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vi^ 


393. 


AN   ECONOMIC 
HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


^^^ 


i  \\ 


AN  ECONOMIC 
HISTORY  of  RUSSIA 


BY 


JAMES  MAYOR,  Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR   OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY 
IN    THE     UNIVERSITY    OF    TORONTO 


VOLUME    TWO 

INDUSTRY 
&*  REVOLUTION 


<^yr^f 


% 


MCMXIV  LONDON  6f  TORONTO 
J.  M.  DENT  6f  SONS,  LIMITED 
NEW  YORK:    E.   P.   DUTTON    6?   CO. 


2)35 


Printed  by  Ballantyne,  Hanson  6°  Co. 
at  the  Ballantyne  Press,  Edinburgh 


CONTENTS 


BOOK   IV 

MODERN    POLITICAL    AND    SOCIAL    REVOLUTIONARY 
MOVEMENTS    IN    RUSSIA    PRIOR    TO    1903 

PAGE 

Introduction 3 

CHAPTER    I 

Absolutism  versus  Revolution 8 

Absolutism  the  outcome  of  the  unification  of  disparate  nationalities —  V 

Foundation  of  the  autocracy — Destruction  of  traditional  demo- 
cratic elements — Byzantism — Causes  of  "  the  anarchy  " — Condi- 
tional sovereignty — Power  of  the  Patriarch — The  principle  of  unity 
— Imperial  ambitions — Absolutism  and  peace — Anti-revolutionary 
role  of  the  autocracy — Stein's  view  of  German  unity — Mettemich's 
view  of  Alexander  I — Fluctuations  of  mental  attitude  of  Alexander  I 
— Nicholas  I  as  anti-revolutionist — The  Crimean  War — Psycho- 
logy of  Russian  absolutism — Effect  of  absolutism  upon  the  4uration 
of  life  and  upon  the  character  of  the  Tsars — Peasant  views  upon  the  ^  n 

autocracy — Relation  of  the  autocracy  and  the  gentry — The  revolu- 
tionary "  state  of  mind  " — Revolutionary  propagandas. 


CHAPTER   II 

The  Disturbances  among  the  Cossacks  and  the  Peasants,  and  the 

Rising  of  Pugachev  {1773-1775) .21 

The  origin  of  the  Cossacks — Cossack  communities — Effect  of  flights  of 
peasants  upon  the  peasant  mass — Stenka  Razen — Ground  of  the 
hostility  of  the  Cossack  towards  the  peasant — Effect  of  changes  in 
administration — Mutual  suspicion  of  the  peasants — Grievances  of 
the  Cossacks — Origin  of  the  disturbances — The  Cossacks  of  the  Yaek 
or  Ural  River — Changes  in  the  military  position  of  the  Cossacks — 
Obhgations  to  render  military  service — Grievances  about  arrears  of 
pay,  &c. — Deputation  to  St.  Petersburg — Conciliatory  attitude  of 


vi      ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

PAGB 

Katherine  II — Recalcitrance  of  the  Cossacks — Movement  among  the 
Kalmuks — Compromise  with  the  Cossacks — Further  misunderstand- 
ings— Second  deputation  to  St.  Petersburg — Tactless  conduct  of  the 
chief  of  the  Military  Collegium — Text  of  a  Cossack  petition — Begin- 
ning of  the  disturbances — Riot  of  January  1772 — Indiscretion  of 
commander — His  death — Vindictiveness  of  the  Cossacks — Inade- 
quate measures  of  authorities — Eventual  "  pacification "  of 
the  Yaek  Cossacks — Series  of  impostors,  each  representing 
himself  as  Peter  III — Bogomolov — The  Don  Cossacks — Their 
grievances — Emergence  of  Pugachev — Relation  of  the  clergy 
to  the  situation — Arrest  and  escape  of  Pugachev — He  openly 
raises  the  standard  of  rebellion — Connivance  of  the  Cossacks — Small 
garrisons  overpowered — Cossacks  generally  join  the  rebel  ranks — 
March  of  the  rebels  upon  Orenburg — Investment  of  Orenburg — 
External  complications  prevent  decisive  action — Liberation  mani- 
festoes issued  by  Pugachev — Ascribed  peasants  join  the  rebellion — 
Defeat  and  retirement  of  Russian  commander — Imperial  troops 
ambushed — ^Discipline  of  Pugachev — Situation  at  Kazan — Gloom 
at  St.  Petersburg — Tactless  manifestoes — Flight  of  proprietors — 
Rising  becomes  peasant  revolt — Successes  of  Pugachev — Mobility 
of  his  forces — Defeat  of  Pugachev  at  Tatisheva  fortress — FHght  of 
Pugachev — He  incites  the  Bashkirs — Second  defeat — Third  appear- 
ance of  Pugachev  with  an  army  in  the  Urals — Spreading  of  the 
disturbances  and  of  the  fame  of  Pugachev — Further  manifestoes  by 
him  announcing  the  liberation  of  the  peasants — Pillage  of  estates — 
Assault  and  partial  destruction  of  Kazan  by  Pugachev — Attack 
upon  his  forces  by  Mikhelson — Flight  of  Pugachev — Continued 
pillage — Close  of  the  Turkish  War — Energetic  attempts  to  subdue 
the  rebellion — Betrayal,  arrest,  and  execution  of  Pugachev — Signi- 
ficance of  the  rebellion. 

CHAPTER   III 

The  Revolutionary  Movements  of  1824-182  5,  1830,  and  i  848-1 850      63     ^ 

The  Dekabristi — Influence  of  Western  Europe — Aristocratic  character 
of  the  Dekabrist  movement — ^The  Kiril  Methodian  Society — ^The 
"circles"  —  The  Slavophils — Structural  changes  in  Russian 
society  and  their  intellectual  consequences. 

CHAPTER   IV 

The  Revolutionary  Movements,  i  860-1 874 71         / 

Emancipation — Peasant  disorders — Fluctuations  of  opinion  in  all 
"spheres" — Student  movement  of  1 860-1 861 — Influence  of  exile 
— Zemlya  e   Volya — Great  fires  at  St.  Petersburg — Agitation  in 


CONTENTS  vii 

PAGE 

Poland — Revolt  in  Poland — Racial  character  of  Polish  movement 
— Relation  of  Polish  to  Russian  revolutionary  movement — Detach- 
ment of  peasants  from  Polish  insurrection — Suppression — Reaction 
— Zemlya  e  Volya — Permeation  versus  immediate  action — At- 
tempted assassination  of  Alexander  II — Suppression — Nech^ev — 
The  circle  of  Tchaikovsky — Peaceful  propaganda. 


CHAPTER    V 

The  Influence  of  Western  European  Socialism  upon  the  Russian 

Movement 77 

The  International  Working  Men's  Association — Dominant  influence  of 
Karl  Marx — Controversies  on  theory  and  tactics — CentraUzation 
versus  regional  autonomy — Marx  and  Bakunin — ^The  Federation 
of  the  Jura — Russian  interpretation  of  the  disputes — Divisions 
among  Russian  sociahsts — Bakunists  and  Lavrists — The  emergence 
of  the  idea  of  "  going  to  the  people  " — Anarchist  propaganda. 

/I 
CHAPTER   VI 

The  "  V  Narod  "  Movement /    .     103 

Origin  of  the  movement — Characteristically  Russian — ^Mental  attitude 
of  the  enthusiasts — Idealization  of  peasantry  and  working  men — 
Disillusionment — Panic  of  the  Government — Suppression — Benefits 
of  the  movement — Prosecutions — Emergence  of  policy  of  violence 
— Vera  Zasulich — Corruption  among  high  officials — New  attitude  of 
adherents  of  V  Narod — ^The  Kiev  group — Valerian  Osinsky — Attack 
upon  Kotlarevsky — "  The  Executive  Committee  " — New  parties — 
The  Narodnovoltsi — The  Chorniy  Peredyeltsi — ^The  Lipetsk- Voronej 
meeting — ^The  demonstration  at  Kazan  Cathedral,  St.  Petersburg — 
Zemlya  e  Volya — ^The  North  Russian  Working  Men's  Union. 


CHAPTER   VII 

"  Narodnaya  Volya" 114 

Terrorism — "  Delenda  est  Carthago  " — Views  of  the  Narodnovoltsi — 
Indictment  of  the  Government — Reasons  for  jxjUtical  action — De- 
mand for  a  Constituent  Assembly — Programme  of  the  "  Executive 
Committee  " — Absence  of  political  power  on  the  part  of  the  people 
— A  Constituent  Assembly — Local  autonomy — Propaganda — ^War 
against  the  Government — Osinsky — Incident  of  attempted  assassi- 


\^' 


V 


J 


viii      ECONOMIC  HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

PAGE 

nation — ^Terroristic  attempts — Assassination  of  Mezentsev,  Chief 
of  Political  Police,  Prince  Dmitri  N.  Kropotkin,  Governor-General 
of  Kharkov,  and  of  General  Drenteln — Attempt  on  the  life  of  the 
Tsar— The  Lipetsk-Voronej  meeting— J  elydbov — Disagreement — 
Compromise — Composition  and  organization  of  the  "  Executive 
Committee  " — Elaborate  plot  against  the  life  of  the  Tsar — Mines 
at  Alexandrovsk,  Moscow,  and  Odessa — Failure  of  plot — The  plot  ^ 

at    the    Winter    Palace — Khaltiirin — Jely^bov — The    explosion —  / 

Espionage — The  circular  of  Makov,  Minister  of  the  Interior — Die-        sj 
tatorship  of  L6ris  M§lik6v — Preparation  of  a  constitutional  scheme 
— Assassination  of  the  Tsar — Sudeikin — Dugaiev — Vera  Figuer — 
Lopatin — Orgich — Bogoraz — Final    collapse    of    the     Narodnaya 
Volya. 

CHAPTER   VIII 

The  Reaction 135 

Accession  of  Alexander  III — Pobyedon6stsev — Asiatic  theories  of 
Government — Causes  of  the  reaction — Changes  in  university  ad- 
ministration— Subordination  of  education  to  politics — Reactionary 
legislation  on  administration  of  justice — Fears  of  Western  demo- 
cratic influences — Depression  of  trade — Prices — Combination  by 
working  men  prohibited — Colonization — Flights  of  peasants — 
Racial  quarrels — Demoralization  of  the  people — Religious  fana- 
ticism— A  false  Tsar — Disorders — Brigandage — Strikes — Pogroms 
against  the  Jews — Peeisants  resist  sanitary  administration — The 
nobihty — Demands  upon  the  Government — Exhaustion  after  fever 
— Fair  harvests — Industrial  prosperity — Famine  in  1891 — De- 
ficiencies of  crop  in  1897  and  1898 — Distress  in  1899 — Views  of  the 
ideaUsts. 


J 


\J 


CHAPTER    IX 

The  Social  Democratic  Movement  in  Russia  .        .        .        .142 

Dispersal  of  the  oppositional  groups — Russian  refugees  in  Switzerland 
— Searchings  of  heart — Beginnings  of  Social  Democratic  organiza- 
tion— Influence  of  Marxism — Programme  of  1885 — Plekhanov — 
Separation  from  Russian  revolutionary  groups — Appearance  and 
arrest  of  allies  of  Plekhanov  in  St.  Petersburg  in  1885 — Effect  of 
Marxist  determinism  upon  Russian  intelligentsia — Sel^-education 
and  inquiry — Absence  of  political  agitation — The  famine  of  1891 — 
New  views  upon  the  causes  of  famine — Policy  based  on  these, 
adopted  by  the  Social  Democrats — Zemstvo  opposition  to  the 
Government— Skilful    Social    Democratic  organization — Incipient 


CONTENTS  ix 

PAGE 

trade  unions — RoJe  of  the  intelligentsia  in  these  proceedings — Spon- 
taneity of  working-class  movement  in  1 892-1 896 — Cause  of  limited 
scope  of  this  movement — Practical  direction  of  Social  Democratic 
effort — Neglect  of  theoretical  studies  and  slavish  adherence  to 
Marxist  dogmatics — Rejection  of  English  trade  union  methods — 
The  Government  begins  to  notice  the  movement  in  1894 — Arrest 
of  intelligentsia  members  of  Social  Democratic  groups,  and  banish- 
ment to  their  villages  of  working  men — Social  Democratic  reliance 
upon  the  city  proletariat — "  The  Moscow  Working  Men's  Union  " 
— Effect  of  expansion  of  trade — Movement  of  population — Ad- 
herents of  the  autocracy  are  alarmed  at  the  growth  of  a  city  pro- 
letariat and  the  risk  of  its  being  inoculated  with  Social  Democracy 
— Distinction  between  Marxism  as  an  economic  theory  and  Social 
Democracy  as  a  political  propaganda — "  Legal  Marxism  " — ^Wide 
interest  in  theories  of  economic  evolution — ^The  "  subjectivists  " 
— Fresh  points  of  view — Marxist  newspapers — "  Liberalizing  "  of 
Marxist  ideas — Strikes  in  1895,  1896,  and  1897 — Growth  of  a  pluto- 
cracy— Newly  acquired  political  and  diplomatic  influence  of  the 
bourgeoisie — Views  of  the  Social  Democrats — Isolation  of  the  latter 
from  other  social  groups — "  Brentanism  " — "  Unions  for  Struggle  '* 
— Interior  discords — Pessimism  of  the  liberal  elements  in  Russian 
society — Arrests  and  banishments — Oppositional  chaos — Projects 
of  unification — Congress  at  Minsk  in  1898 — The  model  of  1848 — 
"  Economism  and  politicalism  " — ^The  "  periphery  "  and  the  centre 
— Pulverization  of  the  unions — "  Union  of  Russian  Social  Demo- 
crats Abroad  " — "  Revolutionists'  Organization  of  Social  Demo- 
crats " — Development  of  factions — "  The  Credo  "  and  "  The  Pro- 
test " — Destructive  criticism  of  Marx  by  the  intelligentsia — Futility 
of  spasmodic  outbreaks — Strikes,  1 895-1904,  their  causes  and 
results — Success  of  "  economism  " — External  causes  of  Russian 
industrial  stagnation — Inferior  crops  in  Russia,  1 897-1 899 — ^Dis- 
turbances— Revolutionary  state  of  mind — Crisis  of  1 899-1 900 — 
Stimulus  to  Social  Democratic  movement — Fresh  lapse  into  sterile 
controversies — Labour  movement  continues — Spontaneous  move- 
ments among  students — Excommunication  of  Tolstoy — Many 
demonstrations — Revolutionary  agitation — Losses  and  gains  of  the 
Social  Democratic  Party. 


y 


CHAPTER   X 

The  Social  Revolutionary  Movement 174 

Spontaneous  economic  movement — Strikes — Unorganized  revolutionary 
agitation  of  nineties — Idealism  of  the  Social  Revolutionaries — Pes- 
simistic mood — Student  movement  of  1900 — Demonstrations — 
Attitude  and  dilemma  of  the  revolutionaries — The  Socialist  Revolu- 


X        ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

PAGE 

tionary  Party — Congress  of  1 898 — The  Peasants'  Union — Polemics 
between  Social  Democrats  and  Social  Revolutionaries — Practical 
programme — Further  polemics — Problem  before  Social  Revolu- 
tionaries— Gradual  emergence  of  terroristic  ideas — Hopes  from 
these — Psychology  of  terrorism — Civil  war — Question  of  compara- 
tive sacrifice — Death  of  Sipiaghin — Relations  of  Social  Democrats 
and  Social  Revolutionaries  to  Marxism — Absence  of  formal  dogma 
among  Social  Revolutionaries — Incidents  of  the  terror. 

kJ  chapter  XI 

"  Police  Socialism  "  and  the  Labour  Movement — "  Zubatovshina  "  .     1 88 

Attempts  to  control  the  labour  movement  by  the  political  police — 
Zubdtov — ^Trade  unions  organized  by  the  police — Economism 
versus  politics  in  practice — Professor  Ozerov — Factory  inspectors' 
reports  on  demands  made  by  police  trade  unions — Strike  at 
Goujon's  factory — Imitation  of  police  trade  unions — Meeting  of 
Moscow  manufacturers — Zubitov's  policy  attempted  to  be  carried 
out  in  St.  Petersburg,  Odessa,  and  Minsk — The  Odessa  affair  and 
dSbdcle  of  Zubdtov — Significance  of  these  incidents. 


CHAPTER   XII 
Jewish  Pogroms 207 

The  pale — Status  of  the  Jew — Jew-baiting — Fundamental  cause  of 
pogroms — Periodical  recurrence  of  anti-Semitism — Von  Plehve — 
Kishenev — Jewish  pogroms  incidents  in  the  counter-revolution — 
Peasant  views  on  anti-Semitism. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

Russia  in  the  Far  East 211 

Early  Russian  adventures  in  Asia — ^The  Strogonovs — Yermak — Rapid 
conquest  of  Siberia — The  Amur — Khabarov — The  Manchus — Alba- 
zin — The  Tungusic  Emperors — Nurkhatsi — The  Manchu  dynasty — 
Treaty  of  Nerchinsk — Delimitation  of  the  Russo-Chinese  frontier 
in  Mcinchuria — Colonization  of  Siberia — Discoveries  in  the  North 
Pacific — Occupation  of  Alaska — The  navigation  of  the  Amur — 
Count  N.  N.  Muraviev — The  Crimean  War — Its  significance  for  the 


I 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

Russian  Far  East — The  Treaty  of  Aigun — The  Amur  Company — 
Attempts  at  colonization  of  the  Amur  basin — Occupation  of  Hi  by 
Russia — The  Siberian  Railway — Position  of  Japan — Inevitability 
of  the  conflict  between  Russia  and  Japan — Necessity  for  a  prelimi- 
nary war  between  Japan  and  China — Japan  temporarily  deprived  of 
some  of  the  fruits  of  this  campaign — Li  Hung  Chang — The  Russo- 
Chinese  Bank  and  the  Chinese  Eastern  Railway — Lease  of  Liao-tung 
peninsula — Agreement  between  Russia  and  Great  Britain — The 
Boxer  disturbances — Occupation  of  Manchuria  by  Russia — Secret 
agreement  between  Russia  and  China — Inevitable  isolation  of 
Russia — The  war — Tangible  advantages  of  the  war  for  Russia — 
Effects  in  Europe  of  the  outcome  of  the  war — Mongolia — Possible 
railway  development — Mongolia  a  Russian  protectorate — Relations 
of  Russians  with  Chinese. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

National  Particularism  within  the  Russian  Empire       .        .        ,    244 

Russian  national  feeling — The  Little  Russians — The  Poles — The  Fin- 
landers — ^The  Letts — The  Georgians — Attempts  towards  Russianiza- 
tion — Disappearance  of  Pan-Slavism. 


BOOK   V 

THE  AGRARIAN  QUESTION  AND  ITS  REVOLUTIONARY 

PHASES 

Introduction 251 


J 


CHAPTER   I 

Peasant  Character  and  Peasant  Classes 253 

General  characteristics  of  all  peasantry — Special  characteristics  of  the 
Russian  peasant — Effects  of  separation  of  classes — ^The  peasant 
classes  differentiated — Primitive  customs — Measurement  of  land — 
Tally  sticks — Holidays — Disregard  of  private  property — Old 
Believers. 


xii     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

CHAPTER   II 

PAGE 

Survivals  of  Primitive  Family  Customs  and  of  Popular  Concep- 
tions REGARDING  THE  TENURE   OF  LaND 264 

The  undivided  or  joint  family — Spontaneous  disintegration — "  Separa- 
tions " — Administrative  discouragement  of  separations  for  fiscal 
reasons — Vacillation  of  the  Government  on  the  "  separation  "  ques- 
tion— Impetus  to  "  separation  *'  given  by  the  abolition  of  the 
Redemption  Tax — Peasant  views  about  land  tenure — Peasant 
conceptions  of  equality  and  unanimity— Survivals  of  primitive 
customs — Redistribution  of  peasant  lands  in  practice. 


J 


CHAPTER   III 

The  Contemporary  Pomyetschek 276 

Classes  of  pomyetscheke — The  great  proprietors — Intermediate  pro- 
prietors— Small  proprietors — Experiences  of  Prince  Urusov — 
Great  Russian  gentry — Little  Russian  gentry — Social  results  of 
economic  changes. 

CHAPTER   IV 

Agriculture  after  Emancipation 282 

Extent  and  character  of  agricultural  lands  in  different  regions — Areas 
under  fallow — Areas  under  crop — Rye — Maize — Yields  from  land- 
owners' and  from  peasants'  lands — Sugar  beet — Fertilizers — Agri-  . 
cultural  implements — Cattle-raising — Sheep — Systems  of  agricul- 
ture— Regional  divisions — The  Zemstvos  and  agricultural  education 
— Zemstvo  statisticians. 


J 


CHAPTER   V 

Grain  Deficiency  and  the  Marketing  of  Crops     ....    289 

Self-contained  character  of  peasant  economy — Amount  of  grain  neces- 
sary for  peasant  subsistence — Deficiency  of  consumption. 


y 


CONTENTS  xiii 


CHAPTER   VI 

PAOB 

The  Peasants'  Union 297 

Attempts  to  enlist  peasant  opinion  in  favour  of  the  autocracy — Con- 
gress of  peasant  delegates  called  to  counteract  these  attempts — 
"  The  All-Russian  Peasant  Union  " — First  assembly — Conflict  of  .  j 

opinions — Peasant  demands — Complaints  of  the  Zemsky  Nachalneke  j 

— Attitude  of  the  peasant  representatives  towards  the  Tsar — Anti-  j 

cipation  of  action  by  the  Duma — Concessions  by  the  Government. 


CHAPTER   Vn 

Inquiries  into  the  Condition  of  the  Peasantry  in  1905      .        .    303 

The  Imperial  Free  Economical  Society — Details  of  inquiries  in  Byeloz- 
yerskoe  district — Illegal  cutting  of  timber — ^The  tyaglo  promish- 
lennikie — Significance  of  the  disputes — Analysis  of  the  motives  of 
arbitrary  acts  on  the  part  of  peasants — Influence  of  the  "  parties  " 
— Influence  of  the  village  teachers — "  Righting  "  of  the  Zemstvos 
— Reasons  for  the  collapse  of  the  agrarian  movement — The  central 
agricultural  region — Arbitrary  pasturing — Arson  and  pillage — 
Peasants'  demands — Peasants'  wages — Hours  of  labour — Regula- 
tions by  peasants — Aims  of  the  peasants — Varying  views — Peasant 
reasonings — Pillage — Resulting  inequality  of  distribution  of  plunder 
— General  review  of  evidence — Action  of  authorities — Two  currents 
among  landowners — Repression  and  agrarian  reform — Arrests — 
Prices  of  land — Peasant  views — Constituents  of  plundering  groups 
— Rented  lands — Exercise  of  power  by  the  peasants — Views  of 
private  landowners'  peasants  and  of  the  State  peasants — Advance 
of  rents — Fall  of  rents  after  the  acute  stage  of  the  revolutionary 
movement — Cause  of  this. 


7 


CHAPTER   Vni 


Conclusions  from  the  Foregoing  Evidence  regarding  the  Con- 
dition OF  THE  Peasantry  in  1905 ^^6 

Character  of  the  regions  selected — Ripeness  of  the  peasantry  for  an 
agrarian  movement — Characteristic  features  of  the  movement — 
Need  of  land — L'action  directe — Pecisant  views  upon  ineconomical 
agriculture  and  landholding — Peasant  views  about  the  Duma  and 


xiv      ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

PAGB 

its  probable  agrarian  legislation — Peasants  more  "  advanced  " 
than  revolutionary  parties — Implications  of  the  peasant  ideas — 
Contradiction  between  peasant  and  artisan  views — Antagonism 
between  the  rich  peasant  and  the  village  proletariat — Conclusions 
regarding  the  causes  of  the  partial  failure  of  the  revolution. 


CHAPTER   IX 

The  Law  of  9th  November  1906 340 

Fundamental  law  regarding  land  reform — Collective  character  of 
Russian  landownership — Restrictions  upon  free  transference  of  land 
— The  system  of  collective  responsibility  for  taxes — Limited  rights 
of  individuals — Effect  of  cancellation  of  redemption  tax — Law  of  , 
9th  November  1 906 — Effect  upon  mobilization  of  land — Individual 
private  property  in  land  recognized — The  marrow  of  the  ukase — 
Previous  formal  recognition  of  private  property  in  land — Relation 
of  communal  to  individual  property — Social  effect  of  the  ukase — 
Peasant  proprietary  and  peasant  proletariat — Examples  of  the 
working  of  the  ukase — Land  reform  measures  other  than  the  ukase 
— ^Legislation  before  the  Third  Duma — Land  Reform  Committees  i 
— Effect  of  the  constitution  of  these — Interference  of  Ministry  of 
Interior — Operations  of  committees — Results. 


CHAPTER   X 

The  Agrarian  Situation  since  1906 347 

Hopes  of  the  peasantry — Improvement  in  agriculture — Disillusionment 
— Agrarian  leanings  of  the  First  Duma — Government  measures 
prepared  for  the  Third  Duma — Objections  to  these — Reactions  of 
the  agrarian  and  industrial  policy  of  the  Government — Changes  in 
wages  during  and  after  the  revolution— Standard  of  comfort  of  the 
peasants — Sub-letting  of  land — Rotation  of  crops — Self-contained      \ 

character  of   peasant  economy — Peasants'  budgets — Deficits In- 

solubiUty  of  Russian  agrarian  problem  on  the  terms  proposed  by 
the  Government  —  Provisional  conclusion  —  Awakening  of  the 
peasantry. 


CONTENTS  XV 

BOOK  VI 

INDUSTRIAL    DEVELOPMENT    UNDER    CAPITALISM 

PAOB 

Introduction 361 


J 


CHAPTER   I 

The  Factory  System  since  Emancipation        .        .        .        *  f   *    3^^ 

Immediate  effects  of  the  liberation  of  bonded  labour — Desertion  of  the 
workmen  from  the  factories — ^Temporary  return  to  the  land — The 
Ural  ironworks — Advance  of  wages — Different  conditions  in  tex- 
tile industry — Commercial  crisis  of  1857 — Stagnation  of  industry 
— The  cotton  famine — Austro-German  crisis  of  1873 — Railway  con- 
struction in  Russia — ^The  Franco -German  War — Arrest  of  railway 
construction — Russo-Turkish  War — Great  increase  of  production 
— Inflation  of  fiduciary  currency — Depression  of  trade  in  England, 
1 877-1 886 — Commercial  stagnation  in  Russia — Unemployment 
in  St.  Petersburg — Effect  upon  kustarni  industry  of  depression 
— Vigorous  trade  movement  of  1 895-1 896 — ^The  Don  ironworks — 
Price  of  coal  lands  advances — Increase  in  the  production  of  pig  iron 
— Great  industrial  expansion — Arrest  of  this  movement  in  1899- 
1900— Movements  of  population  and  economic  effects — Inferior 
harvests — Stagnation  in  cotton  industry — Financial  crisis — Capi- 
talistic development  and  its  consequences — Causes  of  this  develop- 
*  ment — Structural  changes  in  society — Foreign  capital — The  cotton 
trade — Knop — Immense  domestic  market  of  Russia — Effect  at 
railway  construction — The  protective  tariff  as  a  cause  of  industrial 
expansion — Views  of  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky — Marxist  views 
of  the  theory  of  markets — Important  growth  of  Russian  trade 
recent  and  fluctuating — Views  of  the  Narodnik  group — Proportion 
between  the  increase  of  industrials  and  the  increase  of  population 
— Concentration  of  factories — "  Mergers  " — Concentration  of  com- 
mercial capital. 


sj 


CHAPTER   II 
Wages 389 

Advance  in  price  of  labour  after  Emancipation — Cause  of  this  pheno- 
menon— Increase   of    cost   of    Uving — Effect   of   introduction   of 
machinery — Fall  of  wages — ^The  land  as  a  reservoir  for  labour — 
VOL.  n  h 


i 


xvi      ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

FAOE 

The  machine  as  a  "  separator  "  between  land  and  factory — Pro- 
portions of  temporary  absentees  in  different  industries — ^Workmen's 
contracts — Anomalous  position  of  peasant  workmen — Gradual 
emergence  of  a  proletariat — Vicious  circle  in  factory-land  economics 
— Schulze-Gavemitz's  scheme  of  the  process  of  factory-land 
evolution. 


J 


CHAPTER   III 

The  Housing  of  the  Working  People 397 

Increase  of  city  population — St.  Petersburg — Underground  dwellings, 
garrets  —  Unhygienic  conditions  —  Moscow  —  Conditions  among 
miners — Metallurgical  workers — Fishermen  of  the  Volga — Russian 
harvesters — Night  shelters — Factory  housing  enterprises. 

V  CHAPTER   IV 

Factory  Legislation 407 

Child  labour  in  factories — Special  commission  of  1859 — Project  of  a  law 
— Opposition  of  some  of  the  manufacturers — Commission  of  the 
Ministry  of  Finance — Factory  inspectorship  and  court  for  the  settle- 
ment of  industrial  disputes  suggested — Sanitary  measure  of  1 866 — 
Imperfect  enforcement  of  this  law — Project  of  Kolbe  in  1 867 — Com- 
mission of  1870 — Congress  of  mechanical  engineers  in  1875  and 
the  Imperial  Technical  Society  in  1874  take  an  interest  in  the 
question — Principal  points — Great  length  of  working  day  and  em- 
ployment of  children — Eventual  legislation  in  1882 — Division  of 
opinion  between  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  manufacturers,  the 
latter  advocating  laisser  faire — Acts  of  1884  and  1886 — Effect  of 
the  depression  of  trade  upon  the  legislation — Improvement  of  trade 
leads  to  agitation  to  amend  factory  legislation — Act  of  1890,  retro- 
gressive— Acjfcs  of  1897  and  of  1898. 


i 


CHAPTER   V 

The  Labour  Movement  since  Emancipation 413 

The  consequences  of  Emancipation  to  the  artisan — Migration  from  rural 
to  urban  districts — Scarcity  of  capital — Continuation  of  pre-Eman- 
cipation  methods — Strikes — Increasing  discontent  and  disaffection 
— 1 870-1 880 — Appeals  to  the  Crown  Prince  (afterwards  Alexander 
III) — Sympathetic  strikes — General  Trades  Union  proposed — ^The 
General  Russian  Workers'  Union — The  North  Russian  Workers' 
Union — First  efforts  of  the  Social  Democratic  Party  towards  the 


CONTENTS  xvii 

PAGE 

leadership  of  the  working  class — Attempts  of  intelligentsi  to 
organize  unions — Factory  Acts — Factory  inspection — ^Labour  or- 
ganization driven  underground  during  period  of  reaction — Strike 
movement  of  the  eighties — New  legislation — Improvement  in  trade 
and  quiescence  in  labour — Political  forces  begin  to  influence  the 
labour  movement — Formation  of  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's 
Clubs — "  The  St.  Petersburg  Union  for  the  Struggle  for  the  Emanci- 
pation of  the  Working  Class" — General  strike  in  St.  Petersburg 
textile  industry — Extension  of  organization — Formation  of  Russian 
Social  Democratic  Working  Men's  Party  in  1897 — ^The  friendly 
society  or  mutual  assistance  movement — Reasons  for  its  late  ap- 
pearance in  Russia — Earhest  examples — Jewish  societies — ^The 
Hevra — Characteristics  of  Russian  retail  trade  —  Salesmen's 
societies — Friendly  societies  in  metal  industries — Aid  by  the  State 
— Miners'  societies — Compulsory  payment  by  employers  of  cost  of 
medical  attendance  upon  workmen — Cessation  of  contributions  by 
employers  to  mutual  assistance  funds — Friendly  societies  in  the 
Ural  Mountains — Societies  of  railway  servants — Government 
control  of  labour. 


v/ 


CHAPTER   VI 

Employers'  Associations 429 

The  "  trust  "  movement — HoUday  rests — Effect  of  the  political  situa- 
tion in  1906 — The  lock-out — Polish  nationaUsm  and  the  labour 
movement — Sectional  development  of  employers'  associations — ^The 
Moscow  manufacturers — Lodz  and  Vitebsk — Imitation  of  the  Ger- 
man Kartel — Effect  on  the  trade  union  movement. 


BOOK   VII 

THE    REVOLUTIONARY    MOVEMENT    IN    RUSSIA,    1 903-1 907 
Introduction • 437 


CHAPTER    I 

The  General  Strike  in  South  Russia  in  1903        ....    443 

First  signs  of  turbulence  provoked  by  a  minor  immediate  cause — Strikes 
of  2nd  November  1902 — Economical  demands — Social  Democratic 
agitation — Great  public  meetings — Denunciations  of  the  autocracy 


xviii     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

I 

— Perplexity  of  the  authorities — Pohtical  meetings  in  the  spring 
of  1903 — General  strike — Stagnation  of  life  in  the  cities — Activity 
of  the  Social  Democrats — Zubdtov's  agents — Odessa — Baku — 
Large  meetings — Attacks  by  Cossacks — Working  men's  views  upon 
the  Government — Gradual  rise  of  revolutionary  spirit — L'action 
directe — Relation  of  the  socialist  parties  to  the  strike  movement. 


CHAPTER   II 

The  Movement  of  Father  Gapon 451 

Personality  of  Gapon — Similarity  of  Gapon's  ideas  to  those  of  Zubdtov 
— Attitude  of  the  police  towards  Gapon's  movement — Gapon 
founds  his  society — Its  constitution — Failure  of  Gapon  to  enlist 
sjnnpathy  of  working  men — Aid  given  to  him  by  a  small  group  of 
"  influential  working  men  " — Constituents  of  Gapon's  movement 
— Rapid  growth — Epoch  of  lectures  and  discussions — Absence  of 
intelligentsia — Discordant  elements — Social  Democratic  influence — 
Women  members — The  "  Spring  "  of  Prince  Svyatopolk-Mirsky — 
The  Zemstvo  petitions — Desire  for  imitation — Critical  position  of 
Gapon — Change  of  policy — Gapon  no  longer  leader  but  reluctant 
follower — Political  character  of  the  movement — Attitude  of  the 
Social  Democrats  and  the  Socialist  Revolutionaries  towards  Gapon 
— Strike  at  the  Putilovsky  Works — Numerous  strikes  in  St.  Peters- 
burg— Gapon  forced  to  agree  to  a  demonstration  and  to  the  pre- 
sentation of  a  petition — Numbers  of  adherents  of  Gapon's  society 
— The  9th  of  January  1905 — The  demonstration — ^The  processions 
attacked  by  troops — ^The  "  Gaponiade  " — End  of  Gapon — Psycho- 
logy of  the  movement — Criticism  of  the  action  of  the  authorities 
— Attempts  to  rehabilitate  the  autocracy  in  the  public  opinion  of 
Europe — Significance  of  the  Gapon  movement — Political  effect  of 
the  action  of  the  Government. 

Appendix  to  Chapter  II ,.        .        .    468 


J 


CHAPTER   III 

The  Strike  Movement  in  Russia  in  1905 475 

General  sketch — Infrequency  of  strikes  in  Russia  prior  to  1905 — 
Statistics  of  the  strikes  of  1905 — Schidlovsky  committee — Arrest 
of  working  men  electors — Spasmodic  character  of  strike  movement 
— Its  significance — Rise  of  poUtical  thought  among  working  men — 
Clamour  for  a  Constituent  Assembly — Legislation  upon  strikes. 


y 


CONTENTS  xix 


CHAPTER   IV 

^  PAGB 

The  General  Strike  of  October  1905 481 

Moscow  engine-drivers  initiate  strike — Rapid  progress  of  strike  all  over 
Russia — Complete  cessation  of  movement  of  population  and  goods 
and  stagnation  of  life  in  towns — Government  and  bank  of&cials 
join  the  strike  movement — Its  political  character — Effect  on  local 
administration  in  Estland — Civil  servants,  financiers,  and  manu- 
facturers make  representations  to  the  Government — Effect  of  the 
strike  upon  foreign  trade — Business  reduced  to  confusion — Exten- 
sion of  the  terms  of  obligations — Destruction  of  credit — Significance 
of  the  strike — Organization  of  the  striking  mass — The  Council  of 
Working  Men's  Deputies — Its  Manifesto — Its  demands  upon  the 
Government — Arming  of  the  working  men — Relations  of  the 
Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  with  the  St.  Petersburg  Duma 
or  City  Council — Relations  of  the  Social  Democratic  Party  with 
the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies — The  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionary Party^ — ^The  dilemma  of  the  retail  shopkeepers — Incidents 
of  the  strike — Imitation  of  the  St.  Petersburg  Council  of  Working 
Men's  Deputies  throughout  the  country — ^The  question  of  publicity 
— ^The  printers  and  the  general  strike — Antagonistic  interests — The 
zenith  of  the  strike — The  Tsar's  Manifesto  of  17th  October  1905 — 
The  reception  of  the  Manifesto — Difficulty  of  securing  publicity  for 
it — Attacks  by  troops  on  the  i8th  October — Social  Democratic 
views  upon  the  Manifesto — Amnesty  demanded — Demonstration 
for  amnesty — Capitulation  by  the  Government — The  amnesty 
signed  on  the  same  evening — Ebb  and  flow  in  the  intensity  of 
popular  feeling — Conclusion  of  the  poUtical  strike ;  continuance 
of  economic  strikes — Reopening  of  factories,  &c. — Funerals  of  the 
victims  of  1 8th  October — Fear  of  counter-revolutionary  movement. 


CHAPTER   V 

Counter-revolution  in  i  905-1 906 499 

The  Union  of  Russian  People — The  Black  Hundreds — Counter-revolu- 
•  tionary  "  underground  "  printing  office — The  pogrom — Attempt  to 
excite  the  Russian  against  the  non-Russian  elements — Prince 
Uruzov's  exposure  of  pogrom  tactics — Constituents  of  the  Union 
of  Russian  People  and  of  the  Black  Hundreds — Assaults  upon 
working  men's  deputies  in  St.  Petersburg — Determination  to  form 
militant  drujini  for  defensive  purposes,  not  carried  into  effect — 
"  Party  "  drujini  employed  to  guard  deputies — General  arming  of 
working  men — Open  sale  of  arms  and  open  purchases  by  general 


xxii     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

PAGE 

Police  shot  by  revolutionaries — The  disarming  of  "  reservists  " 
— The  revolt  begins  to  subside — Presnya  Quarter — Heavy  bom- 
bardment— Surrender — The  toll  of  the  "  uprising  " — Shares  of  the 
revolutionary  parties — Conclusions  about  the  uprising. 

CHAPTER   XII 

The  Disturbances  in  the  Urals  in  1907 568^ 

Bogoslovsky  Mountain  Foundry — Terror  and  "  expropriations  " — Lvov 
— Guerilla  warfare — Communications  interrupted — Reaction  against 
Lvov — The  "  Syetch  "  in  the  mountains — Capture  of  Lvov  and 
cessation  of  disturbances. 

CHAPTER   XIII 

The  Political  Police,  A2efshina,  and  the  Collapse  of  the  Terror     572 

Ambiguous  role  of  the  police  in  political  and  revolutionary  movements 
— ^The  system  of  espionage  and  provocation — The  political  police — 
The  case  of  Sudeikin — Russian  police  abroad — ^The  spy  Azef — 
Details  of  his  career — His  varied  activity — Catalogue  of  his  alleged 
crimes — Official  communiqui — Lopukhin — Bakaya — Burtsev — Dis- 
covery of  the  treachery  of  Azef — Net  results  of  the  episode — Ad- 
missions and  denials  of  M.  Stolypin — General  conclusions  upon  the 
revolutionary  movement 
/ 


J 


CHAPTER    XIV 

The  "  Intelligentsia  "  and  the  Revolution 585 

Ambiguity  of  the  expression  intelligentsia — Constituents  of  the  group — 
The  intelligentsia  in  the  Zemstvo — ^The  "  righting  of  the  Zemstvos  " 
— Failure  of  the  intelligentsia  to  effect  reforms — Social  reasons  for 
this  feiilure — Views  of  Tugan-Baranovsky — Contrast  between 
Russian  and  Western  European  society — Reasons  for  the  adoption 
of  socialist  views  by  the  intelligentsia — Detachment  of  the  intel- 
lectual Russian — Self-criticism  by  intelligentsia — Vyekhe — Future 
of  sociaUsm. 


597 


Epilogue 

Appendix  to  Book  VII ,        .        .  600 

Diagram  of  the  Strike  Movement 6oi 

Note 602 

Glossary 603 

Index 605 


BOOK    IV 

MODERN  POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  REVOLU- 
TIONARY MOVEMENTS  IN  RUSSIA  PRIOR 
TO    1903 


VOL.  II 


INTRODUCTION 

While  terroristic  phases,  or  phases  during  which  the  political  or 
social  order  is  sought  to  be  overturned  by  violent  means,  are  fre- 
quent, if  not  invariable  concomitants  of  revolution,  Russian  revolu- 
tionary movements  throughout  their  history  have  been  peculiarly 
characterized  by  violence.  This  circumstance  may  be  attributed 
largely  to  the  racial  antagonisms  which  have  excited  or  have  con- 
tributed to  the  revolutionary  movements  ;  but  it  appears  also  to  be 
due  to  certain  characteristics  of  the  Slavic  peoples.  Conspicuous 
among  these  characteristics  is  the  combination  of  immense  patience 
and  of  impulsiveness.^  The  Russian  is  capable  of  endurance  of 
wrong  to  an  extreme  degree ;  but  when  accumulated  grievances 
reach  a  certain  point,  they  become  unbearable  to  him,  and,  yielding 
to  impulses  normally  foreign  to  his  kind  and  amiable  disposition,  he 
may  exact  immediate  and  sometimes  dreadful  reckoning.^  This 
characteristic  is  supplemented  by  another  which  makes  its  appear- 
ance in  the  most  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  but  which  on  acute  occasion 
becomes  most  impressive,  viz.  the  habit  of  pursuing  an  object  with 
remorseless  logic,  regardless  of  consequences,  without  delay  and 
without  compromise.  Disregard  of  consequences  has  indeed  been 
elevated  in  Russia  to  the  dignity  of  a  principle  of  morals.  The  habit 
of  disregarding  consequences  may  not  inappropriately  be  considered 
as  a  sign  of  youthfulness,  feminism,  or  optimism  in  the  people  who 
practise  it. 

Mature  life  is  a  series  of  compromises,  primitive  life  in  societies 
and  juvenile  life  in  the  individual  are  remorselessly  logical.  Thus 
whenever  the  mature  minds  in  a  society  become  inactive,  and  the 

1  The  characteristic  of  impulsiveness  is  attributed  by  the  Russian  anthro- 
pologist Ivanovsky  to  the  weakness  of  the  controlling  centres.  He  con- 
siders that  the  Russian  temperament  is  more  impulsive  than  that  of  Western 
Europeans.  See  Psychological  and  Philosophical  Questions  (Moscow  Psycho- 
logical Society). 

*  Also  noticed  by  Ivanovsky  {op.  cit.).  Russian  peasants  still  torture  horse 
thieves  ;  and  in  the  Caucasus  they  sometimes  obliterate  the  Kurdish  villages. 

3 


4         ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

youth  of  society  alone  represents  vigour,  recrudescence  of  violence 
is  likely  to  occur.^  Intellectual  decay  in  aristocracy  and  bourgeoisie 
is  the  almost  invariable  precursor  of  reform  and  of  revolutionary 
movements.2 

The  primitive  attitude  of  mind,  partly  habitual  and  partly 
reverted  to  at  intervals,  on  occasion  leads  under  the  stress  of 
widespread  emotion  to  the  execution  in  primitive  forms  of  what  is 
regarded  as  justice.  For  example,  the  adoption  by  the  Novgoro- 
dians  in  the  fifteenth  century  of  the  earlier  form  of  punishment  by 
"  flood  and  pillage,"  ^  was  a  reversion  of  this  kind,  and  it  is  permis- 
sible to  regard  the  pillaging  of  estates  by  the  peasants  in  1902  and  in  ' 
1905,  as  well  as  the  pogroms  against  the  Jews  in  1903,  as  being  the 
outcome  of  the  same  attitude. 

The  social  disintegration  of  which  in  these  historical  examples 
the  peasants  were  in  some  measure  made  the  victims,  appears  to  have  \ 
induced  them  to  fall  back  upon  primitive  methods  of  punishing 
alleged  wrong-doers,  a  usual  result  of  individual  or  social  psycholo- 
gical tempests.*  These  orgasms,  though  sometimes  terrible  in  their 
intensity,  have  usually,  in  the  case  of  Russian  revolutionary  move- 

1  This  appears  to  apply  to  all  societies,  of  whatever  kind  and  magnitude, 
and  to  all  races.  In  France,  e.g.,  those  who  played  a  leading  part  in  the 
Revolution  and  its  consequences  were,  for  the  most  part,  young  men.  In 
1789  Danton,  Robespierre,  Desmoulins,  Tallien,  and  many  other  conspicuous 
figures  were  under  thirty  years  of  age  ;  Napoleon  was  twenty-seven  when  he 
received  the  command  of  the  army  in  Italy.  Nearly  all  the  leaders  of  the 
revolutionary  movements  in  Paris  in  1830,  in  1848,  and  in  1871  were  also 
young  men  of  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  years  of  age.  Within  the  revolu- 
tionary ranks  even,  youth  counts  for  much,  partly  because  the  fundamental 
idea  of  revolution  involves  rebellion  against  authority,  and  the  "  old  men  " 
of  revolutions  soon  lose  their  prestige.  (Louis  Blanc,  e.g.,  was  in  his  prime 
in  1848-;  he  was  an  "old man"  in  1871.)  For  an  interesting  account  of  this 
characteristic  in  Russian  revolutionary  ranks,  see  Debogoriy-Mokrievich 
(Reminiscences,  St.  Petersburg,  1906,  p.  584).  That  the  peasant  revolts  in 
Russia  in  1 902-1 903  and  in  1 905-1 906,  as  well  as  the  risings  in  the  cities,  were 
led  or  chiefly  participated  in  by  young  men,  is  shown  infra,  p.  331.  In  China 
the  Boxer  movement,  which  was  essentially  revolutionary,  was  characterized 
by  the  extreme  youth  of  many  of  its  adherents  (c/.  Smith,  A.  H.,  China 
in  Convulsion  (Edinburgh,  1901),  i.  p.  172).  The  apparent  connection 
between  increase  in  the  influence  of  youth  and  the  recrudescence  of  violence 
in  recent  years  throughout  Western  Europe  and  in  America  is  acutely  dis- 
cussed by  M.  Paul  de  Rousiers  in  "  Les  Solutions  Violentes  "  in  La  Science 
Sociale  (Paris,  September  1909). 

2  Cf.  Sorel,  Georges,  on  the  decadence  of  the  bourgeoisie  in  Riflexions  sur 
la  Violence  (Paris,  1910),  pp.  91  et  seq. 

3  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  32. 

*  So  also  the  feminist  terrorism  in  England  in  1912-1913. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

ments,  been  brief  in  their  duration.  It  is  indeed  impossible  for  the 
nervous  system  to  sustain  a  long-continued  strain  of  this  kind.  Thus 
among  the  peasants,  after  the  storm  of  passion  was  exhausted,  the 
results  of  the  pillage  were,  in  frequent  cases,  returned,  the  peasants 
calmly  awaiting  the  decision  of  the  Duma  on  the  whole  question  of 
their  grievances,  and  reverting  to  their  habitual  mode  of  life  although 
their  relations  with  the  landowners  had  changed  sharply.  So  also 
after  the  Jewish  pogroms,  when  the  fury  of  the  moment  had  spent 
itself,  Christian  and  Jew  alike  settled  into  their  normal  state  of 
quiescence. 

