odessa and St Petersburg. 14 Prior to 1917, however, there
is no evidence that 'workers' control' featured as a demand of
Russian workers, and when it began to be raised in the spring of
1917, it was not articulated within a discourse of anarchism or
syndicalism.
Anarchists and syndicalists have differed remarkably in their
assessment of the importance of anarchism and syndicalism in the
Russian Revolution. The syndicalist, G. Maksimov, and the anarch-
 The theory and practice of workers' control of production 143

ist, A. Berkman, argued in their histories of 1917 that anarchists and

syndicalists exerted an influence out of all proportion to their
numbers. Maksimov, who for a short time was a member of the
Petrograd Central Council of Factory Committees, argued that the
factory committee movement was under the sway of anarcho-
syndicalist ideology.15 Other anarchists, however, equally involved
in the events of 1917, took a very different view. Volin, who became
editor of the first anarcho-syndicalist newspaper in Petrograd (Golos
Truda) on his return from the United States in the summer of 1917,
reports that 'the anarchists were only a handful of individuals without
influence5 and recalls with shocked surprise that 'in the fifth month of
a great revolution, no anarchist newspaper, no anarchist voice was
making itself heard in the capital of the country. And that in the face
of the almost unlimited activity of the Bolsheviks.'16 As late as
November 1917, an anarchist periodical in Petrograd reported that:
'up to now anarchism has had an extremely limited influence on the
masses, its forces are weak and insignificant, the idea itself is
subject to corruption and distortion5.17 Whose testimony is one to
believe?
True to its philosophy perhaps, anarchism as an organised political
force was extremely weak in Russia. 18 By the time of the February
Revolution, there were only about 200 active members of anarchist
organisations, though by the end of 1917 there were 33 anarchist
groups and 21 papers and journals in Russia. 19 In Petrograd
anarchist groups were revived in the Vyborg, Narva and Moscow
districts during the war, but they were tiny in numbers. In Petrograd
in 1917-18 there were two main tendencies within the anarchist
movement. The stronger was an anarcho-communist tendency,
whose ideology derived from Kropotkin, alongside a somewhat
less influential anarcho-syndicalist tendency. Both were small and
had few organisational resources. In the course of 1917, the rising tide
of economic chaos combined with governmental inertia to strengthen
the political and emotional appeal of anarchism to some layers of
workers, and especially to sailors and soldiers. There was much
admiration of anarchist bravado in organising armed actions, such as
the seizure of the print works of the right-wing newspaper, Russkaya
Volya, on 5 June, and the raid on the Kresty jail two weeks later.
Around this time, too, the expulsion of anarchists from the Durnovo
villa fostered sympathy for the anarchist cause - and was one of the
contributing factors behind the July-Days explosion.20 In general,
crude slogans, such as 'Rob the robbers!5 or 'Exterminate the
144 Red Petrograd

bourgeoisie and its hangers-on!' were the source of anarchism's

appeal to desperate and frustrated workers. Only rarely did they try
to put across their ideas in a more developed, coherent form.21 Simple
anarchism tended to appeal to some of the same workers who were
attracted to the Bolsheviks, but whereas the official policy of the
Bolsheviks was to divert the anger and frustration of these workers
into organised channels, anarchists were generally content to fuel this
anger, with the aim of triggering off a popular explosion which would
blow apart the Kerensky Government and the capitalist system.2 At
the end ofJune, and again in October, the Bolsheviks almost lost the
support of these groups of discontented workers, because of their
policy of caution and restraint, and it was partly the danger of losing
them to the anarchists which convinced Lenin that a seizure of power
could no longer be postponed. Nevertheless the appeal of anarchism
to Petrograd workers was a minority appeal, and within the organised
labour movement the influence of anarchists was very limited.
At the conferences of Petrograd factory committees anarchists
always were in a small minority. At the First Conference at the end of
May a moderate anarchist resolution, presented by I. Zhuk, the
chairman of the Shlisserburg works committee, gained 45 votes,
compared to 290 votes cast for the Bolshevik resolution.23 At the
Second Conference the Bolshevik resolution, presented by V.P.
Milyutin, was passed by 213 votes against 26, with 22 abstentions. A
resolution put forward by the syndicalist Volin got a paltry eight
votes. 24 At the First National Conference in October Milyutin's
resolution got 65 votes and Zhuk's resolution 5 votes, but Milyutin
found it necessary to refute the anarchist notion of workers taking
over their factories, which suggests that at factory level anarchist
influence may have been on the increase.25 This is further suggested
by one Menshevik source, which claimed that 18,000 workers voted
for anarchist candidates in Petrograd factory committee elections in
October although it is not clear what elections are being referred to. 26
While there is evidence to suggest that anarchist influence was on
the increase in the autumn of 1917, there is little to suggest that
anarchist conceptions were hegemonic within the factory committee
movement at either central or grass-roots level. Volin defines the
'Anarchist idea' as:
to transform the economic and social bases of society, without having
recourse to a political state, to a government or to a dictatorship of any sort.
That is, to achieve the Revolution and resolve its problems not by political or
 The theory and practice of workers' control of production 145

statist means, but by means of natural and free activity, economic and social,
of the associations of the workers themselves, after having overthrown the last
capitalist government.27
There is no evidence that this was the aspiration of any but a handful
in the Petrograd labour movement. Almost nothing in the practice of
the factory committees suggests that they rejected the concepts of
state power, political struggle or a centrally-planned economy.
William Rosenberg is surely correct in his judgment that 'the
overwhelming mass of Russian workers lacked this [i.e. syndicalist]
outlook, as well as organisations, literature and activists anxious to
cultivate it'.28 In what follows it is hoped to demonstrate that the
movement for workers' control, far from aiming at an anarchist
Utopia based on factory communes, was, in its initial stages at least,
concerned with the far more practical aim of limiting economic
disruption, maintaining production and preserving jobs.

WORKERS CONTROL AS A RESPONSE TO ECONOMIC CHAOS

The revolutionary process of 1917 can only be understood in the

context of a growing crisis of the economy. Western historians have
been so mesmerised by the astonishing political developments of this
annus mirabilis, that they have failed to see the extent to which a crisis
in the economy underpinned the crisis in politics, or the extent to
which the struggle to secure basic material needs provided the motive
force behind the radicalisation of the workers and peasants. As early
as 1916 there were alarming signs that Russia was heading towards
economic calamity, but it was not until the summer of 1917 that the
economic crisis fully manifested itself. The chief symptoms of the
crisis were severe shortages of food, fuel and raw materials. Produc-
tion of coal, iron and steel had plummeted, and such fuel and raw
materials as were being produced were failing to reach the centres of
industrial production owing to the breakdown of the transport
system. Petrograd was particularly hard hit, since it was isolated on
the Western seaboard of the Empire, far away from the sources of fuel
and raw materials in the South. By September the output of
manufactured goods throughout Russia had fallen by 40% since the
beginning of the year.29 Shortages, spiralling costs, declining labour
productivity and the heightened tempo of class conflict made
industrialists reluctant to try to maintain output. Increasingly, they
faced the stark choice of bankruptcy or closure.
146 Red Petrograd

The policy of workers' control of production was first and foremost

an attempt by factory committees to stem the tide of industrial chaos.
Throughout its brief life, the workers'-control movement made a
valiant attempt to maintain production amid mounting economic
chaos. The impulse behind the movement, far from being ideological,
was initially practical. It was the works committee at Putilov which
first took steps to call a conference of factory committees in Petrograd
in May. It discussed the idea with the bureau of factory committees
under the Artillery Administration, and since it could not raise
sufficient funds from the Putilovtsy to finance the conference, secured
the necessary money from the Bolshevik factory committee at the
Parviainen works.30 The purpose of the conference was outlined in
the opening speech by the SR, V.M. Levin:
All the works and factories of Petrograd are experiencing a crisis, but
management do not display any activism in supplying their factories with a
sufficient quantity of raw materials and fuels. As a result, workers may be
thrown to the mercy of Tsar Hunger, unemployed. Therefore, it is the
workers themselves who must show activism in this sphere, since the
industrialist-employers are not showing any. Only the unified organisation of
factory committees, not only in Petrograd but throughout Russia, can do this.
It is obvious that to do this, there must everywhere exist workers'
organisations which must band together to intervene in industrial life in an
organised manner.31
The Conference went on to discuss the state of industry in Petrograd;
control and regulation of production and the flow of production in the
factories; the tasks of the factory committees; unemployment and the
demobilisation of industry; the role of the factory committees in the
trade union movement; their relation to labour exchanges and
cooperatives and, finally, the creation of a unified economic centre,
attached to the Central Bureau of Trade Unions. 32 The Second
Conference of Factory Committees (7-12 August) reflected the same
practical economic concerns although it also discussed politics. On its
agenda were three key questions: firstly, the economic state of the
enterprise (fuel, raw materials, food supplies and the state of
production); secondly, the current situation and the tasks of workers'
control; thirdly, unemployment, the evacuation of the factories and
the demobilisation of industry. 33
Historians, such as F.I. Kaplan, argue that what was said at
factory committee conferences was one thing, but that what was done
by the committees in the enterprise was quite another. In the majority
of factories, however, the key concern of the committees in the early
stages was to keep production going rather than to establish workers'
 The theory and practice of workers3 control of production 147

self-management. On 8 November the factory committee at the

Franco-Russian engineering works sent a letter to the company which
began: 'Production and the normal life of the factory are the chief
work and concern of the committees.' 34 And the works committee at
the Sestroretsk armaments plant claimed: 'Since the first days of our
work we have stood by the view that our main aim is the task of
maintaining production in the factory come what may .. .' 35 In order
to establish the fact that for most factory committees workers' control
was a question of survival, rather than of Utopian aspiration, it is
worth looking in detail at the two areas in which factory committees
first exercised 'control', viz. the utilisation of fuel and the utilisation of
raw materials.
The fuel shortage affected all industrial establishments in Petro-
grad, but large factories were particularly hard-hit. Both the Second
Conference of Factory Committees and the First All-Russian Confer-
ence of Factory Committees in October discussed the critical fuel
situation, but it was at grass-roots level that the most active work
went on. As early as March and April factory committees at the
Vulcan and Putilov works began to search out fuel supplies.36 At the
Nevskii shipyard management protested at the officious way in which
the factory committee monitored production, but on 10 May told the
committee that unless it could find fresh supplies of oil, certain shops
would have to close. The committee agreed to try to find fuel in order
to avert closure. 37 From early summer onwards, factory committees
at the Pipe works, the Arsenal, Rozenkrantz and elsewhere began to
send 'pushers' (tolkachi) to the Donbass and other parts of Southern
Russia in search of fuel.38 At the Putilov works the fuel shortage was
especially acute; the works committee set up a fuel commission which
sent 'pushers' to the coal and oil-producing areas, but they came back
empty-handed; by autumn output at the factory had slumped to a
third of its normal level. The works committee thereupon created a
technical commission to effect the conversion of some of the furnaces
from mineral fuel to firewood. On 20 October the committee wrote to
the Special Commission on Defence, requesting information on fuel
supplies in Petrograd and offering to take care of deliveries, but the
Commission could offer them little. 39 The Central Council of Factory
Committees announced that it would requisition fuel from any
factories which had more than three months supply in order to give it
to power stations, water-works and flour-mills where it was most
needed. 40
Most factory committees busily monitored stocks of raw materials
148 Red Petrograd

and incoming and outgoing supplies. In April the Cartridge works

committee requested a weigh-scale to check materials coming into the
factory.41 On 7 April a general meeting at the Kebke tarpaulin factory
agreed to investigate why management was removing canvas from
the factory.42 At the Paramonov leather works the committee set up
control of all goods coming in and out of the factory.43 At the
Petrograd Carriage-Construction company on 8 April the committee
forbade management to remove deal boards from the premises.44 At
Rozenkrantz management denied that it had any spare materials
when asked by the War Industries Committee, but on 14 July the
works committee discovered 4,000 puds (65,520 kg) of metal which it
offered to factories standing idle.45
By summer, factory committees were trying to share what little fuel
and raw materials there were. The Central Council of Factory
Committees took part in the various supply committees of the
government in order to get information on the state of stocks and to
ensure equitable distribution.46 It was thus able to help factory
committees share out materials. At the Brenner works the committee
was refused a loan by the Ministry of Labour to buy raw materials
and turned to the shop stewards' committee at Triangle works, who
agreed to loan the committee 15,000 rubles from its strike fund; the
Putilov works committee also donated some spare materials.47 The
workers' committee at Rozenkrantz donated some brass to the
Baranovskii and Ekval' factories, and at Sestroretsk works the
committee received some self-hardening steel from Putilov.48 Factory
committees by the autumn were on guard against covert attempts by
management to sabotage production. While factories were being
forced to close because of metal-shortages, the administrations at the
Duflon works, the Markov box factory and the Nevskii wood- and
metal-processing factory were selling off stocks of metal at exorbitant
prices, with a view to closing down operations. They were stopped
from doing so by their respective factory committees.49 At the Bezdek
sweet-factory the committee on 17 September reported its boss to the
authorities for speculative selling of sugar.50
The activities of the factory committees in 'controlling' fuel and
raw materials in the enterprise were dictated by the practical need to
maintain production rather than by any desire to take over the
enterprise. As the economic crisis deepened, however, and as class
struggle intensified, the forms of workers' control became ever more
ambitious, and the movement became more revolutionary and
 The theory and practice of workers' control of production 149

contestatory. Broadly speaking, in the eight months between the

February and October, workers' control went from being reactive,
defensive and observational to being active, offensive and interven-
tionist. From being concerned essentially to supervise production,
workers' control developed into an attempt to actively intervene in
production and drastically limit the authority of capital. It is difficult
to periodise this trajectory precisely, for the tempo at which
individual factories moved towards a more active, aggressive style of
workers' control varied according to the specific conditions of each
factory; but crudely speaking, workers' control in Petrograd de-
veloped through four phases between February and October, each
linked to the different economic and political conjunctures of the
revolutionary process. In the first period of March to April, workers'
control was confined mainly to state enterprises. Factory committees
everywhere attempted to establish some control of hiring and firing,
as part of a broader drive to democratise factory relations. Employers
were optimistic about the future and prepared to make concessions.
In the second phase from May to June, most factory committees
began to monitor supplies of raw materials and fuel and to check that
their factories were being run efficiently. It was in this period that the
Bolsheviks achieved political hegemony within the movement. In the
third phase from July to August, economic crisis erupted and class
struggle deepened. Employers went onto the offensive and attempted
to curb the powers of the factory committees, some of which set up
'control commissions' to monitor all aspects of production, including
orders andfinances.In the fourth period from September to October,
these developments were strengthened. There was a severe economic
and political crisis and class conflict polarised. Some employers tried
to close their factories and in three cases factory-committees took over
the running of their enterprises. Factory committees became actively
involved in the battle to transfer power to the Soviets, and workers'
control, as a response to economic difficulties, began to mesh with the
earlier impulses to democratise factory life, so as to produce a
movement groping towards workers' self-management.

THE POLITICS OF WORKERS CONTROL: FEBRUARY TO

OCTOBER

The dominant Western interpretation of workers' control of pro-

duction posits a dichotomy between the Bolshevik party and the
150 Red Petrograd

factory-committee movement. The party is seen as committed to a

centralised, statist economy, whilst the committees are portrayed as
protagonists of a decentralised economy run by the workers them-
selves. It is argued that the Bolsheviks pursued an opportunist policy
towards the movement for workers' control, cynically supporting it
until October, not because they agreed with its aims, but because it
was creating disorder in industry and undermining the capitalist
class. Once they had gained power, however, the Bolsheviks crushed
the committees, eradicated workers' control and reorganised the
economy on hierarchical lines. Thus Paul Avrich tells us: 'From April
to November, Lenin had aligned himself with the Anarcho-Syndical-
ists, who desired the utter annihilation of the old order ... But after
the Bolshevik Revolution was secured, Lenin abandoned the forces of
destruction for those of centralisation and order.'51 In a more
conspiratorial vein, F.I. Kaplan writes: 'The factory committees ...
were used by the Bolsheviks as a mask for the seizure of economic
power. The economy was to be disorganised by means of "workers'
control" of industry. Workers' control was to have a dual function; (1)
to undermine the economy of the country so that the Provisional
Government could not efficiently function; (2) to establish the basis
for Bolshevik control over that economy.'52 O. Anweiler repeats the
charge that the Bolsheviks disingenuously exploited workers' control
for their own ends: 'The Bolsheviks furthered the syndicalist and
anarchist tendencies emerging in factory committees, whose general
aim was workers' rule in the plants, without centralised direction
from above and without regard to the state of the national
economy.'53 It seems that such a line of interpretation is funda-
mentally misguided for a number of reasons. Firstly, as argued above,
and amplified below, it is inadequate to argue that the aspirations of
the factory committees were 'syndicalist'. Secondly, up to October,
the Bolsheviks generally were not aware of any incompatibiliy
between the workers' control of the factory committees and state
organisation of the economy. Thirdly, to counterpose the factory
committees to the Bolshevik party is incorrect, since most of the
leading cadres of the committees were also members of the Bolshevik
party. Finally, such a counter-position suggests that there was a
uniformity of views within both the committees and the Bolshevik
party which did not in fact exist.
What follows is not an attempt to analyse the political debates
about control in detail, but rather to disclose the problematic of such
debates and to discuss some of their implications.
 The theory and practice of workers3 control of production 151

Menshevik, SR and anarchist perspectives on control of the economy

The Menshevik and SR demand for state control of the economy was
proffered as a solution to the severe crisis racking Russian industry.
The left-wing Menshevik economist, F.A. Cherevanin, diagnosed the
severity of the crisis at the First Conference of Petrograd Factory
Committees in the following terms: 'The economic life of Russia has
reached a terrifying state of collapse. The country is already edging
towards a catastrophe which threatens destitution and unemploy-
ment to the mass of the population and renders futile every struggle of
the working masses to improve their position.'54 He explained this
chaos in terms of the structural strain imposed on the economy by the
war, rather than in terms of conscious 'sabotage' by the capitalists.55
The solution which he proposed was:
Planned intervention by the state in economic life via regulation of the
distribution of raw materials, fuel and equipment between branches of
production; via equal distribution of articles of consumption among the
population; via forced trustification of the basic branches of production; via
control of the banks, the fixing of prices, profits and wages and increased
taxation of capitalist incomes.56
The Mensheviks utterly rejected 'workers' control' as a serious
strategy for controlling the economy. They believed that the Bolshe-
viks had popularised the slogan purely as a demagogic device. As a
strategy for dealing with economic chaos, they considered it to be a
recipe for disaster. Workers' control encouraged decentralised,
spontaneous initiatives by atomised groups of workers in individual
enterprises and its net effect could only be to exacerbate economic
chaos.57 What was required was planned, centralised, all-embracing
control of the economy, and only the state had at its disposal an
apparatus adequate to this task. It was only through the state that the
whole of democracy - and not just the working class - could
participate in a massive public effort at economic control. The
Mensheviks, supported by the SRs, favoured the representation of all
popular organisations on government organs of economic regulation.
They disliked the factory committees for being both parochial and
narrowly proletarian, and argued that even at factory level control of
management should involve not just the committees but representa-
tives of government and 'revolutionary democracy'.58
The official position of the SR party was very similar to that of the
Mensheviks. They too believed in state control of the economy rather
than in workers' control, but their reasons were somewhat different.
152 Red Petrograd

The SRs objected in principle to one class - the working class -

controlling the economy in its own interests. All popular forces should
be involved in the business of control and this could best be done via
the state, 'because only the state is the representative of the interests
of both the producers and consumers'.59 The SRs considered that the
factory committees had the job of controlling hiring and firing, but
denied them any privileged role in the control of production. They
believed that workers' control as practised by the factory committees
was leading to the atomisation of the economy and to conflict between
the working class and the peasantry.60 The SRs, however, were a
profoundly divided party and opinion within the party was as divided
on the question of workers' control as on all other major questions of
the day. The left wing of the party rejected out of hand calls for state
control of the economy, but was unhappy with the notion of workers'
control. Some Left SRs, such as V.M. Levin, the most notable SR in
the Petrograd factory committee movement, propounded a notion of
workers' control identical to that of the Bolsheviks, but the Left SR
newspaper demanded 'public control' of the economy- by producers
and consumers - via the factory committees, trade unions, coopera-
tives, etc.61 Other Left SRs called for control by the 'toiling people'.
The heterodox SR Maximalists called for the socialisation of the
factories, to be run by elected committees, but control of production
by the factory committees until this came about.62
The attitude of the anarchists and syndicalists to workers' control
of production varied. At the First Factory Committee Conference
Zhuk presented a mild resolution which called on the 'toiling people'
(truzhenik-narod) 'to take the organisation of their fate into their hands'
and 'quickly to create control commissions which will not only strictly
monitor the running of the enterprise, but regulate the activity of the
enterprise'.63 Other anarchists, however, demanded the seizure of
factories by workers as a direct act of expropriation of the bourgeoisie.
Naturally, they rejected any notion of state organisation of the
economy - some going so far as to reject any kind of centralised
coordination. The key concept was that of producers' communes
linked into federations. Factory committees were seen as the embryos
of such communes, whereas trade unions were seen as vestiges of
capitalist society at best, or 'living corpses' at worst.64 Syndicalists,
unlike their confreres in Western Europe, tended to prefer the factory
committees to the trade unions, though some toyed with the idea of
federations of autonomous unions rather than of factory committees.
 The theory and practice of workers' control of production 153

The Bolsheviks and workers' control

The Bolshevik party had no position on the question of workers'
control prior to 1917. They began to formulate a position in response
to deepening turmoil in the economy. Because the party's ideas were
in a process of formation, there is no absolute clarity, still less
uniformity, in its attempts to come to terms with the movement for
workers' control. Lenin was the outstanding policy-maker in the
party and it is largely through his writings that one can chart the
development of Bolshevik policy, but it should not be assumed that
party members habitually kow-towed to him. For clarity of argument,
it will be assumed that Lenin represents official party thinking on
workers' control, but later attention will be drawn to differences of
thinking within the party.
In the period up to October a bitter debate raged around the
question of control of the economy. This is usually presented as a
debate between the Menshevik advocates of a statist solution to
Russia's economic problems and the Bolshevik supporters of an
anti-statist, grass-roots movement for workers' control of production.
This is misleading, since it suggests that the key point at issue
between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks was whether control of
the economy should be implemented by the state or by the workers in
situ. Yet the Bolsheviks never deviated before or after October from a
commitment to a statist, centralised solution to economic disorder.
The disagreement between the two wings of the socialist movement
was not about state control in the abstract, but about what kind of
state should coordinate control of the economy: a bourgeois state or a
workers' state? In May 1917 Lenin wrote: '"State control" - we are
for it. But by whom? Who is in control? The bureaucrats [chinovniki]?
Or the Soviets?'65 Unlike the Mensheviks, Lenin and the Bolsheviks
resolutely refused to support initiatives undertaken by the Provisional
Government to control economic chaos, not because they preferred
demotic to governmental initiatives, but because they believed that,
as a bourgeois government, its initiatives must necessarily be at the
expense of working people. Even if the government sincerely tried to
restore economic order, its measures would be either totally ineffec-
tive or, if more radical, would be sabotaged by capitalist interests.
The fond hopes of the Mensheviks and SRs for state control of the
economy in the general interest completely overlooked the class
dimension of this control. This was the crux of the disagreement
154 Red Petrograd

between the two wings of the socialist movement. 'In essence', wrote
Lenin, 'the whole question of control boils down to who controls
whom, i.e. which class is controlling and which is being controlled ...
We must resolutely and irrevocably pass over to control over the
landowners anol the capitalists by the workers and peasants.'66 This
was the nub of Bolshevik support for workers' control of the economy
against the state control advocated by the Mensheviks and SRs.
The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks did not disagree radically in the
specific measures which they advocated for control of the economy. In
a pamphlet written in September 1917, entitled The Impending
Catastrophe and How to Fight It, Lenin summarised the major measures
which were necessary. By far the most important, in his eyes, was the
nationalisation of the banks, since no order could be brought into the
economy unless the state had a firm hold on the nation's purse-
strings. Second in importance, were measures to nationalise the
largest syndicates in industries such as sugar, oil, coal and metal-
lurgy. In addition, industrialists and traders should be forced to join
syndicates in order to facilitate government control. Finally, the
whole population should be compulsorily organised into consumer
societies to facilitate the distribution of subsistence commodities.67
Lenin stressed in this pamphlet that there was absolutely nothing
original in these concrete proposals: his sole point was to emphasise
that these very simple measures could only be implemented once the
working class wielded state power. If Lenin understood these
measures as measures of'workers' control', it is clear that he is here
using the term in a very different sense from that of the factory
committees. The proposals which he is advocating are thoroughly
statist and centralist in character, whereas the practice of the factory
committees was essentially local and autonomous. Should we con-
clude from this that Lenin never believed in workers' control in any
sense other than as a counter-slogan to demands for state control?
The factory committees launched the slogan of workers' control of
production quite independently of the Bolshevik party. It was not
until May that the party began to take it up. Lenin had cleared an
ideological space for the slogan in the April Theses, when he had
demanded: 'Such measures as the nationalisation of land, of all banks
and capitalist syndicates, or at least, the establishment of immediate
control of them by the Soviets of Workers' Deputies, etc. - measures
which do not in any way constitute the 'introduction' of socialism.'68
For a time, the Bolsheviks talked of control by the Soviets: a leaflet put
 The theory and practice of workers3 control of production 155

out at the beginning of May by the Lesnovskii subdistrict committee

of the party, for example, called for the 'establishment of control by
Soviets of workers' and soldiers' deputies over the production and
distribution of products'.69 As yet little mention was made of the
factory committees. Only in May did the Bolshevik party begin to pay
attention to the committees.
It was Lenin, no less, who drafted the resolution on the economic
crisis and workers' control which was put to the First Conference of
Factory Committees by G. Zinov'ev, and passed by 297 votes to 21,
with 44 abstentions.70 This resolution was the first official formula-
tion of policy on workers' control by the factory committees, but it was
titled 'resolution on measures to combat disruption in the economy',
and in fact had little to say about the factory committees or the
practice of workers' control at enterprise level. The resolution
attacked attempts at bureaucratic regulation of the economy by the
bourgeois state, and called for a national system of workers' control of
production and distribution. Workers' control was conceived as
operating principally at national level, in the spheres of banking,
exchange between town and countryside, labour discipline, labour
allocation and workers' defence. Control was to be implemented by
assigning to workers' representatives two-thirds (three-quarters, in
Lenin's original draft) of the places in all institutions regulating the
economy, such as the Factory Conventions and the supply-
committees. Although the wording of the resolution was vague, it
appears that factory committees and trade unions were to exercise
control at factory level by investigating company accounts and order
books, but it was not intended that workers should sit on boards of
management in the factories.71 One might sum up the perspective of
Lenin's resolution as one of'state workers' control', i.e. of workers'
control operating via worker representation on the official organs of
economic regulation.
Although Lenin envisaged workers' control as operating princi-
pally at the level of central and local government, this did not
preclude its operation at the grass roots. Up to the beginning of 1918,
Lenin saw absolutely no contradiction between centralised control
and the creative initiatives of workers in the factories; indeed, he
never tired of insisting that local initiatives were the bedrock of
centralised control. It was precisely the creativity of the masses which
qualitatively distinguished workers' control from the reactionary
bureaucratic control of the bourgeois state:
156 Red Petrograd

Vital creativity of the masses - that is the fundamental factor in the new
society. Let the workers take on the creation of workers' control in their works
and factories, let them supply the countryside with manufactured goods in
exchange for bread. Not one article, not one funt [pound] of bread must
remain unaccounted for, since socialism is first and foremost accounting.
Socialism is not created by orders from on high. Its spirit is alien to
state-bureaucratic automatism. Socialism is vital and creative, it is the
creation of the popular masses themselves.72

'Accounting' and 'control' (uchet i /control') were central to Lenin's

vision of socialism at this time. Far from regarding working-class
self-activity as antipathetic to centralised control of the economy, he
viewed it as its absolute precondition. After October he wrote:
Let every factory committee feel concerned not only with the affairs of its
factory but let it also feel that it is an organisational cell for the construction of
the whole of state life . . . There cannot and will not be any concrete plan for
the organisation of economic life. No one can offer this. The masses can do
this only from below, by their own experience. There will, of course, be
instructions given and paths sketched out, but we must begin immediately
from above and from below.73

Nevertheless it cannot be said that Lenin satisfactorily theorised the

relationship between grass-roots workers' control of production and
state-wide regulation of the economy. After October the Bolsheviks
were to learn through bitter experience how difficult it was to
reconcile the two in practice.

THE FACTORY COMMITTEE CONFERENCE DEBATES ON

WORKERS' CONTROL

Five conferences of factory committees took place prior to the

Bolshevik seizure of power. The First Conference of Petrograd
Factory Committees took place from 30 May to 3 June; the Second
from 7 to 12 August; the Third from 5 to 1 o September, and the Fourth
on 10 October. The First All Russian conference of factory com-
mittees took place from 17 to 22 October. When one examines the de-
bates on workers' control at these conferences an immediate problem
arises, for it emerges that there is no authentic, spontaneous 'factory
committee' discourse which can be counterposed to official Bolshevik
discourse. A majority of the delegates were Bolsheviks, and the con-
ferences voted overwhelmingly for Bolshevik-inspired resolutions. It
could be argued that the factory committee conferences are not, there-
fore, a true reflection of opinion within the movement, but rather
 The theory and practice of workers3 control of production 157

occasions for the Bolshevik party to win formal ratification of its

policies. This is unconvincing on two scores. First, the hundreds of
delegates who attended these conferences were bonafi.de representa-
tives sent from individual factories.74 Secondly, the delegates had to
choose between the very different policies on workers' control put
forward by the three major factions - Bolshevik, Menshevik and
anarcho-syndicalist. If, as Avrich and others argue, factory commit-
tees on the ground were 'syndicalist', why did their delegates so
decisively reject the perspective projected at these conferences by
anarchists and syndicalists such as Zhuk, Volin or Bill Shatov, the
former Wobbly? The answer can only be that most factory committee
delegates recognised the need for some degree of centralised coordina-
tion of control, as the Bolsheviks argued, whereas the anarcho-
syndicalists decidedly did not. At every conference they voted
overwhelmingly for the formula of'state workers' control'.
If one examines the debates and resolutions of the factory
committee conferences it becomes apparent that the emphasis on
centralised, planned control of the economy became ever more
pronounced, and that the demand for workers' control of production
was increasingly linked to the demand for a transfer of power to the
Soviets. In other words, the debates of the conferences became more
and more politicised. The proclamation which summoned the First
All Russian Conference called for: 'the unification of the activities of
the working class in the task of regulating the economic life of the
country, so that once it has power in its hands, the working class can,
finally, with the support of the poor peasantry, fight the self-interest of
the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and bring planning and orga-
nisation into the sphere of production'. 75 At this conference V.P.
Milyutin, a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, introduced
his party's resolution on workers' control. It demanded a transfer of
state power to the Soviets, a break with the policies of the moderate
socialist parties, the transfer of land to the peasants and the
nationalisation of the major branches of industry. Clause four of the
resolution proclaimed: 'The workers' control being implemented in
the localities through the factory committees must be organised into a
state-wide system, for only then will it achieve real, serious results. A
majority (2/3) of the members of the organs of control must be
workers, delegated by the factory committees, trade unions and the
Soviet of workers' deputies. As well as workers' representatives, there
must be scientifically-educated technical personnel (engineers, tech-
158 Red Petrograd

nicians, etc.) .'76 The resolution was passed in an amended form by 65

votes to 8, with one abstention.77
The outstanding support for the perspective of 'state workers'
control' suggests that factory committees on the ground recognised
that grass-roots activity by itself was not enough and that to be
effective, 'control' must be centrally coordinated. There thus never
existed a clear-cut antinomy between the Bolshevik party, the
proponent of state-wide, centralised control, and the factory commit-
tees, proponents of local initiative. All the major statements from
factory committee organisations both before and after October bear
ample testimony to their belief that order could be restored to the
economy only by the action of a proletarian government. Yet one
should not infer that there was consonance on the question of workers'
control between the party leadership and the factory committees.
Differences did exist, but they were ones of emphasis rather than
principle. They were not differences between 'syndicalists' and
Bolsheviks, but differences within the Bolshevik party. These
differences centred, firstly, on the efficacy of grass-roots workers'
control as a cure for Russia's economic ills; secondly, on the
importance of the factory committees as agencies of workers' control.
Two broad currents of opinion emerged at the factory committee
conferences with respect to the capacity of workers' control to resolve
the economic crisis. The chief exponents of'state workers' control',
V.P. Milyutin and Yu. Larin, put the main emphasis on central
planning rather than grass-roots control. In so doing, they were close
ideologically to important Bolshevik trade-union leaders such as
Ryazanov, Lozovskii, Shlyapnikov and Schmidt. In contrast, the
Bolsheviks on the Central Council of Factory Committees, such as
N.A. Skrypnik, V.Ya. Chubar', N.K. Antipov and P.N. Amosov,
whilst supporting 'state workers' control', placed heavy emphasis on
the importance of local initiatives. They were more optimistic than
leading Bolshevik economists and trade unionists about the potential
of workers' control for alleviating economic disorder. This was not
because they were principled believers in decentralisation, but
because they shared with many rank-and-file workers a belief that the
crisis in the economy was caused essentially by the conscious
sabotage of industrialists, and could thus be halted by determined
action on the part of factory committees. They tended to ignore the
complex structural character of the crisis, seeing the economic
disruption as the direct product of sabotage. Until autumn, at least,
 The theory and practice of workers' control of production 159
many factory committees rather naively assumed that by combating
disorganisation in their particular enterprise they would bring order
into the economy as a whole, and create the conditions for its
transformation along socialist lines.
The second area in which there was a difference of emphasis related
to the first, and concerned the precise responsibilities of the factory
committees. Bolsheviks connected with the factory committees
assigned responsibility for workers' control of production chiefly to
the committees. This never became official Bolshevik party policy.
Party statements suggested that workers' control was the responsi-
bility not only of factory committees, but of all labour organisa-
tions. Milyutin's resolution to the Third All-Russian Conference of
Trade Unions on workers' control did not mention factory com-
mittees and spoke of control being the joint responsibility of Soviets
and trade unions. 78 Again the Sixth Bolshevik Party Congress spent
much time discussing the trade unions and the economic crisis, but
barely mentioned the factory committees.79 To those who believe
that the Bolsheviks connived to jump on the factory committee
bandwagon, it must come as a shock to realise how little attention
leading Bolsheviks paid to the committees. They were, after all,
probably the most important organisations in the Russian Revolution
- more important even than the Soviets, from the point of view of their
closeness to the masses and their function of mediating between the
mass of workers and the Bolshevik party. Yet when Lenin came to
revise the party programme in the autumn, he did not mention the
committees or the need for democratic organisation in the factories.80
This, it seems, was largely because of his total absorption in the
political question. Whilst he spent the whole summer trying to
understand the Soviets as embryonic forms of the proletarian state, he
paid scant attention to the factory committees, for he considered that
the struggle for state power took precedence over the struggle for
power in production. He believed that there could be no proletarian
power in the factory before the achievement of proletarian power in
the state. 81 It is true that both Ordzhonikidze and Trotsky claim that
Lenin toyed with the idea of making state organs of factory
committees, instead of the Soviets, but this was a purely tactical turn,
reflecting Lenin's anxieties about the political reliability of the
Soviets.82 It did not represent a worked-out integration of the
committees into a strategy for the achievement of socialism. This
neglect of the theoretical and political problems of articulating the
160 Red Petrograd

movement for workers' control with the drive for soviet power was to
have grave consequences after October, leading to a foreclosure of the
movement for workers' self-management.

THE POLITICS OF WORKERS CONTROL AT FACTORY LEVEL

In view of the deeply political cast of the discussions of the factory

committee conferences, it comes as a surprise to see how rarely factory
committees on the ground discussed political matters. The commit-
tees concerned themselves overwhelmingly with the practical affairs
of the workplace, and rarely referred to matters outside. Yet it would
be false to deduce from this that the committees were apolitical. If
they did not discuss politics, it was because they felt that general
meetings of the whole workforce were the proper forum for political
discussion. General meetings were the sovereign bodies in the
factories and it was there, rather than in the committees, that the
general will of the workforce was expressed. Nevertheless, whilst
abstaining from direct discussion of politics, the committees took a
deeply political approach to their day-to-day work. The majority of
members of factory committees were members of socialist parties and
they were elected on party slates. It was widely felt that the political
make-up of a factory committee should reflect the political opinion of
the majority of the workforce. The committees thus changed their
political complexion in response to the changing political sentiments
of those whom they represented.
Initially, many factory committee members were self-selected.
Others were elected because of their personal standing in the factory,
rather than because of their political affiliation. Party differentiation
within the factory committees was only weakly developed in the
spring of 1917. In the textile industry a majority of members of
factory committees belonged to no political party. At the Pal',
Leont'ev and Northern weaving-mills almost all factory committee
members were non-party. 83 At the First spinning-mill the chairman
of the committee was a right-wing SR, but apart from one Menshevik
woman and a Menshevik joiner, the rest were non-party. 84 At
Kozhevnikov weaving-mill the chairman of the committee was a
Bolshevik, but the five women and two male scutchers who made up
the rest of the committee belonged to no political party. 85 In other
industries the political make-up of factory committees in the spring of
1917 was similar. At the Skorokhod shoe factory most of the 40
 The theory and practice of workers3 control of production 161

committee members belonged to no political party; only one woman

was a Bolshevik.86 At the Triangle rubber works SRs comprised a
majority of the 16 members of the committee in March and April; the
Bolsheviks had two members on the committee. 87
In the metalworking industries political parties were more en-
trenched. Here Mensheviks and SRs tended to dominate the
committees, just as they dominated the Soviets in the spring of 1917.
At the Pipe works almost all the forty shop stewards were members of
the SR party, although there were two or three Bolsheviks.88 At the
Obukhov works only five of the 32 members of the committee were
Bolsheviks, the rest being SRs or Mensheviks.89 At the Nevskii
shipyard, elections in early April put three Mensheviks, three SRs
and one Bolshevik on the factory soviet. Even in factories where
Bolsheviks were soon to become extremely powerful, the moderate
socialists tended at first to dominate the committees. Thus at the
radical Aivaz, Nobel, New Lessner and Langenzippen works the first
committees comprised mainly Mensheviks and SRs. 90 At the New
Parviainen works Bolsheviks were somewhat better represented,
comprising three members of the committee, against three non-party
members and one Menshevik. Factories where Bolsheviks had a
majority from the first were few. At the Phoenix works the Bolsheviks
were the largest political grouping; and at the 1886 Electrical Light
Company on 17 April Bolsheviks won 673 votes and 7 places on the
committee, whilst Mensheviks and SRs in a joint slate won 506 votes
and 4 places. 91
In the spring of 1917 the election of members of a particular
political party to a factory committee was not necessarily evidence of
support for that party within the workforce. Individual reputation
counted for as much as political affiliation. The fact that Bolsheviks
such as V.Ya. Chubar', I.I. Lepse, A.K. Skorokhodov, N.I. Derby-
shev, A.E. Vasil'ev, Ya. A. Kalinin, V.N. Kozitskii were chairmen of
their factory committees is more a reflection of their individual
prestige than of support for Bolshevik policies within the workforce.92
The Putilov works is a good example in this connection, for the giant
plant did not swing decisively to the Bolshevik party until after the
July Days, yet from April the works committee consisted of 12
Bolsheviks, 7 non-party, 2 SRs and one anarchist. 93 Similarly, the fact
that there were more Mensheviks and SRs than Bolsheviks on the first
committees may partly be due to the fact that there were more of them
around in March, since they had lost fewer members than the
162 Red Petrograd

Bolsheviks as a result of wartime repression. Nevertheless the

moderate socialists so decisively outnumbered Bolsheviks on the
factory committees, especially in the metal industry, that one is
justified in assuming that they represented prevailing sentiment in
the working class after the February Revolution. The political
complexion of the first factory committees, like the political com-
plexion of the city and city-district Soviets, reflected a mood within the
working class which Lenin termed 'revolutionary defencism'. This
was an enthusiasm for the February Revolution and a willingness to
defend the gains of the revolution against the foreign foe. The
moderate socialists, rather then Bolsheviks, best responded to this
mood.
Being the institutions closest to the mass of workers, the factory
committees were the first to respond to the shift to the left which
occurred in popular political attitudes. Those moderate socialists on
the factory committees who refused to swing into line with their
constituents were soon removed. From the early summer the number
of Bolsheviks on the factory committees began to increase. In June at
the Langenzippen works Bolsheviks won a majority of places on the
committee after new elections.94 After the failure of the June offensive
and the July Days, the process of 'Bolshevisation' accelerated. At the
Skorokhod works Bolsheviks swept the board in new factory commit-
tee elections at the end ofJuly, winning 64 places, against ten to the
SRs and five to the anarchists. 95 At the Sestroretsk works on 1 August
Bolsheviks won eight places on the committee, the SRs five and the
Mensheviks two. 96 At the Parviainen works Bolsheviks got 1,800
votes and the SRs 300 in new elections.97 In the wake of the Kornilov
rebellion the tempo of Bolshevik success quickened. At the Lessner
works the Bolsheviks gained 471 votes, non-party candidates 186,
SRs 155 and the Mensheviks a mere 23 votes. 98 At the Dynamo works
the Bolsheviks received one-and-a-half times as many votes as the
SRs in new factory committee elections.99 At the Mint five Bolsheviks,
three non-party candidates and one SR were elected to the
committee. 100
Nowhere was the collapse of moderate socialism in the face of a
rising tide of popular Bolshevism more evident than at the Pipe
works, which for long had been a bastion of the SRs. At the beginning
of June new elections to the factory committee and district soviet were
held, in which the SRs gained 8,852 votes (56% of the vote), the
Bolsheviks and Internationalists 5,823 (36%) and the Menshevik
 The theory and practice of workers3 control of production 163

defencists 1,061 (7%). As a result, the SRs got 21 places on the

committee, the Internationalists 14 places and the defencists two
places. 101 The committee came into increasing conflict with the
workers after it refused to pay workers who had struck during the July
Days. On 13 October workers succeeded in getting new elections. Of
the 15,117 votes cast the Bolsheviks gained 9,388 (62% of the vote),
the SRs 3,822 (25%), anarchists 640 (4%) and the Mensheviks 552
votes (3.7%). As a result, the Bolsheviks gained 23 places on the com-
mittee, the SRs 16, the anarchists two and the Mensheviks one. 102
Very few medium or large factories failed to register 'Bolshevisa-
tion' to some degree. Typical exceptions were two textile-mills in the
bourgeois Aleksandro-Nevskii ward of central Petrograd. At the Pal'
factory the committee consisted of twelve non-party members, four
SRs, one Bolshevik and one Menshevik in October. At the Maxwell
cotton mill the committee comprised five non-party, four SRs and
three Bolsheviks.103 In many smaller factories political radicalisation
was not yet apparent among the workers, but only a minority of the
city workforce were in such factories. In some huge state factories,
such as the Pipe, Obukhov and Izhora works, the Bolsheviks won
paramountcy only late, and did not always enjoy an absolute majority
over all other parties. Nevertheless, even taking into account these
exceptions, it is apparent that the Bolsheviks had the support of a
majority of factory workers by October and were much the largest
political party in the factory committees.
Before going on to analyse how the struggle for workers' control of
production was at the heart of 'Bolshevisation', it is crucial to note
that there was no direct correlation between the political radicalism of
a factory and the scope of workers' control at the plant. Factories
which were Bolshevik strongholds were not necessarily under strong
workers' control. Bolshevik-dominated factory committees at
Rozenkrantz, the 1886 Electric Light company, the Sestroretsk arms
works and the Skorokhod shoe-company did implement organised
and far-reaching control, but the similarly constituted committees
at the Baranovskii, Renault and Nobel works operated in a
very moderate fashion. If one turns to the state sector, a glaring
paradox emerges, for it becomes clear that it was the SR- and
Menshevik-dominated factory committees at the Izhora, Baltic,
New Admiralty, Radio-Telegraph, the Cartridge, the Gun, the
Arsenal and the Okhta explosive-works which implemented the
most systematic and radical forms of workers' control. The
164 Red Petrograd

Gun works, for example, was situated in a wealthy area of the city
centre and employed 3,500 workers. It was a bulwark of moderate
socialism: in early May the workforce voted overwhelmingly in favour
of the Coalition government; on 11 July all parties at the factory,
including the Bolsheviks, condemned the July Days and expressed
support for Kerensky.104 Only on 5 September did new elections to
the Soviet return two Bolsheviks and two SRs.105 The factory
committee consisted overwhelmingly of Mensheviks and SRs,
although its chairman was the Bolshevik and leading light of the
factory committee movement, V.Ya. Chubar'. Yet from spring
onwards, the works and shop committees asserted their right of
control over all aspects of production and factory life. The manage-
ment took administrative and technical decisions, but communicated
them via the control commission of the factory committee. All
foremen and lower administrative personnel were elected by the
workers; senior administrative and technical personnel were
appointed, but the workers had the right to contest an appointment.
If administrators had complaints against any worker, they had to
refer them to the committee, and workers, similarly, were required to
refer their grievances to the shop committees.106 The Mensheviks and
SRs thus operated in complete violation of the official policy of their
respective parties in executing such radical forms of workers' control.
It seems, however, that they found their parties' policy - of simple
rejection of workers' control - to be of no practical use to them in the
work situation. Chubar' admitted that 'they [the moderate socialists]
quite often deviated from the line of their leaders and went hand in
hand with us on practical questions'.107 Present-day Soviet historians
find this fact embarrassing. Stepanov, for example, states that the
Gun-works committee restricted workers' control to 'making re-
quests' of management.108 Nevertheless, the evidence is considerable
that many moderate socialists, particularly in the state sector,
followed the Bolshevik policy in the sphere of workers' control: they
were simply responding to a situation which seemed to call for radical
measures. At factory level Bolshevik talk of workers' control made
more sense to them than their own parties' talk of state control of the
economy. It is more than likely that many of those who voted for the
Bolshevik resolution at the First Conference of Factory Committees
still identified with the moderate socialist parties. Nevertheless, the
failure of the moderate socialist parties to respond to what rank-
and-file workers felt was the pressing need for workers'
 The theory and practice of workers' control of production 165

control lost them a great deal of support. There is no doubt that the
notion of workers' control of production was very popular at the grass
roots, and it was the willingness of the Bolsheviks to support this
demand which was a central reason for their growing appeal.
A sense of the popularity of the idea of workers' control can be
gained by examining the resolutions passed by general meetings of
workers in individual factories. One cannot assume that such
resolutions were the spontaneous utterances of rank-and-file workers,
for they were sometimes drafted by local party organisations and put
to general meetings for endorsement. Nevertheless, even where
workers did not themselves draft their resolutions, several different
resolutions would usually be put to a meeting for discussion, so the
choice of a Bolshevik rather than a Menshevik resolution is some
indication of opinion within the factory.
An analysis of the resolutions passed in the months of August and
September, which mention control of the economy, reveals an
overwhelming preference for the Bolshevik formula of 'workers'
control of production and distribution'. Resolutions using this
formula were passed by workers at the Baltic, Triangle, Putilov,
Kuznetsov and Westinghouse works, at several textile mills and by
the Vasilevskii district council of factory committees.109 In Septem-
ber many resolutions use the rather more orthodox Bolshevik formula
of'workers' control of production at a state-wide level' to distinguish
workers' control from any anarchist project of individual factory
seizures. Resolutions at Aivaz, Langenzippen, the Pipe works and one
by Lithuanian workers on Vyborg Side use this formula.110 Occa-
sionally, resolutions were passed which appear to be attempts to
bridge differences between Bolshevik and Menshevik conceptions of
control. Resolutions passed at the Stein company, the Baranovskii
works and elsewhere in July, called for 'state control with a majority
of workers',111 as did a resolution by Obukhov workers in October. 112
A resolution passed by metalworkers' union delegates on 26 July
called for 'the implementation of real control of production and
distribution of products and state regulation of industry'. 113 In
September the first national textile workers' conference, which had a
big Bolshevik majority, passed a resolution calling for 'state regula-
tion of industry on a national scale under workers' control'. 114 In
contrast to Moscow, however, the Menshevik call for 'state control of
the economy' had little resonance within the Petrograd labour
movement. 115
166 Red Petrograd

More common in Petrograd were workers' resolutions which called

for control of production by the 'toiling people', suggesting Left SR or
anarchist influence. It is interesting to note, however, that the
Marxist notion of the 'working class' often underwent a populist
inflection in working-class discourse - apparently spontaneously - to
become the 'toiling people' (trudovoi narod). Resolutions incorporating
this formula, therefore, may not necessarily have been drafted by Left
SRs or anarchists. At the beginning of August workers in the
iron-rolling shop at Putilov passed an earthy resolution which
demanded:
... total control of the branches of industry by the toiling people ...
From you capitalists, weeping crocodile tears, we demand you stop weeping
about chaos which you yourselves have created. Your cards are on the table,
the game is up, your persecution can no longer be successful. Go off and hide.
Think your own thoughts and don't dare show your noses, or else you'll find
yourselves without a nose, and without a head to boot.116
On 14 September workers at the Cable works agreed that 'the normal
course of life can go on only if there is strict control of enterprises and
of all products and also a transfer of power into the hands of the toiling
people'. 117 Resolutions which show clear Left-SR influence some-
times used the 'workers' control' formula, and, in spite of their
populism, clearly conceived of this control as operating in a
centralised fashion. One such resolution passed by workers at the
New Admiralty shipyard on 30 September and published in the Left
SR newspaper, condemned the Democratic Conference for not
expressing the 'people's will' (narodnaya volyd) and went on to demand:
the establishment of a genuinely revolutionary government [z//fljf'], a
government of the soviet of workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies. This
must strengthen and deepen the gains of the revolution by immediately
summoning a Constituent Assembly to resolve economic disorder; by
instituting workers' control of production and distribution, taking no account
of the interests of the handful of pirates; by bringing an end to the war, having
declared democratic conditions for peace and having torn up the tsarist
treaties; and by giving land to the peasants and bread to the urban
democracy.118
It is difficult to find obviously anarchist or syndicalist resolutions
on economic questions passed by workers in Petrograd. One clear
example is the resolution passed by workers in one of the shops at
Langenzippen in July, which stated that 'the country can be brought
out of the chaos in its finances and food supplies only by the
 The theory and practice of workers' control of production 167
proletariat, in union with the peasantry, organised into pure class-
autonomous organisations, united on the basis of federalism, which
will implement full control in all branches of industry without
exception'. 119 A symptom of anarchist influence may have been the
use of a formula about workers taking the factories 'into their own
hands'. Zhuk, the syndicalist Piotrovskii, and the SR Maximalist,
Vas'ko, all employed this formula at the factory committee confer-
ences. Other evidence shows that left Bolsheviks also used the phrase,
as a way of talking about workers' self-management, though Milyutin
expressly ruled out this phrase at the national conference.120 The
resolution which calls most directly for the transfer of factories into
the hands of the workers was passed by two branches of the
metalworkers' union rather than by a factory committee. The
Kolpino district delegates of the metal union on 10 August and the
Nevskii district delegates on 25 August, recommended: 'as the only
radical method of struggle . . . that the metalworkers' union take all
factories and works into its own hands . . . and liaise closely with the
CCFC . . . so that when the time comes for the factories to be
transferred into the hands of the workers, there will be cells in the
localities ready not just to take over but to continue running the
factories'.121
This impressionistic survey of workers' resolutions on control of the
economy can hardly claim to be a scientific analysis of working-class
attitudes to the question, but it does show that the Bolshevik formula
of'workers' control of production and distribution' was the one most
widely supported by workers in Petrograd. Populist formulations
about control by the 'toiling people' figure fairly prominently, but
Menshevik, anarchist or syndicalist formulations are rare. Despite a
limited degree of variety in the formulations used, suggesting some
variation in conceptualisations of control of the economy, the vast
majority of resolutions share one thing in common. This is a belief
that economic disruption is primarily the result of wilful 'sabotage'
by the employers. 'Sabotage' and 'saboteur' were key words in
popular discourse during the revolution and Bolsheviks in the factory
committees harped constantly on this theme. It was the willingness of
the Bolsheviks to fight 'sabotage', in order to protect jobs and the
democratic gains of the February Revolution, which was the secret of
their rapidly growing popularity in the summer and autumn of
 Deepening economic chaos and the
intensification of workers' control

ECONOMIC CRISIS AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

By midsummer 1917 the crisis in Russian industry was leading to

factory closures and rising unemployment. Between March and July,
568 factories - mainly textile and flour mills - employing some
104,000 workers, shut down operations. The Torgovo-Promyshlennaya
Gazeta analysed the chief causes of closure as being: first, shortages of
cotton, grain and other raw materials; secondly, the 'excessive5
demands of the workers; thirdly, too few orders; fourthly, lack of fuel;
fifthly, declining profitability. The regions worst affected were the
Moscow Industrial Region and Southern Russia.1 After July the scale
of unemployment increased, as supplies of fuel and raw materials
began to dry up. It was mainly small firms which closed down, but
larger firms contributed their share to the pool of unemployment.
Up to October Petrograd was not as badly affected by unemploy-
ment as other regions, although there are no reliable data on the
number of unemployed in the capital. The number of metalworkers
who registered with the union as unemployed rose from 37.4 per day
in July to 71.3 in October. Skilled metalworkers could still manage to
find jobs, however, so that only about 3% of members of the metal
union were unemployed in October.2 Other industries were worse hit:
the shortage of sugar meant that the Petrograd confectionary industry
was on the verge of extinction, thus imperilling the livelihood of 4,000
workers.3 Grain shortages meant that many bakery workers were out
of work.4 In the print industry unemployment was growing rapidly
owing to the paper shortage, and by October about 1,000 printers in
the capital were out of work.5 Other industries, such as textiles,
168
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers3 control 169

tailoring and woodworking, were not yet suffering closures and

redundancies, though their prospects were bleak. In all, there were
probably about 8,000 registered unemployed in the middle of October,
and although the real figure was almost certainly much higher, the
rate of unemployment in the capital was still lower than elsewhere in
the country. This was due to the success of factory committees and
trade unions and, to some extent of the Factory Convention, in
blocking attempts by employers to cut the size of their workforces and
to begin the transfer to civilian production.
As the economic crisis deepened, so the tempo of class conflict
accelerated. As the workers became more combative and as profits
disappeared, so industrialists became less willing to invest in their
enterprises or to take on new orders. At the beginning of June the
Minister of Trade and Industry declared that 'entrepreneurs, not
feeling themselves on firm ground, have lost the appropriate energy.
They desire a halt to production or seek to transfer the rocketing costs
of production onto the broad circles of consumers and onto the
exchequer by exorbitant increases in commodity prices.'6 In South-
ern and Central Russia from early summer industrialists began to
wage war on the working class, seeking to crush its militancy with the
cudgel of unemployment. In the Urals and the Donbass, and to some
extent in the industrial region round Moscow, organisations of
employers launched a coordinated strategy of lockouts, designed to
demoralise workers and to prove to the public that interference in
production, excessive wage-increases and the eight-hour day were
bringing industry to its knees.7
In Petrograd the policy of cutbacks, closures and lockouts was less
aggressive. The large factories had not yet been pushed into a corner,
and working-class resistance was too well-organised to be easily
quashed. By June Petrograd employers were alarmed that they had
made a terrible miscalculation in plumping for a policy of concession
rather than repression after the February Revolution. The workers,
instead of succumbing to the blandishments of a liberal industrial-
relations policy, were growing ever more 'immoderate' in their
demands. The SFWO complained: 'Industrialists have made very
significant concessions, they have made a big sacrifice in the hope of
restarting work in the factories and mills, but the demands of workers
and employees have gone beyond what is possible.'8 From June
onwards, Petrograd employers tried to pursue a much tougher
labour policy, resisting wage-increases and cutting back production
170 Red Petrograd

in the hope that growing unemployment would make the workers 'see
sense'.
The shift in the attitude of employers was paralleled by a shift in the
attitude of the government towards the labour problem. Under the
first Coalition Government, formed at the beginning of May, a proper
Ministry of Labour had come into being. This was headed by the
Menshevik, M.I. Skobelev, assisted by P.N. Kolokol'nikov, an
experienced trade unionist of right-wing Menshevik persuasion, and
K. A. Gvozdev, bete noire of the labour left because of his pivotal role in
the Workers' Group of the War Industries Committee. These
Mensheviks came into the new Ministry committed to a programme
of 'broad social reforms'.9 Skobelev promised to meet the just
demands of the masses, to intervene in the economy and to confiscate
the profits of the captains of industry,10 but these promises stuck in
the throats of the majority of staunchly conservative government
ministers. They despatched Skobelev's reform proposals into the
labyrinth of government committees from whence few saw the light of
day. On 11 July labour inspectors were established, as a first step
towards revamping the system of factory inspection.11 In the same
month the 1912 insurance legislation was extended to all workers.12
On 8 August night work was banned for women and minors under 17
— except in defence enterprises. And on 8 October maternity pay was
introduced. All other proposals for comprehensive social insurance
failed to reach the statute book, owing to opposition from within the
government and from the employers, who accused the Ministry of
Labour of 'defending the exclusive interests of the working class ...
completely ignoring the interests ... of the other side'.13
By June the reforming zeal of the Menshevik ministers was being
overtaken by a concern to defuse explosive class antagonisms. The
Ministry of Labour tried to encourage a partnership between capital
and labour, but although Skobelev still paid lip-service to the plight of
the working class, he tended increasingly to see low labour-productiv-
ity as the root of Russia's economic ills. When visited by a deputation
of mineowners from Southern Russia on 13 June, Skobelev reportedly
promised them help in curtailing working-class demands, which he
concurred where 'immoderate' and 'in conflict with the general
well-being'. In an address to workers on 28 June Skobelev condemned
'arbitrary' actions by workers which 'disorganise industry
and exhaust the exchequer'.14 The need for 'sacrifice' became the leit-
motif of Skobelev's speeches, one which modulated into appeals for
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers3 control 171

an end to industrial conflict 'in the name of strengthening the

revolution and honouring our ultimate ideals'.15 In spite of extrava-
gant displays of impartiality, however, Skobelev could not win the
trust of the Minister of Trade and Industry, A.I. Konovalov, who led
an onslaught against further wage-increases, at a time when the
Ministry of Labour was enmeshed in painful negotiations over union
wage contracts.16 Efforts to establish cooperation between the two
sides of industry were thus rendered void not only by bitter class
conflict in industry, but by resistance from bourgeois ministers within
the government.
After the July Days the Kerensky government shifted sharply to the
right, under sustained pressure from industrialists,financiersand the
General Staff. Demands from employers for the militarisation of
labour in defence industries and in transport, and for a declaration of
a state of emergency in the Donbass evoked a favourable response
from the Ministry of Trade and Industry and from the Special
Commission on Defence. The position of the Ministry of Labour
became more and more untenable, as it was torn between the
irreconcilable forces of capital and labour. It oscillated between
minor concessions and promises of reform and puny displays of
strength, such as the Skobelev circulars (see below).

