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An Early Case of Labor Protest in St. Petersburg: The Aleksandrovsk Machine Works in 1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Reginald E. Zelnik
Reginald E. Zelnik*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

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Type
Notes and Comment
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , September 1965 , pp. 507 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1965

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References

1 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1955), 703

2 In fact, certain individuals in the Russian government at this time, notably in the Ministry of Finance, favored institutional reforms giving factory workers the opportunity to register formal complaints against their employers and have their grievances redressed.

3 , I, Part 2, 511-12, 587.

4 , I, Part 2, 511, 588.

5 In response to news of the Nevsky strike in 1870, the newspaper Novoe vremia exclaimed: “A strike of workers has befallen us, and God has not spared us.” Quoted in G. V. Rimlinger, “The Management of Labor Protest in Tsarist Russia: 1870-1905,” International Review of Social History, V (1960), Part 2, 230. See also the excellent article by the same author, “Autocracy and the Factory Order in Early Russian Industrialization,” Journal of Economic History, XX (March 1960), 73. The Nevsky factory was the old Stieglitz factory, the name of which had been changed.

6 , I, 703.

7 , p. 37.

8 , I, Part 2, 512-13.

9 Ibid., p. 588.

10 , II (1922), 186.

11 Somewhat similar instances may be found during the reign of Nicholas II, but not in St. Petersburg.

12 , 1, Part 2, 588.

13 , pp. 36-37.

14 , I, Part 2, 512.

15 See note 1, above.

16 , and the divisions are abbreviated l., op., d., and I.

17 ll. 17, 20.

18 ), f. 219, op. 1, d. 6518, f. 14. In St. Petersburg in the 1850s one ruble had the purchasing power of approximately 36 pounds of wheat flour or 56 pounds of rye flour. , No. 81, 1911, pp. 201-2.

19 , f 219, op. 1, d. 6518, l. 25.

20 , p. 201.

21 , f 219, op. 1, d. 6518, l. 14.

22 In a marginal note, Chevkin denies having made this statement.

23 Ibid., II. 1-3. The records indicate the existence of earlier petitions in the 1850s, but the petition of 1860 seems to have been the first to become of major importance to the government.

24 , f 219, op. 1, d. 6518, ll. 15-17. The exact sums distributed to the foundry workers are listed on 11. 9, 29-30.

25 Ibid., I. 26, Iazykov to Chevkin, Feb. 28, 1860. A more detailed breakdown of the figures was made by Inspector Gorodetsky (ll. 31-35). It is noteworthy that Gorodetsky went directly to the workers to obtain his information, and received no notification from Winans. This may have reflected Winans’ bitterness over the proceedings.

26 Ibid., II. 49-50.

27 Ibid., I. 36, Iazykov to Chevkin, Feb. 25, 1860.

28 Ibid., II. 41-43, Gorodetsky to Iazykov, March 9, 1860; and ll. 44-45, Iazykov to Chevkin, March 11, 1860.

29 Ibid., I. 45.

30 Ibid., 1.41.

31 The order was issued by Iazykov with Chevkin's approval on March 16, 1860. Ibid., 1.46.

32 Morozov's confession is summarized in a secret report by Gorodetsky, undated, but probably written in the last days of March. Ibid., II. 54-55.

33 Ibid., I. 63, Iazykov to Chevkin, April 15, 1860. The four workers named by Morozov were apparently placed under surveillance but not punished. I am unable to state this categorically, since Chevkin's orders were scribbled on the margin of a letter (I. 60) a nd were partially illegible.

34 Ibid., I. 64.

35 Ibid., II. 54-55, 62-64. They had also made the smooth copy of a letter from Morozov's wife, Anna, to Chevkin, in which she begged that her husband's sentence be commuted. The letter, dated March 15, 1860, is on ll. 58-59. Anna accused Gorodetsky of attempting to bribe her husband into obtaining and revealing information about the petition. Her request that her husband be granted mercy was denied, as was a later appeal to Chevkin from Morozov's mother for the return of her son from exile (I. 79).

36 Ibid., I. 72.

37 ll. 138-41, Report from Chevkin to Tsar Alexander II, June 20, 1862. The workers’ liberation was proclaimed in a special decree issued by the Tsar on June 13, 1861. Workers who had completed 20 years of service were liberated immediately; those with 15 years of service were to obtain their freedom in July 1862, the rest in July 1863. In view of the labor surplus in St. Petersburg, the Minister of Communications decided that all workers should receive their freedom by July 1862, if they so desired.

38 , f 219, op. 1/1, d. 356, ll. 1-5.

39 Ibid., II. 94, 113, 357.

40 Ibid., 1.357.

41 , Jan. 14, 1872.

42 See , I (Leningrad, 1940), 74, 89-90, 98, 104, 117-18.

43 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1957), 330.