The  conduct  of  the  Government  at  various  epochs  is  not  dis- 
similar. Reduced  to  panic  by  widespread  disaffection,  the  func- 
tionaries resort  to  measures  of  great  severity,  suspend  or  neglect  all 
processes  of  law,  and,  reverting  like  the  peasants  to  a  primitive  atti- 
tude of  mind,  commit  needlessly  acts  of  indiscriminate  cruelty  ;  and 
then,  when  the  passion  of  the  moment  has  been  expended,  they  some- 
times offer  unprecedented  concessions.  The  history  of  the  early  Slavs, 
of  the  later  Russians,  as  well  as  that  of  the  non-Russian  elements,  is 
a  history  of  frequent  clashing  of  economical  and  political  interests, 
with  intermittent  outbreaks  of  violence  among  peoples  racially 
widely  divergent  and  very  prolific,  and  frequent  antagonism  between 
the  rulers  and  their  immediate  entourage,  the  mass  of  the  people 
being  drawn  only  from  time  to  time  directly  into  the  latter  conflicts, 
although  they  were  at  all  times  implicated  in  the  larger  issues  which 
these  conflicts  involved.  Warfare  for  centuries,  urged  with  deter- 
mined bitterness,  and  often  accompanied  by  unrestrained  cruelty,  has 
left  deep  traces  in  the  character  of  the  people. 

The  revolutionary  spirit  has  not  only  frequently  been  inspired  or 
intensified,  it  has  often  been  distracted,  by  racial  antagonisms.^ 
Even  the  autocracy  is  more  considerate  of  Russian  than  of  non- 
Russian  elements.  The  tendency  on  the  part  of  individuals  and 
of  governmental  authorities  alike  to  proceed  rapidly  to  violent 
action,  without  thought  of  ulterior  reactions,  seems  to  be  due  to 
these  fundamental  characteristics,  deepened  and  strengthened  as 
they  have  been  by  centuries  of  conflict. 

On  these  grounds,  therefore,  it  is  not  surprising  that  dislike  of 

^  Particularism  has  been  a  source  of  weakness  in  all  the  revolutionary 
movements.  There  are,  e.g.,  separate  Polish,  Little  Russian,  Finnish,  and 
other  oppositional  parties. 


6         ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

governmental  policy,  after  long  endurance  of  its  arbitrary  character, 
should  lead  to  immediate  and  summary  violence  towards  the  in- 
struments of  it,  and  that  such  violence  should  in  turn  lead  to  violent 
action  by  the  authorities,  and  this  again  to  reprisals,  and  so  on. 
Count  Leo  Tolstoy's  propaganda  against  all  violence,  though  impos- 
sible of  complete  success,  partly  because  of  the  incompatibility  of 
meekness  and  government,  and  partly  because  of  the  struggles  in- 
cident to  increase  of  population  and  to  contact  of  different  races,  is, 
nevertheless,  based  upon  a  profound  appreciation  of  the  character 
of  the  Russian  people,  and  of  the  source  at  once  of  their  strength  and 
of  their  weakness. 

While  the  growth  of  the  autocratic  power  in  Russia  has  been  very 
gradual,  and  while  that  power  has  been  greatly  intensified  in  com- 
paratively recent  times,  it  is  evident  that  at  no  period  of  its  history 
could  that  power  have  been  overthrown  without  violence.  It  is  also 
evident  that  the  autocracy  owed  its  existence  primarily  to  the  numer- 
ousness  of  the  races  by  which  its  seat  of  power  was  surrounded,  and 
secondarily  to  the  numerousness  of  the  races  over  which  it  ruled. 
It  has  owed  its  historical  justification  to  the  circumstance  that  con- 
temporary conditions  made  it  appear  as  though  only  through  the 
autocracy  could  the  political  unity  of  the  heterogeneous  groups  be 
secured.  So  long  as  there  was  in  progress  the  process  of  welding,  for 
the  most  part  by  violent  means,  these  different  elements  into  a  poli- 
tical whole,  it  was  impossible  to  permit  the  controlled  groups  to 
share  in  the  task  of  government ;  at  all  events  it  was  impossible 
within  the  limits  of  the  political  insight  of  the  autocratic  rulers,  or 
even  of  their  contemporary  critics,  such  as  they  were.  The  revolu- 
tionary ideas  which  from  about  the  sixteenth  century  began  to  affect 
Europe  were  thus  late  in  affecting  Russia.  The  Protestant  Revolu- 
tion of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  which  deeply 
affected  Western  Europe,  affected  Russia  not  at  all ;  and  the  revolu- 
tionary ideas  and  events  of  the  eighteenth  century  touched  her 
somewhat  tardily.  Antagonism  to  the  ruling  order,  with  occasional 
outbursts  of  violence,^  had  been  chronic ;  but  the  spirit  of  revolt 
against  absolutism  was  not  really  aroused  in  Russia  until  more  than 

^  For  early  revolutionary  movements,  see,  e.g.,  Kluchevsky,  Course  of 
Russian  History  (Moscow,  1908) ;  for  the  period  1 584-1614,  see  Waliszewski, 
La  Crise  R^olutionnaire  (Paris,  1906) ;  for  the  rebellion  of  Pugachev  (1773), 
see  infra,  chap.  ii.  The  Cossack  and  peasant  revolt  of  1 773-1 775  were 
revolutionary  movements,  but  they  were  not  revolts  against  absolutism. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

thirty  years  after  the  French  Revolution.  Katherine  II  had  co- 
quetted with  liberal  ideas,  and  had  initiated  discussion  and  investi- 
gation of  the  "  condition  of  the  people  question  "  ;  but  she  had 
abandoned  liberalism  with  characteristic  decision  whenever  she 
found  that  its  progress  might  impair  her  own  power.  Alexander  I 
in  the  beginning  of  his  reign  had  been  influenced  by  liberal  ideas  ; 
but  he  also  speedily  turned  his  back  upon  them.  Up  till  the  period 
of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  even  the  most  highly  educated  of  the  Russian 
upper  class  had  little  contact  with  Western  Europe,  and  the  mass 
of  the  people  had  none.  The  revolutionary  movement  in  Russia 
towards  the  political  and  social  ideas  of  Western  Europe  is  thus  a 
distinctively  modem  phenomenon.  It  is  coincident  with  the  rise 
of  capitalistic  industry.  The  emphasis  of  the  social  as  distin- 
guished from  the  political  features  separates  it  in  a  certain  measure 
from  all  previous  revolutions.  Social  disintegration  has  no  doubt 
preceded  or  accompanied  all  outbreaks  against  authority ;  but 
political  changes  have  frequently  satisfied  the  demand  for  change, 
and  the  social  relations  have  in  effect  remained  undisturbed.  The 
revolutionary  movement  in  Russia  during  recent  years  has  been 
otherwise  characterized.  It  is  true,  as  the  following  details  disclose,") 
that  the  industrial  and  social  movement  has  exhibited  a  tendency  to( 
"  pass  over  "  into  a  political  movement ;  but  it  has  also  been  very 
evident  that  no  political  change  which  was  not  accompanied  by  j 
profound  social  readjustments  would  be  likely  to  produce  any  serious  ^ 
effect.  The  reason  for  this  lies  deep  in  the  history  and  in  the  present  \ 
condition  of  the  Russian  people. 


CHAPTER   I 

ABSOLUTISM    VERSUS  REVOLUTION 

Ivan  III  (the  Great,  1462-1505)  is  regarded  as  the  founder  of  Russian 
autocracy,^  because  during  his  reign  what  remained  of  the  primitive 
democracy  of  medieval  Russia  was  destroyed.  The  "  free  towns  " 
were  drawn  or  forced  into  the  imperial  sphere  through  abolition  of 
their  privileges  and  the  subordination  of  their  princely  houses  ;  and 
the  princes  of  the  appanages  were  subjected  to  the  Moscow  State. 
Moreover,  the  Tsar,  on  his  marriage  to  Sophia,  grand-daughter  of 
Manuel  (II)  Palaeologus,  Emperor  of  the  East,  advanced  the  preten- 
sion of  succession  to  the  Roman  Emperors  in  the  leadership  of  Greek 
orthodoxy ,2  and  in  the  defence  of  Christian  Europe  against  pagan 
Asia.3  The  subjection  of  the  appanage  princes  and  the  rule  which 
compelled  them  to  reside  within  the  limits  of  Moscow,*  brought  the 
hoyars  to  court,  but  did  not  necessarily  bring  them  to  council. 
Ivan  III  did  not  in  fact  habitually  consult  his  hoyars  ;  he  acted  on 
his  own  initiative,  taking  advice  from  "  self-made  men  "  ^  who  sur- 
rounded the  throne.  The  old  Boyarskaya  Duma  was  altered  in  its 
character,*  and  after  the  accession  of  Ivan  IV  a  new  council — the 
Sohor — came  into  existence,  composed  of  those  Moscow  groups  which 
were  disposed  to  aid  in  the  aggrandisement  of  the  power  of  the  Tsar, 
including  a  considerable  number  of  the  clergy."^  Many  of  the  ancient 
noble  families  refused  to  attend  the  Moscow  court  and  to  reside 

^  Kovalevsky,  M.,  Russian  Political  Institutions  (Chicago,  1902),  p.  40. 

2  Ibid. 

3  On  the  role  of  the  later  Roman  Emperors  as  defenders  of  Europe 
against  Asia,  see  the  suggestive  remarks  of  Professor  Bury,  History  of  the 
Later  Roman  Empire,  vol.  ii.  p.  536.  The  tribal  groups  of  early  Russia  had, 
centuries  earlier,  played  a  considerable  part  in  this  struggle.  During  the 
period  when  the  Roman  Empire  was  immune  from  their  attacks,  they  were 
themselves  engaged  in  formidable  conflicts  with  Asiatic  hordes.  Cf.  supra, 
vol.  i.  pp.  8-9. 

*  As  the  Shoguns  compelled  the  Daimios  of  Japan  to  reside  in  Tokyo. 
^  Kovalevsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  42. 

"  Cf.  ibid.     Its  functions  became  less  political  and  more  judicial. 
'  Cf .  ibid. 


ABSOLUTISM    VERSUS  REVOLUTION     9 

within  its  precincts.  They  preferred  to  suffer  the  loss  of  their  estates 
and  to  emigrate  to  Poland.^ 

There,  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  Polish  nobility  to  establish 
serfdom,  and  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  Latin  clergy  to  suppress 
Greek  orthodoxy,  led  to  flights  of  peasants.  Meanwhile  the  growth 
of  serfdom  in  the  Moscow  State  was  producing  similar  flights.  The 
two  streams  of  fleeing  peasants  met  and  formed  bands,  armed  for  de- 
fensive and  offensive  purposes.  The  d5dng  out  of  the  KaUta  dynasty 
and  the  unsuccessful  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Godunovs  to  estab- 
lish a  new  one  led  to  the  absence  of  a  masterful  hand.  Absolutism 
imder  these  conditions  was  impossible,  and  anarchy  supervened. 

During  the  period  of  anarchy  the  question  of  choosing  a  new 
Tsar  brought  into  relief  the  conditions  under  which  the  new  Tsar 
must  accept  his  high  office.  To  begin  with,  the  hoyars  agreed  that 
the  new  Tsar  should  be  a  foreigner,  that  he  should  uphold  the  Or- 
thodox Church,  that  he  should  acknowledge  the  right  of  the  hoyars 
to  counsel  the  Tsar,  and  that  there  should  be  held  a  general  assembly 
of  the  people — the  Zemsky  Sobor.^  Vladislav,  son  of  Sigismund  of 
Poland,  accepted  these  terms  ;  but  the  conduct  of  the  Poles  and  the 
rising  spirit  of  the  Russians  brought  his  brief  reign  to  an  end,  and 
after  prolonged  intrigues  Mikhail,  the  first  Romanov,  was  elected  by 
the  hoyars.  That  Mikhail,  who  was  only  sixteen  years  of  age  at  his 
accession,  accepted  the  throne  with  conditions,  there  seems  to  be  no 
doubt,  but  what  these  conditions  were  is  not  definitely  known.  It 
is  clear,  however,  that  they  included  concessions  to  the  hoyars  by 
whom  and  by  the  Cossacks  he  was  elected. »  In  the  early  years  of 
the  reign  of  Mikhail  the  Zemsky  Sobor,  or  popular  assembly,  was 
frequently  summoned  in  order  that  money  might  be  granted  to  the 
Tsar  ;  but  later,  when  his  father,  Philaret  Romanov,  returned  to 
Russia  from  Poland,  his  influence  came  to  be  felt,  and,  in  the 
interests  of  his  son,  he  seems  to  have  prevented  the  Sohori  from 
being  summoned.^  For  a  time  Russia  was  a  theocracy,  the  Patriarch 
having  power  at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  Tsar,  and  reigning 
with  him. 

*  Cf.  Kovalevsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  47. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  58.  This  general  popular  assembly  was  not  an  indigenous 
Russian  institution.  It  seems  to  have  been  suggested  by  the  existence 
of  a  similar  institution  in  the  PoUsh-Lithuanian  kingdom  (cf.  ibid.).  On  the 
Zemsky  Sobor,  see  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  42,  &c. 

^  Kovalevsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  61. 


lo       ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Although  the  Tsar  Alexis,  the  son  of  Mikhail,  does  not  seem  to 
have  entered  into  any  pacta  conventa,  yet  the  Zemsky  Sobor  was  con- 
vened to  confirm  the  act  of  coronation,  and  later  was  called  to  codify 
the  law,  and  to  advise  concerning  the  method  of  dealing  with  insur- 
rectionary movements.^  In  all  these  matters  at  this  time  its  influ- 
ence was  recognized,  but  later  it  fell  into  decay ;  and  during  the 
period  of  the  consolidation  of  the  Moscow  State,  the  personal  power 
of  the  Tsar  increased,  and  the  importance  of  the  Zemsky  Sobor 
diminished. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  in  the  processes  of  welding  numerous 
races  into  one  mass  and  of  forcing  the  reconciliation  of  divergent 
national  and  economical  interests,  the  highest  importance  should 
be  attached  to  the  principle  of  unity.  Cohesion  was  necessary  to 
enable  the  Russian  people  to  resist  the  pressure  of  the  Tartars, 
the  Poles,  and  the  Swedes,  and  unity  was  necessary  to  place  the 
nation  beyond  the  danger  of  internal  divisions  after  the  inroad 
of  the  moment  was  overcome.  This  notion  of  the  necessity  of  unity, 
and  of  its  corollary,  unanimity,  appears  to  be  quite  fundamental 
in  Russian  local  and  national  life.  In  the  village  as  in  the  State, 
dissent  must  not  exist.  Where  opinions  differ,  the  differences 
must  be  resolved.  People  must  not  agree  to  differ ;  they  must 
not  differ.  Thus  in  the  local  assemblies  decisions  must  be  unani- 
i ,  mous.2  The  "  sentence  "  must  be  the  "  sentence  "  of  the  whole 
ki  assembly.^  This  conception  of  the  cardinal  importance  of  unani- 
I  Ijmity  with  its  implications  may  be  regarded  as  the  principal  feature 
{Which  distinguishes  Russian  political  ideas  from  those  of  Western 
teurope. 

The  principle  of  unity  is  not  merely  a  political  conception. 
It  is  based  upon  a  theory  of  morals.  The  late  M.  Pobyedonostsev, 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  S5mod,  puts  this  quite  clearly  : 

"  Les  esprits  forts,  les  ^^rudits  pretendent :  *  I'^tat  n'a  rien 
k  voir  dans  I'^glise,  ni  I'Eglise  dans  I'foat '  ;  done  rhumanit6 
doit  6volver  en  deux  spheres,  de  telle  sorte  que  le  corps  aura  sa 
place  dans  Tune  et  Tesprit  dans  Tautre,  et  entre  ces  deux  spheres 
il  y  aura  I'espace  comme  entre  le  dpi  et  la  terre.     Cela  est-il  possible  ? 

^  Kovalevsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  68. 

*  In  the  Polish  Diet,  the  principle  of  individual  veto  prevented  the  passing 
of  any  but  unanimously  accepted  measures. 

*  For  an  exception  see  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  144. 


ABSOLUTISM    VERSUS  REVOLUTION     ii 

On  ne  peut  s6parer  le  corps  de  I'esprit ;  le  corps  et  I'esprit  vivent 
d'une  vie  unique,  inseparable.  .  .  .  Le  principe  moral  est  unique. 
II  ne  peut  etre  divis6  de  telle  fa9on  qu'il  y  ait  une  doctrine  de 
morale  privee  et  une  autre  de  morale  publique  ;  la  premiere  s6cu- 
liere,  la  seconde  religieuse.  .  .  .  L'feat  ne  peut  se  bomer  a  repre- 
senter  les  interets  materiels  de  la  societe,  car  alors  il  se  depouillerait 
lui-meme  de  sa  force  morale  et  d^truirait  son  union  spirituelle  avec 
la  nation.  Ce  n'est  qu'a  cette  condition  que  se  maintiendront 
dans  le  peuple  le  sentiment  de  la  legalite,  le  respect  de  la  loi  et  la 
confiance  dans  le  pouvoir.  .  .  .  Le  pouvoir  politique  est  appele 
a  agir  et  a  ordonner  ;  ses  actes  sont  des  manifestations  d'une 
volonte  unique  :  sans  cela,  aucun  gouvemement  n'est  possible."  ^ 

Although  it  is  conceivable  that  political  unification  of  disparate 
elements  should  be  accomplished  and  sustained  by  the  general 
will,  and  not  by  an  "  unique  will,"  the  necessity  of  unification,  in 
the  absence  of  demonstrative  manifestation  of  the  general  will, 
affords  the  appropriate  soil  for  the  growth  of  autocratic  power. 
In  one  of  its  aspects  the  history  of  Russia  is  the  history  of  the 
growth  of  autocracy  under  these  conditions.  The  **  inflexible 
will  "  2  Qf  the  Tsar  ^  is  "  the  unique  will."  He  is  at  once  head  of 
the  State  and  of  the  Church.  He  is  ordained  of  God  to  be  the 
arbiter  of  the  destinies  of  his  people.  While  absolutism  is  not  a 
peculiarly  Russian  phenomenon,  and  while  its  characteristics  in 
Russia  were  gradually  developed,  not  without  imitation  of  the 
models  of  Byzantium  and  of  Western  Europe  prior  to  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  the  fundamental  idea  of  it  was  not  out  of  harmony 
with  the  principle  of  unity  which  was  deeply  rooted  in  the  Russian 
mind  as  a  social  necessity  of  the  first  order.  The  difficulty  which 
the  Slavs  and  their  allies  experienced  in  making  themselves  masters 

^  Pobiedonostsev,  Questions  religieuses,  sociales  et  politiques  (Paris), 
pp.  10,  II,  17,  and  Z7- 

2  This  is  the  expression  employed  in  the  imperial  ukases.  It  is  used 
even  in  the  manifesto  of  17th  October  1905,  announcing  the  advent  of  liberty. 

'  According  to  Professor  Kluchevsky,  "  Tsar  "  is  an  abbreviated  South  Sla- 
vonic and  Russian  form  of  "  Caesar  "  or  Tsesare,  by  the  ancient  transcription 
Tsesare,  the  unaccented  e's  being  silent  in  both  transcriptions.  The  elision 
of  the  silent  letters  and  of  the  superfluous  5  gave  "  Tsar  "  as  an  abbreviation. 
See  Kluchevsky,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii.  p.  152.  The  title  of  the  sovereign  used  in 
internal  official  documents  in  the  rei^  of  Ivan  III  and  sometimes  in  that 
of  Ivan  IV  (the  Terrible)  is  Samoderjets,  which  is  the  Slavonian  translation 
of  the  title  avroKparup  used  by  the  Byzantine  Emperors.  (C/.  Bury,  J.  B., 
Later  Roman  Empire,  ii.  p.  173.) 


12       ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

of  the  vast  region  which  they  were  colonising  thus  led  perhaps 
inevitably  under  the  conditions  of  the  time,  internal  and  external, 
to  absolutism. 

Deficient  as  they  were  in  knowledge  of  the  social  and  political 
development  of  contemporary  France  and  England,  and  of  the 
impossibility  of  the  permanent  re-establishment  of  arbitrary  power 
in  the  West,  successive  Russian  Tsars,  from  Alexander  I  (1801- 
1825)  onwards,  and  most  conspicuously  Nicholas  I  (1825-55), 
seem  to  have  looked  upon  themselves  as  instruments  of  Heaven 
entrusted  with  the  high  task  of  stemming  the  revolutionary  tide. 
They  have  conceived  the  idea  that  popular  government  would 
be  fatal  to  Russia,  and  they  have  rightly  foreseen  that  if  it  were 
granted  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  its  advent  in  Russia  could  not 
for  long  be  delayed.  While  self-interest  thus  impelled  them  to 
observe  and  even  to  share  in  the  affairs  of  countries  other  than 
their  own,  they  no  doubt  honestly  conceived  that  popular  govern- 
ment would  be  as  fatal  to  these  countries  as  they  supposed  it  woiild 
be  to  Russia.  Consumed  with  a  desire  to  play  a  great  role  in  the 
history  of  humanity,  they  threw  themselves  in  1814,  in  1849,  ^^^ 
again  in  1854,  into  the  struggle  against  what  they  conceived  to  be 
the  spirit  of  revolution — in  1814  against  Napoleon  I,  in  1849  against 
Hungary,  and  in  1854  against  Napoleon  HI. 

So  early  as  1804  the  Tsar  Alexander  I  formulated  a  plan  for  a 
European  Confederation,  by  means  of  which  continental  wars 
would  be  rendered  impossible.  To  this  confederation  there  might 
be  submitted  "  the  positive  rights  of  nations,"  and  by  it  there  might 
be  drawn  up  "  a  new  code  of  the  law  of  nations."  Attempts  to 
infringe  this  code  "  would  risk  bringing  upon  "  the  nations  by 
whom  these  attempts  might  be  made  "  the  forces  of  the  new 
union."  ^ 

Although  this  project  was  formed  at  a  time  when  Alexander  I 
was  in  one  of  his  liberal  phases,  it  is  really  conceived  not  only  in 
an  anti-revolutionary  spirit,  but  even  in  an  anti-liberal  spirit. 
The  nations  were  to  be  confederated  under  a  code,  and  whoever 
attempted  to  infringe  the  provisions  of  the  code  was  to  suffer  the 

^  See  extract  from  despatch  of  nth  September  1804,  by  Alexander  I. 
containing  a  plan  for  a  European  Confederation  to  be  submitted  by- 
No  vossilzev,  the  Russian  Special  Envoy  to  Great  Britain.  Quoted  by  W.  A. 
Phillips  in  "  The  Congresses,  181 5-1822,"  in  The  Cambridge  Modern  History, 
X.  p.  3. 


ABSOLUTISM    FERSUS  REVOLUTION     13 

weight  of  the  forces  of  the  *'  new  union."  Clearly  such  a  con- 
federation might  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  crushing  a  movement 
like  the  French  Revolution,  and  for  the  re-establishment  of  ab- 
solutism on  a  firmer  basis  than  ever,  as  well  as  for  the  extinction 
of  small  nationalities  like  Belgium  and  Switzerland.^ 

Stein  no  doubt  accurately  represents  the  attitude  of  mind  of 
Alexander  I  when,  after  the  retreat  from  Moscow,  the  question 
arose  as  to  what  next  must  be  done.  Defensive  tactics  had  been 
so  far  successful,  and  Napoleon  had,  so  to  say,  committed  felo  de 
se.     But  should  such  tactics  continue  ? 

**  A  false  and  crafty  policy  or  ignorance  may  perhaps  counsel 
a  defensive  war,  destructive  to  the  armies  that  carry  it  on  and  the 
country  which  will  be  its  arena,  and  allowing  the  enemy  time  to 
avail  himself  of  all  the  resources  of  the  west  and  south  of  Europe. 
.  .  .  Such  timorous  and  unsound  notions  are  repugnant  to  the 
Emperor  Alexander's  noble  and  magnanimous  character ;  he  will 
choose  to  be  the  benefactor  and  pacificator  of  Europe,  as  he  has 
been  the  saviour  of  his  kingdom.  ...  He  will  offer  his  alliance  to 
Austria  and  Prussia,  and  it  will  be  accepted  with  gratitude  ;  he 
will  demand  that  England  form  an  army  .  .  .  which  may  con- 
tribute to  the  execution  of  these  plans,  and  in  co-operation  with 
that  Power  he  will  set  up  a  political  organization  in  Germany  which 
may  restore  to  the  nation  its  independence  and  put  it  in  a  con- 
dition to  withstand  France  and  secure  Europe  against  the  attempts 
of  the  violent  and  capricious  nation  which  inhabits  it."  ^ 

According  to  Stein  also,  the  Emperor  Alexander  I  "  was  set  by 
Providence  in  his  happy  and  splendid  position  to  be  a  benefactor 
to  the  present  generation."  ^  Stein's  view  of  unity  as  the  solvent 
for  contemporary  German  difficulties  is  substantially  the  same  as 
the  Russian  view.  "  The  old  rotten  forms  "  associated  with  the 
decaying  medieval  castles  and  the  private  jurisdictions  of  their 
possessors  must  go  down  before  the  idea  of  unity,  as  these  castles 
must  crumble  before  modern  artillery.     "  My  confession  of  faith  is 

1  It  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  suspicion  that  any  League  of  Peace  might 
have  an  outcome  of  this  kind.  Appreciation  of  this  danger  caused  the  smaller 
states  of  the  American  Union  to  resist  consohdation  between  1776  and  1789  ; 
and  their  influence  sufficed  to  prevent  union  in  the  strict  sense. 

2  Quoted   in   Seeley's  Life  and   Times  of  Stein  (Cambridge,    1878),   iii. 

p.  13. 

3  Ibid. 


14       ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

unity,  and  if  that  is  not  attainable,  then  some  shift,  some  transition 
stage."  ^  Throughout  all  this  there  is  definitive  association  between 
unity  and  absolutism,  between  the  fitting  together  into  one  whole 
of  the  national  elements  and  highly  centralized  autocratic 
government. 

The  penetrative  analysis  of  the  character  of  Alexander  I  by 
Mettemich^  throws  further  light  upon  the  mental  states  of  an 
absolute  monarch.  While  Katherine  II  was  in  her  liberal  phase, 
she  entrusted  the  education  of  Alexander  to  the  Swiss,  La  Harpe,^ 
who,  from  Metternich's  point  of  view,  filled  "  the  mind  of  his  pupil 
with  doctrines  wrong  in  themselves  and  ridiculous  in  their  ap- 
plication. .  .  .  Convinced,  no  doubt,  that  the  empire  which  his 
pupil  would  one  day  be  called  upon  to  govern  was  not  sufficiently 
advanced  in  civilization  to  bear  immediately  the  practice  of  these 
doctrines,  he  thought  of  preparing  in  the  future  autocrat  a  mighty 
lever  to  secure  the  upheaval  of  other  countries  which  he  considered 
more  ripe  for  the  purpose,  and  especially  his  own  fatherland, 
Switzerland." 

Metternich  relates  that  in  1805  Alexander  was  liberal  in  the 
largest  sense  of  the  word,  but  in  1807  "  a  great  change  came  over 
his  mode  of  thinking  "  ;  in  1812  he  reverted  to  his  former  liberal 
views,  which  in  1814  reached  their  highest  point.  He  was  then 
thirty-seven  years  of  age.  In  1815  he  became  a  religious  mystic  ; 
in  1817  he  reacted  from  mysticism  and  became  "  a  champion  of 
monarchic  and  conservative  principles  "  ;  in  1818  he  was  already 
on  his  way  back  to  mysticism.  In  1823  he  realized  that  not  only 
in  other  countries,  but  even  in  Russia,  revolutionary  opinions  were 
increasing,  and  that  those  who  were  beginning  to  suffer  for  them 
under  his  rule  might  fairly  "  reproach  him  with  having  been  the 
cause  of  their  error." 

When,  in  1849,  Nicholas  I  sent  two  army  corps  (40,000  men) 
to  help  Austria  to  suppress  the  Hungarian  revolution,  he  thought 

^  Quoted  in  Seeley's  Life  and  Times  of  Stein  (Cambridge,  1878),  iii. 
p.  17. 

*  Memoirs  of  Prince  Metternich,  1 773-1 81 5  (English  translation,  London, 
1880),  i.  p.  314  et  seq. 

*  For  La  Harpe's  account  of  his  pupil,  see  Le  Gouverneur  d'un  Prince. 
F.  C.  de  La  Harpe  et  Alexandre  I  (Paris,  1902).  See  also  for  La  Harpe's 
influence  upon  Alexander  I,  Semevsky,  V.  E.,  Peasant  Question  in  Russia 
in  the  Eighteenth  and  First  Half  of  the  Nineteenth  Centuries  (St.  Petersburg, 
1888),  i.  p.  236. 


ABSOLUTISM    VERSUS  REVOLUTION      15 

that  all  the  monarchs  in  Europe  should  recognize  him  as  the  bul- 
wark of  monarchical  power.  In  his  own  country  the  crushing  of 
the  incipient  revolutionary  movement  of  the  Dekabristi  in  the 
beginning  of  his  reign,  and  the  suppression  of  the  Polish  insurrec- 
tion in  1830,  had,  so  far  as  concerned  Russia,  stamped  out  the 
influences  of  the  French  Revolution  as  well  as  those  of  separatist 
national  ambitions. 

Although  the  causes  of  the  Crimean  War  were  very  complex, 
yet  one  important  factor  in  the  situation  which  immediately 
preceded  the  war  was  the  attitude  of  the  Tsar  Nicholas  I  towards 
Napoleon  III.  Not  only  did  he  look  upon  him  as  a  parvenu,  as 
belonging  to  the  scum  which  the  turmoil  of  the  Revolution  had 
thrown  to  the  surface,  but  he  looked  upon  him  as  representing 
the  Revolution,  and  as  the  ostentatious  advocate  of  oppressed 
nationalities.^  Moreover,  he  must  have  been  fully  aware  of  the 
fact  that  already  in  the  peasant  villages  the  people  were  talking 
of  a  war  which  was  to  be  waged  by  France  against  Russia  for  the 
purpose  of  emancipating  the  peasantry  from  bondage.^  Tradition 
and  policy  combined  to  provoke  the  Tsar  to  inflexibility ;  and 
ample  opportunity  was  given  to  Napoleon,  Stratford  de  Redclifle, 
and  Palmerston  to  embroil  England  and  France  with  Russia. 
The  consequences  of  the  war  to  Russia  were  manifold.  The  course 
of  events  was  not  unlike  that  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War.^  Military 
disasters  followed  one  after  another.  There  were  no  roads,  and 
the  means  of  transport  were  most  inadequate.  Ammunition  was 
deficient.  Exposures  of  the  incompetence  of  the  commanders  and 
of  the  ofiicers,  and  of  the  fraudulent  conduct  of  the  commissariat, 
infuriated  the  people  against  the  Government.  The  military 
system  and  the  Government  were  alike  discredited.* 

^  On  the  reasons  for  the  adoption  of  this  role  by  Napoleon  III,  see  Rose, 
J.  H.,  Development  of  European  Nations  (London,  1905),  p.  25.  When  a 
young  man  of  twenty-two.  Louis  Napoleon  was  on  his  way  to  join  the  Polish 
insurgents  in  1830,  when  he  was  met  in  Germany  with  the  news  of  the  sup- 
pression of  the  revolt. 

*  After  the  fall  of  Sevastopol  a  story  became  current  that  Napoleon  III 
had  stipulated  that  the  liberation  of  the  peasants  must  be  a  condition  of 
peace.  Cf.  Simkhovitch,  V.  S.,  "The  Russian  Peasant  and  the  Autocracy," 
in  Political  Science  Quarterly,  xxi.  p.  569. 

'  Russian  pubUc  men  of  all  shades  of  opinion  were  almost  unanimously 
in  favour  of  the  Crimean  War,  as  they  were  in  favour  of  the  Japanese  War. 
For  the  Russian  point  of  view,  see,  e.g.,  article  by  de  Martens  in  Vestnik 
Evropy,  1897. 

*  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  365. 


U> 


1 6     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

The  collapse  of  his  lofty  pretensions  was  deeply  mortifying  to  the 
pride  of  the  Tsar.  The  country  was  in  disorder,  but  the  Emanci- 
pation brought  new  hopes,  and  the  autocracy  entered  upon  another 
lease  of  power. 

The  Tsars  Alexander  II,  Alexander  III,  and  Nicholas  II  have 
2^so  played  a  Quixotic  part  in  tilting  against  windmills.  All  have 
jbeen  inspired  by  the  desire  to  exercise  and  to  bequeath  unimpaired 
to  their  successors  sole  autocratic  power  within  their  own  dominions, 
$,s  well  as  by  ambition  to  confer  the  benefits  of  autocracy  upon  other 
nations.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  some  of  them,  in  moments 
of  religious  exaltation,  have  regarded  themselves  as  being  in  very 
direct  relations  with  the  Divine  Power  and  as  sharing  in  its  attri- 
butes. The  touch  of  fanaticism  which  this  suggests  accounts  for 
the  vacillation  of  the  "  inflexible  will,"  for  the  general  benevolence 
of  intention,  for  frequent  lapses  into  barbaric  cruelty,  for  the  lack 
of  judgment  with  which  successive  Tsars  have  chosen  their  ad- 
visers, and  for  the  ardour  with  which  many  of  them,  notably 
Alexander  III,  endeavoured  to  control  every  department  of  Govern- 
ment down  to  the  smallest  detail. 

The  practice  just  mentioned  has  been  followed  by  the  present 

Tsar,  and  this  circumstance  accounts  in   a  large  measure   for  the 

confusion    in    which    the    administration    was    plunged    in    the 

revolutionary  years  of  1905-1906.     When  the  Tsar  held  himself 

/iresponsible  for  everything,  there  is  little  wonder  that  the  people 

/'also  held  him  responsible. 

The  effect  of  autocracy  in  detail  upon  the  duration  of  life  of  the 
Tsars  is  significant.  Omitting  Paul  I,  who,  after  a  reign  of  four 
years,  was  assassinated  by  a  group  of  palace  conspirators  in  1801, 
the  mean  age  at  death  of  the  four  remaining  Tsars  who  died  during 
the  nineteenth  century  was  only  fifty-four  years.  Alexander  II 
was  assassinated  at  the  age  of  sixty-three ;  Alexander  I  and 
Nicholas  I  died,  the  first  at  forty-eight  and  the  second  at  fifty-nine, 
for  want  of  the  will  to  live  ;  Alexander  III  died  at  forty-nine,  a 
nervous  wreck,  in  close  retirement.  Yet  all,  especially  the  last, 
were  physically  strong  men,  well  endowed  with  physical  courage. 
The  mean  period  of  their  reigns  was  23  J  years.  "  The  trade  "  ^ 
of  autocracy  is  an  exhausting  and  dangerous  business,  imposing  a 

^  The  phrase  alleged  to  have  been  applied  to  his  office  by  King  Humbert 
of  Italy  after  he  was  struck  by  his  assassin. 


ABSOLUTISM    VERSUS  REVOLUTION     17 

severe  strain  upon  the  physical  constitution  and  tending  to  the 
disturbance  of  mental  equilibrium. 

Autocracy  upon  a  small  scale  may  conceivably  be  successful 
in  maintaining  "  good  government,"  but  the  demands  of  a  numerous 
nation  of  manifold  racial  origins,  upon  an  autocrat  who  is  at 
once  priest,  soldier,  judge,  official,  and  "  first  policeman,"  tend 
to  become  cumulative  and  to  reach  beyond  the  endurance  of  the 
human  mind  or  body  on  their  present  plane.  An  ideal  Tsar  must 
not  merely  be  divinely  anointed — he  must  himself  be  indeed  a  god. 
When  an  autocrat  attempts  to  govern  an  empire  which  has  rapidly 
attained  a  population  of  150,000,000,  the  inherent  difficulties  of 

y       the  system   develop  into  impossibilities,   and  the   situation  ap- 

"^       preaches  an  impasse. 

The  history  of  the  movement  for  the  emancipation  of  the) 
peasantry  from  bondage  right  ^  shows  how,  autocratic  as  the  Tsar 
was,  the  real  foundation  of  the  autocracy  was  the  good-will  of  the  ^ 
landowning  gentry,  and  that,  if  this  good- will  were  forfeited,  the  \ 
stability  of  the  system  would  he  most  seriously  compromised. 
It  was  quite  indispensable,  therefore,  for  the  autocracy  to  con- 
-^   ciliate  the  gentry,  and  to  provide  for  the  carrying  out  of  emanci- 
pation and  other  reforms  without  permitting  any  of  the  cost  of 
these  to  fall  upon  them.     Emancipation  was  retarded  for  years, 
and  when  it  came  it  was  deprive3"  ofits  full  value  because  no  scheme 
could  be  devised  which  would  liberate  the  peasants  firom  'ffie 

'i    ^  authority  of  the  pomyetschek,  and  at  the  same  time  preserve  that 
'  authprity^  unimpaired.     In  the  immediate  interests  of  the  gentry ,''*^ 
and  in  the  ultimate  interests  of  the  autocracy.  Tsar  after  Tsar 

^^  attempted  this  impossible  task.  The  emancipation  of  the  peas- 
//  antry  and  the  maintenance  of  the  influence  over  them  of  the  gentry 
appeared  alike  to  be  necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  autocratic  state, 
and  they  were  incompatible.  In  the  early  ages  of  serfdom,  the 
Tsar  appeared  as  impartial  arbiter  between  the  peasant  and  his 
lord ;  but  as  the  discussions  upon  emancipation  proceeded,  it 
became  gradually  patent  that  there  was  a  fundamental  identity 
of  interest  between  the  autocrat  of  the  State  and  the  owner  of  the 
serf.  Government  and  serf-ownership  were  alike  autocratic.  As 
this  identity  of  interest  came  to  be  recognized,  the  recognition  was 
fatal  to  the  peasant  view  of  the  functions  of  the  Tsar  as  disinter- 

^  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  pp.  316  et  seq. 
VOL.  II  B 


1 8     ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

ested  arbiter ;  but  for  a  time  the  autocracy  succeeded  in  rehabili- 
tating itself  in  the  eyes  of  the  peasants  by  temporarily  assuming 
the  cost  of  emancipation.  The  peasants  were  ultimately  to  bear 
the  whole  burden,  but  the  financial  operations  were  facilitated  and 
enmncipatjonjwasjiaste^edj)^  the  Government.  The  relations  be- 
tween tEe  autocracy  and  thelanded  gentry  which  have  been  de- 
scribed account  for  the  almost  ferocious  bitterness  with  which  in 
successive  reigns  the  autocracy  has  borne  itself  towards  those  of 
the  gentry  who  have  exhibited  revolutionary  sympathies. 

Up  till  the  recent  revolutionary  epoch  popular  recognition  of 
the  impossibility  of  the  adequate  performance  of  the  traditional 
role  of  the  Tsarship,  as  weU  as  remnants  of  Caesar-worship  which 
lingered  among  the  simple  rural  folk,  combined  to  render  the  public 
attitude  towards  the  Tsar  one  of  large  tolerance.  **  The  Dear 
Father  ^  does  not  know  our  situation,  or  he  would  change  it,"  was 
the  popular  formula.  One  sign  of  the  great  change  which  has 
passed  over  Russia  during  recent  years  is  that  this  formula  is 
recognized  to  be  no  longer  applicable.  The  Tsar  must  know  what 
everyone  else  knows.  He  had  the  power  to  effect  radical  changes 
in  the  condition  of  the  peasantry ;  although  he  has  retained  this 
power,  he  has  not  exercised  it,  therefore  he  is  responsible.  Although 
from  the  peasant  point  of  view  the  present  Tsar  is  not  worse  than 
any,  perhaps  even  better  than  most,  of  his  predecessors,  his  failure 
only  proves  that  autocracy  is  worn  out  and  must  be  abolished. 

Thus  stage  by  stage  the  revolutionary  state  of  mind  develops. 
Private  grievances  and  difficulties  come  to  be  intermingled  with 
public  grievances  and  difficulties.  "  Lawlessness  "  ^  on  the  part 
of  the  Government  has  its  inevitable  counterpart  in  "  rightless- 
ness  "  on  the  part  of  the  people.  Gradually  class  after  class  comes 
to  be  infected  with  the  desire  for  drastic  political  change.  In 
countries  which  enjoy  the  advantages,  such  as  they  are,  of  repre- 
sentative and  "  responsible  "  government,  this  desire  is  expressed 
and  expended  in  the  polling  booths  ;  in  an  autocracy  it  can  only 
be  expressed  in  sullen  discontent,  or  expended  in  conspirative  or 
open  attacks  upon  the  representatives  of  authority. 

^  "  Dear  Father  "  represents  more  exactly  the  Russian  expression  than 
the  customary  "  Little  Father." 

2  As  in  procedure  by  administrative  order  instead  of  by  ordinary  process 
of  law. 


4 


ABSOLUTISM    FERSUS  REVOLUTION     19 

To  this  factor — the  desire  for  drastic  political  change — must  be 
added  the  fatalistic  habit  of  thought  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
Russian  mind  ;  once  the  necessity  of  change  is  realised,  it  must  take 
place  somehow  immediately.  The  practical  means  of  carrying  out 
any  change  are  not  really  considered,  nor  is  the  character  of  the 
change  itself  at  all  deeply  regarded.  The  means  might  have  to  be 
violent ;  who  might  know  ?  The  character  of  it  would  have  to  be 
left  to  the  people  to  determine  ;  who  might  know  the  result  ?  A 
*'  Constituent  Assembly  "  might  be  convened,  and  this  would  reveal 
"  the  will  of  the  people."  Such  was  the  state  of  mind  of  Russia  in 
1905. 

The  suppression  of  criticism  and  the  destruction  or  exile  of  the 
bearers  of  critical  intelligence  were  paid  for  heavily  in  the  confused 
and  haphazard  projects  which  the  Government  and  the  bolder 
publicists  now  began  to  advance.  All  this  fermentation,  trouble- 
some and  painful  as  it  must  be,  is  nevertheless  an  evidence  of  growth. 
It  means  that  the  lethargic  masses  of  the  Russian  people  were  shak- 
ing themselves  into  waking  life.  This  was  the  real  revolution — 
the  rousing  of  the  people  from  stagnation.  For  the  moment  their 
immediate  material  interests  sank  into  the  background ;  and  not 
until  the  necessity  of  caring  for  these  brought  the  people  back  to 
practical  exigencies  did  the  result  of  the  fermentation  become  a  new 
organic  part  of  the  national  life.  People  cannot  live  for  any  great 
length  of  time  at  white  heat.  Human  nerves  will  not  endure  in- 
definitely such  an  experience.  The  acute  stage  of  the  revolution 
through  which  Russia  passed  in  1905  and  1906  left  the  autocracy 
and  the  people  alike  in  a  state  of  nervous  exhaustion.  Like  the 
campaign  in  Manchuria,  the  conflict  was  not  fought  out  to  the  bitter 
end.  Neither  combatant  was  completely  defeated,  but  both  had 
gone  nearly  as  far  as  their  strength  at  the  time  permitted.  Although 
the  advantage  remained  with  the  autocracy,  the  people  gained 
much.  When  all  is  said,  and  the  reaction  notwithstanding,  Russia 
stands  now  upon  a  level  substantially  higher  in  point  of  political 
development  than  she  did  before  the  war  and  the  incomplete 
revolution  which  followed. 

In  all  great  revolutions  there  is  this  widespread  or  imiversal 
"  state  of  mind."  Distinct  from  it,  although  acquiring  their  force 
from  the  prevalence  of  the  revolutionary  state  of  mind,  are  the 
various  revolutionary  propagandas.     These  are  conducted  by  en- 


20     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

thusiasts  sometimes  numerically  insignificant,  sometimes  influenced 
largely  by  hysteria  ;  but  frequently  inspired  by  disinterested  love 
of  country  and  of  humanity.  With  the  uttermost  self-abnegation, 
these  enthusiasts  throw  themselves  against  authority,  well  knowing 
that  they  must  perish,  but  believing  that  the  blood  of  the  "  martyrs 
is  the  seed,"  not  in  their  case  of  the  Church,  but  of  liberty.  These 
enthusiasts  and  their  propagandas  of  action  or  education,  or  both, 
are  rather  the  result  of  the  revolutionary  state  of  mind  than  the 
cause  of  it ;  reaction  of  one  upon  the  other  being  of  course  constant. 
The  history  of  revolutionary  movements  must  therefore  be  con- 
sidered as  having  two  sides — the  history  of  the  emergence  and  de- 
velopment of  the  revolutionary  state  of  mind  and  the  history  of  the 
movements  considered  as  propagandas.  These  histories  are  so 
closely  related,  however,  that  they  must  for  the  most  part  be  told 
together. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   DISTURBANCES    AMONG    THE    COSSACKS    AND  THE 
PEASANTS   AND   THE   RISING   OF   PUGACHEV  (i773-i775)- 

Throughout  the  period  of  the  Kalita  dynasty  the  nomadic  tribes 
on  the  frontier  of  the  Moscow  State  continued  to  harass  the  settle- 
ments on  the  edge  of  the  steppe.  This  was  especially  true  of  the 
region  situated  immediately  to  the  south  of  Moscow — ^the  region 
of  Ryazan.  Here  peaceful  agriculture  was  impossible,  and  the  region 
could  be  occupied  only  by  wariike  people.^  ^^Bj^"""  ^^"'^  Hr^w 
to  itself  a  population  different  from  that  of  Moscow — a  population 
peculiarly  f^Hapfprl  fr>  frr>rif;^f  /^r^r,/^;^^,v>»o  From  an  early  period 
this  population  was  composed  of  two  elements — landless  people. 
who  were  accustomed  to  earn  their  own  Uving  upon  the  land  of 
others,  and  who  were  drawn  into  the  region  by  offers  of  high  wages, 
and  adventurous  people  who  liked  the  free  life  of  the  steppe,  who 
liked  to  fight,  and  who  preferred  to  live  partly  by  means  of  the 
military  pay  which  they  derived  from  the  Government  and  partly 
by  means  of  plunder  which  they  might  derive  from  their  defeated 
enemies.  Xhese-teo  elements  were  both  known  as  Ka^^gM  nr, 
Cossacks.^  While  such  elements  of  the  population  were  to  be  found 
from  early  times  and  in  every  part  of  the  Moscow  State,  they  make 
their  appearance  as  a  compact  localized  group  for  the  first  time  in 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  and  in  the  region  of  Ryazan.^ 
It  is  not  surprising  that  on  both  sides  of  the  indefinite  frontier,  people 
of  a  similar  character  should  be  found,  and  thus  there  were  Tartar 
as  well  as  Russian  Cossacks.  The  latter  were  Mohammedans,  and 
were  in  the  same  relation  to  the  Sultan  as  were  the  Russian  Cossacks 
to  the  Tsar.    The  Cossacks  on  both  sides  of  the  frontier  appear  to 

^  C/.  Soloviev,  History  of  Russia  from  the  Earliest  Times  (ed.  St.  Peters- 
burg, n.d.,  cir.  191 1),  vol.  v.  p.  1684. 

^  In  the  Teurki  group  of  languages  Kazak  means  bachelor,  and  in  its 
derived  Russian  form  it  meant  originally  a  man  without  a  settled  domicile. 

*  Cf.  Soloviev,  loc.  cit.,  and  Kluchevsky,  op.  cit.,  iii.  p.  132  (English  trans- 
lation, iii.  p.  107). 


22     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

have  been  mercenary  troops.  So  long  as  they  were  paid  and  were 
not  interfered  with  they  seem  in  general  to  have  refrained  from  dis- 
turbance, although  they  sometimes  engaged  in  raids  or  even  in 
formal  warfare  on  their  own  account.  For  example,  the  Cossacks—J 
of  the  Don  and  those  of  the  Yaek,  or  Ural  River,  engaged, 
in  1632,  in  a  war  with  Persia  on  the  Caspian  Sea.^  Occasionally 
they  attacked  and  plundered  the  Russian  cities  in  their  neighbour- 
hood, and  then  escaped  into  the  steppe,  where  they  were  practically 
immune  from  pursuit  .^  The  Cossacks  sometimes  allied  themselves 
with  frontier  tribes,  as  they  did,  for  example,  with  the  Kalmuks, 
who  were  subsidized  both  by  the  Tsar  and  by  the  Khan  of  the 
Crimea  ;  ^  and  as  they  did  with  the  Bashkirs.  So  also  in  the  wars 
with  Poland  and  Sweden,  they  constituted  an  uncertain  element, 
disposed  to  serve  the  power  which  offered  them  most  conspicuous 
advantages. 