WORKERS RESIST ATTEMPTS TO EVACUATE INDUSTRY

As early as 1916 the tsarist government had discussed the possibility

of the 'off-loading' (razgruzka) from Petrograd of some of its factories,
in order to ease the fuel shortage.17 On 6 July 1917 a special
committee was set up to plan the 'off-loading' of industry. In August it
recommended that plant and equipment be evacuated from 47 large
factories in Petrograd, including all state enterprises and the largest
private engineering and chemical works.18 Only some of the workers
at these factories were to be evacuated; the rest were to be dismissed
with two weeks' pay. The German occupation of Riga on 21 August
caused the government to expand the scope of its evacuation plans.
These plans were motivated by a desire to rationalise war production
and by a fear that the Germans would occupy Petrograd. In
working-class circles, however, they were seen as a thinly-disguised
attempt to break the power of the revolutionary movement by the
simple device of destroying its physical base.
When news first broke in May of plans for the 'off-loading' of
172 Red Petrograd

industry, workers lost no time in letting the government know their

views. On 20 May workers in the Putilov gun shop, which was
dominated politically by Mensheviks, unanimously resolved:
If the 'off-loading' of Petrograd is necessary in the interests of rational
distribution of food products and rational allocation of fuel, for the benefit of
all toilers, then Petrograd must be 'off-loaded' in the first place of:
(1) idlers, drones, men and women in monasteries, those who live off their
incomes, those who do not work or serve;
(2) those hired workers brought by force or deception from Asia, who should
be sent back;
(3) The transfer of all luxury items along the rail- and water-ways should be
halted and these means of transport should be used to convey fuel, fodder and
foodstuffs to wherever they are required. We protest against the slanders that
accuse workers of disrupting transport, and point out that it is those who
defend the monks and the opponents of the democratic republic who are
causing and aggravating chaos in the state, and who should be replaced
immediately by elected representatives of the peasants and workers.
... We demand control of production, industry and capital, since the
capitalists and industrialists are deliberately leading the country to ruin.19

Another resolution passed at Putilov by 700 workers in the boiler

and steam-boiler shops denounced evacuation plans as a 'counter-
revolutionary trick of the bourgeoisie to rid Petersburg of organised
revolutionary workers and to scatter them to the backwoods [g/w^'] of
Russia'. They called for the city to be 'off-loaded' of'the bourgeois
idlers who stroll along Nevskii and Morskaya streets stopping off at
restaurants'. 20 Workers in the Putilov forge also denounced the
evacuation plans as a counter-revolutionary plot and continued:
We, workers and peasants, will stay put, since we believe that once the right
balance of conflicting forces is struck, the people will have the opportunity to
take power into their own hands and then no crisis need occur. We suggest
that Petrograd be unloaded of its monasteries, infirmaries, asylums, alms-
houses and many thousands of idle bourgeois. We also propose to find out
why where is such a great concentration of Chinese in the city.21

These three resolutions all display a fierce hostility to the parasitic

bourgeoisie, a strong sense of the workers as a productive class, a deep
anti-religious feeling, not to say a certain lack of sympathy for
immigrant workers and the unfortunates of the alms-houses and
asylums.
The themes encapsulated in the Putilov resolutions were echoed in
many other protests. Somewhat unusually, workers at Sestroretsk
blamed the industrial chaos not on deliberate sabotage, but on 'the
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers' control 173
5
disorganisation and anarchy of the capitalist system . To the
standard list of proposed evacuees, they added 'courtesans, those who
play the stock-exchange, speculators and other social parasites'.22
Bolshevik workers at New Lessner added to the list, 'yellow labour'
and 'peasants to be sent back to thefields';while workers at the Pella
engineering works had the bright idea of'ridding Petrograd ... of the
gentlemen who can only cry "War to Victory!'"23 Resolutions,
condemning the evacuation plans as a move to disperse the revolu-
tionary proletariat, were passed by workers at the Russo-Baltic
works, the Arsenal, the Kebke factory and the Petichev engineering
works.24 Only occasionally did workers admit that some degree of
evacuation might be inevitable in view of the fuel, raw-materials and
transport crisis, but even then, they stated that it was up to workers to
decide if and how evacuation should be carried out.25
In the autumn some factory owners began surreptitiously to move
equipment out of their factories. Factory committees actively
thwarted these manoeuvres. In September the Putilov administration
attempted to send machinery by canal to Saratov, but the works
committee held up the barge for a month until the administration had
proved to their satisfaction that the machinery was not needed in
Petrograd.26 At the Pipe works management planned to remove
operations to Penza, Voronezh and Ekaterinoslav, transferring 4,000
machines, 20,000 workers and about 40,000 members of their
families. When the works committee visited these places, however,
they discovered that none of them was ready to receive the evacuees,
and that in reality management intended to transfer only 1,281
workers and fire the rest. Without hesitation, the works committee
blocked the proposed plans.27 Similar discoveries were made by
factory committees at the Okhta explosives works and the Optics
factory when they visited the sites to which their factories were to be
evacuated.28 At the Arsenal works and the Okhta powder works the
committees obstructed evacuation plans since they had been in-
adequately prepared.29
Not all factory committees opposed evacuation in principle. At the
Parviainen works the Bolshevik-controlled committee on 22 August
drew up an agreement with management which specified in detail
the terms of the transfer of operations out of the capital.30 At the
Baltic works the committee drew up emergency evacuation plans in
case of German invasion.31 At the Nevskii shipyard the committee
was fully involved in arrangements to evacuate the plant.32 At
174 Red Petrograd

Sestroretsk the committee searched for a place to which the arms

factory could be evacuated.33
Officially, the factory committees opposed plans for evacuation.
The Third Conference passed a resolution which argued that the
practical difficulties of setting up factories in new areas without a
proper social and industrial infrastructure were enormous; that the
transport system could not bear the strain of evacuation; that it would
be too costly, and that it was a counter-revolutionary plot. The
resolution argued that the way out of the crisis lay in a revolutionary
popular government bringing the war to a close. The resolution,
however, did allow for partial evacuation of single enterprises, so long
as this were done under strict workers' control, with the full consent of
the workforce, and so long as three months' redundancy pay were
given to those who did not wish to move.34
The attitude of the trade unions was more or less in line with that of
the factory committees, though there was greater willingness to
recognise that evacuation might not always be against the interest of
the working class. In May the Petrograd Council of Trade Unions
strongly attacked the evacuation plans and persuaded the workers'
section of the Petrograd Soviet to do likewise.35 Interestingly,
however, the metalworkers' union did not share the general antipathy
to evacuation. At a meeting in May of the union board it was
unanimously agreed that: 'we should broaden the partial question (of
'off-loading') to include the general regulation of the whole of our
national industry. We thus insist on the immediate creation of a
national centre of regulation, on which the representatives of
organised labour will have a big say in deciding questions about the
organisation of the economy'.36 Later the Bolshevik V. Schmidt
persuaded the union to take a more critical position, but the union
shifted back to its original position in July, justifying evacuation by
the argument that 'the ruin of the national economy would lead to the
destruction of the revolution'.37 At the beginning of September the
union managed to persuade the PCTU of the necessity of limited
evacuation under workers' control.38 Thus by October the unions
had a less intransigent position on evacuation than the CCFC.

THE FACTORY COMMITTEES AGAINST REDUNDANCIES

In the autumn of 1917 the factory committees of Petrograd became

very active in fighting attempts at closure and redundancy. At the
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers' control 175

Baranovskii, Parviainen, Vulcan, Pulemet, Metal, Erikson, Siemens-

Schukert and Dynamo works, management plans for closure were
blocked by the works committees.39 At the Baranovskii works
management on 1 August announced 1,500 redundancies owing to
fuel shortages. The committee responded by cutting working hours
and transferring workers from one shop to another. 40 On 16 August
management at the Vulcan works fired 633 workers and announced
the closure of the factory on 7 September. When the factory
committee discovered that there were stocks of fuel and raw materials
to last six months, it accused the director of 'sabotage' and tried to
have him removed from his post. 41 At the end of August management
at Parviainen announced that 1,630 redundancies were in the
pipeline, but the committee managed to defer them by ensuring a
more economical use of remaining fuel-supplies.42
At the Putilov works the administration had tried to lay off 1,200
workers as early as May, but it was not until the end of August that it
tried in earnest to implement redundancies. It announced that 10,000
workers would lose their jobs as a consequence of fuel shortages. 43
The works committee declared this unacceptable and began a
desperate search for fuel. It managed to find some, but the
administration could not afford to buy it. Workers and managers set
up a commission to investigate production at the factory and
concluded that 3,200, not 10,000 workers would have to lose their
jobs. On 25 September members of the works committee met with the
vice-president of the Commission on Defence, Pal'chinskii, to discuss
the fuel crisis and redundancies, He proposed a 'participation'
scheme whereby workers would be given places on the new company
board in return for implementing redundancies. The committee
rejected this out of hand since 'workers cannot dismiss workers', but
they conceded that some redundancies were necessary, since 'we
cannot allow the factory to become an alms-house'. 44 On 10 October
the works committee met with representatives from the Peterhof
district soviet and from the CCFC to discuss further the question of
redundancies. Committee members were criticised for agreeing to
one month's redundancy pay instead of two. The meeting agreed that
workers should only leave voluntarily, though some felt that shop
committees should pressurise the better-off workers into leaving.45
Some factory committees tried to shift the burden of redundancies
on to women workers, on the grounds that their sojourn in industry
was a temporary one brought about by the war, and that the wives
176 Red Petrograd

of men in work could live off their husbands' wages. At the Franco-
Russian, Arsenal, Nevskii, Lessner and Russian-Baltic works, the
committees took steps to phase out female employment.46 At the
Baltic works the committee said that every effort would be made to
find alternative work for women but if this were not available they
would be dismissed.47 At the Putilov works the shrapnel and other
shop committees tried to fire married women, but they were
prevented from doing so by the works committee.48 The Bolshevik
party, the CCFC and the metalworkers' union condemned attempts
by factory committees to make women workers bear the brunt of
redundancies, arguing that this would fatally divide the ranks of the
working class.
On the whole, the attempt by factory committees and trade unions
to prevent redundancies was successful up to October. Only two
factories, employing more than 500 workers, closed down in Petro-
grad - the Semenov engineering works and the Precision Engineering
company.49 The majority that managed to stave off redundancies,
however, proved after October to have been merely postponing the
inevitable.

WORKERS CONTROL BECOMES MORE RADICAL

As more and more jobs became threatened, the scope of workers'

control expanded. Factory committees strengthened their control of
fuel and raw materials and new forms of control began to appear. One
of the most important of these was the effort to extend workers'
control into the sphere of company sales and finances. Until June
such control was rare.50 Finance sub-committees had been set up in
March in some factories, such as the Pipe and the Okhta explosives
works, but they did little but organise the finances of the committees
themselves. As early as May, however, Major-General Belaev, the
director of the Izhora works, permitted the works committee to
monitor financial operations and pricing policy.51 At the Russo-
Belgian metallurgical company 400 workers, threatened with loss of
their jobs owing to the financial difficulties of the company, opened
the company books in June to discover that orders were in a healthy
state. They offered to guarantee the profitability of the company for
the rest of 1917 if they were given the right to check company
accounts, but management refused.52 At the Langenzippen works the
committee in June attempted to stop the payment of dividends to
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers3 control 177
53
shareholders, pending an enquiry. The First Conference of Petro-
grad Factory Committees called for the abolition of commercial
secrecy, and the Central Council of Factory Committees claimed
wide powers of checking company accounts, calculating debts and
credits, costs of production and rates of profit.54 Yet in spite of
increased activity in this sphere, control of company finances
remained an aspiration rather than a reality. Much of the crucial
information which the committees needed, in order to evaluate the
true financial position of the companies, was in the hands of the
banks, and the banks were not prepared to part with such informa-
tion. Even in cases where factory committees gained access to
company accounts, they were unable to make sense of them without
the help of a trained accountant, and often the accountants would not
cooperate with the committees.
In order to forestall closure, the factory committees in a handful of
enterprises attempted to remove the official board of management
and to run the factories themselves. At the small Brenner copper-
smelting and engineering works the owner informed the factory
committee on 19 May that he had no funds left. He begged it to help
him expedite outstanding orders as quickly as possible, which the
committee agreed to do; five days later Brenner announced that he
was going to shut the factory for two weeks. The committee objected
to this, since the factory had received advances of 420,000 rubles from
the War Industries Committee for orders which had not yet been
completed. The committee therefore decided to dispense with
Brenner and run the factory themselves. On 6 June they issued an
appeal to the Ministry of Labour and to the Petrograd Soviet:

In view of the fact that the owner of the factory has not appeared since 24
May, and that the factory has been working under the supervision of the
factory committee, we are seeking your permission to run production, to
receive and fulfil orders both state and private, and to continue production
when those state orders begun under Brenner have been finished and
despatched to the institutions from which they were received. Without your
permission, the committee will be deprived of the possibility of continuing
production at the factory and this will make it difficult for the workers to
receive their wages.55

On 16 June the Peterhof district soviet agreed to check the accounts

of the Brenner works and to make an inventory of stock. It later
agreed to oversee an experiment in self-management, by putting the
deputy to the soviet in charge of operations at the factory.56 The
178 Red Petrograd

factory was desperately short of capital, so the committee turned to

other factory committees for help. The Triangle works lent the factory
15,000 rubles and the Putilov works sent some raw material, but this
did not really help. At one stage the committee began negotiations
with Brenner about his possible return, but his terms proved
unacceptable. By August productivity was sliding fast, workers were
not receiving their wages and drunkenness was on the increase. On 24
August the commissar of the local militia reported to the Peterhof
soviet that he had received an order from the government to eject the
workers from the factory.57 The committee then turned to the
government to demand sequestration. After pressure from the CCFC,
the government agreed in September to place the factory in charge of
the Factory Convention.58
At the V.A. Lebedev airplane factory the thousand workers in late
May demanded a large increase, which management refused to
countenance. The SRs at the factory called for the wage claim to be
referred to the conciliation chamber, but they suggested that if
management persisted in its recalcitrance, the workers should
demand the removal of the director. Another group of workers,
however, demanded the immediate expulsion of the director Tor
disseminating false rumours aimed at disorganising the workers and
employees of the factory'. They won the toss and the workers forced
the removal of the director from the board of the company. On 2 June
another general meeting was summoned at which a call was made for
workers to take over the running of the factory themselves. Some
pointed out that this was impractical, since they did not have any
capital to continue operations. A worker by the name of Tamsin
proposed the following resolution: 'We empower the factory commit-
tee to take over the running of the factory by itself, to inform the board
of this step and to invite a government commissar to the factory and
to inform the metalworkers' union.' The SR chairman of the
factory committee resigned at this point, and the next day the SR
factory cell called a meeting which the Bolsheviks refused to attend.
This meeting agreed that 'the question of transferring the factory into
the workers' hands cannot be decided by an open vote, but only by a
secret ballot of all comrade-workers, so that each worker considers
himself responsible for the decision'. A member of the City Soviet
was called to the factory and he eventually dissuaded the workers
from taking over the factory, leaving it in charge of the board of
directors.59
In a few instances workers tried to force the government to
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers9 control 179

'sequestrate' their factories, by nominating a new board of manage-

ment to run the enterprise, or by appointing a government official to
oversee the running of the enterprise. In general, the government was
not keen to do this and it resisted demands from workers at the
Slyusarenko airplane, the Langenzippen works and elsewhere for it to
take responsibility for management of their factories.60 In a couple of
cases, however, the government did agree to sequestration. At the
Rykatkin engineering works, where twenty-four workers were em-
ployed, the government provided loans during the war of nearly a
million rubles for defence orders, but the value of completed orders
was less than 100,000 rubles. Suspecting peculation, the War
Industries Committee mounted an investigation. After a conflict with
the workforce in May, the owner, V.I. Rykatkin, resolved to close his
factory and began secretly to remove tools and equipment. After he
was caught one night, the Menshevik-dominated factory committee
refused him entry to the factory and petitioned the government to
sequester the enterprise. At first, the Ministry of Labour refused, but
at the end of July it acceded to the request.61
At the Respirator factory, where 7,000 workers were employed in
making gas-masks, the administration quit the factory at the end of
August. The factory committee couched its demand for sequestration
in unambiguously defencist terms:
We have made clear our position regarding the sabotage of our factory by the
administration, which has gone away at this most pressing and critical
moment. We consider this to be an act of desertion of the home front. In order
not to disrupt or harm production of gas-masks for the front, and in order that
the factory can work normally - in spite of the eight-day absence of the
administration-we unanimously resolve: As circumstances will not permit of
any delay, to demand the immediate appointment of a commissar to take care
of the legal side of things and that he be someone neutral. The works
committee and shop stewards' committee take responsibility for production
and maintaining output ...
In no circumstances must our factory be subject to the War Industries
Committee, but to the state. We demand that the administration, which is
guilty of desertion, be handed over to a democratic court .. ,62
The government seems to have resisted the demand for sequestration,
for the factory soon closed down.63
The examples of the Brenner, Lebedev, Rykatkin and Respirator
works show clearly that efforts by workers to remove the administra-
tion were not inspired by syndicalist utopianism: they were designed
to save jobs. The committees behaved in an organised fashion and
liaised with the Soviets and the government. They sought to force the
180 Red Petrograd

government into taking responsibility for the factory, and the sheer
practical difficulties of running a factory seem to have discouraged
them from attempting to run the factories by themselves. Factory
seizures, or 'socialisations' were almost non-existent in Petrograd,
although they were beginning to take place in the Ukraine by the
autumn of 1917.
As workers' control became more aggressive and expansionist,
opposition to it from factory owners hardened. Everywhere em-
ployers began to resist 'interference' by factory committees and to
reassert their 'right to manage'. Attempts by the Society of Factory
and Works Owners to confine the activities of the committees to the
area demarcated by the law of 23 April failed dismally. Employers
therefore tried to constrain the committees in other ways. They
attempted to stop them meeting during working hours. They
threatened to stop paying wages to committee members. They
deprived committees of premises in which to meet and threatened
individual members with dismissal or conscription into the army.64
More significantly, the SFWO put pressure on the Ministry of
Labour to use its legal powers to curb the ambitions of the
committees. Anxious to meet objections from employers and to be
seen to be doing something, the Ministry of Labour took steps to limit
workers' control. On 23 August it issued a circular affirming that the
right of hiring and firing workers belonged exclusively to the
employers. On 28 August it issued a second circular which forbade
factory committees from meeting during working hours. The circu-
lars provoked uproar in the labour movement, not least because they
appeared at precisely the time when General Kornilov was organising
to drown the revolutionary movement in blood. Meetings of workers
at Putilov, the Admiralty works, the Cable works, Nobel and Lebedev
works heaped obloquy on the Ministry of Labour for capitulating to
the counter-revolutionary demands of the employers.65 At Langen-
zippen, the workers passed a resolution which said:
We reject with indignation the malicious slanders of the Ministry of Labour
that the work of the factory committee lowers labour-productivity. The
factory committee declares that ...
(1) Skobelev's circular has a purely political character and is counter-
revolutionary. It prevents the labour movement from following an organised
course and supports the organised march of the counter-revolution, which
aims to sabotage industry and reduce the country to famine.
(2) We are forced to conclude that in the present context [of Kornilov] the
Ministry for the 'protection of labour' has been converted into the Ministry
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers9 control 181

for the protection of capitalist interests and acts hand in hand with
Ryabushinskii to reduce the country to famine, so that the 'bony hand' may
strangle the revolution.66
At the Obukhov works a general meeting declared: 'We consider the
existence of the factory committees to be a matter of life and death for
the working class. We believe that the implementation of Skobelev's
circular would mean the destruction of all the gains of the working
class. We will fight with all our might and by all means, including the
general strike, for the existence of our factory committees.'67 The
Third Conference of Petrograd Factory Committees (5-10 Sep-
tember) was hastily summoned to discuss the circulars. It roundly
condemned them, jeering at Kolokornikov's pathetic attempts to
explain away the circulars on behalf of an embarrassed Ministry of
Labour.68
Some employers saw the circulars as a green light to go ahead and
bring the factory committees to heel. At the Skorokhod shoe factory
and the Aivaz engineering works management announced that they
were going to stop paying members of the factory committee and stop
their interference in hiring-policy.69 On 1 September the administra-
tion at Vulcan announced that it intended to halve the wages bill of
the factory committee. The committee resisted and was fully
supported by the workers, who, going further in their resistance than
the committee wished, clamoured for the removal of the director.
After several weeks' bitter conflict, the wages of committee members
were restored to their former level.70 At the Nevskii footwear factory
management persisted for a week in trying to stop meetings during
working hours and in refusing to pay workers to guard the factory, but
it then gave in.71 In general, labour organisations in Petrograd were
strong enough to thwart efforts by employers to constrain them, and
in most factories employers do not seem to have thought it worth even
trying.
After the failure of attempts to curb workers' control by legal
means, employers were thrown onto the defensive. By September
workers' control had been transmogrified from an essentially defen-
sive tactic of maintaining production into an offensive means of
forcing employers to keep open their factories come what may. The
dominant feeling amongst employers was aptly summed up in the
Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta: 'The sole dream of the industrialist has
become to give up business and to close his enterprise, if only
for a short time. If cases of closure are not so numerous, it is only
182 Red Petrograd

because the threat of mob law, sequestration and unrest hangs over
him.572

Although the main impulse behind the workers' control movement

was a practical concern to save jobs, the movement also reflected the
continuing concern of workers to realise the democratic gains of the
February Revolution. The expanding scope of workers' control was
seen as further limiting the arbitrary authority of management and
fortifying the power of workers in production. Indeed the concern
with maintaining output and the concern with democracy were
mutually reinforcing: the effort to combat potential sabotage by the
employer necessitated a curtailment of his authority. This is made
clear by the preamble to the resolution on workers' control, passed by
the First All-Russian National Conference of Factory Committees,
which stated: 'Having overthrown autocracy in the political sphere,
the working class will aspire to achieve the triumph of the democratic
system in the sphere of production. The idea of workers' control,
which arose naturally in the circumstances of economic ruin created
by the criminal policy of the ruling classes, is the expression of this
aspiration.'73
The concern with workplace-democracy continued to be more vital
in the state sector than in the private sector up to October. At the
beginning of July the first national congress of factory and port
committees subject to the Naval Ministry discussed the possibility of
workers' self-management. Kaffeman, a delegate from the Izhora
works, and probably an SR, introduced a resolution which called for
naval enterprises to be run solely by the factory committees.74 It was
envisaged that the latter would elect a director and administrative
staff, and that the Naval Ministry would send representatives to the
factories for purposes of'control'. An opposing resolution introduced
by a Menshevik, Nabokov, from the Okhta shell shop, said that
factory committees should not run the naval enterprises, for this was
the job of the official administration, but that they should have rights
of information and inspection. Nabokov's resolution was passed by 48
votes to ten, with seven abstentions.75 It is ironic that the
Mensheviks Nabokov and Solomon Schwarz should have proposed
workers' control instead of workers' self-management at the confer-
ence, for their party officially rejected even workers' control, but
clearly it was seen as a lesser evil to full-blown self-management.
The same conference, however, initially overrode attempts by the
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers' control 183

Mensheviks to stop workers electing the administration, as they

already did at the Baltic and Izhora works. A resolution was passed
proposing that a list of candidates for the posts of director and chief
technician be drawn up by the Naval Ministry, factory committees
and technicians' union, from which the workers would then make a
choice. The chosen director would then draw up a list of candidates
for administrative jobs at departmental and shop level, from which
the workers again would choose. They would, however, still retain the
right to raise objections (otvod) to particular administrators or
technicians. Engineers, who generally sat on the naval factory
committees in Petrograd, strongly condemned this resolution,
arguing that modern production required planning and expertise,
and that an elected administration would mean that popularity with
the workers would count for more than scientific training. In view of
this condemnation, the conference, two weeks later, overturned the
resolution by 37 votes to 29, though it upheld the right of workers to
object to administrative and technical personnel.76 The conference
also reaffirmed that the factory committees should only exercise
'informational' or 'preliminary' control, not 'responsible' control.
In the autumn of 1917, as workers intervened more deeply into the
sphere of management, the distinction between the two types of
control seemed to grow more specious, for it was difficult for workers
to 'control' production on a broad scale, without taking some
responsibility for it. This problem greatly exercised the committee at
the Putilov works. As early as June the committee had gone to the
Ministry of Labour to demand a new administration, and discussions
had taken place within the committee as to the number of workers'
representatives that should sit on the new company board. Most of
the committee held that workers should demand a two-thirds
majority of the eighteen places on the board but the Bolshevik
chairman, Vasil'ev, believed that this would vest workers with
responsibility for production willy-nilly.77 On 25 September mem-
bers of the works committee met with the vice-chairman of the
Defence Commission, Parchinskii, to discuss the state of production
at Putilov. He proposed that a joint commission of workers and
management be established to supervise the running of the factory
and to take charge of cutting the workforce and raising productivity.
The majority of Bolsheviks and Menshevik-Internationalists on the
works committee rejected this proposal, since they were unwilling to
take responsibility for sackings and redundancies; instead they called
184 Red Petrograd

for strict 'control' of the administration.78 As Vasil'ev pointed out,

however, it was becoming difficult to prevent 'control5 from entailing
'responsibility': 'Assuming the functions of control, we will be drawn
unwillingly, but quite naturally, into the sphere of operations and of
factory productivity, into a sphere which is very ticklish from the
point of view of preserving the principles of revolutionary democracy
and observing the principles of class struggle.'79
A conference of metalworkers on 15 October pondered further the
contradictions of workers' control. The syndicalist, A.K. Gastev,
opened the discussion, arguing forcefully that the factory committees
were fooling themselves if they thought that 'control' could avoid
entailing responsibility. Speakers debated the relative merits of
'informational' versus 'responsible' control and a clear majority
spoke up for the latter. Although the conference took place only a
week before the October uprising, the expectation of the delegates
was that capitalism would continue for an indefinite time, but that the
state would regulate production on an increasing scale.80 The next
day, however, a conference of works committees under the Artillery
Administration reaffirmed the orthodox position: 'responsibility
for production lies exclusively with the administration ... but the
works committees have the right of control, which means that the
works committee, in the shape of its control commission, has the
right to attend all board meetings and to demand exhaustive
information'.81
Three days later, the First National Conference of Factory
Committees continued the debate. The Bolshevik Larin proposed
that the factory committees send one member to sit on each organ of
administration, though only with an advisory voice. Chubar' rejected
this, arguing that the committee representatives would be cast in the
role of'adjutants to the generals', that they would become embroiled
in paper work, that they would be used by management as 'pushers',
and that they would become targets of rank-and-file hostility. He
proposed that the factory committees control commission should
oversee the work of the administrative organs, but refuse to sit on
them.82 The resolution of the conference insisted that manage-
ment keep the committees fully informed of its decisions and of the
state of production, and allow it full access to correspondence and
accounts.83
The debates about workers' control in the autumn of 1917 arose
from the fact that the movement for workers' control had a
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers' control 185

relentlessly forward-moving dynamic. The demand for workers'

control was, in Trotsky's parlance, a 'transitional' demand, which
stemmed from the immediate practical needs of workers, but which
pushed them ever forward into battle with the capitalism itself.
Workers' control implied a kind of'dual power' in the factory which,
like 'dual power' at state level, was intrinsically unstable and
necessitated resolution at the expense of one class or another.
By October the movement for workers' control had become a mass
movement. The Soviet historian, M.L. Itkin, estimates that 289,000
workers, or 74% of the city's industrial workforce, worked in
enterprises under some form of workers' control.84 Yet this should be
kept in perspective, for Itkin calculates that workers' control operated
in only 96 enterprises. Since there were 1,011 enterprises of all sizes in
the city and its suburbs85, this means that 90% of enterprises,
predominantly small or medium-sized factories, were not touched by
workers' control, Moreover only a minority of factory committees
practised workers' control. It has been calculated that there were 244
factory committees in Petrograd province by October86, so if Itkin is
correct, only 39% operated workers' control. Workers' control thus
affected only large factories and left the majority of smaller enter-
prises untouched.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE FACTORY COMMITTEES TO THE

TRADE UNIONS

The coexistence of factory committees and trade unions raised

problems about their respective spheres of competence. The factory
committees in the private sector had initially pursued activities of a
conventional trade-union type. After the re-establishment of trade
unions, the factory committees withdrew from the sphere of collective
bargaining and began to concentrate on workers' control of produc-
tion. It was not clear, however, whether the committees should
operate independently of the trade unions, or whether they should
merge into them. At the First Conference of Factory Committees a
majority of delegates spoke in favour of the committees being separate
from the trade unions, on the grounds that their job — that of
controlling production - was different from that of the trade unions,
as conventionally understood. The minority of trade-union spokes-
men at the conference, principally the Mezhraionets, D. Ryazanov, and
the Menshevik, V.D. Rubtsov, argued that there was not room for
186 Red Petrograd

two labour organisations, and that the factory committees should

become the primary cells of the trade unions. 87 The trade-union
leaders seem to have been particularly worried by the proposal to set
up a Central Council of Factory Committees. Initially, the propo-
nents of a CCFC had envisaged that it would be attached to the
Petrograd Council of Trade Unions, 88 but in the course of the
conference, they seem to have decided in favour of an autonomous
body. Replying, on behalf of the majority, to trade-union objections,
the Bolshevik delegate from the New Parviainen works said: 'At
present to turn the factory committees into departments of the trade
unions in the factories, as Comrade Ryazanov proposes, seems
impossible, in view of the fact that the factory committees have the
special task of bringing order to the economic life of the factories and
of implementing control - tasks with which the unions are not and
cannot be concerned.' 89 An anodyne resolution was carried which
bypassed the issues at stake and called merely for close liaison
between the new CCFC and the PCTU. 90
A week later, on 11 June, the central board of the Petrograd
metalworkers' union issued a statement on the relationship of the
factory committees to the trade unions. It called unequivocally for the
strict subordination of the factory committees to the unions:
The union is the highest and only organisation responsible for the conduct of
workers in a particular branch of production. It alone has the right to put
demands on the organisations of capitalists and on the state on behalf of the
whole profession. It alone has the right to conduct either general or partial
disputes. It alone may put demands on the state concerning social security. It
alone can express the will of the whole profession on questions concerning the
forms of regulation and control of production ... Local factory committees
occupy a position of subordination to the trade union, within the general
framework of organisation of the branch of production ... but the overall
structure of the union must be made more complex by involving the factory
committees, so that the union combines within itself the organisation of its
members by branch of production and ... by enterprise. However, the central
organisation of the whole trade union must be constituted so that the
preponderance of union representatives over individual factory representa-
tives is guaranteed. The strength of factory committee representation must be
broadest where the union is acting as regulator and controller of production,
and narrowest where the union is pursuing purely militant aims.91
This was a scarcely-veiled attack on the newly-created CCFC,
opposing the factory committees' setting-up a centralised structure
alongside that of the unions. It is interesting to note that the
metal-union proposals concerning the relationship of the two
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers3 control 187

organisations, prefigured with uncanny accuracy the relationship

which was to be established after October.
The unwillingess of the metal-union leadership to accept a division
of labour between the factory committees and trade unions sprang
from their 'productivist' ideology. A significant group on the central
board believed that the trade unions should no longer concern
themselves merely with the defence of workers' interests, but should
prepare to take up the tasks of regulating the economy as a whole.
They were sceptical of the efforts of the factory committees to organise
production at a local level. On 21 July the Provisional Central
Committee of the union passed a resolution, influenced by the
thinking of the Austro-Marxist, Rudolf Hilferding, which argued that
a new phase of state capitalism was coming into being which would
entail far-reaching trustification of production and distribution by the
state. It demanded the active participation of unions in the Economic
Council which was to be set up by the government.92 The aspiration
of the metal union that trade unions should be involved in state
regulation of the economy became a reality after October but, at this
stage, was not widely shared within the trade-union movement.
On 20 June the Third All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions
opened in Petrograd - the first national conference of trade unions
since the February Revolution. The 211 delegates comprised 73
Bolsheviks, 36 Mensheviks, 6 Menshevik-Internationalists, 11 Bund-
ists, 31 non-fractional Social Democrats, 25 SRs, 7 members of no
political party (others unknown).93 The moderate socialists comman-
ded a majority. The Menshevik, V.P. Grinevich, introduced the
discussion on the tasks of the trade unions. He argued that the basic
task of the unions was to conduct the economic struggle of the working
class, whose chief weapon within the framework of capitalism was the
strike. He insisted that unions should not involve themselves in the
regulation of production, as this was the job of the government.94 The
Internationalists excoriated the Mensheviks for their support of state
control of the economy rather than workers' control. The Bolshevik
spokesman, N. Glebov-Avilov, in effect, argued that the job of
workers' control was too important to be left to the factory commit-
tees, that it should be taken over by the trade unions and that the
factory committees should be subordinated to the trade unions: 'The
factory committees must be the primary cells of the unions. Their
activities in the localities must be made dependent on the economic-
control commissions of the unions.'95 This adumbrates the position
188 Red Petrograd

adopted by the Bolsheviks after October, but is at variance with the

line taken by the First Conference of Factory Committees. The
position adopted by the Mensheviks, which was accepted by
Conference by 76 votes to 63 votes, was also inconsistent. The
Mensheviks disliked workers' control, but so opposed were they to the
trade unions becoming involved in the work of controlling produc-
tion, that they insisted that the factory committees take sole
responsibility for this. At the same time, they called on the unions to
turn the factory committees into their supports (opornye punkty) in the
localities and to execute their policies through them. 96
A full discussion of the relationship of the factory committees to the
trade unions took place at the Second Conference of Petrograd
Factory Committees (7-12 August). Lozovskii, later a key advocate
of the organisational subordination of the factory committees to the
unions, put forward a position which was designed to bridge the
divide between the two organisations. He argued that they both had
different spheres of interest: trade unions had to defend the wages and
conditions of labour and oversee the implementation of labour-
protection legislation; factory committees had the task of regulating
production. He argued that the committees should be subordinate to
the unions, insofar as they should be obliged to implement union
decisions at factory level, and should not strike without union
permission. 97 This position was fiercely denounced by the anarcho-
syndicalist, Volin, who lauded the factory committees as the only
revolutionary organisations capable of pursuing the struggle of
labour against capital, and dismissed the trade unions as being
eternally condemned to mediate between capital and labour. 98 He, in
turn, was attacked by Voskov, the Bolshevik delegate from the
Sestroretsk arms works, who argued that the factory committees:
cannot unite workers in the same way as the unions do. The whole
fragmented mass of workers in a particular factory is included in the factory
organisation and if the factory closes, this organisation dissolves. The factory
committee hangs by a thread, it can be replaced on the slightest pretext. The
union unites the truly conscious, organised workers; it remains constant; the
closure of individual factories does not undermine it."
Lozovskii's resolution, proposing a division of labour between the
unions and the factory committees, won the day. Volin's resolution
gained a mere eight votes. 100
On 20 October the All Russian Conference of Factory Committees
discussed once more the relationship of the factory committees to
 Economic chaos and the intensification of workers3 control 189

the trade unions. The Bolshevik, Ryazanov, and the Menshevik,

Lin'kov, on behalf of the trade unions, accused the factory commit-
tees of separatism and called for their organisational subordination.
They were particularly unhappy about the existence of the CCFC
alongside the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, and
called for the disbandment of the former. They were bitterly opposed
by the anarcho-syndicalist Piotrovskii, from Odessa, and by the Left
SR Levin, from the CCFC, both of whom contrasted the vitality of the
committees to the lassitude of the unions.101 The Bolshevik V.
Schmidt, from the metalworkers' union, conceded that the factory
committees had a particular role to play in the sphere of control of
production but wished to see them working under the auspices of the
unions.102 The Bolshevik Skrypnik, from the CCFC, emphasised that
there could at this stage be no question of making the committees the
executive organs of the unions, but went some way towards placating
the trade unionists by agreeing that the CCFC should collaborate
with the city organisations of trade unions in the realm of control of
production.103
There is some evidence that by October opinion within the labour
movement was beginning to shift towards acceptance of the idea of a
merger of the trade unions and factory committees. A commission of
the All-Russian Conference of Factory Committees went some way
towards recognising trade-union primacy. Whilst stressing the
independence of the two organisations and the right of the factory
committees to organise into a national structure, the commission
called for the CCFC to include trade-union representatives and for it
to be given the status of a department of workers' control of the
All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions. In addition, it called
for councils of factory committees to be established in each branch of
industry, which would become the sections for workers' control of the
respective industrial unions.104 Nevertheless the issue remained
unresolved on the eve of October. It was to take several months for the
Bolsheviks to resolve, since the party was divided by the institutional
loyalties of its members.
 8
The social structure of the labour
movement

THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF LABOUR PROTEST AND LABOUR

ORGANISATION

In Chapter i it was argued that two broad groups can be discerned

within the Petrograd working class in 1917: the proletarianised,
skilled, mainly male workers, and the new, younger peasant and
women workers. It was the former group of'cadre' workers who built
the factory committees and trade unions after the February Revolu-
tion. Quantitative data to bear out this contention are lacking,
although a survey offittersat the Putilov works in 1918, conducted by
Strumilin, showed that skilled workers dominated all labour orga-
nisations and had been the first to join the metal union in 1917.1 This
is borne out by a complaint in the industrialists' newspaper in the
spring of 1917 that 'it is usually the most skilled workers, they being
the most conscious, who participate in the different committees - the
factory committees, Soviets etc.'.2 The same sentiment was voiced by
A. Gastev at thefirstnational congress of metalworkers: 'in the unions
we operate by basing ourselves on the skilled element of the
workforce, for example, the turners and fitters ... this is the most
active section of the working class. The unskilled workers are, of
course, less active.'3 Skilled, experienced workers had a greater
capacity than new workers to initiate a social movement and to carry
out consciously-willed social change.4 They had more 'resources' for
organisation: they were better-paid and had more money and time at
their disposal; they were at home in the factory and understood how
production worked; they had experience of organising strikes and
trade unions, of informal shop-floor organisation and of job-control;
they were more literate and thus better-placed to participate in
190
 The social structure of the labour movement 191

political discourse. The shift in the balance of class forces which

resulted from the February Revolution created opportunities for
'cadre' workers to mobilise these 'resources' in order to create an
organised labour movement. 5
The 'cadre' workers who built the labour movement, of whatever
political persuasion, tended to see the new, inexperienced workers as
the 'dark' or 'backward' masses, who had brought 'disorder' and
'anarchy' into the labour movement. As early as 1916 the Workers'
Group of the War Industries Committee noted that:
During the war the composition of the working class has changed; many
alien, undisciplined elements have come into the workforce. In addition, the
intensification of work, the broad application of female and child labour,
uninterrupted overtime and holiday work ... have increased the number of
grounds for conflict of all kinds and these often arise spontaneously. Instead
of organised defence of their interests, workers engage in elemental outbursts
and anarchic methods.6
A Latvian Bolshevik on the CCFG, A. Kaktyn', made a similar point
in 1917, blaming 'anarchic disorders' on the 'not yet fully proletaria-
nised mass of workers consisting of refugees, people from the
countryside and others temporarily swept into industry by the war'. 7
Employers too ascribed disorders to what they called the 'alien
element' (prishlyi element). At the Franco-Russian works management
complained that those who had come to the factory during the war
had had a bad effect on the discipline of the workforce as a whole.8
One must treat the accounts of 'disorders' by workers new to industry
with a certain caution, for the sources reflect the perceptions and
values of the 'organisation builders', not those of the new workers
themselves. We shall see that while the former were by no means
unsympathetic to their less experienced comrades, they often under-
estimated the capacity of new workers for self-activity and political
understanding, because the forms of their activity did not fit the
leaders' own model of appropriate action.
The 'backward masses' {ptstalye massy) were counterposed to the
more 'conscious' {soznatel'nye) workers. The new workers were
perceived as 'backward', either because they were apathetic and
indifferent to the labour movement and to politics, or because they
indulged in uncontrolled militancy (stikhiinost'). These characteris-
tics, which at first sight appear mutually exclusive, typified the
traditional pattern of behaviour of the Russian peasants: long periods
of quiescence punctuated by bouts of rebelliousness (buntarstvo). The
192 Red Petrograd

major task facing 'cadre' workers was to convince the new workers of
the need for organisation: to break them from their apathy or
persuade them of the advantages of planned, sustained pursuit of
their goals over sudden bursts of militancy, born of anger and
emotion, rather than of calculation. This was not so easy in the spring
of 1917, for direct action proved fairly effective in removing hated
administrators ('carting out') or in extracting concessions from the
employers. As the economic crisis worsened, however, the limitations
of sectional, spontaneous actions became more and more apparent.
The promotion of the interests of labour as a whole against capital
required durable organisation and clearly-formulated goals and
strategies. Volatile militancy tended to get in the way of this, and was
thus disliked by labour leaders. They sought to channel the militancy
of the new workers into organisation or, alternatively, to rouse
interest in organisation if workers were bogged down in apathy.

Women workers

In its first issue, the Menshevik party newspaper did not fail to note
that whilst women had courageously faced the bullets of the police
during the revolution, not one woman had as yet been elected to the
Petrograd Soviet.9 Observations that working women were not
participating in the nascent labour movement were commonplace. A
report on the Svetlana factory at the end of March noted that 'it is
almost exclusively women who work there. They but dimly perceive
the importance of the current situation and the significance of labour
organisation and proletarian discipline. For this reason, and because
of low pay, a certain disorder in production is noticeable.' 10 On 22
April fifty women from state factories, including twenty-two from the
Pipe works, met to discuss how to organise women. They agreed that
'women workers everywhere are yearning to take part in existing
labour organisations, but up to now have joined them only in small
numbers, on nothing like the same scale as men'. 11 As late as June, a
woman from the Pipe works described the situation in shop number
four, where 2,000 women were employed on automatic machines
which cut out and processed fuses:
Sometimes you see how the women will read something, and from their
conversation it emerges that a desire to step forward has been kindled in their
hearts. But to our great regret, there is at present very little organisation
among the women of the Pipe works. There are no women comrades among
 The social structure of the labour movement 193

us to fan the spark of consciousness or point out to us the path to truth. We

really need a comrade who can speak on the tribune in front of a sea of faces
and tell us where to go, whom to listen to and what to read. 12

If women workers did act to defend their interests, it was often by

means of elemental bouts of direct action. This is apparent from the
example of two notoriously 'backward' textile-mills on Vyborg Side,
where at the end of June two spectacular examples of 'carting out'
took place. After the textile union began contract negotiations with
the textile section of the SFWO, the latter called a halt to further
wage-increases in the industry, pending the settlement of the
contract.13 When the director of the Vyborg spinning-mill tried to
explain to a general meeting of workers that he was unable to consider
their demand for a wage-increase, the women seized him, shoved him
in a wheelbarrow and carted him to the canal where, poised perilously
on the edge of the bank, he shakily signed a piece of paper agreeing to
an increase.14 When L.G. Miller, the redoubtable chairman of the
textile section of the SFWO, heard of this he demanded that the
textile union send an official to the mill to sort out the women, but the
women refused to listen to the official. The director, therefore, agreed
to pay the increase and was fined 30,000 r. by the SFWO for so
doing.15 Only days later, women at the neighbouring Sampsionevs-
kaya mill, where Miller himself was director, demanded a similar
increase. When Miller rejected their demand at a general meeting,
women workers - who comprised 91 % of the workforce - seized him
and called for a wheelbarrow (' Vmeshok i na tachkuP [Tie him in a sack
and shove him on a barrow!']). Male apprentices tried to dissuade
them, but Miller climbed quietly into the barrow, asking only that the
women should not put a sack over his head. Instead they tied it to his
feet and, with raucous shouts, wheeled him around Vyborg Side,
urging him to agree to a wage-rise. Miller might have been thrown off
the Grenadier bridge had not a group of off-duty soldiers intervened.
Thoroughly shaken by his ordeal, Miller had to be carried back to the
factory, but he remained obdurate, and the women did not receive a
wage-rise.16
One should not assume from this that women remained outside the
orbit of the labour movement. Thanks to the efforts of small numbers
of socialist women, working women rapidly began to join the trade
unions and to engage in more organised forms of struggle. There are
no data on the number of women in the trade unions, but it does not
appear that the industries with the highest proportions of women
194 Red Petrograd

workers were necessarily those with low densities of trade-union

membership. In the food and textile industries women comprised
66% and 69% of the workforce, respectively, but trade-union
membership stood at about 80% and 70%. 17 Trade-union mem-
bership was lowest in the chemical industry - at about 48% - which
does seem to have been linked to the fact that the skilled men joined
the metal and woodturners' unions, leaving the peasant women
machine-operators, who comprised 47% of the workforce, to fend for
themselves.18 In the metal industry, however, men encouraged
women workers to join the union, and it is probable that a majority of
working women joined trade unions in the course of 1917, although
the evidence does not suggest that they participated actively in union
life. Women were poorly represented in leadership positions in the
unions, even in industries where they comprised a majority of the
workforce. Eleven out of twenty members of the first board of the
textile union were women, but only two remained after its reorganisa-
tion - alongside thirteen men. 19 The Petrograd boards of the metal,
leather and needleworkers' unions were equally unrepresentative -
each having a solitary woman member. 20
In the factory committees a similar situation existed. Women
comprised a third of the factory workforce, but only 4% of the
delegates to the First Conference of Factory Committees. 21 At the
Triangle rubber works 68% of the workforce was female, but only two
of the twenty-five members of the factory 'soviet' were women.22 At
the Nevskaya footwear factory 45% of the workforce was female, but
none of the starosty was a woman. 23 At the Pechatkin paper-mill 45%
of the workforce was female, but only two out of thirteen starosty were
women. At the Sampsionevskaya cotton-mill, where 85% of the
workforce were women, representation was rather better, for four out
of seven members of the committee were women.25 This suggests that
in industries where women were in the majority, they may have
tended to be less dependent on men - and more self-reliant.
Those socialist women who devoted so much effort to organising
working women accused the labour leaders of not paying enough
attention to the special needs of women. In June A. Kollontai
reproached the delegates to the Third Trade-Union Conference for
not taking up questions of maternity provision and equal pay. 26 In
September she wrote an article for the journal of the Petrograd
Council of Trade Unions, which urged union leaders to treat women
 The social structure of the labour movement 195
'not as appendages to men, but as independent, responsible members
of the working class, having the same rights and also the same
responsibilities to the collective'.27 In October she spoke to the First
All-Russian Conference of Factory Committees warning of the
political danger of their remaining indifferent to the plight of women
workers.28 At none of the conferences of the labour movement in 1917,
however, was there a full discussion of the problems of working
women and of their relationship to the organised labour movement.
At factory level women workers often met with active discrimina-
tion from men in their attempts to organise. At the Pipe works a
woman complained. 'It happens, not infrequently even now, that the
backward workers, who lack consciousness, cannot imagine that a
woman can be as capable as a man of organising the broad masses,
and so they make fun of the elected representatives of the women
workers, pointing their fingers as though at a savage, and saying with
a sneer: "there go our elected representatives55 .'29 M. Tsvetkova
wrote to the leatherworkers5 journal, complaining about the
behaviour of her male colleagues:
Instead of supporting, organising and going hand-in-hand with the women,
they behave as though we are not equal members of the working family and
sometimes do not bother with us at all. When the question of unemployment
and redundancies arises, they try to ensure that the men stay and that the
women go, hoping that the women will be unable to resist because of their
poor organisation and feebleness. When women attempt to speak, in order to
point out that the men are behaving wrongly and that we must jointly find a
solution, the men will not allow us to speak and will not listen. It is difficult
even for the more conscious women to fight against this, the more so since
often the mass of women do not understand and do not wish to listen to us.30
Labour leaders, generally, opposed active discrimination against
working women (for example, over redundancies). They encouraged
them to organise, and the struggles of working women began to
assume a more disciplined character, although 'spontaneous5 mili-
tancy by no means disappeared. Labour leaders were genuinely
solicitous of the needs of working women as low-paid workers, but less
solicitous of their needs as women. They spurned any idea of specific
policies for working women, believing that this would be a deviation
towards bourgeois feminism. The result was that women joined the
labour movement, but played a passive role within it. After October
this was to result once more in women becoming apathetic and
indifferent.
196 Red Petrograd

Peasant and unskilled workers

Like women workers, peasant and unskilled workers displayed a

preference for direct action over formal organisation, and a certain
distrust of labour leaders. At the Metal works a carpenter described
the attitude of new workers to the trade unions as follows:
A majority of workers ... in essence do not belong to the category of true
proletarians. These people have come to the factory from the countryside in
order to avoid military service and the war, or to assist the rural household
with a good factory wage. This element... will move only when it feels that it
is directly defending its own interests, but it has not grasped the principle of
organising the working masses into unions for permanent, day-to-day
struggle. They reduce this principle merely to paying subscriptions, and
argue that they do not need this extra expense, or frankly admit that they are
going to leave the factory as soon as the war is over and return to the
countryside.31
He also blamed the 'cadre' workers for 'neglecting the organisation of
their less conscious comrades'. When the union tried to implement
the metalworkers' contract in autumn, over half the workers in the
Metal works refused the wage category into which they were placed
by the rates commission, inundating the factory committee with
demands to be upgraded. In November unskilled painters beat up a
representative of the metalworkers' union and refused to release him
until he agreed to sign an order granting all workers a wage of twelve
rubles a day, backdated to 5 June. 3 2
At the Pipe works the Bolsheviks, whose fortunes were in the
ascendant, agitated for new elections to the Vasilevskii district soviet,
which were fixed for 17 May. The Petrograd Soviet Executive,
however, arranged a meeting at the factory for that day, so the shop
stewards agreed to postpone elections. The peasant workers in the
foundry were outraged and resolved to press ahead with the elections.
Kapanitskii, a shop steward and an SR deputy to the Soviet, was sent
to persuade the foundry workers to change their minds. The official
protocol of a general factory meeting describes what happened: 'The
foundryworkers sat comrade Kapanitskii in a wheelbarrow, beat him
and threatened to throw him in the furnace, but then decided to save
the furnace for other people. They confined themselves to wheeling
him out into the factory yard and then to the river. It was only thanks
to the intervention of comrades in shops numbers eight and four that
he was released.'33 A few Bolsheviks seem to have provoked or
connived in this action. The shop steward of the foundry blamed the
 The social structure of the labour movement 197

violence on a handful of workers, when he made a public apology to

the general meeting. 34
Like women workers, unskilled and peasant workers did begin to
organise in 1917. Chernorabochie set up a trade union in April, which
later merged with the metal union, and Chapter 5 described how they
became organised and politicised during the course of the protracted
contract negotiations of the metal union. Similarly, peasant workers
and soldiers formed some seventy zemlyachestva in the capitals to bring
together migrants from the same area and to undertake political
agitation among the peasantry. The total membership of the
zemlyachestva may have been as high as 30,000, and by September the
major ones had swung from the SRs to the Bolsheviks.35

Young Workers

Workers under the age of eighteen showed a far greater capacity for
self-organisation than women or peasant workers, though girls were
far less active than boys. They built a youth movement - which
acquired a strongly Bolshevik character- in the shape of the Socialist
Union of Working Youth (SUWY). 36 Through this, they played a
leading role in the political events of 1917 (the July Days and the
October seizure of power). Many young workers joined the Bolshevik
party and the Red Guards: it has been estimated that 19% of those
joining the Petrograd Bolshevik party were under twenty-one, and no
fewer than 28% of Red Guards were of this age. 37 Working youth
played a less prominent part in the organised labour movement,
however, which seems to have been connected to the fact that workers
under eighteen were in a relationship of dependence on adult workers
in the workplace. 38
In the wake of the February Revolution, young workers began to
set up committees in the factories, first in the metal works of Vyborg,
Narva and Vasilevskii districts, and then spreading to other indus-
tries and areas. 39 Out of these factory youth groups there developed
district youth organisations and, subsequently, the city-wide youth
movement. From the first, these factory youth groups demanded
representation on the factory committees. At some of the more
politically radical enterprises this demand was conceded. At the
Phoenix, Aivaz and Renault works the factory committees allowed
young workers two representatives.40 At the Cable works the
committee supported the young workers' demand for the vote at
198 Red Petrograd

eighteen and called on the Provisional Government to withdraw

eighteen-year-olds from the Front if it would not enfranchise them.41
A majority of factory committees, however, were more reluctant to
allow young workers special representation and to take up their
demands.42 Under pressure, committees at the Baltic, Putilov and
Gun works allowed youth representatives to sit on the committees but
not to vote.43 Young workers at the Gun works condemned the
committee's refusal to allow their representatives voting rights: 'We
protest because the father-proletariat, in spurning his children,
makes it harder for us to become, in the future, experienced, hardened
fighters for right, honour and the triumph of the world proletariat
and, of course, in the first place, of our own proletariat.'44 At the
Kersten knitting mill the factory committee - which was the first in
the textile industry to implement workers' control - also refused
voting rights to the two representatives of the 660 girls at the mill. The
youth committee condemned this policy, but argued that 'your
representative on our committee may only have an advisory voice
since no organisation may interfere in the affairs of youth'.45 In May a
conference of factory committees on Vyborg Side agreed that young
workers should have voting rights on the committees, but only on
matters affecting their economic position.46
The trade unions supported the demands for improved wages for
young workers and came out in support of a six-hour day for young
workers.47 They were slower to take up demands for the overhauling
of the system of apprenticeship and for the vote at eighteen, although
Bolshevik-dominated unions supported them. There are no statistics
on the age structure of union membership. Young workers seem to
have joined the unions, but many officially debarred workers under
the age of sixteen from membership.48 For obvious reasons of age and
inexperience, workers under 18 were not represented at leadership
level in the unions, but union leaders were by no means old. At the
first national congress of metalworkers in January 1918 the average
age of delegates was twenty-nine, and at the first congress of
leatherworkers, at around the same time, 54% of delegates were
under thirty, although only 15% were under twenty-five.49

It is clear that the forms of collective action engaged in by most

women, peasant and unskilled workers were different from those of
'cadre' workers. In general, the former lacked 'resources' for sus-
tained, institutionalised pursuit of goals, and turned most easily to
 The social structure of the labour movement 199
forms of 'direct action', such as 'carting out', wildcat strikes,
go-slows. These forms of action were often violent and always
sectional, but they were not as irrational as they may seem. 'Carting
out', for example, entailed a level of communication and coordina-
tion, and a conception of appropriate action, though not necessarily a
specific plan of action.50 It was a symbolic action, born of anger and
emotion rather than calculation, but it had a certain rationality as a
type of'collective bargaining by riot'.51 The evidence suggests that as
the economic crisis grew worse, such forms of 'direct action' became
increasingly less effective- a sign of desperation and weakness, rather
than of confidence and strength.
To the leaders of the factory committees and trade unions,
spontaneous forms of militancy on the part of the new workers were a
threat to the project of building an organised labour movement, and
were thus condemned as 'backward'. The labour leaders sought to
direct 'spontaneity' into organised channels, for they believed that the
pursuit of the interests of workers as a class, and the achievement of
far-reaching social and political changes on their behalf required
effective organisation and clearly-formulated goals. Whilst spon-
taneous militancy might be effective in securing the aims of a section
of workers in the short term, it could not secure the ends of the
working class as a whole. They recognised, moreover, that only
formal organisation and planned action could achieve maximum
gains at minimum cost. They thus sought to 'tame' the volatile,
explosive militancy of the new workers, and aspired to bring them
within the orbit of the organised labour movement: to teach them
habits of negotiation, formulation of demands, the practices of
committees and meetings. They seem to have had some success,
nothwithstanding the unpropitious economic circumstances, in sub-
ordinating buntarstvo to bargaining.
The labour leaders were sincerely anxious to promote the welfare of
those workers less fortunate than themselves. They believed that both
new and experienced workers shared the same class interests and
could best pursue these through united organisation and struggle.
They were, however, unwilling to recognise that there might be
contradictions of interest between women and men, youths and
adults, or unskilled and skilled. They thus would not give special
treatment to any of these groups, for example, by setting up
organisations within the unions for women workers or by allowing
young workers special representation on the factory committees.
200 Red Petrograd

Although they justified their position in political terms - the working

class is a unity in which there are no diversities of interest - this
attitude reflected the social position of the leaders themselves. For
within the craft tradition of the 'organisation-builders', skill was
closely bound up with masculinity and a degree of condescension
towards women and youth. Thus in spite of their very best intentions
- their determination to involve all workers in the labour movement -
the efforts of the labour leaders were stymied by an unconscious
paternalism towards those whom they were trying to organise.