The  Cossacks  did  not  belong  to  one  racial  group ;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  were  drawn  from  many  races,  although  those  who  settled 
on  the  Dnieper  were  predominantly  of  Little  Russian  origin.  They 
collected  together  near  the  Falls  of  Sula,  and  there  fortified  an 
island,  which  came  to  be  known  as  the  Syech,  and  the  community 
which  they  formed  as  the  Zaporojtsi,  or  Zaporojian.*  So  also  the 
Cossacks  of  the  Don  and  the  Yaek,  or  Ural  River,  formed  com- 
munities and  regarded  these  conmiunities  as  independent  of  any 
State.  The  Cossack  settlements  which  were  near  the  places  popu- 
lated by  Russians,  were  in  general  kept  under  restraint  with  com- 
parative ease  ;  but  those  settlements  which  were  far  in  the  steppe 
were  occupied  by  practically  autonomous  communities  over  whom 
the  rule  of  the  central  State  was  very  slender.  ^  Such  Cossack 
communities  elected  each  its  own  ataman  and  aldermen,  who  con- 
ducted their  communal  affairs.  The  former  also  acted  as  the 
representative  of  the  Cossacks  in  communications  with  the  Moscow 
authorities.*    Even  the  ataman  was  usually  illiterate.     The  Cos- 

1  Soloviev,  ii.  p.  1247. 

2  As  in  their  attack  upon  Guriev  in  1677.     See  Soloviev,  iii.  p.  860. 

*  Ibid.,  iii.  p.  574. 

*  For  an  account  of  the  Zaporojians,  see  Soloviev,  ed.  191 1,  iii.  p.  12  et 
seq.  There  is  a  vivid  description  of  them  in  With  Fire  and  Sword,  by  Senkie- 
vich. 

*  Soloviev,  op.  cit.,  i.  p.  1684. 

*  The  Moscow  Government  assumed  to  appoint  the  ataman,  but  such 
appointment  was  recognized   only   when   the   Cossack   communities  were 


THE    RISING   OF   PUGACHEV         23 

sacks  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  were,  therefore, 
unacquainted  with  the  Russian  laws,  and  were,  moreover,  at  the 
mercy  of  the  army  clerks  who  were  sent  to  settle  accounts  with 
them.  Their  own  atamans  were  sometimes  dishonest  and  often 
negligent  in  their  dealings  ahke  with  the  Cossack  communities 
and  with  the  Government.  Disputes  and  disorders  occurred  fre- 
quently from  the  attempts  of  officials  to  take  advantage  of  the 
ignorance  of  the  Cossacks.^  Payments  for  military  service  were 
customarily  made  partly  in  money  and  partly  in  kind,  or  the  Cos- 
sacks were  granted  rights  (to  fisheries,  e.g.),  and  the  value  of  these 
rights  was  counted  as  part  of  their  payment,  or  the  wages  of  the 
Cossacks  were  counted  as  part  pajmient  for  the  rights  which  had 
been  granted.  Sometimes  through  alleged  embezzlement  of  funds 
by  the  ataman,  sometimes  through  alteration  in  the  amounts 
imposed  by  the  Government  or  collected  by  its  officials,  disturb- 
ances in  connection  with  settlements  of  balances  took  place  in  the 
seventeenth  century .2 

Although  in  proportion  to  the  total  peasant  mass  the  Cossacks 
were  not  numerous,  and  although,  as  we  have  seen,  all  the  Cossack 
communities  were  not  free  and  autonomous,  the  withdrawal  from 
among  the  peasants  of  the  more  energetic  and  courageous  for  the 
free  hfe  of  the  steppe  resulted  in  diminution  of  will  and  power  to 
resist  oppression  on  the  part  of  the  peasantry  as  a  class.  The 
recruiting  of  the  ranks  of  the  Cossacks  by  these  enterprising  ele- 
ments, therefore,  at  once  localized  such  elements,  increased  the 
subserviency  of  the  peasantry  remaining  under  bondage,  and 
contributed  with  the  intensification  of  bondage  right  to  promote 
the  disarticulation  of  Russian  society.  We  have  seen  that  at 
frequent  intervals  in  the  history  of  the  peasantry,  flights  occurred  of 
peasants  from  the  estates  to  which  they  belonged,  the  peasants 
sometimes  fleeing  in  masses.  On  these  occasions  the  peasants 
often  went  out  into  the  steppe  and  took  refuge  among  the  Cossacks. 
On  the  complaints  of  the  pomyetscheke,  the  Government  demanded 
of  the  Cossacks  the  return  of  the  peasants  because  their  evasion 

within  reach  of  the  arm  of  the  Government.  Cossack  atamans  spoke  with 
pride  of  having  been  elected  by  their  fellows,  even  when  they  were  at  the 
same  time  appointed  by  the  Tsar. 

^  For  this  reason  Tatishev  suggested,  in  1737,  that  Cossack  schools  should 
be  estabhshed.     Cf.  Soloviev,  iv,  p.  1546, 

'  Cf.  Soloviev,  ii.  p.  1058  ;  so  also  in  the  eighteenth  century,  see  infra. 


24     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

diminished  the  numbers  on  the  tax  rolls.  When  the  Government 
was  strong  enough  to  enforce  its  demands  the  peasants  were  re- 
turned to  their  owners ;  but  when  the  central  authority  was  weak — 
as  it  was,  for  instance,  in  the  time  of  the  Tsar  Alexis,  the  father  of 
Peter  the  Great — the  Cossacks  were  able  either  to  dissemble  or  to 
resist  actively.  The  first  open  revolt  of  the  Cossacks  on  account 
of  demands  from  Moscow  for  the  return  of  fleeing  peasants  took 
place  in  1670,  under  Stenka  Razen,  ataman  of  the  Don  Cossacks. 
This  revolt  was  suppressed,  but  the  practice  of  flight  still  continued, 
and  in  the  next  reign  the  Cossacks  and  the  refugees  again  engaged 
in  armed  rebellion  in  1716  under  Bulavin.  The  Cossacks  were 
again  defeated,  on  this  occasion  by  a  comparatively  insignificant 
force.  The  policy  of  Peter,  who  was  then  engaged  in  his  formidable 
industrial  enterprises,  in  which  he  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
securing  a  sufficient  mmiber  of  working  hands,  was  not  compatible 
with  the  drawing  ofl  of  productive  powers  to  the  non-productive 
steppe.  He  forbade  the  Cossacks  to  build  new  towns  and  destroyed 
the  refuges  of  the  runaways.^ 

JThfi-p^wrr  f^f  Mnnf^owj  whif:h  hnri  nlwgyiiJirrji.  dis£]yLtfid-fey-4ha 
Cossacks,  wfl^  now  vindir.at?<|  for  thafimp,  and  the  Cossack  com- 
munities became  more  compact  and  less  influenced  by  accession 
from  the  peasantry.  The  character  of  the  Cossack  comes  now  to 
be  differentiated  from  that  of  the  peasant. 

The  success  of  the  free  Cossack  life  inspired  the  Cossack  with 
hope,  while  increase  of  burdens  and  intensification  of  bondage 
continued  to  oppress  the  peasant  with  gloom  and  despair.  The 
Cossacks  had  by  their  own  valour  and  energy  conquered  for  them- 
selves a  large  element  of  independence,  and  they  therefore  looked 
with  some  contempt  upon  the  peasantry  who  were  humbly  sub- 
mitting to  excessive  burdens.  There  is  to  be  found  the  historical 
ground  of  the  hostility  which,  save  on  rare  occasions,  the  Cossacks 
have  entertained  against  the  peasantry,  and  of  the  confidence  with 
which  the  Government  has  been  able  to  rely  upon  the  Cossacks  in 
punitive  expeditions  and  the  like.  Yet  there  were  and  are  many 
traits  of  peasant  character  which  the  Cossacks  presented  even  in 
an  exaggerated  form.  For  example,  alike  among  the  peasantry 
and  among  the  Cossacks,  every  administrative  change,  and  still 
more  every  change  in  the  occupancy  of  the  Imperial  Throne,  pro- 
^  See  Soloviev,  op,  cit.,  iii.  pp.  291  and  1472. 


THE    RISING   OF    PUGACHEV         25 

duced  a  fermentation  in  their  narrow  worlds.  Both  alike  formed 
exaggerated  anticipations  of  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from 
"  the  grace  of  the  new  Tsar,"  and  when  disappointment  ensued, 
disturbances  occurred.  The  accession  of  a  new  Tsar  was  thus 
usually  the  occasion  ^^^  ^"-n'lSa^^  ''"^  pAoconf  mifi->r^a]^<^  1  jf  that 
which  they  expected  did  not  happen  immediately,  they  soon  began 
to  exhibit  symptoms  of  disorder.  For  example,  when  they  learned 
that  Peter  III  had  forbidden  the  purchase  of  peasants  for  the 
factories,  the  previously  purchased  peasants  understood  that  this 
meant  freedom  for  them,  and  forthwith  began  to  act  upon  this 
behef  .2  So  also  when  the  peasants  of  the  Church  were  transferred 
to  the  State,  and  when  the  nobility  were  released  from  compulsory 
service,  the  peasants  thought  that  freedom  for  them  must  ensue.' 
When  this  result  did  not  follow,  they  regarded  themselves  as  being 
defrauded  by  the  proprietors  of  the  benefits  which  had  been  con- 
ferred upon  them  by  the  Tsar.  In  general  they  refused  to  believe^ 
that  ukases  were  genuine  unless  the  ukases  gave  them  what  they 
wanted.  If  an  alleged  ukase  met  their  views,  they  customarily 
regarded  it  as  genuine,  in  spite  of  evidence  to  the  contrary.  Peas-  J 
ants  and  Cossacks  alike  were  thus  peculiarly  exposed  to  deception 
by  false  ukases  *  and  by  impostors.  It  may  be  that  this  and  other 
peasant  traits  were  the  natural  consequences  of  habitual  oppression,^ 
and  that  the  peasant  psychology  predisposed  peasant  and  Cossack 
alike  to  look  adways  for  some  benefit  from  above — to  hope  always 
for  some  ukase  of  the  Tsar  which  would  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  alter 
all  the  conditions  of  their  life.  The  peasants  were  indeed  always 
in  an  attitude  of  expectancy  that  a  Messiah  would  arise  among  them 
and  by  a  mere  announcement  prevent  oppression  and  bestow  upon 
them  economical  prosperity. 

The  grievances  of  the  peasants,  alike  of  the  State  and  of  the 
pomyetscheke,  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  have  already 
been  described.  From  the  details  which  have  been  given  it  may  be 
surmised  that  almost  at  any  time  the  mood  of  the  peasants,  in 
spite  of  their  humility,  predisposed  them  to  revolt  against  their 

^  Cf.  Fersov,  N.  N.,  "  Peasant  Agitation  up  till  the  Nineteenth  Century," 
in  The  Great  Reform,  ii.  p.  45. 

2  Ibid.  3  Ibid. 

*■  The  circulation  of  false  ukases  is  frequently  mentioned  above  (see, 
<j.g.,  i.  p.  240). 

'^  As  suggested  by  Fersov,  op.  cit.,  p.  46. 


lb 


26     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

masters  and  against  the  officials  with  whom  they  came  in  contact. 
Leadership  among  them  was,  however,  hard  to  find.  They  were 
dispersed  over  an  immense  area  in  comparatively  small  communi- 
ties. They  were  habitually  insubordinate  to  authority,  and  they 
were  mutually  suspicious  of  one  another. 

The  situation  in  the  reign  of  Katherine  II  had  become  acute. 
Enormous  grants  of  land  and  of  peasants  to  Court  favourites,  and 
the  intensification  of  bondage  right,  especially  through  ascription 
to  industrial  enterprises,  had  brought  about  a  "  state  of  mind  " 
among  the  peasants,  chiefly  among  those  of  the  Volga  region, 
which  rendered  them  ripe  for  revolt. 

The  Cossacks  had  simultaneously  their  own  grievances.  They 
disliked  the  new  military  system  which  had  been  introduced  by 
Peter  the  Great,  although  it  had  been  very  gradually  applied  to 
them ;  and  they  were  frequently  engaged  in  disputes  with  the  local 
authorities  about  their  pa57ments  to  the  Government. 

The  discontent  among  the  Cossacks,  which  eventually  developed 
into  the  formidable  rebellion  of  1773-1775,  appears  to  have  had  its 
specific  origin  soon  after  1752  among  the  Cossacks  of  the  Ural 
River  (in  the  eariier  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  called  the  Cos- 
sacks of  the  Yaek).  These  Cossacks  took  from  the  Empress  a 
lease  of  the  fishings  of  the  Yaek  River,  and  undertook  the  collec- 
tion of  the  duties  within  that  region  upon  wine.  They  were  also 
granted  a  monopoly  of  the  sale  of  salt  fish.  For  these  privileges 
the  Cossacks  were  to  pay  to  the  Government  a  yearly  sum  of  10,450 
rubles.  An  ataman  called  Borodin  was  appointed  by  the  Military 
Collegium  for  the  collection  of  this  sum  as  well  as  for  other  duties 
in  connection  with  the  affairs  of  the  Cossacks.  His  appointment 
was  the  first  grievance.  The  Cossacks  had  been  accustomed  to 
elect  their  own  ataman,  and  they  naturally  usually  chose  one  of 
themselves.  Borodin  was  an  appointee  of  the  Government  and  was, 
moreover,  not  a  Cossack.  He  appears  to  have  collected  the  sums 
due  by  the  Cossacks,  but  the  Cossacks  alleged  that  for  three  years 
previous  to  1767  he  had  not  rendered  any  accounts  of  his  intro- 
missions. When  some  of  the  Cossacks  reminded  Borodin  of  the  con- 
ditions of  his  appointment,  and  demanded  the  rendering  of  accounts, 
they  were  "  punished  with  lashes  as  insolent  and  riotous  people."  ^ 

1  State  Archive  VI,  Affair  No.  505,  cited  by  Dubrovin,  N.,  Pugachev 
and  His  Accomplices  (St.  Petersburg,  1884),  i.  p.  2. 


THE   RISING   OF   PUGACHEV  27 

About  1760  a  certain  Loginov,  described  as  a  person  of  doubt- 
ful integrity,  who  had  been  an  ataman  of  the  town  of  Sakmarsk, 
appUed  to  Borodin  for  employment  as  a  tax-collector.  Borodin 
refused  to  employ  him,  and  thereafter  Loginov  appears  to  have 
devoted  himself  to  the  destruction  of  Borodin.  Loginov  went  to 
St.  Petersburg  and  secured  an  appointment  in  the  administrative 
office  of  the  Yaek  Cossacks.  On  his  return  Borodin  refused  to 
receive  him,  and  Loginov  then  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
party  of  Cossacks  who  had  been  opposing  Borodin,  advising  the 
Cossacks  to  refrain  from  paying  their  duties  to  Borodin  until 
accounts  had  been  rendered  showing  the  intromissions  of  the  pre- 
vious fifteen  years,  and  accusing  Borodin  of  levying  duties  unjustly 
and  of  embezzling  the  amounts  illegally  collected.^  In  1762  the 
Military  CoUegiimi  sent  a  Commission  to  Yaek  to  inquire  into  the 
quarrel  between  Borodin  and  Loginov  and  into  the  consequent 
disturbances  among  the  Cossacks.  The  Conmiissioner  (Brookfeld) 
reported  that  undoubtedly  Borodin  had  embezzled  funds  and  had 
exacted  money  illegally  from  the  Cossacks  ;  but  that  there  was  no 
one  in  the  region  who  could  be  trusted  to  do  otherwise.^  The 
Mihtary  Collegium,  however,  ordered  that  if  Borodin  had  really 
abused  his  office,  he  should  be  dismissed  and  a  staff  officer  from 
Orenburg  sent  to  take  his  place,  with  two  aldermen  elected  by  the 
Cossacks  to  advise  him.  The  Senate  did  not,  however,  approve 
of  this  plan,  on  the  ground  that  it  might  lead  to  further  disturb- 
ances. Nothing  was  done.  Brookfeld  remained  on  the  Yaek ; 
Borodin  continued  nominally  to  act  as  ataman,  and  Loginov  con- 
tinued to  collect  the  taxes.  In  February  1763  two  Cossacks  went 
to  Moscow  to  lay  the  affair  before  the  Military  Collegium,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  complaint  against  Borodin  was  sent  to  the  Empress 
by  Mir-Ali-Khan  on  account  of  the  Kirghiz. 

The  result  of  these  complaints  was  the  appointment  of  a  new 
Commission  of  Inquiry  into  Cossack  grievances  with  certain  execu- 
tive powers.  Major-General  Potapov  was  appointed  head  of  the 
Conmiission,  and  was  required  to  dismiss  Borodin,  to  arrest 
Loginov  for  insubordination,  and  to  appoint  another  ataman  from 
Orenburg,  and  not  from  among  the  Cossacks.  The  Cossacks  pro- 
tested against  the  latter  measure.  They  said  that  it  involved 
infringement    of    their    privileges.     The    Empress    Katherine    II, 

^  Dubrovin,  op,  cit.,  i,  p.  7.  *  Ibid.,  i.  p.  9. 


28     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

usually  good-natured  in  such  matters,  wrote  to  Prince  Trubetskoy 
to  the  effect  that  if  it  was  customary  for  the  Cossacks  to  elect  an 
ataman  from  simong  themselves,  they  should  be  allowed  to  elect 
anybody  they  chose.^  Potapov  considered  the  carrying  out  of 
this  order  impracticable ;  but  he  eventually  agreed  that  the  Cos- 
sacks should  elect  an  ataman  from  among  themselves.  They  chose 
a  young  nephew  of  Loginov,  His  election  appeared  to  mean  that 
the  real  power  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  latter.  On  that  ground 
Potapov  objected  to  ratify  the  election  and  on  leaving  for  St. 
Petersburg,  appointed  an  officer  of  dragoons  from  Kazan  as  tem- 
porary ataman.  The  nephew  of  Loginov  at  once  made  friends 
with  this  officer,  hoping  to  have  his  own  election  confirmed,  and 
proceeded  to  act  in  a  manner  very  similar  to  that  in  which  Borodin 
had  been  acting,  thus  simultaneously  opposing  his  uncle,  the 
Cossack  party,  and  the  Borodin  party. 

Meanwhile  a  new  ukase  upon  Cossack  affairs  was  promulgated 
in  December  1765.  Under  this  ukase  the  anomalous  status  of  the 
Cossacks  was  altered.  Instead  of  being  free  to  render  military 
service  or  not,  as  formerly,  the  Cossacks  were  now  obliged  to  serve 
by  turn — every  able-bodied  Cossack  being  obliged  to  serve.  The 
practice  of  election  of  their  own  officers  was  abolished.  This 
adjustment  of  their  affairs  was  not  what  the  Cossacks  expected. 
They  were  gratified  by  the  dismissal  of  Borodin,  but  they  were 
disturbed  by  the  new  military  regulations,  which  they  regarded  as 
infringing  upon  their  privileges.  The  Cossacks  were  further  irri- 
tated by  the  orders  of  the  Military  Collegium,  under  which  Loginov 
was  banished  to  Tobolsk  in  Siberia,  and  the  forty  representatives 
who  had  been  elected  under  the  instructions  of  Potapov  were  to  be 
beaten  and  exiled  because  they  were  unable  to  prove  some  of  their 
accusations.2 

In  order  to  prevent  disturbance  on  the  part  of  the  Cossacks 
in  the  execution  of  the  instructions  of  the  Military  Collegium, 
dragoons  were  sent  from  Orenburg  to  the  Yaek  town.  The 
Cossacks  continued  to  make  complaints,  and  deputations  were 
sent  to  St.  Petersburg.  One  of  the  deputations  succeeded  in  pre- 
senting a  petition  personally  to  the  Empress,  who  seems  to  have 
taken  a  more  serious  view  of  the  situation  than  did  the  Military 

*  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  14. 

*  State  Archives  VI,  Affair  No.  505,  and  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  16. 


THE    RISING    OF    PUGACHEV         29 

Collegium.^  That  department  appears  to  have  evaded  the  instruc- 
tions of  the  Empress,  for  it  ordered  that  in  future,  petitioners  should 
not  be  permitted  to  leave  the  Cossack  conmiunities.  Katherine, 
however,  sent  a  confidential  agent  to  the  Yaek  with  instructions 
to  endeavour  to  put  an  end  to  the  disturbances.  This  agent  (Captain 
Chebyshov)  found  that  it  was  impossible  to  settle  the  triangular 
dispute — the  Cossack  party,  the  party  of  Borodin,  and  the  Military 
Collegium  all  representing  different  and  irreconcilable  interests.  A 
new  ataman  was  eventually  elected  and  his  election  was  confirmed ; 
but  the  primary  causes  of  the  dispute  still  remained,  aggravated  as 
these  were  by  the  regulations  of  the  ukase  of  1765  abolishing  the 
system  of  volunteering  and  establishing  that  of  compulsory  service. 

In  1769  the  Cossacks  were  still  refusing  to  render  service  under 
the  new  regulations.  Conscripts  were  taken  by  force,  but  they 
escaped  from  their  captors,  and  the  agitation  against  the  ex-ataman 
Borodin  gradually  became  an  agitation  against  the  Government. 
On  the  one  hand  the  war  with  Turkey  rendered  it  necessary  to 
secure  all  possible  troops,  and  on  the  other,  the  quarrels  among 
and  with  the  Cossacks  rendered  it  impossible  to  secure  troops 
from  among  them  excepting  on  the  customary  terms.  The  Cos- 
sacks steadfastly  refused  to  be  enrolled  as  "  regular  "  soldiers,  and 
they  regarded  enrolment  as  a  kind  of  punishment  imposed  by  the 
Government  for  their  exercise  of  what  they  considered  the  inde- 
feasible right  of  petition.2 

In  1770  also  there  appears  a  ground  of  objection  to  serve  as 
regular  soldiers  other  than  that  based  upon  the  established  prac- 
tice of  volunteering.  This  ground  of  objection  was  that  the  regular 
soldiers  were  obliged  by  the  regulations  to  shave  off  their  beards. 
The  Cossacks,  who  were  mostly  raskolneke,  or  dissenters  from  the 
Orthodox  Greek  Church,  entertained  religious  scruples  about  shav- 
ing. The  new  system  thus  not  only  interfered  with  previously 
established  practice,  but  interfered  with  religious  beliefs.  The 
Mihtary  Collegium  gave  way  upon  this  point,  and  offered  to  allow 
the  Cossacks  to  retain  their  beards  if  they  wished  to  do  so.  But 
the  Cossacks  still  obstinately  refused  to  submit.  The  local  autho- 
rities then  attempted  to  reduce  them  to  submission  by  preventing 

1  Letter  of  Katherine  II  to  Count  Chernyshev,  Moscow  Archives  of  the 
General  Staff,  cxix,  sec.  4.     Affair  No.  43  ;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  21. 
*  Dubrovin,  op.  cit.,  i.  p.  36. 


30     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  Cossacks  from  engaging  in  their  usual  employment  of  fishing 
during  the  season.  This  measure  produced  fresh  compUcations,  for 
by  means  of  it  the  Cossacks  were  more  impoverished  and  became 
more  discontented  than  formerly.  The  Cossacks  sent  messengers  to 
Orenburg  to  complain  to  the  Governor  and  to  ask  for  passports  to 
St.  Petersburg  in  order  that  they  might  carry  their  new  grievances 
to  the  Throne.  These  messengers  were  arrested  and  imprisoned, 
but  others  were  sent  direct  to  St.  Petersburg,  where  now  (September 
1770)  there  were  eighty  deputies  from  the  Cossacks  of  the  Yaek. 
Katherine  received  the  new  petition,  and  ordered  the  Military 
Collegium  to  remedy  nearly  all  the  grievances  which  it  detailed, 
to  see  that  the  Cossacks  were  paid  the  five  years'  arrears  of 
money  due  to  them  if  their  statements  on  this  head  were  found 
to  be  accurate,  to  liberate  those  who  had  been  arrested,  &c. 
An  ukase  in  these  terms  was  read  to  twenty-six  of  the  petitioners 
at  the  Military  Collegium,  but  they  indignantly  refused  to  be  satis- 
fied with  the  terms  of  it.  They  demanded  simply  that  they  should 
be  allowed  to  live  and  to  render  military  service  as  formerly.  The 
MiHtary  Collegium  then  ordered  all  the  Yaek  Cossacks  who  might 
be  found  in  St.  Petersburg  to  be  arrested  and  conveyed  under  a 
convoy  to  their  homes  on  the  Yaek  River.  Many  were  arrested 
and  despatched,  but  some  could  not  be  found.  Of  those  who  were 
secured,  only  six  reached  the  Yaek ;  the  others  escaped  in  the  course 
of  the  journey.^ 

With  a  pertinacity  characteristic  of  Cossack  and  peasant  alike, 
those  who  escaped  succeeded  in  returning  to  St.  Petersburg  and  in 
presenting  another  petition  to  the  Empress,  begging  to  be  relieved 
of  the  obligation  to  serve  in  regiments  of  the  regular  army,  and 
continuing  to  complain  of  the  abuses  to  which  the  petitioners 
alleged  they  had  been  subjected  by  Borodin's  allies — the  so-called 
aldermen's  party.  Again  Katherine  sent  an  emissary  to  the  Yaek 
and  withdrew  the  regulation  respecting  enlistment  in  the  regular 
army .2  For  the  moment  the  Cossacks  were  content,  and  the  large 
group  of  petitioners  returned  to  their  homes. 

1  Memorials  of  New  Rttssian  History^  part  ii.  p.  291 ;  cited  by  Dubrovin, 
i.  p.  44. 

«  The  project  had  involved  the  formation  of  so-called  foreign  legions  in 
the  regular  army.  It  had  never  been  proposed  to  make  the  Cossacks  troops 
of  the  line.  The  objectionable  ukase  had  been  issued  in  December  1765, 
the  cancelling  ukase  was  dated  7th  December  1770. 


THE    RISING   OF   PUGACHEV         31 

Almost  simultaneously  with  these  disturbances  among  the 
Cossacks  there  was  observable  in  1771  a  movement  among  the 
Kalmuk  Mongols,  among  whom  was  then  beginning  the  agitation 
which  eventually  led  to  the  flight  of  the  Kalmuks  across  Asia.  This 
distraction  caused  the  local  military  authorities  to  be  more  anxious 
than  formerly  to  placate  the  Cossacks  and  to  reconcile  the  two 
contending  parties.  They,  therefore,  conciliated  one  party  by 
exacting  a  fine  which  had  been  imposed  upon  the  aldermen,  together 
with  an  accounting  of  their  intromissions,  and  at  the  same  time 
hesitated  to  carry  out  to  the  full  extent  the  instructions  of  the 
ukase  by  dismissing  the  aldermen  and  rendering  them  incapable 
of  being  re-elected.  The  result  of  this  compromise  was  that  neither 
party  was  satisfied.  The  aldermen's  party  had  been  punished; 
but  in  the  opinion  of  the  other  party,  they  remained  in  a  position 
to  commit  fresh  offences. 

It  appeared  also  that,  as  frequently  occurred  at  that  period 
even  on  grave  occasions,  the  copy  of  the  ukase  of  7th  December 
1770  which  had  been  given  to  the  Cossack  petitioners  at  St. 
Petersburg  was  an  inaccurate  copy.  Instead  of  merely  relieving 
the  Cossacks  from  the  obligation  to  serve  in  the  regular  army, 
and  thus  leaving  them  in  the  position  in  which  they  were  before 
the  ukase  of  1765  was  issued,  the  ukase  of  1770,  as  they  had 
it,  appeared  to  relieve  them  of  service  of  any  kind.  The  Cossacks 
were  not  slow  to  attach  this  meaning  to  the  ukase,  so  that  when 
a  demand  was  made  upon  them  for  a  draft  of  500  troops  to 
pursue  the  Kalmuks,  only  the  aldermen's  party  supplied  troops, 
the  "  disobedient "  Cossacks  declaring  that  they  were  now  by 
ukase  exempted  from  military  service.  They  objected  even  to 
volunteer  unless  they  were  permitted  to  elect  all  their  own 
officers.^ 

Another  large  group  of  petitioners  made  their  way  to  St.  Peters- 
burg, the  journey  occupying  from  Easter  until  June.  When  they 
arrived  one  of  their  number,  Kerpechnikov,  went  to  the  Mihtary 
Collegium  and  asked  Count  Chemyshev  to  hand  their  petition  to 
the  Empress.  Chemyshev  seems  to  have  lost  his  temper  and  to 
have  literally  kicked  the  Cossack  out  of  his  presence.  This  act 
rankled  in  the  mind  of  the  Cossack,  who  at  once  drew  up  a  petition 
of  complaint  against  Chemyshev,  and  succeeded  in  having  it  placed 

*  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  49. 


32     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

in  the  hands  of  the  Empress.^  The  petitioners  disguised  themselves 
as  coachmen  and  other  working  men,  and  distributed  themselves 
about  the  city  in  order  to  escape  the  arrest  they  knew  must  follow. 
Most  of  them  were,  however,  hunted  down  and  confined  in  the 
fortress  of  Peter  and  Paul. 

The  petition  was  both  quaint  and  cunning.  It  was  written  in 
a  spirit  of  servility  to  Katherine,  and  was  cunningly  contrived  to 
enable  the  Cossacks  to  profit  by  the  intrigues  of  the  Court.  Count 
Chernyshev  was  denounced,  but  the  Cossacks  invited  the  protec- 
tion of  his  rivals  the  Orlovs.  Kerpechnikov  succeeded  in  escaping 
from  St.  Petersburg,  carrying  with  him  a  letter  which  he  had  pro- 
cured from  Orlov. 

Meanwhile  the  attitude  of  the  Cossack  party  on  the  Yaek  had 
become  more  bellicose.  They  still  refused  to  supply  troops  for 
the  pursuit  of  the  Kalmuks,  and  a  conspiracy  was  discovered  which 
had  as  its  objects  the  seizure  of  the  guns  and  ammunition  and  an 
attack  upon  the  ataman  and  aldermen.  Under  these  circumstances 
an  officer,  Major  von  Traubenberg,  was  sent  from  Orenburg  to  the 
Yaek.  He  was  famihar  with  Cossack  affairs,  but  he  was  irritated 
at  the  refusal  of  the  Cossacks  to  supply  men  for  his  command,  and 

^  The  following  extracts  from  the  petition  are  given  by  way  of  illustration 
of  such  documents  : 

"  To  God  and  you,  most  gracious  Empress,  the  deputies  are  writing. 
Your  most  devoted  slaves  are  falling  with  bitter  tears  at  your  feet.  Mercy, 
most  gracious  Empress,  upon  all  those  who  live  on  the  Yaek,  and  who  depend 
upon  your  life,  and  who  exist  under  your  Imperial  protection.  Have  pity, 
most  gracious  Empress,  on  us  for  the  offences  which  we  have  survived,  as  is 
known  to  your  Imperial  Highness  personally  through  our  petitions.  We, 
unfortunates,  and  most  devoted  slaves,  not  only  do  not  have  satisfaction,  but 
we  suffer  most  inhuman  tortures  from  the  ataman,  Peter  Tambovtsev,  and 
his  aldermen,  who  are  still  appointed  by  the  Military  Collegium,  and  especially 
by  Count  Chernyshev.  .  .  .  Most  august,  most  gracious  Monarch  !  at  your 
sacred  feet  we  fall,  your  most  devoted  slaves.  With  tears  we  implore  you 
to  deliver  us,  by  your  monarchical  grace,  from  insupportable  ruin.  Not  only 
are  we  decayed  (economically),  but  we  have  become  beggars.  By  God,  we 
are  brought  to  such  conditions  that  we  cannot  continue  any  more  your 
Imperial  service  on  account  of  our  case  having  been  continued  for  eleven 
years,  and  of  our  having  spent  so  long  a  time  here  (in  St.  Petersburg).  We 
are  short  of  funds  for  food  and  for  other  expenses,  and  we  are  deeply  in  debt. 
Have  pity,  most  gracious  Empress,  defend  us  from  the  attacks  of  the  ataman 
and  all  the  aldermen,  and  the  generals,  staff,  and  over-officers.  .  .  .  Honour 
•us  as  we  were  honoured  in  the  time  of  the  father  of  the  country,  the  Emperor 
Peter  the  Great.  .  .  .  We  want  to  be  under  His  Excellency  Count  G.  G. 
Orlov,  in  order  that  our  Yaek  troops  may  be  saved  from  invasion,  and  this 
mother's  pity  of  yours  we  shall  count  not  otherwise  than  as  new  life  given 
to  us  "  (State  Archives  VII,  d.  No,  2331 ;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  i.  pp.  51-2). 


^.^ 


THE   RISING   OF   PUGACHEV         33 

he  proceeded  at  once  to  punitive  measures.  Those  Cossacks  who 
were  most  active  in  promoting  resistance  were  ordered  by  him  to 
be  flogged,  and  he  ordered  the  necessary  number  of  men  for  the 
command  to  have  their  beards  shaved  o^  and  to  be  sent  on  under 
convoy.  The  convoy  was,  however,  inadequate,  the  300  Cossacks 
who  had  been  taken  forcibly,  turned  upon  the  convoy  and  carried 
it  back  to  the  Yaek.^ 

In  January  1772  Kerpechnikov  returned  from  St.  Petersburg, 
told  the  Cossacks  of  the  failure  of  his  mission,  and  urged  them  to 
send  an  ultimatum  to  the  ataman  to  the  effect  that  unless  the  over- 
due fines  were  paid  and  the  offending  aldermen  dismissed  within 
three  days,  the  Cossacks  would  act  by  "  armed  uprising."  2  Ker- 
pechnikov was  ordered  to  report  himself  to  Traubenberg  at  the 
Military  Chancellery.  He  refused,  and  a  riot  ensued,  in  which  the 
"  disobedient  "  Cossacks  fought  the  **  obedient,"  and  prisoners  were 
taken  on  both  sides.  Traubenberg  then  called  a  general  meeting  of 
all  Cossacks  to  discuss  the  affair — a  very  hazardous  proceeding 
under  the  circumstances.  The  "  disobedient "  Cossacks  poured 
into  the  town  of  Yaek  until  they  mmibered  a  thousand,  while 
Traubenberg  had  only  seventy  men  of  the  regular  troops  and  fifty 
"  obedient  "  Cossacks  upon  whom  he  might  rely  in  case  of  disorder. 
Traubenberg  despatched  a  messenger  to  Orenburg  for  assistance. 
Dragoons  and  infantry  were  sent  at  once,  but  they  did  not  arrive  in 
time  to  prevent  the  catastrophe  which  took  place  on  13th  January. 
On  that  day  a  large  crowd  of  "  disobedient  "  Cossacks  attended  a 
service  in  the  cathedral,  and  then  carrying  three  ikons — one  of 
them  a  thaumaturgical  picture  of  Christ  which  was  believed  to 
weep  when  perils  threatened  the  Cossacks — ^marched  along  the 
street  towards  the  Military  Chancellery.  Fearing  an  attack,  Trau- 
benberg ordered  his  regular  soldiers  to  attack  the  crowd.  The 
Cossacks  then  threw  aside  all  disguise,  rushed  upon  the  Chancellery, 
turned  the  guns  in  it  upon  the  defenders,  killed  many  of  them, 
including  Traubenberg,  and  wounded  severely  the  next  in  command, 
an  officer  named  Dumovo.  The  latter  was  only  saved  from  being 
killed  through  the  efforts  of  Shegaev,  a  Cossack,  who  afterwards 
was  one  of  the  chief  supporters  of  Pugachev.    The  ataman  and 

1  Report  of  Dumovo,  August  1772.    Military-Scientific  Affairs,  No.  104, 
Division  15,  cited  by  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  55. 
*  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  53. 
VOL.  II  C 


34     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

some  of  the  aldermen  were  killed.  In  blind  fury  the  Cossacks 
looted  the  houses  of  the  officials  and  destroyed  the  records.  Many 
barbarities  were  conmiitted— ^.g.  two  of  Traubenberg's  fingers 
were  cut  off  in  order  to  secure  the  rings  which  he  wore  upon 
them.^ 

On  the  evening  of  the  13th  the  Cossacks  dispersed  to  their 
homes,  but  marvellous  to  relate,  a  deputation  of  them  went  to 
Durnovo,  who  lay  severely  wounded  and  a  prisoner,  and  asked 
him  to  permit  them  to  elect  a  new  ataman  and  new  aldermen,  as  all 
were  either  dead  or  in  prison.  Durnovo  naturally  said,  "Do  as 
you  please.  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  give  orders."  The  Cossacks 
replied  that  they  looked  upon  him  as  the  military  commander  ap- 
pointed by  the  Empress,  that  in  acting  as  they  had  done  they  had 
carried  out  the  will  of  the  Empress  as  expressed  in  the  ukases,  and 
that  they  were  prepared  now  to  take  his  orders  in  respect  to  a  new 
election.  Fearing  further  disturbance,  Durnovo  consented,  where- 
upon they  required  him  to  countermand  the  order  for  assistance 
which  had  been  sent  to  Orenburg.     This  he  was  obliged  to  do. 

On  the  morning  of  the  14th  the  victorious  Cossacks  held  a  meet- 
ing at  which  they  decided  that  some  of  the  prisoners  they  had 
captured  on  the  previous  day  should  be  executed,  that  then  the 
party  quarrels  should  be  forgotten,  and  that  no  one  should  go  to 
St.  Petersburg  of  his  own  vohtion.  It  was  also  decided  to  send 
deputies  to  St.  Petersburg  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  the  reason 
for  the  action  of  the  Cossacks.  The  executions  took  place,  and  the 
deputies  departed  with  a  formidable  array  of  documents,  some  of 
the  signatures  to  which,  as  in  the  case  of  Durnovo,  were  procured 
through  fear  of  consequences. 

The  authorities  at  St.  Petersburg  now  determined  to  deal  dras- 
tically with  the  situation,  by  aboHshing  the  locally  elective  offices 
in  the  Cossack  communities  and  by  compelling  the  Cossacks  to 
enter  the  regular  army  service.  They  did  not  realize,  however,  the 
extent  of  the  military  measures  which  might  be  necessary  to  enforce 
this  answer  to  the  Cossack  question,  and  they  proceeded  to  impose 
upon  the  mihtary  forces  which  they  detailed,  an  impossible  task. 
Had  the  Military  Collegium  decided  to  send  a  properly  equipped 
force  of  10,000  men  into  the  disturbed  district  in  the  summer  of  1772, 
several  years  of  bloodshed  might  have  been  prevented,  although, 

^  Dubrovin,  i,  p,  70, 


THE   RISING   OF   PUGACHEV         35 

on  the  other  hand,  the  aspirations  of  the  peasants  and  the  Cossacks 
aUke  would  have  been  checked.  It  became  later  necessary  to  take 
a  measure  of  this  kind  after  the  Volga  between  Kazan  and  Oren- 
burg had  been  ravaged,  and  after  indescribable  cruelties  had  been 
practised  both  on  the  side  of  the  rebels  and  on  the  side  of  the 
authorities. 

The  Cossacks  had  tasted  blood  and  the  disturbances  continued. 
Their  pay  was  in  arrears  ;  the  amounts  due  to  them  by  the  officials 
of  whom  they  complained  were  still  unpaid,  and  they  proceeded  to 
pay  themselves  by  plundering  those  of  their  own  number  who  had 
been  of  the  ataman's  party.  They  even  turned  upon  their  former 
leaders  and,  for  example,  put  Kerpechnikov  in  irons.  **  You  were 
with  us  at  first,"  they  said  to  him ;  "  now  you  want  to  rule."  ^ 

Troops  were  sent,  but  their  number  was  so  insignificant  that 
their  commander,  Reynsdorp,  was  obliged  to  parley  with  the  Cos- 
sacks and  to  refrain  from  advancing.  Meanwhile  the  Cossacks 
prepared  themselves  for  determined  resistance,  and  sent  messengers 
to  the  Kirghiz  Tartars  asking  for  their  assistance.  Major-General 
Freiman,  who  had  been  sent  from  St.  Petersburg  to  undertake  the 
military  operations  against  the  Cossacks,  arrived  at  Orenburg  in 
May  1772  ;  and  as  soon  as  his  troops  were  available,  he  began  to 
move  upon  the  Yaek.  The  Cossacks  sent  emissaries  to  meet  Frei- 
man, and  these  emissaries  were  told  that  if  the  persons  guilty  of 
causing  the  disturbances  which  led  to  the  death  of  Traubenberg 
were  surrendered,  no  one  else  would  be  punished.  Freiman  was 
told  that  the  guilty  persons  were  Borodin,  the  ex-ataman,  and  the 
aldermen.  However  guilty  of  the  initial  offences  these  persons 
may  have  been,  they  were  not  the  persons  indicated  by  Freiman. 

On  the  3rd  June  Freiman  reached  the  Embulatovka  River, 
where  the  Cossacks  had  made  up  their  mind  to  attack  him.  After 
a  desultory  engagement,  during  which  the  Cossacks  surrounded 
Freiman  and  set  the  steppe  on  fire,  the  Cossacks  sent  couriers  to 
the  town  of  Yaek  announcing  a  victory.  On  the  4th  and  5th  June 
Freiman  crossed  the  river  in  spite  of  the  resistance  of  the  Cossacks, 
whom  he  succeeded  in  out-manoeuvring.  The  Cossacks  then  retired 
upon  the  town  of  Yaek,  to  which  the  way  was  now  clear  for  Freiman. 
As  he  approached,  the  inhabitants  fled  with  their  cattle  and  bag- 
gage.   They  were  eventually  induced  to  return,  but  with  the  loss 

^  Dubrovin,  i,  p,  78, 


36     ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

of  their  cattle.  Under  the  orders  of  the  Empress,  Freiman  altered 
altogether  the  administration  of  the  Cossacks,  bringing  it  into 
conformity  with  the  administration  of  the  rest  of  the  country,  and 
established  a  garrison.  So  many  Cossacks  were  arrested  that  the 
prisons  of  Orenburg  were  filled,  and  the  prisoners  had  to  be  dis- 
tributed in  different  places.  The  Yaek  was  "  pacified,"  though 
several  of  the  leaders  of  the  disturbances  escaped  and  afterwards 
made  their  presence  felt. 

Simultaneously  with  the  close  of  the  Yaek  episode,  there  arose 
among  the  dispirited  Cossacks  rumours  about  the  reappearance  of 
the  Emperor  Peter  III,^  who  was  alleged  to  have  been  in  hiding, 
but  to  be  now  about  to  declare  himself  for  the  benefit  of  his  people. 

The  reason  for  the  growth  of  the  idea  that  the  return  of  the  Tsar 
would  be  of  advantage  to  the  Cossacks  and  the  peasantry  was  that 
in  his  earlier  years  Peter  III  had  freely  announced  his  opposition 
to  bondage  right  and  his  desire  to  abolish  it.  The  weakness  of  his 
character  not  only  prevented  him  from  doing  much  towards  miti- 
gating bondage,  but  in  the  presence  of  the  strong  and  unscrupulous 
character  of  Katherine  II,  cost  him  at  once  his  throne  and  his  life. 

The  first  of  the  group  of  impostors  who  personated  the  dead 
Peter,  and  who  exploited  the  popular  belief  that  he  had  survived 
the  revolution  of  1762,  was  Gabriel  Kremnov  of  the  odnodvortsi,  a 
soldier.2  He  was  arrested  at  Voronej  in  1766,  soon  after  he  had 
announced  himself.^  The  second  was  Peter  Chemyshev,*  of  the 
village  of  Kupenka,  in  Ezyomovskoe  province,  who  made  his 
appearance  in  1770.  He  was  supported  by  the  local  clergy,  but 
his  career  was  speedily  cut  short  by  arrest  and  execution.  The 
third  impostor  was  an  lUyrian  called  Stefano  Piccolo,  who  appear- 
ing in  Montenegro  in  1769  or  1770,  declared  himself  as  the  Emperor 
Peter  III.      He  was  arrested,  but  he  escaped.^     The  fourth  im- 

^  Peter  III  had  died  on  19th  July  1762,  a  few  days  after  the  revolution 
which  gave  Katherine  II  the  throne.  Although  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt 
that  he  was  murdered  by  the  Orlovs  in  the  interests  of  Katherine,  his  death 
was  alleged  to  have  been  due  to  natural  causes,  and  his  body  was  exposed 
publicly  for  three  days  in  St.  Petersburg  in  order  to  mitigate  the  risk  of 
subsequent  imposture.  For  an  account  of  the  death  of  Peter  III,  see  De 
Rulhiere,  A  History  or  Anecdotes  of  the  Revolution  in  Russia  in  the  Year 
1762  (translated  from  the  French,  London,  1797). 

*  Soloviev,  op.  cit.  (191 1  ed.),  vi.  pp.  124-5. 
'  Dubrovin,  op.  cit.,  i.  p.  127. 

*  Soloviev,  op.  cit.y  vi.  p.  125. 

*  [Tooke]  Life  of  Catherine  II  (London,  1800),  ii.  p.  185, 


THE    RISING    OF    PUGACHEV         37 

postor  was  Theodore  Bogomolov,  a  bonded  peasant  of  one  of  the 
Vorontsevs  who  had  fled  from  the  estate  to  which  he  belonged. 
Bogomolov  had  been  a  boatman  on  the  Volga,  had  been  serving 
in  some  capacity  among  the  Kalmuks,  and  for  a  time  had  been 
with  the  Cossacks  of  the  Volga  working  as  a  farm  labourer.  In  1772 
he  volunteered  for  mihtary  service,  describing  himself  as  a  Don 
Cossack.  The  fifth  impostor  was  Emihan  Pugachev,  a  Cossack  of 
the  Don. 

The  three  earlier  impostors  need  not  detain  us,  the  career  of  the 
fourth  is  significant,  that  of  the  fifth  highly  important.  The  signi- 
ficance of  all  of  the  impostors  is  that  they  emerged  at  psychological 
moments.  Had  Peter  really  survived,  and  had  he  conducted  him- 
self with  any  sagacity,  the  impostures  suggest  that  he  might  have 
regained  his  throne  as  the  head  of  a  great  popular  movement.  The 
character  and  the  methods  of  both  of  the  two  later  impostors  were 
almost  precisely  identical.  They  were  both  illiterate,  therefore 
they  had  at  the  very  beginning  of  their  careers  of  imposture  to 
find  literate  persons  to  act  as  secretaries.  They  both  founded 
their  claims  upon  alleged  Tsar's  signs  or  marks  upon  the  body, 
and  they  both  possessed  a  certain  power  of  attracting  adherents 
notwithstanding  the  risk  which  was  inevitably  incurred.  In  both 
cases  their  immediate  supporters  were,  with  high  probability  in 
the  case  of  Bogomolov,  and  with  certainty  in  the  case  of  Pugachev, 
rather  accomplices  than  dupes.  Many  among  the  Cossacks  realized 
the  advantage  of  having  a  central  figure  round  whom  a  tradition 
had  gathered,  or  might  gather,  and  against  whom  the  govern- 
mental vengeance  might  turn  in  case  of  non-success,  while  the 
accomplices  might  escape  on  the  ground  that  they  had  been  de- 
ceived. On  the  other  hand,  in  the  improbable  event  of  success, 
the  impostor  would  be  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  his  accomplices,  who 
would  be  able  to  extort  any  concession  from  him  they  might  desire.^ 

In  1772,  soon  after  he  went  among  the  Cossacks  of  the  Volga, 
Bogomolov,  being  "  immeasurably  drunk,"  declared  himself  as  the 
Emperor  Peter  III.2  The  rumour  that  the  expected  Tsar  had  made 
his  appearance  spread  rapidly  among  the  Cossacks  of  the  Volga, 
and  many  people  visited  Bogomolov  for  the  purpose  of  ascertain- 

^  The  temporary  success  of  pseudo-Demetrius  I  and  II  gave  colour  to 
this  view. 