DEMOCRACY AND BUREAUCRACY IN THE TRADE UNIONS

AND FACTORY COMMITTEES

Democracy in the trade unions

One usually thinks of 'democratic centralism' as the organisational

principle espoused by the Bolshevik party, but the principle was
accepted by the labour movement as a whole. The Third Trade-
Union Conference resolved that 'democratic centralism' should
underpin the organisational construction of the trade-union move-
ment, in order to ensure 'the participation of every member in the
affairs of the union and, at the same time, unity in the leadership of the
struggle'.52 'Democratic centralism' did not represent a coherent set
of organisational rules; it was rather a vague principle of democratic
decision-making, combined with centralised execution of decisions
taken. The balance between 'democracy' and 'centralism' was thus
not fixed with any precision, and within the trade unions, in the
course of 1917, the balance tended to shift away from democracy
towards centralism.
The great majority of Petrograd factory workers joined trade
unions in 1917, but the data on membership are unreliable, and so
one cannot determine the percentage of members in each branch of
industry. Rough calculations suggest that the percentage was highest
in printing (over 90%); that in the leather, wood and metal industries
it was 80% or more; that in the textiles it was around 70%, but that in
chemicals it was as low as 48% (compare Tables 1 and 12). In many
metal-works general meetings of workers voted to join the union en
bloc, though in a minority of factories, such as the Metal works, the
factory committees resisted this 'closed shop' policy.53 In other
industries, too, with the exception of chemicals, workers tended to
 The social structure of the labour movement 201
make the decision to join the union collectively rather than indi-
vidually. On 8 May delegates of the woodturners' union threatened to
expel from the factories any worker who refused to join the union.54
Union subscriptions were designed to attract all workers, including
the low-paid, into the union. Initial membership of the metal union
cost one ruble, and monthly dues were graduated according to
earnings. Workers earning more than ten rubles a day paid two rubles
a month; those earning between six and ten rubles a day paid 1 r.
40 k.; those earning less than six rubles, paid 80 k. a month, and
apprentices paid 50 k.55 Union delegates would stand outside the
finance-office on pay day to ensure that all workers paid their dues.
Initially, most union members seem to have paid their dues: in the
metal union the monthly sum of subscriptions rose from 94,335 r. in
June to 133,540 r. in July;56 in the textile union it rose from 4,800 r. in
May to 10,000 r. in July.57 As the economic crisis set in, however,
non-payment of union dues became a major problem. In the leather
union the monthly sum of dues fell from 18,093 r- m May to 15,167 r.
in July.58 The glass union reported in September that 'subscriptions
are being paid promptly', but in December reported that only 326 out
of 807 members in Petrograd had paid their dues that month.59
The collection of monthly dues, the distribution of union publica-
tions, the convening of union meetings and the liaison between the
individual enterprise and the union hierarchy devolved on factory
delegates. These delegates were elected by all the union members in a
particular enterprise: in the textile industry delegates were elected on
the basis of one delegate for every twenty union members; in the metal
industry on the basis of one delegate for every hundred union
members.60 In some of the larger factories union delegates formed
councils within the factory, but the main job of delegates was to liaise
with other factories in the same industry and district of Petrograd. In
the print industry the delegates (upolnomochennye) had a similar job to
factory delegates in other industries, except that they also formed the
workshop committee. The division between the trade union and the
factory committee thus did not exist in the print industry. Union
delegates from each enterprise met at city-district level at least once a
month to discuss union business, to oversee the activities of the union
board and to discuss problems in individual enterprises. In many
unions, including the metal, print and leather unions, the delegates
elected district boards of the union, which were responsible for
liaising between the city board of the union and the individual
202 Red Petrograd

enterprise and for organising recruitment and the collection of

subscriptions. In the metal and print unions some delegates defended
the autonomy of the district boards from the city board, fearing that
too much centralisation at city level would lead to bureaucratisation
of the union.
In principle, if not always in practice, power was vested in the city
boards, not the district boards, of the unions. The city boards were
elected by city-wide meetings of union delegates (comprising either
representatives of city-district delegate meetings or all district
delegates en masse). On 7 May 535 delegates elected the Petrograd
board of the metal union. 61 On 4 June 300 delegates from twenty-six
textile mills elected sixteen members to the city board of the textile
union. 62 The city board was responsible for coordinating economic
struggles, dispensing strike funds, publishing the union journal and
for negotiation with the SFWO and the government. 63 In those
unions, such as the print, leather and food unions, where professional
sections representing individual crafts existed, these were subordin-
ate to the city board. Where district boards existed, these too were
subordinate to the city board, though resistance to central control by
the district boards was by no means unknown - particularly in the
sphere of finance. The members of the city boards - and often the
secretaries and treasurers of the district boards - were usually
employed full-time by the union.
By the summer of 1917, the Petrograd metal union had almost a
hundred full-time officials.64 Clearly, 'bureaucratisation' was under
way, although it would be wrong to exaggerate the extent of this. The
powers of the city boards were strictly circumscribed, and in all
unions the boards in theory were strictly subordinate to the city-wide
meetings of union delegates. It was these meetings, rather than the
boards themselves, which decided all major policy issues. The boards
reported to city delegate meetings at least once a month and members
of the boards could be recalled by the delegates. Conflicts arose
between the boards and the delegates, as the discussion of the
metalworkers' contract in Chapter 5 showed, which reflected the
ambitions of the boards to extend their power, and the determination
of the delegates to resist this process. The extent of democracy in the
unions thus depended on the activism and enthusiasm of the
delegates. Where they were remiss in their duties, then not only did
the union board develop into an oligarchy but the ordinary members
of the union tended to lapse into apathy. This seems to have been an
 The social structure of the labour movement 203
increasing problem in the metal union by the later months of 1917. A
worker wrote to the union journal complaining of the behaviour of
many factory delegates:
If the central and district boards [of the union] are responsible to the meetings
of [factory] delegates, then the delegates themselves are responsible to
nobody. The majority of delegates, once elected, do not fulfil their duties, they
do not recruit members, they do not collect subscriptions and do not even
appear at delegate meetings ... All the time we observe a host of instances
where the majority of our members are not aware of the policies and decisions
of the central organs ... Naturally such ignorance at times causes apathy in
the membership. Often one feels that the central organs of the union are
totally cut off from the mass of the members. This threatens to turn the central
organisation into a bureaucracy.'65
By the end of 1917 there is growing evidence that power within the
union was passing away from the rank-and-file to the full-time
officials of the unions. This should not, however, blind us to the fact
that before October a significant degree of membership participation
in the affairs of the union existed.

DEMOCRACY IN THE FACTORY COMMITTEES

Factory committees were much closer to ordinary workers than trade

unions. They embraced all the workers in a single enterprise, whereas
the trade unions embraced workers in a branch of industry. The
committees represented all workers in a factory regardless of their job,
whereas workers in the same factory might be members of different
trade unions, despite the principle of industrial unionism. The factory
committee represented everyone gratis, whereas one had to pay to be a
member of a trade union. The committee usually met in working
hours on the factory premises, whereas trade unions usually did not.
For all these reasons, therefore, factory committees tended to be the
more popular organisation. The SR, I. Prizhelaev, wrote: 'The
factory committees have the crucial merit of being close to the worker,
accessible, comprehensible to everybody - even the least conscious.
They are involved in all the minutiae of factory life and so are a
wonderful form of mass organisation . . . The trade unions are less
accessible because they appear to stand further away from the
rank-and-file worker.' 66 7,000 workers at the Respirator factory on 3
September described the factory committees as 'the best mouthpieces
of the working class and the only real and true reflection of the moods
of the toiling people'. 67
204 Red Petrograd

Every worker could vote in the election of a factory committee,

regardless ofjob, sex or age. Any worker might stand for election, so
long as he or she did not perform any managerial function.68 Some
factories, such as the Putilov works, stipulated that workers under the
age of twenty might not stand for election.69 Elections were supposed
to be by secret ballot, according to the constitution drawn up by the
conference of representatives of state enterprises (15 April), the
statutes published by the labour department of the Petrograd Soviet
and the model constitution passed by the Second Conference of
Factory Committees.70 Initially, factory committees were elected for
one year, but the Second Conference specified that they should be
elected for six months only. Factory committees could be recalled at
any time by general meetings,71 and they were required to report on
their activities to general meetings at least once a month.72
The extent to which the working-class movement was permeated
by a commitment to direct democracy is reflected in the fact that it
was not the factory committee perse which was the sovereign organ in
the factory, but the general meeting of all workers in the factory or
section. It was this general assembly which passed resolutions on the
pressing political questions of the day or decided important matters
affecting the individual enterprise. This Rousseauesque concept of
sovereignty was established in practice from the first. At the
conference of representatives from state enterprises on 15 April it was
decided that general meetings of the factory workforce should take
place at least once a month and should be called by either the factory
committee or by one-third of the workforce.73 The Second Conference
lowered this requirement, by stipulating that one-fifth of the work-
force might summon a general meeting, which should be attended by
at least one-third of the workers in order to be quorate. The
Conference laid down that authority was vested in the workforce as a
whole rather than in the committee.74
Marc Ferro has argued recently that we should not allow ourselves
to be bewitched by the far-reaching democracy of the paper
constitutions of the popular organisations of the Russian Revolution:
reality was a very different matter. He argues that long before
October the popular organisations were undergoing a process of
bureaucratisation 'from above' and 'from below'. In the case of the
factory committees, Ferro argues that the leadership of the movement
became more entrenched and less accountable to the member-
ship. Bureaucratisation 'from above' was manifest in a decline in
 The social structure of the labour movement 205
the proportion of delegates at factory-committee conferences elected
from the factories and in an increase in the proportion of 'bureau-
cratically appointed5 delegates.75 Bureaucratisation 'from below5 was
evident in the refusal of factory committee members on the ground to
submit to re-election, and in the growing practice of inquorate
meetings taking decisions.76 It is not the present purpose to criticise
Ferro5s work in detail, 77 although scrutiny of his evidence suggests
neither that the proportion of 'bureaucratically appointed5 delegates
at the factory committee conferences was on the increase in 1917, nor
that they were in a position to influence conference decisions, since
many of them did not have voting rights. What is pertinent to the
concerns of this chapter is the extent to which factory committees on
the ground were subject to re-election prior to October.
Re-elections took place at the Putilov, Electric Light, Pipe,
Dinamo, Langenzippen, Skorokhod, Parviainen, Lessner, the Mint,
Promet and Okhta shell-works. In other factories individual mem-
bers of the committees were replaced. At the Baltic works the first
committee was self-selected, but it was properly elected in the second
half of April. 78 At the end of July a general meeting expressed no
confidence in the committee, but the committee did not immediately
resign.79 Only when a further general meeting on 15 September voted
for its immediate recall, did it step down. 80 Any party or non-party
group was allowed to put up a slate of candidates in the new election,
providing it could muster fifty signatures. The slates were then
published and voting took place on 18 September by secret ballot.
The Bolsheviks won a majority of the forty places.81 Even if the
committees in a majority of factories did not submit for re-election
(and it is not clear that this was the case), it was not necessarily a sign
of their bureaucratisation, for many had not completed their
six-month term of office by October.
Data on the proportion of workers who took part in factory
committee elections are exiguous, but they suggest that in most
factories a majority of workers took part. At the Pechatkin paper mill
in March 57% of workers voted in elections.82 At the Sestroretsk arms
works the committee declared soviet elections void when only
half the electorate bothered to vote. It urged workers that: 'In view of
the seriousness of the present moment, general factory meetings must
be well-attended. It is the duty of every worker, as an honest citizen,
to attend discussions of all questions concerning both the factory itself
and the government in general.583 On 1 August, when the Sestroretsk
206 Red Petrograd

works committee was re-elected, 72% of the workers voted.84 In the

same month 88% of workers at Parviainen voted in factory committee
elections.85 In September 69% of workers at New Lessner took part in
elections, and in October 74% of workers at the Pipe works.86
Surveying the available evidence, it becomes clear that the degree
of democracy in operation varied between factories, and that
undemocratic practices were by no means unknown. Yet what strikes
one about the period prior to October is not the growing bureaucra-
tisation of the factory committees in Petrograd, but the extent to
which they managed to realise an astonishing combination of direct
and representational democracy.
This is not to dispose of the problem of'bureaucracy', however,for
'bureaucracy' and 'democracy' need not be polar opposites. It
depends in part how one understands 'bureaucracy'. Max Weber
emphasised the inter-relationship of bureaucracy, rationality and
legitimate authority {Herrschaft), and the factory committees were, to
an extent, 'bureaucratic' in the Weberian sense. Far from being
anarchic, protozoan bodies, the committees were solid, structurally-
ramified organisations which functioned in a regular routinised
manner.87 The duties of the committees and their sub-commissions
were fixed by rules and administrative dispositions; their activities
were spelt out in written records; to a point, the committees followed
'general rules which are more or less stable, more or less exhaustive
and which can be learned'.88 In other respects, the committees
operated in marked contrast to the Weberian model. There was no
strict hierarchical system of authority, such that the lower levels of the
factory committee movement were subordinate to the higher levels,
though this was, arguably, the aspiration of the CCFC. The members
of the committees in no way saw themselves as functionaries
operating according tofixedrules. They were policy-makers in their
own right who viewed their 'office' as a means of effecting economic
and social change. They were not trained for office and enjoyed no
stability of tenure. Finally, they were not appointed by some
impersonal organisation, but elected by and accountable to the
workers. Nevertheless, in order to implement the goals of workers'
control, the committees had begun to develop a degree of bureaucracy
and autonomy from the rank-and-file to ensure that spheres of
day-to-day, practical activity were left to their discretion.89 Herein
lay a potential for the factory-committee leaders to become a
bureaucratic stratum separate from, rather than organically linked to
 The social structure of the labour movement 207
their worker constituency. Moreover, within labour organisations
this potential for bureaucratisation existed in a different form, which
has been succinctly analysed by Richard Hyman in relationship to
trade unionism:
There is an important sense in which the problem of 'bureaucracy' denotes
not so much a distinct stratum of personnel as a relationship which permeates the
whole practice of trade unionism. 'Bureaucracy' is in large measure a
question of the differential distribution of expertise and activism: of the
dependence of the mass of union membership on the initiative and strategic
experience of a relatively small cadre of leadership - both 'official' and
'unofficial' ... the 'bad side of leadership' still constitutes a problem even in
the case of a cadre of militant lay activists sensitive to the need to encourage
the autonomy and initiative of the membership.90

In the Russian labour movement the dependence of the rank-and-

file on the initiative and experience of the leadership was particularly
acute, in view of the fact that the rank-and-file comprised unskilled or
semi-skilled women and peasant workers unused to organisation. The
skilled, proletarianised male leaders of the labour movement sought
to bind these inexperienced workers into a disciplined unity, so that
they might realise their democratic potential and exercise power on
their own behalf. In so doing, they ran the constant danger of
dominating the rank-and-file. As early as autumn, a woman from the
Nevka cotton-spinning mill, where 92% of the workforce were
women, complained of the behaviour of the overwhelmingly male
factory committee: 'They have done a lot to organise the dark mass,
but now reveal a desire to concentrate all power in their hands. They
are beginning to boss their backward comrades, to act without
accountability . . . They deal with the workers roughly, haughtily,
using expressions like "To the devil's mother with you!"' 91 Later
a leatherworker from the Osipov saddle factory wrote to the
leatherworkers' newspaper:
... Often members of the committees gradually become cut off from the
masses, they become alienated from them and lose their confidence. Quite
often the masses blame them for becoming autocrats, for taking no account of
the mood of the majority of workers, for being too conciliatory. This, it is true,
is explained by the peculiar conditions of the present time, by the acerbity of
the masses, by their low level of culture; but sometimes the factory committee
members themselves provoke such a reaction by their behaviour. They get on
their high horse and pay scant attention to the voice of the workers.
Sometimes they show little enthusiasm or do very little and this causes
discontent among the masses.92
208 Red Petrograd

The balance between democracy and bureaucracy in the labour

movement depended on the economic and political conditions in
society at large. So long as these conditions were favourable to the
revolutionary goals which the labour leaders had set themselves, then
democratic elements overrode bureaucratic elements, i.e. the condi-
tions were such that the popular forces could check the effectivity of
bureaucratic forces. Once these conditions changed radically, as they
did after October, bureaucratic elements came to the fore, which
fostered the emergence of a bureaucratic stratum dominating the
whole of society. After October the Bolshevik leaders of the factory
committees, sincerely committed to workers' democracy, but losing
their working-class base, began to concentrate power in their hands,
excluded the masses from information and decision-making and set
up a hierarchy of functions. The trade unions, too, became less
accountable to their members, since they were now accountable to the
government, and soon turned primarily into economic apparatuses of
the state. This may all suggest that bureaucratisation was inscribed in
the revolutionary process in 1917, but if so, it was inscribed as a
possibility only: one cannot pessimistically invoke some 'iron law of
oligarchy'. Democratic and bureaucratic elements existed in a
determinate relationship in all popular organisations - a relationship
which was basically determined by the goals of the organisations and
the degree to which those goals were facilitated by political and
economic circumstances. These circumstances were to change dra-
matically in the autumn of 1917, and it was this change which shifted
the balance between the forces of democracy and bureaucracy in
favour of the latter.
 9
The October revolution and the
organisation of industry

THE DEGREE ON WORKERS CONTROL

The Bolshevik seizure of power on 24-5 October was welcomed by a

big majority of workers in Petrograd, who had tired of Kerensky's
'government of swindlers'. The Bolshevik action was seen as inau-
gurating a revolutionary government by the people, though the
precise shape which this government should take was a matter of
dispute. For industrial workers, one of the most important of the
initial measures passed by the new government was the Decree on
Workers' Control, published on 14 November.1 This Decree legalised
the de facto control which had been established in the factories of
Petrograd since the February Revolution.
The All-Russian Council of Factory Committees (ARCFC), set up
after the First All-Russian Conference, drafted a decree on workers'
control, which they discussed with Lenin and representatives from
the All-Russian Council of Trade Unions as early as 26 October.
Astonishingly, their decree was entirely about the creation of a central
apparatus to regulate the economy, i.e. what subsequently was to be
established as the Supreme Council of National Economy (VSNKh).
It said nothing about workers' control, i.e. about the activities of
workers at the grass roots, and for this reason it was criticised by
Lenin. He therefore proceeded to draft an alternative decree.2 This
decree breathes a spirit of libertarianism which reflects Lenin's
profound faith at this time in the creativity of the masses. It
recognised the right of workers in all industrial enterprises of
whatever size to control all aspects of production, to have complete
access to all spheres of administration, including the financial, and,
finally, the right of the lower organs of workers' control to bind
209
21 o Red Petrograd

employers by their decisions.3 It was Lenin's draft which was taken as

the basis for the decree on workers' control. This awkward fact makes
nonsense of the claim in Western historiography that, once power was
in his grasp, Lenin, the stop-at-nothing centraliser, proceeded to
crush the 'syndicalist' factory committees. In fact, the reverse is true.
At this stage the ARCFC was more concerned with centralised
regulation of the economy, whilst Lenin was more concerned with
legalising grass-roots control.
On 8 November the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of
the Soviets (VTsIK) set up a five-person commission, which included
Milyutin, Lozovskii and two left SRs, Kamkov and Zaks, to scrutinise
Lenin's draft and to amend it in accordance with proposals from the
factory committees and trade unions. 4 On 14 November Milyutin
introduced the Decree to VTsIK for discussion. He explained that
three broad objections to the Decree had been made whilst it was
being amended by the commission. First, critics had objected that
workers' control could only be discussed in the context of a planned
economy but, Milyutin countered, 'we have been overtaken by events
. . . we have had to coordinate the [work of] control [organs] set up in
the localities, and to draw them into a single, streamlined state
apparatus, even at the cost of proceeding in an unsystematic fashion'.
Secondly, critics had objected that 'the commission was extending
powers of control too far [downwards] and that these powers should
be limited'. Milyutin countered: 'we proceeded from the principle of
control from below. We based the control apparatus on the local
factory committees, so that the higher instances of control will consist
of their central bodies, filled out by representatives of trade unions
and Soviets.' The third point that gave rise to objections was the
question of whether or not employers should be bound by the
decisions of the control organs. Critics felt that to make decisions
mandatory would endanger the interest of the general economic plan;
but the commission, whilst agreeing that employers should have three
days in which to object to decisions, felt that workers' control would
be unworkable if the decisions of the control organs were not
binding. 5 VTsIK proceeded to ratify the Decree, which gave workers
full rights of control over production, distribution, finance and sales.
The chief difference between Lenin's draft and the final Decree lay in
the fact that a hierarchy of central organs was established by the
latter, so that organs of control in the enterprise were subject to
regional councils of control which, in turn, were subject to an
All-Russian Council of Workers' Control. 6
 October and the organisation of industry 211

On 16 November the Fifth Conference of Petrograd Factory

Committees met to discuss the Decree. It was attended by 96
Bolsheviks, 24 SRs, 13 anarchists, 7 Mensheviks, 6 miscellaneous
and 21 whose party affiliation was unknown or non-existent.7 The
Decree was opposed by Kotlov, chairman of the technical commis-
sion of the Ministry of Labour, who felt that it unduly restricted
workers' self-activity. Taking their cue from him, the anarcho-
syndicalists called for factories to pass into the hands of the
workers. Bolsheviks on the CCFC urged active, wide-ranging con-
trol in the localities, but stressed that this was but one aspect of
regulating production, directed mainly against sabotage by factory
owners. Skrypnik put the Decree to the vote and it was passed with
only one vote against and twenty abstentions. 8 The conference
resolution, however, suggests that the delegates ascribed a more
far-reaching significance to workers' control than did the drafters of
the Decree. Whereas the Decree spoke of workers' control being 'in
the interests of planned regulation of the economy', the conference
resolution said that 'the decree lays a firm foundation for the
further regulation of production and distribution, for the compul-
sory amalgamation of banks and enterprises and for other mea-
sures aimed at the organisation of the country's economy in the
direction of a socialist system'.9
The importance of the Decree was more symbolic than real. As it
existed, it was unworkable, for it envisaged a hierarchy of control
organs at enterprise, district, city and national level, which would
have proved too cumbersome. Further problems arose from the fact
that the Decree did not spell out in concrete detail how workers'
control was to be implemented. A number of local Soviets, trade
unions and provincial conferences of factory committees worked out
sets of instructions on the execution of the Decree, by far the most
important of which were the Instructions issued by the CCFC in
Petrograd, and those issued by the All-Russian Council of Workers'
Control. It is worth examining these Instructions in detail, since they
reveal clearly what was at issue in the debate about workers' control
which soon erupted.
The Instructions of the CCFC, first published in Izvestiya on 7
December, are remarkable for the radicalism with which they tackle
the question of workers' control. They represent a bold advance on
the positions taken by factory committee conferences before October,
no longer seeing control as 'inspection' but as active intervention in
production:
212 Red Petrograd
Workers' control of industry, as an integral part of control over the whole of
economic life, must be understood not in the narrow sense of simple
inspection [revizii], but, on the contrary, in the broad sense of intervening in
the employer's disposal of capital, stocks, raw materials andfinishedgoods in
the factory; in the sense of actively supervising the proper and expedient
fulfilment of orders and utilisation of energy and labour power; in the sense of
participating in the organisation of production on rational lines, etc. Control
will only achieve its end and justify the hopes pinned on it, if it is, firstly,
implemented by workers' organisations at both central and local level in the
most energetic and vigorous manner, not stopping short of active measures to
restrain employers who are clearly approaching the fulfilment of their duties
in a negligent or harmful fashion; and secondly, if it is closely coordinated
with andfirmlytied to the general regulation and organisation of production,
both in the individual enterprise and in the branch of industry as a whole.
Control must be seen precisely as a transitional stage towards organising the
whole economic life of the country on social lines, as the first step in this
direction taken from below, parallel with work at the top in the central organs
of the economy.10

The Instructions then proceed to specify the tasks of workers' control

in a very broad fashion. They envisage active interference in
management, without clarifying precisely what powers and responsi-
bilities remain with management. The decisions of the control organs
are made binding on management. The factory committees, orga-
nised into a national hierarchy, are vested with sole responsibility for
workers' control; trade union activity is confined to the area of wages.
Didier L. Limon argues that these Instructions, in effect, are about
workers' self-management rather than workers' control.11 This is
undoubtedly true, insofar as the Instructions were drawn up against a
background assumption that there was to be a rapid transition to
socialism, in which workers' control would be transmogrified into
workers' self-management. Yet these Instructions in no sense repre-
sent a syndicalist effort to decentralise the running of the economy. At
the Sixth Conference of Factory Committees, 22-7 January 1918, the
anarchist, Bleikhman, criticised the CCFC Instructions for their
'centralism', though he conceded that this was a 'democratic' type of
centralism.12 Control was envisaged as taking place at both state level
and factory level and local initiatives were to be organised into a
hierarchy of local and regional Councils of National Economy
(sovnarkhozy), topped by the Supreme Council of National Economy
(VSNKh). This was not an anarcho-syndicalist schema but a plan for
the democratic socialisation of production, which had the support of
perhaps a majority of Bolsheviks at this stage, including, for a short
 October and the organisation of industry 213
period, Lenin himself. It is for this reason that the Secretariat of the
Bolshevik Central Committee sent these Instructions, rather than
those of the All-Russian Council of Workers' Control, to provincial
bodies who requested information on how to implement the Decree
on Workers' Control.13
The All-Russian Council of Workers' Control (ARCWC) was
brought into being by the Decree on Workers' Control, but it was
virtually stillborn. It met but twice before it was absorbed into
VSNKh (established on 1 December).14 The ARCWC included only
five representatives from the factory committees, out of more than
forty members. The rest comprised representatives from the Soviets,
the Petrograd Council of Trade Unions, the cooperatives, and
included some Mensheviks and SRs. It was chaired by the Bolshevik
leader of the metal union, V.V. Schmidt. The Council's one act of
significance was to produce an alternative set of Instructions on
workers' control, more moderate than those of the CCFC. The
ARCWC Instructions emphasised the necessity of a centralised
system of control in which individual factory control commissions
would be subordinated to the control-distribution commission of the
trade union of the particular branch of industry. This has led some
Soviet historians to argue that these Instructions were an attempt by
Menshevik trade-union leaders to subordinate the control organs to
the trade unions rather than to the state. That they represent an
attempt to assert trade-union suzerainty over the factory committees
is beyond dispute, but this was an aspiration shared as much by
Bolshevik trade-union leaders as by Menshevik. The Instructions
cannot be interpreted as an effort to diminish the role of the
government, since the trade-union control commissions were to be
subject to regional councils of workers' control which, in turn, were to
be subject to VSNKh. The second significant feature of the ARCWC
Instructions is that they laid down that management functions should
remain in the hands of the employer: 'Administrative
(rasporyaditel'nye) rights to manage the enterprise and its operations
and activities remain with the owner. The control commission does
not take part in the management of the enterprise and does not bear
any responsibility for its operations and activity.'15 This was merely a
restatement of the position of successive factory committee confer-
ences prior to the October Revolution. It offered no solution to the
problem, outlined in Chapter 7, of how factory committees were to
avoid responsibility for the enterprise if they had more de facto power
214 Red Petrograd

than the official administration in the areas of supplies, output,

equipment, labour discipline, purchasing or demobilisation.
The two sets of Instructions on the implementation of the Decree
on Workers' Control were at the centre of the debate between the
factory committees and trade-union leaders at the end of 1917. The
Instructions of the CCFC were seen by both trade-union leaders and
factory committee militants as giving carte blanche to individual factory
committees to implement the most far-reaching schemes of grass-
roots 'control'. It was at these Instructions, therefore, that much of
the fire of the trade-union opposition was directed. The most
devastating critique of the Instructions was undoubtedly that
mounted by the Bolshevik trade-union leader, A. Lozovskii, in a
pamphlet published on 8 January 1918.16
According to Lozovskii, 'the basic defect of the projected law is that
it makes no connection with the planned regulation of the economy
and disperses control of production instead of centralising it'.17
Lozovskii and the other trade-union leaders believed that: 'the lower
control organ must act within limits which are strictly defined by the
higher organs of control and regulation, whereas the comrades who
stand for decentralisation and workers' control uphold the independ-
ence and autonomy of the lower organs, suggesting that the masses
themselves will imbue the proclaimed principle of workers' control
with concrete content'.18 Lozovskii argued that the Instructions of the
CCFC were completely illogical, for whilst they talked of the
employer and of profit, they effectively abolished the old management
by totally subordinating it to the factory control organ. In reality the
Instructions did not aspire to workers' control at all, but to the
complete reorganisation of the economy along socialist lines and to
workers' self-management: 'The notion of workers' control thus no
longer represents a transitional measure but rather the immediate
realisation of a new mode of production.'19
There is much truth in Lozovskii's strictures. The Bolshevik
seizure of power, together with ever-deeper economic chaos, had
caused the leaders of the CCFC to develop a more ambitious concept
of workers' control than they had entertained prior to October. The
Bolshevik, Kaktyn', explained in the CCFC journal, Novyi Put', how
the nature of workers' control was changing now that socialism was
on the agenda: no longer was it merely a question of controlling the
activities of capital in order to maintain production - workers'
self-management was now a possibility. 'We are living through the
 October and the organisation of industry 215

greatest socialist revolution, not only in the political, but more

fundamentally, in the economic sphere . . . A most cruel war . . . has
unavoidably brought the toilers of all countries, firstly, to an
ideological revolution - to the overthrow of the prejudices of
bourgeois society ingrained by the centuries - and, secondly, to a
social revolution, which has begun in Russia, the country most
exhausted by the war - a revolution which is rolling in a mighty wave
through all countries of the world, breaking out in mass uprisings,
first here, then there.' 20 For Kaktyn', as for the other CGFC leaders,
the actuality of permanent revolution completely transformed the
nature of workers' control, as he went on to explain in the same
article:
It is clear that in our situation there can no longer be any talk of the old
method of passive control of production and distribution so cherished by our
spineless intelligentsia. Even if individual comrades in the Bolshevik party,
along with Novaya Zhizn'', defend the idea, and try to extend it through the
higher economic organs and cast it in a form which totally distorts the original
Decree on Workers' Control, and even if all those seize on it, who fear the
dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism more than death (the trade-
union elite, the union of engineers and technicians and others, not to mention
the employers), then it only serves to emphasise their feebleness.21
Lozovskii correctly linked the debate on workers' control to the
fundamental question of the Russian Revolution: was socialism on
the immediate agenda?:
It is absolutely essential to counterpose the organisation of production to the
regulation of production. For in these two terms are encapsulated two systems
and two views on the next tasks of the proletariat in the Russian Revolution. If
one thinks that Russia can pass to the immediate realisation of a socialist
system, if one thinks that socialism in Russia is a practical task of the day,
then one must speak of the organisation of production, and not only speak of
it, but execute it in practice. One must socialise all enterprises and hand the
whole apparatus into the hands of the workers.22
Lozovskii himself took up what was in essence a Menshevik-
Internationalist, rather than a Bolshevik, position:
There can be no doubt that the immediate socialisation of the means of
production and exchange is not on the agenda of the Russian Revolution. We
are faced, and not only we but the whole of Western Europe, with living
through a rather lengthy transitional period of state capitalism or state
socialism, under which the working class will act against the state-employer
in selling its labour power ... Workers' control is a transitional revolutionary
measure ... [it] does not affect the foundations of the capitalist system. It
216 Red Petrograd
leaves intact the private property in the means of production and the whole
private trading apparatus - not because this is better from the point of view of
proletarian interests, but because at the present historical moment the
proletariat does not have the power to do more, given its lack of organisation-
al experience, and in the absence of a socialist revolution in the economically
advanced countries of Western Europe. The proletariat can lay hands on the
whole productive apparatus, can move close to the whole process of
production, can take an active part in carrying out the state-wide plan of
regulation, can reduce the appetites of the ruling classes with a rough hand
and force them to submit to its control - but more than this it cannot do.23

The majority of Bolsheviks were not impressed by the cogency of

Lozovskii's economic views, merely shocked at what seemed to be his
political pusillanimity. To men like Kaktyn' or Skrypnik, the
prospect of resigning themselves to a whole historic epoch of state
capitalism was anathema. Nor were they prepared to sit back and
await a revolution in Western Europe. They were determined rather
to push the revolution in Russia as far in a socialist direction as it
would go, in the hope of stimulating international revolution. To such
men nothing looked easier than the abolition of capitalism in a
country in the throes of revolution, war and economic crisis.
Capitalism was tearing itself apart and it was the duty of revolu-
tionaries to ensure that socialism was established in its place.
Although in Petrograd a majority of metalworkers seem to have
supported the radical interpretation of workers' control,24 in other
regions and industries there was considerable support for the
moderate interpretation of Lozovskii. The unions of textileworkers
and needleworkers, sovnarkhozy in Kostroma, Moscow etc. followed
the ARCWC Instructions in implementing workers' control.25

THE ROLE OF THE TRADE UNIONS

The Third Conference of Trade Unions in June had defined the main
function of the trade unions as the conduct of the economic struggle in
defence of workers' living standards, and had rejected the notion of
unions controlling or intervening in production. As early as the
summer, however, the Petrograd metal union had begun to argue that
a historically new task now faced the union movement - that of
participating in the regulation of the economy. The installation of a
workers' and peasants' government caused Bolshevik trade-union
leaders to dramatically reassess the role of unions. G. Veinberg argued
in Metallist that the job of the trade unions was no longer to promote
 October and the organisation of industry 217

workers' economic interests, since the government could be relied

upon to do this, but the far more important one of'participating in the
organs regulating and controlling production and the economy'.26
The resolution on the role of the trade unions passed by the First
All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions, 7-14 January 1918, declared
that 'the centre of gravity of trade-union work must now shift to the
organisational-economic sphere. The unions, as class organisations of
the proletariat . . . must take on the major work of organising
production and reviving the disrupted productive forces of the
country.'27
This redefinition of the tasks of the trade unions threw into relief the
problem of their relation to the state. If the task of defending workers'
economic interests were to pass from the unions to the state, and if the
unions were to become organs of economic regulation directed by the
state, could they any longer be said to have functions separate from
those of the state? Should they not logically cease their independent
organisational existence, and merge into the state apparatus? This
was one of the questions which were to dominate the proceedings of
the First All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions.
Some 500 delegates attended the congress, of whom 428 had voting
rights. Nineteen national unions were represented with a total
membership of 2.5 million, including 600,000 from the metal union,
500,000 from the textile union, 200,000 from the leather union.28 Of
the voting delegates 281 were Bolsheviks, 67 Mensheviks, 21 Left
SRs, 10 Right SRs, 6 SR Maximalists, 6 anarcho-syndicalists and 37
belonged to no political party.29 Interestingly, the right-wing minor-
ity consisted of proportionately more national executive members
than rank-and-file delegates. 43% of national executive members
were Mensheviks and Right SRs, compared to 13% of local delegates.
Only 37% of national executive members were Bolsheviks, Left SRs,
SR Maximalists or anarcho-syndicalists, compared to 79% of local
delegates.30
The debate about the role of the unions and their relationship to the
state took place in a highly charged political atmosphere. Zinoviev
argued on behalf of the Bolsheviks that: 'The political victory of
workers and poor peasants over the imperialists and their petit-
bourgeois agents in Russia is bringing us to the threshold of
international socialist revolution and to victory over the capitalist
mode of production. The Soviets of workers', soldiers' and peasants'
deputies have become the organs of government and the policy of the
218 Red Petrograd

workers' and peasants' government is a policy of socialist reconstruc-

tion of society.'31 In an early draft of his resolution, Zinoviev did not
hesitate to draw the conclusion that the congress should 'proclaim the
trade unions state organisations', but the Moscow party organisation
objected to this.32 The final resolution stated that 'the trade unions
will inevitably become transformed into organs of the socialist state,
membership of which will be a civic duty for all those employed in a
particular branch of industry'.33 This compromise formula merely
said that 'statisation' of the unions would not come about at once; it
was not a recognition of qualified trade-union independence. The
right to strike, for example, was explicitly rejected by Zinoviev ('the
strike would be directed against the workers themselves') and the
Bolshevik resolution on workers' control in its final version deleted a
clause recognising the right to strike.
Martov led the Menshevik opposition which, in spite of profound
internal schisms, operated on a common platform of 'unity and
independence of the trade-union movement'.34 He began by remind-
ing the congress that in 1906 Lenin had stated that it was impossible
to jump from autocracy to socialism, since the preconditions for
socialism were lacking. The proletariat was neither sufficiently
homogeneous to see in socialism the sole solution to its problems,
nor sufficiently experienced to manage the economy. Concentration
of production had not yet reached a level where it governed the
dynamic of the whole economy since small-scale production was still
preponderant. The present revolution was thus still objectively a
bourgeois one. Replying to Zinoviev, Martov cried: 'To say that the
very fact of existence of Soviets is proof of a new era in the life of
mankind - the era of socialism - is vacuous rubbish.' If the
Bolsheviks continued their socialist experiments, he maintained, not
only would they destroy the economy, they would disenchant the
workers and pave the way for a capitalist restoration. So long as
workers continued to sell their labour power, he concluded, free and
independent unions were necessary to defend workers' interests.
This did not mean, however, that unions should not take part in the
business of economic regulation; rather they should inject into it
'realism, Marxism and scientific socialism'. Martov's resolution
received 84 votes against 182 cast for Zinoviev's.35
As it turned out, the trade unions continued to enjoy considerable
independence from the government during the next couple of years,
owing to the fact that energies were channelled into winning the civil
 October and the organisation of industry 219

war. In 1920-1, however, the issue of the relationship of the trade

unions to the state flared up once again. 36

THE SUBORDINATION OF THE FACTORY COMMITTEES TO THE

TRADE UNIONS
We saw in Chapter 9 that there had been growing acceptance within
the factory committees of the idea of a merger with the trade unions.
The redefinition of the tasks of the unions after October meant that
the division of labour between the two organisations, which had been
established in the summer of 1917, broke down. Trade unions now
sought to enter the sphere of activity formerly reserved to the factory
committees. Two different organisations were thus seeking to do the
same job of regulating production - yet another example of the
mnogovlastie ('multiplicity of powers') which was so much a feature of
the revolution at this time. Writing in Metallist, G. Veinberg com-
plained that: 'as soon as the Petrograd union of metalworkers took
steps in this direction [that of regulating industry], it unfortunately
clashed with another organisation - the CCFC. Questionnaires on
the state of the metal industry, sent out by the union to each factory,
were matched by questionnaires sent out by the GCFG. Two labour
organisations were doing the same work, completely separately,
wasting limited energies and expending double the resources.' 37
Trade-union leaders harshly criticised the factory committees for
being unsuitable vehicles for regulating the economy. The charge of
'parochialism' was one that had long been made against the
committees, and it was one which they themselves in part accepted.
At the Second Conference of Factory Committees Skrypnik had
condemned the 'patriotism of one's parish [kolokol'nya\.38 Increas-
ingly, the charge of parochialism was a stick used by trade unionists to
beat the committees. At the metal union contract conference on 15
October, A. Gastev argued:
The committees are frequently buried in the narrow shell of local factory
problems ... Such a narrow 'local' politics goes hand in hand with a 'broad'
understanding of immediate tasks ... In general one must say that it's
completely inadequate to control a single industrial enterprise; one must also
control the highest organs of finance and management. One must remember
that large-scale speculation and the major levers of production are found
outside the factory, and under the present system of 'control', the factory
committees sanction speculative operations suggested by financial dealers
who are unknown to them.39
220 Red Petrograd

In one of the most rancorous polemics against the committees, Ya.

Boyarkov, a Bolshevik from the Khar'kov metal union, asserted that:
'workers' control by itself is an anarchist attempt to establish
socialism in one enterprise and leads in practice to clashes between
groups of workers'.40 On 29 December at a conference of factory
committee and union representatives from the Petrograd metal
industry, G. Veinberg again attacked the committees for their
localism and selfishness, and called for a centralised system of
workers' control. He argued that only the trade unions - organisa-
tions which embraced whole industries - could tackle the problems of
the economy. Committee representatives, led by the S.R. Voronkov,
sharply rebutted Veinberg's charges and upheld the CGFG Instruc-
tions on the Decree on Workers' Control. The Bolshevik Commissar
of Labour, A. Shlyapnikov, repeated the charge of parochialism,
accusing the committees of collaborating with the employers in order
to squeeze financial aid from the government.41
We shall see that there was a reluctance on the part of the CCFC to
merge with the trade unions - not so much on principle, but because
the terms were unacceptable. In the localities, however, the harsh
facts of economic life were forcing the factory committees and trade
unions together. On Vasilevskii Island shortages of fuel and raw
materials, unemployment and the threat of closures forced the unions
and committees to form an Economic Council of Workers of
Vasilevskii District on 9 December.42 On 15 January the Vyborg
district council of factory committees called for an immediate
amalgamation of the committees and trade unions.43 At the end of
November a conference of committee and union representatives in the
textile industry set up a central control commission.44 In the leather,
paper and chemical industries cooperation between the two organisa-
tions was well advanced by the end of 1917. Only in the metal
industry was conflict as to the terms of amalgamation rife.
The conflict was settled in brusque fashion at the First All-
RussianCongress of Trade Unions. Introducing the Bolshevik resolu-
tion, Ryazanov called on the factory committees 'to choose that form
of suicide which would be most useful to the labour movement as a
whole'.45 His resolution argued that 'the parallel existence of two
forms of economic organisation in the working class with overlapping
functions can only complicate the process of concentrating the forces
of the proletariat', and he called for the committees to become the
basic cells of the unions in the workplace.46 The anarcho-syndicalists
 October and the organisation of industry 221
were furious. Bill Shatov fulminated against the trade unions, calling
them 'living corpses', whilst Maksimov hailed the factory committees
as 'children of the revolution, the direct offspring of the workers
themselves ... manifesting all the intelligence, power and energy of
the working class in the localities'.47 But they were fighting a
rearguard action: the anarcho-syndicalist resolution gained a mere
six votes. Mensheviks for once voted with Bolsheviks in support of
Ryazanov's resolution.
It is probable that the CCFC would have accepted the subordina-
tion of the committees to the unions more enthusiastically, had the
congress not passed another resolution which considerably narrowed
the scope of workers' control, and shifted responsibility for control
from local organs to central ones. It was, ironically, Lozovskii, the
fiercest critic of the CCFC Instructions, who introduced the official
resolution on workers' control to the trade-union congress - even
though he had recently been expelled from the Bolshevik party. His
resolution defined workers' control as involving stock-taking of fuel
and raw materials, investigation of finances, the determination of
output and productivity, inspection of accounts and supervision of
the general running of the factory. The resolution emphasised,
however, that such control was part of a general system of planned
economic regulation, and that 'it is necessary to repudiate in the most
unequivocal fashion all notions of dispersing workers' control, by
giving workers in each enterprise the right to take final decisions on
matters affecting the very existence of the enterprise'. The resolution
vested responsibility for control in the trade unions and exhorted
them to preach the virtues of centralised control. It specified that
factory control-commissions should be subject to the control-commis-
sions of the unions and should include union representatives not
working at the factory. In turn, the union control-commissions should
include factory committee representatives, as well as technicians,
accountants and statisticians. The resolution, finally, endorsed the
much-maligned Instructions on workers' control which had been
worked out by the All-Russian Council of Workers' Control.48
The CCFC attacked what it termed the 'discrepancy between the
verbal revolutionism of the (trade-union) congress and its actual
conservatism'.49 It criticised the unions for their 'unrelenting tactic of
subordinating the factory committees to themselves and of absorbing
all their functions, without examining whether the immense and
unorganised apparatus of the unions can execute even one of these
222 Red Petrograd

functions'; instead of planning a smooth merger, the unions were

content merely to attack the alleged parochialism of the committees:
'one detects a total unwillingness to deal with this new revolutionary
organisation as a worthy collaborator in common work. Instead there
is a stubborn striving to put the committees at a lower level - to equate
them with anarchic, unconscious, mass elementalism'. 50
The sixth and final conference of Petrograd factory committees was
held from 22 to 27 January. It recognised that the time had come for
the committees to become the workplace cells of the unions, but it
called for the boards of the unions to be elected by conferences of
factory committees within the branch of industry. 51 It would thus be
wrong to interpret the resolution as a gracious admission of defeat by
the committees. As Zhivotov is reported to have said: 'if they [the
unions] want to refashion us, they won't succeed. By going into the
unions, we are going to refashion them.' 52 As if to underline the
seriousness of this intent, the conference reaffirmed its support for the
CCFC Instructions on Workers' Control, in spite of the fact that the
trade union congress had ratified the ARCWC Instruction only days
previously. The Sixth Conference thus genuflected to the notion of
trade-union supremacy, but at root the will of the factory committees
to be independent remained unbowed.
The central board of the metal union agreed to the replacement of
the delegate councils of metalworkers at district and city level by
conferences of factory committees, but on 1 February this concession
met with considerable opposition from the city delegate-council of the
metal union. Eventually, the delegates approved it by 159 votes to
5g. 53 On 1 April trade unions and factory committees in the
Petrograd metal industry finally fused. At the fusion conference
Zhivotov emphasised the necessity of strong factory committees in
each enterprise as the foundation stones of the union, but wisely
avoided saying too much about the precise functions of the commit-
tees. Subsequent events were to prove that these were as much in
dispute as ever.
Had the six months since the October seizure of power witnessed
the triumph of the unions over the committees? In one sense it clearly
had, for the factory committees, which had been far more influential
than the unions in 1917, were now absorbed into the union apparatus.
At a deeper level, however, the 'victory' of the unions was far more
ambiguous. As G. Binshtok wrote in the journal set up by the
Mensheviks to defend trade-union autonomy against the Bolshevik
 October and the organisation of industry 223
state: 'with complete justice the trade unions can say to the factory
committees "Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!", since the trade
unions, having taken on the organisation of production, have in fact
been transformed into unified factory committees5.54 In other words,
even if the factory committees, as an institutional form, were now
subordinate to the unions, it was the committees' definition of tasks -
the regulation of production — which had prevailed.
In practice, the institutional subordination of the committees to the
trade unions proved to be more aspiration than reality, just as did the
'statisation' of the trade unions. Civil-war developments, including
the nationalisation of industrial enterprises and the attempted
restoration of one-man management, merely raised again - in a new
form - the old problems about the scope of workers' control and the
relationship of the factory committees to the trade unions. As late as
April 1920 - two years after he had helped promote the fusion of the
factory committees and the trade unions - Lozovskii could report to
the Third All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions: 'We must sub-
ordinate the work of the factory committees and collectives to
complete control and to the complete influence of the trade unions.
You know from the experience of the last two years, particularly of the
last year, that very often the factory committees or collegial boards
consider themselves absolutely independent of the unions.'55 It is
clear from this that long after the formal integration of the committees
into the union apparatus, factory committees still displayed that
spirited independence and concern for self-management which had
been a hallmark of their activity in 1917. They refused, in other
words, to 'commit suicide', as Ryazanov had urged at the First
Congress of Trade Unions.

TOWARDS A SOCIALIST ECONOMY

On coming to power the Bolsheviks had little sense of the form or

tempo of the transition to socialism. The party was agreed on the need
to nationalise the banks and a number of syndicates in the oil, coal,
sugar, metallurgy and transport sectors,56 but beyond this, there was
little agreement about the extent of the socialist measures which could
be undertaken. Lenin seems to have envisaged an economic system
combining state ownership of key sectors with extensive private
ownership of industry under government direction and workers'
control - what he termed 'state capitalism'. On the left of the party,
224 fod Petrograd

however, Bukharin dubbed the notion of 'state capitalism' a 'non-

sense, a half-baked idea'; he and his co-thinkers argued that 'a
proletarian-peasant dictatorship which does not entail the expropria-
tion of the expropriators, which does not eliminate the power of
capital in the mines and factories can only be a temporary
phenomenon'.57 On the right of the party, meanwhile, many felt that
nationalisation was inopportune and that only private capital could
rebuild the battered productive forces of the country.58 In the event,
the government's policy developed rapidly in a socialist direction, but
this was due less to political calculation than to the exigencies of class
conflict and economic chaos.
The CCFC was a strong force actively pushing the government in
the direction of a planned socialist economy during thefirstmonths of
soviet power. As early as 26-7 October, the CCFC had proposed the
setting-up of a Supreme Council of National Economy (VSNKh),
which was duly established on 1 December. The task of VSNKh was
defined as 'the organisation of the economy and state finances by
means of a plan for the regulation of the economic life of the country
and the coordination and unification of the activity of the central and
local organs of regulation'.59 On 23 December a decree provided for
the creation of regional councils of national economy (sovnarkhozy) f°
and in February the Sovnarkhoz of the Northern Region (SNKh S.R.)
began to function in the Petrograd area. Until that time, the CCFC
effectively ran the economy of the capital.61 It was then absorbed into
SNKh S.R. The latter had the comprehensive task of planning and
regulating all aspects of the regional economy, including industry,
transport, agriculture, supplies, finance and labour power.62 The
SNKh S.R. was headed by a presidium, and divided into industrial
sections. By April there were eleven branch-of-industry sections, plus
two for transport and one for trade.63 Each section was divided into
departments of organisation, supply and distribution, labour, and
statistics.64 The department of organisation had the job of running
nationalised enterprises, of directing the organs of workers' control in
private enterprises and of settling conflicts between workers and
management.65 Each industrial section was headed by a collegium
which consisted of workers, elected at industrial-branch conferences
of factory committees and trade unions, delegates from the Soviets
and cooperatives, and technical and commercial experts.66
VSNKh was vested with the power to 'confiscate, requisition,
sequester or compulsorily syndicate different branches of trade and
 October and the organisation of industry 225
industry', but it was not envisaged in December that it should embark
on whole-scale nationalisation. Pressure for nationalisation began to
well up from the localities (see next chapter), and local sovnarkhozy
were increasingly compelled to take enterprises into state ownership.
The factory committees spearheaded a campaign to press the
government into adopting a more vigorous policy of nationalisation.
The Sixth Conference of Petrograd Factory Committees, for example,
passed a resolution which demanded the transfer of all factories and
mines into the hands of the state.67 At first the government resisted
this pressure, but it increasingly succumbed during the spring of
1918, by endeavouring to centrally coordinate the wave of local
'nationalisations'. Finally, on 28 June it announced the whole-scale
nationalisation of all major branches of industry.68
As active proponents of nationalisation, this decision marked a
'victory' for the factory committees: yet it was a qualified one. For the
committees had linked the demand for nationalisation to the demand
for workers' management of the enterprises which passed into state
ownership. The Sixth Conference of Factory Committees, in its
resolution calling for nationalisation, argued that 'the political power
[z>/&y/'] of the proletariat can only be real power under conditions of its
economic rule [gospodstvo]'. It went on to demand that:
In view of the fact that the supreme government organs have no special
organisations capable of running the enterprises transferred into ownership
of the republic, and in view of the fact that the government ofworkers, soldiers
and peasants is strong only so long as it enjoys the confidence of the toilers and
their organisations, in all cases of nationalisation, the workers' committees
should be put in charge of the enterprises in the localities and should work
under the direction of VSNKh.69
As we shall see in the next chapter, nationalisation issued not in
workers' self-management, but in a more centralised structure of
industrial management, which undercut the power of the factory
committees.

LENIN, THE BOLSHEVIKS AND WORKERS CONTROL AFTER

OCTOBER

We have seen that Lenin's draft decree on workers' control empha-

sised the activity of workers in situ rather than 'state workers' control'.
This reflected his faith in the creativity of the masses - so much a
feature of his thinking during the first three months of soviet power.
226 Red Petrograd

He was intoxicated by the spectacle of workers, soldiers and peasants

taking power into their own hands, and profoundly optimistic about
the potential inherent in such self-activity. In an article of late
December entitled 'How to Organise Competition', Lenin wrote:
One of the most crucial tasks at present, if not the most crucial, is to develop
the independent initiatives of the workers and toilers and exploited generally
in the sphere of creative, organisational work. At all costs, we must destroy
that old, absurd, savage, vile and loathsome prejudice that only the so-called
'upper classes' can run the state.70
Nevertheless even when Lenin's thinking was its most libertarian, he
did not abandon his belief in the necessity of complementing the
independent initiatives of the masses with action at state level. In
early October he had reminded his Menshevik critics that: 'We are for
centralism and for a plan by the proletarian state: proletarian
regulation of production and distribution in the interests of the poor,
the toilers and the exploited - against the exploiters.' 71 As winter set
in, the honeymoon period of the revolution began to draw to a close,
and the Bolsheviks became more and more aware of the appalling
economic and social difficulties facing them. To Lenin the existence of
proletarian state power seemed to be the one beacon in the enveloping
gloom. Increasingly, the theme of state initiative assumed precedence
in his discourse over the theme of mass initiative. With regard to
workers' control, Lenin qualified his initial optimism about the
capacity of workers and peasants to resolve the economic crisis
through their own efforts. More and more, he insisted that only
centralised, planned intervention by the state on a national scale
could begin to tackle the anarchy induced in the economy by three
years of war. At first, Lenin does not appear to have had any definite
position on whether the trade unions should supersede the factory
committees as organs of economic regulation. The increasingly
radical practice of workers' control in the winter of 1917, however,
seems to have persuaded him and other leading Bolsheviks of the
correctness of the arguments of those trade-union leaders who
castigated the factory committees for their parochial, tunnel-visioned
approach to economic problems. As Lenin's commitment to central-
ised state regulation of the economy increased, he appears to have
come round to the idea that the trade unions were better suited than
the committees to the task of economic regulation, since they had
their base not in the individual enterprise but in the branch of
industry as a whole.
 October and the organisation of industry 227

The leaders of the factory committees were not at all ill-disposed to

centralised state regulation of the economy: indeed they were a major
force pressing the government in this direction. Having successfully
campaigned for the establishment of VSNKh, the committees in the
early months of 1918 began to pressure the government to nationalise
the whole of industry, to end private ownership of the means of
production. Lenin was less keen than the committee leaders to
undertake rapid nationalisation, but this was not the main point at
issue between them. It was rather that the committees linked the
question of state ownership of industry to that of workers' manage-
ment of the enterprise, and on this matter Lenin had increasingly
authoritarian views.
Throughout 1917 workers' control of industry had aimed, princi-
pally, to minimise capitalist disruption of industry, but it had never
been concerned exclusively with that: it had also aimed to democra-
tise relations of authority within the enterprise and to create new
relations of production in which workers could display maximum
initiative, responsibility and creativity. Out of this, there emerged a
concern for workers' self-management, which became particularly
apparent after October. Although explicit references to 'self-manage-
ment' (samoupravlenie) are fairly rare in the discourse of the factory
committees, the concept was at the very heart of their practice. When
workers talked of the 'democratic' factory, or of taking the factory
'into their own hands', they were talking about self-management.
After October, although the factory committees pressed for a
planned, state-owned economy, this did not mean that they believed
that the transfer of legal ownership of the factories to the proletarian
state would by itself bring an end to the subordination and oppression
of workers. In a vague, incoherent way the committee leaders
recognised that unless the transfer of power to workers at the level of
the state were accompanied by a transfer of power at the level of
production, then the emancipation of labour would remain a
chimera. During the winter of 1917—18 the committees emphasised in
their discourse, and above all in their practice, the initiative of the
direct producers in transforming the process of production. What
appears to be accelerating 'anarchism' in the movement for workers'
control after October is, in large part, a recognition that the
hierarchical relations of domination and authority within the enter-
prise would have to be contested, if capitalist relations of production
as a whole were to be overcome. This recognition, however, remained
228 Red Petrograd

confused and was never articulated into a perspective for socialist

transition alternative to that of Lenin and the majority of the
Bolshevik leadership.
Lenin never developed a conception of workers' self-management.
Even after October, workers' control remained for him fundament-
ally a matter of'inspection' and 'accounting'. Although he constantly
drove home the importance of grass-roots initiatives by workers, he
regarded these as having the function of limiting chaos in the
economy and countering tendencies to bureaucratisation, rather than
as being necessary to the transformation of the process of production
by the direct producers. For Lenin, the transformation of capitalist
relations of production was achieved at central-state level, rather
than at enterprise level. Progress to socialism was guaranteed by the
character of the state and achieved through policies by the central
state - not by the degree of power exercised by workers on the shop
floor. As galloping chaos overtook the economy, workers' autonomy
faded as a theme in Lenin's discourse, and increasingly he came to
stress the need for strict discipline and centralism. From March 1918
he began to call for the restoration of one-man management in the
factories. In 'The Current Tasks of Soviet Power', he wrote:
Any large-scale machine industry, and this is precisely the material
productive source and foundation of socialism - calls for unconditional and
strict unity of will, in order to coordinate the simultaneous work of hundreds,
thousands and tens of thousands of people ... Unqualified submission to a
single will is unconditionally necessary in the success of the labour processes,
organised on the lines of large-scale machine industry.72
The slow and uneven restoration of one-man management during the
Civil War had no bearing for Lenin on the question of the socialist
character of the soviet state, for this was guaranteed by its ostensibly
proletarian character, rather than by the degree of dissolution of
capitalist relations at the point of production. Because a state
representing the interests of workers and poor peasants now presided
over Russia, it was possible to organise production in any manner
which would ensure maximum productivity: 'there is . . . absolutely no
contradiction in principle between Soviet (that is, socialist) democ-
racy and the existence of dictatorial powers by individuals'. 73
The factory committee leaders had an inchoate awareness that
socialism would remain a mere formality unless the direct producers -
and not just the state on their behalf - took over and radically
reconstructed relations of production within the enterprise, but they
never really formulated this awareness in theoretical terms. Only the
 October and the organisation of industry 229

Left Communist faction of the Bolshevik party came near to

registering at a theoretical level the importance of overcoming the
separation of workers from the means of production during the
transition to socialism. V.V. Osinskii (V.V. Obolenskii) was chair-
man of VSNKh until March 1918, when he resigned because of his
opposition to the Treaty of Brest Litovsk. In a brilliant article in the
first number of the Left Communist journal in April 1918, entitled
'On Socialist Construction', he loosed a far-reaching critique of the
official Bolshevik policy of socialist transition, central to which was
the following insight:

... Although the transition to socialism is signalled by the nationalisation of

enterprises, nationalisation of itself - i.e. the transfer of enterprises and
state-ownership - is not, in any sense, equivalent to socialism. In order for
nationalisation to have that significance, i.e. for it to become socialisation, it is
necessary (a) that the system of management of enterprises be constructed
along socialist lines, so that capital's power of command is destroyed and so
that in the arrangement of the enterprise there are no longer bases on which
this command might be restored; (b) it is necessary that the public authority
into whose hands property in the means of production is transferred, is a
proletarian authority ... Is it possible for the proletarian elite [verkhushka],
which will sit with the capitalists on the boards of the trusts, to guarantee
that real proletarian power is in command in production? I very much
doubt it, since the proletariat as a class will become a passive element,
the object, rather than the subject of the organisation of labour in
production.74

He argued that unless the proletariat were actively involved in

reorganising the process of production, then state capitalism, not
socialism, would be the end-product of the government's policies.
Although the practical proposals for workers' self-management
which Osinskii outlined in the second part of this article were
disappointingly sketchy, the article is noteworthy for marking the
limit-point to which any Bolshevik went in formally recognising the
crucial importance of workers' self-management in a strategy of
socialist transition. One should not, however, exaggerate the signi-
ficance of Osinskii's article. The Left Communists never really posed
self-management as a central aim, their Theses of April 1918 merely
mentioning the need for 'the complete removal of capitalist and feudal
survivals in the relations of production'.75 The factory committees
strove in practice to transform relations of authority at enterprise
level, but their failure to theorise this practice into an alternative
strategy of transition helped to bring about their own ultimate demise
and that of workers' self-management.
 10
The economic crisis and the fate of workers5
control: October 1917 to June 1918

FROM WORKERS CONTROL TO WORKERS SELF-MANAGEMENT

The October seizure of power was a workers' revolution in the simple

sense that it transferred state power to a government which enjoyed
the support of a majority of the working class. As an essentially
political act, it had little immediate effect on the daily lives of workers.
The economic crisis, rapidly getting worse, was a far more important
influence on their position than the change in political regime.
Nevertheless at a subjective level, the coming to power of a soviet
government had a profound effect on the way that workers perceived
the deteriorating situation in the factories. The ease with which the
Bolsheviks had toppled the Kerensky government persuaded many
workers that the time was ripe to follow up the political dispossession
of the capitalist class with their economic dispossession. The
inauguration of a government of workers and peasants, coupled with
the breakup of the economy, seemed to many to toll the death-knell of
capitalism. The Decree on Workers' Control, in particular, was seen
as a signal to advance to socialist society without delay. Speaking to
the national congress of trade unions in January 1918, the Menshevik,
Maiskii, remarked: 'According to my observations, the majority of
the proletariat, particularly in Petrograd, looks on workers' control as
an entry into the kingdom of socialism. It's precisely this psy-
chology which creates huge dangers for the whole socialist move-
ment in Russia in the future, because . . . if workers' control suffers
defeat, then the masses will become disillusioned with the very idea of
socialism.'1 Most militant workers despised such jeremiads: they had
won state power, what else was left to do except go forward to
socialism?
230
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers3 control 231
In many provincial areas the Decree on Workers' Control initiated
workers' control of production for the first time, but in Petrograd it
legitimated the already-existing forms of workers' control and
extended their scope. The factory committees now set up special
control-commissions charged with overseeing and intervening in the
running of the factories. Such commissions already existed in the
largest factories of the capital, but they now sprang up elsewhere. By
the autumn of 1918, 212 factories in Petrograd province had
control-commissions: 24% of these had been established before
November 1917; 51% had been established between November and
March 1918, and 25% after March 1918.2 These commissions not
only monitored stocks of fuel and raw materials, they also checked
orders and company finances and intervened in the technical side of
production. They left employers in no doubt that they were now in
charge. Not surprisingly, the employers hit back.
On 22 November the Petrograd SFWO announced: 'We categor-
ically reject non-state, class control by workers over the country's
industrial life (as decreed by the government) since it does not, in
practice, pursue national ends and is not recognised by the majority of
the Russian population.'3 Three days later an unofficial meeting of
the biggest commercial and industrial organisations in Petrograd
decided on a tough line: 'In the event of demands for workers' control
being put forward ... the enterprise must be closed.' It claimed that
'the government, by completely handing over management of the
factories into the hands of the working class is erecting a barrier to the
further participation of capital in industrial life'.4 Opposition to
workers' control was fiercest amongst the owners of metal-plants,
who were already in a perilous situation owing to the critical
shortages of fuel and raw materials. In the leather and textile
industries, where things were less tight, the employers proved more
conciliatory. In January 1918 the Petrograd leather manufacturers
agreed to a supervisory mode of workers' control, such as had been
elaborated in the Instructions of the ARCWC.5
In some factories sharp conflicts between management and the
factory committees were provoked by attempts to implement the
Decree on Workers' Control. At the Triangle rubber-works the
director, Pasternak, told the control commission: 'If you establish
control, then I'll close the factory. I cannot work under control.'6 At
the Langenzippen works the owner stormed out of the factory when
the control commission imposed far-reaching control. The factory
232 Red Petrograd

committee refused to allow him back, and in June was criticised by

the metal section of SNKh S.R. for misinterpreting control over
production as meaning control over the individual capitalist.7 At the
Nevskii footwear factory, management politely informed the control-
commission: 'In answer to your memorandum of 9 December, we
consider it our duty to inform you that nowhere in the regulations on
workers' control is anything said about the commission having the
right to "direct" management to do something, and we consider that
such a form of "direction" - without any appeal - is utterly
inadmissible under a democratic system.'8
A good insight into the industrial disputes which arose over
attempts to institute far-reaching control can be gained by examining
one enterprise in detail. At the Nevskii shipyard fuel shortages had,
by October, drastically cut back production. After the Bolsheviks
seized power, management waited, believing that the government
could not hold power for long. Thefinancialposition in the enterprise
was grave, and management decided that as soon as war orders
stopped, they would have to dismiss 2,476 workers.9 On 16 Novem-
ber, in response to the Decree on Workers' Control, the factory
committee set about extending its sphere of influence, but met with
strong resistance from management. A week later, it demanded to
have two representatives with voting rights on the board of the
company, but management refused. The factory committee then
demanded that no payments be made without its approval. Manage-
ment pointed out that 'to recognise your demand for actual control
over the finances of the factory would not be in accordance with the
Decree on Workers' Control, which does not envisage the right of
workers to interfere in the management functions of the factory
administration'.10 On 27 November the factory committee tried to
occupy the finance office. On 3 December they requested the
Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet to send a
commission of experienced people to look into the affairs of the
company. The next day the government declared the factory under
workers' control. On 8 December the factory committee insisted that
all papers from management be countersigned by the factory
committee. A few days later it announced that the present director of
the shipyard would be replaced by the engineer, A.A. Ustitskii. The
control commission was effectively in charge from then on. On 23
December the board of this state enterprise announced: 'The
company board of the Nevskii works is not the representative of
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers3 control 233

capital, but the representative of the government, appointed by it not

to exploit the enterprise in order to make shareholders rich, but to see
that the enterprise functions properly from the government's point of
view.' 11 But the workers were in no mood to compromise. The old
board of management was ousted on 17 January when the shipyard
was nationalised. 12
The newer, radical style of workers' control tended to create
conflict not only between workers and management, but between
workers and technical and clerical staff. The Decree on Workers'
Control made provision for the latter to sit on the control commis-
sions, but the professional organisations of technical and clerical
personnel objected to the terms of the Decree. At the beginning of
November the union of engineers, which represented senior industrial
engineers, warned: 'we will firmly protect the personal and profes-
sional dignity of our members and will give a firm rebuff to any
attempt by any commissar or agent of the usurping government to
give directions to the engineers, to interfere in their affairs or force
them to do anything by threat'. 13 More junior technical personnel,
represented by the union of foremen and technicians, were also hostile
to the government but to a lesser extent. On 17 November a delegate
meeting of the Petrograd branch of the union declared:
We have always regarded ourselves as an integral part of the proletariat, and
have always been interested in strengthening the gains of labour over capital
... And so we call on our members in the union to join with the workers and
support them in their creative work by every means, without yielding to their
political views, and to be respectful towards those organisations in the factory
which receive the sanction of the proletariat. In cases of insult, abuse or
infringement of your rights, the union will powerfully defend you, but our best
defence will be tact and sincere love for the proletariat ... Concerning the
question of workers' control, we support the idea of workers' control on a
broad state basis, but consider the Decree of the People's Commissars
completely incompatible with present productive and economic relations,
and, not wishing to take responsibility for the ruinous consequence of putting
it into practice, we as an organisation will fight in the central organs of control
to change that part of the draft which concerns the powers of the local control
organs, so as to coordinate the operations of all enterprises.14
The All-Russian Congress of Clerical workers, which met from 3-8
December, took a similar position towards workers' control:
Congress considers the immediate and urgent task of the moment to be the
rapid organisation of central, regional and local organs of control and
regulation of industrial life. Such organisations, invested with authority,
power and stability, can be created only by a central, democratic state power
234 &ed Petrograd
enjoying the popular recognition of a Constituent Assembly ... Employees
are recommended to take active part in the control of production ... only in
those circumstances where a purely defensive control is being instituted for
protection against possible sabotage.15

In general, the factory committees were anxious to win the

cooperation of technical and clerical staff in the implementation of
control, since they needed their expertise if the control were to be
effective. The political opposition of such staff towards the Bolshevik
regime, however, led to bitter clashes between blue-collar and
white-collar workers. At the Robert Krug engineering works the
committee asked technical personnel to sign a pledge to abide by the
decisions of the workers' organisations and to recognise the govern-
ment of People's Commissars. The technicians refused to sign it and
the committee threatened to hand them over to a military-revolution-
ary tribunal for counter-revolutionary activity.16 At the Aivaz works
engineers went on strike in November and were arrested by the
factory committee and Red Guards. On 19 February the CCFC
warned the committee to take a 'cautious approach' to the
engineers.17 At the Putilov works on 31 October, office staff voted by
315 votes to 18, with 14 abstentions, against the Bolshevik seizure of
power and called for a socialist coalition government. 18 They agreed
not to strike, however, as the staff of government ministries were
doing. A couple of days later, draughtsmen at the factory passed an
almost identical resolution, by 97 votes to 11, with 12 abstentions. 19
The works committee took a dim view of these resolutions. It elected
N. Grigor'ev - a worker in the turret shop - commissar of the Putilov
works, and his appointment was confirmed by the Military-
Revolutionary Committee. On 9 November Grigor'ev sent a worker
to supervise the work of clerical staff in their offices; they were
enraged, and demanded a meeting with the works committee. On
arriving for the meeting at the works theatre, they found it sur-
rounded by armed Red Guards. The 429 sluzhashchie refused to take
part in a meeting under these conditions, pointing out that the
Military-Revolutionary Committee had forbidden armed persons to
attend public meetings. They then proceded to break off relations
with the works committee. 20 A meeting of all the shop committees
reprimanded the sluzhashchie for having 'abandoned the toiling family
of workers' and insisted that a 'refusal to submit to the commissar is a
refusal to submit to the government'. 21
As the economy collapsed around them, and as the factory
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers' control 235

committees became more obstreperous, employers often lost the will

to carry on. Some began to run down their operations, refusing new
orders and selling off stock, fuel and raw materials. Some began to
squander their capital, others to transfer their assets abroad. Some
stopped paying wages, claiming that this was now the responsibility
of the government. Others simply abandoned the sinking ship: 'the
owner has vanished' was the plaintive cry of a few factory committees
in December. At the Bromley Mill, for instance, almost all the
members of the board fled to England. At the First Yarn Mill, when
the factory committee announced that it would henceforth pay
management their salaries, the English directors, who had been at the
factory for twenty-five years, decided that it was time to pack their
bags and go abroad. 22
It is often suggested that the intense class conflict of the post-
October period engendered widespread anarchist sentiment within
the working class. It is certainly the case that anarchists began to step
up their campaign for factory seizures. Golos Truda, the anarcho-
syndicalist journal, ran an article on 3 November which said: 'We
affirm that it is not state power which needs to be seized, but
production, because with the seizure of production we destroy both
capitalism and the state at one blow and we will replace both of them
with a genuinely socialist society, resting on real freedom, equality
and brotherhood.' 23 At the Fifth Factory Committee Conference on
15-16 November, at which about 8% of the delegates were anarch-
ists, the anarchist Terent'ev declared: 'We must take over both works
and factories . . . control is possible only when everything is ours and
this is impossible so long as there are factory owners. The first thing
we must do is requisition the factories.'24 Renev, an anarchist from
the Baltic shipyard, continued in the same vein: 'The Decree on
Workers' Control is slowing down the movement. To go forward we
must remember that the Decree is not our idol.' 25
These notions proved attractive to some groups of workers. In the
textile factories of Petrograd, for instance, several attempts were
made by workers to take over the running of their factories. Popular
anarchist militants like Troshin, a worker at the Kozhevnikov textile
mill, Kotov and Kolovich went about calling on workers to seize the
factories for themselves.26 At the Kersten knitwear factory, where
women comprised three-quarters of the workforce, the factory
committee arrested the manager because of his refusal to recognise
their spokesman, the mechanic Tseitlin. The clerical workers went on
236 Red Petrograd

strike in protest at this. On 22 November an anarchist proposed to a

general meeting that the workers divide up the factory property
among themselves. Alexandra Kollontai, who had been sent to speak
on behalf of the Bolsheviks, managed to dissuade the women from
this, but she was unable to dissuade the committee from trying to run
the factory by itself. It had no money, and though it tried to raise
capital out of wage deductions and received a small loan from the
Vulcan works, it was soon forced to abandon its experiment because
of financial difficulties. The committee called on the Ministry of
Labour to sequester the factory, but at that point the textile workers'
union intervened to bring about a reconciliation between the
committee and management, who agreed to recognise Tseitlin. 27
Despite such incidents, what is remarkable about Petrograd is the
very limited influence which anarchists had on the factory commit-
tees. Factory seizures were extremely rare in the capital, though they
were now more common in provincial areas, such as the Middle and
Lower Volga, Vyatka, the Western provinces, and the Central
black-earth region, where workers took over many small light-
industrial enterprises, especially food-processing plants. 28 According
to the judicious calculations of V.Z. Drobizhev, only twenty-seven
factories in Petrograd province were taken from their owners between
November 1917 and March 1918, and none of these takeovers turns
out to have been inspired by an anarchist desire to get rid of the boss
on principle. 29
At the Metal works in mid-November the works committee set up a
workers' directorate, consisting of nine workers elected by the
workforce, to achieve 'direct, active participation in the management
of production and of the factory, and liaison with government and
private institutions and personnel on an equal basis with the
company directors'. 30 These directors were to sit on all boards in
order to 'supervise and direct' their work. Management lost no time
in informing the directorate that it would not tolerate such 'interfer-
ence in management by outsiders, not responsible for their actions'.
On 1 December it closed the factory, whereupon the directorate took
over the running of the Metal works until the government agreed to its
nationalisation on 16 January. By March, however, there were only
276 workers left at the factory.31 At the Franco-Russian works on 8
November the works committee wrote to the company as follows: 'the
factory is financed by money from the state treasury . . . so the workers
and the factory committee must have a full assurance that this money
is not going to enrich a handful of exploiters at the expense of labour,
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers3 control 237

but is going to meet the needs of all who work in the factory.
Productive work and a conscientious attitude to our duties will only
come about once the board is headed by an elected group who enjoy
the confidence of all who toil in the factory. Such a supreme organ
should consist of workers, sluzhashchie and toilers.'32 Pending a
decision to nationalise the Franco-Russian works, VSNKh agreed on
20 February to the establishment of a temporary board along the lines
suggested by the committee, which comprised one representative
from VSNKh, one from the metal union, an engineer, a white-collar
worker and three elected workers.33
At the Aivaz works in December a control commission, consisting
of seven workers and four sluzhashchie, was set up to counterpose to
'the uncontrolled, unorganised conduct of the economy by the
capitalists . . . the idea of public control, organisation and regulation
of economic life in the interests of the exploited class'.34 It declared
that 'the directors have no right to enter any commitments or to
conclude contracts without the sanction of the control-commission;
the latter shall examine all aspects of management and shall ratify all
management decisions; moreover it shall ensure that health and
safety aspects of the enterprise are at the proper level'.35 Management
refused to work under the control-commission, and on 23 December it
announced the closure of the factory. The control commission then
endeavoured to keep production going by itself, until the factory was
nationalised in August 1918.36 At the Robert Krug engineering
works, where 190 workers were employed, a general meeting issued
the following statement on 12 December:
Having heard a report from the control-commission about the conflict which
took place between the commission and management at a meeting on 11
December, when management stated clearly and unambiguously that it did
not recognise the works committee, the control commission or the Instruc-
tions on Workers' Control, and when a management representative, [citizen]
Lerkhe, clearly hinted at stopping production at the factory ... the general
meeting of workers and sluzhashchie has decided:
(1) not to allow such sabotage
(2) to avert the final closure of the factory, and the unemployment which
would ensue from this
(3) to take the factory into its own hands.37
This was no wild seizure, for the workers requested that the Factory
Convention supervise the running of the factory. Self-management
could not negate economic realities, however, and on 9 March 1918
the factory closed.38
These examples show that even in the small number of cases where
238 Red Petrograd

workers took over the running of their factories, they were not in the
grip of some anarchist delirium. They were determined to exercise
far-reaching control over management, in order to prevent 'sabotage'
or closure, and it was the attempt by management to close down the
enterprise which prompted a workers' takeover. In only a tiny
number of small factories, such as Kan paper mill and Berthold print
works, did a workers' takeover prove viable.39 In all larger enter-
prises, workers' management proved incapable of dealing with the
immense problems affecting production. In these instances, however,
it seems clear that the workers took over their enterprises without any
intention of taking sole charge of production. The takeovers were
temporary measures, designed not merely to forestall closure, but to
force the government to take responsibility for the factory by taking it
into state ownership or control. At the Nobel works, for example, a
meeting of the workforce on 19 January heard a report which showed
that the factory was bankrupt and that management could not afford
to pay their wages. The meeting resolved 'to declare the factory the
property of the Russian Republic and to entrust the factory commit-
tee to organise and regulate production in liaison with the Commis-
sariat of Labour'. A delegation of four was sent to VSNKh to ask for
money to pay wages and to request nationalisation of the factory, but
VSNKh seems to have refused.40 At the Northern Iron-Construction
Company the factory committee had been inactive up to October.41
Having been re-elected, it began to resist management more actively.
On 6 March 1918 it reported to the metal section of SNKh S.R. that:
'The factory committee regards itself as an organ of state control, and
as such cannot allow management to spend the people's money as it
likes ... In view of the fact that the board has no money to carry out
demobilisation or to transfer the factory to civilian production, and
that it is greatly in debt to the state, the committee requests SNKh
S.R. to confiscate the factory along with all its property and
remaining money ... for the benefit of the All-Russian republic.'42 A
few days later the committee wrote again to SNKh S.R., informing it
that the workers had elected a directorate to take charge of the
factory, but it was at pains to explain that 'we do not wish to engage in
a separatist action such as the seizure of the factory, and so we are
transferring the factory to the charge of VSNKh'.43 At the Soikin
print works the autonomous commission justified its takeover as
follows: 'the only way of preserving the enterprise from ruin and
disaster ... lies in temporarily taking matters into our own
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers' control 239
44
hands, until such time as the government will take over from us'. At
the Vulcan works on 23 March the committee called on SNKh S.R. to
nationalise the factory: 'the whole policy of management is to close
down the factory. If it has not already closed down, this is solely
because the energies of the factory committee have sustained the life
of the factory . . . The kind of control which management will accept is
purely token, for it will remain boss of the factory, whilst responsi-
bility for running the factory will rest entirely with the control-
commission. Thus dual power will not be eliminated.'45 It requested
that SNKh S.R. sequestrate the Vulcan works, which was duly
effected on 30 March.
Pressure to nationalise individual enterprises came from the
factory committees, who saw in state ownership or state control the
sole alternative to closure. V.P. Milyutin wrote that: 'the process of
nationalisation went on from below, and the soviet leaders could not
keep up with it, could not take things in hand, in spite of the fact that
many orders were issued which forbade local organisations to enact
nationalisations by themselves'.46 He remarked that many of these
local 'nationalisations' had a punitive character. This sentiment was
echoed by A.I. Rykov at the first congress of sovnarhhozy in May:
'Nationalisation was carried out for not implementing the rules of
workers' control, and because the owner or the administration had
fled, or simply for not fulfilling the decrees of soviet power, etc.... The
nationalisation of enterprises had a straightforwardly punitive rather
than economic character.' 47 Data collated by V.Z. Drobizhev seem to
bear out this interpretation. 48 Of 836 warrants issued to dispossess
factory owners between November and December, 77% were issued
by local bodies - a sure sign that pressure to nationalise came from
below. On 19 January the Council of People's Commissars forbade
'nationalisations' without the permission of VSNKh, and the ban was
repeated on 16 February. On 27 April VSNKh again informed local
Soviets and local sovnarkhozy that they would receive no funds for any
enterprise which they had confiscated without permission. 49 Never-
theless, between November and March, only 5.8% of nationalisa-
tions, sequestrations, confiscations or socialisations in the country as
a whole were carried out by the Council of People's Commissars or
the central organs of VSNKh. 50
In Petrograd 'nationalisations from below' were not as common as
elsewhere. All state-owned factories were, of course, nationalised as a
matter of course, and a further sixteen private factories (beginning
240 Red Petrograd

with the Putilov works on 27 December) were formally nationalised

up to 1 April. These included a few large factories, but were mainly
small or medium-sized enterprises such as the Military-Horseshoe
works.51 By April about forty enterprises in the city were officially
nationalised, including former state enterprises, and a further 61 were
being run temporarily by factory committees.52 The latter factories
had been 'sequestrated' or 'confiscated' with the permission of SNKh
S.R. or the local soviet, but no clear distinction existed between
'sequestration' and 'nationalisation'.53 Between April and June a
further score of enterprises in what was by now the former capital
passed into formal state ownership.
To what extent had workers' control developed into workers'
self-management by the time that the government nationalised the
whole of industry at the end of June? It is difficult to answer this, since
it is impossible to draw neat distinctions between workers' control
and workers' management. Workers' management seems to have
been confined to a minority of enterprises in Petrograd. The Soviet
historian, M.N. Potekhin, calculates that, on 1 April, 40 enterprises
were nationalised; 61 were being temporarily run by factory commit-
tees; 270 were under workers' control and 402 were still being run by
their owners, although these were overwhelmingly small workshops.54
In the major factories, therefore, workers' control was still the norm.
In practice this meant that the official management existed alongside
the factory committee, but that its orders could not be effective
without the ratification of the factory committee or its control
commission. Most organs of control saw to the execution of various
jobs to be done, investigated the state of equipment, finances, order
books, accounts, fuel and raw material, and, in addition, the factory
committee was responsible for laying off workers, for internal order,
productivity and working conditions.55 In those enterprises where the
factory committees were in complete charge, this was not, generally,
considered to be a permanent arrangement, but a makeshift arrange-
ment until such time as the government formally nationalised the
enterprise and appointed a new board of management. Finally, the
management of factories which had been officially nationalised varied
a great deal. At former state enterprises the boards of management
were gradually reorganised. Thus a new board was appointed at the
Obukhov works on 20 January, which consisted of eight workers, two
technical personnel, the chief engineer and a representative of the
sluzhashchie.56 In some nationalised private factories the boards of
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers3 control 241

management consisted of workers and technicians, trade-union and

sovnarkhoz representatives. Often, however, the control-commission
remained in charge, the only change being that a commissar,
responsible to VSNKh, was appointed to keep a strict eye on
production at the factory. In some instances, the old board of
management remained in charge of a nationalised factory, but now
worked under a VSNKh commissar. Overall, therefore, there was
considerable variation in the structure of management of Petrograd's
factories, although since October there had been a significant move in
the direction of worker participation in management.
In Chapter 9 we saw that at their final conference in January 1918,
the Petrograd factory committees had demanded that nationalised
enterprises be run by workers' committees. In March, however,
Lenin made the first of a series of appeals for a return to one-man
management. The controversy about workers' collegial management
came to a head at the First Congress of sovnarkhozy from 25 May to 4
June 1918. The commission of the congress which drew up the
resolution on enterprise management, strictly circumscribed the right
of VSNKh to influence the make-up of the boards of nationalised
enterprises, by proposing that two-thirds of the board be elected by
workers at the enterprise. When Lenin heard of this he was outraged,
and he, together with Rykov and Veinberg, drafted an alternative
resolution.57 This was, eventually, passed by the conference. It
specified that nationalised enterprises should be run by a collegial
board of management, one-third of whose members should be
nominated by the oblast' sovnarkhoz', one-third nominated by either
VSNKh or the oblast' or national trade union; and the other third by
the workers of the enterprise. The board was then to elect a director
responsible to VSNKh. N.K. Antipov, formerly of the CCFC,
Andronnikov, from the Urals oblast' sovnarkhoz, and Kostelovskaya,
from the textile union, argued for full workers' management and were
opposed by Veinberg, Lozovskii and others, who called for virtually
complete control of the enterprise by VSNKh. 58 The resolution
passed was a compromise between these two positions, but it marked
a strengthening of centralism, since it subordinated management
boards to the sovnarkhoz. This form of collegial management thus
considerably modified the concept of workers' management which
had been advocated by the factory committees a few months earlier.
Later during the Civil War, the committees were to strenuously
defend this compromise against the advocates of one-
242 Red Petrograd

man management. In 1919 only 10.8% of enterprises in Russia were

under one-man management, though this percentage rose dramati-
cally during 1919-20.59 In Petrograd the resistance to one-man
management was especially strong, particularly in large factories. In
March 1920 69% of factories employing more than 200 workers were
still run by a collegial board.60 Petrograd workers, therefore, the most
enthusiastic exponents of the 'democratic' factory in 1917, proved
most resistant to recentralisation of management authority during
the Civil War.

ECONOMIC CATASTROPHE AND THE DISSOLUTION OF THE

WORKING CLASS

The expansion of workers' control is usually considered to be a major

cause of the accelerating chaos in the economy. In fact it was less a
cause and more a response to that chaos, which had its roots in the
whole system of war capitalism. During the war the output of
Petrograd's industry had doubled, and by 1917 it was meeting
two-thirds of the nation's defence requirements. The crisis in the war
industries, which began to build up during the summer of 1917, came
to a head in the winter of that year. As soon as the Bolsheviks sued for
peace, the bottom fell out of the capital's economy.
The People's Commissariat of Labour (Narkomtrud) began in
December to draw up plans for the orderly demobilisation of the war
industries and for the evacuation of both factories and workers. On 20
December it ordered the closure of factories for up to a month, so that
the transfer to civilian production could be carried out.61 It was
envisaged that the experienced, skilled workers would remain in the
demobilised factories, and that the majority of less experienced
workers would be encouraged to leave Petrograd, the Labour
Exchange paying their travelling expenses. Factory committees
began to draw up detailed plans for redundancies within their
enterprises. At the Okhta explosive works the factory committee
agreed that workers should be made redundant in the following order:
first to go would be volunteers; second, merchants, traders, yard-
keepers, caretakers and others who had entered the factory in order to
avoid conscription; third, those who had refused to join a trade union;
fourth, members of families in which more than one member worked
at the factory; fifth, youths under the age of eighteen, unless they had
dependants or were without families; sixth, those with some property
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers3 control 243
or element of fixed income; seventh, those from families
in which other members were still employed, though not at the
factory; eighth, single people with no dependants; ninth, and last to
go, would be workers with dependants, according to the number of
dependants they had. 62 Similar redundancy plans were drawn up at
the Old Parviainen works and at Putilov.63
In the event, little came of the plans for an organised demobilisa-
tion of Petrograd industry. In the New Year, the plight of thousands
of workers, facing the loss of their jobs, was suddenly compounded by
the prospect of a German occupation of the city and a cut in the bread
ration. On 27 January the bread ration was reduced to 150 grams per
day; on 14 February to 100 grams (one-quarter ofafunt), and on 28
February it reached its lowest level of 50 grams. 64 Mass starvation
loomed ahead, and this, together with the imagined horrors of a
German occupation, induced panic in the population and an exodus
from the capital. Four months after 'demobilisation', the metal
section of SNKh S.R. reported: 'there was not even any discussion of a
full, detailed survey of enterprises, there was neither the technical
means nor the time for this, since any delay in dismissing workers
threatened to cost colossal sums. The workers, too, hurried to leave in
order to get out of Petrograd as quickly as possible, to escape
starvation and the threat of invasion.' 65 Those who had ties with the
countryside hurried back to their native villages, in the hope of
qualifying for some of the land that was being distributed. Others,
dismissed from their jobs, set out from the capital in the hope of
finding food. In the first six months of 1918 over a million people left
Petrograd. 66
Within a matter of months, the proletariat of Red Petrograd,
renowned throughout Russia for its outstanding role in the revolu-
tion, had been decimated (see Table 75). By April 1918 the factory
workforce of the capital had plummeted to about 40% of its January
1917 level, and it shrank still further thereafter. The branches of
industry worst affected were those producing directly for the war
effort - metalworking and engineering, shipbuilding, chemicals and
woodworking. In the metal factories of Petrograd province, em-
ploying more than a hundred workers, the total workforce slumped
from 197,686 on 1 January to 57,995 on 1 May. 67 Less severely
affected were light industries such as textiles, food, paper and
printing. Big factories suffered more than small factories; private
factories more than state-owned ones. Those factories which had
244 R-ed Petrograd

expanded most dramatically during the war, contracted most

dramatically when the war ended. 68 On 28 February 1918 the huge
Triangle rubber works closed down: within a matter of months only
756 of its 15,000 staff remained. 69 Despite the flight of workers from
the city, there were still 60,000 registered unemployed at the
beginning of May. 70
The Soviet historians, Drobizhev and Vdovin, argue that it was the
less experienced wartime recruits to industry who left Petrograd,
leaving a nucleus of 'cadre' workers more or less intact. 71 This
picture, however, is in need of qualification. It was to be expected that
workers with close ties to the countryside should have left the capital,
given the availability of food and land in their native villages.
Similarly, it was to be expected that the shutdown of war production
should have made large numbers of unskilled and semi-skilled war
recruits jobless. This is borne out by data from the Central
Commission for the Evacuation of Petrograd (and later from the city
Labour Exchange) which show that no less than 53% of those who
applied for travelling expenses were chernorabochie.12 However, since
only a minority of those who left the city claimed travelling expenses,
those who did so, were more likely to have been the worst-off workers,
i.e. the unskilled. Other evidence suggests that the process of
demobilisation was so cataclysmic that it made skilled, as well as
unskilled workers, redundant. 73 Even if experienced workers were not
as badly affected as their less experienced comrades, it was among the
former group that the Bolsheviks had their most committed suppor-
ters, and so many of them decided to leave the factories in order to
serve the new soviet government. They enlisted in the Red Army,
assumed posts of responsibility within the government and party
apparatuses, or joined the food detachments. O.I. Shkaratan esti-
mates that about 6,000 workers left Petrograd to join the Red Army
prior to April. 74 Young workers, fired by revolutionary elan and
without family commitments, were especially eager to quit the
factories in order to defend soviet power. Over half of those who
claimed evacuation expenses were single men, and by April the
proportion of youths in the factory workforce was only half that of the
previous year. 75 In October 1917 there had been about 43,000
Bolsheviks in the capital - of whom two-thirds were workers. 76 By
June 1918 only 13,472 were left.77 It would seem, therefore, that at
least the keener Bolsheviks among the 'cadre' workers left the
factories of Petrograd in the early months of 1918.
 Table 15: The decline in the number of factory workers in Petrograd, igiy-18

Number of enterprises
Number of which had closed by Number of workers Number of workers
Branch of Industry enterprises 1 April 1918 at 1 January 1917 at 1 April 1918

Textiles 45 10 37,478 31,855

Cloth 26 8 5,238 1,781
Paper 30 7 4,829 3,784
Printing H7 6 14,508 20,432
Woodworking 52 21 4,956 2,293
Metals 213 109 167,192 43,129
Minerals 18 8 2,323 645
Leather 35 8 11,181 7,680
Food 47 12 13,000 10,075
Chemicals 55 17 22,535 5,691
Electrotechnical 28 6 13,371 5,095
Power Stations 11 - 1,831
Ships, carriages, automobiles
and aeroplanes 39 n 29,850 8,024
Optical and surgical
instruments 25 6 5,49O 3,807
Rubber goods 2 2 17,228 2,641
TOTAL 773 231 351,010 148,710

Source: M. N. Potekhin, Pervyi Sovet proletarskoi diktatury, (Leningrad, 1966), p.253.

246 Red Petrograd

THE LABOUR ORGANISATIONS AND THE CRISIS OF

LABOUR DISCIPLINE

The exalted hopes unleashed by the October insurrection lasted until

the beginning of 1918. Then signs of working-class disillusionment
with the regime began to grow. This was not so much a response to the
political policies of the new government, as to its failure to stem the
chaos in the economy. Bolshevik actions such as the dissolution of the
Constituent Assembly and the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest
Litovsk caused murmurs of disquiet, but rocketing unemployment
and the chronic dearth of food caused open disaffection in some
quarters. The moderate socialists sought to give political shape to
these grievances. It is not the purpose of the present work, however, to
examine the character and scope of this anti-Bolshevik reaction in the
Petrograd working class, but rather to examine how the chaos in the
economy affected the situation in the workplace.
The chaos which engulfed industry gave rise to violent, destructive
moods among a minority of workers. Calls from anarchists to 'smash',
'bring down' or 'occupy' evoked a definite response. In February the
government warned factory committees to be ready to dismantle
machinery in the event of a German advance. In one or two factories
this led to an orgy of machine-breaking, even though the Germans got
no nearer the capital than Pskov.78 Negative feelings were manifest in
conflicts between unemployed and employed workers. At the Sie-
mens-Schukert works 7,000 workers were made redundant, and some
of them threatened violence to those whose jobs had been spared. In
April groups of the unemployed picketed the Obukhov works as the
morning shift went into work.79 The unemployed began to organise,
but in a manner which socialists could not condone. A meeting of the
unemployed in Vyborg, Lesnyi and Novoderevenskii districts issued
a statement, under the signature of the 'Party of the Unemployed',
which declaimed: 'The people have come to understand the dirty
deeds of the Yids. Jews have settled on all the committees. We suggest
that they leave Petrograd within the next three days.' 80 The
proto-fascist Union of the Russian People seems to have come out of
hiding at this time and may bear some responsibility for this revival of
antisemitism. Such ugly moods, however, were characteristic of only
a minority.
The Mensheviks sought to channel the discontent of the un-
employed in an anti-Bolshevik direction. A Committee for Struggle
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers' control 247
Against Unemployment was set up, which organised a demonstration
of the unemployed on 24 March. This voiced harsh criticism of the
government and, in particular, of the redundancy terms fixed by the
trade unions. 81 Fearing the political mileage which the Mensheviks
might make out of unemployment, the Bolsheviks convened an
official conference of the unemployed on 2 April. A wide range of
issues was discussed, and demands were raised for state unemploy-
ment benefit. The Bolshevik, Medvedev, said that the government
could simply not afford this at present. Some scepticism was
expressed at the idea of setting up a union of the unemployed, but the
general feeling was that this would be a good idea. The conference
called for an end to compulsory work on public projects (which led to
one losing one's place in the queue at the Labour Exchange), and for
the creation of artels arid cooperative workshops. The government was
asked to 'tax the propertied classes unmercifully', to deduct contribu-
tions to a fund for the unemployed from the wages of those in work,
and to issue extra rations cards to the unemployed.82 In spite of the
initiatives of both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, however, the success
of organisations of the unemployed appears to have been linited.
Among those workers who remained in work, the problem of
labour-discipline grew ever worse. From their inception, the factory
committees and trade unions had taken an active interest in
labour-discipline, and the problem now became of acute concern to
them, as discipline broke down under the impact of unemployment
and starvation. At Putilov the works committee issued a warning to
the workforce immediately after the seizure of power: 'Regrettably,
there are some comrades (not many, it is true) who understand
freedom as licence for their desires, as unruliness, and this always
harms the general affairs of the working class. So it is the duty of every
comrade to curb and prevent the emergence of licentiousness and
unruliness.' 83 Some 12,000 Putilovtsy stayed away from work during
November because there was nothing for them to do. When the works
committee managed to procure sixty wagonloads of coal through a
'pusher', it called on the absentee workers to return to the factory to
unload the coal. Only two workers turned up for work. The rest did
not bother, since they were receiving two-thirds their normal pay
whilst they were laid off. The committee decided to take drastic
measures by sacking persistent absentees and by cutting off the pay of
skilled workers who refused to do unskilled jobs. 84 In spite of these
harsh measures, labour discipline at Putilov continued to be poor
248 Red Petrograd

throughout 1918. On 10 May the Petrograd Soviet called on

Putilovtsy to improve productivity, and the works committee prom-
ised to do so.85 On 17 May SNKh S.R. informed the factory that:
'whoever wastes even one pud of coal, whoever causes the factory
chimney to smoke in vain for even five minutes is a criminal'.86 Three
days later the works committee promised: 'we shall strain every
nerve; we shall drive the lazy and those with little consciousness;
working hours shall be devoted solely to work'. It ended its resolution
with the twin slogans 'Long live labour-discipline!' and 'Long live the
world revolution!'87
Pressure for tough measures to counter labour indiscipline arose as
much from the grass roots as from government authorities. On 24
January the workers at the Nevka cotton mill met to discuss how to
combat deteriorating labour-discipline at the factory. Their resolu-
tion said: 'Having discussed the anarchy which holds sway in
production, which is beneficial only to our enemies, the capitalists,
who seek to profit from falling labour-productivity by increasing the
price of goods, we now realise the seriousness of the situation in the
country and will not allow our enemies to gloat at us. We must show
that we are not the old, browbeaten workers of tsarism, and that the
capitalist stick is now totally unnecessary. Their interests are alien to
us, it is our own interests which matter, and the best defence of our
power is to uphold the country's industry. We shall start along the
path of creative, constructive work and none of us has the right to
leave a machinefiveminutes beforefinishingtime. Whoever finishes
before time and leaves the workshop, will be sacked immediately or
brought before a court and then dismissed.'88
Some labour leaders were opposed to the use of punitive sanctions,
such as dismissal, to restore productivity. Larin, for example, argued
that even the most draconian measures could not halt the decline in
labour-productivity, since this was due to starvation rather than
indiscipline. He called for higher wages, greater workers' control and
moral suasion.89 A survey by Strumilin of twenty-seven factories in
Petrograd lent support to Larin's diagnosis. He calculated that nearly
half the fall in labour-productivity was due to sheer physical
exhaustion of workers, and only 21% to the decay of discipline and
motivation.90 Most trade-union leaders, however, felt that the
breakdown of labour-discipline reflected a change for the worse in
workers' attitudes.
In a speech to VTsIK (the All-Russian Central Executive
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers3 control 249
Committee) on 20 March 1918, A. Shlyapnikov, the Commissar of
Labour, painted a gloomy picture of the Moscow railways and
Petrograd factories where, he claimed, efforts by factory committees,
to improve productivity had led to their members being recalled and
replaced by representatives more compliant with the wishes of the
rank-and-file. He argued that the only solution to the crisis of
labour-discipline was the abolition of the guaranteed wage and the
revival of piece-rates. This speech marked a turning-point, for it
announced a decree which centralised management on the railways,
restored the power of individual administrators and granted 'dictato-
rial' powers to the Commissariat of Communications. 91
On 2 April the All-Russian Council of Trade Unions declared that
'one of the major causes of the fall in labour-productivity i s . . . the lack
of any kind of production discipline'. It proposed the reintroduction
of piece-rates, guaranteed norms of output, bonuses and work books,
in which workers would record their individual productivity. Work-
ers who did not fulfil output norms for three days in a row would be
transferred to a lower category, and if they continued to work below
par would be dismissed. The ARCTU also proposed sanctions
against lateness for work and opposed workers meeting during
working hours; it called on factory committees to enforce these
decisions.92
The most contentious of the proposals designed to improve
productivity proved to be the revival of piece-rates.
Although the unions had agreed to piece-rates in their contracts of
1917, little progress had been made in restoring them in practice. In
January 1918 the Petrograd board of the metal union reaffirmed its
support for piece-rates, 93 but the Petrograd Council of Trade Unions
appears to have been less happy with the idea. This seems to have
been due to the influence of D. Ryazanov on the PCTU, who saw
piece-rates as incompatible with socialism.94 On 25 May the metal
union persuaded a conference of Petrograd metalworkers to accept
piece-rates, but only as a temporary measure, and only on condition
that a worker did not earn more than 25% or 50% above the basic
rate of the contract. The conference declared: 'The working class,
which fought against piece-rates during the years when it had no
rights, because they were a means of deepening exploitation in the
hands of the employers, must now agree to their reintroduction under
strict and effective control, so that, having stripped this method of its
other features, we can use that which is valuable in it to help
250 Red Petrograd
95
restore industry.' In fact, the attempt to revive piece-rates did not
meet with widespread success.96 On 11 October 1918 a second
conference of Petrograd metalworkers voted to abolish piece-rates
except in exceptional circumstances. The metal section of SNKh S.R.
pressed for the reversal of this decision, but many factories continued
to reject piece-rates during the next two years.97
Other measures designed to restore productivity were more
successfully implemented. The summer of 1918 saw the widespread
introduction of guaranteed norms of output, bonus incentives and the
forty-eight-hour week. More controversially, the guaranteed wage
was abolished and wage-differentials were widened. In a few
factories, production was reorganised along Taylorist lines.
Finally, the months of May and June 1918 saw the labour
organisations of Petrograd begin to take a tough line against strikes. A
strike by the 'aristocratic' electricians of the Putilov works was
roundly condemned by a plenary session of the Petrograd Soviet on 29
May.98 At the Nevskii shipyard a threatened strike was denounced by
the Petrograd Council of Trade Unions, which accused the workers of
demanding lay-off terms which would 'turn factories into simple tools
for extracting money from the national exchequer, to the detriment of
the whole people'.99 In June a go-slow at the Obukhov works caused
the Petrograd board of the metal union to take the unprecedented step
of locking out the workers and declaring the factory closed. The
decision was taken with five votes against and three abstentions, and
was confirmed by SNKh S.R.100 Two months later, after the old
factory committee had been dissolved, the Obukhov works was
reopened.101 In spite of the strict measures which were being adopted
towards strikes, however, stoppages, like poor labour-productivity,
continued to occur throughout the Civil War.
Although the trade unions led the drive to increase labour-
discipline and productivity, the factory committees also played a part
in the battle to increase output. This had always been a concern of the
committees, but it now took precedence over their other concerns.
During 1918 the desire to transform relations of authority within the
enterprise gave way to the drive for greater productivity. Workers'
control was no longer seen in terms of the transformation of the
relations of workers to production, but in terms of the passive
supervision of production and, above all, in terms of upholding
labour-discipline.102 Yet one cannot see in this a triumph of the
Bolshevik party over the factory committees. From the first, the
 Economic crisis and the fate of workers3 control 251
committees had been committed both to maintaining production and
to democratising factory life, but the condition of industry was such
that these two objectives now conflicted with one another. The factory
committees, in general, consented to the prioritisation of produc-
tivity: they acquiesced in, and even initiated, impulses towards
stricter labour-discipline. Nevertheless, they and the organised
rank-and-file resisted impulses towards authoritarianism which they
disliked. In spite of the great respect and affection in which Lenin was
held, for example, his views on one-man management were quietly
ignored. Similarly, while most organised workers agreed to the
priority of restoring productivity, they were not prepared to counte-
nance the unconditional reintroduction of piece-rates. Party leaders
and trade-union officials were thus not able to 'impose' their policies
on the factory committees. In any case, there was no need to do so, for
they could count on the support of the factory committees, who could
see no alternative to the unpleasant policies being advocated.
After October labour organisations were no longer accountable
only to their members: they were also accountable to the Bolshevik
government. There thus began the process whereby these organisa-
tions lost their independent character and became incorporated into
the new state apparatus. Already by early 1918 the relationship of
labour organisations to their members was distinctly less democratic
than in the preceding year. Most factory committee activists believed
that the policies of the government were in the interests of the working
class, but it was not always easy to persuade the workers that this was
so. Efforts by the committees to strengthen labour-discipline at a time
when redundancies and starvation were ravaging working-class life
proved particularly unpopular. 'Bureaucratic' tendencies, which had
existed within the committees from the start, now began to come to
the fore. There were complaints that factory committees at the Pipe,
Nobel, Old Lessner, Langenzippen and the Cartridge works had
ignored demands from general meetings that they submit for
re-election.103 The Mensheviks saw in this, a 'system of terror,
violence and tyranny in which one section of the workers has become
a tool at the service of the government, bringing discord and
demoralisation into the ranks of the working class and ultimately
disorganising and weakening it'. 104 One need not concur with this
judgement, to recognise that the committees were beginning to
exploit the degree of autonomy which they enjoyed as representative
organs, in order to resist what they regarded as dangerous demands
252 Red Petrograd

from the shop floor, threatening the security of the revolution. From
the beginning of 1918, they began to bypass democratic practices
when these seemed to conflict with higher goals. The triumph of
bureaucratic tendencies over democratic ones was by no means a
foregone conclusion at the point at which we break off our story, but
since 1917 the balance between the two had shifted decisively in
favour of the former.
 Conclusion

The labour movements of Western Europe were dominated by skilled

artisans for most of the nineteenth century. Trades, such as tailors,
shoemakers, cabinet-makers, carpenters and the building trades,
spearheaded the radical and labour movements.1 In contrast, the
factory proletariat, which consisted to a large extent of women and
children, was, with certain exceptions, badly organised and political-
ly quiescent.2 Only in the last quarter of the nineteenth century did
trade unionism begin to expand beyond the ranks of an elite of
artisans and skilled factory craftsmen. The evolution of the Petrograd
labour movement was far more telescoped that its counterparts in the
countries of Western Europe. Although the number of strikes and
informal labour organisations grew rapidly during the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, it was not until the 1905 Revolution that a
formal labour movement was inaugurated. Although artisans played
an important part in creating trade unions and socialist
organisations,3 by 1917 the labour movement of the Russian capital
was based predominantly on workers in factory industry, workers
employed in huge enterprises which were among the most modern in
the world. Whilst this working class corresponded in some respects to
the Marxian model of the modern working class, since it was
employed in large-scale machine industry, in other respects, it was
not yet a fully-developed proletariat. Within its ranks, urbanised,
hereditary proletarians were still outnumbered by newcomers to
industry, who retained strong ties to the countryside. The labour
movement which was re-established in Petrograd after the February
Revolution, therefore, had a hybrid character. Based on the modern
factory rather than the artisanal workshop, it embraced a gamut of
types of workers from the traditional artisan, to the skilled worker of
253
254 R-ed Petrograd

the modern assembly plant, to the peasant migrant worker, so

familiar in the Third World today.
The factory workforce of Petrograd was highly differentiated by
degree of proletarianisation, by skill and wage-level, by gender, age
and education. Each of these variables had its own effectivity within
the struggles of the working class in 1917, and, in particular
circumstances, could become 'overdetermined', as for instance, in the
conflict between male and female workers over redundancies, or the
conflict between skilled and unskilled workers during the metal-union
contract negotiations. Nevertheless, one can crudely generalise, and
say that within the workforce in 1917 there were two broad groups of
workers: the first, consisting of proletarianised, skilled, literate, male
workers, who comprised around 40% of the total factory workforce;
the second, consisting of workers new to industry - mainly rural
migrants, women and youth. The first group - sometimes called by
contemporaries 'cadre' workers - should not, as a whole, be
considered a 'labour aristocracy', for although there were aristocratic
strata within it - the best-paid type-setters in the print trade, the
starshie in the armaments factories or the glass-blowers of the glass
industry — the majority of skilled men, whilst earning higher wages
and being culturally distinct from the new workers, lacked the strong
craft traditions on which the power of the 'labour aristocracy' in
nineteenth-century Britain had been based. Moreover, their skills
were not the all-round skills of the artisanal workshop, but the more
specialised skills of the modern factory. The widespread introduction
of the new technology of mass production during the First World War
facilitated the big increase in numbers of the second group of new
workers. The expansion of mass production in the metal and chemical
industries allowed the rapid absorption of new workers into semi-
skilled and unskilled jobs. The working-class women, the peasant
youths and the urban petit-bourgeois who poured into the factories of
the capital had little prior experience of wage-work in modern
industry, but it did not take long to train them to operate automatic
machinery or tend assembly lines. They quickly adapted to the
fevered tempo of work in the war industries and to the discipline of the
piece-rate system. The young, in particular, were soon at home in the
factory and the city. Nevertheless, in 1917 the new workers were still
culturally distinct from the 'cadre' workers, who tended to regard
them as the 'backward masses'.
The existence of two broad social groups within the workforce was
 Conclusion 255
by no means a new phenomenon brought about by the war. As far
back as the 1880s, contemporaries had noted the phenomenon and
had speculated on the revolutionary propensities of each group.
Kropotkin, one of the fathers of Russian anarchism, predicted that it
would be the spontaneous militancy of the fabrichnie, the down-
trodden peasants and women of the textile mills, which would spark
off the social revolution.4 In contrast, Plekhanov, the father of
Russian Marxism, envisaged that the zavodskie, or skilled workers of
the metal plants, would provide the basis of the revolutionary
movement, because of their greater proletarianisation, literacy and
leisure time. 5 The experience of 1917 suggests that the two groups
played different, but largely complementary roles in the revolution-
ary process. Those who built the labour movement were the 'cadre'
workers, especially metalworkers, for they had more time and money
at their disposal, were at home in the factory, were more literate, had
experience of informal shop-floor organisation and a degree of
job-control, and were thus better placed to participate in labour and
political activities. The new workers, on the other hand, were often
more turbulent than the 'cadre' workers because they combined the
manifold discontents of the low-paid worker with the grievances of the
poor peasants and the specific oppressions of women and youth.
Their militancy, however, was often of an explosive, sectional and
volatile kind, and tended to threaten the attempts of the factory
committee and trade-union leaders to build sustained, formal
organisations. The labour leaders were not unsympathetic to the
plight of the new workers, but they sought to direct their militancy
into organised channels. They had some success in this, for women
and peasant workers began in 1917 to engage in organised pursuit of
their goals and to join trade unions. Young workers in particular,
displayed a remarkable propensity for self-organisation. In this sense,
working-class unity became a reality after February, in spite of
profound divisions within the factory workforce. Yet contradictions of
interest — between skilled and unskilled, men and women, young and
old — remained: contradictions which labour leaders were reluctant to
recognise. For while they aspired to bring the inexperienced and
badly-off groups of workers into the orbit of the labour movement,
they were unwilling to make special provision for the particular needs
of the unskilled, the peasant migrants, working women or of youths.
As a result, the participation of the latter in labour organisations and
in revolutionary politics more generally, remained fairly tenuous. As
256 Red Petrograd

the economy collapsed in early 1918, contradictions of interest

between different groups of workers came to the fore, with the result
that the unity of the previous year began to fall apart.