*  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  107. 


38     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

ing  whether  or  not  he  resembled  the  portraits  of  the  Tsar  Peter 
which  they  had  seen.  They  seem  to  have  agreed  that  the  resem- 
blance was  at  least  doubtful,  but  that  the  lapse  of  years  might 
account  for  a  change.  A  definite  adherent  made  his  appearance 
in  a  soldier  named  Dolotin,  who,  either  convinced  of  the  vaHdity  of 
the  claim  of  Bogomolov,  or  acutely  discerning  the  importance  of 
the  r61e  played  by  him  at  that  juncture,  attached  himself  as  secre- 
tary and  proceeded  to  circulate  the  rumour  of  the  reappearance 
of  the  Tsar  Peter. 

In  May  1772  the  rumour  had  spread  so  widely  that  the  Cossacks 
inmiediately  surrounding  Bogomolov  prepared  to  take  advantage 
of  the  situation.  They  arrested  their  officers,  but  one  of  these 
had  the  courage  to  ask  an  interview  with  the  alleged  Emperor. 
Immediately  upon  seeing  him  he  struck  him  in  the  face,  saying, 
"  What  kind  of  an  Emperor  is  this  ?     Arrest  him." 

From  the  manner  in  which  Bogomolov  took  the  insult  he  stood 
revealed  to  the  Cossacks,  who  put  him  in  irons  and,  together  with 
his  secretary,  despatched  him  to  headquarters.  The  two  prisoners 
were  sentenced  by  the  Military  Collegium  to  be  publicly  whipped, 
and  to  be  banished  to  Nerchinsk  with  hard  labour  for  life.  In 
addition  Bogomolov  was  to  have  his  nostrils  slit  and  was  to  be  other- 
wise marked.  While  Bogomolov  was  awaiting  his  sentence  he 
was  not  idle.  He  did  not  contrive  to  escape,  but  he  succeeded  in 
setting  afloat,  through  conversations  with  his  guards,  rumours 
about  the  reappearance  of  Peter  III,  and  these  rumours  spread 
among  the  Cossacks  of  the  Don  as  they  had  previously  spread 
among  the  Cossacks  of  the  Volga. 

The  Don  Cossacks  had  experienced  grievances  somewhat  similar 
to  those  of  which  the  Yaek  troops  complained.  They  had,  however, 
a  stronger  ataman  to  deal  with.  This  ataman,  Daniel  Efremov, 
persuaded  Katherine  II  to  appoint  as  his  successor  his  own  son  in 
order  to  begin  a  hereditary  atamanship.  He  also  proposed  to 
enlarge  the  powers  of  the  ataman  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  him  con- 
trol alike  of  the  civil  and  military  affairs  of  the  Don  Cossacks. 
This  would  have  made  the  Efremovs  practical  dictators  of  the 
community.  The  younger  Efremov  was,  however,  denounced 
to  the  Military  Collegium  by  a  Cossack,  and  accused  of  abuse  of 
authority.  The  Mihtary  Collegium  ordered  him  to  St.  Petersburg, 
ostensibly  to  consult  about  the  military  situation  in  the  Don  region. 


THE   RISING   OF   PUGACHEV         39 

Efremov  understood  the  risk  he  ran  in  putting  himself  into  the 
hands  of  the  authorities,  and  refused  to  comply  with  the  order. 
He  then  began  a  journey  through  the  Cossack  stations  announcing 
that  the  Government  was  demanding  more  recruits  from  the  Cos- 
sacks, and  urging  them  to  petition  against  the  proposed  recruiting, 
and  as  well  to  demand  the  return  of  recruits  previously  sent  to 
Azov  and  Taganrog.  This  astute  manoeuvre  brought  the  Cossacks 
round  to  the  side  of  Efremov,  who  now  proceeded  to  defy  the 
Military  Collegium.  Major-General  Cherepov,  who  was  sent  to 
demand  the  presence  of  Efremov  at  St.  Petersburg,  was  roughly 
used  by  the  Cossacks,  and  orders  were  then  given  by  the  Empress 
to  arrest  Efremov.  The  arrest  was  effected  on  9th  November  1772, 
and  Efremov  was  conveyed  to  Rostov-on-Don  and  immediately 
afterwards  to  St.  Petersburg.  The  alarm  bell  was  rung  in  the 
Cossack  towns,  and  the  whole  population  became  greatly  agitated. 
Efremov  was  tried  at  St.  Petersburg  for  accepting  bribes  and  for 
embezzlement.  He  was  found  guilty  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged. 
The  sentence  was  afterwards  commuted  to  banishment  for  life. 

While  these  agitations  were  going  on  among  the  Cossacks  of 
the  Don,  one  of  the  discontented  Cossacks,  a  Little  Russian  called 
Pevchy,  decided  to  go  to  Tsaritsin,  where  Bogomolov  was  confined, 
to  investigate  for  himself  the  rumours  about  the  reappearance  of 
Peter  HI.  He  had  two  interviews  with  the  impostor,  who  showed 
certain  marks  upon  his  body  which  he  alleged  were  Tsar's  marks, 
or  marks  which  were  made  upon  the  heirs  to  the  throne.  The 
exhibition  of  this  alleged  Tsar's  cross  convinced  Pevchy,  who 
undertook  to  endeavour  to  secure  the  adherence  of  a  hundred 
Cossacks  and  to  attempt  the  rescue  of  Bogomolov.  Pevchy  went 
a  second  time  to  Tsaritsin,  carrying  a  small  sum  of  money  which 
had  been  subscribed  by  the  Cossacks.  He  gave  the  money  to 
Bogomolov  and  asked  for  a  receipt.  The  impostor,  who  was  quite 
illiterate,  made  the  pretence  that  he  had  no  writing  materials.  The 
influence  which  Bogomolov,  in  spite  of  his  imprisonment,  was 
exerting  upon  the  Cossacks  became  known  to  the  Empress,  and  she 
ordered^  that  inmiediate  steps  be  taken  to  punish  the  impostor. 
Bogomolov  was  mutilated  and  whipped,  and  was  then  sent  off 
secretly  under  convoy  in  August  1772  to  Nerchinsk.  He  died  on 
the  way. 

*  In  an  autograph  letter  to  Chemyshev. 


40     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Some  of  the  accomplices  of  Bogomolov  who  had  escaped  were 
still  being  searched  for  in  1774,  when  the  fifth  impostor  appeared 
upon  the  scene.  This  was  a  fugitive  Cossack  of  the  Don,  Emilian 
Ivanovich  Pugachev.  According  to  his  own  statement,  Pugachev 
was  bom  in  1744.^  Since  Peter  III  was  bom  in  1728,  there  was  so 
great  disparity  in  age  that  there  seems  little  excuse  for  the  Cossacks 
being  deceived,  simple-minded  as  they  were.  Certainly  those 
inmiediately  about  the  impostor  were  not.  Yet  it  appears  that 
he  looked  older  than  he  was.^  Pugachev  was  born  on  the  Don, 
was  married  to  a  Cossack  girl,  and  was  enlisted  in  the  army.  He 
fought  in  Pmssia  in  the  Russian  campaign  during  the  Seven  Years 
War.  In  one  of  the  minor  engagements  he  lost  a  horse  belonging  to 
his  Colonel,  and  for  this  was  "mercilessly  beaten." ^  The  Russian 
troops  were  withdrawn  from  Prussia  on  the  accession  of  Peter  III 
in  January  1762,  and  six  months  afterwards,  on  the  death  of  Peter, 
the  Cossack  troops  were  disbanded.  In  1764  Pugachev  was  in 
service  again  in  Poland,  and  afterwards  on  the  frontier  in  the  war 
with  Turkey.  During  the  latter  campaign  he  was  invalided.  In 
Febmary  1771  he  appeared  at  Cherkask  on  the  Don,  and  later  at 
Taganrog.  In  the  course  of  these  visits  Pugachev  became  acquainted 
with  the  grievances  of  the  Cossacks,  his  long  period  of  service  abroad 
having  prevented  him  from  knowing  of  them  earlier.  Pugachev 
compromised  himself  in  the  first  instance  by  aiding  his  sister  and 
her  husband  to  escape  across  the  Don  from  the  Cossack  territory. 
They  were  arrested,  but  at  that  time  he  evaded  capture,  and  then 
began  the  odyssey  of  Pugachev  which  led  later  to  momentous 
consequences.  Pugachev  was  arrested  repeatedly,  but  he  escaped 
as  often.  In  the  course  of  these  earlier  wanderings  Pugachev  was 
being  driven  on  the  steppe  when  the  following  conversation  took 
place  between  him  and  his  driver.  This  conversation  and  another 
which  followed  both  throw  light  upon  the  manners  and  way  of  life 
of  the  steppe  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  travellers,  Pugachev  and  his  young  driver,*  had  halted  for 

^  Statement  of  Pugachev  to  Sheshkovsky,  4th  November  1774.     State        : 
Archives  VI,  Affair  No.  512  ;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  132.  91 

2  Peter  was  deeply  pitted  with  smallpox,  a  fact  which  was  probably      '^ 
unknown  to  the  Cossacks.  i\ 

'  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  133,  quoting  State  Archives  VI,  Affair  No.  506. 

•  Alexis  Koverin,  step-son  of  Ivan  Koverin,  from  whose  statement  the 
narrative  is  taken.  The  statement  is  dated  nth  December  1774.  State 
Archives  VI,  Affair  No.  512 ;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  i.  pp.  142  et  seq. 


THE  RISING    OF    PUGACHEV         41 

supper.  Pugachev  remarked  "  insinuatingly  '*  to  his  companion, 
who  was  a  raskolnek  or  dissenter : 

"  I  want  to  Hve  for  God,  and  I  do  not  know  where  to  find  God- 
fearing people." 

"  I  know  where  to  find  a  God-fearing  man,"  said  the  driver. 
"  He  accepts  people  who  want  to  live  for  God." 

"  Please  take  me  to  him.  Who  is  that  God-fearing  man,  and 
where  does  he  live  ?  " 

**  This  man  is  a  Cossack  of  Kabaria  settlement.  He  lives  on 
his  own  farm  ;  and  his  name  is  Korovka." 

On  the  next  evening  they  arrived  at  the  farm  of  Korovka. 
Pugachev  remained  concealed  in  the  cart  while  the  driver  went  to 
reconnoitre  and  to  interview  the  farmer. 

"  Who  are  you  ?  "  asked  Korovka. 

**  I  am  an  emigrant  from  Poland,  a  raskolnek,  an  inhabitant  of 
Belgorodskaya  gub.,  of  Volnysky  uezd  (district)  of  the  Courts' 
(Court  peasants)  raskolnek  settlement  Chemigovka  on  the  river 
Koysukha,  Alexey  Ivanovich  Koverin.  I  have  brought  here  a 
man  who  wants  to  Uve  for  God  alone." 

"  Where  is  that  man  ?  " 

Pugachev  then  emerged  from  the  cart. 

"  What  is  your  rank  ?  "  asked  Korovka. 

"I  am  a  Don  Cossack,  Emelian  Ivanovich  Pugachev.  ...  I 
want  to  live  for  God.  Let  me  live  here  in  service,  doing  what  good 
for  God  a  man  can  do." 

"  I  should  be  glad,"  said  Korovka,  "  but  it  is  quite  impossible. 
I  have  kept  such  people,  but  they  have  often  robbed  me.  Indeed, 
I  am  afraid  they  have  almost  ruined  me.  .  .  .  Life  is  hard  here  for 
us  Old  Believers.  I  have  suffered  for  beard  and  cross  ^  in  Bel- 
gorod ;  but  God  give  good  health  to  our  gracious  Empress.  She 
gave  her  ukase,  and  I  was  relieved." 

Korovka  kept  Pugachev  for  two  days,  sent  his  son  with  him  to 
guide  him,  and  gave  him  money,  two  horses,  and  a  passport  in 
Korovka's  own  name.  Throughout  his  wanderings  this  extra- 
ordinary man  found  always  charitable  persons,  dupes,  or  shrewd 
allies  who  protected  and  assisted  him.     In  the  course  of  these 

^  In  being  taxed  for  wearing  a  beard  and  for  dissent  by  the  tax  laws  of 
Peter  the  Great.  The  Old  Believers  attached  extreme  importance  to  sym- 
bolism.    They  approved  only  the  eight-branched  cross. 


42     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

wanderings  Pugachev  heard  the  story  of  Bogomolov.  He  learned 
that  Bogomolov  had  been  sent  secretly  to  Siberia,  and  that  his  fate 
was  unknown.  He  learned  also  of  the  disturbances  on  the  Yaek. 
Much  of  this  information  was  derived  from  a  monk  called  Philaret, 
whom  he  found  at  a  hermitage  at  the  village  of  Malikovka  (now 
the  town  of  Volsk,  near  Saratov).  This  monk  appears  to  have 
recognized  in  Pugachev  some  capacity  for  leadership,  and  to  have 
suggested  to  him  the  idea  of  raising  another  insurrection  among 
the  Cossacks.^  Pugachev  adopted  the  suggestion,  and  seems  to 
have  added  an  idea  of  his  own,  namely,  that  he  should  induce  the 
Cossacks  to  leave  the  Yaek  and  to  enlist  in  the  service  of  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey.  As  he  approached  the  Yaek  he  learned  of  the  flights 
of  Cossacks  from  that  region,  and  he  was  confirmed  in  the  impression 
that  by  directing  these  flights  he  might  become  ataman  of  the 
transferred  Yaek  Cossacks.  Pugachev  arrived  at  the  town  of  Yaek 
on  22nd  November  1772.2 

Two  months  earlier  the  Commission  charged  with  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  occurrences  at  the  Yaek  had  reported  and  recommended 
that  of  the  Cossacks  found  guilty  of  participation  in  the  uprising, 
twelve  should  be  quartered,  forty-seven  hanged,  three  decapitated, 
twenty  beaten,  and  eight  shaved  and  sent  into  the  regular  army. 
The  property  of  those  who  had  been  found  guilty,  but  who  had 
been  able  to  escape,  was  to  be  confiscated,  and  on  recovery  of  their 
persons  they  were  to  be  hanged.  The  children  of  those  who  were 
punished  were  to  be  sent  into  the  regular  army.^  This  formidable 
sentence  was  sent  to  St.  Petersburg  for  confirmation,  and  those  to 
whom  it  appUed  were  kept  in  prison.  Pugachev  found  the  Cossacks 
in  deep  depression.  Their  leaders  were  awaiting  death,  and  the 
fear  of  punishment  hung  over  the  community.  He  also  heard 
renewed  rumours  about  the  appearance  at  Tsaritsin  of  the  Emperor 
Peter  in  the  person  of  Bogomolov.  Pugachev  was  aware  that  that 
impostor  had  disappeared,  and  he  seems  then  to  have  determined 

^  In  more  than  one  of  the  insurrections  of  peasants  and  Cossacks  at  this 
period,  incitement  by  the  clergy  appears  as  a  prominent  incident.  It  is 
difi&cult  to  dissociate  this  fact  from  clerical  antagonism  to  Katherine 
on  account  of  the  secularization  of  the  Church  lands  in  1764,  although  the 
process  was  begun  in  1762,  under  the  nominal  rule  of  Peter  III.  Cf.  supra, 
I.  p.  233,  and  [Tooke]  Life  0/  Catherine  II  (London,  1800),  ii,  p.  184. 

*  From  the  statements  of  Pugachev  and  others  made  in  1774.  State 
Archives  VI,  Affairs  Nos.  506  and  512.     See  Dubrovin,  i.  pp.  150-4. 

^  Archives  of  the  General  Staff,  Moscow,  Inventory  No.  93,  Roll  492, 
No.  517;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  155, 


THE   RISING   OF   PUGACHEV         43 

to  personate  him,  and  thus  to  secure  what  benefit  might  be  derived 
from  Cossack  sympathy  with  him.  He  therefore  began  cautiously 
to  announce  that  he  was  himself  the  Emperor  Peter,  and  that  he 
had  escaped  death  in  Tsaritsin  as  well  as  in  St.  Petersburg.  The 
fact  that  Pugachev  had  entertained  the  design  of  leading  the  Cos- 
sacks away  from  the  Yaek  was  betrayed  to  the  authorities.  He 
was  arrested,  and  in  January  1773  he  was  sent  to  Kazan.  There 
he  was  detained  in  prison  until  the  end  of  May,  when  he  escaped. 
Advice  of  the  escape  of  Pugachev  was  accidentally  delayed, 
and  was  not  in  the  hands  of  Prince  Vyazemsky,  to  whom  it  was 
directed,  until  the  beginning  of  August.  At  St.  Petersburg  it 
was  at  once  taken  seriously.  It  was  reported  at  midnight  to 
Count  Chernyshev,  vice-president  of  the  Mihtary  Collegium,  and 
on  the  following  morning  orders  were  despatched  to  take  every 
possible  measure  to  find  Pugachev.  It  was  too  late  ;  Pugachev 
had  already  declared  himself  to  be  the  Emperor  Peter,  had  suc- 
ceeded in  surrounding  himself  with  a  considerable  force  of  armed 
Cossacks  of  the  Yaek,  had  captured  an  outpost,  and  had  nearly 
reached  the  Cossack  town.  Imitating  Bogomolov,  Pugachev  had 
exhibited  to  his  adherents  certain  marks  upon  his  body  which  he 
said  were  Tsar's  signs.  He  remained  on  the  steppe  receiving  visitors 
and  disseminating  the  idea  that  he  was  the  Emperor  and  that  he 
had  come  to  redress  the  wrongs  of  the  Cossacks. 

The  sentence  upon  the  Cossacks  which  had  been  formulated  by 
the  investigating  Commission  was  not  approved  by  the  Military 
Collegium.  Instead  an  order  was  sent  to  deport  to  Siberia  a  number 
of  the  Cossacks,  and  to  impose  a  heavy  fine  upon  the  Cossack  com- 
munity as  a  whole,^  the  amount  of  individual  assessment  being  left 
to  the  local  authorities.  Although  the  proposed  punishment  was 
greatly  diminished,  the  Cossacks  were  still  dissatisfied.  Among 
the  visitors  of  Pugachev  were  some  of  the  leading  spirits  of  the 
Cossack  disturbances  who  had  contrived  to  evade  arrest.  One  of 
these,  a  Cossack  named  Karavayev,  was  interrogated  by  another 
Cossack  called  Chika,  who  afterwards  took  a  very  active  share  in 
the  revolutionary  campaign,  and  who  obtained  the  title  of  **  Count  " 
from  Pugachev. 

"  Tell  me  the  truth,  what  kind  of  man  is  he  whom  we  regard 
as  an  Emperor  ?  " 

^  The  fine  was  36,000  rubles.     Dubrovin,  i.  p.  185. 


44     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

*'  Even  if  he  is  not  an  Emperor,  but  only  a  Cossack  of  the  Don, 
he  shall  intervene  for  us  instead  of  an  Emperor.  It  does  not 
matter  to  us  what  he  is." 

"  Very  good ;  so  let  it  be.  This  means  that  he  is  necessary  for 
the  Cossacks."  ^ 

Chika  took  an  early  opportunity  of  interrogating  Pugachev. 

"Tell  me,  little  father,  the  essential  truth.  Are  you  a  real 
Emperor  ?  " 

"  I  am  a  real  Emperor  to  you,"  said  Pugachev. 

Chika  then  said,  "  You  may  conceal  it  from  men,  but  you  shall 
not  be  able  to  conceal  it  from  God.  ...  I  have  sworn  that  I  will 
tell  no  one.  ...  It  is  not  of  much  importance  whether  you  are  a 
Don  Cossack  or  not,  if  we  have  accepted  you  as  Emperor.    So  be  it." 

"  If  so,  then,  keep  it  secret.  I  am  really  a  Don  Cossack,"  said 
Pugachev.  "  I  have  told  this  to  a  few  of  the  other  Cossacks.  But 
under  the  name  of  Peter  I  shall  acquire  power  and  shall  have  many 
people  with  me,  and  I  shall  capture  Moscow,  where  there  are  no 
troops." 

Chika  at  once  imparted  this  confession  of  Pugachev  to  another 
Cossack,  Myasnikov,  who  said  : 

**  It  does  not  concern  us  whether  he  is  an  Emperor  or  not.  Out 
of  earth  we  can  make  a  prince.  Even  if  he  does  not  conquer  the 
Moscow  State,  we  shall  make  the  Yaek  our  own  kingdom." 

Pugachev  was  thus  in  a  large  measure  a  tool  of  the  Cossacks. 
They  required  a  man  of  his  type  to  act  as  nominal  leader  and  pos- 
sible scapegoat,  and  they  found  in  Pugachev  the  man  they  wanted.^ 
Myasnikov  afterwards  confessed  this  fully.  "  When  Pugachev 
came  to  us  and  told  us  that  he  had  escaped  from  Kazan,  that  he 
had  been  wandering  about  the  steppe,  and  that  he  needed  shelter 
in  order  to  escape  the  search  which  was  being  made  for  him,  we  had 
many  conversations  about  him,  and  we  recognized  in  him  a  certain 
shrewdness  and  talent.  We,  therefore,  thought  of  protecting  him 
and  of  making  him  master  over  us,  and  of  re-establishing  our  sup- 
pressed habits  and  customs.  .  .  .  For  this  reason  we  have  accepted 
him  as  our  Emperor,  so  that  we  may  re-establish  our  customs 
and  destroy  all  the  boyars  who  think  themselves  so  much  cleverer 

^  State  Archives  VI,  Affair  No.  506  ;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  i.  p.  217. 
*  In  this  respect  the  history  of  Pugachev  resembled  the  history  of  Father 
Gapon  in  1905.     Cf.  infra,  p.  455. 


THE    RISING    OF    PUGACHEV         45 

than  other  people.  We  hoped  that  our  undertaking  would  be 
supported,  and  that  our  power  would  grow  by  the  adhesion  of 
the  common  people,  who  are  oppressed  and  ruined  to  an  extreme 
extent."! 

By  the  i8th  September  1773  Pugachev  felt  himself  strong  enough 
to  use  force  to  compel  the  Cossacks  to  resort  to  his  standard.  He 
caused  a  loyal  Cossack  to  be  hanged,  and  he  circulated  a  manifesto 
to  the  effect  that  he  would  confer  great  benefits  upon  the  Cossacks 
if  they  supported  him,  and  that  he  would  hang  and  torture  them 
if  they  did  not.  When  he  appeared  in  force  before  an  outpost,  the 
Cossacks  realized  that  they  were  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma.  If 
they  joined  him  they  were  certain  to  be  punished  by  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  future  ;  if  they  did  not  join  him  they  were  to  be  hanged 
immediately.  A  future  punishment  was  less  to  be  dreaded  than  a 
present  one,  therefore  they  decided  to  join  Pugachev's  forces.  They 
marched  out  of  their  small  fortified  posts,  accompanied  by  their 
priests,  and  prostrated  themselves  before  Pugachev,  offering  him 
*'  bread  and  ssJt."  This  occurred,  for  example,  on  21st  September 
at  one  of  the  outposts.  The  commandant,  deserted  by  the  Cossacks, 
was  hanged,  and  Pugachev  went  to  the  church,  ordering  that  the 
name  of  the  Empress  should  be  excluded  from  the  prayer  and  the 
name  of  Peter  substituted.  After  the  service  the  people,  begin- 
ning with  the  priest,  took  an  oath  of  fealty ;  and  Pugachev  pro- 
mised on  his  part  to  reheve  the  people  from  "  oppression  and 
poverty,"  saying  that  he  would  take  the  villages  from  the  boyars, 
and  give  them,  as  well  as  money,  to  the  peasants.^  Such  captures 
enabled  Pugachev  to  recruit  his  forces,  to  acquire  money,  which  he 
took  from  the  administrative  offices,  and  to  obtain  ammunition 
and  guns.  He  had  gun  carriages  made  for  the  latter,  and  converted 
small  fortress  guns  into  field  artillery.  When  resistance  was  made, 
Pugachev  easily  overpowered  the  small  garrisons,  hanged  the 
conmiandant,  and  sometimes  also  his  wife,  as  well  as  any  active 
defenders,  and  then  compelled  the  remainder  of  the  garrison  to 
join  his  standard. 

Although  Pugachev  went  within  a  few  miles  of  the  Yaek  town, 
he  did  not  feel  himself  strong  enough  to  attack  it,  but  he  proceeded 

*  State  Archives  VI,  Affair  No.  421,  statement  of  8th  May  1774 ;  cited  by 
Dubrovin,  i.  p.  221. 

*  Dubrovin,  ii.  pp.  16  and  17. 


46     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

^on  his  way  towards  a  more  important  place — the  fortress  of  Oren- 
burg— slaying  and  recruiting  as  he  went.  The  Cossacks  ever5Avhere 
not  only  joined  his  ranks,  but  information  about  his  movements 
did  not  circulate,  and  the  people  and  garrison  of  Orenburg  were 
quite  unaware  of  his  rapid  approach.  Even  when  news  was  re- 
ceived it  was  discredited.  Reynsdorp,  the  commandant,  refused 
to  accept  verbal  reports.  There  were  no  others,  for  the  excellent 
reason  that  those  who  should  have  given  them  had  been  hanged. 
Only  on  the  24th  September,  in  consequence  of  a  message  from  the 
Khan  of  the  Kirghiz  horde,  which  indicated  Pugachev's  movements, 
did  Reynsdorp  take  the  matter  seriously.  He  then  despatched  an 
officer  named  Bilov  with  a  detachment  of  400  men  and  six  field 
guns,  with  orders  to  intercept  and  capture  Pugachev.  In  addition 
Reynsdorp  ordered  500  Kalmuk  Tartars  to  go  to  the  reinforcement 
of  this  detachment.  On  the  26th,  Bilov  arrived  at  an  outpost 
82  versts  from  Orenburg,  where  he  received  a  message  from  the 
commandant  of  one  of  the  outposts  which  Pugachev  had  attacked. 
The  message  was  a  pathetic  appeal  for  assistance,  the  Cossack 
garrison  having  deserted  and  left  the  commandant  to  his  fate.  By 
the  time  the  message  reached  Bilov  the  commandant  had  been  cut 
to  pieces.  Such  information  as  Bilov  could  obtain  showed  that 
Pugachev  had  now  at  his  disposal  a  force  of  3000,  with  an  unknown 
number  of  guns.  He  therefore  retired  upon  the  fortress  of  Tati- 
sheva,  which  was  situated  upon  a  hill  overlooking  the  confluence 
of  the  Ural  River  and  one  of  its  tributaries.  This  was  looked  upon 
as  an  important  place,  military  supplies  were  stored  there,  and  the 
garrison  consisted  of  1000  men  equipped  with  13  guns.  The  fortress 
was  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Elagin,  a  brave  and  capable 
officer.  On  the  27th  September  Elagin  sent  out  a  party  to  recon- 
noitre. The  officer  was  killed  and  almost  all  the  party  taken 
prisoners.  A  sortie  of  Orenburg  Cossacks  from  the  fortress  was 
then  ordered,  with  the  object  of  frightening  the  rebel  forces.  The 
Cossacks  deserted  in  a  body,  and  went  over  to  Pugachev.  The 
fortress  was  then  attacked  by  the  rebels  in  force,  set  on  fire,  and 
captured,  Elagin  and  Bilov  both  being  killed.  The  fall  of  Tatisheva 
not  only  gave  Pugachev  a  quantity  of  plunder  and  some  additional 
guns,  but  it  produced  a  great  moral  effect  upon  the  surrounding 
Cossack  population,  and  moreover  opened  the  way  to  Orenburg. 
Pugachev  was  joined  by  a  large  body  of  Kabnuks  and  by  500  Bash- 


THE   RISING   OF   PUGACHEV         47 

kirs,  and  was  now  within  28  versts  from  Orenburg,  without  any  inter- 
vening fortress.  The  city  was  practically  defenceless.  The  garrison 
of  regular  troops  was  small  (only  1200  men),  and  it  was  scattered 
in  different  outposts ;  the  Cossacks,  who  had  been  relied  upon  only 
for  resistance  to  the  Tartar  hordes,  were  under  strong  suspicion. 
The  people  were  panic-stricken;  the  excesses  of  Pugachev  had 
become  known,  and  had  excited  the  utmost  horror.  The  inhabitants 
proceeded  desperately  to  repair  the  neglected  defences. 

Pugachev  did  not  attack  the  city  immediately.  Had  he  done 
so  he  might  have  taken  it.  He  proceeded  by  making  himself 
master  of  the  surrounding  region  and  by  isolating  Orenburg, 
Reynsdorp,  the  Governor  of  Orenburg,  suggests  that  Pugachev's 
object  in  going  into  the  surrounding  country  was  to  announce  to 
the  peasants  that  he  was  going  to  emancipate  them,  and  by  this 
means  inducing  them  to  join  him.  He  certainly  destroyed  many 
houses  of  pomyetscheke  and  caused  a  general  flight  of  serf-owners 
and  their  families. 

The  news  that  Pugachev  was  investing  Orenburg  reached  St. 
Petersburg  on  the  19th  October  1773,  but  in  spite  of  the  transparent 
gravity  of  the  situation,  action  was  difficult.  Russia  was  engaged 
in  the  war  with  Turkey,  and  France  and  Sweden  together  were 
threatening  Russia  in  the  Baltic.  A  Cossack  attack  upon  a  remote 
outskirt  like  Orenburg  appeared  to  be  a  minor  affair.  Besides,  to 
send  any  considerable  reinforcement  of  troops  to  the  Volga  was  to 
disclose  the  interior  troubles,  and  thus  to  compromise  external 
relations ;  and  to  send  any  large  number  was  difficult,  because  of 
the  demands  of  the  unsuccessful  Turkish  campaign  and  the  need 
for  defensive  measures  in  the  north.  Thus,  although  Katherine 
seems  to  have  grasped  from  the  beginning  the  gravity  of  the  Cossack 
movement,  she  found  herself  in  a  dilemma.  Detached  bodies  of 
troops  were  thus  sent  to  Kazan  in  such  a  manner  as  to  avoid  attract- 
ing attention. 

Meanwhile  Pugachev  circulated  through  the  whole  region  mani- 
festoes ordering  the  liberation  of  peasants  and  promising  religious 
freedom,  abohtion  of  bondage  right,  and  the  allotment  of  land  to 
the  liberated  peasants.  He  invited  all  "  enslaved  persons  "  to  join 
his  ranks  and  to  fight  for  their  liberty.  Emissaries  were  sent  by 
him  among  the  peasants  at  the  State  and  "  possessional  "  factories. 
Since  the  adoption  of  a  policy  of  concentrating  the  mihtary  forces 


48     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

became  necessary  in  consequence  of  the  growth  of  Pugachev's 
army,  the  outlying  posts  were  abandoned,  and  thus  in  the  regions 
round  about  these  posts  the  influence  of  the  Government  decUned 
and  the  influence  of  Pugachev  increased.^  Cossacks  of  the  Yaek 
belonging  to  Pugachev's  army  went  about  among  the  estates, 
collected  the  peasants,  and  told  them  that  by  the  order  of  Pugachev 
they  were  liberated.  To  make  this  manifest,  they  burned  the  houses 
of  the  pomyetscheke.  At  the  works  where  bonded  peasants  were 
engaged,  they  killed  the  managers,  plundered  the  works,  and  carried 
off  the  peasants  as  recruits.  Some  of  the  commanders  of  outposts, 
being  deserted  by  their  troops,  capitulated  to  Pugachev  in  prefer- 
ence to  being  hanged  by  him.^ 

As  in  all  such  historical  cases,  Pugachev's  army  was  a  very 
fluctuating  quantity,  but  he  succeeded  in  maintaining  the  invest- 
ment of  Orenburg,  although  he  feared  to  attack  the  town.  He 
destroyed  the  hay  in  the  suburbs  and  prevented  any  supplies  from 
being  taken  in,  hoping  to  reduce  the  population  to  submission  by 
famine. 

In  the  beginning  of  November  (1773)  Pugachev  learned  of  the 
advance  of  General  Kar,^  who  had  been  sent  by  the  Government 
to  take  command  of  the  troops  on  the  Volga  and  to  endeavour  to 
relieve  Orenburg.  Kar  collected  the  scattered  elements  of  an  army 
and  proceeded  towards  Orenburg,  but  he  found  himself  in  a  hostile 
country.  The  whole  of  the  Russian  population  was  agitated  and 
more  or  less  disloyal,  while  the  Kalmuks  and  Bashkirs  were  in  open 
rebelUon,  marauding  and  disappearing  on  the  steppe.*  Advance 
was  difficult,  because  provisions  and  forage  could  not  readily  be 
procured,  and  from  the  middle  of  October  there  had  been  a  heavy 
fall  of  snow.  Kar  had  under  his  command  very  few  regular  troops,^ 
and  the  irregulars  could  not  be  relied  upon.  The  country  had 
never  been  surveyed,  and  the  distances  between  points  were  not 
accurately  known.  In  addition  to  the  forces  under  Kar  himself, 
there  were  moving  upon  Orenburg,  or  available  to  move  upon  it, 
about  4000  regular  and  irregular  troops  from  Tobolsk,  under  the 
command  of  Dekalong,  a  smaller  detachment  under  Chemyshev 

^  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  81.  *  Ihid.y  p.  83. 

*  Properly  Ker,  a  Scotch  soldier  of  fortune  in  the  Russian  service, 

*  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  98. 

*  Only  631.    Ibid.,  p.  99. 


THE    RISING    OF    PUGACHEV         49 

on  the  Volga,  and  another  detachment  under  Korf,  in  one  of  the 
fortresses  south  of  Kazan.  Had  all  of  these  various  forces  been 
able  to  precipitate  themselves  at  the  same  moment  upon  Pugachev, 
the  rebellion  would  have  been  at  an  end.  But  the  distances  were 
great,  means  of  communication  in  a  hostile  country  difficult,  and 
each  commander  was  unaware  of  the  whereabouts  of  the  others.^ 
Pugachev,  whose  information  was  much  more  ample,  was  thus  able 
to  meet  the  various  detachments  individually,  and  to  defeat  them  in 
detail.  Nor  was  Pugachev  left  to  act  alone.  The  emissaries  whom 
he  had  sent  to  rouse  the  peasants  on  the  estates  and  at  the  "  pos- 
sessional "  and  State  works  were  highly  successful.  They  were 
received  with  "  joy  "  at  the  works  at  Avzyano-Petrovsk,  for  in- 
stance, where  Prince  Vyazemsky  had  found  the  ascribed  peasants 
had  been  drawn  to  the  works  from  immense  distances,  and  had 
been  for  this  and  other  reasons  connected  with  the  administration 
of  the  works  in  a  state  of  discontent  for  years.^  Pugachev's 
emissaries  obtained  at  these  and  other  works  men,  money,  and 
materials  of  war.  Forming  a  force  they  were  able  to  attack  Kar, 
to  prevent  reinforcements  from  reaching  him,  and  even  to  induce 
the  desertion  of  some  of  his  troops.^  In  spite  of  the  need  of  haste, 
which  he  felt  necessary  to  accomplish  his  object,  Kar  was  obliged 
to  retire  and  to  await  reinforcements  before  continuing  his  advance. 
Korf  and  Chernyshev,  however,  succeeded  in  reaching,  one 
within  20  and  the  other  within  40  versts  of  Orenburg,  and  they  con- 
trived to  convey  despatches  to  Reynsdorp,  who  ordered  them  to 
march  towards  the  town  at  daybreak  on  the  morning  of  the  13th 
November,  on  which  morning  he  would  make  a  sally.  On  the  night 
of  the  1 2th  Chernyshev  received  news  of  the  defeat  and  retirement 
of  Kar,  and  also  of  a  threatened  attack  by  Pugachev  upon  himself. 
He  was  urged  by  the  Cossacks,  who  gave  him  this  information,  to 
endeavour  to  reach  Orenburg  by  a  night  march,  and  under  cover 
of  the  night  to  try  to  evade  Pugachev,  through  whose  lines  he  must 
pass.  Pugachev,  by  whom  probably  the  plan  was  concocted,  had 
prepared  an  ambush,  and  in  the  early  morning,  on  emerging  from  a 
defile,  the  head  of  Chernyshev's  column  was  attacked  by  Pugachev  in 
force.     The  column  was  demoralized,  the  irregulars  first  deserted,  and 

^  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  loo.  '  Cf.  supra,  i.  pp.  458-9. 

^  Economical  (formerly  Church)  peasants  deserted,  for  instance.     Du- 
brovin, ii,  p.  104, 

VOL.  II  D 


50     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

then  the  garrison  troops.  Chemyshev  was  made  prisoner  and  almost 
immediately  afterwards  was  hanged,  together  with  thirty-three 
officers  and  one  officer's  wife.  Elated  with  this  victory  and  occupied 
with  the  despatch  of  his  unfortunate  prisoners,  Pugachev  allowed 
Korf  to  slip  past  him  and  to  enter  Orenburg  with  2500  men  and 
22  guns.^  This  accession  of  numbers  was  at  once  too  many  and  too 
few.  The  fresh  troops  were  too  many  to  feed  and  too  few  to  reUeve 
the  town.  Reynsdorp  ordered  a  sally  the  following  day,  but  the 
force  was  defeated  by  Pugachev,  who  now  had  before  Orenburg 
10,000  men  and  40  guns.  This  was  not,  however,  all  his  force.  In 
December  1773  he  appears  to  have  had  altogether  15,000  men  and 
86  guns.  The  rebel  army  was,  as  might  be  expected,  indifferently 
organized  and  badly  armed.  Following  the  Cossack  practice,  the 
officers  were  elected,  the  Cossacks  of  the  Yaek  taking  the  leading 
part  in  the  elections  and  allowing  only  those  of  Whom  they  approved 
to  be  elected.  Pugachev  estabUshed  a  so-called  miUtary  collegium, 
with  whose  proceedings  it  appears  he  did  not  interfere.  Some  were 
armed  with  pikes,  some  with  pistols,  some  with  the  swords  of  cap- 
tured officers,  a  very  few  with  rifles.^  They  were  all  or  nearly  all 
well  mounted.^  The  armed  crowd  was,  however,  only  a  small  part 
of  the  total  of  Pugachev's  adherents.  There  were  about  him  a 
nimiber,  unknown  even  to  himself,*  of  escaped  dvorovie  lyude, 
agricultural  peasants.  State  works  peasants,  ascribed  peasants,  Kir- 
ghizes, Bashkirs,  and  others.  Of  all  of  these  the  most  zealous  were 
the  peasants  ascribed  to  the  works  to  whom  Pugachev  meant  liberty 
from  the  intolerable  conditions  to  which  they  had  been  subjected.^ 

The  discipHne  of  Pugachev  in  certain  directions  was  very  severe. 
One  of  his  confederates,  who  ventured  in  his  cups  to  say  that  he 
knew  where  the  "  emperor  "  came  from,  was  hanged  the  following 
morning,  although  he  had  been  personally  intimate  with  Pugachev 
and  a  useful  conmiander.  From  an  early  period  denunciations 
and  treachery  were  frequent  in  the  camp  of  the  impostor. 

While  the  investment  of  Orenburg  occupied  the  greater  number 

^  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  iii.  2  ji)id,,  p.  135. 

'  Reynsdorp  complained  that  they  had  all  the  good  horses  in  the  region. 

*  Pugachev's  statement,  4th  November  1774.  State  Archives  VI,  Affair 
No.  512  ;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  136. 

^  Report  of  the  Orenburg  Secret  Commission,  21st  May  1774.  State 
Archives,  Affair  No.  508  (2)  ;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  136.  See  also  suprOy 
i.  pp.  434-521. 


THE    RISING    OF    PUGACHEV  51 

of  the  immediate  adherents  of  the  impostor,  the  mirest  which  his 
movement  produced  spread  far  and  wide.  In  Kazan  the  situation 
was  very  serious.  The  disturbances  of  the  previous  years,  the 
rigorous  enforcement  of  the  laws,  and  the  arbitrary  action  of  the 
authorities,  both  local  and  central,  had  filled  the  prisons.  The 
local  miUtia  was  composed  of  tribesmen  of  the  native  races  of  the 
Upper  Volga — ^the  Cheremissi,  the  Mordva,^  and  others — ^all  more 
or  less  unreUable  elements,  and  there  were  few  regular  troops. 
Migrations  in  mass  of  the  gentry  of  Kazan  to  Moscow  began  early 
in  the  winter  of  1773.^ 

General  Kar,  who  had  been  driven  back  by  the  adherents  of 
Pugachev,  found  himself  in  the  beginning  of  winter  without  reliable 
infantry  and  without  cavalry.  He  determined,  suffering  from 
fever  as  he  was,  to  leave  his  command  in  winter  quarters,  and  to 
go  to  St.  Petersburg  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  with  the  autho- 
rities and  endeavouring  to  induce  them  to  send  an  adequate  force 
to  put  down  the  rebellion.  On  his  arrival  at  Moscow  he  was  dis- 
missed the  service  for  leaving  his  command  without  orders.^  He 
was  replaced  by  General  A.  I.  Bibikov,*  who  was  given  one  regiment 
of  cavalry  and  two  of  infantry,  although  the  reinforcements  which 
Kar  had  asked  for  had  been  refused.  The  infantry  regiments  were 
to  be  forwarded  from  Moscow  to  Kazan  in  post-carts  in  order  to 
save  time. 

A  manifesto  written  by  Katherine  was  read  to  the  Council  at 
which  Bibikov  was  present,  on  the  eve  of  his  departure.  "  My 
spirit,"  Katherine  said,  "  shivers  when  I  think  of  the  times  (150 
years  earlier)  of  Godunov  (Boris)  and  Otrepiev  (the  pseudo-Deme- 
trius I),  in  which  Russia  was  plunged  in  civil  war,  when,  because 
of  the  appearance  of  an  impostor,  the  towns  and  villages  were 
ruined  by  fire  and  sword,  when  the  blood  of  Russians  was  shed  by 
Russians,  and  when  the  imity  of  the  State  was  destroyed  by  Rus- 
sians themselves."  ^ 

^  See  supra,  i.  p.  580.  *  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  147. 

'  The  Eighteenth  Century,  ed.  Bertener,  i.  p.  102  ;  cited  by  Dubrovin, 
ii.  p.  162. 

*  Cf.  supra,  i.  p.  465. 

•  Moscow  Society  of  History  and  Antiquities  (i860),  ii.  p.  72  ;  cited  by 
Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  168.  Both  Chernyshev  and  Orlov  objected  to  the  comparison 
between  Pugachev  and  the  pseudo-Demetrius,  and  the  names  of  Godunov 
and  Otrepiev  were  deleted  ;  but  Katherine  had  a  clearer  idea  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  rebellion  than  had  any  one  about  her. 


b 


52     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Bibikov  had  previous  experience,  both  as  soldier  and  as  diplo- 
matist. Katherine  gave  him  large  powers,  advised  him  to  inform 
himself  fully  upon  the  whole  situation,  and  then  to  act,  attacking 
the  insurgents  with  the  "  superiority  which  science,  education, 
and  courage  always  give  against  a  mob  which  is  moved  only  by 
stormy  and  fanatical  religious  or  political  inspiration."  ^ 

The  Government,  however,  perversely  forbore  to  bring  common 
sense  to  bear  upon  the  problem  which  confronted  it.  In  the  first 
manifesto  which  Bibikov  was  required  to  promulgate  an  appeal 
was  made  to  the  Greek  Orthodox  to  defend  Holy  Russia,  and  pardon 
was  offered  to  those  who  should  leave  Pugachev.  Since  the  back- 
bone of  Pugachev's  force  was  composed  of  Russians  who  were 
raskolneke,  and  of  Tartars  who  were  either  Mohammedans  or  pagans, 
the  appeal  not  merely  failed  of  its  purpose,  it  excited  hostility, 
because  it  suggested  the  continuance  of  the  intolerant  measures 
which  had  been  among  the  causes  of  the  rebellion. 

During  the  winter  of  1773-1774  the  influence  of  Pugachev  ex- 
tended still  more  widely.  The  flight  of  pomyefscheke  from  their 
estates  facilitated  the  growth  of  the  movement  among  the  peasants. 
They  declared  themselves  free,  and  they  attributed  their  freedom 
to  the  Tsar  Peter  III,  who  for  them  was  really  alive.  The  peasants 
had  now  no  taxes  to  pay,  for  there  was  no  one  to  collect  them,  and 
this  again  they  attributed  to  the  Tsar  Peter.  "  Our  time  has 
come,"  said  the  common  people  ;  "  we  shall  get  to  the  top,  and  we 
have  nothing  to  fear."  2 

The  officers  sent  on  in  advance  by  Bibikov  found  that  through- 
out the  Volga  region  the  authority  of  the  Government  had  simply 
disappeared.  The  pseudo-Peter  III  reigned  in  no  real  sense,  but 
his  influence  was  diffused  everywhere.  The  nomad  tribes,  now 
unimpeded  by  the  forces  of  the  Government,  which  were  shut  up 
in  Orenburg,  Kazan,  and  a  few  other  fortresses,  passed  their  usual 
boundaries  and  pillaged  indiscriminately,  driving  off  the  peasants' 
cattle  and  plundering  their  crops.  But  this  fact,  troublesome  as  it 
was,  had  no  importance  compared  with  the  fact  that  the  peasantry 
throughout  the  Volga  region  had  been  liberated,  partly  through 

^  Collections  of  Imperial  Historical  Society,  xiii.  p.  371  ;  cited  by  Dubrovin, 
ii.  p.  174. 

*  Report  of  an  officer,  Captain  Mavrin,  27th  May  1774 »  quoted  by  Du- 
brovin, ii,  p.  181. 


THE    RISING    OF    PUGACHEV         53 

their  having  joined  an  uprising  of  the  Cossacks  and  partly  through 
the  flight  of  their  owners.  This  fact  gave  importance  to  the  rebel- 
lion of  Pugachev.  His  own  share  in  it,  as  we  have  seen,  was  in- 
significant. Urged  by  the  Cossacks,  he  acted  as  a  standard  round 
which  they  rallied ;  but  the  rising  would  have  been  a  mere  riot 
had  it  not  affected  the  peasants.  When  it  affected  them  it  became 
a  peasant  revolt  of  a  character  similar  to  those  revolts  which 
occurred  in  France  almost  if  not  quite  simultaneously.^  When 
Bibikov  arrived  he  recognized  the  signs  at  once.  "  This  is  a  riot 
of  poor  against  rich,  kholopi  against  their  masters."  ^ 

When  Kar  left  his  post  south  of  Kazan  he  left  General  Freiman 
in  command.  Freiman  had  scarcely  any  cavalry,  and  he  there- 
fore spent  an  anxious  winter,  almost  surrounded  as  he  was  by  an 
extremely  mobile  enemy,  not  only  well  mounted,  but  taking  with 
them,  in  order  to  increase  the  rapidity  of  movement,  a  supply  of 
spare  horses.  The  meagreness  of  the  force  of  Freiman  greatly 
increased  his  peril.  The  peasants  at  the  works  and  on  the  estates 
remarked  the  delay  in  sending  troops  from  the  capitals.  If,  they 
said,  the  leader  of  the  Cossacks  before  Orenburg  is  an  impostor, 
why  does  the  Government  not  send  troops  to  put  him  down.  That 
months  have  passed  during  which  nothing  has  been  done,  shows 
that  he  is  the  real  Emperor.^    In  some  cases  the  officials  and  their 

^  The  beginning  of  the  peasant  revolts,  which  were  among  the  premonitory 
symptoms  of  the  French  Revolution,  appears  to  have  taken  place  immediately 
after  the  death  of  Louis  XV  in  1774.  The  harvest  of  that  year  was  inferior, 
and  this  fact,  together  with  the  relaxation  of  authority  which  ensued  on  the 
death  of  the  King  and  the  exaggerated  hopes  which  were  entertained  by 
the  peasants  of  benefits  to  be  conferred  by  his  successor,  led  to  riots  in  the 
winter  of  1 774-1 775  at  Dijon,  Auxerre,  Amiens,  Lille,  Pontoise,  Passy,  and 
St.  Germain,  at  least.  (C/.  ICropotkin,  La  Grande  Revolution,  1789-1793* 
Paris,  1909,  p.  31.)  For  the  issue  of  false  decrees  in  France  (as  in  Russia) 
at  this  time,  and  for  other  revolutionary  indications  similar  to  those  which 
appeared  in  Russia,  see  Rocquain,  Felix,  The  Revolutionary  Spirit  preceding 
the  French  Revolution  (English  translation,  London,  1891,  pp.  126  et  seg,). 
In  the  winter  of  1 783-1 789,  several  months  before  the  fall  of  the  Bastille 
(14th  July  1789),  "  spontaneous  anarchy  "  broke  out  in  the  provinces.  The 
peasants  seized  their  liberty  in  the  same  way  that  the  Russian  peasants  had 
done  a  few  years  before.  They  refused  to  pay  taxes  or  to  render  "  personal 
dues  "  ;  they  refused  to  pay  octrois  on  produce  entering  the  towns ;  they 
announced  explicitly  that  they  "  had  declared  a  sort  of  war  against  land- 
owners and  property  .  .  ,  and  that  they  would  pay  nothing,  neither  taxes 
nor  debts."  Taine,  The  French  Revolution  (English  translation,  London 
1878),  vol.  i.  chap.  i. 