The tsarist factory was, in certain respects, a microcosm of the wider

society. The structure of authority, the conditions of work, the low
wages placed workers in a semi-servile position, and they welcomed
the February Revolution as emancipation from this 'serfdom'.
Workers saw the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty as the signal to
create a democratic, or 'constitutional' factory order: firstly, by
expelling the most unpopular administrators and, secondly, by
establishing representative institutions to promote their interests as
wage-earners within both the factory and society at large. In a very
short time, workers won the eight-hour day and big wage-increases to
compensate for wartime inflation. The Petrograd employers' associa-
tion, having long resisted a more liberal industrial-relations policy,
quickly reconciled itself to the 'constitutional' order in the factories,
and conceded the greater part of the workers' demands.
The factory committees were the greatest gain made by workers as
a result of the February Revolution. They had their roots in the
tradition of the starosty, and perhaps, too, in the informal job control of
skilled workers, which was increasingly threatened by rationalisation
and de-skilling. The committees were strongest in the state sector,
where skilled workers of a defencist persuasion temporarily took over
the running of their enterprises, in order to ensure that production for
the war effort was not put in jeopardy. It was out of this experience
that the ideas of workers' control of production and collegial
management were born. In the private sector the factory committees
at first had largely trade-union functions, for it took some time for the
unions to re-establish themselves, but everywhere the committees
took on a wide range of tasks within and without the workplace. They
asserted their right to monitor hiring and firing, to supervise the
general running of the factory, and they intervened in areas as diverse
as food-supply, education and law and order. Because state power
was relatively ineffective, the committees became a central part of
that 'counter-state' which was built up by workers between February
and October, and in whose name the Bolsheviks seized power.6
The trade unions took some time to get off the ground, especially in
the metal industry, where the factory committees were strongest.
Throughout 1917 the unions were less influential than the commit-
 Conclusion 257

tees, for the latter were more popular, more democratic and more
powerful than the unions. It would be wrong, however, to minimise
the importance of the unions, for they grew at a remarkable rate,
becoming genuine mass organisations, and playing a crucial part in
the revolutionary process. Craft unionism proved relatively weak in
Petrograd, guild traditions never having been as strongly rooted in
Russia as in Western Europe. The 'modern' character of the factory
workforce seemed to call for industrial unionism, and the socialists
who led the union movement found this more politically appealing
than craft unionism. Although the reformist socialists were a powerful
influence in the unions at a national level, in Petrograd the Bolsheviks
and Mensheviks were fairly evenly balanced, with the influence of the
former growing rapidly. Given their large size and the inhospitable
conditions in which they began to operate, the unions proved
themselves surprisingly effective as organisations representing the
interests of workers as a whole. It was only after October, when the
unions became subject to the Bolshevik government, that bureaucra-
tisation developed on a significant scale.
Accelerating inflation rapidly undermined the wage-gains which
workers had made in the spring, largely by means of small-scale,
localised struggles. The unions sought to restore the real wages of
workers by negotiating city-wide contracts covering all workers in
each branch of industry. The contracts aimed to improve the position
of the low-paid, in part by diminishing wage-differentials, and so
many low-paid workers joined the unions in the summer of 1917.
Negotiations of the contracts were often protracted, however, and as
the position of the low-paid grew progressively worse, they turned
increasingly to unofficial direct action in an effort to defend them-
selves against rocketing inflation. This brought some sections of the
rank-and-file into conflict with union leaders - conflict which was
exacerbated when the compromises made between union negotiators
and the employers became known. There was considerable opposi-
tion to the final terms of the metal contract, for example, because
ferocious inflation had eaten away the value of the wage increases by
the time the contract was signed. Given the intractability of the
economic crisis, it was probably an achievement for the unions to
have succeeded in implementing the contracts at all. The contracts,
by rationalising the pay structure, by setting-up rates commissions
and, above all, by linking wages to productivity, prefigured aspects of
Bolshevik labour-policy after 1917. And within the metal union a
258 Red Petrograd

'productivist' current, which celebrated efficiency, planning and the

'culture of production', adumbrated the movement for the 'scientific
organisation of labour' which was to develop in the 1920s.
The deepening crisis of the economy provides the backdrop to the
political radicalisation of Petrograd workers. The inability, or
perceived unwillingness, of the Kerensky government to protect the
gains made by workers after the February Revolution, led to growing
disillusionment with the moderate socialists who supported the
government. Workers now began to look to their own organisations
for protection. It was the movement for workers' control of produc-
tion which translated growing economic discontent into sympathy for
the Bolshevik party. Workers' control had its roots in the democra-
tisation of factory life, but the main impulse behind the movement
sprang from the efforts of the factory committees to maintain
production and to defend jobs - at a time when massive redundancies
and the collapse of the war industries loomed on the horizon. Initially,
the scope of workers' control was fairly modest: it aimed to supervise
the activities of management in order to ensure that it did not
'sabotage' production or endanger workers' jobs. As economic
disorder and class conflict grew, however, the factory committees
broadened the scope of control. No longer did they confine themselves
to procuring fuel and raw materials and to inspecting the process of
production, they increasingly intervened in every sphere of manage-
ment decision-making, demanding the right to attend board meetings
and access to financial accounts and order-books. Although the
movement aimed to limit the power of management, it cannot be
considered a 'syndicalist' movement, for the determination of the
committees to combat 'sabotage' was motivated more by practical
than ideological considerations. Within Petrograd, anarchist and
syndicalist influence was limited, and conceptions of workers' control
were not articulated in syndicalist terms at either factory level or on
the CCFC.7 Whilst the committees rejected Menshevik and SR calls
for state control of the economy, they endorsed Bolshevik perspectives
for centralised coordination of the economy by a proletarian state
power. There were, however, differences of emphasis between the
leaders of the factory committees, the majority of whom were
Bolsheviks, and the official party spokesmen. Committee activists
appear to have had more faith in the capacity of grass-roots control to
restore order in the economy than did some party leaders. Moreover
they linked the battle to combat economic disorder to the struggle to
 Conclusion 259
limit the prerogatives of the employers and, consequently, placed
much greater emphasis than did most party leaders on the necessity of
transforming authority-relations at enterprise level, as part of the
transition to socialism.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude that the Bolsheviks
cynically manipulated the factory committees for their own ends. The
radicalisation of the movement for workers' control gave the party
enormous opportunity to win wide support for its policies, but it did
not control the movement: it responded to it, trying to steer it in the
direction it believed was proper. It was the organised working class,
not the Bolshevik party, which was the great power in society - more
powerful than even the capitalist class, as its success in resisting
redundancies suggests. The collapse of the system of war capitalism,
however, in early 1918 destroyed the strength of the working class,
and it was only at that point that the Bolsheviks were in a position to
achieve a monopoly of power.
The advent to power of the Bolsheviks in October raised the hopes
and aspirations of workers in a similar way to the February
Revolution, yet it made little difference to their working lives, for the
economic situation continued to get worse. Initially, Lenin supported
a radical interpretation of the Decree on Workers' Control, although
he did not envisage a rapid transition to a socialist economy.
Gradually, however, he became convinced that workers' control
could not cope with the deep structural crisis of the economy, and he
came to side with the trade-union critics of the factory committees.
The Bolsheviks on the CCFC favoured a speedy transition to
socialism, and they were the most vocal section of the party pressing
for a system of central economic planning and state ownership of
industry. Under such a system, the factory-committee Bolsheviks
envisaged that workers' control would be transmuted into workers'
management of individual enterprises. At factory level, many com-
mittee activists saw the Decree on Workers' Control as opening the
way to workers' self-management, but in practice most of the
control-commissions set up by the Decree confined themselves to
circumscribing drastically the power of management, whilst not
displacing it altogether. In the circumstances, this policy did not
prove workable. Most employers resisted the more ambitious style of
workers' control, and preferred to close down their factories rather
than to submit to it. As a result, in a few instances, the control-
commissions were forced to take over the actual running of the
260 Red Petrograd

factories in a vain effort to save jobs. Such takeovers - although

occurring in only a minority of Petrograd factories - were crucial in
pushing the government in the direction of full-scale nationalisation.
'Nationalisations from below5, together with escalating chaos in
industry, persuaded the government finally to nationalise the whole
of industry in June 1918. This proved, however, not to be the
realisation of self-management, as the factory-committee activists
had expected, but the first step in a process which culminated in the
full restoration of one-man management.
There is some indication that prior to October the factory
committees were beginning to accept the idea of a merger with the
trade unions, but after October conflict between the two organisa-
tions flared up, as both tried to compete in the business of regulating
the economy. The factory committees were accused by the unions of
being selfish, parochial organisations, unsuited to the broad tasks of
restoring order to the economy. Instances of such parochialism were
in fact few in Petrograd, but there were just enough examples of
committees refusing to share precious stocks of fuel and raw materials
(at the Metal, Triangle and Copper-Rolling works)8 to make the
trade-union charges stick. There is no real evidence that the
committees were exacerbating the chaos in the economy, as the
unions claimed, but nor were they managing to cope with it, as they
claimed they could. As the factories closed down, and as hundreds of
thousands of workers fled from Petrograd, centralism and firm
discipline became the order of the day. Only the unions seemed
capable of achieving these things. Consequently, the government
decided that the factory committees must be absorbed into the
apparatus of the trade unions.

By the spring of 1918, Lenin was haunted by the fact that the
economic infrastructure of socialism did not exist in Russia. The
political superstructure was there, in the shape of a soviet govern-
ment, but not the material base. This existed only in the West- above
all, in Germany. This led him to observe that: 'History has taken such
a peculiar course that it has given birth to two unconnected halves of
socialism, existing side by side like two future chickens in a single shell
of international imperialism. In 1918 Germany has become the most
striking embodiment of the material realisation of the economic,
productive and socio-economic conditions for socialism on the one
hand, and Russia, the embodiment of the political conditions on the
 Conclusion 261

other.' 9 The Treaty of Brest Litovsk signalled the fact that revolution
would not break out immediately in Germany. Every effort, therefore,
had to be made to build up the productive forces in Russia. As Lenin
argued:
The task of the day is to restore the productive forces destroyed by the war
and by bourgeois rule; to heal the wounds inflicted by the war and by the
defeat in the war, by profiteering and the attempts of the bourgeoisie to
restore the overthrown rule of the exploiters; to achieve economic revival; to
provide reliable protection of elementary order. It may sound paradoxical,
but, in fact, considering the objective conditions mentioned, it is absolutely
certain that at the present moment the Soviet system can secure Russia's
transition to socialism only if these very elementary, extremely elementary
problems of maintaining public life are practically solved.10
This meant, first and foremost, raising the productivity of labour: 'the
Russian worker is a bad worker in comparison with the advanced
nations . . . To learn to work is the task that the Soviet government
must set the people in all its scope.' 11 In turn, this meant the
restoration of 'iron discipline' in the workplace, the revival of
piece-rates, productivity deals and, above all, one-man management.
Implicit within the movement for workers' control was a belief that
capitalist methods cannot be used for socialist ends. In their battle to
democratise the factory, in their emphasis on the importance of
collective initiatives by the direct producers in transforming the
work-situation, the factory committees had become aware — in a
partial and groping way, to be sure - that factories are not merely sites
of production, but also of reproduction - the reproduction of a certain
structure of social relations based on the division between those who
give orders and those who take them, between those who direct and
those who execute. The leaders of the factory committees never
developed these insights into a systematic strategy for socialism,
alternative to that of Lenin and the majority of the Bolshevik
leadership; yet inscribed within their practice was a distinctive vision
of socialism, central to which was workplace democracy.
Lenin believed that socialism could be built only on the basis of
large-scale industry as developed by capitalism, with its specific types
of productivity and social organisation of labour. Thus for him,
capitalist methods of labour-discipline or one-man management were
not necessarily incompatible with socialism. Indeed, he went so far as
to consider them to be inherently progressive, failing to recognise that
such methods undermined workers' initiatives at the point of
production. This was because Lenin believed that the transition to
262 Red Petrograd

socialism was guaranteed, ultimately, not by the self-activity of

workers, but by the 'proletarian' character of the state power.
Maurice Brinton, the libertarian critic of Bolshevism, has exposed
the inadequacy of his conception:
None of them [i.e. the Bolshevik leaders] saw the proletarian nature of the
Russian regime as primarily and crucially dependent on the exercise of
workers' power at the point of production (i.e. on workers' management of
production). It should have been obvious to them as Marxists that if the
working class did not hold economic power, its 'political' power would at best
be insecure and would in fact soon degenerate. The Bolshevik leaders saw the
capitalist organisation of production as something which, in itself, was
socially neutral. It could be used indifferently for bad purposes (as when the
bourgeoisie used it with the aim of promoting private accumulation) or good
ones (as when the 'workers" state used it 'for the benefit of many').12
This critique is absolutely on target. There is no doubt that Lenin did
conceive proletarian power in terms of the central state and lacked a
conception of localising such power at the point of production. 13
A more far-reaching critique of Bolshevik strategy at this time has
been developed by writers of Maoist persuasion - principally, the
French economist Charles Bettelheim. He argues that the Bolsheviks
were wrong to believe that the possibility of socialist advance is, in
any sense, determined by the level of productive forces. He follows
Mao Zedong in arguing that the transformation of relations of
production clears the way for the development of productive forces
rather than vice versa.14 He contends that because the Bolsheviks -
with the heroic exception of Lenin, whom he unwarrantedly excludes
from his strictures - erroneously believed that the level of productive
forces dictates the possibilities of socialist advance, they therefore
subordinated the transformation of capitalist social relations to the
drive to increase industrial output. The consequent absence of a
strategy for transforming work-relations meant that output increased
within a framework of capitalist rather than socialist relations of
production. The capitalist division of labour and the ideological and
political relations which are an effect of this division, were thus
constantly reproduced, paving the way, Bettelheim avers, for the
ultimate restoration of a 'state bourgeoisie'.
There is much in Bettelheim's stimulating critique with which one
can agree. The Bolshevik strategy of transition did indeed centre on
building the 'economic base' ('socialism equals electrification plus
soviet power'), with little attention being paid to transforming social
relations. But in denying that the level of productive forces exercises
 Conclusion 263
any constraint on the possibilities of socialist advance, Bettelheim is
guilty of the grossest voluntarism. The implication of his argument is
that the subsequent development of the Soviet state was the
consequence of a simple theoretical error ('economism'). Whilst he
mentions the intractable economic and social circumstances in which
the Bolsheviks found themselves, these objective constraints do not
really function as part of his explanation of the degeneration of the
revolution.
A satisfactory examination of the theoretical relationship of forces
of production to relations of production, would take us into rarefied
spheres well outside the scope of this work. Marx centrally assumed
that the creation of socialist relations of production was possible only
on the basis of a certain level of productive forces, but his treatment of
this question is problematical, because his concept of the 'productive
forces' at times smacks of technological determinism. This led the
Second International to interpret the question in a way that was
unambiguously technological-determinist. Theoreticians such as K.
Kautsky conceived the 'productive forces' as technology and the
ever-growing scale of production. They argued that these, being
social in character, would come into ever-increasing conflict with the
constricting mode of appropriation based on private ownership.
Finally, the productive forces would burst the fetters of private
ownership, but would provide the material base for a socialist
reorganisation of society, once a socialist government came to power.
It is possible, however, to find in Marx's writings, a broader
conception of 'productive forces', which does not reduce them to
technology or productive capacity. This conceives productive forces
as all those capacities and resources which are harnessed to
producing use-values. These forces, which can never be divorced
from the social forms in which they are embodied, include not merely
types of industrial and agricultural production, but modes of social
cooperation, the application of knowledge and cultural forms.15
Above all, Marx sees the principal 'productive force' as being the
working class itself.16 In the light of this broader conception, it
becomes clearer why Marx considered that a developed level of
productive forces was necessary to the construction of socialism; for
only a high level of productive forces could make possible the big
reduction in necessary labour time which would enable the whole
people to participate in self-government and civilisation. Without an
adequate level of productive forces, 'want is merely made general
264 Red Petrograd

and, with destitution, the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy
business is necessarily reproduced'.17 Socialism, in other words,
would cease to be the entry into freedom, and become a struggle for
survival instead.
With this in mind, it is possible to understand the cruel dilemma in
which the Bolsheviks found themselves in 1918. They were intent on
creating democratic socialism, but their priority had to be the
reconstruction of the productive forces, especially, the revival of
labour-discipline. In the short term, the limited use of forms of
compulsion, in particular, the application of capitalist methods of
labour-discipline and labour-intensification, was probably unavoid-
able. Yet most of the Bolshevik leadership seemed unaware of the
dangers posed to the goal of democratic socialism by the long-term
use of methods which undermined workers' self-activity in produc-
tion. This was largely a consequence of the ideological problematic
within which they thought through the problems of socialist construc-
tion. This problematic - still, in large part, that which had been
inherited from the Second International - construed the productive
forces in a narrow, technicist fashion and conceived the types of
productivity and social organisation of labour engendered by capital-
ist society as being inherently progressive. Moreover within this
problematic the absence of a notion of workers' self-activity in the
realm of production as being a constituent element of socialist
transition was especially glaring. If the Bolsheviks had been more
critical of this Second International problematic, it is possible that
they would have been more alive to the dangers of using coercive
methods to restore the battered productive forces, except as an
emergency measure. Whether such an awareness could have pre-
vented the degeneration of the democratic socialist revolution in the
long term, however, as Bettelheim suggests - given the persistence of
war, economic isolation and cultural backwardness - seems doubtful.
The depressing experience of socialist societies to date suggests that
the imperatives of economic and social development in under-
developed societies necessitate types of compulsion which ultimately
conflict with the creation of free social relations. In other words, even
if the Bolshevik government hadbeen more percipient concerning the
dangers to democratic socialism posed by the methods which it was
forced to adopt, it seems probable that objective circumstances would
ultimately have conspired to drain socialism of its democratic
content. As it was, blind to the risks that it was running, the
 Conclusion 265

government was very quickly forced along a path which in October

1917 it had never dreamed of traversing. Already by 1921, the
Bolsheviks no longer represented a socialism of liberty, but one of
scarcity, in which the needs of individual and human liberation were
firmly subordinate to the exigencies of economic development.
 Notes

INTRODUCTION

1 T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge University Press,

J
979); Revolutions in Modern European History, ed. H. Lubasz (New York,
Macmillan, 1976).
2 Excellent accounts of the general developments of the Russian Revolution
are available in the following works: J.L.H. Keep, The Russian Revolution: a
study in mass mobilisation (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976); M.
Ferro, The Russian Revolution ojFebruary igi7 (London, Routledge, 1972); M.
Ferro, October igiy (London, Routledge, 1980). The July Days are
examined in A. Rabinowitch, Prelude to Revolution (Bloomington, Indiana
University Press, 1968). The October insurrection has two fine histories in
R.V. Daniels, Red October: the Bolshevik Revolution of igij (New York,
Scribners, 1967) and A. Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power (New
York, Norton, 1976). Although the present study discusses briefly the
policies of the major political parties on 'economic' affairs, an attempt has
been made to avoid duplicating the comprehensive accounts already
available in P. Avrich, The Russian Revolution and the Factory Committees
(Columbia University, Ph.D., 1962); R J . Devlin, Petrograd Workers and
Workers' Factory Committees (State University of New York at Binghampton,
Ph.D., 1976).
3 N. Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London, New Left Books,
1
975)j N. Poulantzas, State, Power and Socialism (London, New Left Books,
1978); R. Hyman, Industrial Relations: a Marxist Introduction (London,
Macmillan, 1975), P-26; S. Lukes, Power: a Radical View (London,
Macmillan, 1974), pp.34~5-
4 V.I. Lenin, 'What is to be done?', Selected Works (in two volumes), vol.i
(London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1946).
5 C. Goodrich, The Frontier of Control (London, Pluto Press, 1975).
6 Spisok fabrichno-zavodskikh predpriyatii Petrograda (Petrograd, 1918), pp.7
-16.

266
 Notes 267

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

1 Material}po statistike Petrograda, issue 1 (Petrograd, 1920), p. 10. Estimates

vary from 2.3 million to 2.7 million. A.G. Rashin, Formirovanie rabochego
klassa Rossii (Moscow, 1958), p.354; S.G. Strumilin, 'Obshchii obzor
severnoi oblasti', Materialy po statistike truda severnoi oblasti, issue 1
(Petrograd, 1918), p. 17.
2 A.G. Rashin, Naselenie Rossii za sto let (Moscow, 1956), pp.25, 97.
3 Mat. po stat. Pet., issue 1, p. 10.
4 E.E. Kruze and D.G. Kutsentov, 'Naselenie Peterburga' in Ocherki istorii
Leningrada, vol.3 (Moscow, 1956), p. 106.
5 A more detailed statistical discussion of the demographic structure of St
Petersburg can be found in: S.A. Smith, The Russian Revolution and the
Factories of Petrograd, February 191 y to June 1918, Ph.D. (Birmingham
University, 1980), pp.2-5. These generalisations are based on Rashin,
Naselenie; and Mat. po. stat. Pet., issue 1.
6 Statisticheskie dannye Petrograda (Petrograd, 1916), p.8.
7 Kruze and Kutsentov, 'Naselenie', pp. 104-46.
8 P.V. Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya Rossii v 191yg. (Moscow, 1964),
P-47-
9 Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie, ed. S.N. Valk, vol.i (Leningrad, 1967),
p.47.
10 ibid, pp.419-21.
11 P.I. Lyashchenko, History of the National Economy of Russia (New York,
Macmillan, 1949), P-7H-
12 Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie, vol.i, p.423.
13 M.E. Falkus, The Industrialisation of Russia, iyoo—1914 (London, Mac-
millan, 1972), pp.77-8.
14 Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie, vol.i, pp.403-5.
15 Spisok fabrichno-zavodskikh predpriyatii Petrograda (Petrograd, 1918);
Istoricheskii arkhiv, 5, 1961, 158-65.
16 Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie, vol.i, pp.408-9.
17 O. Crisp, 'Labour and Industrialisation in Russia', Cambridge Economic
History of Europe, vol. vn, part 2 (Cambridge, 1978), p.404.
18 A. Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cam-
bridge, Mass., Harvard, 1962), pp. 135-8.
19 E.E. Kruze, Polozhenie rabochego klassa Rossii v 1900—i^gg. (Leningrad, 1976),
p.127.
20 Ya. S. Rozenfeld and K.I. Klimenko, Istoriya mashinostroeniya SSSR
(Moscow, 1961), pp.102, 105, 109.
21 V.I. Grinevetskii, Poslevoennyeperspektivy russkoipromyshlennosti (Moscow,
1918), p.46.
22 Rozenfeld and Klimenko, Istoriya, pp. 116, 123.
23 Istoriya rabochikh Leningrada, ed. S.N. Valk, vol. 1 (Leningrad, 1972), p.463.
24 Lyashchenko, National Economy, p.762.
25 Rashin, Formirovanie, p. 196.
26 Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya
oktyabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), pp.25-6.
268 Notes
27 Spisok fabrichno-zavodskikh predpriyatii, passim.
28 Rabochii klass i rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii v igijg- (Moscow, 1964), p.75.
29 Rashin, Formirovanie, p.83.
30 Rab. klass i rab. dvizhenie, p. 76.
31 E.E. Kruze, Peterburgskie rabochie v igi2-i4gg. (Moscow, 1954), p.69.
32 A.I. Davidenko, 'K voprosu o chislennosti i sostave proletariata Peter-
burga v nachale XX veka', Istoriya rabochego Klassa Leningrada, issue 2
(Leningrad, 1963), p.97; Kruze, Peterburgskie rabochie, p.69.
33 L.S. Gaponenko, Rabochii Klass Rossii v igiyg. (Moscow, 1970), p.88.
34 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.32.
35 Mid.
36 ibid., p.33.
37 ibid.
38 J.H. Bater, St. Petersburg: Industrialisation and Change (Montreal, McGill,
I976)-
39 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.30.
40 Statisticheskie dannye Petrograda, p. 11.
41 Materialy po statistike Petrograda, issue 1, p.33.
42 Bater, St. Petersburg, p.352.
43 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.59.
44 Vyborgskaya storona (Leningrad, 1957), p.i 1.
45 S.N. Semanov, Peterburgskie rabochie nakanune pervoi russkoi revolyutsii
(Moscow, 1966), p. 152.
46 1st. rab. klassa Len., vol.i, p.409.
47 S.N. Prokopovich, Byudzhetypeterburgskikh rabochikh (St Petersburg, 1909),
p.10.
48 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.58.
49 ibid., p. 59.
50 Kruze and Kutsentov, 'Naselenie', p. 108.
51 ibid., p. 109.
52 R.E. Johnson, Peasant and Proletarian (Leicester University Press, 1979);
R. Munting, 'Outside Earnings in the Russian Peasant Farm: the case of
Tula province, 1900-17'', Journal of Peasant Studies, 3 (1976), 444.
53 Kruze and Kutsentov, 'Naselenie', p. 106.
54 N.A. Shuster, Peterburgskie rabochie v 1905-ygg. (Leningrad, 1976), p. 18;
Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.40.
55 Shuster, Peterburgskie rabochie, p.21.
56 A.S. Smirnov, 'Zemlyacheskie organizatsii rabochikh i soldat v I9i7g.',
Istoricheskie zapiski, 60 (1957) 86-123; T. Trenogova, Bor'bapetrogradskikh
bol'shevikov za krest'yanstvo v igiyg. (Leningrad, 1949), p.78.
57 Prokopovich, Byudzhety, p.7.
58 M. Davidovich, Peterburgskii tekstil'nyi rabochii v ego byudzhetakh (St
Petersburg, 1912), p.8.
59 Shuster, Peterburgskie rabochie, p.30.
60 P. Timofeev, Chem zhivet zavodskii rabochii (St Petersburg, 1906),
pp.12-13, 18.
61 Tsentral'noe Statisticheskoe Upravlenie (Ts.S.U.), Trudy, vol.xxvi, issue
2, pp.25, 35.
 Notes 269
62 A.G. Rashin, Sostav fabrichno-zavodskogo proletariaia (Moscow, 1930),
PP-25> 35-
63 V.Z. Drobizhev, A.K. Sokolov and V.A. Ustinov, Rabochii klass Sovetskoi
Rossii v pervyi god proletarskoi diktatury (Moscow, 1975), p.93.
64 One should not interpret these figures, as does L.M. Ivanov, to mean that
by 1914 the working class itself had become the main source of recruits to
industry rather than the peasantry. It is likely that many peasants who
came to industry in the pre-1917 period left during the upheavals of the
Civil War and were no longer working in industry by the time of the 1929
census. L.M. Ivanov, 'Preemstvennost' Fabrichno-zavodskogo truda i
formirovanie proletariata v Rossii', Rabochii klass i rabochee dvizhenie v
Rossii, 1861—igiygg. (Moscow, 1966).
65 E.P. Thompson, 'Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism', Past
and Present, 38 (1967), 56-97.
66 Rashin, Formirovanie, p.504.
67 Kruze, Peterburgskie, p. 75.
68 Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya, p.20.
69 I.P. Leiberov and O.I. Shkaratan, 'K voprosu o sostave petrogradskikh
promyshlennykh rabochikh v 1917g.', Voprosy istorii, 1 (1961), 52.
70 ibid., 53-4.
71 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.36.
72 I.P. Leiberov, Na shturm samoderzhaviya (Moscow, 1979), P-I7- This
contradicts the claim of Ivanov, 'Preemstvennost", p.76, and Rashin,
Sostav, p.30, that more wartime recruits came from the working class than
from the peasantry.
73 Leiberov and Shkaratan, 'K voprosu o sostave', p.51.
74 Krasnaya Letopis', 3 (1939), 169.
75 M.D. Rozanov, Obukhovtsy (Leningrad, 1965), p.278.
76 Leiberov and Shkaratan, 'K voprosu o sostave', p.47.
77 Rab. klass i rab. dvizhenie v igiyg., p.82.
78 M.I. Gilbert, 'K voprosu o sostave promyshlennykh rabochikh SSSR v
gody grazhdanskoi voiny', Istoriyaproletariata SSSR, 3 (1934) 214-15; N.P.
Payalin, Zavod imeni Lenina, i8$j-igi8 (Moscow, 1933), p.313.
79 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.42.
80 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, pp.43-4, concludes that 'the figure of 50%
for new recruits to the working class of Petrograd during the war years can
scarcely be considered an underestimate'. L.M. Kleinbort, Istoriya
bezrabotitsy v Rossii, 1857—igiggg. (Moscow, 1925), p.272, says, without
citing a source, that at the beginning of 1918 the Commissariat of Labour
(Narkomtrud) reckoned that half the workers of Petrograd were either
tied to the land or inexperienced wartime recruits.
81 N.D. Karpetskaya, Rabotnitsy i velikii oktyabr' (Leningrad, 1974), p. 19.
82 Golos rabotnitsy, 5-6, 17 June 1917, p. 14. A perusal of the job-vacancies
column of Petrogradskaya Gazeta shows that the type most sought after as a
domestic servant was a rural girl with no male acquaintances and
prepared to work hard.
83 S.G. Strumilin; 'Sostav proletariata sovetskoi Rossii v I9i7-i9gg.', Dva
goda diktatury proletariata (Moscow, 1919)^.15.
270 Notes
84 A. Shlyapnikov, Semnadtsatyi god, vol.i (Moscow, 1923), pp.8-11.
85 Cited by Rashin, Formirovanie, pp.235-6.
86 Vestnik professional'nykh soyuzov, 2, 15 July 1918, p.7.
87 ibid., p.9.
88 J.W. Scott and L.A. Tilly, Women, work and the family (New York, 1978).
89 Kruze, Peterburgskie rabochie, p.80.
90 ibid. p.80.
91 Ts.S.U., Trudy, vol.XXVI, issue 2 (Moscow, 1921), pp.18—23.
92 ibid.
93 Metallist, 6, 18 June 1918, p. 10.
94 ibid.
95 Materialy ob ekonomicheskom polozhenii iprofessional'noi organizatsii peterburg-
skikh rabochikh po metallu (St Petersburg, 1909), p.85.
96 S.G. Strumilin, Problemy ekonomiki truda (Moscow, 1964), pp.69-71.
97 ibid.; S. Bernshtein-Kogan, Chislennost', sostav i polozhenie peterburgskikh
rabochikh (St Petersburg, 1910), pp.51, 54.
98 V. Yu. Krupyanskaya, 'Evolyutsiya semeino-bytovogo uklada
rabochikh', Rossiiskiiproletariat-oblik,bor'ba,gegemoniya (Moscow, 1970),
p.277.
99 Tkach, 2 (1917), 7.
100 Compare I. Pinchbeck, Women Workers and The Industrial Revolution
(London, Frank Cass, 1969), p.313; S. Rowbotham, Hidden from History
(London, Pluto, 1973), p.57; T. Dublin, 'Women, Work and Protest in
the Early Lowell Mills', Labor History, 16, no.i (1975).
101 M. Freysinnet, Le processus de dequalijkation - surqualification de la force de
travail (Paris, 1974), pp. 121-2.
102 A. Gorz, 'Technology, technicians and class struggle', in A. Gorz, ed.,
The Division of Labour, (Brighton, Harvester, 1976). D. Lee, 'Skill, craft
and class: a theoretical critique and a critical case', Sociology, 1 (1981);
H.A. Turner went so far as to argue that workers are skilled or unskilled
'according to whether or not entry to their occupations is deliberately
restricted and not, in the first place, according to the nature of the
occupation itself.' H.A. Turner, Trade Union Structure and Growth
(London, George, Allen & Unwin, 1962), p. 182.
103 A. Touraine, L'evolution du travail ouvrier aux usines Renault (Paris, 1955);
see too H. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York, Monthly
Review Press, 1974).
104 Rukovodyashchie materialy i postanovleniya tsentral'nogo komiteta vserossiiskogo
soyuza rabochikh metallistov, issue 3 (Moscow, 1924), pp.80-193.
105 E J . Hobsbawm, Labouring Men (London, 1968); K. Burgess, The Origins
of British Industrial Relations (London, Croom Helm, 1975), Ch. 1.
106 Strumilin, Problemy, p.63.
107 A.M. Buiko, Put' rabochego: zapiski starogo bol'shevika (Moscow, 1934),
p.30.
108 A. Buzinov, Za Nevskoi zastavoi (Moscow, 1930), pp.20-1.
109 The Bolshevik, M.I. Kalinin, recalled in 1940: T remember how in the
underground a dispute arose among us: was a worker-revolutionary
obliged to work as well as he was able . . . Some said: "We cannot, we are
 Notes 271

organically incapable of letting a bad piece of work out of our hands - it

would sicken us and demean our dignity." Others argued against them
that it was not for us to worry about the quality of our work. It was the
job of the capitalist. We only worked for them.' Cited by O.I. Shkaratan
and A.Z. Vakzer, 'Razvitie sotsialisticheskogo otnosheniya k trudu:
rabochie Leningrada v igi7-24gg.', Uchenye zapiski Len. gos. ped. in-ta.,
165 (1958), p. 108. See also Timofeev, Chem zhivet, p.8, for another
example.
I1 o Timofeev, Chem zhivet, pp. 1 o-11.
I11 M. Mitel'man, B. Glebov, A. Ul'yanskii, Istoriya putilovskogo zavoda,
igoi—iy, 3rd edn. (Moscow, 1961), p.357.
112 S. H a b e r , Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era,
1890—1920 (Chicago, 1964), p. 120.
113 Materialy po istorii professional'nogo dvizheniya v Rossii, 1 (Moscow, 1925),
pp.16-17.
114 J. Hinton, The First Shop Stewards Movement (London, Allen and Unwin,
1973); C. Goodey, 'Factory Committees and the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat, 1918', Critique, 3 (1974), 31.
115 I. Gordienko, Iz boevogoproshlogo, igi4—i8gg. (Moscow, 1957), p.34. My
emphasis. To say that the mood of skilled workers was 'indifferent', is not
to say that there was not a certain latent hostility to the new wartime
recruits. The syndicalist leader of the metalworkers' union, A. Gastev,
wrote: 'Even in Russia, where craft consciousness [tsekhovshchina] has not
built as strong a nest for itself as in the West, in the factories among both
management and workers there is a suspicion of all newcomers who are
not connected with factory professions. Among turners and fitters one
still finds a scornful attitude towards the "shoemakers" and "bakers"
who are joining the ranks of the factory chernorabochie [unskilled workers]
in their hundreds.' Vestnik metallista, 2 (1918), p. 10.
116 S.G. Strumilin, Zarabotnaya plata, p. 15. His method was to examine
wage-levels in different industries between June 1914 and June 1916,
and to translate the wages of all categories of worker into ratios of the
wages of an adult male chernorabochii — letting the latter's wage equal 100.
By determining the changes in these ratios during the war, Strumilin
obtained an indirect index of de-skilling. It seems to me, however, that
there are problems with this method. Firstly, it assumes that the 'skill' of
a chernorabochii is constant across industry and across time. Secondly,
wages are not a good indicator of skill, both because of inflation and of
inter-factory variation.
117 S.G. Strumilin, Problemy, p.57. Although international comparisons are
treacherous because of the different classifications used, for what it is
worth, it was estimated that in Germany the proportion of skilled
workers in electrical, machine-construction, car, wire and cable indus-
tries was 30% in 1914 and 29% in 1925. In England in the mechanical-
engineering industry, 37% of the workforce were skilled in 1913 and
35% in 1925. G. Friedmann, Industrial Society (Glencoe, Illinois, Free
Press, 1955), p.200.
118 Drobizhev et al., Rabochii klass sovetskoi Rossii, p.84.
272 Notes
119 Rashin, Formirovanie, p.83.
120 Materialy k uchetu rabochego sostava i rabochego rynka (Petrograd, 1916),
p. 128.
121 Istoriya leningradskogo soyuza rabochego poligraficheskogo proizvodstva, vol.i
(Leningrad, 1925), pp. 11—13.
122 A. Tikhanov, 'Rabochie-pechatniki v gody voiny', Materialy po istorii
professional'nogo dvizheniya v Rossii, vol.3 ( M o s c o w , 1925), p. 117.
123 1st len. soyuza rab. polig., p. 15.
124 A.G. Rashin, 'Gramotnost' i narodnoe obrazovanie v Rossii v XIXv. i
nachale XXv., Istoricheskie zapiski, 37 (1951), 37.
125 Rashin, Formirovanie, p.595.
126 Materialy po statistike Petrograda, issue 4 ( 1 9 2 1 ) , p . 2 3 .
127 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.44.
128 Vestnik professional'nykh soyuzov, 2 (1918), p.9.
129 Metallist, 6 (1918), p.8.
130 Strumilin, Problemy, p.61.
131 Leningradskii gos. ist. arkhiv (LGIA), f.416, op.5, d.24, 1.21.
132 Rashin, Formirovanie, p.583.
133 Statisticheskie dannye Petrograda (1916)^.24.
134 ibid.
135 Strumilin, Problemy, p.63.
136 ibid., 63-9.
137 L. Haimson, 'The Problem of Social Stability in Urban Russia,
1905-17', Slavic Review, 23, no.4 (1964); vol.24, n 0 1 ( x 9^5); Johnson,
Peasant and Proletarian.
138 R. Zelnik, 'Russian Workers and the Revolutionary Movement', Journal
ofSocial History, 16, no.2 (1972—3); V.E. Bonnell, 'Trade Unions, Parties
and the State in Tsarist Russia', Politics and Society, 9, no.3 (1980); S.A.
Smith, 'Craft Consciousness, Class Consciousness: Petrograd 1917',
History Workshop, 11 (1981).
139 At the Putilov works in 1913 the daily earnings of an unskilled woman
worker were 36% of those of the highest-paid man. In Germany in the
same year the hourly earnings of an unskilled metalworker were 26% of
those of a skilled one. A.P. Serebrovskii, Revolyutsiya i zarabotnaya plata
rabochikh metallicheskoi promyshlennosti (Petrograd, 1917), p.8; G. Bry,
Wages in Germany, i8ji—ig4$ (Princeton, N.J., i960), p.71.
140 L. Althusser, For Marx (London, Penguin, 1969), Ch.3.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

1 V.Ya. Laverychev, Tsarizm i rabochii vopros, 1861—igiygg. (Moscow, 1972);

G. von Rimlinger, 'Autocracy and factory order in early Russian
industrialisation', Journal of Economic History, 20 (i960), 67-92.
2 Laverychev, Tsarizm i rabochii vopros (Moscow, 1972).
3 J. Schneiderman, Sergei Zubatov and revolutionary Marxism (New York,
Ithaca, 1976); D. Pospielovsky, Russian Police Trade Unionism (London,
Weidenfeld, 1971).
 Notes 273
4 P.A. Berlin, Russkaya burzhuaziya v staroe i novoe vremya (Moscow, 1922),
p.204.
5 V.E. Bonnell, 'Trade Unions, Parties and the State in Tsarist Russia',
Politics and Society, 9, no. 3 (1980).
6 S. Pollard, The Genesis of Modern Management (London, 1965).
7 S.N. Semanov, Peterburgskie rabochie nakanune pervoi russkoi revolyutsii
(Moscow, 1966), p.110.
8 ibid.
9 On 1905 see S.M. Schwarz, The Russian Revolution ofigoj (Chicago, 1967);
W. Sablinsky, The Road to Bloody Sunday (Princeton, N.J., 1976).
10 S. Gvozdev, Zapiski fabrichnogo inspektora (Moscow, 1911), pp.117, IX 9-
11 O. Crisp, 'Labour and industrialisation in Russia', Cambridge Economic
History of Europe, vol. vn, part 2 (Cambridge, 1978), p.382.
12 Istoriya rabochikh Leningrada, ed. S.N. Valk, vol. 1 (Leningrad, 1972), p.347;
N.P. Payalin, Zavod imeni Lenina, i8^y-igi8 (Moscow 1933), p.258; K.
Marx, Capital, vol.i (London, Penguin, 1976 edn.), p.549.
13 A. Stinchcombe, 'Bureaucratic and Craft Administration of Production',
Administrative Science Quarterly, 4 (1959—60).
14 P. Timofeev, Chem zhivet zavodskii rabochii (St Petersburg, 1906), pp.5, 48.
15 ibid., p.92; F. Bulkin, Na z&™ profdvizheniya, Istoriya peterburgskogo soyuza
metallistov, igo6-i4 (Moscow, 1924), p.297.
16 Timofeev, Chem zhivet, pp.57, 97; compare J. Foster, Class Struggle in the
Industrial Revolution (London, Methuen, 1974), pp.227-8.
17 Stinchcombe, 'Bureaucratic and Craft Administration'; C.R. Littler,
'Understanding Taylorism', British Journal of Sociology, 29, no.2 (1978).
18 A. Gastev, 'Novaya industriya', Vestnik metallista, 2 (1918), 22; V.I.
Grinevetskii, Poslevoennyeperspektivy russkoipromyshlennosti (Moscow, 1918),
p.151.
19 A.G. Rashin, Formirovanie rabochego klassa Rossii (Moscow, 1958), p.63.
20 S.G. Strumilin, 'Sostav proletariata sovetskoi Rossii v I9i7~i9gg.\ Dva
goda diktatury proletariata (Moscow, 1919), P-i55 Narodnoe khozyaistvo, 5
(1921), 143-6. My calculation.
21 Materialy po statistike Petrograda, issue 2 (Petrograd, 1920), p.44.
22 For the concept of'contradictory class location', see E.O. Wright, 'Class
Boundaries in Advanced Capitalist Societies', New Left Review, 98 (1976).
23 In 1917 the Socialist Revolutionary, M. Kapitsa, wrote: 'Along with their
immediate clerical, technical and accounting duties, sluzhashchie took on
duties of a police-administrative character, which placed them squarely
on the side of management, and which encouraged a benighted class
consciousness.' Delo Naroda, 124, 11 August 1917, p.i.
24 Bulkin, Na zare profdvizheniya, pp.60— 1.
25 Timofeev, Chem zhivet, p . n o .
26 A.E. Badaev, The Bolsheviks in the Tsarist Duma (London, 1932).
27 1st. rab. Len., p.473; Krasnaya letopis', 3 (1926), 8.
28 Rabotnitsa, 1—2, 10 May 1917, p. 12.
29 Pravda, 32, 14 April 1917, p.4.
30 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.63.
31 ibid.
274 Notes
32 1st. rab. Len., pp.348, 407.
33 M.G. Fleer, Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii v gody imperialisticheskoi voiny
(Leningrad, 1926), pp.65-6.
34 1st. rab. Len., p.472.
35 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.62.
36 A.F. Vovchik, Politika tsarzisma po rabochemu voprosu v predrevolyutsionnyi
period, i8g^—igo4 (L'vov, 1964); S.V. Murzyntseva, 'Iz istorii ekono-
micheskogo polozheniya rabochikh na predpriyatiyakh voennogo i
morskogo vedomstv v 1907-14gg. v Peterburge', Uchenye zapiski Len. gos.
universiteta, seriya ist. nauk, issue 32, 270 (1959).
37 Trudy pervogo vserossiiskogo s"ezda delegatov rabochikh zavodov, portov i uchrezh-
denii Morskogo vedomstva (Petrograd, 1917), protocol 2, p.2.
38 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.62.
39 I.P. Leiberov, Na shturm samoderzhaviya (Moscow, 1979), pp.52-60.
40 Rabochee dvizhenie v Petrograde v igi2—iygg. (Leningrad, 1958), pp.425-6.
41 Leiberov, Na shturm, p.58. In 1917 there were 17 hospitals run by the
Petrograd City Duma and about 40 free doctors. In addition, there were
seven factory hospitals. LA. Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda vperiod mirnogo
razvitiya revolyutsii (mart-iyun1 igiyg.) (Leningrad, 1978), p.53.
42 S. Milligan, 'The Petrograd Bolsheviks and Social Insurance, 1914-17',
Soviet Studies, 20, no.3 (1969), 372.
43 S.G. Strumilin, Problemy ekonomiki truda (Moscow, 1964), p.479.
44 ibid:, Materialy po statistike truda Severnoi oblasti, issue 2 (Petrograd, 1919),
p.14.
45 M. Balabanov, Ot igojg. k igiyg. (Moscow, 1927), p.14.
46 Materialy ob ekonomicheskom polozhenii i professional'noi organizatsii peter-
burgskikh rabochikh po metallu (St Petersburg, 1909), p.i 19; Timofeev, Chem
zhivet, pp.38-9.
47 S.G. Strumilin, Zarabotnaya plata i proizvoditel'nost' truda v promyshlennosti
(Moscow, 1923), p.44.
48 ibid., p.49, Materialy po statistike truda, issue 2 (1919), pp. 14-15.
49 ibid.
50 A.P. Serebrovskii, Revolyutsiya i zarabotnaya plata rabochikh metallicheskoi
promyshlennosti (Petrograd, 1917) p.8.
51 M. Gordon, Workers before and after Lenin (New York, 1941), p.71 cites a
study by the British Board of Trade which reckoned that in 1905-8 the
family income of Russian workers was half that of German workers, 37%
that of English workers and 27% that of American workers.
52 Strumilin, Problemy, pp.453, 474.
53 Materialy po statistike truda, issue 6 (Petrograd, 1919), P-54- Payment in
kind was far less widespread in St Petersburg than in Russia as a whole;
far less was spent on accommodation by employers, and the truck system
was less prevalent. S. Bernshtein-Kogan, Chislennost', sostav i polozhenie
peterburgskikh rabochikh (St Petersburg, 1910), pp. 120-2.
54 S.N. Prokopovich, Byudzhetypeterburgskikh rabochikh (St Petersburg, 1909),
P-9-
55 ibid.; M. Davidovich, Peterburgskii tekstil'nyi rabochii v ego byudzhetakh (St
Petersburg, 1912), p.14.
 Notes 275
56 Prokopovich, Byudzhety, p. 9.
57 Davidovich, Peterburgskii tekstil'nyi rabochii, p. 10.
58 Rabochaya gazeta, 59, 18 May 1917, p.3.
59 Gordon, Workers before and after Lenin, pp.217-18.
60 Prokopovich, Byudzhety, p.9.
61 Davidovich, Peterburgskii tekstil'nyi rabochii, pp.n, 13.
62 Rabochaya gazeta 59, 18 May 1917, p.3.
63 M.P. Kokhn, Russkie indeksy tsen (Moscow, 1926), p. 18.
64 Statisticheskie dannye Petrograda (Petrograd, 1916), p.38; K. Sidorov,
'Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii v gody imperialisticheskoi voiny, 1914-
I7gg.' in Ocherkipo istorii oktyabr'skoi revolyutsii, ed. M.N. Pokrovskii, vol.i
(Moscow, 1927), p.233.
65 ibid.
66 Strumilin, Problemy, p.334.
67 1st. rab. Len., p.477.
68 ibid., p.471.
69 ibid., p.470.
70 Strumilin, Zarabotnaya plata, p.7.
71 For a fuller discussion of wages during the war, see my Ph.D. thesis
pp.84-91.
72 Professional'noe dvizhenie v Petrograde v igiyg. ed. A. Anskii (Leningrad,
1928), p.13.
73 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.52.
74 Payalin, Zavod imeni Lenina, p.322.
75 Serebrovskii, Revolyutsiya i zarabotnaya plata, pp.24-5.
76 Strumilin, Problemy, pp.337, 340; Strumilin, Zarabotnaya plata, pp.i 1-12.
77 Vestnik metallista, 1 (1917), 13; Strumilin, Problemy, pp.337, 340.
78 Strumilin, Problemy, pp.337, 340.
79 Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda, p.23.
80 ibid.
81 Materialy po statistike truda, issue 3 (Petrograd, 1919), p.28.
82 Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda, p.23.
83 Laverychev, Tsarizm i rabochii vopros, Ch.6.
84 I.P. Leiberov, 'Stachechnaya bor'ba petrogradskogo proletariata v
period mirovoi voiny', lstoriya rabochego klassa Leningrada, issue 2 (Lenin-
grad, 1963), pp.166, 177, 183. This supersedes M.G. Fleer, Peterburgskii
komitet bol'shevikov v gody imperialisticheskoi voiny, 1914-I7gg. (Leningrad,
1927) and I.I. Krylova, 'K voprosu o statistike stachek petrogradskikh
rabochikh v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny', in Iz istorii imperializma v Rossii
(Moscow, 1959).
85 1st. rab. Len., p.476.
86 ibid., pp.483-5.
87 ibid., pp.502-4.
88 'Go-slows', working-to-rule and other forms of restricting output became
very common in Petrograd after 1905. Such practices originated in Britain
in 1889, when Glasgow dockers systematically practised ca' canny. They
were popularised by the French anarcho-syndicalist, Emile Pouget, in the
1890s and widely applied by the French C.G.T. In Russia these practices
276 Notes
were known as 'Italian strikes' (ital'yanskie zabastovki), probably after the
dramatic work-to-rule by Italian railworkers in February 1905. See G.
Brown, Sabotage: a study in industrial conflict (Nottingham, Spokesman,
1977), Ch.i and C. Seton-Watson, Italy: from Liberalism to Fascism,
i8jo-ig25 (London, Methuen, 1967), p.256.
89 1st. rab. Len., p.511.
90 It was decided to leave out tables showing the participation of different
factories in the wartime strike movement, since similar tables have
recently been published in T. Hasegawa, The February Revolution -
Petrograd igij (Seattle, Washington University Press, 1981), appendix 2.
My analysis of these data differs significantly from that of Hasegawa, ibid.,
pp. 101-2. Sources for the generalisations on the size and composition of
the workforces of different factories and on their political complexion in
1917 are not cited, in order to avoid burdening the text with footnotes.
The data came from my personal factory file which is based on Soviet
secondary works, contemporary newspapers and Soviet archival sources.
91 D. Koenker, 'Urban Families, Working-Class Youth Groups and the
1917 Revolution in Moscow', in The Family in Imperial Russia, ed. D.L.
Ransel (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1978).

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3
1 T. Hasegawa, The February Revolution: Petrograd, igiy (Seattle, University
of Washington Press, 1981; G. Katkov, Russia igiy: The February
Revolution (New York, Harper and Row, 1967); M. Ferro, The Russian
Revolution of February igiy (London, Routledge, 1972).
2 Lists of police agents were published in early March in the working-class
press, after police stations had been ransacked. See, for example, Pravda,
7, 12 March 1917, p.4. As late as May, police spies were still being
uncovered, cf. the exposure of Roman Berthold, editor of the anarchist
newspaper, Kommuna. Rabochaya Gazeta, 49, 6 May 1917, p.2.
3 Krasnaya Letopis', 3 (1932), 172.
4 M.O. Mitel'man, igi7godna Putilovskom zavode (Leningrad, 1939), p.33;
Rabochii kontrol' v promyshlennykh predpriyatiyakh Petrograda, igiy-iSgg.,
vol.i (Leningrad, 1947) p.45.
5 Leningrad State Historical Archive, (LGIA), f.416, op.5, d.30, 1.24.
6 Professional'noe dvizhenie v Retrograde v lgiyg., ed. A. Anskii (Leningrad,
1928), p.82.
7 ibid. p.81.
8 Rab. Kontrol', p.50.
9 V. Perazich, Tekstili Leningrada v igiyg. (Leningrad, 1927), p. 19.
10 Krasnaya Letopis', 5-6 (1932), 189-90.
11 Prof dvizh., p.93.
12 V.M. Freidlin, Ocherki istorii rabochego dvizheniya v Rossii v igijg.,
(Moscow, 1967), p. 129.
13 N.P. Payalin, Zavod imeni Lenina, 1857—igi8 (Moscow, 1933), PP363,
366.
14 LGIA, f.1278, op.i, d.84, I.6-21.
 Notes 277
15 Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, 124, 14 June 1917, p.i.
16 P. Timofeev, Chem zhivet zavodskii rabochii (St Petersburg, 1906), pp.80-1.
This tradition was still very much alive. After the death of Ya. Sverdlov
in March 1919, M.I. Kalinin was made Chairman of the Central
Executive Committee of the Soviets and was projected in the press as
'All-Russian Starosta' in an effort to win the confidence of the peasantry.
T.H. Rigby, Lenin's Government: Sovnarkom, igij-22 (Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1979), p. 174.
17 For the text of the law on starosty, see A.M. Pankratova, Fabzavkomy Rossii
v bor'be za sotsialisticheskuyu fabriku (Moscow, 1925), pp.343—5.
18 P.A. Berlin, Russkaya burzhuaziya v staroe i novoe vremya (Moscow, 1922),
p.207.
19 Istoriya Leningradskogo soyuza rabochego poligrqficheskogo proizvodstva, vol.i
(Leningrad, 1925), pp.255, 273-
20 G. Borisov, S. Vasil'ev, Stankostroitel'nyi zavod im. Sverdlova (Leningrad,
1962), p.98; Sestroretskii instrumental'nyi zavod im. Voskova, ij2i—ig6y
(Leningrad, 1968), p. 124.
21 Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety Petrograda v igiyg^ ed. I . I . M i n t s ( M o s c o w ,
J
979)> pp.i 12-13.
22 B. Shabalin, Krasnyi Treugol'nik, 1860—igjj (Leningrad, 1938), pp.158,
160; Trudorezina, 1, 22 April 1917, p.4.
23 J. Hinton, The First Shop Stewards3 Movement (London, Allen and Unwin,
1973); B. Pribicevic, The Shop Stewards' Movement and Workers' Control
(Oxford, Blackwell, 1959).
24 D. Geary, 'Radicalism and the Worker: metalworkers and revolution,
1914-23', Society and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany, ed. R. Evans (London,
1978); D.W. Morgan, The Socialist Left and the German Revolution (Ithaca,
Cornell University Press, 1975); R. Comfort, Revolutionary Hamburg
(Stanford, 1966).
25 G.A. Williams, Proletarian Order (London, Pluto, 1975); P. Spriano, The
Occupation of the Factories (London, Pluto, 1975); M. Clark, Antonio
Gramsci and the Revolution that Failed (New Haven, Yale University Press,
1977)-
26 See the insightful article by C. Goodey, 'Factory Committees and the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat', Critique, 3 (1974), p.32.
27 D.A. Kovalenko, 'Bor'ba fabrichno-zavodskikh komitetov Petrograda
za rabochii kontrol' nad proizvodstvom', Istoricheskie Zapiski, 61 (1957),
P-73-
28 Sestroretskii zavod, pp. 150-1.
29 Rab. Kontrol', p.44.
30 ibid., pp. 178-9.
31 In Russian, the word 'kontrol" has the sense of 'supervision' or
'inspection'. See Chapter 6.
32 Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya ifabzavkomy, ed. P.N. Amosov, vol.i (Moscow,
1927), p.29.
33 ibid., p.42.
34 ibid.
35 LGIA, f.1304, op. 1, d.3669, 11.51-2.
278 Notes

36 ibid.
37 Rab. kontrol', p.48.
38 Okt. rev. i fabzavkomy, vol.i, pp.30-1.
39 ibid., p.32.
40 ibid., p.40.
41 Trudy pervogo vserossiiskogo s"ezda delegatov rabochikh zavodov, portov i
uchrezhdenii Morskogo vedomstva (Petrograd, 1917), protocol 1, p.3.
42 ibid., protocol 10, p.4.
43 Okt. rev. i fabzavkomy, vol.i, p.34.
44 Rab. kontrol', pp.58-9.
45 ibid., p. 180.
46 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v iyule: iyul'skii krizis (Moscow, 1959), p.383.
47 Fab. zav. kom. passim.
48 L.S. Gaponenko, Rabochii klass Rossii v igiyg. (Moscow, 1970), p.345.
49 V.P. Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya Rossii v igiyg. (Moscow, 1964),
P-I53-
50 Rabochaya Gazeta, 2, 8 March 1917, p.4.
51 Payalin, Zavod imeni Lenina, p.349.
52 Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya, pp. 105-8.
53 LGIA, f.1278, op.i, d.183, 1.29.
54 S.G. Strumilin, Problemy ekonomiki truda (Moscow, 1964), p.365.
55 Materialy po statistike truda Severnoi oblasti, issue 1 (Petrograd, 1918), 56.
56 Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya
oktyabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), p.75. Znamya truda,
1, 23 August 1917, p.3; ibid., 8, 31 August 1917, p.2.
57 Rab. Kontrol'\ pp.52-3; LGIA f. 1477, op.3, d.i, 1.4.
58 LGIA, f.1182, op. 1, d.96, 1.1.
59 Pravda, 11, 17 March 1917, p.4; Rabochaya Gazeta, 10, 17 March 1917, p.2.
60 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie posle sverzheniya samoderzhaviya (Moscow, 1957),
p.470; Pravda, 17, 25 March 1917, p.4.
61 Materialy po statistike truda Severnoi oblasti, issue 3 (Petrograd, 1919), p.20.
62 Delo Naroda, 82, 23 June 1917, p.4.
63 Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 3, 12 December 1917, p. 14.
64 A. Tikhanov, 'Rabochie-pechatniki v 1917g.', Materialy po istorii
professional'nogo dvizheniya v Rossii, 4 (1925), p. 180.
65 G.L. Sobolev, Revolyutsionnoe soznanie rabochikh i soldat Petrograda v igiyg.
(Leningrad, 1973), p.58.
66 Prof, dvizh., p. 136.
67 Rab. Kontrol', pp.73-4.
68 Istoriya leningradskogo obuvnoi fabriki, Skorokhod, im. Ya. Kalinina (Lenin-
grad, 1969), pp. 136-7. The size of these concessions caused great
consternation among members of the SFWO, who felt that a dangerous
precedent had been set.
69 Pravda, 66, 26 May 1917, p.4.
70 G. Linko, 'Rabochee dvizhenie na fabrike Kenig v 1917g.', Krasnyi
Arkhiv, 58 (1933), 136-7-
71 LA. Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda v period mirnogo razvitiya v Retrograde
(Leningrad, 1978), p.21.
72 ibid., p.20.
 Notes 279
73 S.G. Strumilin, Zarabotnaya plata i proizvoditel'nost' truda v promyshlennosti
(Moscow, 1923), pp. 13-14.
74 A.P. Serebrovskii, Revolyutsiya i zarabotnaya plata rabochikh metallicheskoi
promyshlennosti (Petrograd, 1917), p.6.
75 Strumilin, Zarabotnaya plata, pp. 13-14.
76 Pischebumazhnik, 1, 16 September 1917, p. 12.
77 Materialy po statistike truda, issue 3 (Petrograd, 1919) pp-7, 14.
78 Sobolev, Revolyutsionnoe soznanie, p.67.
79 Pravda, 15, 22 March 1917, p.4.
80 Rabochaya Gazeta, 13, 21 March 1917, p.2; Sobolev, Revolyutsionnoe
soznanie, p.68.
81 A. Pankratova, Fabzavkomy iprofsoyuzy v igiyg. (Moscow, 1927), p.39;
Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda, p.25.
82 Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda, p.25.
83 Rabochaya Gazeta, 39, 25 April 1917, p.3. It compared badly with the
minimum rates achieved by militant action at Skorokhod (10 r.) and the
Triangle works (7 r. for men and 5 r. for women). Baklanova, Rabochie
Petrograda, p.22.
84 1st. len. soyuza rab. polig. proizvodstva, p.345; F. Bulkin, Na zareprofdvizhen-
iya (Leningrad, 1924), p. 127.
85 Serebrovskii, Zarabotnaya plata, pp.10, 16.
86 Trudy s"ezda rabochikh Morskogo ved., protocol 1, p.6.
87 Pechatnoe Delo, 4, 10 July 1917, p. 14.
88 I.F. Gindin, 'Russkaya burzhuaziya v period kapitalizm - ee razvitiye i
osobennosti', Istoriya SSSR, 2 (1963) 60-5 and 3 (1963), 57; J.D. White,
'Moscow, Petersburg and the Russian Industrialists: a reply to Ruth
Amende Roosa', Soviet Studies 24, no.3 (1973), 414-20.
89 G. Hosking, The Russian Constitutional Experiment, igoy—14 (Cambridge,
1973)-
90 Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya, pp.45-6.
91 R.Sh. Ganelin and L.E. Shepelev, 'Predprinimatel'skie organizatsii v
Petrograde v 1917g.' in Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde
(Moscow, 1965), p.265.
92 Vestnik obshchestva zavodchikov i fabrikantov, 1, 1 June 1917.
93 Prof, dvizh., p. 102.
94 Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya, pp.83-4.
95 ibid., p. 175.
96 The Russian Provisional Government, eds. R.P. Browder and A.F. Kerensky,
vol.i (Stanford, 1971), p.710.
97 A. Kats, 'K istorii primiritel'nykh kamer v Rossii', Vestnik truda, 10
(1923), 186-7.
98 This distinguished 'conciliation chambers' (primiritel'nye kamery) from
'arbitration courts' (treteiskie sudy), in which an independent chairman
had a casting vote.
99 Izvestiya, 33, 6 April 1917, p.2.
100 By the summer of 1917 conciliation chambers existed in most state
enterprises and in ninety private factories of Petrograd. Baklanova,
Rabochie Petrograda, p. 74.
101 The success rate of the conciliation chambers can be judged by the
280 Notes
following figures on the number of cases successfully resolved between
April and August: at the Baltic works, 12 out of 160 cases heard; at the
Izhora works, 7 out of 50; at New Admiralty, 3 out of 29; at Obukhov, 3
out of 20. Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda, pp.80— 1.
102 Freidlin, Ocherki istorii, p. 138.
103 Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Rossii nakanune velikoi oktyabr' skoi sotsialisticheskoi
revolyutsii, vol.i (Moscow, 1957), P-5I2.
104 V.I. Selitskii, Massy v bor'be za rabochii kontrol': mart—iyun', igiyg.
(Moscow, 1971), p.161.
105 Okt. rev. i fabzavkomy, vol.i, pp.25—6.
106 The Russian Provisional Government, vol.i, pp.718—20; Edinstvo, 10, 11 April
l l
9 1> P-4-
107 Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya, pp.326-8.
108 Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, 86, 27 April 1917, p.3; and ibid., 98, 13
May 1917, p.2.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4
1 This contrasts with the situation in 1908, when levels of trade-union
membership in the metal industry were highest in enterprises of 50 to 500
workers, and lowest in enterprises of a thousand plus. F. Bulkin, Na zare
profdvizheniya (Leningrad, 1924), p.306.
2 These generalisations are based on calculations using Oktyabr'skaya
revolyutsiya i fabzavkomy, ed. P.N. Amosov, vol.2 (Moscow, 1927),
pp.217—31 and Spisok fabrichno-zavodskikh predpriyatii Petrograda (Petro-
grad, 1918).
3 Ibid, and Materialy po statistike truda Severnoi oblasti, 1 (Petrograd, 1918),
p.10.
4 Golos Kozhevnika, 6-7, 25 January 1918, p. 18.
5 Pechatnoe Delo, 7, 19 August 1917, p. 15; Delo Naroda, 168, 30 September
1917, p.14.
6 V.Z. Drobizhev, Glavnyi shtab sotsialisticheskoi promyshlennosti (Moscow,
1966), p.56.
7 Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya i fabzavkomy, ed. P.N. Amosov, vol.i (Moscow,
!927)> P-33-
8 Ibid., p.242.
9 Novyi Put', 1-2, 15 October 1917, p. 15-
10 M.I. Mitel'man, igi7 god na Putilovskom zavode (Leningrad, 1939), p.33.
n Raionnye sovety Petrograda v igiyg., vol.2 (Moscow, 1965), pp.91, 122.
12 D.A. Kovalenko, 'Bor'ba fabrichno-zavodskikh komitetov Petrograda
za rabochii kontrol' nad proizvodstvom (mart-oktyabr' 1917g.)', Istor-
icheskie Zapiski, 61 (1957), 75.
13 Putilovets v trekh revolyutsiyakh, ed. I.I. Gaza (Leningrad, 1933, p.333.
14 'Every decision of the shop committee must be minuted and sent to the
committee for ratification', ibid., p.335; W. Rosenberg, 'Workers and
Workers' Control in the Russian Revolution', History Workshop, 5 (1978),
94-
15 Ibid., pp-333-5-
 Notes 281
16 Leningrad State Historical Archive (LGIA), £1304, op.i, d.3669, 1.23.
17 LA. Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda v period mirnogo razvitiya revolyutsii
(Leningrad, 1978), pp.96, 99.
18 Okt. rev. ifabzavkomy, vol.i, p.35.
19 M.L. Itkin, 'Tsentry fabrichno-zavodskikh komitetov Rossii v 1917g.',
Voprosy Istorii, 2 (1974), 27.
20 Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya
oktyabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), p. 108.
21 Okt. rev. ifabzavkomy, vol.2, pp.36-7.
22 Rabochii kontrol' vpromyshlennykhpredpriyatiyakh Petrograda igiy—iSgg. vol. 1
(Leningrad, 1947), pp.211—12; 218—19.
23 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 108.
24 B.M. Freidlin, Ocherki istorii rabochego dvizheniya v Rossii v igiyg. (Moscow,
1967), p.146.
25 Okt. rev. ifabzavkomy, vol.2, p.37.
26 Ibid., pp.175-6; 259-60; Novyi Put', 1-2, 14 January 1918, p.7. The
Factory Convention was created at the end of 1915 to coordinate war
production in the state and private factories of Petrograd region. After
February 1917 it was democratised by the addition of representatives
from labour organisations.
27 M.L. Itkin, 'Tsentral'nyi Sovet fabrichno-zavodskikh komitetov',
Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde (Moscow, 1980), p. 179—80.
28 S. Schwarz, 'Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety i profsoyuzy v pervye gody
revolyutsii5 in The Russian Provisional Government, eds. R.P. Browder and
A.F. Kerensky, vol.2 (Stanford, 1961).
29 Okt. rev. ifabzavkomy, vol.i, pp.170, 190.
30 Ibid., pp.47-8.
31 A.A. Sviridov, 'Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety kak forma organizatsii
piterskikh rabochikh v 1917g.', Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo gos. ped.
inst., 298 (1971), 78.
32 D.A. Tseitlin, 'Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety Petrograda v fevrale-
oktyabre 1917g.', Voprosy Istorii, 11 (1956)586.
33 Freidlin, Ocherki istorii, p. 129.
34 M. Fleer, 'Putilovskii zavod v I9i7-i8gg.', Bor'ba Klassov, 1-2 (1924),
288-9.
35 Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety Petrograda v igiyg., ed. I.I. Mints (Moscow,
1979), PP-3<>7> 3i7.
36 Ibid, p.595.
37 J.L.H. Keep, The Russian Revolution: a study in mass mobilisation (London,
Weidenfeld, 1976), Ch.3.
38 P.I. Lyashchenko, History of the National Economy of Russia (New York,
Macmillan, 1949), p. 767.
39 Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, 140, 4 July 1917, p.3; E.A. Adibek-
Melikyan, Revolyutsionnaya situatsiya v Rossii nakanune Oktyabrya (Erevan,
1967), p. 156; Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, pp.66-7.
40 Professional'noe dvizhenie v Petrograde v igiyg. (Leningrad, 1928), p. 15.
41 S.G. Strumilin, Problemy ekonomiki truda (Moscow, 1964), p.350.
42 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.67.
282 Notes

43 V.I. Binshtok and L.S. Kaminskii, Narodnoe pitanie i narodnoe zdorov'e

(Moscow, 1929), pp.31, 54; Uslovye byta rabochikh v dorevolyutsionnoi Rossii
(Moscow, 1958), p. 14; E. Kabo, Pitanie russkogo rabochego do i posle voiny
(Moscow, 1926), p.69.
44 Trud, 2-3 Sept. 1917, pp.25-6; Rabochii kooperator, 1, 12 Dec. 1917, p.3;
L.V. Ol'khovaya, 'Rabochaya kooperatsiya kak forma organizatsii
proletariata', Rossiiskii proletariat: oblik, bor'ba gegemoniya (Moscow,
197°)-
45 Rab. Kontrol', p. 106.
46 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.68.
47 S.E. Loginova, 'Partiya bol'shevikov-organizator revolyutsionnogo
tvorchestva mass v reshenii prodovol'stvennoi problemy v period
podgotovki oktyabrya', Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo universiteta, seriya
ist. nauk, 31 (1959), 77.
48 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.68.
49 Raionnye Sovety Petrograda v igijg^ vol.3 (Moscow, 1965), p.264; A.
Pankratova, Fabzavkomy i profsoyuzy v revolyutsii igiyg. (Moscow, 1927),
p.38.
50 Kommuna, 1, 17 March 1917, p.7.
51 Ibid.
52 Vestnik obshchestva zavodchikov i fabrikantov, 5, 10 June 1917, p.3.
53 Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, 64, 25 April 1917, p.2.
54 Rabochaya Gazeta, 154, 7 Sept. 1917, p.4; Putilovets v trekh rev., p.415.
55 Rabochaya Gazeta, 114, 23 July 1917, p.3; Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda,
pp.129—30.
56 Rabochaya Gazeta, 174, 30 Sept. 1917, p.3.
57 Ibid.
58 Rabochaya Gazeta, 17, 26 March 1917, p.4; Rabochaya Gazeta, 18, 28 March
1917, p . i .
59 Okt. rev. i. fabzavkomy, vol.i, p.53.
60 Leningrad State Historical Archive (LGIA), f. 1477, op.3, d . i , 1.90.
61 V.F. Shishkin, Velikii oktyabr' i proletarskii moral' (Moscow, 1976),
PP-74-5-
62 Ibid., p. 75-6.
63 Rab. Kontrol'', pp. 195-6.
64 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 130.
65 J. Saville, 'The Ideology of Labourism', in Knowledge and Belief in Politics,
ed. R. Benewick (London, Allen and Unwin, 1973).
66 See, for example, M.K. Eroshkin, The Soviets in Russia (New York, 1919),
P44-
67 Rabochii Put', 39, 18 Oct. 1917, p.2.
68 Rossiiskii proletariat: oblik, bor'ba, gegomoniya (Moscow, 1970), p.278.
69 S.N. Prokopovich, Byudzhety peterburgskikh rabochikh (St Petersburg,
1909), p.7; M. Davidovich, Peterburgskii tekstil'nyi rabochii (St Petersburg,
1912), p.20.
70 A. Buzinov, Za Nevskoi zastavoi (Moscow, 1930), pp.25-6; A.M. Buiko,
Put' rabochego: zapiski starogo bol'shevika (Moscow, 1934), p . u .
71 Buzinov, Za Nevskoi zastavoi, p.73.
 Notes 283
72 Binshtok and Kaminskii, Narodnoe pitanie, pp.45-6.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid.
75 Novaya Zhizn', 24, 16 May 1917, p.2.
76 Pravda, 59, 17 May 1917, p.4.
77 Rabochaya Gazeta, 78, 11 June 1917, p.4.
78 Fab. zav. kom. p.241.
79 Ibid, pp.532, 578.
80 Ibid, pp.144, I 5 I » 2 9 3 ~ 4 J 4 0 1 -
81 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 131.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.
84 Shishkin, Velikii oktyabr', p. 182.
85 P. Timofeev, Chem zhivet zavodskii rabochii (St Petersburg, 1906), p.8.
86 Fleer, 'Putilovskii zavod v I9i7~i8gg.', p.297.
87 Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda, p.75.
88 I. Gordienko, Iz boevogo proshlogo, igi4~i8gg. (Moscow, 1957), p. 100.
89 V.I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., vol.45 (Moscow, 1964),
p.381.
90 Lenin, ibid., p.454. Note Trotsky's comment: 'The Russian worker -
except the very top of the class - usually lacks the most elementary habits
and notions of culture (in regard to dress, education, punctuality, etc.).
The West European worker possesses these habits. He has acquired
them by a long, slow process under the bourgeois order. This explains
why in Western Europe the working class - at any rate its superior
elements — is so strongly attached to the bourgeois regime, with its
democracy, free capitalist press, etc. The belated bourgeois regime in
Russia had no time to do any good for the working class and the Russian
proletariat broke with the bourgeoisie all the more easily and overthrew
the bourgeois regime without regret... History gives us nothing free of
cost. Having made a reduction on one point - in politics - it makes us pay
the more on another - in culture.' L. Trotsky, Problems of Everyday Life
(New York, Pathfinder, 1973), p.20.
91 Fleer, 'Putilovskii zavod v I9i7-i8gg.', p.295.
92 Mitel'man, igiy god na Putilovskom zavode, p.213.
93 Fab. zav. kom. pp.93, 149.
94 Ibid., pp.203, 213, 382-3, 397.
95 Ibid., pp.566, 587, 596.
96 V ogne revolyutsionnykh boev, vol.2 (Moscow, 1971), p.45.
97 N.S. Sergeev, Metallisty: istoriya Leningradskogo Metallicheskogo zavoda im.
XXII s"ezda KPSS, vol.i (Leningrad, 1967), p.338.
98 V ogne revolyutsionnykh boev, vol.i (Moscow, 1967), p. 151; see the
description by N. Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, of teaching a literacy class in
Vyborg district in 1917. N. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin (London,
Panther, 1970), p.307.
99 I.D. Levin, 'Rabochie kluby v Peterburge, 1907-14', Materialy po istorii
professional'nogo dvizheniya, 3 (1925), 4.
100 Rabochaya Gazeta, 10, 17 March 1917, p.2.
284 Notes
101 Novaya Zhizn', 70, 9 July 1917, p.5.
102 Novaya Zhizn', 76, 16 July 1917, p.5.
103 Novaya Zhizn'', 124, 10 Sept. 1917, p.4.
104 Novaya Zhizn', 106, 20 Aug. 1917, p.5.
105 See the survey of working-class taste in L.M. Kleinbort, Ocherki rabochego
intelligentsii: teatr, zhivopis', muzika, vol.2 (Petrograd, 1923), pp.14, 42.
106 Novaya Zhizn', 70, 9 July 1917, p.5.
107 Novaya Zhizn', 76, 17 July 1917, p.5; ibid., 106, 20 Aug. 1917, p.5.
108 Novaya Zhizn', 82, 23 July 1917, p.5.
109 Novaya Zhizn', 31, 25 May 1917, p.5.
110 Novaya Zhizn', 94, 6 Aug. 1917, p.2; Yunyi Proletarii, 2, 25 Jan. 1918, p.3;
Rabochii, 6, 29 Aug. 1917, p.4.
in Novaya Zhizn', 70, 9 July 1917, p.5.
112 Novaya Zhizn', 128, 15 Sept. 1917, p.7.
113 The proceedings of this conference make fascinating reading, fore-
shadowing, as they do, the later debates within Proletkult. Luna-
charsky, Gorky, Osip Brik and many others took part in discussions
about art, education and proletarian culture. The fullest account of the
conference proceedings is in P. Gorsen and E. Knodler-Bunte, Proletkult:
System einer Proletarischen Kultur, Band 1, Dokumentation (Stuttgart,
1974).
114 Profsoyuzy SSSR, ed. I. Borshchenko, vol.i (Moscow, 1963), p.425.
115 V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th ed., vol.29 (London, Lawrence and
Wishart, 1965), p. 70.
116 See the excellent discussion of this question by C. Claudin-Urondo,
Lenin and the Cultural Revolution (Sussex, Harvester, 1977), Ch.3; S.
Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organisation of
Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky (Cambridge, 1970), Ch.5.
117 N. Ya. Ivanov, Velikii oktyabr' v Petrograde (Leningrad, 1957), p.42.
118 V.I. Startsev, Ocherkipo istorii Petrogradskoi krasnoigvardii i rabochei militsii
(Moscow, 1965), pp.44-5.
119 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie posle sverzheniye samoderzhaviya (Moscow, 1957),
p.448.
120 Startsev, Ocherki, p.59.
121 Ibid., p.57.
122 Tseitlin, 'Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety', pp.89-90.
123 Startsev, Ocherki, p.48.
124 Rev. dvizh. posle sverzheniya, pp.56—8; Pervyi legal'nyi komitet: sbornik
materialov i protokolov zasedanii Peterburgskogo komiteta RSDRP (b.) (Mos-
cow, 1927), p.36.
125 'Iz istorii krasnoi gvardii', Istoricheskii Arkhiv 5, (1957), 122-3.
126 Startsev, Ocherki, p.52.
127 Ibid, pp.66—9; V. Vinogradov, 'Krasnaya gvardiya Petrogradskogo
metallicheskogo zavoda', Krasnaya Letopis', 2 (23) (1927)-, 166.
128 Startsev, Ocherki, p.74.
129 Ibid., p.64.
130 Fab. zav. kom., pp.71, 451.
131 Startsev, Ocherki, pp. 104-7.
 Notes 285
132 'Iz istorii krasnoi gvardii', p. 124.
133 Leningradskie rabochie v bor'be za vlast' sovetov (Leningrad, 1924), p.24.
134 Ibid., p.23.
135 'Iz istorii krasnoi gvardii', p. 125.
136 Pravda, 44, 29 April 1917, p.4.
137 Novaya Zhizn*', 10, 29 April, p.4.
138 Rabochaya Gazeta, 43, 29 April, p.i; Izvestiya, 29 April, p.i.
139 Startsev estimates that by the end of June as many as 52 factories had
contingents of Red Guards, numbering more than 5,000 members
(Startsev, Ocherki, p. 129). Many of these, however, must have been units
of workers' militia rather than the more politicised Red Guards. An
earlier Soviet historian is surely correct to say that 'down to the Kornilov
rebellion, the Red Guard was not a broad mass organisation'. E.
Pinezhskii, Krasnaya gvardiya, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1933), p.33.
140 Startsev, Ocherki, pp.82-3.
141 Ibid., p.86.
142 Fab. zav. kom., pp.144, 284? 458-9.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5
1 R. Michels, Political Parties (New York, Macmillan, Free Press, 1968).
2 V.E. Bonnell, 'Trade Unions, Parties and the State in Tsarist Russia',
Politics and Society, 9, no.3 (1980).
3 Revolutionary Situations in Europe, igij—22: Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary,
ed. C. Bertrand (Montreal, Inter-University Centre for European
Studies, 1977); C. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe (Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1975).
4 I.P. Leiberov, Na shturm samoderzhaviya (Moscow, 1979), p.61.
5 Pravda, 12, 18 March 1917, p.4; Tkach, 1, Nov. 1917, p.28.
6 Pravda, 9, 15 March 1917, p.4; Metallist, 12 (1922), 63.
7 A. Shlyapnikov, Semnadtsatyi God, vol.2 (Moscow, 1925), p. 133.
8 Professional'noe dvizhenie v Petrograde v igiyg., ed. A. Anskii (Leningrad,
1929), p.i 19; Rabochaya Gazeta, 42, 28 April 1917, p.4.
9 F.A. Bulkin, Na zareprofdvizheniya. Istoriyapeterburgskogo soyuza metallistov,
igo6-i4gg. (Leningrad, 1924), pp.290-1.
I o The membership figures for the paper, print, tobacco, leather and wood
unions exceed the total number of workers in the respective industries in
Petrograd. This may partly be due to the fact that these unions included
workers in the province of Petrograd, and not just the city, but it seems
more likely to be due to the fact that the figures represent not current
membership in October and July, but the number of enrollments since
March, i.e. they make no allowance for dropouts. Compare V. Ya.
Grunt's analysis of the figures for trade-union membership in Moscow in
Istoriya SSSR, 1 (1965), 232.
I1 Such a level of unionisation - achieved in less than six months - did not
compare badly with the levels in the West. In 1912 about 20% of the
total occupied labour force in Britain were members of trade unions; in
Germany about 25%; in the USA and Italy about 11% and in France
286 Notes

only 8%. Yu. I. Kir'yanov, 'Ob oblike rabochego klassa Rossii',

Rossiiskii proletariat — oblik, bor'ba, gegemoniya (Moscow, 1970), p. 130.
12 The term 'craft union' is used to denote a narrow, exclusive union of
workers of one specific trade; the term 'trade union' is used to denote a
union of workers in several related trades; the term 'industrial union' is
used to denote a union which embraces all workers in a branch of
industry, regardless of their job.
13 E. Schneider, Industrial Sociology (New York, McGraw Hill, 1957), Ch.
10. The American Labor Movement, ed. D. Brody (New York, Harper and
Row, 1971). H. Clegg, A. Fox, A.F. Thompson, A History of British Trade
Unionism (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964) Chs.1,4.
14 M. Hanagan, The Logic ofSolidarity (Urbana, University of Illinois Press,
1980); B.H. Moss, The Origins of the French Labor Movement (Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1976); D. Geary, 'The German Labour
Movement, 1848-1919', European Studies Review, 6 (1976) 297-330.
15 Bulkin, Na zare profdvizheniya, p.309.
16 Metallist, 12 (1922), p.66.
17 Pravda, 41, 26 April 1917, p.4.
18 Professional'nyi Vestnik, 7, 16 Dec. 1917, p.7.
19 Prof dvizh. v igiyg., p. 125; Petrogradskaya Pravda, 167, 6 Aug. 1918, p.4.
20 Metallist, 1-2, 17 Aug. 1917, p. 14.
21 Prof dvizh. v igiyg., p.341.
22 Bulkin, Na zare profdvizheniya, p.226.
23 Pravda, 51, 7 May 1917, p.3; Pravda, 57, 14 May 1917, p.3.
24 Professional sections existed within the printers', leatherworkers',
woodworkers' and other unions in 1917.
25 Tret'ya vserossiiskaya konferentsiyaprofessional'nykh soyuzov igiyg. (Moscow,
1927). Pankratova is quite wrong to claim that the Bolsheviks believed in
revolutionary industrial unions, whereas the Mensheviks believed in
neutral trade unions. A. Pankratova, Fabzavkomy iprofsoyuzy v revolyutsii
igiyg. (Moscow, 1927), p.56.
26 Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya
oktyabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), p.89.
27 Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 2, 19 Oct. 1917, p. 12.
28 Ibid., p. 14.
29 Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 3, 12 Dec. 1917, p. 15.
30 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v Rossii nakanune oktyabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vossta-
niya (Moscow, 1962), p.277.
31 Rabochii Put', 36, 14 Oct. 1917, p.4.
32 Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde (Moscow, 1957), P-277-
33 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.90.
34 Professional'nyi Vestnik, 7, 10 Dec. 1917, p.6.
35 Gilds (tsekhi) had been legalised by Peter the Great in 1722 but had never
become deeply entrenched. In the 1850s and 1860s there was a campaign
to abolish them. On the latter, see R. Zelnik, Labor and Society in Tsarist
Russia (Stanford University Press, 1971) pp.120—33. For an interesting
account of the tsekh system in the bakery trade at the beginning of this
century see B. Ivanov, Po stupen'yam bor'by: zapiski starogo bol'shevika
(Moscow, 1934), pp. 167-9.
 Notes 287
36 R. Zelnik, 'Russian Workers and the Revolutionary Movement',
Journal of Social History, 16, no. 2 (1972-3); A. Wildman, The Making of
a Workers' Revolution (Chicago University Press, 1967), pp. 123-6,
1
3 7-49-
37 See, for example, the article by D. Kol'tsov, Professionalnyi Vestnik, 3-4,
15 Oct. 1917, p.6.
38 Shestoi s"ezd RSDRP (6): Protokoly (Moscow, 1958), p.264.
39 Prof dvizh. v igiyg., p-45-
40 Ibid., pp.57, 63.
41 Ibid., pp.58-9.
42 Ibid., p.48. At the Third Conference of Trade Unions a row broke out
over the same phrase. Conference voted to substitute the word
'movement' for 'party'. See John Keep's excellent discussion, J.L.H.
Keep, The Russian Revolution: a study in mass mobilisation (London,
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), p.89.
43 The so-called Interdistrict Group of Social Democrats, of which Trotsky
became leader after his return from the USA in 1917.
44 Prof, dvizh. v igiyg., p.50.
45 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v iyule: iyul'skii krizis (Moscow, 1959), p.337.
46 Prof dvizh. v igiyg., p.53.
47 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 172.
48 Bor'ba, 3, Sept. 1917, p.i; Rabochii Put', 10 Sept.1917, p.4.
49 Prof, dvizh. v igiyg., p i 23.
50 Ibid., p. 119. The SRs were a significant influence in the leatherworkers'
union, the transport union and the union of postal employees.
51 Metallist, 2, 19 Feb. 1918, p.9.
52 S. Volin, Deyatel'nost' men'shevikov v profsoyuzakh pri sovetskoi vlasti (New
York, 1962), p.32.
53 Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 2, 19 Oct. 1917, p.6.
54 Zerno Pravdy, 1-2, 10 July 1917, p p . n - 1 2 .
55 Nabat, 5, 18 Nov. 1917, p. 10. There was conflict between Bolsheviks and
SR Maximalists in the union, with the latter accusing the former of
trying to monopolise control of the union, and the former accusing the
latter of sabotaging union work in certain bread-factories. Ibid., p. 12 and
Rabota soyuza muchnykh izdelii i osnovanie soyuzapishchevikov igiyg. (Lening-
rad, 1927), p.6.
56 Prof dvizh. v igiyg., p.i35-
57 T. Shatilova, Ocherk istorii leningradskogo soyuza khimikov, igoj—i8gg.
(Leningrad, 1927), p.64; Volin, Deyatel'nost' men'shevikov, p.29.
58 Volin, Deyatel'nost' men'shevikov, p.23.
59 Pechatnoe Delo, 13, 8 Dec. 1917, pp.10-11.
60 Novyi Den , 26, 11 April 1918, p.4.
61 S.G. Strumilin, Zarabotnaya plata iproizvoditel'nost' truda vpromyshlennosti
(Moscow, 1923), p.25.
62 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.53.
63 L.S. Gaponenko, Rabochii klass Rossii v igiyg. (Moscow, 1970), pp.378,
384, 436.
64 Bor'ba, i,Sept. 1917, pp.9-12; Bor'ba, 3, Sept.1917, pp. 13-14; Bor'ba, 4,
Sept. 1917, pp. 14-15.
288 Notes

65 Nashe Slovo, 1, 12 Oct. 1917, p.13; Rabotnitsa, 3, 20 May 1917, pp.5-6;

Professional' noe dvizhenie rabochikh khimikov i stekoV shchikov, 1905—i8gg., ed.
Yu. K. Milonov (Moscow, 1928), p.48.
66 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, pp.87-9; Vestnik aptechnogo truda, 14—15, 15
Nov. 1917, pp.8-9; Pischebumazhnik, 2 - 3 , 21 Oct. 1917, pp. 19-21.
67 Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 2, 19 Oct. 1917, pp. 7-8.
68 L.I. Leskova, 'Kollektivnye dogovory rabochikh s predprinimatelyami v
I
9°5~7SS-'' Rabochii klass i rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii (Moscow, 1966).
69 P. Stearns, Lives of Labor: Work in a Maturing Industrial Society (New York,
Holmes and Meier, 1975)
70 H.A. Clegg, The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain (Oxford,
Blackwell, 1970); K. Burgess, The Challenge of Labour: Shaping British
Society, 1850-1930 (London, Croom Helm, 1980), pp. 119-21.
71 Materialy po statistike truda, issue 6 (Petrograd, 1919), 10.
72 Vestnik Metallista, 1 (1917), 18.
73 Za dvadtsat' let, ed. V. Rabinovich (Leningrad, 1926), pp.98-9.
74 The Russian Provisional Government, ed. R.P. Browder and A.F. Kerensky,
vol.2 (Stanford University Press, 1961), p. 170; Len. gos. ist. arkhiv
(LGIA), f.1278, op.i, d.113, 1.86.
75 A.P. Serebrovskii, Revolyutsiya i zarabotnaya plata rabochikh metallicheskoi
promyshlennosti (Petrograd, 1917), p.22.
76 Metallist, 1-2, 17 Aug. 1917, p.7.
77 Rabochaya Gazeta, 33, 16 April 1917, p.4; Len. Gos. ist. arkhiv (LGIA),
f.1296, d.i, op. 17, 11.12-13.
78 Putilovets v trekh revolyutsiyakh, ed. I.I. Gaza (Moscow, 1933), pp.327-8.
79 Ibid., p.329.
80 Pravda, 77, 9 June 1917, p.4; Zemlya i Volya, 63, 9 June 1917, p.3.
81 Rab. Gazeta, 89, 24 June 1917, p.4.
82 Putilovets v trekh rev., p.334.
83 Ibid., pp.346-7.
84 I.I. Gaza, Putilovets na putyakh k oktyabr'yu (Moscow, 1933) p. 106.
85 Rab. Gazeta, 89, 24 June 1917, p.4.
86 Putilovets na trekh rev., pp.349-50.
87 Gaza, Putilovets na putyakh, p. 109.
88 For an excellent account of the July Days see A. Rabinowitch, Prelude to
Revolution (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1968).
89 Gaza, Putilovets na putyakh, p. n o .
90 Ibid., p. 112.
91 Metallist, 1-2, 17 Aug. 1917, p.4.
92 Trudy pervogo vserossiiskogo s"ezda sovetov narodnogo khozyaistva (Moscow,
1918), p.380.
93 Metallist, 1-2, p.20.
94 Vestnik Metallista, 1, 1917, p . 1 6 .
95 Pravda, 9 3 , 28 J u n e 1917, p . 4 ; Za dvadtsat' let, p p . 1 0 5 , I I 2 -
9 6 Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety Petrograda v igiyg. (Moscow, 1979), p.459;
Rab. Gazeta, 14, 23 July 1917, p.4.
97 Rab. Gazeta, 117, 27 July 1917, p.3.
98 Gaza, Putilovets na putyakh, p. 129.
 Notes 289

99 Za dvadtsat' let, pp. 117-18; Len. gos. ist. arkhiv, f. 1477, °P-3> d.i, 166.
100 Vestnik Metallista, 1, pp. 1 —6. The SFWO signed reluctantly. At a meeting
of the Petrograd district section of the city SFWO on 3 August A.G.
Berger urged colleagues to accept the contract, since, although its
wage-rates were high, it would bring uniformity and, made provision for
piece-rates and productivity deals. Len. gos. ist. arkhiv (LGIA), f.1278,
op.1, d.183, 1.127.
101 Rab. Gazeta, 171, 27 Sept. 1917, p.4.
102 Fab. zav. kom., pp.395—6.
103 Ibid., p.404.
104 See the speech by Konovalenko at the first national metalworkers'
tariff-conference on 17 October. Vserossiiskaya tarifnaya konferentsiya
sqyuzov metallistov (Petrograd, 1918), p.58.
105 Natsionalizatsiya promyshlennosti v SSSR, igiy-20gg., ed. LA. Gladkov
(Moscow, 1954), pp.250-6.
106 Metallist, 12 (1922) 43; Vestnik Metallista, 1, p.47.
107 Gaza, Putilovets na putyakh, p. 128.
108 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.82.
109 Novaya Zhizn', 148, 6 Oct. 1917, p.4; Rab. Put', 35, 13 Oct. 1917, p.4.
n o Vogne revolyutsionnykh boev, vol.2 (Moscow, 1971), p.43.
111 Tarifnaya konferentsiya, p. 136.
112 Rab. Put', 46, 30 Oct. 1917, p.4; Novyi Put', 1-2, 15 Oct. 1917, p. 15;
Tarifnaya konferentsiya, p. 13 7.
113 Vestnik Metallista, 1, p.48.
114 Metallist, 1-2, p.6.
115 Metallist, 5, 9 Nov. 1917, p.2.
116 Serebrovskii, Rev. i zar. plata, pp.24-5.
117 A. Tikhanov, 'Rabochie-pechatniki v gody voiny', Materialy po istorii
professional'nogo dvizheniya v Rossii, vol.3 (Moscow, 1925), 114.
118 Pechatnoe Delo, 4, 10 July 1917, pp.7, 13.
119 A. Tikhanov, 'Rabochie-pechatniki v I9i7g.', Mat. po ist. prof dvizh.,
vol.4 (1925), p.166.
120 Pechatnoe Delo, 5, 22 July 1917, pp.9-10.
121 Materialy po statistike truda, issue 6 (Petrograd, 1919), 52-3.
122 Pechatnoe Delo, 8, 1 Sept. 1917, p.3; Delo Naroda, 118, 4 Aug. 1917, p.4;
ibid., 126, 13 Aug., p.4.
123 Tikhanov, 'Rabochie-pechatniki v 1917g.', p. 162.
124 Strumilin, Zarabotnaya plata, pp.35-6.
125 Istoriya leningradskogo soyuza rabochego poligraficheskogo proizvodstva, vol.i
(Leningrad, 1923), p.345.
126 Rev. dvizh. v iyule, 341; Golos Kozhevnika, 4 - 5 , 1 Dec. 1917, p.21.
127 Serebrovskii, Rev. i zar. plata, p.28.
128 Ibid.
129 Metallist, 4, 18 Oct. 1917, pp.8-9.
130 Ekho derev., 2, p. 14.
131 Torgovo-promyshlennaya Gazeta, 195, 8 Sept. 1917, p.2.
132 Prof, dvizh. v igi7g., pp. 164-5.
133 Pischebumazhnik, 2 - 3 , p. 19.
290 Notes
134 Metallist, 12 (1922), 22.
135 M. Clark, Antonio Gramsci and the Revolution that Failed (New Haven, Conn.
Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 17-18.
136 Professional'nyi Soyuz, 2, 1 May 1918, p. 10; 'Alexei Gastev and the Soviet
Controversy over Taylorism', Soviet Studies, XXIX, no.3 (1977), 373~94-
137 R.L. Glickman, 'The Russian Factory Woman, 1880-1914', Women in
Russia, ed. D. Atkinson and G. Lapidus (Stanford University Press,

138 Vtoroi s"ezd RSDRP (igoj): Protokoly (Moscow, 1959), pp. 198-207; W.
Thonnessen, The Emancipation of Women (London, Pluto, 1976), p.54.
139 Pravda, 77, 9 June 1917, p.4.
140 Vestnikprofessional'nykh soyuzov, 1, 20 May 1917, p. 13; Tkach, 1, pp.21-2;
Delo Naroda, 172, 5 Oct. 1917, p.4; Ekho derev. 2, p. 14; Prof dvizh. v igiyg.,
P-I54-
141 LA. Baklanova, Rabochie Petrograda v period mirnogo razvitiya revolyutsii
(Leningrad, 1978), pp.94-5.
142 Fab. zav. kom., pp.36, 57.
143 Ibid., p.344.
144 N.P. Payalin, Zavod im. Lenina (Moscow, 1933), pp.364, 378.
145 Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya ifabzavkomy, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1927), pp. 117, 238.
146 Ibid., p.260.
147 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p . m .
148 Delo Naroda, 55, 19 May 1917, p.4.
149 Revolyutsiya igiyg.: khronika sobytii, vol.2, ed. N. Avdeev (Moscow, 1923),
pp. 173-4, 180.
150 Delo Naroda, 125, 12 Aug. 1917, p.i.
151 Kontorskii Trud, 2, Nov. 1917, p. 12.
152 Bor'ba, 1, pp.7-9.
153 D. Antoshkin, Ocherk dvizheniya sluzhashchikh v Rossii (Moscow, 1921),
p. 70.
154 Prof dvizh. v igiyg., pp.346-7.
155 Ibid., pp.347> 349-
156 Fab. zav. kom. pp.446-7.
157 Gaza, Putilovets na putyakh, p. 106.
158 Fab. zav. kom., pp.460-4.
159 Rabochii kontrol' v promyshlennykh predpriyatiyakh Petrograda, igiy—i8gg.
(Leningrad, 1947), p. 138.
160 Istoriya obuvnoi fabriki Skorokhod (Leningrad, 1969), pp. 161-2.
161 Rab. kontrol', p.72.
162 Golos Chertezhnika, 3, 1 Oct. 1917, p.5.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

i V.I. Selitskii, 'Nekotorye voprosy bor'by petrogradskikh rabochikh za

kontrol' nad proizvodstvom v period mirnogo razvitiya revolyutsii',
Istoriya rabochego klassa Leningrada, issue 2 (Leningrad, 1963); M.L. Itkin,
'Nekotorye funktsii rabochego kontrolya v period podgotovki
vooruzhennogo vosstaniya', Rabochii klass i rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii v
 Notes 291

2 Z.V. Stepanov, 'K voprosu o rabochem kontrole nad proizvodstvom i

raspredeleniem', Istoriya SSSR, 4 (1968), 225-8. For further discussion of
this problem, see T.A. Ignatenko, Sovetskaya istoriogrqfiya rabochego
kontrolya i natsionalizatsii promyshlennosti v SSSR, I9i7-6ygg. (Moscow,
1971), pp.203-5.
3 V.I. Lenin, Selected Works, vol.i (London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1947).
4 P. Avrich, The Russian Revolution and the Factory Committees (Columbia
University, Ph.D., 1962), Ch.2.
5 W. Rosenberg, 'Workers and Workers' Control in the Russian Revolu-
tion', History Workshop, 4 (1978), 92.
6 Avrich, The Russian Revolution and the Factory Committees, pp.92—3; see also,
P. Avrich, 'The Russian Factory Committees in 1917', Jahrbucher fur
Geschichte Osteuropas, 2 (1963), 161-82.
7 Ibid., p. 110.
8 P. Avrich, 'The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control', Slavic Review, 22, no. 1
(i963)> 54-
9 J.L.H. Keep, The Russian Revolution: a study in mass mobilisation (London,
Weidenfeld, 1976), p.89.
10 F.I. Kaplan, Bolshevik Ideology and the Ethics of Soviet Labour (London,
Owen, 1969), pp. 128-9. In referring to 'a type of cooperative associa-
tion,' Kaplan is here citing Lozovskii's description of workers' control.
11 P. Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow (London, Allen
and Unwin, 1974).
12 J. Juillard, Fernand Pelloutier et les origines du syndicalisme dfaction directe
(Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1971); F.F. Ridley, Revolutionary Syndicalism in
France (Cambridge University Press, 1970); P. Stearns, Revolutionary
Syndicalism and French Labor (New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University
Press, 1971).
13 B. Pribicevic, The Shop Stewards' Movement and Workers' Control, igio—22
(Oxford University Press, 1959); M. Derber, The American Idea of
Industrial Democracy (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1970), pp.
56-9-
14 P. Avrich, The Russian Anarchists (Princeton University Press, 1971).
15 A. Berkman, The Russian Tragedy (Orkney, Cienfuegos, 1976); G.P.
Maximoff, Syndicalists in the Russian Revolution (n.p, n.d. [1978]).
16 Voline, The Unknown Revolution, igiy—21 (Detroit, Black and Red, 1974).
17 Golos anarkhista, 1, 21 Nov. 1917. An anarchist, Gorelik, wrote that
'anarchist workers were too weak in ideas and numbers to have much
effect', cited by V.V. Komin, Anarkhizm v Rossii (Kalinin, 1969), p. 145.
18 One should note that in Spain the success of anarchism derived entirely
from its organisational strength. In Andalusia in the last third of the
nineteenth century the anarchists successfully merged trade-union
organisation with communal organisation in order to pit the power of the
pueblo against the latifundists and wine-growing bourgeoisie. After the
First World War the anarcho-syndicalist CNT owed its success largely
to organisational flexibility, linked to strategic perspicuity. See T.
Kaplan, The Anarchists of Andalusia, 1868— 1903 (Princeton University
Press, 1977); J. Romero Maura, 'The Spanish Case', Anarchism Today,
ed. J. Joll and D. Apter (London, Macmillan, 1971).
292 Notes

19 S.N. Kanev, Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya i krakh anarkhizma (Moscow, 1974),

P-54-
20 Ibid., p. 73.
21 B.I. Gorev, Anarkhizm v Rossii (Moscow, 1930), p. 124.
22 This was not true of anarcho-syndicalists. At the Izhora works they 'took
every measure to ensure that actions by workers have an organised and
not a sectional character'. Golos truda, 20, 25 Nov. 1917, p.4.
23 Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya i fabzavkomy, vol.i (Moscow, 1927), pp.70-1.
24 Ibid., pp.215, 233.
25 Ibid., vol.2, pp.184, *86.
26 Novaya Zhizn', 6 Jan. 1918, p.4.
27 Voline, Unknown Revolution, p. 175.
28 Rosenberg, 'Workers' Control', p.95.
29 L.S. Gaponenko, Rabochii klass Rossii v igijg. (Moscow, 1970), p.225.
30 D.A. Kovalenko, 'Bor'ba fabrichno-zavodskikh komitetov Petrograda
za rabochii kontrol' nad proizvodstvom (mart-oktyabr' I9i7g.)'>
Istoricheskie Zapiski, 61 (1957), p.80.
31 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, p.82.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid., p. 165-6.
34 Natsionalizatsiya promyshlennosti i organizatsiya sotsialisticheskogo proizvodstva
v Petrograde, igiy-20gg., vol.i (Leningrad, 1958), p.34.
35 Ibid., p.266.
36 V.I. Selitskii, Massy v bor'be za rabochii kontrol' (Moscow, 1971), p.42.
37 N.P. Payalin, Zavod imeni Lenina, i8$j—igi8 (Moscow, 1933), PP-378-9-
38 Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya
oktyabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), pp.114—5.
39 M.I. Mitel'man, igiy godna Putilovskom zavode (Leningrad, 1939), p.141.
40 Novyi Put', 3—4, 1 Dec. 1917, p.25.
41 Selitskii, Massy v bor'be, p.43.
42 Rabochii kontrol' v promyshlennykh predpriyatii Petrograde, vol. 1 (Leningrad,
1947), P-57-
43 Md., p.43.
44 Krasnyi Arkhiv, 103 (1940), 108.
45 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v iyule: iyul'skii krizis (Moscow, 1959), P-352.
46 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.2, pp.76-80.
47 Trudorezina, 15, 29 July 1917, p.i.
48 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 116.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid., p. 117.
51 Avrich, 'Bolsheviks and Workers' Control', p.62.
52 Kaplan, Bolshevik Ideology, p.97.
53 O. Anweiler, The Soviets: The Russian Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers'
Councils, igoj-21 (New York, Random House, 1974), p. 127.
54 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, p.95.
55 The left-wing Menshevik D. Dallin admitted to the conference that
industrialists were deliberately cutting back production. Ibid., p. 106.
56 Ibid., p.95.
 Notes 293
57 The much-depleted Menshevik cell at the Aivaz works in November
bewailed the 'pernicious delusion that it is possible for workers to
alleviate the economic chaos and protect the working masses from the
effects of the rising cost of living and imminent unemployment simply by
their own efforts'. Plamya, 1, 24 November 1917, p.4.
58 See Cherevanin's resolution to the Third Trade-Union Conference,
Tret'ya vserossiiskaya konferentsiyaprofessional'nykh soyuzov (Moscow, 1927),
pp.450-2.
59 'Tezisy dlya agitatorov i propagandistov', Central Committee of SR
party, no.9, 1918 (n.p.).
60 See resolution on factory committees passed by the third congress of the
SRs. Delo Naroda, 64, 2 June 1917, p.2.
61 Znamya Truda, 13, 6 Sept. 1917, p.4.
62 Volya Truda, 2, 12 Sept. 1917, pp.2-3.
63 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, p.94.
64 Bill Shatov's famous characterisation of the trade unions at the First
National Congress of Trade Unions in January 1918. Pervyi vserossiiskii
s"ezd professional'nykh soyuzov (Moscow, 1918), p. 1 o 1.
65 V.I. Lenin, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, 5th ed., vol.32 (Moscow, 1962),
p.438.
66 Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., vol.34 (Moscow, 1962), p. 175.
67 Ibid., p. 161.
68 Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., vol.31 (Moscow, 1962), p. 168.
69 Listovki petrogradskikh bol'shevikov, igiy—20gg., vol.3 (Leningrad, 1957),
p.40.
70 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, p.70.
71 Ibid., pp. 107-9.
72 Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., vol.35 (Moscow, 1962), p.63.
73 Ibid., p. 148.
74 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.2, pp.217—63.
75 Ibid., p. 124.
76 Ibid., pp. 170-1.
77 Ibid., p. 186.
78 Tret'ya konferentsiya, pp.482—4.
79 Shestoi s"ezd RSDRP(6) (Moscow, 1958), pp.261-3.
80 Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., vol.32, pp. 139-62; compare Larin's critique of the
draft programme Rabochii Put', 31,8 Oct. 1917, p.2.
81 In this belief, Lenin was at odds with Gramsci, theorist of the Italian
factory councils, who envisaged proletarian state power growing up on
the basis of workers' power in the factories, and who saw the struggle for
workers' control as growing naturally into a contestation for state power.
On this point, as on many others, it was Bordiga, not Gramsci, who was
closer to Lenin. It is also worth noting in this connection that Gramsci
saw the Italian councils as the (potential) equivalent of the Russian
Soviets. He believed that the forms of the proletarian state must be
councils based on production. In Russia, however, it was the factory
committees which were based on production, whereas the Soviets were
organised on a territorial basis (though largely elected on a production
294 Notes
basis). Gramsci rejected Bordiga's call for territorially-based organisa-
tion, since he believed that it was as producers, that the working class
would make communism. See A. Gramsci, Political Writings, igio-20,
(London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1977).
82 Vospominaniya 0 Lenine, vol.2 (Moscow, 1969), p.416; L. Trotsky, History
of the Russian Revolution, vol.2 (London, Sphere, 1967), p.303.
83 V. Perazich, Tekstili Leningrada v igijg- (Leningrad, 1927), pp.28-9.
84 Leningradskie tekstilya, 6-7 (1927), 9.
85 Perazich, Tekstili Leningrada, p.28.
86 Istoriya Leningradskoi obuvnoi fabriki Skorokhod (Leningrad, 1969), p. 134.
87 B. Shabalin, Krasnyi Treugol'nik, 1860-igjj (Leningrad, 1938), p. 158.
88 ProjessionaVnoe dvizhenie v Petrograde v igiyg., ed. A. Anskii (Leningrad,
1928), p.271.
89 Petrogradskie bol'sheviki v oktyabr'skoi revolyutsii (Leningrad, 1957), pp.
45-5-
90 Ibid., p.55); I.G. Tomkevich, Znamya oktyabrya (Leningrad 1972), p.33.
91 V ogne revolyutsionnykh boev, vol.i (Moscow, 1967), pp. 131-2.
92 They were chairmen, respectively, of the factory committees at the Gun,
Langenzippen, Duflon, Soikin, Putilov, Skorokhod and Siemens-Halske
works.
93 I.I. Gaza, Putilovets na putyakh k oktyabryu (Moscow, 1933), p-85-
94 Izvestiya raionnogo komiteta Petrogradskoi Storony, 1, July 1917, p.3.
95 Istoriya fabriki Skorokhod, p. 172.
96 Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety Petrograda, ed. I. Mints (Moscow, 1979),
PP-573-4-
97 Rabochii, 6, 29 Aug. 1917, p.4.
98 Rabochii Put', 22, 28 Sept. 1917, p.4.
99 Rab. Put'', 20, 26 Sept. 1917, p.4.
100 B.M. Freidlin, Ocherki istorii rabochego dvizheniya v igiyg. (Moscow, 1967),
P . 158.
101 Pravda, 79, 11 June 1917, p.4.
102 Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde (Moscow, 1957), p. 118.
103 Perazich, Tekstili Leningrada, p.92.
104 Rab. Gazeta, 54, 12 May 1917, p.4; Delo Naroda, 99, 13 July, 1917, p.4.
105 Rab. Put', 14, 19 Sept. 1917, p.4.
106 See the constitutions of the Gun works committee of July and August:
Rab. kontrol' vprom.pred., vol.i, pp.124—5; Okt. rev. ifab. vol.i, pp.67-8.
107 Narodnoe khozyaistvo, 11 (1918), 7.
108 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 113.
109 Okt. voor. vosst. v Pet., pp.92, 103-4, n o , 135; Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v
sentyabre (Moscow, 1961), pp.259, 292, 311.
no Okt. voor. vosst. v Pet., pp.92, 96, 99, 125, 133.
111 Rev. dvizh. v iyule, pp.352-3.
112 Pravda, 178, 3 Nov. 1917, p.4.
113 Len. gos. ist. arkhiv (LGIA), f. 1477, op.3, d.i, 1.66.
114 Rev. dvizh. v sentyabre, pp.329-30.
115 Pankratova, Fabzavkomy v bor'be, pp.2 26-7. The first conference of
factory committees in Moscow called for 'democratic' control of the
 Notes 295

factory committees, though the second in October called for workers'

control. Most of the resolutions which called for state control in
Petrograd were passed before the autumn. See, for example, the
resolution of the seventh district of the Putilov works which, as late as the
end ofJuly, expressed support for the Coalition government and called
for state control of the economy. Zemlya i Volya, 103, 30 July 1917, p.3.
116 Putilovets v trekh revolyutsiyakh (Leningrad, 1933), pp-364~5.
117 Okt. voor. vosst. v Pet., p.91.
118 Znamya Truda, 32, 30 Sept. 1917, p.3.
119 Golos Truda, 3, 25 Aug. 1917, p.3.
120 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.2, pp. 179-81.
121 Golos Truda, 4, 1 Sept. 1917, p.4; Proletarii, 9, 23 Sept. 1917, p.4.