2  Quoted  by  N.  Fersov  in  The  Participation  of  the  Peasantry,  &c.,  in  the 
Great  Reform  (Moscow,  191 1),  ii.  p.  48. 

'  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  195. 


54     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

families,  being  without  protection,  left  the  works,  and  the  peasants 
then  elected  their  own  chiefs,  maintained  order  among  themselves, 
and  continued  their  occupations  as  usual,  without  troubling  them- 
selves about  either  Empress  or  impostor,  excepting  to  send  a  few 
men  to  the  "  Cossack  troops  "  in  order  to  secure  immunity  for  the 
remainder.^ 

During  the  winter,  Chika,  the  Cossack,  Pugachev's  "Count 
Chemyshev,"  made  himself  master  of  Bashkiria  and  of  the  whole 
of  the  region  on  the  east  of  the  Kama  River.  He  appointed  atamans 
and  administered  the  district  he  had  acquired.^ 

When  Bibikov  arrived  at  Kazan  on  26th  December  1773,  he 
found  the  administration  in  a  hopeless  condition.  The  Governor, 
von  Brandt,  was  an  aged  man,  who  thought  only  of  keeping  Puga- 
chev  out  of  Kazan,  and  who  had  no  grasp  of  the  general  situation. 
He  was  surrounded  by  officials  whom  Bibikov  found  not  only  useless, 
but  obstructive.  In  some  of  the  neighbouring  towns  the  officials 
had  simply  fled.  It  was  necessary  to  reorganize  the  whole  military 
and  civil  government  of  the  region,  and  for  this  purpose  a  new 
group  of  able  and  courageous  officials  was  necessary.  Bibikov 
insisted  upon  such  a  group  being  sent,  and  a  number  of  experienced 
officers  joined  him  early  in  1774.  At  this  moment  the  rebels  broke 
into  the  guhernie  of  Kazan  and  crossed  the  Urals  into  Siberia.^  The 
investment  of  Chelyabinsk  indeed  imperilled  communication  be- 
tween Siberia  and  European  Russia.* 

The  Military  Collegium,  advised  by  Bibikov  of  the  immense 
difficulty  of  a  campaign  against  Pugachev,  offered  a  reward  of  ten 
thousand  rubles  for  his  capture.  Although  Bibikov  recognized 
very  well  that  Pugachev  in  himself  was  insignificant — "  a  scare- 
crow "  he  called  him — ^he  also  recognized  that  "  the  general 
movement  was  important,"  ^  and  that  since  circumstances  had 
determined  that  the  general  movement  had  centred  upon  Pugachev, 
it  was  necessary  that  he  should  be  secured  as  an  early  step  in  the 
"  pacification  "  of  the  country. 

There  were  contradictory  incidents — on  the  one  hand,  the  Cos- 
sacks of  the  Don,  to  whom  Pugachev  himself  belonged,  remained 

^  Dubrovin,  ii.  pp.  196-7.  ^  Ibid.,  pp.  197  et  sea. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  228.  *  Ibid. 

*  Letter  dated  29th  January  1774  in  Memoirs  of  Bibikov  (Moscow,  1865), 
Supplement,  p.  76  ;  quoted  by  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  248, 


k 


THE    RISING    OF    PUGACHEV         55 

generally  loyal,  while  among  the  regular  troops  from  other  parts 
of  Russia  there  was  much  discontent.  They  grumbled  at  the 
hardness  of  the  service  and  the  insufficiency  of  their  allowances. 
It  appeared  also  that  the  clergy  of  the  towns  were  very  gener- 
ally in  favour  of  the  rebellion. ^  The  monks  in  the  monasteries 
were  not. 

In  spite  of  the  difficulty  of  campaigning  in  winter,  when  the 
snow  rendered  movement  of  troops  extremely  arduous  and  the 
movement  of  heavy  guns  almost  impossible,  Bibikov  spent  an  active 
January.  His  subordinates,  Prince  Goletsin  and  his  own  relative, 
Colonel  Bibikov,  drove  the  rebels  hither  and  thither,  and  brought 
a  large  region  once  more  under  the  authority  of  the  Government. 
The  peasants  began  once  more  to  pay  their  taxes  and  to  bring  in 
fodder  for  the  use  of  the  troops.  Orenburg  still  held  out,  but 
Samara  and  the  Yaek  town  had  been  taken,  although  the  garrison 
of  the  latter  still  held  a  portion  of  the  fortifications  to  which  they 
were  confined,  while  the  rebels  held  the  town. 

On  2ist  March  1774  Goletsin  arrived  before  Tatisheva  fortress, 
occupied  by  Pugachev  with  about  8000  men.  Goletsin  had  at  his 
disposal  6500.2  After  a  stubborn  engagement  the  fortress  was 
taken,  but  not  until  after  Pugachev  and  his  chief  supporters  had 
fled.  Between  two  and  three  thousand  of  Pugachev's  following 
were  killed  in  this  engagement.  It  was  believed  in  St.  Petersburg, 
and  widely  announced,  that  this  was  the  end  of  the  rebellion ;  but 
this  was  by  no  means  the  case.  Pugachev  had  still  a  large  force, 
for  the  most  part  concentrated  at  Berda  before  Orenburg. 

His  confederate  Chika,  who  had  acquired  control  of  Bashkiria, 
was  investing  Ufa,  and  in  the  spring  of  1774  Mikhelson,  one  of 
Bibikov's  active  officers,  was  sent  to  take  command  of  the  troops 
in  that  region.  He  attacked  Chika,  and  on  27th  March  com- 
pletely defeated  him,  Chika  himself  escaping  with  a  few  Cossacks. 
In  both  of  these  engagements  it  appears  that  the  rebel  forces  fought 
with  determination,  and  that  they  were  commanded  with  skill. 

From  the  defeat  at  Tatisheva  Pugachev  fled  to  Berda,  and  there 
began   immediately   among   the   Cossacks   intrigues   towards   his 

^  There  were  numerous  cases  in  which  they  received  Pugachev  with  open 
arms,  either  through  fear  or  through  sympathy  with  the  revolt.  Witness 
the  case  of  the  clergy  of  Samara.     Dubrovin,  i.  p.  251. 

■  Archives  of  the  General  Stafif,  Moscow,  47,  vii. ;  cited  by  Dubrovin,  ii. 
p,  215. 


56     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

capture  by  them  and  the  surrender  of  him  to  the  Government.^ 
Having  made  of  him  all  the  use  possible,  the  Cossacks  were  now 
preparing  to  make  a  scapegoat  of  him.  Pugachev,  who  was  not 
destitute  of  sagacity,  discovered  the  plot,  and  in  the  early  morning, 
with  two  thousand  Cossacks  of  the  Yaek  upon  whom  he  thought  he 
could  rely,  he  evacuated  Berda  and  left  the  rest  of  his  army  to  its 
fate  and  Orenburg  still  nominally  invested.  On  the  afternoon  of 
the  same  day  (23rd  March)  Berda  was  occupied  by  troops  from  Oren- 
burg, and  the  stores  of  the  rebel  forces  were  pillaged  by  the  inhabit- 
ants, who,  after  a  close  investment  of  six  months,  had  been  reduced 
to  starvation.  Then  began  the  hunt  for  Pugachev,  who  was  as  yet 
by  no  means  at  the  end  of  his  support,  although  his  personal  initia- 
tive seems  to  have  been  temporarily  diminished.  He  was  joined 
by  about  two  thousand  Bashkirs,  and  he  was  still  prepared  to  offer 
resistance  to  the  forces  of  Goletsin,  by  whom  he  was  pursued.  On 
1st  April  Goletsin  engaged  Pugachev  and  defeated  him,  but  Puga- 
chev escaped  with  500  men,  leaving  all  of  his  principal  accomplices 
and  supporters  in  the  hands  of  Goletsin,  who  made  2800  prisoners.2 
On  the  15th  the  Government  forces  reached  the  Yaek  town,  and 
the  small  force  confined  in  a  portion  of  the  fortifications,  who  had 
eaten  their  last  morsel  of  food  two  days  before,  were  relieved.^  It 
appeared  now  as  though  the  Pugachev  episode  were  closed,  but  it 
was  not  so.  General  Bibikov,  who  had  with  great  energy  and  skill 
set  himself  to  the  task  of  putting  down  the  rebelUon,  became  iU  in 
March  and  died  on  9th  April.  When  the  news  reached  St.  Peters- 
burg, Sir  Robert  Gunning,  the  British  Ambassador,  wrote  to  Lord 
Suffolk,  saying  that  it  seemed  **  Hkely  that  his  death  would  raise 
the  spirit  of  the  rebels."  * 

The  prophecy  was  true  ;  the  rebellion  was  rekindled,  it  became 
more  formidable  than  ever,  and  six  months  elapsed  before  it  was 
finally  extinguished.  This  was  not  foreseen  by  the  Government, 
which  was  moreover  embarrassed  by  the  war  with  Turkey  and  very 
unwiUing  to  be  distracted  by  interior  affairs  more  than  appeared 
at  the  time  to  be  absolutely  necessary.  A  successor  to  Bibikov 
was  therefore  not  immediately  appointed.  It  was  hoped  that  the 
local  authorities,  aided  by  the  officers  on  the  staff  of  Bibikov,  would 
be  able  to  deal  with  the  small  bands  of  rioters  to  whom  the  con- 

1  Cf.  Dubrovin,  ii.  p.  374,  2  /^j^.^  p.  ^87. 

'  Ihid.^  ii.  p.  394.  *  Quoted  by  Dubrovin,  ibid.,  p.  399. 


THE    RISING   OF   PUGACHEV         57 

tinuance  of  the  insurrection  was  attributed.  Upon  Prince  Tscher- 
batov,  who  had  been  Bibikov's  second  in  command,  there  devolved 
the  duty  of  succeeding  him  at  Kazan,  while  Reynsdorp  was  en- 
trusted with  affairs  at  Orenburg.  At  the  latter  place  there  was  an 
enormous  number  of  prisoners  (4700)  whose  presence  embarrassed 
the  local  authorities  and  perplexed  the  Government. 

Whether  these  people  were  punished  or  were  liberated,  further 
disturbance  might  be  excited.  They  were  sent  in  large  mmibers  to 
Kazan  for  trial.  After  Berda,  Pugachev  had  disappeared,  in  spite 
of  active  pursuit,  and  three  of  his  armies  had  been  killed,  captured, 
or  dispersed.  He  had  already  lost  some  15,000  men.  There  re- 
mained in  the  field  numerous  large  groups,  with  whose  organization 
Pugachev  had  httle  or  nothing  to  do,  and  these  kept  the  troops 
moving  over  large  areas  in  guerilla  warfare  for  months.  Pugachev 
himself  reappeared  in  May  in  Bashkiria  with  a  formidable  force  of 
Bashkirs.  He  was  attacked  and  defeated  by  Dekalong,  losing 
4000  men  and  28  guns,  together  with  more  than  3000  people,  includ- 
ing women  and  children,  who  had  composed  part  of  his  camp. 
Again  Pugachev  disappeared,  to  reappear  in  the  Ural  Mountains, 
sweeping  through  small  fortresses  with  an  army  of  works  peasants 
and  of  well-mounted  Bashkirs,  clothed  in  chain-armour  and  pro- 
tected otherwise  by  cuirasses  made  of  tin,  procured  at  the  tin  works 
in  the  mountains.^  There  he  was  attacked  by  Mikhelson.  The 
Bashkirs  defended  themselves  against  regular  troops  with  great 
stubbornness,  and  large  mmibers  of  them  were  killed.  When  re- 
sistance was  no  longer  possible,  the  survivors  dispersed,  carrying 
off  Pugachev  with  them.  Pugachev  again  procured  reinforcements, 
and  ravaged  the  works  in  the  Urals  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Mias  River,  upon  which  he  established  himself,  and  even  delivered 
a  counter-attack  upon  Mikhelson. 

Up  till  May  1774  the  disturbances  had  been  confined  to  the 
outskirts — to  the  guberni  of  Orenburg,  Perm,  Ufa,  Samara,  Saratov, 
and  the  borders  of  Kazan.  In  that  month  St.  Petersburg  was 
alarmed  by  the  news  that  disaffection  had  made  its  appearance  in 
Voronej  and  other  adjoining  guberni  in  Great  Russia.  The  peasants 
of  these  guberni  had  learned  that  beyond  the  Volga  the  Tsar  Peter 
III  had  liberated  the  peasants  from  the  pomyetscheke,  and  some 
peasants  had  been  sent  off  as  a  deputation  to  him  to  ask  him  to 

*  Dubrovin,  iii.  p.  37. 


58     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

liberate  the  peasants  on  the  west  of  the  Volga.^  Katherine  now 
urged  upon  all  the  Governors  to  be  careful  not  to  exact  unusual 
work  from  the  peasants,  and  to  avoid  irritating  them  in  any  way. 

Pugachev  issued  manifestoes,  which  he  disseminated  widely, 
promising  freedom  from  bondage,  reduction  of  poll-tax,  and  relief 
from  compulsory  military  service.  "  No  more,"  he  said,  "  will  the 
nobility  burden  the  peasantry  with  great  wars."  ^ 

The  effect  of  these  manifestoes  was  enormous.  In  spite  of  the 
repeated  defeats  inflicted  upon  Pugachev,  the  movement  had  spread 
far  beyond  Cossack  spheres.  The  Bashkirs  and  the  Kalmuks  were 
wholly  up  in  arms,  and  the  peasants  from  the  State  works  and  the 
Possessional  factories  were  almost  unanimously  implicated  in  the 
rising.  Works  and  estates  were  pillaged  everywhere,  not  merely 
by  forces  over  which  Pugachev  had  control,  but  by  spontaneously 
formed  groups  in  many  regions.  The  Cossack  revolt  had  become 
a  mass-rising  of  the  peasants.    The  sheep  had  turned  in  its  rage. 

Prince  Tscherbatov  being  appealed  to  for  protecting  forces  for 
individual  works,  replied  that  it  was  impossible  to  provide  a  guard 
for  each  establishment,  and  added,  "  the  cruelty  of  the  owners  of  the 
works  towards  their  peasants  arouses  the  hate  of  the  peasants 
against  their  masters."  ^ 

Pugachev  and  his  Bashkirs  fought  only  when  they  were  forced 
to  fight.  They  evaded  the  troops  that  were  sent  to  surround  them, 
and  their  great  mobility  enabled  them  to  appear  suddenly  in  un- 
expected places,  to  levy  toll  and  to  disappear.*  The  rebels  were 
individually  much  better  acquainted  with  the  country  than  were 
the  Russian  generals,  and  they  were  able  to  make  their  way 
through  forests  impenetrable  to  regular  troops  with  their  munitions 
of  war. 

Wherever  he  went  Pugachev  was  able  to  raise  local  forces,  and 
to  invest  and  attack  fortresses  by  means  of  the  peasants  of  the 
immediate  neighbourhood,  as  reinforcements  of  his  nuclear  troops 
of  Cossacks  of  the  Yaek  and  Bashkirs,  with  other  tribesmen.  This 
circumstance  accounts  for  Pugachev's  being  able  to  change  his 

*  Dubrovin,  iii.  p.  44. 

*  Archives  of  the  General  Staff,  Moscow,  47,  x.,  quoted  by  Dubrovin, 
ibid.,  p.  53. 

*  Jhid.,  iv.,  quoted  by  Dubrovin,  iii.  p.  53. 

*  The  parallel  between  this  condition  and  the  later  phases  of  the  South 
African  War  is  obvious. 


THE    RISING    OF    PUGACHEV         59 

field  of  operations  in  such  a  way  as  to  draw  into  one  region  the 
Government  forces,  and  then  suddenly  to  appear  in  a  distant 
region  where  there  were  inadequate  forces  to  impede  his  movements. 
In  this  way  Pugachev  passed  rapidly  from  Bashkiria  to  Orenburg, 
and  from  Orenburg  to  the  Yaek,  and  then  northwards  towards 
Kazan.  Having  seized  the  town  of  Osa,  and  burned  it,  no  con- 
siderable place  remained  between  Pugachev  and  Kazan,  upon 
which  towards  the  end  of  June  he  advanced  with  a  force  of  about 
7000.^  The  local  authorities  had  refused  to  believe  that  the  town 
was  within  the  possible  field  of  Pugachev's  operations,  the  defences 
had  been  neglected,  and  the  garrison  had  been  allowed  to  fall  to  a 
low  point.  On  the  12th  July  Pugachev,  avoiding  the  principal 
defences,  stormed  and  entered  the  town,  and  large  numbers  of  the 
inhabitants  threw  themselves  at  his  feet.  The  surviving  defenders 
retired  to  the  citadel,  which  they  succeeded  in  holding,  while  the 
town  was  given  up  to  fire  and  pillage.  Out  of  2873  houses,  2063 
were  biumed  or  plundered.^  Pugachev  withdrew  from  the  burning 
town  to  his  camp  where  he  had  now  12,000  men.^ 

Mikhelson,  who  had  been  following  up  Pugachev  by  forced 
marches,  reached  Kazan  on  the  day  after  the  capture  of  the  town, 
but  in  time  to  relieve  the  refugees  in  the  fortress,  a  portion  of  which 
was  now  on  fire.  The  rebels  were  immediately  attacked  by  Mik- 
helson, although  the  forces  were  as  ten  to  one ;  he  routed  them,  but 
was  unable  at  once  to  follow  up  his  advantage.  On  the  following 
day  (14th  July)  there  was  another  engagement  in  which  the  troops 
from  the  fortress  participated.  Pugachev's  forces  were  dispersed 
in  all  directions,  but  no  cavalry  was  available  for  pursuit,  and  thus 
Pugachev  was  enabled  to  collect  his  scattered  forces,  and  even  to 
add  to  them  from  the  peasants  in  the  neighbourhood,  so  that  on 
15th  July  he  had  15,000  men  within  20  versts  of  Kazan.*  On  that 
day,  after  an  engagement  of  four  hours,  Mikhelson  defeated  Puga- 
chev, who  escaped  with  difficulty,  losing  2000  killed  and  wounded, 
and  5000  prisoners,  with  all  his  artillery. 

*  Statement  of  Pugachev,  4th  November  1774,  State  Archives  VI,  Afiair 
No.  512,  quoted  by  Dubrovin,  iii.  p.  77. 

*  Tscherbatov  to  Chemyshev,  ist  August  1774,  Archives  of  the  General 
Staff,  Moscow,  47,  iv. 

'  MSS.  Journal  of  Mikhelson,  Collection  of  Count  Uvarov,  No.  559,  cited 
by  Dubrovin,  iii.  p.  98. 

*  Dubrovin,  iii.  p,  100, 


6o     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

The  dispersal  of  the  survivors  of  Pugachev's  forces,  which  fol- 
lowed the  defeat  and  pursuit,  resulted  in  the  spreading  over  the 
Kazanskaya  and  Nijigorodskaya  guberni  of  detached  parties  of 
desperate  people.  They  pillaged  the  estates,  hanged  the  pro- 
prietors, and  drew  off  the  peasants  as  they  had  done  elsewhere. 
These  parties  infested  the  roads  and  destroyed  the  means  of  com- 
munication.i  The  forests  were  set  on  fire,  and  there  was  no  material 
wherewith  the  burned-out  towns  and  villages  might  be  rebuilt. 
"  There  was  no  bread,  no  hay,  no  fuel,  the  population  lived  under 
the  open  sky ;  where  houses  remained  they  were  occupied  by  the 
military ;  but  the  houses  had  neither  roofs  nor  windows.  The 
churches  were  filled  with  ruined  people."  ^  Not  alone  the  parties 
resulting  from  the  decomposition  of  Pugachev's  forces,  but  the 
peasants  everywhere  rose  against  their  pomyetscheke,  and  either 
put  them  to  flight  or  hanged  them.  With  characteristic  reliance 
upon  authority  of  some  kind  the  peasants  submitted  themselves 
to  Pugachev  or  his  representatives  wherever  he  went.  They  sent 
to  Pugachev  petitions  asking  him  to  settle  disputes  among  the 
peasants  about  the  distribution  of  grain  and  the  like,  which,  owing 
to  the  flight  or  death  of  the  proprietors,  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
the  peasants.^  Fears  began  to  be  entertained  that  the  agitation 
might  envelope  Moscow,  and  that  the  wave  of  discontent  might 
carry  the  impostor  to  the  capital. 

On  23rd  July  1774  the  news  of  Rumyantsev's  victory  over  the 
Turks  and  of  the  consequent  peace  *  came  as  a  welcome  relief  to  the 
horrible  situation.  It  was  now  possible  to  turn  the  whole  forces 
of  the  Empire  against  the  interior  rebellion.  It  was  high  time. 
Moscow,  which  had  suffered  severely  from  the  plague  of  1771,  was  in 
a  state  of  disaffection,  and  the  whole  of  the  Volga  region  had  been 
ravaged.  Katherine  entrusted  Count  Peter  Panin,  brother  of  the 
minister,  with  the  task  of  subduing  the  rebellion.    The  real  labour, 

^  "  The  damned  owl  frightened  Kazan  on  the  12th  July,  and  although 
his  wings  are  damaged,  it  is  evident  that  his  bats  are  flying  all  over  the  out- 
skirts, barring  all  the  roads,  so  that  during  this  month  there  have  been  neither 
couriers  nor  post  from  or  to  Kazan."  Lubarsky  to  Bantysh-Kamensky, 
24th  July  1774,  State  Archives  VI,  Affair  No.  527,  cited  by  Dubrovin,  iii. 
p.  104. 

2  Dubrovin,  ibid.,  p.  109.  ^  /^j^.,  iii.  pp.  103-114. 

*  The  Treaty  (of  Cainargi)  was  signed  10/21  July  1774.  It  was  drawn 
up  in  Italian.  A  copy  of  the  original  is  printed  in  De  Marten's  Recueil  des 
principaux  Traites,  6-c.  (Gottingen,  1795),  iv.  pp.  606  et  seq. 


THE    RISING   OF    PUGACHEV  6i 

however,  fell  upon  Mikhelson,  who  pursued  Pugachev  with  tireless 
energy,  and  succeeded  in  cutting  him  off  from  the  Moscow  road. 
The  most  active  of  Pugachev's  officers  had  been  captured,  and  the 
excesses  of  his  troops  had  induced  a  reaction.  The  back  of  the 
rebellion  was  already  broken.  One  of  his  confederates,  a  certain 
Dolgopolov,  made  up  his  mind  to  betray  him.  He  went  to  St. 
Petersburg,  had  an  interview  with  Count  Orlov,  and  afterwards  with 
the  Empress,  and  offered  to  deliver  up  Pugachev  to  the  authorities 
on  receipt  of  20,000  rubles.  The  money  was  paid.  Pugachev  was 
delivered,  brought  to  Moscow  in  an  iron  cage,  tried  in  September 
1774,  and  executed  in  January  1775. 

The  significance  of  the  rebellion  of  Pugachev  lay  in  the  fact  that 
it  was  a  really  revolutionary  movement.  When  all  the  adventitious 
elements  are  allowed  for,  the  incitement  of  the  clergy  in  revenge  for 
the  secularization  of  the  church  lands,^  the  sordid  grievances  and 
petty  party  quarrels  of  the  Cossacks,  and  the  personality  of  Puga- 
chev, there  remains  the  substantial  fact  that  the  revolt  was  essen- 
tially the  spontaneous  outcome  of  the  exercise  of  bondage  right. 
This  right  had,  as  we  have  seen,  been  greatly  intensified  in  the 
immediately  preceding  period.  The  policy  of  Peter  the  Great  in 
forcing  industry  and  in  ascribing  large  numbers  of  peasants  to  the 
works  of  the  State  and  to  Possessional  factories  led  to  abuses  so 
grave  that  only  the  aboHtion  of  the  system  and  the  freedom  of  the 
peasants  could  cure  the  evil. 

The  agricultural  peasant  was  also  being  kept  down  by  the 
incidents  of  bondage,  and  in  his  case  also  there  was  no  outlet  but 
economic  freedom,  and  under  the  then  existing  regime  in  Russia 
there  seemed  to  be  no  hope  that  this  should  be  granted  from  above. 

The  growth  of  bondage  had  disintegrated  Russian  society.  The 
sharpness  of  the  division  between  the  classes  prevented  homo- 
geneous social  progress,  and  embittered  the  classes  against  each 
other.  One  fraction  thus  rose  against  the  other  fraction  in  a  civil 
war,  in  which  the  masters  were  on  one  side  and  the  bonded  peasants 
on  the  other.  The  partial  success  of  the  revolt  was  due  to  the 
numbers  of  disaffected  peasantry  as  well  as  to  the  numbers  of  the 

*  Such  incitement  could  not  have  been  successful  directly  with  the  Cos- 
sacks, who  were  raskolneke,  nor  with  the  peasants,  who  had  been  by  no 
means  unwilling  to  be  transferred  from  the  hands  of  the  Church  to  the  hands 
of  the  State.  It  could  not  be  otherwise  applied  than  through  leaders,  and 
even,  perhaps,  through  impostors. 


62     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

frontier  tribes  who  joined  the  rebellion,  and  the  partial  failure  of  it 
was  due  to  the  absence  of  a  town  proletariat,  which  might  have 
co-operated  in  the  rebellion.^  The  forces  of  the  revolt  were  also 
compromised  by  the  absence  of  intellectual  capacity  on  the  part  of 
the  leaders,  who  were  unable  to  grasp  the  situation,  and  who  were 
led  into  excesses  of  mere  destructiveness.  At  no  period  did  they 
reveal  any  constructive  powers. 

It  may  be  held  that  the  rebeUion  of  Pugachev  threw  the  whole 
question  of  reform  back  for  perhaps  fifty  years.  It  frightened  the 
mass  of  the  people  as  well  as  the  governing  classes  by  "  the  red 
glare  in  the  sky,"  the  sign  of  a  jacquerie.  The  French  Revolution, 
which  followed  it  closely,  had  a  similar  influence.  Yet  these  popular 
uprisings  proved  that  society  might  hover  on  the  brink  of  reform 
too  long,  and  that  delay  was  perhaps  more  dangerous  than  pre- 
cipitation. 

^  As  was  the  case  in  the  French  Revolution,  e.g.  It  was  the  Paris  pro- 
letariat which  made  the  Revolution  possible,  although  it  did  not  begin  it  and 
did  not  profit  by  it. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY   MOVEMENTS   OF    1824-1825, 
1830,   AND    1848-1850 

The  first  modem  revolutionary  movement  in  Russia  was  that  of 
the  Dekabristi  in  1824-1825 .  The  movement  had  been  in  the  making 
from  about  i8i4>  The  revolutionary  ideas  of  that  epoch  were  the 
outcome  of  the  "  impact "  ^  of  Western  European  liberalizing  ten- 
dencies upon  the  minds  of  the  younger  nobles,  and  especially  upon 
those  of  the  younger  officers,  who  had  become  acquainted  with  the 
currents  of  political  thought  in  France  and  Germany.^  Many  young 
officers  had  studied  in  the  latter  country  during  the  later  Napoleonic 
days,  while  others  had  become  infected  with  revolutionary  impulses 

^  Perhaps  even  a  few  years  earlier.  Prince  Kropotkin  (Ideals  and  Realities 
of  Russian  Literature,  p.  35)  has  observed  that  the  character  of  Pierre  in 
Tolstoy's  War  and  Peace  is  that  of  the  young  men  who  afterwards  became 
Dekabristi.  Pierre's  enthusiasm  for  the  humanitarian  movement  received 
its  impetus  from  Freemasonry  in  1809.  During  and  since  the  year  1905, 
much  light  has  been  thrown  upon  the  Dekabrist  movement  by  the  publication 
of  documents  and  memoirs.  The  most  important  material  is  to  be  found  in 
Popular  Movements  in  Russia  in  the  First  Half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  vol.  i., 
the  Dekabristi,  by  V.  E.  Semevsky,  V.  Bogucharsky,  and  P.  E.  Tschegolyev 
(St.  Petersburg,  1905).  There  have  also  been  published  Letters  and  Confes- 
sions of  the  Dekabristi,  b^  A.  R.  Borozdin  (St.  Petersburg,  1906) ;  Memoirs  of 
the  Dekabristi  (Kiev,  1906);  The  Secret  Society  of  the  Dekabristi  (Moscovr, 
1906) ;  The  Ideals  of  the  Dekabristi  (Kiev,  1906) ;  all  by  M.  V.  Dovnar- 
Zapolsky ;  The  Dekabristi,  by  A.  Kotlyarevsky  (St.  Petersburg,  1907),  Russkaya 
Pravda,  by  Paul  Pestel  (St.  Petersburg,  1906),  and  Political  and  Social  Ideas 
of  the  Dekabristi,  by  V.  E.  Semevsky  (St.  Petersburg,  1909).  An  excellent 
account  of  the  Dekabrist  movement  is  given  in  the  Cambridge  Modern 
History,  vol.  x.,  by  Professor  S.  Askenazy.  See  also  '*The  Dekabristi  and 
the  Peasant  Question,"  by  V.  E.  Semevsky,  in  The  Great  Reforms,  vol.  ii. 
p.  176  (Moscow,  191 1 ). 

*  A  phrase  of  William  Godwin's  in  relation  to  the  effect  of  the  French 
Revolution. 

'  Cf.  Pushkin,  Eugene  Oneguine  (translation  by  Col.  Spalding,  London, 
1 881).  For  a  lively  account  of  the  German  influence  upon  the  Russian 
youth  in  1814-1815  and  in  1848,  see  Vicomte  E.-M.  de  Vogue,  Le  Roman 
JRusse  (Paris,  1892).  N.  E.  Turgueniev,  General  Orlov,  and  Count  Dmitriev- 
Mamonov,  e.g.,  studied  at  Gottingen  under  Stein.  See  Kleinschmidt,  Drei 
Jahrhunderte  russischer  Geschichte  (Berlin,  1898),  p.  316.  Stein  was  invited  to 
Russia  during  the  period  immediately  preceding  the  French  invasion. 

63 

1^ 


64     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

in  France  during  the  Russian  occupation  of  a  part  of  that  country 
in  1814-15.^ 

The  situation  of  the  peasantry  at  that  epoch,  and  the  scanty 
numbers  of  the  urban  proletariat,  rendered  this  movement  inevit- 
ably aristocratic  rather  than  popular.  Yet  it  was  inspired  by 
humanitarian  aims,  among  which  were  the  abolition  of  serfdom,^ 
the  education  of  the  people,  political  equality,  and  "  constitu- 
tional guarantees  "  against  the  exercise  of  arbitrary  power.  A  few 
of  the  adherents  of  the  movement  thought  of  a  return  to  the 
federal  system  of  city  republics  ^  as  in  pre-Variagian  days. 

Alarmed  at  the  progress  of  liberalism  in  Western  Europe,  Alex- 
ander I  abandoned  his  previously  sympathetic  attitude  towards 
liberal  ideas,  and  devoted  himself  in  the  later  years  of  his  reign  to 
German  mysticism  and  political  reaction.  Under  the  influence  of 
Madame  Kriidener  and  General  Arakcheev,  he  set  himself  to  com- 
bat the  ideas  he  had  derived  from  La  Harpe,  and  formerly  espoused. 
The  effect  of  this  attitude  was  that  liberalism  was  driven  "  under- 
ground." Numerous  secret  societies  were  formed,  e.g.  "  The  Wel- 
fare Union  "  and  "  The  Bund  of  Public  Weal."  The  latter  came  to 
be  divided  into  two  factions,  the  Southern,*  which  fell  under  the 
influence  of  Pestel,  and  the  Northern,  which  fell  under  that  of  Prince 
Obolensky.*  In  1824  these  societies  *  carried  on  an  active  revolu- 
tionary propaganda  in  the  army.  When  Alexander  I  died,  Con- 
stantine  was  proclaimed  Tsar.  His  immediate  abdication  and  the 
elevation  of  his  younger  brother,  Nicholas,  to  the  throne,  was  ac- 
companied by  the  denunciation  of  the  group  of  conspirators.  On 
the  26th  December,  two  days  after  Nicholas  had  announced  by 
manifesto,  his  accession,'^  the  Dekabristi,  with  some  hundreds  of  men 
from  the  regiments  of  the  Guard  and  some  men  from  the  fleet, 
appeared  before  the  Winter  Palace.  For  several  hours  the  fortunes 
of  the  new  Tsar  hung  in  the  balance,  but  towards  evening  a  salvo  of 

^  Prince  Kropotkin  in  Ideals  and  Realities  of  Russian  Literature  (London, 

1905).  P-  34. 

*  On  the  influence  of  surviving  Dekabristi  on  the  emancipation  movement, 
see  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  388. 

3  Prince  Kropotkin,  op.  cif.,  p.  35. 

*  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  360.  ^  Cf .  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  388. 

*  There  was  also  founded  at  the  same  time  a  patriotic  society  in  Poland. 

'  For  an  account  of  the  reasons  for  the  abdication  of  Constantine  and  the 
accession  of  Nicholas,  see  Skrine,  F.  H.,  The  Expansion  of  Russia,  1815-1900, 
pp.  74  et  seq.  ;   see  also  Kleinschmidt,  op.  cit. 


REVOLUTIONARY    MOVEMENTS       65 

artillery  scattered  the  insurgents,  and  the  Dekahrist  movement  was 
at  an  end. 

The  leaders  were  arrested,  and  in  June  1826  their  trial  took 
place.  On  25th  July,  five  were  hanged,  and  afterwards  eighty-five 
were  exiled  to  Siberia,  where  the  survivors  remained  until  1856. 
Although  the  Dekahrist  movement  was  in  effect  confined  to  the 
aristocratic  circle,  it  comprised  many  of  the  most  intellectual  and 
patriotic  figures  of  their  time,  and  their  "  sudden  disappearance 
was  disastrous."  For  thirty  years  Russia  remained  under  the 
vigorous  rule  of  Nicholas,  and  **  every  spark  of  free  thought  was 
stifled  as  soon  as  it  appeared."  ^ 

The  importance  of  the  Dekabristi  lies  in  their  having  effected  the 
first  organized  revolutionary  movement  against  the  autocracy. 

The  stagnation  which  characterized  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment after  the  collapse  of  the  Dekahrist  conspiracy  was  broken  only 
by  sporadic  attempts  to  organize  secret  societies  more  or  less  on 
the  Dekahrist  model ;  but  since  the  Dekahrist  time  no  similar  move- 
ment has  affected  the  army  to  the  same  extent,  until  the  recent 
instances  of  military  revolt.  Among  the  sporadic  movements 
referred  to  there  was  that  promoted  by  the  Kerel-Methodian  Society  ^ 
{1846-1847),  a  small  Slavophil  movement,  in  which  Kostomarov, 
the  Russian  historian  and  the  first  Pan-Slavist,  was  implicated. 
In  1830  there  occurred  the  insurrection  in  Poland  which,  together 
with  the  revolution  in  Paris  of  the  same  year,  influenced  the 
Russian  youth  to  a  considerable  extent.  Still  the  field  affected  by 
the  revolutionary  tendencies  was  comparatively  small.  The 
peasant  question  had  been  the  subject  of  continuous  discussion, 
but  the  peasants,  although  they  were  discontented,  were  never- 
theless practically  untouched  by  these  tendencies.  The  urban 
proletariat  was  as  yet  too  slender  in  numbers  and  too  fluctuating 
owing  to  the  habit  of  returning  periodically  to  the  villages  practised 
by  the  artisans  who  were  also  peasants,  for  that  class  to  be  materi- 
ally influenced.  The  revolutionary  impulses  affected  exclusively 
the  youth  of  the  aristocracy,  those  of  the  merchant  class,  and  to 
a  small  extent  the  sons  of  the  clergy.  These  impulses  were  thus 
predominantly  of  a  political  rather  than  of  a  social-economic  char- 

^  Prince  Kropotkin,  op.  cit.,  p.  35. 

*  For  an  account  of  this  society,  see  Semevsky,  V.,   "  Kerel-Methodian 
Society,  1 846-1 847,"  in  Russkoe  Bogatstvo,  191 1. 

VOL.  II  E 


H 


66     ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

acter ;  the  inevitable  association  of  these  had  not  at  that  time 
become  fully  apparent.  In  the  early  forties,  however,  there  was 
observable  among  the  Russian  youth  a  new  intellectual  move- 
ment which  expressed  itself  in  a  revived  interest  in  the 
French  Encyclopedists,  in  the  Physiocrats,  and  in  the 
Socialist  writers — Saint-Simon,  Fourier,  Leroux,  and  Proudhon, 
for  example.  This  interest  seems  to  have  arisen  in  various 
ways.  Herzen,^  for  instance,  one  of  the  youths  of  the  time, 
made  his  first  acquaintance  with  the  French  writers  in  his 
father's  library. 

The  absence  of  a  free  press  and  of  open  public  discussion 
of  all  fundamental  questions  led  to  the  formation  of  small 
groups  or  clubs,  which  came  to  be  known  as  **  circles,"  in 
which  the  intellectual  movements  of  the  time  had  their  origin.^ 
Such  **  circles "  came  to  be  identified  with  their  leaders  or 
those  around  whom  the  "  circles "  grew,  and  sometimes  the 
influence  of  these  leaders  was  very  great,  even  although  they 
may  "  never  have  written  anything."  ^  Among  the  young 
men  who  came  under  the  influence  of  the  "  circle "  move- 
ment  was   M.   A.    Butashevich-Petrashevsky,*   who  became   the 

1  Alexander  Herzen  (i 8 12-1870),  an  illegitimate  son  of  a  Russian  Senator 
and  a  French  governess,  was  educated  in  the  old  "  Equerries  (or  nobility) 
Quarter"  of  Moscow.  Exiled  to  the  Urals  in  1834  for  six  years,  then  to 
Novgorod  in  1842  for  five  years,  he  left  Russia  in  1847,  and  till  the  close 
of  his  life  lived  abroad.  He  collaborated  with  Proudhon  in  the  newspaper 
L'Ami  du  Peuple.  He  suffered  expulsion  from  France,  and  finally  settled 
in  London  in  1857,  started  The  Polar  Star,  and  later  The  Bell.  Died  in 
Switzerland  in  1870.  Cf.  Kropotkin,  Ideals  and  Realities  of  Russian  Literature 
(London,  1905),  pp.  270-5. 

2  See  also  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  354.  There  were  numerous  similar  "circles" 
in  Paris  at  various  epochs,  notably  between  i860  and  1870. 

^  Kropotkin,  op.  cit.,  p.  266. 

*  M.  A.  Butashevich-Petrashevsky  (1822-?)  was  educated  at  the  Alex- 
ander Lyceum.  At  the  age  of  fourteen,  he  had  already  attracted  attention 
as  a  lad  of  a  "  liberal  shape  of  mind."  He  went  to  the  University,  where  he 
took  his  diploma  in  the  Faculty  of  Law  in  1 841 .  At  this  time  he  was  already 
a  republican,  an  advocate  of  international  peace,  and  of  complete  toleration 
in  religion.  When  he  left  the  University  he  "  gave  himself  up  with  zeal  to 
the  study  of  Fourier."  He  formed  his  "  circle  "  in  1845,  and  immediately 
afterwards  began  the  publication  of  his  Pocket  Dictionary  of  Russian  Words, 
which  was,  in  effect,  a  medium  for  the  expression  of  his  views.  In  1 849  the 
members  of  the  "  circle  "  were  arrested,  and  several  of  them  were  condemned 
to  death.  See  Semevsky,  V.  E.,  Peasant  Question  in  Russia  in  the  Eighteenth 
and  the  First  Half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  (St.  Petersburg,  1888),  vol.  ii. 
p.  370.  Cf.  also  Peasant  Law  and  Peasant  Reform  in  Operation  in  the  Works 
of  M.  E.  Saltikov,  by  V.  E.  Semevsky  (Rostov  on  Don,  1905). 


REVOLUTIONARY    MOVEMENTS       67 

centre  of  a  large  group,  among  whom  was  the  celebrated  writer 
Dostoievsky.! 

The  role  of  the  Slavophils  in  the  discussion  of  the  peasant  ques- 
tion has  already  been  noticed.^  The  Slavophil  groups  were  numerous 
and  influential  up  till  the  period  of  emancipation  of  the  serfs  in 
1861.^  While  some  of  the  Slavophils  were  merely  reactionary 
Chauvinists,  the  school  as  a  whole  may  be  said  to  have  rendered 
the  greatest  services  to  Russian  historical  and  juridical  studies. 
The  enthusiasm  for  Russian  culture  led  to  more  serious  study  of 
its  early  phases,  and  this  led  to  the  disappearance  of  the  illusions 
about  the  early  history  of  Russia  which  had  been  prevalent. 

Slavophil  historians  like  Byelyaev,  for  example,  investigated  for 
the  first  time  the  growth  of  serfdom  and  the  growth  of  the  auto- 
cratic power  of  the  Moscow  princes  ;  and  the  Slavophil  jurists  dis- 
criminated sharply  between  the  imperial  law  and  the  customary 
laws  of  the  people.^ 

Even  after  emancipation  the  characteristics  of  Slavophilism 
appear  in  the  Narodneke  movement,*  and  also  as  a  stimulating  in- 
fluence in  the  collection  of  Zemstvo  statistics.  The  social  revolu- 
tionary party  of  the  present  ^  is  not  untinctured  with  Slavophil 
ideas,  as  also  are  the  Socialist  Narodneke.^  In  the  'forties  (of  the 
nineteenth  century)  the  propagation  of  Slavophil  ideas  led  to  the 
counter-propaganda  of  the  ZapadnekeP  or  advocates  of  the  thesis 
that  Russia  is  likely  to  follow  the  same  course  of  development  as 
the  countries  of  Western  Europe.  This  clash  of  theories  appears 
in  the  polemical  literature  of  the  two  parties. 

1  F.  M.  Dostoievsky  (i 821-1883)  was  educated  as  a  military  engineer. 
He  went  to  St.  Petersburg  in  1845,  and  soon  acquired  reputation  as  a  writer 
by  Ms  novel  Poor  People.  In  1849  he  was  arrested,  together  with  other 
members  of  the  Petrashevsky  circle,  tried  in  camera,  and  sentenced  to  death. 
He  was  reprieved  on  the  scaffold  at  the  moment  fixed  for  his  execution,  but 
he  never  quite  recovered  from  the  shock  of  this  horrible  experience.  He 
was  exiled  to  Siberia,  where  he  remained  for  ten  years.  He  was  pardoned  in 
1859.  He  then  returned  to  Russia  in  broken  health,  but  survived  to  write 
his  best-known  work.  Crime  and  Punishment,  and  probably  his  best.  Memoirs 
from  a  Dead-House.  Cf.  Kropotkin,  op.  cit.,  p.  165,  and  De  Vogue,  Le  Roman 
Russe  (Paris,  1892),  pp.  203  et  seq. 

*  See  Book  II,  chap.  xv.  '  Cf,  Kropotkin,  op.  cit.,  p.  269. 

*  Represented  by  "V.  V."  (Vasili  Vorontsev)  and  Nikolai-On  (N.  Daniel- 
son),  e.g.     Cf.  infra. 

*  Represented  by  Victor  Chernov,  e.g.  Gershuni  and  Gotz,  both  now  dead, 
were  also  important  figures.     Cf .  infra. 

*  e.g.  Aniansky  and  Periakhanov.  '  "  Westerners." 


I 


68     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


These  movements,  sporadic  and  general  alike,  were  the  results 
of  a  widespread  fermentation,  produced  partly  by  the  rapidity  of 
5 1  the  changes  in  the  structure  of  Russian  society  and  partly  by 
f  stimulus  from  without.  This  fermentation  had  been,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  progress  throughout  the  nineteenth  century.  The  net 
result  of  it  was  the  "  revolt  of  the  individual."  ^  In  Russia,  the 
family,  the  community,  and  the  State  had  counted  for  everything, 
the  individual  for  nothing.  Patriarchalism  had  retained  its  force 
in  the  family ;  a  strong  sense  of  communal  interest,  together  with 
the  long-continued  *'  mutual  guarantee,"  had  subordinated  the 
individual  to  the  communal  group ;  and  the  service  system  had 
predestined  the  upper  classes  to  the  service  of  the  State — all  had 
combined  to  make  life  subject  to  rigorous  regulation.  Under  these 
conditions  individual  initiative  was  tabooed,  because  it  made 
inevitably  for  political  cind  social  disintegration.  The  revolt  of 
the  individual  meant  a  revolt  against  established  order  in  every 
field.  It  meant  the  revolt  of  the  youth  against  his  father,  and 
i  against  the  collective  interests  of  his  family.  It  meant  the  revolt 
'  of  the  daughter,  against  her  mother,  and  against  the  conventions 
which  prevented  her  from  exercising  her  owa~will.  It  meant  the 
revolt  offhe  youth  of  both  sexes  against  the  restraints  of  village 
discipline  iii  the  rural  districts,  and  against  the  social  restraints  in 
the  towns.  It  meant  also  revolt  against  the  Church,  which  sanc- 
tioned an3'  emphasized  these  restraints,  and  against  the  State^ 
which  on  occasion  lent  its  strong  arm  to  enforce  them.  The  revolt 
of  the  individual  will  against  external  coercion  meant  inevitably 
revolution  in  all  the  fields  of  restraint.  The  most  potent  influence 
in  produting-irhis  reaction  Of  the  individual  will  against  external 
restraint  was  probably  the  mere  increase  in  numbers,  together 
with  the  rapidity  of  that  increase.  The  family  became  too  large 
for  patriarchalism  ;  the  community  became  too^  large  for  the 
effective  exercise  of  the  communal  spirit ;  the  State  became  too 
large  for  the  effective  centralized  control  which  the  whole  system 
implied.     Yet  the^CQUcentrated  forces  of  conservatism,  aided  as 

I  they  were  by  the  mere  inertia  of  the  mass,  were  strong  enough  to 
isolate  the  scattered  and  unorganized  groups  of  individual  protest- 
ants.  The  prospect  of  the  disintegration  of  the  society  to  which 
they  were  accustomed,  and  the  possibility  of  reactions  whose  ulti- 

^  Kropotkin,  op.  cit.,  p.  296. 


I 


REVOLUTIONARY   MOVEMENTS       69 

mate  tendencies  could  not  be-^fore^eeicfrightened  even  people  of 
relatively  progressive  impulses,  and  thus  the  incipient  insurrection 
against  established  order  was  met  with  a  certain  vindictiveness 
even  by  those  whose  general  attitude  of  mind  was  benevolent. 
But  while  the  individuals  who  thrust  themselves  forward  with 
determined  expression  of  their  own  individuality  might  be  dealt 
with  in  detail,  banished  to  Siberia  in  detachments,  immured  in  fort- 
resses, or  even  executed,  the  disintegration  which  these  proceed- 
ings were  designed  to  prevent  was  going  on.  The  family  was 
breaking  up  through  the  operation  of  intricate  forces,  some  of  which 
have  been  described  above  ;  the  community  was  breaking  up  from 
similar  causes  ;  and  the  State  administration  was  rapidly  becom- 
ing unworkable.  The  revolutionary  spirit  was  an  outcome  of  these 
conditions,  and  the  growth  of  it  went  on  in  spite  of  suppression — 
indeed,  suppression  made  it  more  and  more  active.^ 

The  absence  in  Russia  of  the  modes  of  expression  of  intellectual 
movements  customary  in  Western  Europe,  due  to  the  hostility  of 
the  autocracy  and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  against  everything 
whatsoever  that  in  their  opinion  teniied  to  disturb  the  established 
order,  seriously  affected^the  cHaracter  of  the  discussions  which 
ensued.  Immensely  able  as  many  of  the  best  men  of  the  literary 
circles  of  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  in  the  years  1840-1860  undoubt- 
edly were,  such  men,  for  example,  as  Bakilnin,  Byelinsky,  Herzen, 
Turgu^niev,  politician,  literary  critic,  publicist,  and  novelist,  all  ex- 
hibit in  their  writings  a  certain  fretful  impatience  and  rhetorical 
exaggeration,  very  natural  and  very  interesting  as  historical  evi- 
dence, but  detracting  somewhat  from  the  permanent  artistic  value 
of  their  respective  works.^  These  characteristics  arose  out  of  the 
conditions  of  the  time.  The  autocracy  was  either  blind  to  the  pro- 
•  gress  of  West  European  society,  and  to  t!ie  inevitable  effect  of  this 
progress  upon  the  Russian  youth,  or  it  greatly  overestimated  the 
power  of  effective  antagonism  to  its  authority  ^vhich  the  renascent 

1  A  most  vivid  account  of  the  psychology  of  the  Russian  youth  between 
1848  and  1870  is  given  by  Prince  Kropotkin  in  his  Memoirs  (chap,  xii.): 
"  During  the  years  1 860-1 865  in  nearly  every  wealthy  family  a  bitter  struggle 
was  going  on  between  the  fathers,  who  wanted  to  maintain  the  old  traditions, 
and  the  sons  and  daughters,  who  defended  their  right  to  dispose  of  their 
lives  according  to  their  own  ideals  "  {op.  cit.,  p.  301).  So  also  Turgufeniev 
in  his  Fathers  and  Sons,  and  Gonchar6v  in  his  Oblomov. 

*  Cf.  infra  on  the  role  of  the  Intelligentsia  in  the  revolution,  infra,  pp. 
$8$  et  seq. 


70     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

youth  could  possibly  exercise.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  re- 
markable group  whose  names  have  just  been  mentioned,  the  auto- 
cracy was  merely  stupid,  and  their  impatience  was  simply  the 
impatience  of  intellectual  men  with  an  impossibly  unintellectual 
Government.^  \ 

*  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  352.     The  relations  of  these  groups  to  the  peasant 
question  is  described  supra,  vol.  i.  Book  II. 


I 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   REVOLUTIONARY   MOVEMENTS,    1860-1874 

The  declaration  of  the  Emancipation  of  the  Serfs,  which  was  issued 
on  5th  March  1861,  although  it  was  not  to  go  into  force  until 
1863,  was  received  with  unbounded  enthusiasm.  The  peasants 
appeared  generally  to  be  making  honest  attempts  to  understand 
the  bulky  document  which  described  how  the  abolition  of  bondage 
right  was  to  be  accomplished.  The  nobility  and  the  merchants 
also  on  the  whole  looked  forward  to  a  revivified  national  life.  The 
period  was  coincident  with  the  beginning  of  extensive  railway  con- 
struction, for  which  a  plentiful  supply  of  labour  was  necessary. 
Wages  advanced  for  reasons  explained  in  a  previous  chapter.  Land 
rose  sharply  in  value.  There  was  a  general  air  of  optimism  and 
good- will.  Yet  some  of  the  older  nobiKty  did  not  share  these  feel- 
ings. They  seemed  even  to  be  anxious  to  prevent  the  full  accom- 
plishment of  the  design  of  emancipation.  Nor  were  all  of  the  peas- 
ants more  content.  Ere  long  in  the  rural  districts  they  began  to 
be  agitated.  "  After  all,"  they  thought,  *'  we  are  being  cheated." 
Disturbances  took  place  in  many  guberni  on  the  eastern  frontier  of 
European  Russia.  These  sporadic  attacks  upon  impopular  land- 
owners may  or  may  not  have  been  excited  sometimes  by  reac- 
tionaries who  desired  to  demonstrate  that  the  prophecies  of  the 
conservatives  had  been  fulfilled,  that  the  murders  of  landowners 
which  they  had  predicted  would  occur  the  day  after  emancipation 
had  taken  place..  This  **  provocation"  may  have  occurred  in  some 
casfes ;  but  of  the  numerous  peasant  riots,^  the  majority  were  un- 
doubtedly spontaneous.  The  peasants  had  their  own  crude  antici- 
pation of  what  emancipation  must  mean.  If  the  interpretations  of 
the  landowners  or  of  the  local  authorities  differed  from  those  of  the 
peasants  the  difference  must  arise  from  intentional  or  unintentional 
error.     In  either  case  the  peasants  could  not  suffer  themselves  to 

^  Stepniak  speaks  of  one  hundred  such  riots. 
71 


72     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

be  deprived  of  what  they  considered  to  be  their  rights.  They 
therefore  proceeded  to  take  what  they  held  to  be  their  own.  Those 
who  resisted  were  attacked,  and  their  property  was  sometimes  de- 
stroyed.^ 

The  Government  drafted  considerable  bodies  of  troops  into  the 
rural  districts,  and  although  repressive  measures  were  frequently 
severe  and  sporadic  disturbances  continued  for  several  ye^s,  the 
danger  of  a  general  peasant  rebellion  was  avoided,  partly  by  repres- 
sion and  partly  by  concession. 

The  Russian  youth,  successive  generations  of  whom  had  been 
excited  about  the  conditions  of  the  peasantry  throughout  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  became  very  ardent  about  it  as  the 
discussions  upon  emancipation  went  on.  The  fluctuations  of  hope 
and  fear  in  the  *'  higher  spheres !'  have  already  been  recount ed.^ 
Similar  oscillations  between  optimism  and  despair  were  observable 
among  the  students  of  the  universities  at  least  as  early  as  i860,  and 
the  feelings  which  were  inspired  ripened  in  the  University  of  Moscow 
into  a  social  movement  in  which,  in  1861,  two  professors — Granovsky 
and  Kudryavtsev — took  part.^  This  movement  led  many  students 
into  the  rural  districts  round  Moscow  to  speak  to  the  peasants  about 
the  coming  liberties. 

In  1861  there  appeared  the  beginnings  of  a  similar  social  move- 
ment in  the  Universities  of  St.  Petersburg  and  Kazan  ;  and  circles 
were  formed  of  a  character  similar  to  those  of  an  earlier  time.*  At 
this  moment  foreign  influences  do  not  seem  to  have  played  an  im- 
portant role,  save  in  a  very  general  sense.  It  is  possible  that  some 
suggestions  came  from  the  **  non-political  "  propaganda  of  Schulze- 
Delitsch  for  co-operative  and  mutual  credit  associations,  which  had 
been  going  on  actively  in  Germany  for  ten  years  ;  but  the  main 
current  of  ideas  arose  out  of  the  currents  of  Russian  life.  Slavo- 
philism was  active,  and  new  economic  problems  arising  from  the 
liberation  of  the  peasants  confronted  everyone. 

It  was  in  many  ways  a  great  misfortune  for  Russia  that  at  this 
critical  moment  many  of  her  ablest,  most  candid,  and  most  experi- 
enced public  men  were  in  exile.    This  fact  at  once  embittered  the 

^  Similar  incidents  occurred  in  1905  and  1906.     See  infra,  p.  301  et  seq. 

2  Lenda,  V.  N,,  "  Moscow  Students  in  1861  and  their  Relation  to  Peasant 
Emancipation  (Reminiscences)  "  in  The  Great  Reforms  (Moscow,  191 1),  vol.  v. 
p.  269. 

^  Ibid.  *  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  354,  and  vol.  ii.  p.  66. 


REVOLUTIONARY    MOVEMENTS       73 

attitude  of  such  men  and  deprived  the  country  of  the  advantage  of 
their  presence  either  as  effective  critics  or  as  constructive  statesmen.^ 
Moreover,  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  appreciate  fully  in  detail 
the  conditions  of  the  problems  which  the  recent  liberation  of  the 
peasantry  presented. 

The  circumstance  of  expatriation  notwithstanding,  exiles  like 
Herzen  were  not  urging  in  the  early  sixties  an  immediate  revolution, 
or  even  an  agrarian  uprising.  They  knew  too  well  the  absence  of 
preparation  for  such  an  adventure.  Vague  and  diversified  as  the 
movement  among  the  intelligentsia  was  in  1861,  it  grew  in  1862  into 
a  revolutionary  movement  which  came  to  be  known  as  Zemlya  e 
Volya  (Land  and  Liberty)  ;  and  for  the  first  time  for  many  years 
there  was  a  more  or  less  definitely  organized  revolutionary  party. 

On  26th  May  1862  there  broke  out  in  St.  Petersburg  a  fire  which 
seemed  at  one  moment  likely  to  destroy  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior 
and  the  Bank  of  Russia.  Means  of  extinguishing  fire  were  at  that 
time  practically  non-existent  in  St.  Petersburg.  There  was  no 
wind,  otherwise  half  the  city  might  have  been  destroyed.^  Accusa- 
tions ^  were  not  wanting  that  the  fire  had  been  caused  by  Poles  and  by 
Russian  revolutionaries,  but  the  origin  of  it  was  never  discovered. 
Other  fires  of  a  similarly  mysterious  character  took  place  in  other 
cities,  and  an  uneasy  feeling  began  to  manifest  itself.  Meanwhile 
the  Poles  were  preparing  for  a  revolt.  They  secured  the  S5mipathy 
of  Bakiinin  and  of  the  Zemlya  e  Volya  group.*  Herzen  implored 
them  to  delay,  and  told  the  Poles  bluntly  that  the  number  of  revolu- 
tionaries in  Russia  was  too  insignificant  to  render  material  assistance. 
The  Polish  revolt  broke  out  on  21st  January  1863,  and  the  small 
group  of  Russian  revolutionaries  was  dragged  into  it.     But  the 

^  One  of  the  most  distinguished  of  these  voluntary  exiles  told  the  writer 
that  while  no  doubt  he  had  saved  his  life  by  leaving  Russia,  it  would  probably 
have  been  more  advantageous  to  his  country  if  he  had  not  done  so.  A 
public  man,  he  thought,  should  not  expatriate  himself. 

"  It  is  my  country.     Danger  in  its  bounds 
Weighs  more  than  foreign  safety." 

Disraeli's  Count  Alarcos. 
Or,  recalling  the  speech  of  Theodora  to  Justinian — "  Yonder  is  the  sea,  and 
there  are  the  ships.     Yet  reflect  whether,  when  once  you  have  escaped  to 
a  place  of  security,  you  will  not  prefer  death  to  safety." 

'^  A  most  lively  account  of  this  fire  is  given  by  Prince  Kropotkin, 
Memoirs,  &c.,  p.  157. 

'  e.g.  by  Katkov,  ibid.,  p.  162. 

*  See  Melyukov,  P.,  Russia  and  its  Crisis  (Chicago,  1905),  p.  390. 


^! 


74     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Polish  uprising  was  a  national  and  racial  rather  than  a  social  move- 
ment, and  the  sympathy  of  the  Russian  liberal  elements  was  soon 
sacrificed.  A  peasant  insurrection  was  planned  to  take  place  on 
the  Volga  simultaneously  with  the  Polish  revolt ;  but  this  incipient 
rebellion  was  easily  put  down,  and  the  Polish  peasants  were  sepa- 
rated from  the  revolt  of  their  landowners  by  extreme  concessions 
on  the  part  of  the  Russian  Government  and  by  confiscatory 
measures  at  the  landowners'  expense.  The  Polish  revolt  had  as- 
sumed the  form  of  a  guerilla  campaign,  but  whenever  the  sympathy 
of  the  peasants  was  secured  by  Russia  the  revolt  came  rapidly  to 
an  end.^ 

After  the  Polish  insurrection  there  were  two  years  of  extreme 
reaction,  during  which  the  ameliorating  influences  of  the  emanci- 
pation were  largely  neutralized,  and  the  revolutionary  forces,  de- 
feated for  the  time,  were  driven  "  underground  "  to  prepare  for 
fresh  assaults  upon  the  autocracy.  In  1864  the  remnants  of 
Zemlya  e  Volya,  now  divided  into  the  two  usual  factions — 
the  party  of  permeation,  and  the  party  of  immediate  action — 
prepared  for  further  activity.  The  attempt  of  Karak6zov,  on 
i6th  April  1866,  to  assassinate  the  Tsar  was  apparently  the  out- 
come of  the  latter  faction.^  This  attempt  was  followed  by  the 
sternest  measures.  Mikhail  Muravidv,  who  had  been  entrusted 
with  the  suppression  of  the  Polish  revolt,  was  now  endowed  with 
exceptional  powers  to  deal  with  what  was  regarded  as  an  extensive 
conspiracy.  Although  it  does  not  appear  that  anyone  but  Kara- 
k6zov  was  actually  implicated,  wholesale  arrests  were  made,  and 
everyone  whose  tendencies  were  in  the  least  radical  either  was 
arrested  or  was  compelled  to  remain  silent.^ 

Again  reaction  with  suppression,  voluntary  or  compulsory,  of 
all  oppositional  forces,  whether  revolutionary  or  otherwise,  inter- 
vened for  nearly  three  years ;  and,  as  before,  once  again  ardent 
and  reckless  spirits  made  their  appearance  to  continue  the  attack 
against  the  Government.     In  1869  a  secret  revolutionary  group 

^  At  the  conclusion  of  the  revolt,  Poland  was  treated  with  remorseless 
severity.  A  hundred  and  twenty-eight  Poles  were  hanged,  and  18,672  were 
sent  to  Siberia,  where  a  large  number  of  them  again  revolted  on  account  of 
the  treatment  to  which  they  were  subjected  there. 

2  It  is  alleged  that  Karak6zov  acted  on  his  individual  initiative,  and 
against  the  wishes  of  his  friends.     Melyiikov,  op.  cit.,  p,  394. 

'  The  result  has  been  described  by  Turgueniev  in  his  Fathers  and  Sons. 
See  also  Kropotkin,  Memoirs,  p.  256. 


REVOLUTIONARY   MOVEMENTS       75 

of  no  special  significance  was  formed  among  the  students  at  various 
higher  institutions  of  learning  in  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow.^  The 
leader  of  this  group  was  Nechiiev.  "  He  resorted  to  the  ways  of 
the  old  conspirators,  without  recoiling  even  before  deceit  when 
he  wanted  his  associates  to  follow  his  lead.  Such  methods  could 
have  no  success  in  Russia,  and  very  soon  his  society  broke  down  "  ^ 
Nechaiev  dragged  down  with  him  a  large  number  of  Russian  youths. 
One  of  them,  Ivanov,  who  opposed  the  measures  of  Nechdiev,^ 
was  murdered  at  his  instigation.  Nechdiev  fled,  but  was  arrested 
in  Switzerland  and  extradited  as  an  ordinary  accused.  The  re- 
maining members  of  the  "  circle  "  were  arrested  for  complicity  in 
the  murder,  tried,  found  guilty,  and  sent  to  Siberia. 

Meanwhile  a  new  party  of  permeation  opposed  to  the  reckless 
violence  of  Nechaiev  was  organized,  and  was  known  as  "  The 
circle  of  Tchaikovsky."  ^  To  begin  with  this  was  simply  a  '*  circle 
for  self-education."  Its  importance  lay  rather  in  the  character 
of  the  men  and  women  whom  it  attracted  than  in  its  definite  pro- 
gramme. From  its  ranks  there  came  in  1874  the  chief  figures, 
and  from  the  "  circle  "  came  one  of  the  chief  impulses  of  the 
V  Narod  movement,  which  altered  for  a  time  the  whole  course  of 
Russian  revolutionary  history,  and  in  a  large  measure  altered 
the  character  of  Russian  society.^  In  1872  the  *'  circle  "  was  dis- 
tributing books  authorized  by  the  censor  but  of  a  liberal  tendency. 
It  was  quite  eclectic  in  its  selection — e.g.  Russian  historical  works, 
and,  on  the  social  question,  the  works  of  Lassalle  and  of  Marx. 
Some  of  the  members  of  the  "  circle  "  aspired  to  enter  the  pro- 
vincial Zemstvos  (or  local  government  councils)  which  had  been 
organized  in  1864,  and  to  this  end  studied  seriously  the  rural  econo- 
mical conditions.*  These  hopes  were  doomed  to  disappointment, 
but  they  indicated  an  entirely  new  phase  of  social  activity.     In 

1  Melyuk6v,  op.  cit.,  p.  394.  "  Kropotkin,  op.  cit.,  p.  305. 

'  The  programme  of  Nechaiev  is  given  by  Melyuk6v,  op.  cit.,  pp.  395,  396. 

*  Nicholas  Tchaikovsky  (6.  czVca  1840).  Educated  as  a  chemist.  Arrested 
twice  during  the  period  of  the  activity  of  his  "  circle,"  but  discharged, 
sufficient  evidence  to  justify  his  punishment  not  being  forthcoming.  Went 
to  America  in  the  seventies,  and  later  to  London,  where  he  went  into  business 
and  resided  until  after  the  outbreak^f  the  revolutionary  movement  in  1905. 
He  weis  arrested  in  St.  Petersburg,  but  was  released  on  bciil.  Afterwards 
he  was  tried  and  discharged. 

^  For  an  account  of  the  V  Narod  movement,  see  infra,  chap.  vi. 

*  An  excellent  account  of  the  activities  of  the  circle  of  Tchaikovsky  is 
given  by  Prince  Kropotkin  in  his  Memoirs,  pp.  304-42. 


76     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

1872  it  would  appear  that  the  youths  who  were  engaged  in  this 
movement  were  opposed  altogether  to  terroristic  enterprises,^ 
and  were  convinced  that,  while  a  constitution  should  be  aimed  at 
for  Russia,  much  preparatory  work  would  have  to  be  done  among 
all  classes  if  the  experiment  of  a  constitution  could  be  expected 
to  be  successful.  The  utmost  which  they  attempted  to  do  was 
to  contribute  to  the  creation  of  a  situation  in  which  a  **  Parlia- 
ment "  might  be  and  would  be  summoned.^  The  Tchaikovsky 
**  circle  "  came  in  1873-1874  to  be  merged  in  the  general  V  Narod 
movement ;  some  of  its  members  exiled  themselves  voluntarily, 
many  of  them  were  arrested. 

1  Prince  Kropotkin  naxrates  a  remarkable  story  of  an  occasion  when 
the  "  circle  "  not  only  tried  to  dissuade  by  argument  a  young  man  from  the 
southern  provinces  who  went  to  St.  Petersburg  with  the  intention  of  assassi- 
nating Alexander  II,  but  intimated  that  they  would  keep  a  watch  over  him 
and  prevent  him  by  force  from  carrying  out  his  purpose.     Memoirs,  p.  316. 

2  Cf.  ibid.,  p.  315. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    INFLUENCE   OF   WESTERN   EUROPEAN   SOCIALISM 
UPON   THE   RUSSIAN   MOVEMENT 

The  Russian  oppositional  groups  having  been  influenced  both 
positively  and  negatively  by  contemporary  thought  and  by  con- 
temporary events  in  Western  Europe,  it  is  necessary  to  notice 
those  movements  by  which  Russian  parties  have  been  most  con- 
spicuously affected.  Each  of  the  Russian  groups  took  from  Western 
Europe  what  suited  its  purpose,  and  attached  importance  to  foreign 
progress  and  to  foreign  speculation  in  proportion  as  their  elements 
harmonized  with  its  own  point  of  view.  The  nationalist  aims  of 
some  of  the  West  European  political  movements  were  regarded 
sympathetically  by  the  Slavophils,  while  the  internationalist  pro- 
pagandas were  approved  and  to  some  extent  even  adopted  by  the 
Zapadneke  and  their  successors.  The  Russia  of  Peter  the  Great 
and  that  of  Katherine  II  had  both  gone  to  fantastic  extremes  in 
attempting  to  adopt  by  crude  and  wholesale  methods  some  of  the 
elements  of  West  European  culture.  These  efforts  were  not  con- 
spicuously successful,  yet  each  succeeding  age  produced  new 
enthusiasts. 

The  influence  of  the  French  Revolution  and  of  the  events  of 
the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  upon  the  state  of  mind 
which  produced  the  Dekabrist  movement  has  already  been  noticed. 
That  influence,  together  with  the  influences  of  the  revolution  in 
Paris  in  1830  and  of  the  general  revolutionary  movement  of  1848, 
affected  profoundly  the  successors  of  the  Dekahristi.  The  French 
Revolution  did  not  merely  involve  the  destruction  of  the  contem- 
porary social  system — ^it  involved  also  efforts  towards  a  new  order.^ 
It  seemed  to  the  system-mongers  to  be  necessary  to  reconstruct 
society  upon  a  fresh  basis,  alike  in  the  spheres  of  politics,  economics, 
and  morals,  as  if  society  were  a  mechanism  whose  parts  had  been 

.  *  Cf.  Harrison,  Frederic,  The  Meaning  of  History  (London,  1906),  p,  180 
et  9eq. 

77 


jS     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

worn  out  by  ages  of  use,  and  had  been  in  some  measure  broken  in 
pieces  by  the  Revolution.  It  seemed  also  as  if  the  next  task  were  to 
clear  away  the  debris  of  the  past  and  to  construct  an  entirely  new 
social  order.  The  difficulty  which  the  system-mongers  encoun- 
tered did  not  He  in  the  invention  of  a  new  social  order  so  much  as 
in  contriving  means  to  get  rid  of  what  remained  of  the  old.  The 
reason  for  this  appears  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  while  there  are  in  the 
social  structure  certain  mechanical  elements,  as  there  are  in  all 
organic  and  inorganic  bodies,  the  organic  character  of  the  social 
structure,  and  even  of  these  mechanical  elements,  was  somewhat 
generally  overlooked.  So  also  was  the  essentially  organic  character 
of  the  changes  which  society  had  been  undergoing.  These  changes 
had  already  resulted  in  a  new  society,  in  which  there  had  been 
abundantly  disclosed,  that  revolution  notwithstanding,  himian 
nature  had  not  undergone  material  alteration. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  and  in  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  great  emphasis  had  been  laid  upon  the  influ- 
ence of  surroundings  upon  the  formation  of  character,  yet  by  1840, 
surroundings  had  been  subjected  to  important  changes,  but  the 
character  of  the  people  had  changed  slightly  and  slowly. 

The  state  of  international  relations  in  the  last  years  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  and  throughout  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
suggested,  in  the  contemporary  mood,  a  new  order  of  those  relations 
in  which  reason  rather  than  passion  should  be  the  dominant 
influence.  Thus  from  1791,  when  the  Concert  of  Europe  had  its 
rise,^  international  diplomacy  was  directed  towards  the  concerted 
action  of  the  European  powers  against  revolutionary  impulses. 
The  diplomatists  had  indeed  acutely  discerned  in  the  humanitarian 
enthusiasm  of  the  post-revolutionary  period  a  means  of  arresting 
the  furore  for  political  change.  Whether  or  not  the  social  order 
was  really  in  peril  the  statesmen  of  the  time  proceeded  to  **  make 
common  cause  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  *  public  peace,  the 
tranquillity  of  states,  the  inviolability  of  possessions,  and  the  faith 
of  treaties.'  "  ^  i^  1804  the  Tsar  Alexander  I  proposed  a  scheme 
for  an  European  Confederation,^  and  Napoleon  I  conceived  the  idea 

^  In  a  circular  letter  of  Count  Kaunitz  {17th  July  1791).  See  W.  A. 
Phillips  in  "  The  Congresses,"  in  Cambridge  Modern  History,  x.  p.  3.  Mr. 
Phillips  points  out  that  the  schemes  of  universal  peace  were  based  upon  Ber- 
nardin  de  Saint-Pierre's  Pyo;>^  de  Traite  pour  rendre  la  Paix  perpetuelle  (1793). 

*  Kaunitz  quoted  by  Philhps,  loc.  cit.  ^  Cf.  supra,  p.  12. 


INFLUENCE    OF   SOCIALISM  79 

of  a  Central  Assembly  or  European  Congress  on  the  model  of  the 
American  Congress,  to  which  all  the  European  States  were  to  send 
representatives.^ 

These  high  poHcies,  visionary  as  they  were,  cannot  be  said  to 
have  had  any  effect  upon  the  working  masses.  Had  any  effect 
been  produced,  there  must  have  arisen  in  their  minds  a  reaction 
against  policies  which,  were  they  realized,  must  render  the  task  of 
the  working  class  in  its  struggle  for  political  influence  incomparably 
more  arduous  than  it  otherwise  would  be.  A  federal  authority 
endowed  with  the  collective  power  of  half  a  dozen  great  states  could 
deal  with  a  revolution  in  any  one  of  them  with  irresistible  effect. 
Nor  could  the  bourgeoisie  of  liberal  tendencies  see  in  this  form  of 
intemationahsm  other  than  hostility  to  the  growth  of  the  political 
influence  of  the  middle  class.  The  urban  middle  class  of  all  countries 
is,  indeed,  inevitably  of  particularist  rather  than  of  internationalist 
tendencies.  It  is  even  sometimes  obsessed  with  municipal  as 
opposed  to  national  points  of  view.  The  middle  class  is  thus  always 
the  advocate  of  local  self-government  in  distinction  from  centralized 
authority.  The  years  immediately  before  and  immediately  after 
the  year  1830  appear  to  exhibit  the  high- water  mark  of  the  influence 
of  the  urban  middle  class.  It  is  not  surprising  that  during  this 
period  the  characteristic  political  phenomenon  was  by  no  means 
the  development  of  internationalism.  It  was  rather  the  intensi- 
fication of  nationalism  under  middle-class  domination  as  a  reaction 
against  the  imperialism  of  Napoleon  I  and  Alexander  I  alike. 

At  the  close  of  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century' 
there  came  the  unsuccessful  struggle  for  the  independence  of  Poland 
and  the  successful  struggle  for  the  independence  of  Greece  and  of 
Belgium.  Meanwhile  there  came  the  rise  of  Prussia,  beginning  with 
national,  although  it  proceeded  with  imperial  ambitions  which  led 
incidentally  to  a  United  Italy.  The  struggles  for  independence 
in  Greece  and  Italy,  though  predominantly  bourgeois  rather  than 
agrarian  or  proletarian  struggles,  were  regarded  sympathetically 
by  the  working  class  especially  of  England,  probably  chiefly  because 
the  first  struggle  was  against  a  Mohammedan  and  the  second  against 
a  Catholic  power. 

The  years  of  peace  which  followed  the  collapse  of  Napoleon  I 
were  characterized  by  unprecedented  development  of  industrial 

1  Phillips,  op.  cit.y  p.  I. 


8o     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

activity.  The  great  inventions  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
perfected  and  the  systems  of  manufacture  and  transport  were 
transformed.  The  movement  of  population  upon  the  industrial 
centres,  which  had  always  existed,  was  greatly  accelerated,  and  the 
population  of  the  towns  outgrew  the  municipal  machinery  and  the 
locally  developed  powers  of  administration.  The  national  debts 
and  the  disorganized  national  finances,  which  were  the  inheritance 
of  prolonged  war,  led  to  excessive  taxation,  and  diversion  of  capital 
and  labour  from  agriculture  into  industry  led  to  enhanced  prices 
of  the  necessaries  of  life.  The  disintegration  of  the  family  and  the 
rupture  of  social  relations  which  accompanied  these  movements, 
with  the  consequent  destruction  of  the  elements  of  social  cohesion 
present  in  the  older  society,  contributed  to  the  general  revolt  against 
authority  and  precedent  which  now  became  apparent  in  all  direc- , 
tions.  Abrupt  changes  in  the  social  order  are  at  once  caused  hyi 
and  are  provocative  of  individuality.  '*  The  wisdom  of  our  ances-  \ 
tors  "  was  the  subject  of  common  jest  in  the  fields  of  philosophy,^ 
economics,^  natural  science,^  art,*  and  religion,^  as  well  as  in  those 
of  politics.  Destructive  criticism  in  many  fields  induced  discredit 
of  the  State  and  of  its  role  as  representative  of  the  general  will. 
But  criticism  does  not  always  yield  negative  results  ;  by  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  reaction  had  begun,  and  so  far  as  the 
State  was  concerned  a  new  ideal  State  began  to  emerge  from  the 
critical  discussions.  The  outcome  of  laisser-faire  and  aggressive 
individualism,  unrestrained  as  it  was  at  least  for  a  time  by  tradi- 
tion,   was   an   apparent   contradiction   between   vastly   increased 

*  Feuerbach  (Neo-Hegelian)  published  his  first  book  in  1830 ;  Bentham's 
"  subversive  "  influence  was  dominant  at  this  time,  ahke  in  philosophy,  law, 
and  economics. 

2  Comte's  attack  upon  the  "  orthodox  "  political  economy  may^  be  said 
to  begin  with  the  publication  of  his  Cours  de  Philosophie  positive  in  1839. 

*  Laplace  lived  till  1827,  and  Lamarck  till  1829. 

*  On  "  the  revolution  of  the  arts  "  about  1830,  see  W.  E.  Henley,  Memorial 
Catalogue  of  French  and  Dutch  Loan  Collection  (Edinburgh,  1888).  The  in- 
spiration proceeded  largely  from  England.  Constable  exhibited  in  the  Louvre 
in  1824,  and  profoundly  affected  the  French  painters  of  the  immediately 
succeeding  time.  Delacroix  exhibited  his  Massacres  de  Scio  in  1829.  In 
the  drama,  Victor  Hugo  announced  the  literary  revolution  in  his  Hernaniy 
produced  in  1830  ;  and  in  criticism  Sainte-Beuve  had  already  written  Joseph 
Delorme  and  Consolations.  Scottish  and  English  romanticism  was  in  full 
vigour. 

*  The  critical  attack  upon  the  foundations  of  the  Christian  religion  may 
be  said  to  have  been  formally  inaugurated  by  the  publication  of  Strauss's 
Leben  Jesu  in  1835, 


INFLUENCE   OF   SOCIALISM  8i 

powers  of  production  and  apparently  contemporaneous  diminution 
of  well-being  among  the  masses  of  the  people.  This  contradic- 
tion led  many  thoughtful  and  conscientious,  if  too  optimistic, 
persons  to  formulate  niunerous  schemes  to  **  remedy  the  distress 
of  nations,"  and  to  undertake  numerous  inquiries  into  the  "con- 
dition of  the  people  "  question. ^  In  the  more  far-reaching  of  these 
schemes  the  international  aspects  of  social  problems  assumed  a 
large  place.  Among  the  first,  if  not  the  first,  to  promote  the  idea 
that  a  reorganization  of  society  should  be  regarded  as  an  inter- 
national affair  was  Robert  Owen,  who  developed  the  idea  in  1817.* 
Owen,  who  was  himself  of  authoritative  temperament,  appears  to 
have  thought  that  an  absolute  government  was  on  the  whole  most 
likely  to  act  with  the  rapidity  which  the  case  seemed  to  demand.' 
He  proposed  to  form  an  "  Association  of  all  classes  of  all  nations,"  * 
but  Owen  seemed  to  have  in  his  mind  the  idea  that  a  working  class 
regenerated  by  his  "  rational  religion  "  would  dominate  the  whole. 
The  international  character  of  his  society  was  more  formal  than 
real ;  the  only  importance  of  the  society  lies  in  the  fact  that  it 
foreshadowed  the  international  association,  not  of  all  classes,  but  ex- 
plicitly of  the  working  class  which  was  to  follow  thirty  years  later. 
The  association  which  gave  rise  to  the  Chartist  movement  had 
international  filiations  and  sjmipathies.*  It  issued,  e.g.,  manifestoes 
to  the  working  classes  of  Europe,  and  especially  to  the  French  and 

*  The  effect  of  some  of  these  upon  contemporary  Russian  intelligentsia  is 
discussed  infra,  Book  VII,  chap.  xiv. 

*  At  meetings  held  in  London  in  August  and  September  181 7,  and  after- 
wards before  the  German  Diet  at  Frankfort  on  the  Main,  and  through  Lord 
Castlereagh  at  the  Conference  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  in  181 8.  See  Owen,  The  New 
Existence  of  Man  upon  the  Earth  (London,  1854),  pp.  3  and  4  and  p.  xxxv.,  and 
The  Millennial  Gaxette,  No.  4,  15th  May  1856  and  ist  August  1857. 

'  Cf.  The  New  Existence  of  Man  upon  the  Earth,  part  ii.,  p.  5,  and  [Thomp- 
son, Wm.]  Labour  Rewarded  .  .  .  {London,  1827),  p.  99.  It  should  be 
observed  that  while  Owen  exhibited  a  preference  for  action  through  the  State, 
he  gave  the  primary  impulse  towards  the  foundation  of  the  English  co-opera- 
tive system,  which  is  based  wholly  upon  voluntary  action,  and  which  is  not 
in  any  way  indebted  to  State  support  or  recognition.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
writings  of  his  contemporary,  Thompson,  strongly  impregnated  as  they  are 
with  voluntary  mutuahsm,  and  antagonistic  £is  they  sire  to  State  control  or 
State  action,  seem  to  have  given,  if  not  the  initial  impulse  to  the  State  col- 
lectivism of  Marx,  at  all  events  to  have  contributed  to  it  important  sugges- 
tions. 

*  The  Constitution  and  Laws  of  the  Univ.  Com.  Soc.  of  Rational  Religionists 
(London,  1839),  p.  20. 

*  "  The  Working  Men's  Association  for  Benefiting  politically,  socially, 
and  morally  the  Useful  Classes." 

VOL.  II  F 


82     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

to  the  Polish  people.^  These  manifestoes  urge  the  united  action 
of  the  working  class  of  all  nations.  "  Fellow-producers  of  wealth, 
seeing  our  oppressors  are  .  .  .  united,  why  should  not  we,  too, 
have  our  bond  of  brotherhood  and  holy  alliance  ?  "  ^  The  Chartist 
movement,  had  it  been  fully  understood  by  contemporary  Russians, 
would  have  been  regarded  as  characterized  by  politicalism ;  because 
although  some  of  the  Chartists  had  ulterior  economic  aims,  these  did 
not  occupy  a  place  in  their  programme.^ 

During  the  period  which  elapsed  between  the  French  Revolution 
of  1830  and  that  of  1848,  there  were  practically  numberless  schemes 
for  the  reformation  of  society  in  a  national  or  an  international 
sense  and  for  the  regeneration  of  humanity.  A  new  literature  and 
a  new  vocabulary  sprang  into  existence.  "  In  1830,  Socialism  was 
nothing ;  to-day.  Socialism  is  everjrthing,"  Considerant  wrote  in 
1848 ;  and  he  continued,  "  A  new  order  is  about  to  be  created.  All 
creation  is  preceded  by  a  chaos.  Socialism  has  been,  has  to  be,  and 
is  still  but  a  chaos.  .  .  .  The  problem  of  Socialism  contains  two 
historical  formulae.  The  emancipation  of  the  slave  produced  the 
serf.  The  emancipation  of  the  serf  produced  the  bourgeois  and  the 
proletarian.  .  .  .  There  remains  the  social  and,  following,  the  poli- 
tical emancipation  of  the  wage-earner,  the  proletarian."^ 

This  was  in  effect  the  text  of  numerous  pamphlets  and  mani- 
festoes issued  during  the  period  from  1830  till  1848.  In  the  forties 
of  the  nineteenth  century  Paris  teemed  with  social  speculators. 
Saint-Simon  ^  had  died  in  1825,  and  Fourier  «  died  in  1837  >  ^^^ 
during  the  forties,  Proudhon,'  Buchez,®  Cabet,^  Leroux,^°  Dupin,^^ 
Considerant  ,^2  and  Louis  Blanc,  ^^  were  all  alive  and  at  the  full  height 

*  Issued  in  1838.  In  the  manifesto  to  the  working  classes  there  is  a  lively 
summary  of  the  democratic  movement  in  Europe. 

*  Address  to  the  Working  Classes  of  Europe  (London,  1838),  p.  7. 

3  The  Chartists  refused  to  be  diverted  from  their  political  propaganda  by 
the  contemporary  movements  of  Owenism,  communism,  and  free  trade.  Cf. 
The  Chartist  Circular  (Glasgow,  19th  October  1839),  and  letter  from  Mac- 
Donnell,  the  Chartist,  to  Cabet,  in  ProUs  du  Communisme  a  Toulouse  (Paris, 
1843),  p.  29. 

*  Considerant,  V.,  Le  Socialisme  devant  le  mieux  monde  ou  le  vivant  devant 
les  morts  (Paris,  1849),  pp.  18-19. 

^  Saint-Simon  (1760-1825),  (Euvres  (1832).  See  also  Fournel,  Biblio- 
graphie  Saint-Simonienne  (Paris,  1833). 

*  Fourier  (i 772-1 837),  Thiorie  des  Quatre  Mouvements  (1808). 

'  Proudhon  (i  809-1 865).  «  Buchez  (i  796-1 865). 

*  Cabet  (i 788-1 856),  Voyage  en  Icarie  (1840).  ^^  Leroux  (i 798-1871), 
"  Dupin  (1784-1873).                      12  Considerant  (1808-1893). 

"  Louis  Blanc  (1811-1882). 


INFLUENCE    OF    SOCIALISM  83 

of  their  activity,  each  with  his  social  specific.  No  doubt  Socialism 
was  a  chaos,  but  the  chaos  was  in  a  state  of  fermentation.  The 
activity  of  the  continental  governments,  and  their  determination 
to  put  down  what  they  considered  as  subversive  movements  pre- 
vented any  but  small,  isolated,  and  ephemeral  associations  of 
working  men  from  being  established,  in  spite  of  assistance  from 
sympathizers  among  the  '*  intellectuals."  Up  till  1848,  when 
revolutionary  movements  occurred  in  Paris,  Berlin,  and  Vienna, 
no  open  revolutionary  association  was  possible,  but  there  were  many 
secret  societies,  especially  in  France,  Belgium,  and  Switzerland. 
In  1843  Karl  Marx  ^  went  for  the  first  time  to  Paris.  He  was  then 
twenty-five  years  of  age,  almost  fresh  from  the  University  of  Bonn, 
where  he  had  become  impregnated  with  the  philosophy  of  Hegel, 
and  had  become  inclined  towards  the  school  of  Neo-Hegelians,  then 
led  by  Feuerbach.  Marx  plunged  into  the  contemporary  discus- 
sions of  the  Paris  group,  whose  names  have  been  mentioned,  and  he 
seems  to  have  adopted  their  vocabulary  and  to  have  absorbed  some 
of  their  ideas.  A  group  of  German  workmen  in  Paris  had  formed 
themselves  into  a  Communist  League  in  1836  ;  in  1839  a  number  of 
these  workmen  were  expelled  from  Paris,  and  in  the  following  year 
they  founded  a  similar  society  in  London.^  Marx  was  expelled  from 
Paris  in  1844,  and  after  three  years  of  migration  was  to  be  foimd 
in  London,  where  he  attended  a  congress  of  the  Communist  League, 
founded  by  the  German  workmen  in  Paris  eleven  years  before. 
Marx  made  himself  conspicuous  at  this  congress,  and  with  his  friend 
Engels  undertook  to  draw  up  a  manifesto.  This  manifesto  (the 
celebrated  Kommunistische  Manifest)  was  written  in  German  in 
January  1848,  the  manuscript  being  sent  to  the  printer  a  few  weeks 
before  the  French  Revolution  of  24th  February .^  A  French  trans- 
lation appeared  in  Paris  shortly  before  the  insurrection  of  June  1848. 
Danish  and  Polish  editions  were  published  about  the  same  time. 
The  Communist  manifesto  is  a  controversial  pamphlet  in  which 

*  Karl  Marx  (1818-1883).  See  Stammhammer,  Bibliographie  des  Social' 
ismus  und  Communism  us,  3  vols.  (Jena,  1909).  For  career  of  Marx,  see  Meyer, 
R.,  Der  Emancipationskampf  des  vierten  Standes  (Berlin,  1892),  i.  pp.  114 
et  seq.  For  an  admirable  criticism  of  the  philosophical  basis  of  Marx's  opinions, 
see  Bonar,  J.,  Philosophy  and  Political  Economy  .  .  .  (London,  1893).  See 
also  Simkhovich,  Marxism  versus  Socialism  (New  York,  1913). 

*  Rae,  John,  Contemporary  Socialism  (London,  1884),  p.  135. 

*  Preface  by  F.  Engels  to  the  Manifesto  of  the  Communist  Party.  ,  t  . 
Authorized  EngUsh  translation  (London,  1886),  p.  i. 


84     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Marx  attacks  almost  all  previous  writers  upon  the  subject.  He 
develops  in  it  what  is  usually  described  as  a  materialistic  view  of 
history — ^in  other  words,  he  lays  emphasis  upon  the  economical  causes 
of  political  and  social  changes.  The  claim  of  originality  which 
Engels  afterwards  advanced  on  the  part  of  Marx  and  himself, 
cannot  be  regarded  as  tenable.  Irrespective  of  earlier  examples, 
Montesquieu  had  laid  great  stress  upon  the  influence  of  climate  and 
of  the  nature  of  the  soil  upon  the  laws  of  "  civil  slavery,"  upon  the 
laws  of  "  political  servitude,"  and  upon  laws  in  general.  This  is 
undoubtedly,  in  modern  phrase,  the  economic  interpretation  or  the 
materialist  view  of  history.  ^ 

What  Marx  really  did  was  to  emphasize  the  influence,  perhaps 
even  to  the  point  of  exaggeration,  of  the  economical  struggle  of  the 
social  classes  upon  the  political  struggle  of  the  same  classes.  The 
force  of  his  conclusions  thus  varies  with  the  intensity  of  the  econo- 
mical struggle  and  with  the  character  of  the  contemporary  political 
struggle. 

The  issue  of  the  manifesto  caused  a  schism  in  the  League,  and  a 
second  manifesto,  also  by  Marx,  caused  another  schism,  in  which 
Liebknecht,  afterwards  well  known  as  a  Social  Democratic  member 
of  the  German  Reichstag,  left  Marx.^ 

The  revolution  of  24th  February  1848  at  Paris  was  followed  by 
the  "  massacres  of  Rouen  "  in  April,  and  by  the  "  inexpiable  heca- 
tomb of  June  "  in  Paris  in  the  same  year,  and  these,  with  the  results 
of  the  various  revolutionary  movements  throughout  Europe  during 
that  period,  left  the  working  class  discomfited  and  disorganized.* 
It  had  compromised  its  immediate  interests  by  its  political  fihations, 
and  it  had  been  attacked  in  detail  and  defeated.  The  associations 
of  French  working  men,*  which  had  been  formed  with  internationa- 
list aims,  were  dispersed  after  the  coup  d'etat  on  2nd  December  185 1, 

^  Cf.  Montesquieu,  De  I' Esprit  des  Lois,  liv.  xiii-xxiii.  Two  writers  of  com- 
munist tendency,  Mably  and  Dupin,  annotated  Montesquieu,  and  both  added 
notes  to  these  very  books.  Marx  s  indebtedness  to  Mably  and  Dupin  and  their 
group  otherwise  cannot  be  questioned. 

'  Cf.  Lavollee,  Les  Classes  ouvriires  en  Europe  (Paris,  1884),  i.  p.  244. 

'  Emigration  from  Europe  to  the  United  States  was  greatly  stimulated 
in  1847  by  the  economical  and  political  conditions  combined.  Cf.  statistics 
in  Bromwell,  W,  J.,  History  of  Immigration  to  the  United  States  .  .  .  (New 
York,  1856),  pp.  175  et  seq. 

*■  Cf.  Malon,  B.,  L' Internationale,  son  Histoire  et  ses  Principes  (Lyons,  1872),. 
p.  7. 


INFLUENCE   OF   SOCIALISM  85 

and  the  international  labour  movement,  such  as  it  was,  was  thrown 
into  the  background  for  ten  years.  During  this  period  the  con- 
ditions were  preparing  for  the  further  uprising  of  the  internationalist 
idea.  The  processes  of  social  disintegration,  whose  beginnings 
have  already  been  noticed,  had  now  gone  far.  The  development 
of  the  American  wheatfields  had  thrown  cheap  food  into  the  English 
and  continental  markets,  and  domestic  agriculture  had  every- 
where receded,  while  the  industrial  centres  had  grown  rapidly. 
The  proletariat,  whose  numbers  were  relatively  small  when  the 
existence  of  the  class  began  to  attract  attention  in  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  now  assumed  formidable  proportions. 
Factory  Acts  notwithstanding,  and  notwithstanding  the  consider- 
able development  of  trade  unions,  the  temper  of  the  working  class 
fluctuated  closely  with  the  state  of  trade.  A  single  bad  harvest 
was  sufficient  to  produce  an  outbreak  of  discontent.  There  was 
as  yet  no  national  system  of  education  and  no  broadening  of  the 
franchise  even  in  England.  The  trade  union  movement  was  in 
effect  under  a  ban.  On  the  Continent  working-class  meeting:s  and 
movements  were  prevented  by  the  poHce  and  by  the  expulsion  of 
influential  advocates  of  working-class  interests.  The  inevitable 
consequence  of  the  banishment  of  propagandists  from  their  own 
country  and  the  suppression  of  their  propaganda  within  its  limits, 
is  the  spreading  of  their  propaganda  in  other  countries.  Extreme 
nationalism  on  the  part  of  governments  leads  to  internationalism 
on  the  part  of  their  opponents.  Enthusiasts  cast  off  by  different 
countries  have  a  conunon  oppositional  ground  ;  they  tend  to  unite 
in  formal  or  in  informal  alliances  against  all  national  governments. 
So,  too,  the  exclusion  of  certain  classes  of  people  from  sharing  in 
the  government  of  a  country,  or  from  representation  in  its  assemblies, 
tends  to  create  in  the  minds  of  these  classes  hostility  towards  their 
own  Government,  and  therefore  sympathy  with  those  classes  which 
in  other  countries  are  similarly  excluded.  This  sympathetic  hos- 
tility to  all  governments  induces  a  certain  cosmopolitan  attitude 
of  mind,^  which,  although  not  identical  with,  may  nevertheless 
prepare  the  way  for  internationalism. 

Where  this  cosmopolitan  attitude  has  no  deeper  foundation 
than  mere  exclusion  from  representation  it  may  disappear  whenever 

*  C/.  Hutton,  Richard  Holt,  in  Essays  on  Reform  (by  various  writers) 
(London,  1867),  p.  33. 