NOTES TO CHAPTER J
1 Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, 213, 1 Oct. 1917, pp. 1-2.
2 Delo Naroda, 176, 10 Oct. 1917, p . i ; Rab. Gazeta, 143, 26 Aug. 1917, p.2;
Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya
oktyabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), pp. 143-4.
3 Delo Naroda, 160, 21 Sept. 1917, p.4; Rab. Put', 18, 23 Sept. 1917, p.4.
4 Rabota soyuza muchnykh izdelii i osnovanie soyuza pishchevikov igiy god
(Leningrad, 1927), p. 16.
5 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 144.
6 Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Rossii nakanune velikoi oktyabr' skoi sotsialisticheskoi
revolyutsii, part 1 (Moscow, 1957), p.225.
7 P.V. Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya Rossii v igiyg- (Moscow, 1964),
pp.302, 306.
8 Ekon, pol., part 1, p. 166.
9 Izvestiya, 63, 11 May 1917, p . i .
10 Izvestiya, 65, 13 May 1917; Izvestiya, 68, 17 May 1917.
11 R.P. Browder and A.F. Kerensky, The Russian Provisional Government,
vol.i (Stanford University Press, 1961), p.745.
12 Ibid., p. 739.
13 Ibid., pp.740, 746; Ekon.pol., part 1, pp.209, 537-8; Volobuev, Proletariat
i burzhuaziya, p.338.
14 Cited by Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya, p.205.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid., pp.294-5.
17 Materialy po statistike truda Severnoi oblasti, issue 1 (Petrograd, 1918),
18.
18 Ibid.
19 I.I. Gaza, Putilovets v trekh revolyutsiyakh (Leningrad, 1933), pp.340— 1.
20 Ibid., p.340.
21 Delo Naroda, 62, 31 May 1917, p.4.
22 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v mae—iyune (Moscow, 1959), pp.280-1.
23 Pravda, 64, 24 May 1917, p.4.
24 Pravda, 65, 25 May 1917, p.4; Pravda, 68, 28 May 1917, p.4; Pravda, 93, 29
J u n e 1917, p.4; Delo Naroda, 66, 4 June 1917, p.4.
296 Notes
25 See the resolution from the Aivaz workers, Pravda, 92, 27 June 1917, p.4.
26 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.99.
27 Ibid.; Rab. Put', 7, 10 Sept. 1917, p.3.
28 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 100.
29 Ibid.
30 Metallist, 3, 1 Oct. 1917, p. 16.
31 Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety Petrograda: Protokoly, ed. I.I. Mints (Moscow,
J979)5 PP-336> 342, 349> 378, 391.
32 N.P. Payalin, Zavod imeni Lenina, 1857—igi8 (Moscow, 1933), p.397.
33 Fab. zav. Kom., pp.91, 95, 593.
34 Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya i fabzavkomy, vol.2 (Moscow, 1927), pp,35—6.
35 Pravda, 65, 25 May 1917, p.3; Pravda, 71, 2 J u n e 1917, p.3; Delo Naroda,
58, 26 May 1917, p.4; Vestnik professional'nykh soyuzov, 2, 15 Sept. 1917,
p.10.
36 Professional'noe dvizhenie v Retrograde v igiyg. (Leningrad, 1928), p. 123.
37 Metallist, 4, 18 Oct. 1917, p. 10.
38 Metallist, 5, 9 Nov. 1917, p.3; Rab. Put', 10, 14 Sept. 1917, p.3.
39 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 140.
40 Ibid, p. 143.
41 Ibid., p. 142.
42 Ibid.
43 Gaza, Putilovets v trekh rev., pp.386-7; M.I. Mitel'man et al., Istoriya
Putilovskogo zavoda, 1908—ijgg., 4th edn (Moscow, 1961), p. 142.
44 Gaza, Putilovets v trekh rev., pp.386—91; Rab.Put', 32, 10 Oct. 1917, p.4.
45 Fab. zav. kom., pp.490-3.
46 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 146.
47 Fab. zav. kom., pp.267-311.
48 Golos Rabotnitsy, 5-6, 17 June 1917, p. 14.
49 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 141.
50 V.I. Selitskii, Massy v bor'be za rabochii kontrol' (Moscow, 1971), p. 195.
51 Rabochii kontroV v promyshlennykh predpriyatiyakh Petrograda, 1917—i8gg.,
vol.i (Leningrad, 1947), P-7i.
52 N. Dmitriev, 'Petrogradskie fabzavkomy v 1917g.', Krasnaya Letopis', 2
(23) (1927), 82.
53 Rab. kontrol' v prom, pred., p. 108.
54 Novyi Put', 1-2, 15 Oct. 1917, pp.9-10.
55 'Materialy k istorii rabochego kontrolya nad proizvodstvom', Krasnyi
Arkhiv, 103 (1940), 109.
56 Raionnye sovety v Petrograde v igiyg., vol.2 (Moscow, 1965), pp.184—6.
57 Ibid., pp.249, 259> 263.
58 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v iyule (Moscow, 1959), pp.342-3.
59 Delo Naroda, 69, 8 J u n e 1917, p.4.
60 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 135; Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, p. 148; A.M.
Pankratova, Fabzavkomy v bor'be za sotsialisticheskuyu fabriku (Moscow,
1923), p.245.
61 'Iz istorii bor'by za rabochii kontrol', Krasnyi Arkhiv, 69—70 (1935),
138—58; Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, p. 146.
62 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v sentyabre ( M o s c o w , 1961), p p . 2 8 4 - 5 .
 Notes 297

63 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 136.

64 Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuaziya, pp.266, 269.
65 Rab. kontrol v prom, pred, pp.179, I 8 I ~3> l9°> Stepanov, Rabochie
Petrograda, p. 151.
66 Browder and Kerensky, The Provisional Government, vol.i, p.723. The
allusion is to a speech by P.P. Ryabushinskii, the textile magnate, who
warned the Congress of Trade and Industry that 'the bony hand of
hunger and national destitution will seize by the throat the friends of the
people'.
67 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 151.
68 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.2, pp.18, 27-8.
69 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p. 152.
70 Ibid.; Rab. Put'., 31, 8 Oct. 1917, p.4.
71 Rab. Put'., 7, 10 Sept. 1917, pp.3-4.
72 Torgovo-promyshlennaya Gazeta, 2 1 3 , 1 O c t . 1917, p . i .
73 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, p. 186.
74 Trudy pervogo vserossiiskogo s"ezda delegatov rabochikh zavodov, portov i
uchrezhdenii Morskogo Vedomstva (Petrograd, 1917), protocol 4.
75 Md.
76 Ibid., protocol 10.
77 M. Fleer, 'Putilovskii zavod v I9i7-i8gg.', Bor'ba Klassov, 1-2 (1924),
294-
78 Gaza, Putilovets v trekh rev., pp.386—91.
79 Ibid., p.398.
80 Vserossiiskaya tarifnaya konferentsiya soyuzov metallistov (Petrograd, 1918),
pp. 15-20.
81 Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde (Moscow, 1957), P-I27.
82 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.2, pp. 173-5.
83 Ibid., p. 188.
84 M.L. Itkin, 'Tsentral'nyi sovet fabzavkomov Petrograda v 1917g.',
Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde (Moscow, 1980), p. 179.
85 Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda, p.29.
86 V.Z. Drobizhev, Glavnyi shtab sotsialisticheskoi promyshlennosti (Moscow,
1966), p.54.
87 Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya ifabzavkomy, vol.i (Moscow, 1927), p. 132.
88 Ibid., p.79.
89 Ibid., p. 135.
90 Ibid., p. 136.
91 Metallist, 12 (1922), 64-5.
92 Vsesoyuznyi soyuz metallistov v resolyutsiyakh i postanovleniyakh s"ezdov i
konferentsii, vol.i (Moscow, 1927), pp. 104-5.
93 Tret'ya konferentsiya professional'nykh soyuzov (Moscow, 1927)^.12.
94 Ibid., pp.76-88.
95 Ibid., pp.484-5.
96 Ibid., p.388,
97 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, p.229.
98 Ibid., p.233.
99 Ibid., p.231.
298 Notes
100 Ibid., p.233.
101 Ibid., vol.2, pp.189—93.
102 Ibid., p. 193.
103 Ibid., pp.189, J 93-
104 Ibid., p. 193.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 8
1 S.G. Strumilin, 'Problemy ekonomiki truda', Izbrannyeproizvedeniya, vol.i
(Moscow, 1963), pp.72-3.
2 Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, 84, 25 April 1917, p.2.
3 Vserossiiskii uchreditel'nyi s"ezd rabochikh metallistov (Petrograd, 1918), p.87.
4 J.A. Banks, The Sociology of Social Movements (London, Macmillan, 1972).
5 C. Tilly, From Mobilisation to Revolution (Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley,
1978), c h . 3 .
6 Cited by A. Pankratova, Fabzavkomy Rossii v bor'be za sotsialisticheskuyu
fabriku (Moscow, 1923), p. 152.
7 Novyi Put', 1-2, 14 Jan. 1918, p.4.
8 Vestnik obshchestva zavodchikov i fabrikantov, 5, 10 June 1917, p.3.
9 Rab. Gazeta, 1, 6 March 1917, p.2.
10 Izvestiya, 33, 6 April 1917, p.2.
11 Rabotnitsa, 1—2, 10 May 1917, p. 12.
12 Rabotnitsa, 7, 19 July 1917, p. 14.
13 Pravda, 83, 15 June 1917, p.4.
14 V. Perazich, Tekstili Leningrada v igiyg. (Leningrad, 1927), p.71.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid., pp.74-5.
17 Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya
oktyabr' skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), pp.34, 50.
18 T.I. Shatilova, Ocherk istorii leningradskogo soyuza khimikov, 1905—i8gg.
(Leningrad, 1927), pp.10, 54; S. Volin, DeyateVnost' men'shevikov v
profsoyuzakh pri sovetskoi vlasti (New York, 1962), p.29.
19 Perazich, Tekstili Leningrada, p.35.
20 Ibid., p.51; Professional'noe dvizhenie v Petrograde v igiyg., ed. A. Anskii
(Leningrad, 1928), pp.123, J 43-
21 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.2, pp.217-31.
22 Trudorezina, 1, 22 April 1917, p.4.
23 LGIA, f.1182, op. 1, d.96, 1.17.
24 LGIA, f.1186, op.4, d.16, 1.39.
25 N.D. Karpetskaya, Rabotnitsy i velikii oktyabr' (Leningrad, 1974), p.59.
26 Tret'ya konf prof, soyuzov, pp.425-6, 456-8.
27 Vestnik prof. soyuzov, 2, 15 Sept. 1917, p.5.
28 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.2, p. 192.
29 Rabotnitsa, 4, 30 May 1917, p.6.
30 Golos kozhevnika, 4—5, 1 Dec. 1917, p.23.
31 Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 3, 12 Dec. 1917, p. 13.
32 Petrogradskii rabochii, 1, 1 Feb. 1918, p.20.
33 Rab. Gazeta, 61, 20 May 1917, p.3.
 Notes 299

34 Pravda, 64, 24 May 1917, p.4; Delo Naroda, 60, 28 May, 1917, p.4.
35 T. Trenogova, Bor'ba petrogradskikh bol'shevikov z.a krest'yanstvo v igiyg.
(Leningrad, 1946), p.78; Krasnaya Letopis'', 2 (23) (1927), 55-6.
36 G. Dryazgov, Naputi k komsomolu (Leningrad, 1924), pp.36-63.
37 A.Ya. Leikin, 'Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie i molodezh', in
Oktyabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde, sb. stat. (Moscow, 1980),
p.236; V.M. Startsev, Ocherkipo istorii Petrogradskoi krasnoi gvardii i rabochei
militsii (Moscow, 1965), p.265.
38 Dryazgov, Na puti k komsomolu, pp.31—2.
39 A.N. Atsarkhin, Pod bol' shevistskoe znamya: soyuzy rabochei molodezhi v
Petrograde v igiyg- (Leningrad, 1958), pp.76-7.
40 Dryazgov, Na puti k komsomolu, pp.31-2; Atsarkhin, Pod bol. znamya, pp.67,
114.
41 Atsarkhin, Pod bol. znamya, p. 121.
42 Yunyi Proletarii, 1, 11 Nov. 1917, p. 19; Novaya Zhizn', 143, 3 Oct. 1917, p.4.
43 Dryazgov, Na puti k komsomolu, pp.31-2.
44 Atsarkhin, Pod bol. znamya, p. 115.
45 LGIA, f.1278, op. 1, d.84, 1.12.
46 Atsarkhin, Pod bol. znamya, p. 116.
47 Ibid., p. 114.
48 Ibid., p.67.
49 Metallist, 2, 19 Feb. 1918, pp.8-9; Golos kozhevnika, 10-11, 15 April 1918,
p.18.
50 R.H. Turner and L.M. Killiam, Collective Behaviour, 2nd edn (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1972), Chs.5-6.
51 E J . Hobsbawm, Labouring Men (London, Weidenfeld, 1964) pp. 15-22.
52 Tret'ya konferentsiyaprof soyuzov, pp.446-7.
53 Metallist, 12 (1922), p.63; Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 3, 12 Dec. 1917, p. 13.
54 Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 2, 19 Oct. 1917, p. 12.
55 Metallist, 1-2, 17 Aug. 1917, p.i9-
56 Ibid.
57 Ekho derevoobdelochnika, 2, p . n .
58 Ibid.
59 Proletarskii prizyv, 4, 20 Sept. 1917, p.4; ibid., 6, 27 Dec. 1917, p.4.
60 Tkach, 1, Nov. 1917, p.28; Prof, dvizh. v Petrograde, pp. 116-30.
61 Metallist, 1-2, 17 Aug. 1917.
62 Tkach, 1, 1917, p.28.
63 Pravda, 25, 6 April 1917, p.3.
64 Prof, dvizh. v Petrograde, p. 125.
65 Metallist, 7, 16 Dec. 1917, p.2.
66 Delo Naroda, 121,8 Aug. 1917, p . i .
67 Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v sentyabre (Moscow, 1961), p.267.
68 A.A. Sviridov, 'Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety kak forma organizatsii
piterskikh rabochikh v 1917g.', Uch. zapiski Len. gos. ped. int., vol.298
( ! 97O-
69 Ibid.
70 Okt. rev. ifab., vol.i, pp.25, 31, 241.
71 Ibid., p.241.
300 Notes
72 Ibid., p.30.
73 Ibid., p.33.
74 /foW., p.240.
75 M. Ferro, October igiy (London, Routledge, 1980), Ch.7.
76 Ibid., p. 194.
77 For a detailed critique see my review article in Soviet Studies, vol.30, no.3
(1981), pp.454-9.
78 Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety Petrograda v igiyg. (Moscow, 1979), pp.220,
222.
79 Ibid., pp.311-12.
80 Ibid., p.350.
81 Ibid., pp-355-7-
82 LGIA, f.1186, op.4, d.16, 1.2.
83 Fab. zav. kom., p.540.
84 Ibid., p.574.
85 Rabochii, 6, 29 Aug. 1917, p.4.
86 Oktyabr' skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde (Leningrad, 1948), p.34.
87 M. Weber, Economy and Society, vol.3 (New York, Bedminster, 1968),
Ch.n.
88 A symbol of the bureaucratic aspect of factory committee practice was the
use of the ubiquitous rubber stamp on all documents which emanated
from the committees.
89 S.N. Eisenstadt, 'Bureaucracy and Bureaucratisation', Current Sociology, 7
(1958), 102.
90 R. Hyman, 'The Politics of Workplace Trade Unionism', Capital and
Class, 8 (1979), 61.
91 Rabotnitsa, 11, 18 Oct. 1957, p.15.
92 Golos kozhevnika, 6-7, 25 Jan. 1918, p.18.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

1 First Decrees of Soviet Power, ed. Yu. Akhapkin (London, Lawrence and
Wishart, 1970), pp.36-8.
2 A.V. Venediktov, Organizatsiya gosudarstvennoipromyshlennosti v SSSR, vol.i
(Leningrad, 1957), pp.82-5.
3 Dekrety sovetskoi vlasti, vol.i (Moscow, 1957), pp.77-85; V.I. Lenin, Polnoe
sobranie sochinenii, 5th edn, vol. 35 (Moscow, 1962), pp.30-1.
4 J.L.H. Keep, The Debate on Soviet Power: minutes of the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee of Soviets (Oxford University Press, 1979), p.318.
5 Ibid., pp. 124-5.
6 First Decrees of Soviet Power, pp.36-8.
7 S.N. Kanev, Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya i krakh anarkhizma (Moscow, 1974),
p.165.
8 Novyi Put', 3-4, 1 Dec. 1917, pp.25-6.
9 Natsionalizatsiya promyshlennosti v SSSR, igiy-20gg., ed. LA. Gladkov
(Moscow, 1954), P76.
10 Ibid., pp. 77-84.
11 D.L. Limon, 'Lenine et le controle ouvrier', Autogestion, 4 (1967), 83-5.
 Notes 301
12 Novaya Zhizri, 19, 26 Jan. 1918, p.3.
13 Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., vol.35, p.448.
14 E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol.2 (London, Pelican, 1965),
pp. 79-80.
15 A. Pankratova, Fabzavkomy Rossii v bor'be za sotsialisticheskuyu fabriku
(Moscow, 1923), pp.386-91.
16 A. Lozovskii, Rabochii Kontrol' (Petrograd, 1918), p.21.
17 Ibid., p.21.
18 Ibid., p.20.
19 Ibid., p.23.
20 Novyi Put', 1—2, 14 Jan. 1918, p.4.
21 Ibid.
22 Lozovskii, Rab. Kontrol', p.24.
23 Ibid., pp.24-5.
24 See the conference of metalworkers' delegates on 20 December 1917.
Rabochii kontrol' vpromyshlennykhpredpriyatiyakh Petrograda, igiy—i8gg., vol.i
(Leningrad, 1954), p.244.
25 Venediktov, Org. gos. prom., pp.94—5.
26 Metallist, 1, 11 Jan. 1918, p.2.
27 Pervyi vserossiiskii s"ezdprofessional1nykh soyuzov (Moscow, 1918), p.69.
28 Ibid., p.338.
29 Ibid., S. Volin, DeyateVnost' men'shevikov v profsoyuzakh pri sovetskoi vlasti
(New York, 1962), p.35.
30 Novyi Put', 3, 21 Jan. 1918, p.8.
31 Pervyi s"ezd prof, soyuzov, p.69.
32 Vestnik Truda, 3, 1921, p . n .
33 Resolyutsii vserossiiskikh konferentsii i s"ezdovprofessional'nykh soyuzov (Petro-
grad, 1919), p.92.
34 P.A. Garvi, Professional'nye soyuzy v Rossii v pervye gody revolyutsii, igiy—21
(New York, 1958), p.32-4.
35 Pervyis"ezdprof. soyuzov, p.82; Professional'nyiSoyuz, 1, Feb. 1918, pp. 11 — 13.
36 Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol.2, pp.220-9; R. Daniels, The Conscience of
the Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, i960), Ch.5.
37 Metallist, 2, 19 Feb. 1918, pp.3-4.
38 Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya ifabzavkomy, ed. P.N. Amosov, vol.i (Moscow,

39 Vserossiiskaya tarifnaya konferentsiya soyuzov metallistov (Petrograd, 1918),

p. 7 .
40 Metallist, 6, 30 Nov. 1917, pp.3-6.
41 Metallist, 1, 11 Jan. 1918, p. 14.
42 Novyi Put', 3, 1918, pp.12.
43 Ibid.
44 A.V. Krasnikova, Na zare sovetskoi vlasti (Leningrad, 1963), p.68.
45 Pervyi s"ezd prof soyuzov, p.235.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid., p.240.
48 Ibid., p.229.
49 Novyi Put', 3, 1918, pp.1-2.
302 Notes

50 Ibid.
51 Noyvi Put', 4 - 5 , 25 Feb. 1918, p. 13.
52 Novaya Zhizri, 19, 26 Jan. 1918, p.3.
53 Metallist, 2, 1918, p.5; Metallist, 3, 23 March 1918, p. 15.
54 Prof. Sqyuz, 1, 1918. The quotation is of the purported dying words of
Emperor Julian the Apostate (Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiae, vol.Ill, 20).
55 Cited by Pankratova, Fabzavkomy v bor'be za sots, fabriku, pp.298-9.
56 See the resolution of the Sixth Party Congress. KPSS v resolyutsiyakh
(Moscow, 1954), PP376-9. Soviet historians generally argue that the
Bolshevik government planned to carry out full-scale nationalisation from
the first. In 1956 V.P. Nasyrin was heavily reprimanded for denying this.
See V.P. Nasyrin, 'O nekotorykh voprosakh sotsialisticheskogo preo-
brazovaniya promyshlennosti v SSSR', Voprosy Istorii, 5 (1956), 90-9;
Venediktov, Org. gos. prom., p.187.
57 Kommunist, 3, 16 May 1918; Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol.2, pp.83-8;
95-IO5-
58 See, for example, Yu. Boyarkov's article in Vestnik Metallista, 4-6, 1918.
59 Natsionalizatsiya promyshlennosti i organizatsiya sotsialisticheskogo proizvodstva v
Petrograde, igiy—20gg., compiler M.V. Kiselev, vol.i (Leningrad, 1958),
P-7-
60 Ibid., p. 167.
61 Istoriya sotsialisticheskoi ekonomiki SSSR, vol.i (Moscow, 1976), p. 117.
62 Novyi Put', 1, 1918, pp.33-5.
63 Ibid., Novyi Put', 6-7, 1918, pp.26, 31.
64 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.i, pp. 186-91.
65 Ibid.
66 Novyi Put', 1, 1918, pp.33~5-
67 Novyi Put', 4 - 5 , 1918, p.13.
68 Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol.2, p. 104.
69 Novyi Put', 4 - 5 , 1918, p. 14.
70 Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., vol.35, p. 198.
71 V.I. Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., 5th edn, vol.34 (Moscow, 1962), p.320.
72 V.I. Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., 5th edn., vol.36 (Moscow, 1962), p. 199.
73 Ibid.
74 Kommunist, 1, 20 April 1918, pp. 12-16; Kommunist, 2, 27 April 1918,
PP-5-I7-
75 Theses of the Left Communists (1918) (Glasgow, Critique pamphlet, 1977),
p.18.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 10

1 Pervyi vserossiiskii s"ezdprofessional'nykh soyuzov (Moscow, 1918), p.200.

2 V . Z . Drobizhev, Glavnyi shtab sotsialisticheskoi promyshlennosti (Moscow,
J 6
9 °) 5 P-54-
3 Cited by A. Lozovskii, Rabochii kontrol' (Petrograd, 1918), p.98.
4 Cited by V.Z. Drobizhev, Stroitel'stvo organov upravleniyapromyshlennosti v
SSSR v igiy-i8gg., candidate dissertation (Moscow University, History
Faculty, 1957), p. 107.
 Notes 303

5 A.V. Venediktov, Organizatsiya gosudarstvennoi promyshlennosti v SSSR,

vol.i (Leningrad, 1957), p.i37-
6 Krasnyi Arkhiv, 103 (1940), 124-5.
7 A. Pankratova, Fabzavkomy Rossii v bor'be za sotsialisticheskuyu fabriku
(Moscow, 1923), pp.245-6; Nationalizatsiya promyshlennosti i organizatsiya
sotsialisticheskogo proizvodstva v Petrograde, igij—20gg., vol.i (Leningrad,
1958), p.200.
8 LGIA, f.1182, op. 1, d.96, 1.88.
9 N.P. Payalin, Zavod imeni Lenina (Moscow, 1933), pp.401-2.
10 Ibid., pp.404-5.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., pp.406-7; Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.i, pp-53-5-
13 G. Tsyperovich, Petrogradskieprofsoyuzy voktyabre igijg. (Moscow, 1927),
p.48. For a discussion of the attitudes of Russian engineers at this time
see K.E. Bailes, Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin (Princeton
University Press, 1978), pp.22-3.
14 Lozovskii, Rab. kontrol', pp.93—4.
15 Kontorskii Trud, 3—4, Dec. 1917, p.4.
16 Lozovskii, Rab. kontrol', p.95.
17 Venediktov, Org. gos. prom., vol.i, p. 141.
18 Kontorskii Trud, 2, Nov. 1917, p. 15.
19 Oktyabr'skiiperevorot, ed. A.A. Popov (Petrograd, 1918), p.399.
20 Kontorskii Trud, 2, p. 15.
21 Putilovets v trekh revolyutsiyakh, ed. I.I. Gaza (Leningrad, 1933), p p . 4 1 3 -
14.
22 Leningradskie Tekstilya, 6-7 (1927), 10.
23 Gobs Truda, 3 Nov. 1917, p . i .
24 Cited by Drobizhev, Stroitel'stvo organov upravleniya, p. 115.
25 Ibid.
26 V. Perazich, Tekstili Leningrada v igiyg. (Leningrad, 1927), p.80.
27 Tkach, 2, Dec. 1917, p. 15.
28 Drobizhev, Glavnyi shtab sots, prom., p.98.
29 Ibid.
30 Rabochii kontrol' v promyshlennykh predpriyatiyakh Petrograda, 1917—iSgg.,
vol.i (Leningrad, 1947), pp.254-5.
31 Venediktov, Org. gos. prom., pp. 157-8; Spisok Fabrichno-zavodskikh
predpriyatii Petrograda (Petrograd, 1918), p.20.
32 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.i, pp.34-5.
33 Ibid.
34 Rab. kontrol' v prom, pred., pp.230-1.
35 Natsionalizatsiya promyshlennosti v SSSR, igiy—20gg., ed. LA. Gladkov
(Moscow, 1954), p.96.
36 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.i, pp.68-9.
37 Rab. kontrol' v prom, pred., p.279.
38 Ibid., p. 316; Spisok fab. zav. pred., p.26.
39 Rab. kontrol' v prom, pred., pp.230-1.
40 Pravda, 16, 21 J a n . 1918, p.4.
41 Rabochii Put', 36, 14 Oct. 1917, p.4.
304 Notes
42 Nats. prom, i org. sots, prom., vol.i, pp.61-2.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid., p. 135.
45 Nats. prom, v SSSR, pp.350—2.
46 V.P. Milyutin, Sovetskoe ekonomicheskoe razvitie Rossii v diktature proletariata
(Moscow, 1918), p.85.
47 Trudy pervogo vserossiiskogo s"ezda sovetov narodnogo khozyaistva (Moscow,
1918), p.92.
48 Drobizhev, Glavnyi shtab sots, prom., p.99. Most Soviet historians reject
the view of nationalisation as a spontaneous process from below, and
argue that it was planned government policy. See Venediktov, Org. gos.
prom., vol.i, p. 193.
49 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.i, p.xii.
50 Drobizhev, Glavnyi shtab sots, prom., p. 100.
51 Spisokfab. zav. pred.
52 M.N. Potekhin, Pervyi sovetproletarskoi diktatury (Leningrad, 1966), p.253.
53 Venediktov, Org. gos. prom., vol.i, pp.201-2.
54 Potekhin, Pervyi sovet, p.253.
55 Venediktov, Org. gos. prom., vol.i, p. 145.
56 Ibid., pp.313—6.
57 S.A. Oppenheim, 'The Supreme Economic Council, 1917—21', Soviet
Studies, 30, no.i (1973), pp.14-15.
58 Trudy pervogo s"ezda sovnarkhoz-, pp.259—60; 339—59.
59 Drobizhev, Glavnyi shtab, p. 121.
60 Materialy po statistike Petrograda, issue 1 (Petrograd, 1920), p.45.
61 Natsionalizatsiya promyshlennosti i organizatsiya sotsialisticheskogo proizvodstva
v Retrograde, igij—20gg., vol.2 (Leningrad, i960), p.vii.
62 Pravda, 25, 14 Feb. 1918, p.4.
63 Pravda, 24, 31 Jan. 1918, p.4; A.I. Vdovin and V.Z. Drobizhev, Rost
rabochego klassa SSSR, igij-^gg. (Moscow, 1976), p.77.
64 Materialy po statistike truda, issue 6 (Petrograd, 1919), p.35.
65 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.i, p. 194.
66 Materialy po statistike truda Severnoi oblasti, issue 1, (Petrograd, 1918), p. 19.
67 Materialy po statistike truda, issue 5 (Petrograd, 1919), p.33.
68 Ibid., p.43.
69 Krasnyi Treugol'nik na putyakh oktyabrya (Leningrad, 1927), p. 19.
70 Mat. po stat. truda Sev. obi., issue 1, p. 18.
71 Vdovin and Drobizhev, Rost rab. klassa, p.77.
72 Mat. po stat. truda, issue 6, p.38.
73 This was the view of M.I. Gil'bert, 'K voprosu o sostave promyshlen-
nykh rabochikh SSSR v gody grazhdanskoi voiny', Istoriya proletariata
SSSR, 3 (1934) and ibid., 1 (1935); and also of the Left SR, I.Z.
Shteinberg, in an article in Znamya Truda, 213, 16 May, 1918, p.i.
74 O.I. Shkaratan, 'Izmeneniya v sotsial'nom sostave fabrichno-zavods-
kikh rabochikh Leningrada, I9i7-i8gg.', Istoriya SSSR, 5 (1959), p.24.
75 Mat. po stat. truda Sev. obi., issue 1, p. 18.
76 Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedeniya
oktyabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniya (Moscow, 1965), pp.28-9; V.V.
 Notes 305
Anikeev, 'Svedeniya o bol'shevistskikh organizatsiyakh s marta po
dekabr' 1917g.', Voprosy Istorii KPSS, 2 (1958), p. 134 gives a figure of
49,478 for Petrograd and the surrounding area.
77 A.V. Krasnikova, Na z.are sovetskoi vlasti (Leningrad, 1963), p. 133;
Statistika truda, 1-4 (1919), 14-15.
78 L.M. Kleinbort, Istoriya bezrabotitsy v Rossii, i8^y-igig (Moscow, 1925),
p.288.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.
81 Novaya Zhizn', 50, 24 March 1918, p.4; Pravda, 58, 26 March 1918, p.2.
82 Petrogradskaya Pravda, 66, 4 April 1918, p.2.
83 I.I. Gaza, Putilovets na putyakh k oktyabryu (Moscow, 1933), p. 118.
84 Putilovets v trekh revolyutsiyakh, pp.428-9.
85 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.2, p.36.
86 Ibid.
87 Nats. prom, v SSSR, p.654.
88 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.2, p. 170.
89 M. Lur'e, Trudovaya povinnost' i rabochii kontrol' (Petrograd, 1918), p.9.
90 S.G. Strumilin, 'Problemy ekonomiki truda', Izbrannyeproizvedeniya, vol.3
(Moscow, 1964), p.361.
91 Cited by J. Bunyan, The Origin of Forced Labor in the Soviet State, igij—21
(Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md., 1967), pp.20-1.
92 Vestnik professional'nykh soyuzov, 1, 4 May 1918, p. 18.
93 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.2, p.xvi; Metallist, 5, 22 May 1918,
P-9-
94 M. Dewar, Labour Policy in the USSR, igiy-28 (London, Royal Institute of
International Affairs, 1956), p.28.
95 Nats. prom, i org. sots, proizvodstva, vol.2, p. 171.
96 In the factories where piece-rates were reintroduced successfully, such as
the Nevskii shipyard, the Carriage Construction works, the Putilov
shipyard and the Ekval' works, they had a very healthy effect on
productivity. Ibid., pp.178—82.
97 On 20 October 1920 a conference of Petrograd metalworkers agreed 'as
an experiment' to introduce piece-rates for a period of six months, this
time without any limit on earnings. Henceforward piece-rates took root
throughout industry. Ibid., pp.227-8.
98 Petrogradskaya Pravda, n o , 30 May 1918, p.2.
99 Vestnik prof soyuzov, 2, 15 June 1918, p.20.
100 Petrogradskaya Pravda, 154, 21 July 1918, p.5.
101 Nats. prom, i org. sots proizvodstva, vol.2, p.32.
102 See the decree of the Council of Trade Unions of the Northern oblast' of
late 1918 (Rab. kontrol' vprom.pred., pp.457—8) and the ARCTU decree of
August 1918 (cited by Pankratova, Fabzavkomy v bor'be, pp.268ff.). It
should not be assumed that the more radical style of control died in 1918.
Attempts continued during the Civil War to resurrect it, not only by the
factory committees, but by some local sovnarkhozy and even trade unions.
See B. Bor'yan, 'Rabochii kontrol', 1917-21', Vestnik Truda, 1 0 - n
(1921), p.28.
306 Notes
103 'Chrezvychainoe sobranie upolnomochennykh fabrik i zavodov Petro-
grada: Protokoly', Kontinent, 2 (1975), pp.389-90; Novaya Zhizn', 60, 23
March 1918, p.4.
104 Novyi Den', 16, 12 April 1918, p.4.

NOTES TO CONCLUSION

1 B.H. Moss, The Origins of the French Labor Movement (Berkeley, University
of California Press, 1976); M.P. Hanagan, The Logic of Solidarity (Urbana,
University of Illinois Press, 1980); E.P. Thompson, The Making of the
English Working Class (London, Penguin, 1963); I. Prothero, Artisans and
Politics in early nineteenth-century London (London, Methuen, 1979); D.
Geary, 'The German Labour Movement, 1848—1919', European Studies
Review, 6 (1976), 297-330.
2 J.P. Courtheoux, 'Naissance d'une conscience de classe dans le proletariat
textile du Nord, 1830—70', Revue economique, 8 (1957), 114—39.
3 V. Bonnell, 'Trade Unions, Parties and the State in Tsarist Russia',
Politics and Society, 9, no.3 (1980), 299-322.
4 P. Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist (New York, Grove Press, 1970),
P-32.
5 G. Plekhanov, Russkii rabochii v revolyutsionnom dvizhenii (Geneva, 1892),
P-I5-
6 M. Ferro, October igiy (London, Routledge, 1980), p. 179-80.
7 Even by the winter of 1917—18, the objectives of the workers who took
temporary control of their factories in Petrograd cannot be described as
'syndicalist'. Compared to Yugoslavia since 1958, and especially since the
1970s, where the self-management bodies take, in theory at least, a wide
range of decisions concerning what will be produced, and how revenue
will be spent, the aspirations of the Petrograd committees were far more
centralist and state-oriented. Similarly, one has only to compare the
limited experiment in workers' self-management in Petrograd to the
genuinely syndicalist collectivisation of industry by the CNT in Catalonia
in October 1936, to see how different it was. There ownership of the
workplaces passed into the hands of the unions, and the economy was
managed in a federal rather than centralised manner. See G. Hunnius,
Workers' Control (New York, Vintage, 1973); I. Adizes, Industrial Democ-
racy: Yugoslav Style (New York, Macmillan, 1971); B. Denitch, The
Legitimation of a Revolution (New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press,
1976); G. Shabad, 'Strikes in Yugoslavia: implications for industrial
democracy', British Journal of Political Science, 10 (1980); R. Fraser, The
Blood of Spain (London, Penguin, 1981), pp.213-36.
8 Novyi Put', 6—8, 25 March 1918, p.2.
9 V.I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol.36 (Moscow, 1962), p.300. The
following account of Lenin's thinking at this time is based on: J. Ranciere,
La lecon d'Althusser (Paris, 1974); C. Claudin-Urondo, Lenin and the Cultural
Revolution (Brighton, Harvester, 1977); U. Santamaria and A. Manville,
'Lenin and the Problem of Transition', Telos, 27 (1976), 79-96.
10 Lenin, Pol. sob. soch., vol. 36, pp. 173-4.
 Notes 307

11 ibid., p. 189.
12 M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, igiy—21 (London,
Solidarity, 1970), p.42.
13 As usual it was Trotsky who attempted to make a virtue out of this
particular shortcoming. In Terrorism and Communism (1920), he argued:
'The dictatorship of the proletariat is expressed in the abolition of private
property in the means of production, in the supremacy over the whole
Soviet mechanism of the collective will of the workers, and not at all in the
form in which economic enterprises are administered' [my emphasis].
14 C. Bettelheim, Class Struggles in the USSR: first period, igij-23 (Brighton,
Harvester, 1977), p.42.
15 P. Corrigan et al, Socialist Construction and Marxist Theory (London,
Macmillan, 1978), pp.3-4; R. Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford
University Press, 1977), pp.90—4. Compare the defence of technological
determinism in G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History (Oxford,
Clarendon, 1978).
16 K. Marx, Capital, vol.i (London, Penguin, 1976), pp.928-9.
17 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology (New York, International,
P-56-
 Bibliography

I. ARCHIVES

Leningrad State Historical Archive (LGIA)

fond 1229 Factory Inspectorate of Petrograd
guberniya
fond 1333 Company Accounts of the Cable Works
fond 1357 Petrograd Metal Works
fond 1278 Kersten knitwear factory
fond 416 Baltic works: proceedings of concilia-
tion committee
fond 1304 Baltic works: works committee
fond 1477 1835 Gas Light Company
fond 1182 Nevskaya footwear factory
fond 1186 Pechatkin paper mill
fond 1296 Petrograd Arsenal

2. NEWSPAPERS

/. The Petrograd Socialist Press, igij-18

Name Organ of
Delo naroda Central Committee of SR party
Den' Right-wing Mensheviks
Edinstvo Plekhanov's supporters
Golos anarkhista Anarchists
Golos bunda Central Committee of the Jewish Bund
Golos rabotnitsy Menshevik paper for working women
Golos sotsial-demokrata SD Internationalists
Golos truda Anarcho-syndicalists
Izvestiya EC of Petrograd Soviet
Izvestiya raionnogo komiteta Menshevik party committee of
Petrogradskoi Storony Petrogradskaya district
Kommuna Anarchists
Kommunist Left Communists
308
 Bibliography 309

Narodnoe slovo Popular Socialists

Novyi den Right-wing Mensheviks
Partiinye Izvestiya Menshevik internal organ
Petrogradskaya pravda North-West oblast' bureau of Central
Committee and Petrograd guberniya
committee of Bolshevik party
Petrogradskii rabochii SR (centre)
Plamya Menshevik
Pravda Central Committee of Bolshevik party
Rabochaya gazeta Central Committee of Menshevik party
Rabotnitsa Bolshevik paper for working women
Shchit Central Committee of Menshevik party
Trud i volya Trudoviks
Volya naroda Right SR's
Volya Truda SR Maximalists
Yunii proletarii Socialist Union of Young Workers
Zemlya i volya Petrograd oblast' committee of SRs
Znamya Truda Left SR's

ii. The Petrograd Trade-Union Press, igij-18

Name Organ of
Bor'ba Industrial and commercial sluzhashchie
Ekho derevoobdelochnika Wood workers
Golos chertezhnika Draughtsmen
Golos kozhevnika Leatherworkers
Gudok Railway workers of Petrograd—Moscow
junction
Kontorskii trud Clerical workers
Metallist Metalworkers
Mysli zheleznodorozhnika Railway workers of Nikolaev line
Nabat Foodworkers
Nashe slovo Catering workers
Novyi put' Central Council of Factory Committees
Pechatnik Printers
Pischebumazhnik Paperworkers
Pochtovo-Telegrafnyi tribun Post-Office employees
Professional 'nyi Soyuz Menshevik trade-union journal
Professional'nyi Vestnik All-Russian Council of Trade Unions
Proletarii igly Needleworkers
Proletarskii prizyv Glassworkers
Rabochii kooperator Workers' consumer-cooperatives
Rabotnik vodnogo transporta Waterway employees
Revolyutsionnyi pechatnik Internationalist printers
Stroitel' Construction workers
Tkach Textile workers
Trud Predecessor to Rabochii kooperator
Trudorezina Rubber workers (mainly the Triangle
Works)
31 o Bibliography
Vestnik aptechnogo truda Pharmacy employees
Vestnik kustarnoi promyshlennosti Bureau of All-Russian Congresses of
Artisans
Vestnik metallista Provisional Central Committee of
national metalworkers' union
Vestnik professional'nykh soyuzov Petrograd Council of Trade Unions
Zerno pravdy Predecessor to Nabat
Zhizri farmatsevta Predecessor to Vestnik aptechnogo truda

in. Miscellaneous
Gazeta vremennogo rabochego i krest'yanskogo pravitel'stvo
Izvestiya soveta s'Uzdov predstavitelei promyshlennosti i torgovli
Malen'kaya gazeta/Narodnaya gazeta (extreme right wing)
Petrogradskaya gazeta
Torgovo-promyshlennaya gazeta
Vestnik petrogradskikh obshchestva zavodchikov ifabrikantov
Vestnik vremennogo pravitel'stva

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Wright, E.O. 'Class Boundaries in Advanced Capitalist Societies', New Left
Review, 98 (1976), 3-41.
Za 20 let: k dvatsatiletiyu sqyuza metallistov, ed. V. Rabinovich, Leningrad, 1926.
Za god, sbornik statei, Petrograd, 1918.
Zagorsky, S.O. State Control of Industry in Russia during the war, New Haven,
Conn., Yale University Press, 1928.
Zavlyalov, S. Istoriya izhorskogo zavoda, vol.i, Leningrad, 1934.
Zelnik, R.E. Labor and Society in Tsarist Russia: the Factory Workers of St.
Petersburg, Stanford University Press, 1971.
'Russian Bebels: an introduction to the memoirs of Semen Kanatchikov
and Matvei Fisher', Russian Review, 35, no.3 (1976), 249—89; 35,
110.4(1976), 4*7-47-
'Russian Workers and the Revolutionary Movement', Journal of Social
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Zlokazov, G.I. Petrogradskii sovet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov vperiod mirnogo
razvitiya revolyutsii (fevraV-iyun' igiyg-), Moscow, 1969.
 Index

absenteeism, 89,90,91 All-Russian Council of Factory

accidents, industrial, 41,42; see also safety Committees (ARCFC), 209, 210
standards All-Russian Council of Trade Unions,
accountants: and commercial secrecy, 189,209,249
177; union of, 136 All-Russian Council of Workers' Control
'accounting', Lenin's concept of, 156, 228
accounts, company, workers' access to, Instructions
62,63,155,176, 177,231,240, American-Russian Rubber company,
258 7; see also Triangle rubber-works
administrative personnel: election by Amosov, P.N., 158
workforce, 64; expulsion by workers, anarchists: anarcho-communists, 143;
54—7, 179; workers' refusal to allow attitude to workers' control, 152,
re-instatement of, 78; workers' right 166, 167,211; and campaign for
to object to, 64, 183; see also 'carting factory seizures, 235, 236; on
out' Council of Popular Militia, 101;
Admiralty works: cultural programme, and Durnovo incident, 143; and
95; factory committee, 65,81,100, factory committees, 81, 127, 150,
134; labour discipline, 90; technical 157, 162, 163; influence in Petrograd
staffexpelled by workers, 55; labour movement, 142-4, 144-5,
workers condemn Skobelev 258; influence in trade unions, 114,
circulars, 180; working conditions, 115; in Spain, 291 n. 18; and workers'
42 violence, 246; see also syndicalists
Aivaz works: composition of factory anarcho-syndicalists, see syndicalists
committee, 161, 197; control Andronnikov, Urals delegate to
commission takes over running of, sovnarkhozy Congress, 241
237; evacuation plans, 296 n.25; Antipov, N.K., 158, 241
management opposition to factory anti-religious feeling, 172
committee, 181; Red Guard at, 100; anti-Semitism, 246
resolution on workers' control, 165; anti-warmood,5i
starosty at, 58; strikes, 51, 136, 234; Antoshkin, D., 111
swing to Bolsheviks, 52 Antselovich, N.M., 112
All-Russian Central Executive Anweiler, O., 150
Committee of the Soviets (VTsIK), apprenticeship system, 27, 28, 198
210,248-9 'arbitration courts', 279 n.98
All-Russian Congress of Clerical ARC WC, see All-Russian Council of
Workers, position on workers' Workers' Control
control, 233-4 armaments industry, 7-8,9, 25,48, 242