86     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  representation  is  granted.  In  so  far  as  it  exists,  from  whatever 
cause,  it  tends  to  make  for  a  fresh  classification  of  himianity.  The 
national  boundaries  become  less  important,  and  the  vertical  cleavage 
of  society  which  the  nation  involves  assumes  a  sinister  aspect  to 
the  mass  of  the  people,  and  seems  to  account  for  the  economical 
and  political  disadvantages  under  which  the  people  labour.  The 
existence  of  a  horizontal  cleavage  becomes  apparent  in  which  the 
proletariat  of  aU  countries  form  one  mass  at  the  base  of  society,  while 
superimposed  upon  it  are  the  other  classes  in  whose  hands  appear  to 
rest  the  instruments  of  economical  and  political  power.  The  result 
of  the  fermentation  of  such  ideas  in  the  minds  of  the  working  class 
is  the  development  of  "  class  consciousness,"  a  kind  of  patriotism 
of  class  in  which  the  feehngs  of  kinship  and  of  common  interest, 
which  constitute  patriotism  proper,  are  transferred,  not  to  all 
humanity,  but  to  the  working  class  in  all  countries.  Although  in  a 
vague  and  uncertain  way,  excited  partly  by  experience  and  partly 
by  propaganda,  this  feeling  of  "  class  consciousness  "  seems  at 
certain  epochs  gradually  to  gain  ground  and  then  to  be  mitigated 
by  returning  racial  animosities,  which  throw  back  the  working 
class  into  reassociation  with  people  of  their  own  kin,  even  though 
they  may  belong  to  the  classes  whom  they  regard  as  exploitative. 
Such  recurring  waves  of  national  feeling  which  exhibit  themselves 
in  the  familiar  episodes  of  chauvinism  and  jingoism  illustrate  the 
important  fact  that  history  cannot  be  interpreted  exclusively  in 
terms  of  economical  conditions  in  the  narrow  sense. 

The  initial  impulse  towards  a  recrudescence  of  the  international 
working  men's  movement  upon  a  more  important  scale  than  before 
was  to  come  from  an  unexpected  source.  During  the  International 
Exhibition  which  was  held  in  London  in  1862,  Napoleon  III  had 
permitted  the  election  of  some  French  workmen  to  visit  London  as 
delegates.^  A  meeting  was  held  at  the  Freemasons'  Tavern  on 
5th  August  1862,  and  an  address  was  presented  to  the  French 
delegates  by  representatives  of  the  English  working  men.  This 
address  urged  that  an  organized  union  should  be  effected  of  working 
men  in  all  countries  in  order  that  their  interests  might  be  protected, 

^  The  idea  seems  to  have  originated  with  some  manufacturers  and  certain 
newspapers,  e.g.  Le  Temps  and  L' Opinion  Nationale  (de  Laveleye,  E.,  Socialism 
of  To-day  (London,  n.  d.),  p.  149).  Napoleon  III  is  alleged  to  have  desired 
to  patronize  the  International  at  a  later  date.  See  a  curious  note  by  Kropot- 
kin,  Memoirs,  p.  485. 


INFLUENCE   OF   SOCIALISM  87 

because  these  interests  were  everywhere  identical.  To  this  address 
the  French  workmen  replied  that  the  working  class  in  all  countries 
must  go  hand  in  hand  by  means  of  a  "  holy  alliance  "  to  obtain 
their  freedom.^  In  the  address  a  suggestion  was  made  that  com- 
mittees of  working  men  should  be  formed  in  order  to  provide  a 
"medium  for  the  interchange  of  ideas  on  international  trade  '*  ;* 
but  the  trade  unions  held  aloof,  and  the  international  union  remained 
a  mere  phrase.^ 

The  Polish  revolt  began  on  2ist  January  1863,  and  on  the  22nd 
July  of  the  same  year  a  meeting  was  held  in  St.  Paul's  Hall,  London, 
to  express  sympathy  with  the  Poles.  To  this  meeting  five  French 
delegates  were  sent  by  French  workmen.*  In  the  address  of  George 
Odger  to  the  "  French  brethren,"  suggesting  a  "  Universal  Labour 
Congress,"  Rudolf  Meyer  finds  the  "  germ  "  of  the  "  International."  ^ 
The  outcome  of  this  suggestion  >yas  a  meeting  in  St.  Martin's  Hall 
on  28th  September  1864.  The  French  delegates  were  again  pro- 
minent, and  there  were  also  present  Major  Wolff,  private  secretary 
of  Mazzini,  who  represented  Italian  working  men,  and  Marx  and 
Eccarius,  who  represented  Germany.  Altogether  five  foreign 
nations  were  represented.  Professor  Beesly  presided.^  The  address 
of  the  Paris  working  men,  whose  spokesman  was  Tolain,  after  refer- 
ring briefly  to  the  situation  in  Poland,  went  on  to  lament  the  absence 
of  solidarity  among  working  men  and  the  commanding  position 
which  capital  had  acquired  under  the  influence  of  the  development 
of  mechanical  industry  and  free  trade,  and  to  urge  the  union  of 
workers  in  a  class  struggle. "^  After  the  discussion  of  this  address, 
the  meeting  resolved  to  appoint  a  provisional  committee,  which 
was  empowered  to  draw  up  a  constitution  of  an  International 
Working  Men's  Association,  and  to  arrange  for  an  international 
congress  to  be  held  in  Brussels  in  1865.     This  provisional  conmiittee 

*  Meyer,  R.,  Der  Emancipationskampf,  i.  p.  119. 

*  De  Laveleye,  op.  cit.,  p.  150. 
'  Meyer,  R.,  loc.  cit. 

*  Palmerston  had  refused  to  agree  to  the  proposal  of  an  European  Congress 
upon  the  affairs  of  Poland.  How  far  this  meeting  was  engineered  from  Paris 
as  a  protest  against  the  action  of  the  British  Government  it  is  not  necessary 
here  to  inquire.     (C/.  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  p.  120.) 

*  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  p.  120. 

*  Professor  Beesly  was  at  that  time  advocating  intemationaUsm  with 
special  ardour.  His  point  of  view  is  put  with  great  clearness  in  his  "  England 
and  the  Sea,"  contributed  to  International  Policy  :  Essays  on  the  Foreign 
Relations  of  England  (London,  1866),  pp.  153  et  seq.        '  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  p.  121. 


88     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

consisted  of  twenty-seven  English  representatives  and  eight  for- 
eigners, among  whom  were  Wolff  and  Marx. 

Almost  inmiediately  there  occurred  a  dispute  between  Mazzini 
and  Marx.  Mazzini  had  composed  an  inaugural  address  and  a  con- 
stitution. In  the  address  he  developed  his  political  programme, 
deprecated  the  class  struggle,  and  proposed  a  highly  centralized 
organization  for  the  International.  With  the  exception  of  the  last 
point,  the  policy  of  Mazzini  did  not  meet  with  the  approval  of  Marx, 
who  prepared  a  rival  address  and  constitution.  Mazzini  thereupon 
withdrew  from  the  association.^  Marx  probably  reaUzed  that  to 
draw  the  International  at  the  outset  of  its  existence  into  an  indi- 
vidual national  movement,  in  which  the  primary  object  of  its 
existence,  viz.  to  convert  the  national  struggle  into  a  class  war, 
would  be  submerged,  must  be  fatal  to  the  association.  Mazzini, 
for  his  part,  undoubtedly  desired  to  utilize  the  International,  for  so 
much  as  it  availed,  as  an  instrument  in  the  campaign  for  Italian 
unity.    The  two  views  were  irreconcilable. 

By  the  middle  of  1865  the  **  International  "  consisted  of  a  group 
in  London,  one  in  Brussels,  one  in  Geneva,  and  one  in  Paris.  There 
were  a  few  adherents  in  Rouen,  Caen,  Lyons,  Neuville-sur-Saone, 
and  Marseilles,  "  and  that  was  all."  ^  it  had  been  intended  that  a 
congress  should  be  held  in  Brussels  in  September  1865,  but  the 
Belgian  Government  took  fright,  and,  bringing  into  force  an  old  law 
against  foreigners,  prevented  the  congress  from  being  held  there. 
This  action  served,  however,  to  advertise  the  **  International,"  and 
adhesions  began  to  pour  in.^    Sections  were  formed  in  Germany 

^  Mazzini' s  views  upon  the  Socialism  and  Communism  of  Saint-Simon 
and  Fourier  as  he  understood  them  are  expressed  at  considerable  length  in 
his  Thoughts  upon  Democracy  (1847).  See  English  translation  in  Joseph 
Mazzini  :  A  Memoir,  by  [Madame]  E.  A.  V[enturi]  (London,  1875).  Although 
Mazzini  had  not  kept  himself  en  rapport  with  the  development  of  the  social 
question  in  France  and  England,  M.  de  Laveleye  is  far  from  just  in  attribut- 
ing to  him  inability  to  see  anything  "  outside  of  Carbonarism  {Contemporary 
Socialism  (London,  n.  d.),  p.  151).  Bakunin,  while  opposed  to  Mazzini,  is 
much  fairer  to  him,  Cf.  Bakiinin,  La  ThSologie  politique  de  Mazzini  et  V  In- 
ternationale (Neuchatel,  1871).  At  that  period  Marx  had  not  grappled  with 
the  agrarian  question,  nor,  indeed,  did  he  ever  do  so  fully ;  and  Mazzini  must 
have  realized  that  an  exclusive  appeal  to  the  urban  proletariat  of  Italy  (not 
numerous  at  that  period)  would  involve  the  sacrifice  at  once  of  the  support 
and  of  the  interests  of  the  revolutionary  middle  class  and  of  the  peasantry. 

'  Malon,  B.,  L' Internationale,  son  Histoire  et  ses  Principes  (Lyons,  1872), 
p.  19. 

»  Ibid. 


INFLUENCE    OF   SOCIALISM  89 

and  in  the  south  of  Italy,  and  when  the  first  congress  was  actually 
held  in  Geneva  on  3rd  September  1866,  the  number  of  adherents 
was  estimated  at  70,000.^  Marx's  address  had  become  a  manifesto 
of  the  General  Council  at  London,  and  now  his  project  of  a  con- 
stitution was  adopted  by  the  congress  at  Geneva.  This  constitu- 
tion remained  without  modification  until  1873. 

Marx's  address,  though  briefer  and  more  moderate  in  tone  than 
the  Communist  manifesto  of  1848,  was  not  inconsistent  with  that 
document.  It  refers  to  the  identity  of  wage  and  slave  labour,  and 
calls  upon  the  working  men  to  take  into  their  own  hands  the  deter- 
mination of  international  policy,  and  to  watch  the  proceedings  of 
the  diplomatists,  thwarting  them  in  case  of  need.  It  declares  that 
such  a  struggle  is  a  part  of  the  struggle  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
working  class,  and  concludes  with  the  watchword,  "  Proletarians  of 
all  countries,  unite."  '  These  were  the  words  which  concluded  the 
Communist  manifesto  of  1848.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in 
Marx's  mind  at  least  the  Communist  League  had  come  to  life 
again." 

The  constitution  formulated  by  Marx — and  adopted  by  the 
congress — employs  substantially  the  same  expressions  as  the  earlier 
manifesto.  "  The  emancipation  of  the  working  class  must  be 
achieved  by  the  working  class  itself.  .  .  .  The  struggle  for  the 
emancipation  of  the  working  class  is  not  a  struggle  for  class  privi- 
leges and  monopoly,  but  for  equal  rights  and  duties  and  for  the 
abolition  of  all  class  domination."  It  goes  on  to  say  that  the  final 
purpose  of  all  political  action  is  the  economical  emancipation  of 
the  working  class.  This  emancipation  is  not  a  local,  nor  a  national, 
but  is  a  social  problem  which  affects  all  countries.  It  further 
declares  that  there  are  no  duties  without  rights  and  no  rights  without 
duties.  The  by-laws  of  the  association  provide  for  a  yearly 
congress  and  for  the  election  of  a  general  council,  which  shall  act  as 
"  international  agent  between  the  different  national  and  local 
groups."  *  The  principal  topics  of  discussion  at  the  Geneva  con- 
gress (3rd  to  loth  September  1866)  were  the  eight-hours  working 
day,  child  labour,  the  trade  union  movement  (which  was  reproached 

*  Malon,  L' Internationale,  son  Histoire  et  ses  Principes  (Lyons,  1872),  p.  9. 

*  Meyer,  R.,  Der  Emancipationskampf,  i.  p.  123. 

*  Cf.  Rae,  J.,  Contemporary  Socialism  (London,  1884),  p.  144. 

*  Tlie  text  is  given  in  full  by  Meyer,  op.  cit.y  pp.  124-6. 


90     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

for  too  close  adhesion  to  the  wages  question),  and  direct  taxation 
(which  was  favoured) .  On  the  question  of  the  admission  of  members 
who  did  not  belong  to  the  working  class,  the  French  delegates 
declared  themselves  against  the  admission  of  mere  parleurs — ' 
advocates  and  journalists.  The  German  and  English  delegates, 
who  themselves  chiefly  belonged  to  such  classes,  objected  to  their 
exclusion.  Had  the  French  proposition  been  carried,  the  Inter- 
national might  have  been  a  purely  working  class  organization,  but 
it  would  have  had  to  expel  at  the  outset  Marx  and  the  others  who 
had  at  least  rendered  important  aid  in  bringing  it  into  existence, 
and  who  had  stamped  upon  it  its  special  character. 

Depression  of  trade  in  1866,  with  strikes  in  France,  Belgium, 
and  Italy,  brought  accessions  by  the  thousand.^  When  the  con- 
gress met  at  Lausanne  in  1867,  there  were  over  300,000  nominal 
adherents.2  Whether  or  not  these  adherents  were  fully  convinced 
internationaHsts  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  moment  as  the  facts 
that,  under  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  the  International  had  its 
doors  wide  open,  that  all  comers  were  admitted,  and  that  large  groups 
were  added  en  masse.  It  is  true  that  many  of  the  adherents  were 
likely  to  desert  the  cause,  and  that  eventually  differences  of  opinion 
on  cardinal  points  must  develop ;  yet  the  numbers  in  gross  were 
unquestionably  becoming  formidable,  and  the  leaders  of  the  move- 
ment, as  well  as  the  European  Governments,  began  to  exaggerate 
the  importance  of  the  following  of  the  Association.  The  French 
Government  in  particular  became  alarmed,  and  endeavoured,  but 
without  success,  to  secure  the  co-operation  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment in  suppressing  the  Association.^ 

During  a  strike  of  bronze  workers  in  Paris  in  1864,  and  during 
strikes  in  England  in  1867,  the  International  intervened  success- 
fully.* Annual  congresses  were  held.  The  congress  of  Lausanne 
in  1867  is  important  because  of  the  events  to  which  it  gave  rise. 
Marx  was  not  present,  and  the  resolutions  bear  the  marks  of  his 
absence. 

The  principal  resolution  was  to  the  following  effect  :  Social 
emancipation  is  inseparable  from  political  emancipation,  and  the 
establishment  of  political  freedom  is  a  first  and  an  absolute 
necessity ;   to  this  end  it  is  decided  to  form  an  alliance  with  the 

*  MaXonyB. ,V Internationale,  son Histoire et ses  Prtncipes (Lyons,  1872), p.  19. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  20.  •  Meyer,  op.  cif.,  p.  128,  *  Ibid.,  p.  129. 


INFLUENCE   OF    SOCIALISM  91 

intelligent  bourgeoisie,  and  to  send  delegates  to  the  Peace  and 
Liberty  Congress  at  Geneva,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  this  into 
effect.*  Had  Marx  been  present,  Rudolf  Meyer  says,  this  nonsense 
would  never  have  been  carried.  In  other  resolutions  the  Lausanne 
congress  decided  to  aim  at  the  acquisition  by  the  State  of  the 
means  of  transportation  and  at  the  breaking  down  of  the  monopoly 
of  the  great  industrial  companies. 

The  third  congress  was  held  in  Brussels  from  5th  to  nth  Sep- 
tember 1868.  At  this  congress  the  communistic  ideas  accom- 
plished a  complete  victory.*  It  was  decided  that  as  all  mines 
and  railways  belong  to  society  as  represented  by  the  State,  they 
should  be  exploited  by  it,  and  not  by  capitalistic  associations. 
Land,  canals,  highwaj^,  and  telegraphs  should  be  similarly  pos- 
sessed and  exploited  by  the  State.  Mechanical  industries  were, 
however,  to  be  organized  through  co-operative  societies  and  systems 
of  credit  and  rewards  for  inventions  by  working  men.  The  congress 
approved  of  properly  organized  strikes,  but  pointed  out  that  the 
strike  cannot  in  itself  be  regarded  as  the  means  of  securing  freedom 
for  the  worker.  It  also  announced  its  adherence  to  the  principle 
that  the  worker  had  the  right  to  the  whole  produce  of  his  labour. 
The  congress  called  upon  the  working  men  of  both  countries  to 
strike  against  a  war  between  Germany  and  France.  "  As  a  farce 
following  the  congress  of  the  International  at  Brussels,  came  the 
Liberty  Congress  at  Berne."  ^  To  this  congress  of  "  La  Ligue 
Internationale  de  la  Paix  et  de  la  Liberte,"  *  which  was  held  at 
Berne,  22nd  to  26th  September  1868,  the  International  sent  repre- 
sentatives, who,  however,  were  expected  not  to  speak,  but  to  vote. 
The  resolutions  adopted  at  the  Berne  congress  were  to  the  following 
effect :  That  standing  armies  are  an  obstacle  to  peace  and  to 
Uberty,  that  they  therefore  should  be  abolished,  and  that  they 
should  be  replaced  by  a  system  in  which  every  citizen,  as  an  in- 
separable part  of  popular  education,  should  be  trained  in  the  use 

^  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  p.  131.  2  jbid.,  p.  132.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  136. 

*  This  league  was  founded  at  Geneva  in  1867,  when  it  held  its  first  congress, 
which  was  presided  over  by  Garibaldi.  The  second  congress  (at  Berne)  was 
presided  over  by  Gustav  Vogt,  one  of  the  founders,  and  the  third  (at  Lausanne 
in  1869)  by  Victor  Hugo.  The  fundamental  principle  of  the  League  was  de- 
clared to  be  the  subordination  of  politics  to  morals.  See  Ligue  interncUionale 
de  la  Paix  et  de  la  LiberU  :  Resolutions  voices  par  les  vingt-un  premiers  Congris. 
Recueil  Officiel  (Geneva,  1888). 


92     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

of  arms  for  the  purpose  of  defending  his  country ;  and  that  the 
congress  could  not  commit  itself  definitively  upon  the  social  ques- 
tion further  than  to  say  that  it  regards  the  freedom  of  the  individual 
as  a  necessary  corner-stone  of  all  social  reform.  The  congress  also 
declared  itself  as  in  favour  of  a  federative  republican  system,  as 
opposed  to  Caesarism,  and  as  in  favour  of  the  autonomy  of 
Poland.1 

From  our  present  point  of  view  the  most  interesting  incident 
of  this  congress,  which  Rudolf  Meyer  not  quite  fairly  regards  as 
farcical,  was  the  appearance  there  of  a  remarkable  man  whose 
influence  upon  the  Russian  youth  of  that  time  was  very  great, 
although  his  writings  and  utterances  had  been  fragmentary  and 
although  a  great  part  of  his  life  had  been  spent  in  prison  and  in 
exile.  Bakunin  ^  had  attended  the  first  congress  of  the  "  Ligue," 
which  had  been  held  in  Geneva  in  1867,  and  he  had  been  made  a 
member  of  the  permanent  committee  which  met  during  the  suc- 
ceeding winter.  In  the  end  of  October  1867  Bakunin  proposed  to 
the  committee  to  adopt  a  programme — "  socialist,  anti-authorita- 

^  Ligue  internationale  de  la  Paix  et  de  la  LiberU :  Resolutions,  &c.,  pp.  18-27. 

*  Mikhail  Bakunin  (181 4-1 876)  was  born  of  a  noble  family  at  Torchok, 
Tverskaya  gub.  His  first  publication  of  importance  was  an  introduction  to 
a  translation  of  some  papers  by  Hegel,  which  appeared  in  the  Moskovsky 
Nablyndatel  in  1836  (Nettlau,  M.,  Bibliographie  de  I'Anarchie  (Paris,  1897), 
p.  42).  In  1838  he  entered  the  army,  and  in  1840  he  left  it,  going  to  Germany 
and  refusing  to  return  to  his  military  duties.  During  the  succeeding  decade 
he  threw  himself  into  revolutionary  movements  in  Austria  and  in  Germany. 
In  1848  he  took  part  in  the  disturbances  at  Prague,  and  in  1849  those  at  Dres- 
den. In  the  latter  city  he  was  arrested  and  sentenced  to  death.  His  sentence 
was  commuted  to  imprisonment.  After  two  years  in  a  German  prison  he 
was  handed  over  to  the  Austrian  Government,  which  demanded  his  extradi- 
tion on  account  of  his  complicity  in  the  Prague  uprising.  In  185 1  he  was 
again  sentenced  to  death,  and  his  sentence  was  again  commuted.  He  spent 
some  time  in  an  Austrian  prison  chained  by  a  foot  to  a  cannon  ball.  On  the 
demand  of  the  Russian  Government  he  was  sent  to  Russia,  where  he  was 
confined  in  the  fortress  of  Schlusselburg  until  1855,  when  he  was  sent  to 
Irkutsk.  There  he  found  his  distant  relative,  Count  Muraviev-Amursky 
(cf.  inffa,  p.  219),  Governor-General  of  Eastern  Siberia.  Bakunin  spent  some 
time  in  the  society  of  Muraviev,  discussing  quaint  projects  for  the  future  of 
Siberia,  one  of  which  involved  the  separation  of  the  country  from  the  Russian 
Empire  and  the  federation  of  the  United  States  of  Siberia  to  the  United  States 
of  North  America.  {Cf.  Kropotkin,  Memoirs,  &c.,  p.  169).  In  1861  Bakunin 
escaped  from  Siberia  and  returned  to  Europe  via  Japan.  During  the  re- 
mainder of  his  life  he  lived  chiefly  at  Locarno,  asthmatic  and  dropsical,  but 
actively  engaged  in  socialistic  controversy  and  in  revolutionary  agitation  in 
Italy.     He  died  at  Berne  in  1876.     See  also  infra,  p.  99. 


INFLUENCE   OF   SOCIALISM  93 

tarian,  and  anti-religious."  ^  For  the  congress  of  1868  he  prepared 
an  address  (afterwards  published  under  the  title,  Fed/ralisme, 
Socialisme  et  Anti-theologisme),^  in  which  he  developed  those  views 
upon  anarchism  which  eventually  led  to  the  disruption  of  the 
International,  and  which  at  the  same  time  exerted  a  profound  influ- 
ence upon  the  youth  of  Russia. 

Bakilnin  was  undoubtedly  a  disturbing  element  in  the  League 
of  Peace  and  Liberty.  His  address,  able  fragment  of  a  summary  of 
social  and  political  development  as  it  was,  the  peculiarities  of  the 
author's  point  of  view  being  taken  into  account,  was  also  an  ironical 
criticism  of  the  membership  of  the  League.  "  Here  we  have,"  he 
said,  "  Sabreurs  and  priests — ^why  not  also  gens  d'armes?*'  The 
League  was,  in  fact,  composed  of  well-meaning  sentimentalists  and 
of  persons  who  found  association  with  it  the  most  convenient  means 
of  making  themselves  internationally  conspicuous.  Bakunin  en- 
deavoured by  means  of  a  resolution  to  capture  the  League  for  the 
Socialist  propaganda.  This  resolution  was  defeated  by  eighty  votes 
to  thirty,  and  he  thereupon  seceded  from  the  League  and  estab- 
lished a  new  organization  which,  though  it  was  short-lived,  was 
nevertheless  not  wanting  in  significance.  He  called  this  associa- 
tion "  L' Alliance  Internationale  de  la  Democratie  sociaUste."  Its 
programme  left  little  to  be  desired  by  the  most  thoroughgoing 
nihilism.  "  The  Alliance  declares  itself  for  atheism.  It  desires 
the  aboUtion  of  all  cults,  the  replacement  of  faith  by  science,  and 
of  divine  by  human  justice,  and  the  abolition  of  marriage  as  a 
poUtical,  religious,  juridical,  and  civil  institution.  It  desires  also 
definitive  and  complete  abolition  of  classes,  and  poUtical,  economic, 
and  social  equality  of  individuals  and  of  sexes,  *  involving  equal 
profit  of  production  and  equal  means  of  education  in  all  branches 
of  knowledge,  industry,  and  art.'  "  ^ 

The  International  now  became  a  field  in  which  four  different 
but  related  struggles  were  waged  with  great  animosity,  imtil  eventu- 
ally the  International  was  wrecked  by  them.  These  struggles  were  : 
firsi,  the  struggle  between  the  statists  and  the  anti-statists,  or 

^  Introduction  by  "  N."  to  Bakunin,  CEuvres  (Paris,  1895),  p.  xxiv. 

*  (EuvreSy  pp.  1-205. 

»  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  p.  136.  The  groundwork  of  the  programme  is  to  be  foimd 
in  Fidiralisme,  Socialisme  et  Anti-ihiologisme,  mentioned  above.  Bakiinin 
seems  to  have  developed  his  theory  of  anarchism  in  Siberia.  His  first  writ- 
ings which  exhibit  this  tendency  appear  to  have  been  composed  in  1863.  (C/. 
Nettlau,  op.  cit.y  p.  43.) 


94     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

between  the  Social  Democrats,  who  aimed  at  a  powerful  democratic 
republic,  and  the  anarchists,  who  objected  to  the  exercise  of  autho- 
rity, whether  this  authority  were  in  the  hands  of  a  despot  or  of  a 
democracy  ;  second,  the  struggle  as  regards  method  between  those 
who  desired  to  proceed  by  legal  and  constitutional  steps  towards 
the  capture  of  the  representative  chambers  and  the  control  of  the 
mechanism  of  government,  and  those  who  conceived  that  the  only 
effective  path  of  reform  was  through  "  riot  " — ^the  former  being  in 
general  statists  and  the  latter  anti-statists ;  third,  the  struggle 
between  those  who  advocated  the  individual  autonomy  of  the 
national  groups  which  composed  the  International,  and  those  who 
advocated  control  by  a  strong  central  executive ;  and  fourlh,  the 
struggle  between  the  revolutionary  socio-political  aims  and  the 
aims  of  the  trade  unions  properly  so  called,  involving  merely  the 
control  of  wages  and  of  the  conditions  of  emplo5mient,  and  not 
involving  any  drastic  political  or  social  changes. 

Bakunin,  almost  from  the  beginning  of  his  relations  with  the 
International,  was  hostile  to  Marx,  partly  because  of  the  funda- 
mental divergence  of  their  views  in  the  first  three  struggles  which 
have  been  described,  and  partly  because  of  radical  difference  of 
temperament.  Not  only  Bakunin,  however,  but  many  others, 
among  them  notably  the  French  group,  found  Marx  domineering. 
The  plain  fact  was  that  Marx  exhibited  the  faults  of  his  qualities. 
He  was,  moreover,  generally  consistent  with  his  central  point  of 
view,^  a  circumstance  which  brought  him  into  conflict  with  those 
whose  opinions  upon  social  progress  were  even  more  fluid  than  his 
own. 

Meanwhile  the  general  economic  movement  had  been  bringing 
the  industrial  problem  through  new  phases.  The  Civil  War  in 
America  reacted  upon  England  and  Western  Europe  through  the 
diminution  of  demand  for  general  merchandise  and  the  cessation 
of  the  supply  of  cotton.  Unemployment  and  distress  followed, 
but  during  the  years  of  war  and  of  trade  depression  money  was 
plentiful  and  cheap,  and  a  furore  of  company  promotion  made  its 
appearance.  This  furore  had  its  appropriate  conclusion  in  the 
collapse  and  panic  of  1866,  intensified  as  these  were  by  the  economic 

^  How  far  this  central  point  of  view  was  Socialist  in  any  incontrovertible 
sense  is  open  to  question.  Cf.  the  acute  criticism  of  Marx  by  V.  Simkhovich, 
in  Marxism  versus  Socialism  (New  York,  191 3).  || 


INFLUENCE   OF    SOCIALISM  95 

disturbance  caused  by  the  Prussian  campaign  against  Austria. 
Sadowa  (3rd  July  1866)  brought  peace,  but  five  years  elapsed  before 
trade  resumed  its  previous  channels,  the  period  of  depression  being 
prolonged  by  the  Franco- Prussian  War.  Immediately  after  the 
close  of  that  war  trade  recovered  rapidly,  and  the  following  years, 
1871-1874,  were  years  of  unusual  industrial  prosperity.  During 
the  period  of  inferior  activity,  deepening  into  depression,  or  be- 
tween 1861  and  1871,  wages  were  low  and  profits  were  insignificant. 
All  the  conditions  existed  for  the  emergence  of  industrial  disputes. 
These  disputes,  resulting  as  they  did  in  numerous  strikes  in  every 
part  of  Europe,  provided  for  the  time  "  rich  material  for  agitation  '*  ; 
but  when  conditions  changed  and  when  wages  advanced,  as  they 
did  by  leaps  and  bounds  between  1871  and  1874,  the  agitation, 
deprived  of  its  material  stimulus,  became  less  influential.  These 
conditions  reflected  themselves  in  the  congresses  of  the  Inter- 
national. In  1868  the  French  Government  had  suppressed  the 
French  branch  of  the  International,  though  some  of  the  individual 
members  still  retained  their  connection  with  the  central  organiza- 
tion. In  1869  a  congress  was  held  at  Basle  (6th  to  9th  September). 
The  influence  of  the  trade  union  principle  is  evident  in  the  resolu- 
tion of  this  congress.  Current  events  determined  this.  Strikes 
had  been  going  on  throughout  the  winter  in  the  cotton  trade, 
among  coal  miners,  &c.  These  strikes  had  been  entered  upon  by 
local  organizations  of  the  industries  in  question.  The  value  of 
these  strikes  and  of  the  local  organizations  to  the  International  in 
a  propagandist  sense  was  obvious.  It  became  therefore  politic  to 
encourage  the  formation  of  individual  groups,  proposing  only  to 
support  their  proceedings  by  the  united  force  of  the  International. 
In  this  way  the  International  assumed  a  practical  character  which 
had  not  previously  been  very  manifest.^ 

Although  the  International  had  been  to  a  large  extent  domi- 
nated by  Germans,  it  had  not  succeeded  in  establishing  itself  in 
Germany.     This  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  German  Socialist 

1  At  the  congress  held  in  Brussels  in  1868  the  number  of  working  men 
represented  is  stated  at  1,000,000,  and  at  the  congress  at  Basle,  at  2,000,000 
(Malon,  op.  ctt.,  p.  20).  These  figures  and  others  issued  at  the  time  of  various 
congresses  are  open  to  suspicion  ;  yet  the  number  of  nominal  adherents  was 
considerable.  The  number  of  effective  leaders  was  small,  but  they  were  for- 
midable, because  of  their  activity  and  because,  like  stormy  petrels,  they 
appeared  wherever  the  political  atmosphere  was  tempestuous. 


96     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

elements  had  been  organized  under  the  leadership  of  Lassalle.i 
After  the  death  of  Lassalle,  in  1864,  the  "Universal  German 
Workers'  Association,"  ^  which  he  had  formed,  was  presided  over 
successively  by  Becker,  Tolcke,  and  Schweitzer.  On  ist  July  1867 
the  North  German  Bund  was  created,  and  shortly  afterwards  the 
elections  to  the  North  German  Reichstag  were  open  to  universal 
male  suffrage.^  Schweitzer,  Bebel,  and  other  leading  SociaUsts 
were  elected.  The  original  "  Universal  Association "  was  sup- 
pressed by  the  police  at  Leipzig  on  i6th  September  1868.*  Although 
another  similar  association  was  immediately  founded  by  Schweitzer 
in  Berlin,*^  the  leadership  of  German  Socialism  was  destined  to  fall 
into  other  hands. 

Liebknecht  and  Bebel,  at  the  general  meeting  of  the  new  associa- 
tion held  at  Barmen  on  28th  March  1869,  brought  an  impeach- 
ment against  Schweitzer.  Their  attack  was  unsuccessful,*  but 
Schweitzer's  authority  was  seriously  impaired.  Schweitzer  was, 
moreover,  shortly  afterwards  arrested  and  imprisoned. 

Meanwhile  Liebknecht  and  Bebel  were  endeavouring  to  enlist 
the  sympathies  of  the  SaxoiTand  South  German  working  men  for 
the  International.  From  1866  they  had  been  availing  themselves 
of  every  opportunity,  and  by  1868  they  had  won  over  a  majority 
of  the  German  working  men's  associations.  The  struggle  between 
the  group  upon  whom  the  mantle  of  Lassalle  had  fallen  and  the 
group  led  by  Marx  through  Liebknecht  and  Bebel  came  to  a  head 
at  the  Eisenach  congress,  held  7th  to  9th  August  1869.  The  com- 
batants formed  a  curious  group.  According  to  Franz  Mehring, 
on  one  side  were  Schweitzer,  a  **  hireHng  "  of  Bismarck,  and  Tolcke, 
an  "  uneasy  criminal "  ;  while  on  the  other  side  were  Liebknecht, 
an  easy-going  ally  of  the  middle  class,  and  Bebel,  a  stipendiary  of 

^  Ferdinand  Lassalle  (i  825-1 864).  For  a  sketch  of  his  career,  see  Dawson, 
W.  H.,  German  Socialism  and  Lassalle  (London,  1891)  ;  for  Lassalle's  point 
of  view,  see  his  Working  Man's  Programme  (EngUsh  translation,  London,  n.  d.)- 

2  Allgemeiner  Deutscher  Arbeiterverein. 

'  C/.  Election  Law  of  31st  May  1869,  which  embodied  the  previous  law. 

•  For  an  account  of  the  proceedings  which  led  to  its  suppression,  see 
Mehring,  F.,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Soxialdemokratie,  4th  edition  (Stuttgart, 
1909),  iii.  pp.  314-29. 

•  loth  October  1868.     Mehring,  op.  cit.,  iii.  p.  341. 

•  Forty-two  delegates,  representing  7400  members,  voted  confidence  in 
Schweitzer,  and  fourteen  delegates  refrained  from  voting,  out  of  a  total  of 
fifty-seven  delegates.    Mehring,  op.  cit.,  iii.  pp.  352-53. 


INFLUENCE   OF   SOCIALISM  97 

the  ex-King  of  Hanover.^  The  German  labour  movement  had 
fallen  into  strange  hands.  Schweitzer  was  still  in  prison  ;  but 
Tolcke  appeared  at  Eisenach  at  the  head  of  loo  delegates  with 
mandates  from  102,000  workers.  On  the  other  side  there  were 
262  delegates  with  mandates  from  140,000  workers.  The  struggle 
began  with  mutual  recriminations  and  accusations  of  **  mandate 
swindles."  *  It  is  possible  that  both  sides  were  equally  offenders. 
The  Eisenach  congress  marked  the  close  of  the  influence  of  Lassalle  ; 
but  another  "  strife  of  factions "  took  place  immediately  after- 
wards at  the  Basle  congress  of  the  International.^  The  result  of 
these  struggles  was  an  undoubted  victory  for  Marxism.  The 
International  had  passed  through  its  early  eclectic  phase  and  had 
become  more  and  more  a  Marxist  organization.  The  congress  at 
Basle  represents,  however,  the  high-water  mark  of  the  influence 
of  the  International.  From  that  moment  it  began  to  decline.  The 
reasons  for  this  are  complex  ;  but  the  more  important  may  be  thus 
summarized.  The  Franco-Prussian  war,  which  was  looked  upon 
as  a  war  of  defence  by  the  German  working  men's  associations,  was 
not  so  regarded  in  France.  The  budding  aUiance  between  the 
German  working  men  and  their  fellows  in  other  countries  through 
the  International  was  thus  nipped  almost  in  the  beginning.  The 
growth  of  a  new  and  very  powerful  State,  uniting  the  North  Ger- 
man poUtical  units,  brought  in  many  ways  a  new  factor  into  the 
field  of  international  relations.  Although  the  full  effect  of  the 
readjustment  did  not  become  obvious  until  much  later,  the  decay 
of  international  proletarian  feehng  may  be  traced  from  that  moment, 
as  well  as  the  growth  of  nationalist  and  even  rival  nationahst  aims 
among  the  working  men.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  con- 
temporaneously with  the  victory  of  the  Marxists'  dialectics  and 
tactics,  there  should  have  been  a  real  defeat  of  IntemationaUsm. 
This  became  evident  in  the  year  1870.  The  congress  was  to  have 
been  held  in  Paris,  but  the  outbreak  of  war  rendered  the  holding 
of  it  there  impossible,  and  it  was  not  held  at  all.  When  in  the 
spring  of  1871  the  rising  of  the  Commune  of  Paris  occurred,  Marx 
endeavoured  to  organize  its  operations  in  detail  from  London,*  a 

1  Mehring,  op.  cit.y  iii.  p.  364.  *  Ibid.,  p.  366. 

•  The  Eisenach  congress  was  held  from  7th  to  9th  August,  and  the  Basle 
congress  from  5th  to  12th  September  1869. 

*  Yet  the  rising  of  the  Commune  had  little  in  common  with  Marxism. 
Marx's  attempt  to  control  it  was  one  of  the  inconsistencies  of  his  career, 

VOL.  II  G 


98     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

proceeding  which  was  not  merely  futile,  but  which  was  also  quite 
destructive  of  the  influence  of  the  International  both  with  the 
French  socialists  and  with  the  English  trade  unions.^  No  congress 
was  held  in  i8'i7i  ;  but  in  September  1872  a  congress  was  held  at 
the  Hague,  where  the  struggle  of  factions  was  resumed. 

The  controversies  at  the  Hague  may  be  divided  into  two  related 
groups — those  relating  to  Marx's  personal  dictatorship  and  to  his 
control  of  the  General  Council,  whose  poHcy  he  had  been  directing 
since  the  Basle  congress  of  1869  ;  and  those  upon  questions  of 
principle — the  most  important  of  these  being  the  controversy 
between  the  advocates  of  political  and  those  of  non-political 
Socialism.  The  first  controversies  issued  in  an  attempt  to  abolish 
the  General  Council.  This  was  only  defeated  by  a  strategic  man- 
oeuvre of  Marx,  who  proposed  that  it  be  removed  from  Europe 
to  America.  The  second  controversy  was  the  more  important. 
The  leader  of  those  who  were  opposed  to  political  action  of  a  con- 
stitutional character  by  the  International  was  Bakunin,  who  now 
came  forward  as  the  chief  antagonist  of  Marx.  There  was  nothing 
new  in  non-political  propaganda — the  trade  union  movement  in 
England  had  been  predominantly  non-political  in  its  agitation, 
the  co-operative  movement  and  the  friendly  society  movement 
had  both  been  wholly  non-political — ^the  two  last,  at  least,  entirely 
peaceful  and  non-revolutionary  movements.  But  Bakunin  did  not 
advocate  measures  of  that  kind.  He  urged  strongly  that  the  con- 
ventional political  methods  were  understood  and  practised  with 
greater  skill  and  success  by  the  bourgeoisie  than  by  the  proletariat, 
and  that,  therefore,  the  proletariat  must  always  in  that  field  either 
be  cheated  or  defeated  by  the  bourgeoisie.  Bakunin  also  urged  that 
the  bourgeoisie  must  succeed  better  than  the  proletariat  in  all 
contests  of  speech-making  or  of  writing.  Propaganda  carried  on 
by  these  means  must  thus  in  the  end  be  recognized  as  useless. 
Therefore,  the  only  effective  propaganda  is  the  "  Propaganda  of 
the  Deed."  Moreover,  he  looked  upon  political  action  on  the  part 
of  the  proletariat  as  contributing  in  so  far  as  it  might  be  successful 
to  the  increase  of  the  power  of  the  State  and,  therefore,  to  the 
diminution  of  individual  liberty. 

1  Marx  thus  fell  between  two  stools.  In  his  more  recent  polemics  he  had 
scouted  the  idea  of  revolutionary  as  opposed  to  evolutionary  processes.  He 
plunged  ineffectively  and  gratuitously  into  the  one  and  offended  those  whom 
he  had  induced  to  beUeve  in  the  other. 


INFLUENCE   OF   SOCIALISM  99 

The  moderate  elements  of  the  International  had  been  offended 
by  Marx's  patronage  of  the  Commune,  and  deprived  of  their  aid 
Marx  had  no  sufficient  majority  to  obtain  a  clear  victory  over 
Bakrmin.  He  nevertheless  defended  himself  against  the  attack 
of  Bakunin  with  great  skill ;  ^  but  the  International  was  doomed. 
One  more  congress  was  held  in  Geneva  in  187^.  Then  the  Inter- 
national passed  to  New  York,  where  it  expired  in  1876.  In  its 
later  years  neither  Marx  nor  Engels  took  any  interest  in  its  pro- 
ceedings. 

The  International  played  in  its  day  a  considerable  r61e.  It 
frightened  every  Government  in  Europe  rather  by  what  it  appeared 
to  be  able  to  do  than  by  what  it  actually  did.  This  dread  was 
after  all  created  rather  by  what  Marx  opposed  than  by  what  he 
initiated. 

It  is  now  necessary  to  notice  the  effect  of  these  Western  Euro- 
pean incidents  and  controversies  upon  contemporary  Russian 
youth. 

The  interpretation  given  by  one  of  them  of  the  disputes  of  the 
International  in  1873  may  serve  as  illustration. 

"  The  West  European  International  Association  of  Working 
Men,  or  as  it  was  called  at  that  time,  *  The  International,'  had  fallen 
into  two  camps — Social  Democratic  and  anarcliistic.  The  Social 
Democrats  proposed  that  they  should  take  possession  of  the 
Reichstag  gradually  by  means  of  legal  agitation  and  elections,  in 
order,  in  the  more  or  less  remote  future,  to  transform  the  German 
bourgeois-constitutional  Empire  into  a  Socialist  State.  The 
anarchists  proposed  completely  to  destroy  the  State  as  an  authori- 
tative estabUshment.  They  denied  that  the  influence  of  authority 
is  beneficial,  no  matter  in  whose  hands  the  authority  might  be 
placed,  and  affirmed  that  real  equality  could  be  brought  into  ex- 
istence only  by  free  agreement  between  people,  and  not  at  all  by 
means  of  State  decrees  and  State  reforms.  The  first  appeared  to 
be  statists  and  the  second  anti-statists.  When  these  two  adverse 
propositions  were  placed  before  the  Russian  youth,  they  expressed 
themselves  by  a  great  majority  for  anarchy.  I  do  not  undertake 
here  to  point  out  the  causes  of  this  phenomenon.  May  be  it  was 
caused  by  the  facts  that  we  Russians  have  become  tired  of  State 
intervention,  and  that  in  the  State  we  see  an  enemy  to  progress 

^  Mehring,  op,  cit.,  iv.  pp.  53  and  54. 


W 


loo     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

rather  than  an  aid  to  it ;  and  also  that  we  have  no  Reichstag,  and 
nowhere  to  send  our  deputies.  However  it  was,  almost  all  ex- 
pressed themselves  in  favour  of  anarchist  theories."  ^ 

The  distinction  is  put  with  more  precision  by  Prince  Kropotkin. 

"  The  conflict  between  the  Marxists  and  the  Bakunists  was  not 
a  personal  affair.  It  was  the  necessary  conflict  between  the  prin- 
ciples of  federalism  and  those  of  centralization,  the  free  commune 
and  the  State's  paternal  rule,  the  free  action  of  the  masses  of  the 
people  and  the  betterment  of  existing  capitalist  conditions  through 
legislation — a  conflict  between  the  Latin  spirit  and  the  German 
Geist,  which,  after  the  defeat  of  France  on  the  battlefield,  claimed 
supremacy  in  science,  politics,  philosophy,  and  in  Socialism  too, 
representing  its  own  conception  of  Socialism  as  '  scientific,*  while 
all  other  interpretations  it  described  as  *  Utopian.'  "  ^ 

The  controversy  was  not  a  new  one.  It  had  been  waged  with 
bitterness  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Centralization  had  been  one 
of  the  causes  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  federalism  had  been  the 
leading  principle  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States.  The 
political  history  of  Russia  had  been  a  history  of  progressive  cen- 
tralization ;  but  in  the  solitary  respect  in  which  the  superiority  of 
the  system  was  universally  admitted,  viz.  in  the  consolidation  of  a 
great  military  power,  the  system  had  ignominiously  broken  down.^ 
The  Crimean  War  had  shown  that  incompetent  centralization  was 
quite  fatal.  It  was  thus  not  surprising  that  to  the  Russian  mind 
of  that  period  federalism  should  offer  more  promise  of  political  and 
material  progress  ;  nor  is  it  surprising  that  the  characteristic  en- 
thusiasm and  directness  of  Russian  speculative  thought  should 
carry  it  to  extremes. 

The  principal  avenue  of  federalist  and  anarchist  influences 
through  which  they  reached  the  Russian  youth  at  that  time  was 
Zurich,  where  some  three  hundred  Russians  were  living  either  as 

^  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  Reminiscences  (St  Petersburg,  1906),  p.  81. 

'  Prince  Kropotkin,  Memoirs,  p.  386.  At  this  period  Marx  had  no  in- 
fluence in  North  Germany,  where  the  LassaUists  held  the  field,  and  but  little 
influence  in  South  Germany,  He  had  also  but  Httle  influence  in  Russia  at 
that  time. 

'  Cf.  the  discussion  upon  Federalism  versus  Centralization  in  De  Tocque- 
ville,  Democracy  in  America  (ed.  New  York,  1838),  p.  152,  chap.  ix.  ;  in  J.  S. 
Mill's  Representative  Government,  and  in  Freeman's  History  of  Federal  Govern- 
ments. See  also  the  disputes  about  centralization  among  the  Russian  Social 
Democratic  groups,  infra,  chap.  ix. 


INFLUENCE   OF   SOCIALISM  loi 

students  or  as  political  exiles.  Although  all  were  favourable  to 
anarchist  rather  than  to  Social  Democratic  opinions,  they  were  by 
no  means  agreed  upon  one  form  of  federalism. 

There  were,  indeed,  two  sharply  divided  schools.  One  was  the 
school  of  Bakunin,  who  lived  at  Locarno ;  and  the  other  was  the 
school  of  Lavrov,^  who  resided  in  Zurich. 

The  distinction  between  these  two  groups  was  a  customary 
distinction  in  such  cases.  Both  approved  of  revolutionary  means  to 
achieve  the  social  revolution  ;  but  the  Lavrists  believed  in  the 
poUcy  of  permeation — ^the  gradual  spreading  of  revolutionary  ideas 
among  the  people,  while  the  Bakunists  believed  in  "  riot  "  as  an 
instrument  of  progress  ;  because  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing 
order  was  already  prevalent,  and  a  riot  always  afforded  an  oppor- 
tunity of  transference  into  a  popular  uprising  or  a  revolution. 
Even  if  the  riot  were  suppressed,  rioting  would,  nevertheless,  be  a 
school  in  which  the  people  might  be  educated  in  the  desired  direc- 
tion and  in  which  the  people  might  be  revolutionized — that  is, 
made  capable  of  creating  the  revolution.^ 

The  various  ideas  of  the  International,  irreconcilable  as  they 
proved,  were  fructif5dng  in  the  minds  of  the  Russian  youth,  discon- 
tented as  they  were  with  the  political  condition  of  their  own  country 
and  with  the  oppression  under  which  they  beUeved  the  working 
men  of  all  countries  were  suffering.  Questions  of  principle  were 
hotly  discussed  among  the  Russian  youth  at  Zurich  generally,  as  is 
the  Russian  manner,  in  loud  voices  on  the  streets,  in  restaurants, 
or  in  their  rooms.^ 

The  idea,  which  had  been  from  the  beginning  more  or  less  widely 

^  Piotr  Lavrovich  Lavrov  (1823-1901),  colonel  of  artillery  and  Professor 
of  Mathematics.  Arrested  and  sent  to  the  Ural  Mountains,  from  which  he 
escaped.  In  1874  he  went  to  London,  where  he  published  a  newspaper, 
Forward.  "  He  belonged  to  the  Social  Democratic  wing  of  the  Socialist 
movement ;  but  he  was  too  widely  learned  and  too  much  of  a  philosopher 
to  join  the  German  Social  Democrats  in  their  ideals  of  a  centralized  communist 
State,  or  in  their  narrow  interpretation  of  history"  (Prince  Kropotkin, 
Ideals  and  Realities  in  Russian  Literature  (London,  1905),  p.  277).  Lavrov 
pubhshed  an  unfinished  History  of  Modern  Thought,  in  four  or  five  vols., 
from  an  evolutionary  point  of  view.  His  chief  influence  upon  the  Russian 
youth  was  exercised  in  1 870-1 873  through  his  Historical  Letters,  pubhshed 
under  the  pseudonym  of  "Mirtov"  (Kropotkin,  loc.  cit.).  For  a  sketch 
of    the   life    of    Lavrov,    see    L'HumanitS   Nouvelle    (Paris,    1900),   xxxvii. 