328
 Index 329
Arsenal: factory committee policy on Berkman, A., 143
redundancies, 176; factory Bernatskii, Prof. M.V., 78
committee seeks fuel supplies, 147; Berthold print works, workers' takeover,
radical form of workers' control, 64, 238
163; strike action discouraged by Bettelheim, Charles, 262, 263, 264
military discipline, 53; white collar 'Biennio Rosso' (1919-20), 59
workers on factory committee, 134; Binshtok, G., 222-3
workers block evacuation plans, 173; Binshtok,V.I.,87
workers' militia, 98, 99; workers Bleikhman, anarchist delegate at factory
propose setting up of district council committee conference, 212
of factory committees, 83 Bloody Sunday, strikes to commemorate,
artels, 14, 15, 247 49.51,52
Artillery Administration, 7,61, 126; Bogdanov, V.O., 72-3
enterprises under, 8,42,61,62-4, Bolshevik Duma deputies, trial of, 49
126, 146, 184 Bolsheviks, 3,43, 51,52, 53,58, 144, 176,
Asian workers, 22; hostility towards, 172, 244; attitude to factory committees,
173 159, 220-1, 258-9; conflict with
Astrov, 112 Mensheviks over trade unions, 109,
Atlas engineering works: drunkenness at, 110,111, 136, 217—18, 286 n.25; and
93; workers discuss co-ordination cultural level of workers, 94,95; and
with other factories, 83 'democratic centralism', 200;
autonomous commissions, 58 disillusionment with, after October
Avrich, Paul, 140, 141, 150, 157 Revolution, 246-7; dominant in
CCFC, 84; favour subordination of
bakery trade: collective bargaining in, factory committees to trade unions,
119; gild system in, 286 n. 35; 187-8, 213, 220-1; influence in
unemployment, 168 factory committees, 81,90,96, 149,
Baku, oil magnates of, 74 160-5,183,198,205; influence in
Baltic shipyard: activities of factory trade unions, 68, 104, 105, 107, 108,
committee, 65,85,93,95, 100, 108, 111-13, 136, 187, 217, 257; and
127, 173, 176; administrative labour discipline, 91-2; and
personnel elected by workforce, 62, metalworkers'contract, 123,125—6;
64, 183; 'carting out'of and nationalisation, 223, 224, 302
administrative personnel, 55; n.56; and organisations for
commissions, 85; extent of workers' unemployed, 247; policy on
control, 62,64, 163, 165; re-election transition to socialism, 133, 223,
of factory committee, 205; shop 228-9, 259, 261—4; position on
committees, 82; size of factory workers'control, 102, 140, 153—6,
committee, 81; strikes, 41, 53; survey 158, 159, 167; and Red Guards, 100;
of committee members' budgets, 44, seizure of power welcomed by
45; wages, 46, 117; white collar majority of workers, 209, 230, 259;
workers, 134—5; workforce, 8, 15, 34, and sovnarkhozy, 212; support
53,198 workers'militias, 99, 100, 101, 102;
banks, 6-7, 74, 155; and commercial Western view of Bolsheviks and
secrecy, 177; nationalisation of, factory committee movement, 149-
154 50; and young workers, 197;
Baranovskii engineering company, 7, zemlyachestvos swing to, 197; see also
148; administration fired by Sixth Bolshevik Party Congress
workers, 55; factory committee's bonus systems, 39,47, 24^250
activities, 163, 165, 175; strike Boyarkov, Ya., 220
activity, 51,52, 128 Breido,G.E.,62
Bater, James, 12 Brenner works: factory committee receives
Belaev, Maj.-General, 176 help from Triangle works
33° Index
Brenner works: continued size of workforce, 8; and workers'
committee, 148, 178; owner ousted militia, 99; working hours, 66
by factory committee, 177—8,179 catering trade, number of workers in, 6
Brest Litovsk, Treaty of, 229, 246, 261 CCFC, see Central Council of Factory
Brinton, Maurice, 262 Committees
British labour movement: collective CCSFS, see Central Council of Starosty of
bargaining, 119-20; craft unionism, Factory Sluzhashchie
28, 106, 109; respect for employers' censuses: 1897,34; 1910,6; 1918, 17, 18,
right to hire and fire, 64—5; workers' 19,22,25,46; 1926, 17, 18; 1929, 17,
control, 142 18,19
British workers, compared with Russian, Central Commission for the Evacuation
28-9,31,59,254,271 n.i 17 of Petrograd, 244
Bromley Mill, members of board flee, 235 Central Conciliation Chamber, 73, 77
Buiko, A.M.,29 Central Council of Factory Committees,
building trade, conciliation chambers, 77 Petrograd (CCFC): Bolshevik
Bukharin, N., 224 influence in, 112,158, 211, 259; calls
Bundists, 187 for access to company accounts, 177;
bureaucracy and democracy, balance commissions of, 84; and distribution
between, in labour movement, 200- of fuel supplies, 147, 148; and
8, 251-2; see also bureaucratisation; evacuation plans, 174; founding and
democracy; democratisation tasks of, 84; opposes Kornilov
bureaucratisation: of factory committees, rebellion, 112-13; presses for
205-8, 251, 300 n.88; of trade sequestrations, 178; proposes setting
unions, 202-3, 207, 208, 257 up of Supreme Council of National
Buzinov, A.,29 Economy, 224; and redundancies,
175,176; relationship with unions,
Cable works: factory committee runs 186, 189, 219, 200-3; and white
canteen, 87; factory committee collar workers, 234; see also
supports demands for vote at 18, Instructions
197—8; resolution on workers' Central Council of Starosty of Factory
control, 166; Skobelev circulars Sluzhashchie (CCSFS), 135-6, 137
condemned by workforce, 180; Central Executive Committee of the
strikes, 70, 128; workers demand Soviets (VTsIK), 210, 248-9
eight-hour day, 65; workers' militia, Central Rates Commission, 128
98,99 Chartism, 109
'cadre' workers: defined, 14, 254; and chemical industries, chemical workers, 8;
demobilisation of industry, 244; effect of shrinking workforce on, 243;
dominate labour organisations, 190, evacuation plans, 171; number of
207, 255; proportion of, in workers, 10, 25; ratio of workers to
workforce, 20-1, 23; relationship sluzhashchie, 40; wages, 46, 131,133;
with 'new' workers, 32, 36, 191—2, workers'contract, 132, 133; working
196, 199, 207; and wartime strike hours, 67; see also chemical workers'
movement, 52,53 union
capitalist system of production: chemical workers' union: cooperation
Bolsheviks regard as technically with factory committees, 220;
neutral, 261, 262, 264; workers political influence in, 115; size of
blame for industrial chaos, 72—3 membership, 105, 194, 200-1
'carting out', 55,56-7, 192, 193, 196, 199 Cherevanin, F.A., 151
Cartridge works: expulsion of technical chernorabochie: leave Petrograd after
staff, 55; extent of workers' control, shutdown of war production, 244;
61,62, 148, 163; non-participation in militancy over metalworkers'
wartime strike movement, 53; re- contract, 121-7, 128; and
election of factory committee, 251; sectionalism, 129; union of, 122, 197;
 Index
wages, 47, 72, 117; work of, 30; conciliation chambers, 55,56, 76, 77-8,
working hours, 44 79, 279 n. 100; compared with
Chief Committee of representatives of 'arbitration courts', 279 n.98;
factory committees in state success rate, 279^101
enterprises, 83 confectionary industry, and economic
child labour, see young workers crisis, 168
Chinese workers, 22; hostility towards, conscription, 21, 25; avoidance of, 22,
172,173 242; deferment of, 48, 78,82; of
Chubar, V.Ya., 158, 161, 164, 184, 198, peasants, 86; as punishment for
294 n. 92 militant workers, 21,51, 180
Civil War, 98, 218-19, 223, 228, 241, 242, Constituent Assembly, dissolution of,
250,269 n.64, 305 n. 102 246
class conflict, 2, 149, 169, 235, 258 control commissions: composition of,
class consciousness, 13,93,97,98 233, 237; employers' opposition to,
clerical workers, see sluzhashchie 232, 237; powers of, 83, 184, 231,
'closed shop' policy, 201 240, 241, 259-60; setting up of, 231;
closure of factories: causes of, 148, 168; of unions, 221
factory committees fight, 84, 174-5, cooperatives, workers', 87, 213, 224
220; People's Commissariat of cooperative workshops, 247
Labour orders, 242; as response to Copper-Rolling works, parochialism of
'excessive' demands of workers, 118, factory committee, 260
149, 168, 231, 236, 237, 259; and cost of living, 44, 116; see also inflation;
unions, 220, 250; workers' self- price rises
management as means of averting, Council of People's Commissars, 239, 241
149,177,237,238 Council of the Petrograd Popular Militia,
clothing industry, growth of workforce, 101-2
10 Councils of National Economy
clubs, workers', 96-7 (sovnarkhozy), 212, 216, 224, 225, 239,
coal production, 145 241, 305n.i02;5^a/5oSNKhS.R.;
Coalition Government, 112, 164, 294 Supreme Council of National
n. 115; labour policy, 170-1; see also Economy
Kerensky Government. counterrevolution, 113, 127, iSo;seealso
collective bargaining, 76, 119-21, 134, Kornilov rebellion; sabotage
185; see also collective wage contracts countryside, crisis in, 3
collective wage contracts, 57—8, 118-19, 'courts of honour', 94
120-1, 171,257; metalworkers' craft unions, 28, 106-7, I Q 8, IO9> 257, 286
contract, 121—9, 196; piece-rates, n.12
131-2; productivity clauses, 132-3; craftsmanship: among metalworkers,
and status of women workers, 133; 28-9; craft ideology, 29-30, 36, 129
success of, 133-4; wage differentials, cultural level of Russian workers, 94-5,
129-31; see also collective bargaining 283 n.90; see also cultural work
collegial management, 63, 241, 242, 256 cultural work: of factory committees, 79,
commercial and industrial employees' 84,85,95-7,98; of labour
union, 136 movement, 97—8
commercial secrecy, see accounts,
company; orders Davidovich, M., 26
Commissariat of Communications, 249 De Leonite socialists, 142
Commissariat of Labour, 220, 242, 249 Decree on Workers' Control, 209-11,
commissions, factory committee, 83-5; 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 259; see also
see also control commissions Instructions
Committee for Struggle Against defence enterprises: earnings, 46;
Unemployment, 246-7 militarisation of labour, 48—9, 171
compulsory work on public projects, 247 defencism, 52, 110, 115, 162, 163, 256
332 Index
Dement'ev, 98 economic crisis: Bolshevik failure to stem,
demobilisation of industry, 84, 146, 246; class conflict polarised by, 149,
242-5 169; disorganisation of capitalist
democracy: democratic content of state blamed for, 172-3; employers'
socialism, 264; in factory reaction to, 118, 145, 169-70;
committees, 203-4, 206; in trade sabotage by employers seen as prime
unions, 200-3; workers' concern cause of, 158, 167, 172; workers'
with, i82;i^a/iodemocratisation control as response to, 145-9, I 5 I »
democratic centralism, 200 179, 182, 242, 258; see also closure of
Democratic Conference, 166 factories; fuel supplies (shortages);
democratisation of factory life, 54-8, 119, raw materials (shortages)
149,258 economism, 2, 263
Denisov, Mikhail, 41 education of workers, 34-5,95,97,98;
Derbyshev, N.I., 161 factory committees concerned with,
desyatniki, 39 79,85, 256; see also cultural work
'dignity'of workers, 41,94, 137, 270 eight-hour day: demands for in 1905,41,
n.109 43; demands for in 1917,61,64,65;
'dilution', 31-2, 59 employers' resistance to, 66-7; and
Discount and Loan Bank, 7 hourly earnings, 70; implementation
disease, 13; industrial, 42; see also sickness of, 65—8; Provisional Government
benefit and, 76-7; seen as achievement of
dismissal of workers, 90, 91,93, 247, 248; February Revolution, 119; SFWO
see also hiring and firing recommends conceding to, 76; see
disputes, settling of: by factory also overtime working
committees, 83, 85; procedure for, in 1886 Electric Light Company factory
collective contracts, 121; by shop committee: commissions set up by,
committees, 82; by sovnarkhozy, 224; 85; far-reaching control of, 163; and
see also conciliation chambers overtime working, 67; political
distribution, control of, 64, 124, 139-40, composition of, 161; re-election of,
154,155,165 205; sets penalties for labour
district councils of factory committees, indiscipline, 90
83-4 electrical industries: level of technology,
domestic servants, 6, 22, 23, 269 8; ratio of workers to sluzhashchie, 40;
n.82 see also electricians
Donbass, 22, 74, 120, 147, 171; labour electricians: skills of, 28; strike at Putilov
relations in, 76, 118, 169 works, 250
Dostoevsky, F.M., 5 employers, 74-5; not sorry to see end of
dramatic societies, sponsored by workers' Imperial government, 75; oppose
clubs, 97 militarisation of labour, 48; policy of
draughtsmen, union of, 136 concession after February
Drobizhev, V.Z., 236, 239, 244 Revolution, 66, 70, 73, 75—9, 149,
drunkenness, 89,90,92-4, 178 169; pursue tougher line after June,
'dual power' of Provisional Government 149, 169-70, 180-1; resistance to
and Petrograd Soviet, 1, 54, 185 greater workers' control after
Duma: municipal, 99, 100, 1 o 1; state, 41, October, 231—3, 236, 237, 259; some
48,51,52,54,74 lose will to carry on, 169, 181-2,235;
Durnovo incident, 101, 143 see also sabotage; Society of Factory
Dynamo works: political influence at, 52, and Works Owners
114, 162; re-election of works engineering industries, 7, 171, 243; see also
committee, 205; factory committee engineers
blocks closure plans, 175 engineers: object to workers' election of
administration, 183; strike of, 234;
Economic Council, 187 union of, 233
 Index 333
envelopemakers, wage contract, 130,131 policy, 94—8; and Decree on
equal pay: chernorabochiedemand, 127, Workers' Control, 211,214;
128; for women, 70, 123, 133, 135, democracy in, 203-4, 206; district
194 councils of, 83-4; and eight-hour
Erikson works: management finances day, 66-7; election of members, 160,
workers' club, 96; Red Guard at, 204, 205-6; employers at first
100; starosty at, 58; strike activity at, support, 78, 149; employers'
52; works committee blocks closure resistance to, 65,80, 149, 180-1; and
plans, 175 evacuation plans, 173-4; and
evacuation of industry, 146, 171-4 expulsion of administration, 56,
Evdokimov, 137 177-8; failure to formulate strategy
exchange between town and countryside, of transition to socialism, 228, 229,
261; and labour discipline, 88-94;
155,i5 6
and nationalisation, 225, 227; and
factories: administration of tsarist, 37-41, 'new' workers, 199; organisation of
256; size of, 10-12; technical food supply, 86-8; origins of, 57-9;
efficiency, 8—9; working conditions, parochialism of, 226, 260; part
41—4; see also closure; evacuation; played in metal contract
factory committees; Factory negotiations, 122, 123, 124;
Convention; Factory Inspectorate; percentage of, practising workers'
factory takeovers; factory workers; control in October 1917, 185; policy
sequestration on workers' control, 155; political
'factory commissions', 57—8 activity of, 140, 160; political
factory committee conferences: First influence within, 143, 144—5, I6°~7>
Conference of Petrograd Factory 208; popularity with workers, 85,88,
Committees (3oMay~3june 1917), 203-4; in private sector, 64-5;
80,84, H6, i5J> !55> i56> X57> i77» Provisional Government policy on,
185, 188, 194; Second Conference of 76; and Red Guards, 100; and
P.F.C.s (7-12 A u g i g ^ ) , 81,83, redundancy plans, 242—3; and
146, 147, 156, 188, 204, 219; Third regulation of wages, 63,64,68, 70,
Conference of P.F.C.s (5-10 Sept 72,84; relationship with shop
1917), 83, 156, 174, 181; Fourth committees, 81-2; relationship with
Conference of P.F.C.s (ioOct 1917), trade unions, 185—9, 213,219-23,
156; Fifth Conference of P.F.C.s 260; and 'responsible' control of
(15-16N0V i9i7),2ii,235;Sixth production, 63, 159, 213-14; role
Conference of P.F.C.s (22—7 Jan and responsibility of, 62-4; size of,
1918), 212, 222, 225; First All- 81; in state sector, 59-61, 256;
Russian Conference of Factory volume of business, 84-6; and white
Committees (17-22 Oct), 147, 156, collar workers, 134-5, 234; women
182, 184, 188-9,209 members of, 194; and workers'
factory committees: attempts at self- militias, 98-9, 100, 102; and young
management, 177—8, 182; workers, 197-8; see also All-Russian
Bolsheviks'attitude to, 149-50, 154- Council of Factory Committees;
5, 159-60, 259; bureaucratisation of, Central Council of Factory
205-8, 251, 300 n.88; commissions, Committees; control commissions;
83-5; compared with trade unions, factory committee conferences; Law
82—3, 84, 203; concerned with on Factory Committees; and also
maintaining production, 146-9, under individual factories
174-6, 179, 188, 250-1; and control Factory Convention: creation of, 281
of company finances, 176-7; n.26; measures taken to prevent
correlation between size of factory unemployment, 169; supervises
and existence of factory committee, running of factories, 178, 237;
80; counterparts abroad, 59; cultural workers' representation on, 84, 155
334 Index
Factory Inspectorate, 25,37,42,45—6, footwear industry, number of workers in,
49>i7<> 10
factory rules, 38-9,54 foreign capital, crucial to Petrograd
factory takeovers, 180, 235-6, 237-9,260; industry, 7, 74
see also sequestration foreign workers, 22—3; hostility towards,
factory workers, 3—4, 253-4; age balance, 172,173
25-6; clothing, 45; diet, 86-7,88; foremen: election by workers, 64, 119;
living conditions, 13-14,44-5; power and duties of, 39-40; resented
marriage rate, 6, 24, 26; numbers of, by workers, 40-1,56; union of, 136,
6,9-10, 12, 245; standard of living, 233
44—8; see also 'cadre' workers; forty-eight-hour week, introduction of,
education; foreign workers; 'new' 250
workers; peasant workers; Fourier, Charles, 142
proletarianisation; skill divisions; France: origin of workers' control slogan,
sluzhashchie; wages; women workers; 142; trade unionism in, 106
working conditions; young workers Franco-Russian engineering works:
February Revolution, 1,54,60,75, 191, actions of factory committee, 147,
256; causes, 47, 52,86; 176, 236-7; and labour indiscipline,
disillusionment after, 119; and 89,90,191; strikes, 53
establishment of militias, 98, 102; fuel supplies: factory committees control
wage increases after, 68; and white utilisation of, 84, 148, 175, 176,231,
collar workers, 134, 135; workers' 240, 260; factory committees search
concern with defending gains of, for, 147, 258; shortages, 9,88,90,
102,162, 182 145, 168, 171,220,232
female labour, see women workers
Ferro, Marc, 204—5 Gapon union, 109
finance sub-committees, factory, 176 Gartvig, A.K.,69
finances, control of, 176-7; see also Gastev, A., 111, 125, 133, 184, 190, 219,
accounts 27in.ii5
fines: imposed by management, 38,69; General Staff, 171
imposed by works committees, 89, German invasion, fears of, 171, 173, 243,
90,9^93 246
Finnish workers, 23 German Revolution (1918-19), 59, 104
First Yarn Mill, management flee from, German workers, in Petrograd, 23
235 Germany: labour movement, 59, 104,
fitters, 28, 29, 32, 34, 190 106; skilled workers, 271 n.117;
flour workers' union, 114—15 socialism, 260; wages, 133, 272 n. 139
food: diet of workers, 86-7,88; Gessen, S.M., 123
percentage of workers' budget spent glass industry: glassblowers, 254; union
on, 44; rationing, 86-7, 243; ofglassworkers, 115, 201;
shortages, 45, 51,54,86-8, 122, 145, differentials, 130, 131
246; supplies, organised by factory Glazer leather workshop, factory
committees, 86-8 committee fired, 80
food industry: number of women Glebov-Avilov,N., 187
employed in, 25, 194; size of go-slows, 51, 108, 123, 199, 250, 275 n.88
workforce, 10, 25; wages, 46, 131; gold-and silver-smiths'union, 104, 107
working hours, 43, 67; see also Golos Kozhevnika, 115
food workers' union Golos Truda, 143, 235
foodworkers' union: membership, 105; Gonikberg, G., 111
political composition of, 114-15; Goodey, C., 31
professional sections, 202; provides Goodrich, Carter, 3
help during Kornilov rebellion, 113; Gordienko, I., 32,94
see also food industry Gordon, M., 86
 Index 335
Gorkii, Maxim, 94, 284 n. 113 insurance, social, 42-3, 70, 76, 170; see
Grigor'ev, N., 234 also maternity pay; medical funds
Grinevich,V.P., 187 Insurance Law (1912), 43, 170
Gruntal workshop, welders' action at, iron production, 145
107 'Italian strikes', 275 n.88; see also go-slows
Guild Socialists, 142 Italy, labour movement in, 59, 104
guild tradition, 109, 257, 286 n.35; see also Itkin, M.L., 139, 185
craft unions Ivanov, Boris, 114
Gun-works: cultural activities of workers' Ivanovo-Voznesensk, massacre of
club, 96; radical form of workers' striking textileworkers at, 49
control, 62, 163-4; young workers on Izhora works: administration elected by
factory committee, 198 workforce, 64, 183; extent of
Gvozdev, K.A., 123, 135, 170 workers'control, 62, 163, 176;
factory committees' activities, 83,
Harvey, English director of Koenig mill, 85,88,91; Menshevik influence, 163;
70 size of workforce, 8
Hilferding, Rudolf, 187 Izvestiya, 77, 211
Hinton, James, 31
hiring and firing: control by factory Jewish workers, 23; see also anti-Semitism;
committees, 63,64-5, 79,85, 119, Bundists
149, 152, 256; control by shop job-control, 3, 33,60, 255, 256
committee, 82; control by unions, jobs, attempts to save, 2, 176, 179, 182
121,130; employers' resistance to July Days, 112, 124, 126, 143, 162, 163,
workers' control of, 65,69, 181; 171, 288 n.88; condemned by Gun
foremen responsible for, 39; law to factory workers, 164; conduct of
regulate hiring practices (1885), 375 Council of Petrograd Popular
Ministry of Labour declares only Militias during, 101-2; part played
employers have rights of, 180; by Putilov workers, 123, 126, 161;
sluzhashchie demand control of, 135; part played by young workers, 197
supervised by 'factory commissions', June 18 demonstration, 112, 123
58 June offensive, 136, 162
holidays, 43, 130, 133, 191
hospitals, clinics, 43, 274 n.41 Kadets, 126
hygiene, standards of, 41 Kaffeman, delegate from Izhora works at
Hyman, Richard, 207 congress of naval enterprises factory
committees, 182
Il'ina, A., 26-7 Kaktyn',A., 191,214-15,216
Imperial Court, 5 Kalinin, Ya.A., 161, 294 n.92
incentive schemes, 39, 131; see also bonus Kamkov, member of VTsIK
systems commission, 210
industrial unions, 106, 107—8, 109, 111, Kan paper mill, workers' takeover, 238
114, 257, 286 n.12 Kan printworks, 130; victimisation of
Industrialist group, 133 factory committee, 80
inflation, wartime, 45; and plight of Kapanitskii, shop steward at Pipe works,
low-paid workers, 122-3, 127; 196
and strikes, 116-19; an( ^ wages, 70, Kaplan, F.I., 141, 146, 150
128, 130, 133, 25*]', see also price Kautsky, K., 263
rises Kebke factory, 173
Instructions for implementation of Keep, John, 141
Decree on Workers' Control: Kerensky, A.F., 112, 137, 164
A R C W C , 2 i i , 2 i 3 - i 4 , 216,221, Kerensky government, 127, 171,209,
222, 23i;CCFC, 211-13, 214, 220, 258; anarchists' policy towards, 144;
221, 222, 237 and Bolsheviks, 108, 126, 230; see also
33^ Index
Kerensky government: continued 37-8; see also absenteeism;
Coalition Government; Labour, drunkenness; theft
Ministry of labour exchanges, 76, 244, 247
Kersten knitwear factory: wages, 117; labour movement, Russian, compared
women workers, 198, 235-6; with West, 28-9, 59,64-5, 103-4,
workers' opposition to re- 109, 133, 253, 254, 285 n.i 1,
instatement of administrative land-ownership by workers, 17-19
personnel, 56; youth committee, 198 Langenzippen works: extent of workers'
Kharkov, collective wage contracts in, control, 165, 166-7,176—7, 231—2;
120 political composition of factory
Koenig mill: penalties to improve labour committee, 161, 162; re-election of
discipline, 90-1; women workers factory committee, 205, 251; strikes,
present list of'requests' to director, 53; workers' resolution on Skobelev
69-70 circulars, 180-1
Kokhn,M.P.,45 Larin, Yu., 92,158, 184, 248
Kollontai, Alexandra, 194—5, 236 Latvian workers, 23,96, 191
Kolokol'nikov, P.N., 170, 181 Law on factory committees (23 Apr
Kolovich, anarchist militant, 235
kompaniya, typesetters working in, 33 leather industries: attitude of employers
Konovalov, A.I., 76, 171 to workers' control, 231; size of
Kornilov, General L.G., 112, 113, 180; see workforce, 10; wage differentials,
also Kornilov rebellion 131; women employed in, 25;
Kornilov rebellion, 112, 115, 162 working hours, 44; young workers,
Kostelovskaya, textile union delegate to 25; see also leatherworkers' union
sovnarhhozy congress, 241 leatherworkers' union, 69, 201,217;
Kotlov, 211 cooperation with CCFC, 220;
Kotov, 235 political affiliations of board, 115;
Kozhevnikov textile mill, political com- professional sections, 202; size of
position of factory committee, 160 membership, 105, 200; women
Kozitskii, V.N., 161, 294 n.92 workers, 133, 194
Kresty jail raid, 143 Lebedev,N.I., i n
Kronstadt sailors, strikes in protest Lebedev factory: and Skobelev circular,
against threatened execution of, 49, 180; workers' takeover of, 178, 179
51 Left Communists, 229
Kropotkin, Peter, 142, 143, 255 legislation, industrial, 37,38, 76, 78—9,
Kuskova, E. D., 109 170,188
Kuznetsov works, resolution on workers' Leiberov, I.P., 21, 22, 23,49,50
control, 165 Lenin, V.I.: attitude to factory
committees, 159; and Bolshevik
Labour, Ministry of: arbitrates in metal seizure of power, 144; calls for return
contract negotiations, 123, 125, 126; to one-man management, 228, 241,
averts strike by sluzhashchie, 135; and 251,261; and cultural level of
demands for sequestration, 179, 236; workers, 95,98; and economics/
programme of social reform, 170-1; politics dichotomy, 2-3,140; favours
refuses loan to Brenner works, 148; centralised state regulation of
see also Skobelev circulars economy, 150, 223, 226-7; stance on
Labour and Light group, 97 workers' control, 153-6, 209-10,
labour discipline: Bolshevik dilemma 213, 225-6, 227, 228, 259; strategy
over, 264; breakdown of, 88-90, for transition to socialism, 260-2
246-9; factory committees and, 90- Leontiev Mills: political affiliations of
2, 155, 247-8, 251; Lenin's attitude factory committee, 160; strike
to, 261; trade unions and, 247, 248, activity at, 53
249, 250, 251; in tsarist factories, Lepse, 1.1., 161,
 Index 337
Lessner works, 7; accidents at, 42; 'cadre' independence of trade unions, 218,
workers' indifference to 'dilution', 222; hostile to factory committees,
32; factory committee phases out 81,251; influence in factory
female employment to ease committees, 56,66,67,90, 100, 161,
redundancies, 176; political 164, 179, 198,211; influence in trade
composition of factory committee, unions, 104, 107, 111, 113-16, 187,
162; re-election of factory 217, 257; and organisations for
committee, 205; strikes, $i\seealso unemployed, 246-7; rejection of
New Lessner; Old Lessner workers'control, 151, 167, 182-3,
Levin, V.M., 146, 152, 189 188; support for subordination of
Limon, Didier L., 212 factory committees to trade unions,
Lin'kov, Menshevik delegate to factory 213,221
committee conference, 189 Meshcherinov, Captain V.D., 61
literacy of workers, 34-5,96, 255 metal industries, 7,9, 12, 27-8, 52, 243;
Lithuanian workers, 22, 23, 165 absenteeism, 89; accident rates, 42;
lockouts, 51,52, 116, 169, 250 size of workforce, 10, 12, 245;
Loginov, Ivan, 96 working hours, 44,67; see also
Lopata, 94-5 metalworkers
Lozovskii, A., 112, 158, 188,210, 214, Metal works: activities of works
215-16,221,223,241 committee, 72,85,96, 175, 201, 260;
attitude of'new' workers to trade
machine-breaking, 89, 246 union, 196; demand for eight-hour
machine-tool construction industry, 8, 9 day, 65; rate of sickness and injury
Maiskii, Menshevik delegate to trade among workers, 42; stokers form
union congress, 230 union, 106-7; strikes and young
Maksimov, G., 142-3, 221 workers, 53; wage differentials,
management, factory, see administrative 47; workers' directorate runs
personnel; collegial management; factory, 236; workers' militia, 98,
employers; one-man management; 99
self-management metalworkers, 26, 27, 28-9, 32, 34,40,
Mao Zedong, Maoism, 262 198, 255; attitude to workers'
Martov,Y.O.,2i8 control, 165, 167, 184, 216, 219; and
Marx, Karl, Marxism, 2, 141, 255, 263 piece-rates, 73, 132, 249, 250, 305
mass-production, 8,9, 24-5, 29, 31, 254 n.97; political composition of factory
masterovye, 28, 29, 31-2, 34, 72 committees, 161, 162;
maternity pay, 70, 170, 194 proletarianisation of, 16, 18-20;
Maxwell cotton mill, political make-up of wages, 46-7, 71,130, 131; women
factory committee, 163 workers, 24-5, 34,48, 133, 176, 194;
mechanisation, 8, 28, 29 unemployed, 168; young workers,
medical funds, 43, 58 25; see also metal industries;
Medvedev, 247 metalworkers' union
Menshevik-Internationalists: and metalworkers'union, 31,93, 106-7, I Q 8,
cultural level of workers, 94; on 201, 202, 217; attitude to evacuation,
factory committees, 81, 183; 174; collective contract, 120, 121-9,
influence in trade unions, 112, 113, 132,133^96,254,257;
115,187; position on workers' membership, 104-5, 2OO5 280 n. 1;
control, 187, 215-16 political influence in, 113-14;
Mensheviks, 52, 53, 77,84,97, 101, 170, relationship with factory
192; active in cooperative committees, 167, 186-7, 222; and
movement, 87; call for state control women workers, 176, 194
of economy, 151, 153-4, 187,258; Metal list, 216,219
conflict with Bolsheviks over trade Mezhraiontsy, 84, 111, 185
unions, 109, 11 o, 111, 136; favour Michels, Robert, 103
338 Index
militancy: ofchernorabochie, 121, 124; needleworkers' union, 112, 194, 216
conscription as punishment for, 21, Nevka spinning mill: labour discipline
51, 180; of metalworkers, 12; of'new' at, 248; strike activity at, 53; wage
workers, 191-2, 199, 255; in West, differentials, 71, 72; women
103; of women, 195, 255; see also workers complain of factory
'carting-out'; strikes committee's autocratic behaviour,
'militarisation' of industry, 48,49, 59, 171 207
Military Horseshoe works: far-reaching Nevskaya cotton mill: factory committee
workers' control at, 64; nation- seeks coordination with other
alisation of, 240 committees, 83; labour discipline,
Military-Revolutionary Committee of 90,94; wages, 117; women workers
the Petrograd Soviet, 232, 234 present list of'requests' to
militias, 85, 98-102, 112, 178 management, 69-70
Miller, L.G., 193 Nevskii footwear factory: factory
Milonov, Yu., 31 committee abolishes overtime
Milyutin, V.P., 144, 157, 158, 159, 167, working, 67; management resistance
210,239 to workers' control, 181, 232; women
Mint, factory committee at: political workers, 194
make-up of, 162; re-election of, 205 Nevskii shipbuilding company: activities
monopolies, 7, 9 of factory committee, 55—6, 85, 147,
morality, labour organisations' concern 173, 176; craft consciousness at, 29-
with standards of, 94 30; nationalised, 233; political make-
Moscow industrial region: effects of up of factory committee, 161; re-
economic crisis in, 168; introduction of piece-rates, 305 n.96;
entrepreneurs of, 74-5, 77, 169; size of workforce, 8; strikes, 53, 136,
peasant migration to, 15; political 250; white collar workers, 135, 136;
influence in labour organisations, workers' takeover, 232-3;
113, 114, 115, 165; wage contracts, New Admiralty shipyards: co-existence
120 of stewards' and factory committees,
Moscow railways, factory committees of, 58; extent of workers' control, 64,
249 163; technical staffexpelled by
musicians' union, excluded from PCTU, workers, 55; triviality of some
factory committee business, 85;
workers demand revolutionary
Nabokov, Menshevik delegate at factory government, 166
committee conference, 182 New Cotton-Weaving Mill, factory rules,
Narva district: soviet, 81; workers' living 38
conditions, 12, 13 New Dawn Club, 96
nationalisation: Bolshevik plans for, 154, New Lessner works: Bolshevik workers
157, 223, 302 n.56; critiqueof call for evacuation of'yellow labour'
Bolshevik policy on, 229; factory and 'peasants', 173; demand for
committees press for, 225, 227, 239; eight-hour day, 65; number of
ofindividual factories, 233, 236, 237, workers voting in factory committee
239-40; make-up of boards of elections, 206; political composition
nationalised enterprises, 241; of factory committee, 161; Red
opposition to, 224; Soviet historians' Guard at, 100; strikes, 49, 52; swing
view of, 304 n.48; of whole of to Bolsheviks, 52
industry, 260 New Parviainen works: labour
naval enterprises, 8, 41,46-7, 73, 135; indiscipline, 90; Menshevik
committees discuss workers' self- influence, 52; and metalworkers'
management, 62, 182-3; and factory contract, 128; political composition
committee law, 79 of factory committee, 161; Red
Naval Ministry, 8, 64, 182, 183 Guard at, 100
 Index 339
'new' workers, 21-3, 190-2, 254-5, 269 one-man management, 228, 241-2, 251,
n.8o; see also peasant workers; 260, 261
unskilled workers; women workers; Optics factory, evacuation plans, 173
young workers orders: checking by workers, 155, 176,
Nicholas II, Tsar, 54 231, 240, 258; employers refuse new,
night work, 27,44, 170 235
Nobel factory, 7; political composition of Ordzhonikidze, G.K., 159
factory committee, 161; re-election Organisation Bureau, 61-2
of committee, 251; scope of workers' Osinskii, V.V., 229
control, 163; strike at, 51; swing to Osipov leather works: strike, 70; workers
Bolsheviks, 52; theatre group, 97; complain of factory committee's
workers condemn Skobelev autocratic behaviour, 207
circulars, 180; workers' takeover, output norms, 125, 132,249,250
238 overtime working: control by factory
Northern Cotton Mill: factory rules, 38; committees, 67—8,85; increased
non-party members of factory during war, 44,45, 191; payment
committee, 160 rates, 43,69,135; reduction in, 68,
Northern Iron-Construction Company, 70; widespread before war, 43;
factory committee elects directorate workers prepared to accept, to help
to run factory, 238 war effort, 66; see also eight-hour day
Novakovskii, 135, 136 Owen, Robert, 142
Novaya Zhizn', 94, 215
NovyiPut', 214. Pal' works: political composition of
factory committee, 160, 163; strikes
Obukhov works: composition of board of at, 53
management after nationalisation, Parchinskii, 175, 183
240; factory committee, 62,81, 161, paper industry: cooperation between
163; metal union closes factory, 250; factory committees and trade
number of workers, 8; picketed by unions, 220; number of workers, 10;
unemployed, 246; resolution passed wage rates, 72; working hours, 43,67
on workers' control, 165; strikes, 53; paperworkers' union: engages in strike
wages, 46,47,117; workers condemn action, 118, 121; growth of
Skobelev circulars, 181 membership, 105; paperworkers'
October Revolution, 1, 108, 184, 197, contract, 131, 132, 133
209,230, 246 Parviainen works: activities of factory
'off-loading', see evacuation committee, 173, 175; conditions of
Okhrana, 49 work, 41; numbers of workers voting
Okhta cotton mill, 53 in factory committee elections, 206;
Okhta explosives works: activities of political composition of factory
factory committee, 65,87, 173, 176, committee, 146, 162; re-election of
242-3; conditions of work, 41-2; factory committee, 205; strikes, 51;
drunkenness at, 93; re-election of wages, 47, 72, 117
factory committee, 205; size of Pasternak, director of Triangle rubber-
workforce, 8; woodturners refuse works, 231
tariff category, 108; workers' self- payment in kind, 274 n.53
management, 61,62,163 PCTU, see Petrograd Council of Trade
Old Lessner works: Menshevik influence Unions
at, 52; Red Guard at, 100; re-election peasant workers: behaviour pattern of,
of factory committee, 251; workers 19-20, 191; calls for transfer of land
propose setting up of district council to, 157, 166; conflict with other
of factory committees, 83 workers, 152, 173; conscription of,
Old Parviainen works, redundancy 86; migration to Petrograd, 5—6, 15,
plans, 243 22, 36; militancy of, 191-2, 196, 199;
34° Index
peasant workers: continued contracts, 128, 131-2
participation in labour movement, Piontovskii, 167, 189
36, 197; status of women, 26; see also Pipe works: administration dismissed by
proletarianisation factory soviet, 55; election of factory
Pechatkin paper mill; number of workers committee, 205, 206, 251;
voting in elections, 205; women evacuation plans, 173; factory
poorly represented on committee, committee seeks fuel supplies, 147;
194 finance sub-committee, 176;
Pella engineering works, workers' indiscipline among workforce, 88—9;
evacuation plans, 173 militancy of peasant workers, 196;
People's Commissariat of Labour and New Dawn Club, 96; number of
(Narkomtrud), 220, 242, 249 workers, 8; and organisation of food
Peterhof district, 12; district soviet, 100, supplies, 87; political composition of
175, 177-8; factory committee factory committee, 162-3; shop
district council, 83 stewards, 58, 161; strike activity, 53;
Petichev engineering works, workers women workers, 192, 195; workers'
condemn evacuation plans, 173 control, 61
Petrograd, 4, 5; economy of, 6-9, 35-6, Plekhanov, G.V., 49, 255
145; exodus of workers from, 243-5; police, 98, n o
living conditions, 13-14; see also St police informers, 276 n.2
Petersburg Polish workers, 22,56,96
Petrograd Council of Trade Unions political consciousness, 3,49,97, 118, 121
(PCTU): formation and powers of, Potekhin, M.N.,240
110-11; and labour discipline, 93; Pouget, Emile, 275 n.88
opposes evacuation plans, 174; Pravda, 124
opposes Kornilov rebellion, 112-13; Precision Engineering Company, closure
and piece-rates, 249; political of, 176
influence within, 111-12,113; price rises, wartime, 45,51, 116, 124; see
relations with CCFC, 112-13, 186; also inflation
represented on ARCWC, 213; and print trade, printers, 3-4; 'autonomous
strikes, 108,250 commissions', 58; conciliation
Petrograd Soviet, 1, 54,93,98, 112, 115, chambers, 77; no division between
174, 192, 250; and conciliation factory committee and trade union,
chambers, 66, 77; and factory 201; number of workers, 10,33;
committees, 62, 78-9, 178, 204, 248; wages, 46,47-8, 129-30, 131, 133;
and minimum wage, 72—3; and unemployment, 168; see also
workers'militias, 99-100, 101, 102 printworkers' union; typesetters
pharmacy employees' union, 104; strike, printworkers' union, 73, 103, 104, 201-2;
118 collective contracts, 129-30; firm
Phoenix engineering works: political stand against overtime, 68;
composition of factory committee, membership, 105, 200; Menshevik
161, 197; management finances influence in, 115—16; professional
workers' club, 96; shop stewards' sections, 286 n.24; strike action, 121,
committee, 58,65; stokers' union 130; supports factory committee at
formed, 106; swing to Bolsheviks, 52; Kan printworks, 80
workers' militia, 98 private sector, 8, 182, 263; abolition of
piece-rates, 41,42; attempts to revive, piece-rates in, 131; factory
after October Revolution, 249-50, committees in, 60,64, 185, 256;
251,261; complex system of, in insurance provision in, 42-3;
tsarist factories, 47; demands for Lenin's plans for, 223;
abolition after February Revolution, nationalisation, 239-40; wages, 46
73; as means of raising productivity, Prizhelaev, I., 203
89,90, 132, 249; as part of wage Prodparovoz, 7
 Index
productive forces, theories of, 262-4 shop committees, 81-2; survey of
productivity, 8, 12; factory committees fitters (1918), 190; wages, 47, 72,
responsible for, 240; labour 122, 272 n. 139,305 n.96; workers'
indiscipline seen as cause of low, club, 96,97; and workers' control,
88-90,91-2; Lenin on, 261; 64, 146, 165, 166, 172, 183-4.; see also
measures taken to improve, after Putilov factory committee; Putilov
October Revolution, 248-50; and works
piece-rates, 131—2; productivity Puzanov, chief of Putilov's Black
clauses in wage contracts, 125, Hundreds, 55
132-3,257 Puzyrev works, swing to Bolshevik party,
Prodvagon,7 52
Progressive Bloc, 52, 74
Prokopovich, S.N., 14, 16,44,45, I 0 9 Radio Telegraph works factory
proletarianisation of workers, 14-20, 253, committee: demands payment for
254, 255 workers serving in militia, 99;
Proletkult, 97,98, 284 n. 113 implements radical form of workers'
Promet Armaments factory, 52; factory control, 163
committee over-ruled by workforce, railway workers' strike, 118
67; election of factory committee, Rashin, A.G.,40
205 Rasputin clique, 75
Provisional Government: industrialists' rates commissions, 121, 127-8, 132, 196,
initial confidence in, 75; labour 257
relations policy, 76-7; and law on raw materials: factory committees'
factory committees, 78-9; Lenin and control of, 84, 147—8, 176,231,240,
Bolsheviks' refusal to support, 153; 258, 260; high cost of, 8; shortage of,
and organisation of food supplies, 9,88,90, 145, 168,220
86; setting up of, 54; workers' Razumov, 111
dissatisfaction with, 124; see also Red Army, 97, 244
Coalition government; Labour, Red Guards, 100-2, 114, 197, 234, 285
Ministry of; Kerensky government n.i39
Pushkin, Alexander, 5 redundancies, 118, 127, 251; conflict
Putilov factory committee, 81-2,85,88, between male and female workers
146, 198, 204, 205; help Brenner over, 175—6, 195, 254; factory
works committee, 148, 178; political committees draw up plans for, 242-
composition of, 161; and problem of 3; factory committees fight against,
'responsible' control of production, 174-6, 259; factory committees
183-4; search for fuel supplies, 147, responsible for laying off workers,
175 240; lay-off terms, 175, 247, 250
Putilov works, 12, 13; director killed by reformism, 109
workers, 55; high technology of, 8, Reisner, Larissa, 97
31; nationalised, 240; productivity, Renault works: only moderate control
89-90; redundancies, 175, 243; operated by factory committee, 163;
strikes, 51,52,53, 108, 123,250; strikes, 53; workers demand Red
working conditions, 42; see also Guard, 100; young workers on
Putilov factory committee; Putilov factory committee, 197
workers Renev, anarchist from Baltic shipyard,
Putilov workers, 8, 22, 28, 29, 30,65,95; 235
condemn Skobelev circular, 180; Respirator factory: committee demands
and evacuation plans, 172, 173; and sequestration, 179; workers' view of
labour discipline, 89-90,94, 247-8; factory committees, 204
and metal contract, 122-3, 124-5, Revolution of 1905, 23,43, 73,92,96, 142,
126, 127, 128, 129; relations between 253; dramatic development of
workers and sluzhashchie, 136-7, 234; shopfloor organisations, 57—8;
342 Index
Revolution continued Sampsionevskaya Mill, women workers,
emergence of trade unions out of, 53, 193»I94
103; temporary shift towards more Schmidt, V., 68, 111, 112, 158, 174, 189,
liberal industrial relations policy, 213
37-8 Schwarz, Solomon, 84, 182
Revolution of 1917, see February 'scientific management', 31, 39
Revolution; October Revolution searching of workers, 38,91
Riga: evacuation of factories from, 22; Second International, 263, 264
German occupation of, 171 sectionalism, 2, 128-9, J 34
Robert Krug engineering works: conflict 'self-management', workers', 149, 160,
between factory committee and 167, 223, 259-60, 306 n.7;
technical staff, 234; factory takeover, Bolsheviks' approach to, 228-9;
237 CCFC Instructions aspire to, 212,
Romanov dynasty, overthrow of, 54, 256 214; distinction between workers'
Rosenberg, William, 140, 145 control and, 240-1; experiments in,
Rozenkrantz works: disputes over wage 177-8, 237; factory committees and,
classifications, 128; extent of 227-8, 229; Putilov works committee
workers' control, 163; factory on, 81; repudiated by
committee seeks fuel supplies, 147; representatives of Artillery
factory committee shares raw enterprises, 62-3; resolution passed
materials, 148; few strikes at, 53; at naval enterprises conference
stokers form union, 106; white collar preferring workers' control to, 182;
workers on works committee, 134 see also factory takeovers
workers' militia, 98 Selitskii, V.I., 139
Rubtsov, V.D., i n , 185 Semenov engineering works, closure of,
Russian-Asiatic bank, 7
Russkaya Volya, seizure by printworkers, semi-skilled workers, 31-2, 32-3,47
r
43 sequestration of factories, 8, 178, 179,
Russo-Baltic works: factory committee 236,239, 240
phases out female employment, 176; Sestroretsk works: activities of factory
workers condemn evacuation plans, committee, 85, 93,96, 148, 174;
173 election of committee, 205—6; far-
Russo-Belgian metallurgical company, reaching control of committee, 163;
workers check accounts, 176 number of workers, 8; political
Ryabushinskii, P.P., 181, 297 n.66 composition of factory committee,
Ryazanov,D.B., 112, 158, 185, 186, 189, 162; starosty at, 58,61; workers blame
220, 249 industrial chaos on disorganisation
Rykatkin, V.I., 179 of capitalist system, 172-3; works
Rykatkin engineering works, committee claims main task is to
sequestration of, 179 maintain production, 147
Rykov, A.I., 239, 241 SFWO, see Society of Factory and Works
Owners
sabotage by employers, 151, 172, 180, Shaposhnikov tobacco works, wages at,
237, 238, 258; Bolsheviks see 117
economic disruption as direct result Shatov, Bill, 157,221
of, 158, 167, 211; factory committees shift systems, 43
on guard against, 148, 175, 179, 182 shipbuilding industries, effects of
safety standards, factory, 41, 78,85, 237 demobilisation of industry on, 243
St Petersburg, 4; demographic structure Shkaratan, O.I., 21, 22, 23, 244
of, 6, 267 n.5; industrialists and Shlyapnikov, A., 107, 108, 125, 128—9,
financiers of, 75-6; residential 158,220,249
mixing of social classes, 12—13; see shop stewards' committees, 58-9,81-2,
also Petrograd 89,91,93; sluzhashchie create, 135;
 Index 343
supplementary to factory committees, 134, 135; strikes, 137,
committees, 81; in West, 59; see also 235-6; unions, 136, 183
starosty Smirnov, Yakov, 94
shop assistants, 40, 136; strike, 118; union Snaryadosoyuz, 7
of, 104; working hours, 67 SNKh S.R. (Northern Region economic
shopowners, 6, 22 council), 224, 232, 238, 239, 240,
sickness benefit, 42—3 243,248, 250
Siemens-Halske works: co-existence of socialism, transition to: Bolshevik policy
factory and stewards' committees, on, 223, 228-9, 259> 261-4; CCFC
58; payment of workers serving in policy on, 211, 214-16, 224, 228,
militia, 99; strikes, 53; worker fired 261; Industrialist group's view of,
for drunkenness, 93 J32-3
Siemens-Schukert works: conditions of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs): on All-
work, 41; factory committee blocks Russian Council of Workers'
closure plans, 175; payment of Control, 213; dislike of workers'
workers serving in militia, 99; control, 151-2; factories supporting,
redundancies, 246; strikes, 53 52,53,89; influence in factory
six-hour day, demand for, 135, 198 committee movement, 58,61,66,81,
Sixth Bolshevik Party Congress, 159 84,90,96, 100, 114, 160-3, J64> 178,
skill divisions, 27-33, 127—8, 270 n. 102; 198, 211; influence in trade unions,
see also semi-skilled workers; skilled 104-5, l *4> 115> J^7? 217, 287 n.50;
workers; unskilled workers Left SRs, 51, 101, 114, 152, 166; on
skilled workers, 28-30, 31-3, 34, 35,44, Petrograd Soviet, 77; Right SRs,
45, 94, 131, 244; dominant in labour 114; SR Maximalists, 115, 152, 167;
organisations, 60,91, 190-1,255; support for state control of economy,
wages, 47, 70—1, 129, 130; see also 151-2, 153-4, 258; on VTsIK
'cadre' workers; craft unions; commission on workers' control,
masterovye 21 o; zemlyachestvos swing to
Skobelev, M. I., 1 7 0 - 1 ; ^ also Skobelev Bolsheviks from, 197
circulars Socialist Union of Working Youth
Skobelev circulars, 171, 180-1 (SUWY), 197
Skorokhod shoe factory, 7, 25; demand Society of Factory and Works Owners
for eight-hour day, 65,69; far- (SFWO): in agreement with
reaching control of factory Provisional Government's labour
committee, 163; management stop policy, 66-7, 76-7; attitude to
payment of committee members, factory committees, 78-9, 180, 231;
181; minimum rates achieved by complains of workers' 'excessive'
militant action, 68-9, 279 n.83; demands, 169; founding, structure
political complexion of factory and tasks, 75-6; proposals for
committee, 160-1, 162; re-election of minimum wage, 73; and wage
factory committee, 205; relations contracts, 108, 121-8, 130, 131, 132,
between workers and sluzhashchie, 193, 289 n. 100; and white collar
137; workers insist on dismissal of workers, 135, 137
administrative personnel, 55 Soikin print works, factory takeover,
Skorokhodov, A.K., 161, 294 n.92 238-9
Skrypnik, N.A., 112, 158, 189, 211,216, Sokolov, I.N., 124
219 soldiers: form zemlyachestvos, 15, 197; join
sluzhashchie, 6,40; Central Council of insurgents in October 1917,51, 54;
starostas of Factory Sluzhashchie, 135- sent to factories to do unpopular
6, 137; involved in running factories, jobs, 49
237, 240; relations with other Somov, General, 41
workers, 134-5, I 3^-8, 233-4, 273 Sormovo, conclusion of collective wage
n.23; serving on factory contracts in, 120
344 Index
Southern Russia: closure of factories, 168; Strumilin, S.G., 32, 35,43,44,47,87,
lockouts, 169; mineowners call on 116,190, 248
Ministry of Labour, 170 Sukhanov, N.N., 94,95
Soviets, 5,87, 154—5, 162, 213; calls for Supreme Council of National Economy
transfer of power to, 112, 113, 114, (VSNKh), 209, 212, 213, 224-5,
126,149,157 227, 237, 238, 239, 24155^0/50
sovnarkhozy, see Councils of National Councils of National Economy
Economy SUWY, see Socialist Union of Working
Spain: success of anarchism in, 291 n. 18; Youth
syndicalist collectivisation of Svetlana factory, women workers, 192
industry, 306 n.7 syndicalists, anarcho-syndicalists:
Spasskii, A.V.,55 influence in factory committees, 84,
Special Commission on Defence, 147, 171 143, 144, 150, 157, 188; influence in
SRs, see Socialist Revolutionaries Petrograd labour movement, 142-3,
starosty, 33, 119, 256; attempts to revive, 145, 258; influence in trade unions,
58; origins of, 57; women as, 194; see 111,217; and movement for workers'
also shop stewards committees control, 140, 141, 152, 167, 211,212;
starshie, 39, 254 opposed to subordination of factory
starvation, 48,88, 247, 248, 251; see also committees to trade unions, 220-1;
food see also anarchists
'state capitalism', 223-4, 229 syndicates, 7, 154
state control of economy, 155-6, 157-8,
165, 223—9, 258-9, 261-2, 294 n. 115 tailors, avoidance of conscription, 22
State Food Committee, 86 Tamsin, worker at Lebedev factory, 178
State Papers print works: 'court of 'tariffs', see collective wage contracts
honour' at, 94; size of, 4 Taylor, F.W., 31
state sector, 7—8,9, 10, 239; concern with Taylorism, 133, 250
workplace democracy, 182; technical staff, see sluzhashchie;
evacuation plans, 171; social technicians' union
insurance in, 42-3; strikes in, 53; technicians'union, 183
wages, 46, 73, 158, 225; workers' technology, advanced: effect on workers
control in, 59-64, 149, 163, 182, of introduction of, 30-1, 254; in
256 Petrograd industry, 8-9, 27
'state workers' control', concept of, 155, temperance campaigns, 92
1 5 7 ^ 5 ^ 9 , 225, 294n.i 15 Tentelevskii chemical works: control of
steel production, 145 hiring and firing by factory
Stein company, workers' resolution committee, 65; cooperation between
calling for workers' control of workers and salaried employees,
production, 165 135; workforce insist on dismissal of
Stepanov, Z.V., 116, 117, 139, 164 administrative personnel, 55
Stetskaya, Olga, 96 Terent'ev, anarchist delegate to factory
stewards, see shop-stewards; starosty committee conference, 235
stokers'union, 106-7 textile industry: employers' attitude to
strikes, 21, 37, 38, 253; Bolshevik policy workers' control, 231; factory
on, 218, 250; as chief weapon of trade takeovers, 235; size of mills, 12;
unions, 187; over collective wage working hours and conditions, 42,
contracts, 108, 121, 123, 126, 130, 43,44,6755^ also textile workers
137; on 'dignity' issues, 40-1; textile workers, 10, 12, 29, 32—3, 34-5,40,
problems of distinguishing between 160; proletarianisation of, 16, 18, 19,
'economic' and 'political', 49; during 20; standard of living, 44—5; strikes,
War, 48-53; widespread in summer 53; wages, 46,48,69-70, 72, 131,
1917, 116-19; see also 'go-slows'; 133; women workers, 23—4, 29,48,
working to rule 104, 133, 193, 194,235—655^0/50
 Index 345
textile industry; textile workers' industrial unions; Petrograd
union Council of Trade Unions; trade
textile workers'union, 104, 105, 194,200, union conferences
201,216,217; political influence transport system: demand for
within, 114 militarisation of, 171; disruption of,
theatre, working class, 97 9,86, 145, 172; SNKHS.R.
theatre employees' union, excluded from responsible for organising, 224; see
PCTU, 111 also transport workers
theft, 89,91,94; see also searching of transport workers, 6,40, 172
workers Triangle rubber-works: activities of
Thornton textile mill, militancy of factory committee, 148, 178,260;
women workers, 55 closure of, 244; composition of works
Tik,K.P., 130 committee, 134, 135, 161; expulsion
Tikhanov, A., 33 of foremen, 55; labour discipline, 93,
Timofeev, P., 16,30,41 94; peasant workers, 15; rivalry
Tkach, 26, 114 between factory and stewards'
tobacco workers: union membership, committees, 58; wages, 279 n.83;
105; wage differentials, 131 women workers, 25, 194; workers'
'toiling people', 152,166, 167 control, 165, 231
Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, 57, 168, Troshin, anarchist militant at
181 Kozhenikov textile mill, 235
Touraine, Alain, 27—8 Trotsky, Leon, 84, 112, 159,185, 283
Trade and Industry, Ministry of: on ^90,287^43,307^13
employers' reaction to economic tsarist autocracy: industrial relations
crisis, 169; Labour Department of, under, 37—8; overthrow of, 54, 256
76, 78; relations with Ministry of Tseitlin, D.A., 235, 236
Labour, 171; survey on absenteeism, Tsvetkova, M., 195
89 turners, 28, 29, 32
trade union conferences, 67-8, 107, 159, typesetters, 33, 73,115, 130, 254
187, 194, 200, 216, 217, 220, 223, 230 unemployment: discontent caused by,
trade unions: 'bureaucratisation' of, 202, 246-7; high level of, 16&-9, 244;
203, 207, 208, 257; and collective measures to reduce, 68, 113;
wage contracts, 120-34; compared organisations, 247; and women
with factory committees, 203—4; and workers, 195; unemployment
Decree on Workers' Control, 210, benefit, 43, 247; see also redundancies
212,214; democracy in, 200-3; Union of the Russian People, 246
district organisation of, 84, 202—3; Union of Socialist Working Youth, 97
emergence and growth of, 38,57,59, Union of Workers for the Defence of
64, 103—9, 256—7; and evacuation of Their Rights, 109
industry, 174; and labour discipline,
unskilled workers, 30,32,33, 244; part
73,93, 247, 250; Lenin's view of, 226,
played in labour movement, 122,
259; membership, 105—6, 200-1; and
190,196-7, 199, 207; wages, 70-2,
'new'workers, 196, 199-200; and
12.9-30,133; see also chernorabochie
organisation of food supply, 87;
Urals metallurgical industry: factory
political composition of, 109-16; re-
seizures, 180; mineowners' labour
assessment of role after October
relations policy, 74, 76,169; foreign
Revolution, 216-19, 251;
workers, 22
relationship with factory
U.S.A.: labour movement, 106, n o , 142;
committees, 185-9, 213, 219-23, 'scientific management' in, 31; size
260; SFWO recognition of, 76; and of factories, 12
unemployment, 169; women Ustitskii, A.A., 232
members, 193—4; and workers'
clubs, 96; see also craft unions; Vankov,S.N.,7
 Index
Vasilevski district, 12; district council of industry, 8-9, 12,31; effect on prices,
factory committees, 83, 165; 45; effect on wages, 45-8; effect on
Economic Council of Workers of, workforce, 10, 21-2, 23, 25, 31-2,44,
220; soviet, 196; workers' club, 96 60, 254; shutdown of war
Vasko, 167 production, 242-5, 259; and
Vdovin, A. I., 244 suppression of trade unions, 103
Veinberg, G., 216, 219, 220, 241 War Industries Committee, 74—5, 148,
Volin, 143, 144, 157, 188 177, 179; see also Workers' Group
Volkov, I., i n , 112 War Industries syndicate, 7
Volodarskii, V., 123 watchmakers' union, 107
Voronkov, 220 Weber, Max, 206
Voskov, Sestroretsk factory delegate to welders'union, 107
factory committee conference, 188 Westinghouse works, resolution on
vote at 18, demand for, 197-8 workers'control, 165
VSNKh, see Supreme Council of National white collar workers, see sluzhashchie
Economy Whitleyism, 120
VTsIK, see Central Executive Committee Winter Palace, storming of, 114
of the Soviets 'Wobblies', 142, 157
Vulcan works: administration threatens women workers: age of, 25—6; clothing,
to halve factory committee's wages, 45; discrimination against, 29, 175-
181; committees seek fuel supplies, 6, 195, 254; education and literacy,
147; factory committee blocks 34-5,95-6,97; equal pay for, 70,
closure plans, 175; gives loan to 123, 133, 135,194; and labour
Kersten factory, 236; sequestration discipline, 91,94; married women,
of, 239; swing to Bolshevik Party, 52 26-7,92; numbers of, 21—2, 23-5, 33;
Vyborg district, 12, 13, 101; council of participation in labour movement,
factory committees, 83, 220; 192-5, 199, 207, 253; serving on
metalworkers' union, 104; soviet, militias, 98; and strike activity, 53,
1 o 1; workers' militia, 98,99 118; wages, 47-8,69-70, 71,72;
Vyborg spinning mill: director 'carted working conditions, 42; working
out', 193; wage rates, 72; working hours, 37,44,67, 170
hours, 67 woodturners' union, 68, 108, 113, 114,
119,132, 133
wage differentials, 33,46-7, 70-2, 120-1, woodworking industries, 10,67, 243;
129-31,250,257 union membership, 105, 200; wage
wages: after February Revolution, 68-73, differentials, 131; see also
116-17; before War, 44; and woodturners' union
conciliation chambers, 77; during work-books, 249
War, 45-8; factory committees' workers, see factory workers
regulation of, 63,64,68, 70, 72,84; workers' control of production: attempts
fixed by foremen, 39; management to revive more radical forms of,
resistance to demands for higher, during Civil War, 305 n. 102;
69-70; minimum, 68,69, 72-3, 135, formulations used in workers'
250; Russian, compared with other resolutions on, 165-7;
countries, 274 n.51; stewards' 'informational' or 'responsible', 63,
committees and, 58,82, 135; strikes 183-4; origins of idea, 61, J425
for higher, 51, 70, 116, 118-19; phases in development of, 149;
women's, 47-8,69-70, 71,72; see also radical concept of, after Bolshevik
collective wage contracts; equal pay; seizure of power, 214-15, 230-42; as
piece-rates; wage differentials reflection of workers' concern to
Wagon Construction works, strikes at, 53 realise gains of February
War, 1914-18; blamed for economic Revolution, 182; as response to
chaos, 151; effect on Petrograd economic chaos, 145-9, 15Ii 179,
 Index 347
182, 242, 258; syndicalist element in writers' union, excluded from PCTU, 111
movement for, 140, 141, 142-3;
theory of, 139-41; Western Yakovlev, I., 135, 136
interpretation of, 141, 149-50; see 'Years of Reaction', 43,58, 77, 103
also Decree on Workers' Control; young workers: conscription of, 21; join
distribution; finances; 'state Red Army, 244; legislation of, 37;
workers' control'; and also under and night work, 44, 170; numbers of,
anarchists; Bolsheviks; Mensheviks; 25-6; participation in labour
Socialist Revolutionaries movement, 52-3, 197—8, 255;
workers' directorates, 236, 238 problems of discipline among, 91;
Workers Group of War Industries proletarianisation of, 254; and
Committee, 49, 52, 53, 58,62, 77, redundancies, 242; wages, 72; see also
110,170, 191 youth movement
Workers of Russia's Manchester, 109 youth movement, 25,97, 197
Workers Voice group, 109 Yugoslavia, workers' self-management
working class, Russian: Marxist notion in, 306 n.7
of, 166, 253, 263; 'peasant' character Yuzevich, 115
of, 14; social differentiation within,
36; working class unity, 129, 134, Zaks, 210
255; see also class consciousness zemly aches tvos, 15, 197
working conditions, 41-4,48, 58-9,82, ZernoPravdy, 114
121,188, 240; see also accidents; Zhivotov, 222
hygiene; safety standards Zholnerovich, I.F., 114
working hours, 37,43—4,88, 121, 133, Zhuchaevich,V.V.,56
250; see also eight-hour day; overtime Zhuk, I., 144, 152, 157, 167
working; six-hour day Zinoviev, G., 155,217-18
working-to-rule, 275 n.88 Zubatov, S.V., 37, 109