PP-  35-49. 

'  Cf.  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  pp.  95,  ^6. 
*  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op,  cit.,  p.  80. 


I02     ECONOMIC   HISTORY'  OF   RUSSIA      . 

accepted  in  the  International,  and  which  had  been  also  in  accord- 
ance with  the  general  attitude  both  of  Lavrov  and  of  Bakunin,  to 
the  effect  that  the  working  class  mtist  work  out  its  own  poUtical 
and  social  salvation,  came  to  be  widely  entertained  by  the  Russian 
youth  in  Zurich  and  elsewhere.  Their  acceptance  of  this  notion 
did  not,  however,  soothe  them  into  inaction  ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
presented  itself  to  them  as  an  imperative  impulse  towards  them- 
selves becoming  working  men.  To  joinjthe  working  class  thus 
became  an  object  of  ambition.  The  only  means  by  which  the 
people  could  be  understood  and  aided  was  to  become  one  of  them.* 
Beside  this  idea,  the  strife  of  factions  in  the  International  and  the 
sphtting  up  of  its  ranks  into  rival  sects,  occupying  themselves  with 
economical  and  political  dogmatics,  assumed  a  small  place. 

In  Russia  this  idea  sent  in  the  early  seventies  large  numbers  of 
educated  persons  into  the  country  to  live  the  life  and  to  share  the 
burdens  of  the  peasants.  At  ^he  same  time  and  under  the  same 
influences,  Russian  students  and  others  living  abroad  went  to  work 
as  artisans,  and  even  as  railway  navvies^on  the  lines  then  being 
constructed  in  Switzerland.  Having  qualified  in  such  ways,  they 
then  became  members  of  one  of  the  local  branches  of  the  Inter- 
national. ^This  movement  towards  the  people  came  to  be  known  as 
V  Narod.^  ^  There  remains  merely  to  be  indicated,  as  arising  out  of 
the  activities  of  Bakunin,  the  formation  of  the  **  Federation  of  the 
Jura"  ^  and  the  propaganda  of  anarchist  opinions  among  working 
men,  especially  in  the  Latin  countries,  by  Bakunin  and  his  adherents, 
Varlin  in  France,  ^Caesar  de  Paepe  in  Belgium,  Cafiero  in  Italy,  and 
others. 

^  Bakunin  had  himself  attempted  this  in  Lyons  in  1871.     Cf.  ibid.,  p.  85. 
^  For  an  account  of  the  V  Narod<  movement,  see  next  chapter. 
3  Cf.  the  letters  of  JBakunin  to  the  Jura  Internationals,  (Euvres  (Paris, 
1895),  PP-  207  et  seq.,  and  Kropotkin,  Memoirs,  pp.  387  et  seq. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    V  NAROD  MOVEMENT 

The  movement  which  impelled  the  educated  youth  of  Russia  to 
go  among  the  people  and  to  h'e  of  the  people  arose  partly  out  of  the 
general  state  of  feeling  which  the  International  had  done  much 
to  engender  in  Western  Europe,  and  which  had  had  an  echo  inf^ 
the  minds  of  the  Russian  youth.  Yet  the  movement  was  never- 
theless characteristically  Russian.  It  had  no  counterpart  elsewhere.  I 
It  was  the  logical  outcome  of  a  state  of  mind  which  had  gradually 
been  subject  to  intensification,  especially  since  emancipation.  . 
The  disasters  of  the  Crimean  War  had  aroused  everyone  to  the  ^ 
.fact  that  the  Russian  people  occupied  two  quite  separate  and 
distant  worlds.  There  could  be  no  national  cohesion  so  long  as 
this  phenomenon  presented  itself.  Emancipation  had  formally 
restored  the  peasant  to  human  dignity  in  a  juridical  sense,  but 
some  organic  change  was  necessary  in  order  that  he  might  be  able 
to  avail  himself  of  his  newly  acquired  opportunities.  The  "  knot  " 
of  bondage  had  left  an  impression  upon  him.  He  hardly  yet  felt 
his  limbs  released  from  its  pressure.  The  formality  of  emancipa- 
tion was  not  enough.  Society  could  not  become  homogeneous  unless 
one-half  knew  how  the  other  half  lived,  and  as  it  was  they  did 
not  do  so.  If  it  was  difficult  for  a  gentleman  to  see  the  world  through 
the  eyes  of  a  peasant,  it  was  still  more  difficult  for  a  peasant  to 
see  the  world  through  the  eyes  of  a  gentleman.  Education  had 
been  in  effect  a  monopoly  of  the  superior  class,  and  so  long  as  it 
remained  so  the  freedom  ensured  by  emancipation  was  a  mere 
juridical  fact,  destitute  of  social  value.  How  was  all  this  to  be 
altered  ? 

This  problem  struck  the  Russian  aristocratic  youth  like  a  blow 
in  the  face,  and  produced  in  them  varying  emotions.  Some  of 
them,  trained  as  they  were  in  the  physical  and  mental  sciences, 
experienced  a  revolt  against  the  apparent  .selfishness  of  pursuing 


I04     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

these  studies  while  the  mass  of  the  people  were  not  only  deprived 
of  the  luxury  of  doing  so,^  but  were  hardly  able  to  keep  body  and 
soul  together.  Some  of  these  proceeded  to  apply  their  training, 
such  as  it  was,  to  the  solving  of  this  momentous  question.  But 
science  afforded  no  cut-and-dried  solution.  Ages  of  discussion 
notwithstanding,  patent  and  obvious  facts  of  human  life  were  still 
unexplained.  To  some  this  proved  the  futility  of  study.  All  ques- 
tions could  not  be  solved  even  by  the  most  arduous  labour.  There- 
fore it  were  best  to  act,  and  not  to  waste  time  in  researches.  Others 
insisted  that  intellectual  labour  simply  removed  the  student  farther 
from  the  people.  The  peasant  was  not  intelligent,  thus  it  was 
useless  to  hope  to  become  like  him  by  cultivating  the  intelligence. 
This  attitude  led  to  the  adoption  of  mere  formulae.  "  Do  you 
consent  to  go  at  once  to  the  people  ?  "  "  Yes."  **  Then  you  are 
ours  !  "  What  the  convert  was  to  do  when  he  went  to  the  people 
was  a  detail  unworthy  of  attention.  Peasants  and  working  men 
alike  were  idealized,  and  when  by  actual  contact  was  some  real 
understanding  achieved,  the  disiUusionment  was  frequently  too 
^  great  for  the  raw  enthusiast.  Many  working  men  were  themselves 
demoralized  by  the  flattery  of  the  ardent  intelligentsia.  "  Working 
men  are  heroes,  and  the  gentlemen  are  useless !  "  Such  phrases 
and  "  such  an  attitude  of  mind  were  a  logical  consequence  of  our 
outlook,"  Debogoriy-Mokrievich  says  in  his  frank  and  interesting 
Reminiscences.^  In  the  winter  of  1873-1874  the  members  of  various 
groups  and  circles  remained  in  the  cities,  working  at  carpentry  and 
the  like,  living  with  and  as  working  men.  Their  work  was  in- 
efficient and  unreal ;  sometimes  even  from  mere  restlessness,  some- 
times from  desire  to  see  as  many  phases  as  possible,  they  moved 
about  from  place  to  place,  and  learned  little  in  any  of  them.  In 
the  spring  of  1874  there  was  a  great  migration  to  the  villages. 
/  Enthusiastic  youths  bought  sheepskin  coats,  manufactured  pass- 
/  ports,  and  prepared  for  assuming  the  life  of  peasants.  Again  they 
/  wandered  about ;  the  novelty  of  the  impressions  kept  them  inter- 
I  ested  for  a  time,  but  it  soon  became  apparent  that  nothing  could 
\     come  of  these  wanderings.     Then  arose  an  enthusiasm  for  entering 

^  "  What  right  had  I  to  these  highest  joys  "  (original  researches  upon  the 
influence  of  the  polar-ice  cap)  "  when  all  around  me  was  nothing  but  misery 
and  struggle  for  a  mouldy  bit  of  bread."     Prince  Kropotkin,  Memoirs,  p.  240. 

*  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  p.  117. 


/' 


THE    V  NAROD   MOVEMENT        105 

into  the  life  of  the  people  in  an  organic  way.  One  enthusiast 
became  a  teacher,  another  a  male  nurse,  another  a  craftsman,  and 
so  on.  More  might  be  hoped  for  from  this,  but  no  effect  could  be 
expected  from  the  process  in  any  short  time. 

When  the  V  Narod  movement  began,  it  was  supposed  that  the 
peasants  were  eager  for  some  drastic  settlement  of  the  land  ques- 
tion, and  that  they  would  listen  to  any  revolutionary  solution  of 
it.     Soon  it  became  apparent  that  the  peasants  were  waiting  for 
some  miracle  to  happen,  and  that  the  idea  of  their  doing  anything 
to  facilitate  this  miracle  was  quite  out  of  the  question.     All  changes 
I  must  come  from  above.     Even  when  the  peasants  realized  that 
'they  were  the  victims  of  some  specific  act  of  injustice,  either  at 
the  hands  of  the  authorities  or  at  those  of  the  landowners,  they 
simply  murmured  :    "It  seems  that  from  our  birth  it  was  so  de- 
signed." 1    "If,  on  one  hand,  poverty  and  perpetual  oppression   \ 
may  bring  q|  man  to  acts  of  desperation,  on  the  other  they  may  j 
bring  him  to  idiot cy."  ^    "  The  peasants  were  moreover  afraid  to  [ 
leave  the  known  present  for  the  unknown  future.  .  .  .  They  were  , 
accustomed  to  obey  and  never  to  protest,  and  the  purpose  seemed  \ 
to  them  too  remote."  ^  ♦^'V^c.'Cr 

Ardent  and  picturesque  as  in  the  best  the  V  Narod  movement 
was,  the  flippant  student  was  speedily  discouraged,  and  even 
serious  observers  and  workers  found  that  they  made  little  pro- 
gress. The  plain  fact  was  that  the  peasants  were  not  ready  even 
/j  for  so  mild  a  revolutionary  movement  as  the  V  Narod  offered. 
There  is  little  evidence  to  show  that  the  movement  contained  any 
peril  for  the  Government.  Had  it  been  left  alone,  it  would  almost 
inevitably  have  died  a  natural  death,  both  in  the  towns  and  in 
the  country.  JBut  the  Governm^iUjell  into  a.state_  of^panic. 
felt  that  the  V  Naroltmav^iSit  must  be  suppressed.  Suppressed 
it  was.  Wholesale  arrests  were  made.  Those  who  went  into  the 
people  were  hunted  down.  "  The  hunt  spread  all  over  Russia. 
They  grasped  right  and  left,  innocent  and  guilty  alike,  sparing 
nobody,  and  halting  for  nothing."  *  This  state  of  matters  demora- 
lized the  police  and  the  authorities.  Careers  were  made  by  those 
who  engaged  in  these  battues.     Fear  settled  down  upon  everyone. 

^  E.  Breshkovsky,  quoted  by  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  p.  180. 

*  Ibid.  «  Ibid.,  p.  181. 

*  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  p.  182. 


in   y 


io6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Even  those  who  disapproved  of  these  proceedings  were  compelled 
to  keep  silence.^ 

"  The  V  Narod  movement  was  a  failure.  Yet,"  says  Debo- 
goriy-Mokrievich,  "  we  succeeded  in  producing  that  about  which 
we  did  not  care  at  all — the  sjnnpathy  of  the  thinking  layers  of 
Russian  society."  ^  The  Government  prosecutions  intensified  this 
sympathy,  and  little  by  little  there  began  to  grow  the  struggle 
between  the  Russian  intelligentsia  and  the  autocracy."  ^  Thus 
failure  as  it  was  so  far  as  immediate  results  were  concerned,  the 
\  V  Narod  movement  undoubtedly  contributed,  in  spite  of  the  hos- 
M  tility  of  the  Government,  and  largely  because  of  it,  towards  bring- 
ing more  closely  together  the  different  elements  of  Russian  society, 
and  towards  a  better  understanding  of  the  real  nature  of  the  prob- 
lems presented  by  the  lives  of  peasants  but  recently  brought 
out  of  bondage.  ^^ 

According  to  the  secret  report  of  Count  Pahlen,  written  in  1875,* 
the  greater  part  of  European  Russia  was  covered,  towards  the 
end  of  the  year  1874,  by  a  network  of  revolutionary  groups. 
Thirty-seven  out  of  fifty-one  guberni  were  affected.  The  number 
of  persons  described  as  belonging  to  these  groups  was  770,  of  whom 
158  were  women.  At  the  date  of  the  report  265  were  in  prison, 
452  were  allowed  to  be  at  large,  and  53  were  undiscovered.  Among 
the  groups  were  persons  of  all  ages  and  of  all  social  positions.^ 
This  report  became  the  foundation  of  the  prosecution  of  the  193, 
which  marked  the  close  of  the  peaceful  agitation  of  the  V  Narod 
movement.* 

It  seems  to  be  quite  clear  that  for  a  considerable  time  after  the 
V  Narod  movement  began  there  was  in  it  nothing  of  a  conspirative 
character.  If  there  was,  it  was  sporadic  and  trifling.  The  move- 
ment was  too  open  and  too  eclectic  for  it  to  assume  a  general  char- 
acter of  a  conspirative  order.  Its  very  eclecticism  rendered  it  open, 
no  doubt,  to  entrance  by  conspirators,  but  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 

*  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  p.  183.  ^  /^^-^  3  md.,  p.  184. 

*  Published  in  Deutsche  Rundschau,  vol.  xxvii.  (Berlin,  1881),  p.  351  et  seq. 
5  Op.  cit.,  p.  358. 

*  Stepniak  says  that  the  total  number  of  imprisonments  in  connection 
with  the  trial  was  1400,  of  whom  700  were  shortly  set  free.  The  remainder 
were  kept  in  prison  for  periods  of  from  one  to  four  years.  Of  the  193, 
73  either  became  insane  or  committed  suicide,  or  both,  during  the  four  years 
over  which  the  trials  extended.  Yet  only  40  of  the  total  number  were 
eventually  found  guilty.     Russia  under  the  Tsars,  chap.  xiv. 


THE    V  NAROD   MOVEMENT        107 

adherents  of  this  type  must  have  been  few  in  number.  When  the 
suppression  began,  and  when  **  going  to  the  people  "  involved  risk  of 
prosecution,  the  more  timid  elements  tended  to  drop  out  and  the 
bolder  elements  to  remain  ;  and  thus,  although  the  two  movements 
were  distinct,  even  peaceful  adherents  of  V  Narod,  proscribed  and 
hunted,  gradually  formulated  for  themselves  ideas  hostile  to  the 
State,  and  some  of  them  became  active  revolutionaries.  Their 
mode  of  life  was  inimical  to  any  settled  ideas.  They  moved  about 
continually,  now  in  Russia,  now  in  Switzerland,  smuggling  broad- 
sheets and  pamphlets  printed  on  thin  so-called  "  conspirative  " 
paper,  sometimes  succeeding  in  circulating  these  and  sometimes 
falling  into  the  hands  of  the  police.  In  the  latter  event  they  were 
consigned  to  solitary  confinement  in  some  fortress.  Deprived  of 
books  and  of  communication  with  their  fellows  even  before  trial, 
when  they  came  before  their  judges,  already  generally  prejudiced 
against  them,  they  frequently  exhibited  the  effects  of  the  nervous 
strain  to  which  they  had  been  subjected.^  Many  of  them  became 
insane,  some  committed  suicide,  or  deliberately  assailed  their  guards, 
hoping  that  a  shot  would  put  an  end  to  their  sufferings. 

Meanwhile  the  Government  was  passing  through  its  most  cor- 
rupt phase.  It  seemed  to  have  fallen  altogether  into  the  hands  of  a 
formidable  combination  of  peculators — Shouvalov,  Potapov,  Trepov 
— "  while  all  the  active  men  of  the  reform  period  had  been  brushed 
aside."  *  The  State  lands  and  the  Treasury  were  plundered  remorse- 
lessly. Through  an  isolated  revolutionary  act  the  scandalous  situation 
was  disclosed.  Trepov,  who  was  chief  of  the  St.  Petersburg  police, 
had  ordered  a  political  prisoner  ^  to  be  flogged  in  prison.  Aroused 
by  this  act.  Vera  Zasulich  shot  at  Trepov.*  Although  he  afterwards 
recovered,  Trepov  believed  himself  to  be  mortaUy  wounded,  and 
made  his  will.  This  document  revealed  the  possession  of  a  con- 
siderable and  previously  unsuspected  fortime,  and  gave  rise  to  an 
investigation  before  the  Senate  sitting  as  a  court  of  justice.     Trepov 

^  Witness  the  case  of  Mushkin,  whose  speech  in  court  is  given  by 
Debogoriy-Mokrievich.  op.  cit.,  pp.  188-90.  The  speech  is  described  by 
Stepniak  as  having  had  an  extraordinary  effect  throughout  the  country. 
Russia  under  the  Tsars,  chap,  xviii. 

*  Kropotkin,  Memoirs,  p.  242. 

'  The  student  Bogolyubov,  who  had  been  arrested  for  participation  in 
the  demonstration  before  the  Kazan  Cathedral  in  St.  Petersburg. 

*  23rd  January  1878. 


io8     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

was  found  guilty  of  peculation  and  dismissed.  His  assailant  was 
tried,  and  acquitted.  The  deed  of  Vera  Zasdlich  created  a  profound 
impression  throughout  the  V  Narod  groups. 

Up  till  the  period  of  the  wholesale  arrests,  the  activities  of  those 
who  went  into  the  V  Narod  movement  seem  to  have  consisted  in  the 
circulation  of  books  and  pamphlets,  and  in  propaganda  of  a  more 
or  less  socialistic  character  among  peasants  and  working  men.  In 
neither  case  could  it  be  said  that  the  revolutionary  effects  were 
important.  When,  however,  these  activities  were  arrested,  some 
of  those  who  had  been  engaged  in  them  formed  groups  for  propaganda 
of  another  kind.  Various  as  were  the  t5rpes  of  socialism  represented 
in  the  V  Narod  movement,  their  adherents  agreed  in  general  in  the] 
doctrine  that  changes  in  the  administration  of  government  could  | 
not  alone  bring  about  the  regeneration  of  society.  They  looked 
with  scorn  upon  contemporary  liberalism,  and  indeed  upon  political 
action  of  all  kinds.  But  they  found  by  experience  that  whether  or 
not  political  measures  could  promote  a  social  revolution,  they  could 
do  much  to  retard  one.  In  spite  of  their  doctrines  they  felt  them- 
selves drawn  into  the  position  that  the  political  situation  must  be 
altered,  otherwise  the  social  situation  would  remain  as  it  was. 
Numerous  groups  formed  themselves  upon  this  new  platform. 
Among  these  there  was,  in  the  year  1877,  a  small  group  at  Kiev 
composed  of  some  half  a  dozen  students  and  others.^  According 
to  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  it  would  appear  that  on  the  initiative  of 
Valerian  Osinsky,^  two  or  three  members  of  this  group  decided  upon 
an  attempt  to  kill  Kotlyarevsky,  who,  as  public  prosecutor,  had  in- 
vestigated the  Chigirin  case.^ 

The  attempt  was  a  failure,*  but  the  group  decided  that  it  was 

^  A  lively  account  is  given  of  this  group  by  Debogoriy-Mokrievich, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  326  et  sea. 

*  For  sketches  of  Osinsky,  see  Stepniak,  Underground  Russia,  and  Narod- 
naya  Volya,  No.  2,  ist  October  1879  (reprinted  in  Literature  of  the  Social- 
Revolutionary  Party,  Narodnoe  Vole  (Paris,  1905),  pp.  101-16).  See  also  infra, 
p.  120. 

*  The  Chigirin  case  arose  out  of  an  accusation  that  the  peasants  of 
Chigirin  were  robbed  by  the  Narodneke.  The  charges  were  that  the 
peasants  had  been  called  upon  to  subscribe  5  kopeks  each  monthly,  and 
that  one-half  of  this  sum  only  was  devoted  to  the  purposes  of  the  movement ; 
the  other  half  being  appropriated  by  the  Narodneke  personally.  (C/.  Osinsky 's 
speech  before  the  court  in  Literature,  &c.,  p.  113.) 

*  It  was  made  on  23rd  February  1878,  a  month  after  the  attack  upon 
Trepov  by  Vera  ZasiiUch.  (C/.  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  p.  329. 
See  also  infra,  pp.  120-122.) 


THE    V  NAROD   MOVEMENT        109 

expedient  to  make  a  public  declaration  of  the  reasons  for  the  at- 
tempt. This  they  did  by  means  of  printed  placards  which  were 
posted  at  night  in  the  streets  of  Kiev.  In  order  to  give  this  declara- 
tion a  formidable  air,  the  placards  were  stamped  "  The  Executive 
Committee."  Debogoriy-Mokrievich  says  that  this  was  the  origin 
of  the  Executive  Committee  which  afterwards  entered  upon  the 
Terror  that  ended  with  the  assassination  of  Alexander  11.^  **  Of 
whom  this  Executive  Committee  consisted  (in  1878)  it  would  be 
difficult  to  say,  because  it  did  not  possess  any  definite  organization. 
Everybody  acted  according  to  his  own  opinions.  Osinsky,  Iviche- 
vich,  and  some  others  apparently  looked  upon  the  affair  very 
seriously.  So  also  did  my  brother,  who  saw  in  it  an  attempt  at  a 
struggle  of  a  political  character.  '  Up  till  now,'  he  said  to  me,  '  you 
have  been  discussing  about  V  Narod  ;  there  has  been  in  all  this  very 
little  of  revolutionism.  You  have  been  throwing  the  beans  upon 
the  kissel.^  As  soon  as  the  affair  has  reached  your  own  interests, 
you  see  the  result.  They  are  shooting  there  at  Tr^pov,  here  at 
Kotlyarevsky.  There  is  no  use  in  shutting  one's  eyes.  These  are 
facts  of  political  struggle.  .  .  .  Just  think  of  how  many  peasants 
have  been  flogged  by  ispravneke  and  governors ;  nobody  shoots 
them  for  that ;  but  Trepov  tried  once  to  flog  an  intelligent  revolu- 
tionary, and  he  was  punished.  Thus,  my  brother,  neither  socialism 
nor  V  Narod  is  concerned  in  this  thing.'  "  ^ 

This  was  undoubtedly  a  sound  diagnosis.  However  natural 
and  inevitable  the  transition  from  Narodnechestvo  or  the  V  Narod 
movement  to  the  revolutionary  Narodnaya  Volya,  the  spirit  of  the 
two  movements  was  not  the  same.  The  old  Narodnechestvo  looked 
upon  political  freedom  as  an  advantage  for  the  upper  classes  of 
society,  because  it  would  give  them  a  definite  political  status  and 
would  greatly  strengthen  their  position  ;  but  this  result  would  be 
disadvantageous  for  the  mass  of  the  people,  because  the  more 
powerful  are  the  enemies  of  the  masses,  the  worse  for  the  masses 
themselves.*  The  revolutionary  Narodovoltsi,  on  the  other  hand, 
while  they  began  by  demanding  political  freedom  in  the  form  of 
constitutional  guarantees,  went  on  later  to  urge  that,  since  a  con- 

*  There  was,   however,   no  precise  continuity.     For  an  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  Executive  Committee  as  eventually  organized,  see  infra,  p.  125. 

*  That  is,  wasting  time. 

*  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  pp.  333-4. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  599.    This  was  the  view  of  Bakiinin. 


no     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

stitutional  regime  might  be  utilized  by  the  bourgeoisie  for  their 
own  advantage,  political  freedom  must  be  employed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  a  fundamental  change  in  the  whole  social  struc- 
ture.^ Debogoriy-Mokrievich  points  out  quite  soundly  that,  if 
the  NarodovoUsi  had  confined  themselves  to  the  single  aim  of  secur- 
ing a  constitution,  they  would  have  gained  allies  among  the  Liberal 
elements.  Apart  from  the  characteristic  reluctance  of  all  Russian 
parties  to  ally  themselves  with  one  another,  the  NarodovoUsi  were 
embarrassed  by  two  ideas  of  doubtful  validity  :  first,  the  possi- 
bility of  transforming  directly,  without  an  intermediate  phase  of 
parliamentary  constitutionalism,  a  "  semi- Asiatic  "  ^  and  highly 
heterogeneous  Empire  into  a  socialist  state,  corresponding  more 
or  less  closely  to  their  utopist  ideas  of  what  such  a  state  ought  to 
be ;  and  second,  the  possibility  of  overthrowing  a  Government 
whose  weakness,  as  events  showed  almost  immediately,  was  greatly 
exaggerated  by  them. 

While  the  NarodovoUsi  laid  stress  upon  political  freedom,  and 
the  V  Narod  propagandists  did  not,  they  were  in  a  strict  sense 
both  engaged  in  political  movements.  Stepniak,^  who  was  a 
member  of  both  groups,  recognizes  this  fully.  "  This  movement  '* 
(the  early  V  Narod)  "  was  in  reality  directed  against  our  political 
system,  for  only  a  new  free  State  could  successfully  take  up  and 
solve  the  agrarian  question."  *  Stepniak  goes  on  to  say  that  the 
reason  for  the  failure  of  the  V  Narod  movement  was  that  **  the 
young  generation  could  not  formulate  its  real  desires,  and  the 
educated  class  could  not  understand  the  young  generation.     The 

1  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  p.  570.  ^  Jbid^ 

'  Sergius  Stepniak  (i  852-1 897)  (real  name  Serghei  Kravchinsky)  was  a 
lieutenant  of  artillery  when  he  threw  himself,  in  1873,  into  the  V  Narod 
movement.  In  Count  Pahlen's  secret  report  (cited  above)  he  is  described  as 
one  of  the  four  or  five  principal  figures  in  the  propaganda  among  St.  Petersburg 
working  men.  He  also  carried  on  a  propaganda  among  the  peasants.  Under 
the  influence  of  the  repressions,  Stepniak  became  an  active  member  of  the 
NarodovoUsi,  being  at  the  time  about  twenty-six  years  of  age.  On  4th 
August  1 878,  he  shot  and  killed  in  broad  dayhght  in  St,  Petersburg,  General 
Mezentsev,  chief  of  the  Third  Section.  He  escaped  from  Russia  and  spent  some 
years  in  Italy,  where  he  wrote  his  Underground  Russia,  originally  in  Italian 
(afterwards  in  Russian  and  in  English).  He  reached  England  about  1882,  and 
resided  there  until  his  death  by  accident  at  a  railway  crossing  near  London 
in  1 897.  Stepniak  possessed  a  singularly  attractive  personality.  His  writings, 
especially  his  Career  of  a  Nihilist  (London,  1889)  (written  originally  in  English), 
exhibit  very  high  artistic  powers  which,  however,  were  even  more  observable 
in  his  conversation. 

*  Nihilism  as  It  is  (London,  n.d.),  p.  16. 


I 


THE    V  NAROD   MOVEMENT         iii 

young  extremists  were  left  to  depend  upon  their  own  powers,  and 
this  fact  condemned  the  movement  beforehand  to  complete  and 
fruitless  destruction."  ^ 

Yet  some  of  the  V  Narod  groups  refused  to  be  drawn  into 
Narodnaya  Volya.  By  temperament  or  conviction  they  were 
indisposed  to  engage  in  the  Terror  which  now  began  to  make  its 
appearance.  Those  who  adopted  this  attitude  may  be  said  to 
have  fallen  into  two  camps — one  the  old  Narodnechestvo,  the  other 
the  so-called  Chorno  Peredyelisi.^  The  latter  group  devoted  itself 
especially  to  the  agrarian  question,  which  it  proposed  to  settle  by 
a  drastic  redistribution  of  the  land,  retaining  in  general  the  old 
V  Narod  ideas.  The  Chorno  Peredyeltsi  seem  to  have  consisted 
for  the  most  part  of  students  who  were  "  preparing  themselves  " 
for  revolutionary  activity  among  the  people.  But  "  preparation  " 
did  not  always  go  very  far.  In  the  older  V  Narod  movement, 
those  who  were  "  preparing  themselves "  were  also  making 
perpetual  attempts  in  practice.^  They  were  really  learning  in 
the  school  of  life.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  adherents  of 
the  old  agitation,  the  Chorno  Peredyeltsi  were  engaged  in 
endless  "  preparation,"  and  in  endless  discussions  and  drafting  of 
programmes. 

The  definite  division  of  the  Narodnechestvo  into  NarodovoUsi 
and  Chorno  Peredyeltsi  took  place  at  a  meeting  of  revolutionary 
parties  held  at  Lipetsk,  17th  to  21st  June  1879,^  when  the  party  of 
action  emerged  as  a  new  party,  and  the  party  of  permeation,  repre- 
sented by  the  Chorno  Peredyeltsi,  remained,  adhering  so  far  as 
programme  was  concerned  to  the  original  ideal  of  the  V  Narod 
movement.  From  this  time  onwards  there  was  a  struggle  between 
the  two  revolutionary  wings  for  influence  upon  the  Russian  youth. 
Both  published  newspapers.  The  party  of  action  issued  the  Narod- 
naya Volya,  and  the  other  the  Chorno  Peredyel.^ 

^  Nihilism  as  It  is  (London,  n.d.),  p.  16. 

*  Literally  "  Black  repartition  " — the  black  referring  to  the  soil. 
^  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  p.  574. 

*  This  meeting  was  continued  at  Voronej.     Cf.  infra. 

^  The  first  number  of  Narodnaya  Volya  is  dated  ist  October  1879.  It  was 
suppressed  in  January  1880.  This  issue  was  succeeded  by  Listok  Narodnoe 
Vole,  the  first  number  of  which  is  dated  ist  June  1880.  At  the  fifth  number 
of  that  issue  the  title  was  changed  to  Narodnaya  Volya.  It  continued  to  be 
published  at  intervals  under  this  title  until  October  1885.  The  Chorno 
Peredyel  was  suspended  in  March  1880. 


112     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

The  history  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya,  which  gave  rise  to  the 
social-revolutionary  party,  is  recounted  later ;  that  of  the  Chorno 
Peredyeltsi  may  be  briefly  concluded.  Although  during  the  period 
of  its  existence  it  represented  incipient  social  democracy,  and  while 
many  of  its  members  became  social  democrats,  the  activity  of  the 
group  was  practically  destroyed  in  the  reaction  after  1881.  Some 
of  its  members  went  abroad,  and  carried  on  from  Switzerland  and 
elsewhere  a  desultory  propaganda.  In  the  famine  year  of  1891 
there  was  a  revival  of  the  spirit  of  the  Chorniy  Peredyel  in 
the  Narodnoye  Pravo,  or  Folks'  Right  Party.  Many  enthusiasts 
went  to  the  people,  as  others  had  done  eighteen  years  before. 
The  movement  was  sternly  put  down  by  the  Government 
in  1893. 

The  close  of  the  year  1876  and  the  whole  course  of  the  year 
1877  formed  an  important  period  in  Russian  revolutionary  his- 
tory, because  the  repressions  of  the  Government  in  connection 
with  the  V  Narod  movement  at  least  contributed  to  the  separation 
of  the  groups  engaged  in  that  agitation  into  two  camps,  one  of 
which  grew  into  a  formidable  force.  Apart,  however,  from  this 
incident,  there  were  other  signs  of  a  new  phase  of  revolutionary 
activity.  The  first  revolutionary  demonstration  of  this  epoch 
took  place  in  the  Nevsky  Prospekt,  St.  Petersburg,  in  front  of  the 
Kazan  Cathedral,  on  6th  December  1876.  This  demonstration 
was  organized  by  the  group  known  as  Zemlya  e  Volya  ^  (Land  and 
Freedom).  Although  this  group  was  not  a  distinctively  working 
men's  society,  the  demonstration  was  attended  by  some  working 
men.  The  bulk  of  the  persons  who  attended  the  demonstration 
were,  however,  intelligentsia.  The  first  revolutionary  society  of 
working  men  organized  during  this  epoch  was  the  North  Russian 
Working  Men's  Union.^  This  union  had  a  combined  economical 
and  political  platform.  Its  principal  demands  were  "  the  limita- 
tion of  working  hours,"  "  the  prohibition  of  the  labour  of  chil- 
dren," "  the  institution  of  co-operative  associations,"  ^  the  estab- 
lishment of  "  land  credit  banks  with  free  credit  for  working  men's 

^  See  supra,  p.  73. 

*  Cf.  Svyatlovsky,  V.  V.,  The  Labour  Movement  in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg, 
1907),  p.  386.     See  also  Stepniak,  The  Russian  Storm  Cloud,  chap.  ii. 

*  The  prominence  of  "  co-operation  "  was  due  to  the  desire  of  the  union 
to  put  an  end  to  the  system  of  "  truck." 


THE    F  NAROD   MOVEMENT        113 

associations."  ^    According  to  the  constitution  of  the  union,  only- 
working  men  might  become  members.^ 

^  This  meant  free  State  credit,  or  loans  without  interest  to  working  men's 
associations. 

2  In  this  respect  the  union  resembled  the  typical  trade  union  in  England. 
In  Canada  and  in  the  United  States  the  line  is  not  customarily  so  sharply 
drawn.  Small  masters  and  even  Government  officials  occasionally  find  their 
way  into  labour  councils.  At  the  head  of  the  North  Russian  Working  Men's 
Union  stood  Victor  Obnorsky  and  Step^n  Khalturin  (cf .  infra,  p.  1 27 ).  The 
principal  success  of  the  union  was  among  the  St.  Petersburg  working  men. 
The  first  issue  of  their  newspaper,  The  Dawn  of  the  Worker,  was  confiscated, 
and  the  printing  office  seized  in  February  1880.  The  views  of  the  union 
were  similar  to  those  of  Lassalle,  and  were  probably  derived  from  them. 
The  Union  was  attacked  by  the  Narodovolsti.  Its  reply  to  the  attack  is 
to  be  found  in  Zemlya  e  Volya,  Nos.  3  and  5.  On  the  activities  of  the  Union, 
see  also  Stepniak,  The  Russian  Storm  Cloud,  ch.  ii. 


VOL.  II 


/I 


CHAPTER   VII 

NARODNAYA    VOLYA 

The  transition  from  V  Narod,  or  "  Into  the  people,"  movement  to 
Narodnaya  Volya,  or  "  The  People's  Will,"  has  been  described  in 
the  immediately  preceding  chapter.  We  have  now  to  examine 
the  significance  of  the  role  of  the  new  group  in  Russian  revolu- 
tionary history.  Authentic  data  concerning  terrorist  parties  are 
invariably  difficult  to  procure.  Conspirators  do  not  usually  en- 
cumber themselves  with  unnecessary  pikes  de  conviction.  Even 
the  evidence  brought  before  the  courts  during  the  more  important 
trials  throws  somewhat  meagre  light  upon  the  psychology  of 
terrorist  groups,  and  the  actual  share  of  individuals  in  the  opera- 
tions of  these  groups  is,  for  obvious  reasons,  in  general  elaborately 
concealed.  Significant  indications  of  the  "  state  of  mind  "  of  the 
members  of  revolutionary  parties  are,  however,  to  be  obtained  to 
a  certain  extent  from  the  revolutionary  newspapers,  issued  in 
spite  of  police  surveillance  and  frequent  suppression,  and  from  the 
occasional  manifestoes,  broadsheets,  and  pamphlets  printed  abroad 
or  in  "  underground  "  printing  offices,  as  well  as  from  memoirs 
published  subsequently  to  the  termination  of  the  particular  phases 
of  the  movement  to  which  they  refer. 

The  documentary  material  relating  to  the  Narodnaya  Volya  is 
not  voluminous.  From  its  beginning  the  Narodnaya  Volya  was 
harassed  by  the  police.  Such  documents  as  were  issued  by  it  were 
issued  in  small  numbers,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  any  complete 
collection  of  them  exists,  save  possibly  in  the  archives  of  the  De- 
partment of  Police  in  St.  Petersburg.^ 

An  article  entitled  "  Delenda  est  Carthago,"  in  the  first  issue 
of  the  Narodnaya  Volya^  the  party  organ,  reveals  fairl;^  the  point 

^  A  collection  of  these  documents,  admittedly  incomplete,  has  been  pub- 
lished in  Paris  by  the  Social  Revolutionary  Central  Committee,  entitled, 
Literature  of  the  Social-Revolutionary  Party  Narodnoe  Vole,  1905. 

*  No.  I,  ist  October  1879,  reprinted  in  volume  above  quoted. 


m\i 


NARODNATA    VOLT  A  115 

of  view  of  the  Narodovoltsi,  or  adherents  of  the  party.  According 
to  this  article,  the  political  theory  upon  which  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment is  based  involves  the  idea  that  the  people  exist  for  the  Govern- 
ment, as  opposed  to  the  idea  that  the  Government  exists  for  the 
people.  "  The  Russian  State  is  thus  unlike  an  European  State. 
...  It  is  not  a  commission  of  delegates  of  a  ruling  class,  as  in 
Europe,  but  it  is  an  independent,  self-existent  organization,  a 
hierarchical,  disciplined  association  which  holds  the  people  in 
economical  and  political  slavery.  Even  if  there  were  no  exploiting 
class,  the  State  would  remain  as  private  owner  of  half  of  the  terri- 
tory of  Russia.  One-half  of  the  peasants  are  merely  lessees  of  the 
lands  of  the  State."  Yet  this  formidable  association  can  only 
maintain  its  unique  position  by  constant  repression,  by  prosecu- 
tions and  by  executions  and  exiles.  "  The  northern  provinces 
and  Siberia  are  full  of  exiles  "  who  have  incurred  the  displeasure 
of  the  Government.  The  Government,  self-existent  as  it  is,  lives 
apart  from  the  people  ;  it  leans  not  upon  them,  but  upon  the 
rude  force  which  it  commands  throi^gh  the  discipline  and  passive 
obedience  of  those  in  its  own  ranks  and  through  the  political  igno- 
rance of  the  masses.  These  masses,  like  all  masses,  "  are  inert 
and  cowardly.  They  desire  peace  first  of  all,  and  they  cease  to 
prefer  existing  evil  to  an  unknown  and  risky  future,  only  when  the 
pressure  of  the  Government  reaches  a  certain  point."  Thus  all 
oppositional  parties  must  watch  for  the  moment  when  this  point 
arrives.  Social  thought  develops  beneath  the  surface ;  under 
Government  repression,  indeed,  a  spirit  of  criticism  is  fertilized  by 
this  very  repression.  But  this  spirit  of  criticism  is  timid  and 
negative,  and  the  social  thought  of  the  general  mass  is  limited  and 
"  without  comprehension  of  the  chief  necessities  of  the  time." 
There  is  thus  opportunity  for  the  oppositional  party  which  boldly 
announces  "  I  know  the  way  out  (of  this  apparent  impasse)  and 
where  to  go."  "  If  such  a  party  is  able  to  seize  the  real  needs  of 
the  time  it  must  be  a  power,  because  the  social  problems  may  be 
solved  under  its  guidance.  A  party  which  pretends  to  point  the 
way  to  the  future  must,  however,  base  its  principles  upon  a  real 
and  severe  relation  to*  actual  life.  The  most  rosy  ideal  is  useless, 
and  even  dangerous,  if  it  cannot  be  projected  into  actuality."  A 
propaganda  of  idealism  may  be  injurious  if  its  proposed  methods 
of  action  are  impracticable,  and  if  they  are  opposed  to  those  methods 


ii6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF  RUSSIA 

of  action  by  means  of  which  alone  the  first  barriers  in  the  path 
of  the  people  may  be  removed.  A  party  of  action  must  therefore 
set  before  it  concrete,  directly  useful  tasks,  and  choose  those  means 
that  are  at  the  particular  moment  most  effective.  In  its  prosecu- 
tion of  the  Narodneke  (or  the  adherents  of  the  V  Narod  movement) 
"  the  Government  has  declared  war  upon  us.  Whether  we  wish 
it  or  not,  the  Government  prosecutes  us.  Certainly  it  is  open  to 
us  to  refrain  from  defending  ourselves,  but  nobody  ever  gained 
anything  by  adopting  that  course.  Our  direct  policy  must  be  to 
approach  and  to  throw  down  the  obstacle  that  prevents  us  from 
acting,  and  that  every  day  takes  from  us  our  best  workers,  that 
surrounds  us  with  a  network  of  espionage,  and  attacks  us  by  de- 
nunciations. In  the  struggle  with  this  obstacle  we  are  spending 
90  per  cent,  of  our  force.  We  do  not  deny  that  it  is  impossible  to 
carry  on  a  propaganda  among  the  people,  or  that  riotous  activity 
might  not  arise  among  them,  but  under  existing  conditions  acti- 
vities of  these  kinds  are  too  difficult. 

"  The  power  of  the  Government  need  not  frighten  us.  It  is 
an  iron  giant  with  feet  of  clay."  It  is  true  that  it  may  in  time  die 
a  natural  death,  but  **  for  our  party  it  is  very  important  that  the 
new  order  of  things  should  correspond  to  the  interests  of  the  people 
and  of  the  party  itself.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  aUow  the 
new  order  of  things  to  be  without  the  management  and  influence 
of  the  people,  or,  while  liberating  the  other  classes  and  opening  up 
the  possibility  of  activities  to  other  parties,  to  permit  the  new 
order  to  leave  the  mass  of  the  people  and  also  the  Socialist  party 
in  the  conditions  under  which  they  now  exist.  Even  if  the  revolu- 
tion were  accomplished,  the  party  might  condemn  itself  for  cen- 
turies to  hard  (and  merely)  preparatory  work.  The  present  moment 
is  a  moment  of  great  importance.  Persecution,  prosecution,  im- 
prisonment are  nothing  compared  with  the  results  of  the  present 
moment  to  the  people,  if  the  Socialist  party  is  able  to  comprehend 
the  situation  and  to  control  it.  .  .  .  We  are  sure  that  the  time 
is  coming  when  the  Socialist  party  shall  stand  against  the  Govern- 
mental system,  not  spasmodically,  but  systematically  and  steadily, 
and,  destroying  the  oppressive  Governmental  mechanism,  shall 
assure  to  the  people  .  .  .  the  possibility  of  free  development  of 
its  thoughts,  ideals,  and  forms  of  social  life."  ^ 

*  Literature,  &c.,  pp.  3-1 1. 


I 


NARODNATA    VOLT  A  117 

In  the  second  issue  of  the  same  organ,  the  necessity  of  political 
activity  is  similarly  urged.  "  First  of  all  it  is  necessary  to  liberate 
the  people  from  the  yoke  of  the  Government.  For  this  reason  our 
activity  must  be  of  a  political  character.  .  .  .  It  is  to  be  understood, 
however,  that  in  calling  upon  the  people  to  engage  in  a  struggle  with 
the  Government,  we  do  not  object  to  a  social  and  economical  revolu- 
tion— ^we  only  say  that  in  our  circumstances,  the  political  and  social 
revolution  are  inextricably  coupled,  and  that  one  without  the  other 
is  impossible.  For  the  politico-social  revolution  we  are  only  point- 
ing out  a  new  path — a  path  indeed  not  wholly  new,  but  merely  ill- 
recognized  by  our  party."  The  article  goes  on  to  urge  that  a  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  after  the  model  of  the  Assemblee  constituante, 
should  be  convened.^  In  this  Constituent  Assembly  nine-tenths  of 
the  members  must  represent  the  peasantry.  Thus  the  outcome  of 
the  Assembly  must  be  "a  complete  revolution  of  all  economical  and 
State  relations." 

An  article  in  the  same  issue  deals  with  the  question,  "  On  which 
Side  is  Morality  ?  "  It  accuses  the  officials  of  corruption,  and  refers 
to  conspicuous  cases — those  of  Tr^pov  and  Prince  Volkonsky,  for 
example.2  "  Profiting  by  the  impossibility  of  defending  ourselves, 
we  are  set  before  the  eyes  of  society  as  bloodthirsty,  merciless 
monsters ;  on  the  contrary,  we  give  to  spiritual,  and  especially  to 
moral  questions,  a  new  meaning."  When  the  political  prosecutions 
and  the  system  of  espionage  are  considered,  "  do  not  be  surprised 
that  there  are  a  few  murders,  but  that  there  are  so  few."  ..."  Rus- 
sian revolutionaries  are  not  adepts  in  terror ;  they  are  humane  and 
not  given  to  bloodshed." 

The  principles  and  methods  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya  party  are, 
however,  most  fully  disclosed  in  the  "  Programme  of  the  Executive 
Committee,"  first  published  in  1879.^  According  to  this  document, 
the  Executive  Committee  are  "  socialists  and  narodneke."  *  "  We 
are  convinced,"  they  say,  "  that  only  by  means  of  socialist  prin- 

1  This  became  one  of  the  watchwords  of  the  revolutionary  year  1905. 
See  infra,  p.  489. 

2  The  Trepov  case  has  ahready  been  noticed.  Volkonsky  was  accused  of 
robbing  the  Griaze-Tsaritsinsky  Railway  of  600,000  rubles. 

^  Narodnaya  Volya,  No.  3,  ist  January  1880,  reprinted  in  Literature,  &c., 
cited,  p.  162. 

*  Narodneke  may  be  rendered  "  populists,"  but  their  position  should  not 
be  confounded  with  that  of  the  almost  contemporary  "  populists  "  of  the 
United  States. 


ii8  ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

ciples  can  humanity  incorporate  in  its  life,  freedom,  equality,  and 
brotherhood,  in  order  to  secure  common  well-being  and  a  full  and 
large  development  of  the  individual,  and  therefore  to  secure  progress. 
We  are  convinced  that  only  '  the  will  of  the  people '  (narodnaya 
volya)  can  sanction  social  forms,  that  the  development  of  the  people 
is  sound  only  when  it  is  independent  and  free,  when  every  idea 
which  is  incorporated  in  its  life  is  so  through  the  conscience  and 
will  of  the  people.  The  well-being  of  the  people  and  the  will  of  the 
people — these  are  our  most  sacred  and  most  indissolubly  binding 
principles."  This  is  by  way  of  introduction,  the  chief  points  of  the 
programme  follow : 

1.  The  people  are  in  a  state  of  complete  economical  and  political 
servitude.  "  The  working  man  labours  merely  to  feed  and  keep  the 
parasitical  classes.  He  is  deprived  of  the  rights  of  a  citizen."  Not 
only  does  Russian  life  exist  apart  from  his  will,  but  he  has  no  right 
to  express  this  will.  Pressed  upon  from  all  sides,  the  people  become 
physically  degenerate  and  dull,  and  are  crushed  into  poverty  and 
slavery  in  all  senses. 

2.  Chained  in  rows  (like  galley  slaves),  oppressed  by  layers  of 
exploiters,  who  are  brought  into  existence  and  defended  by  the 
Government.  The  State  is  the  greatest  capitalistic  force  in  the 
country.  It  is  the  only  political  oppressor  of  the  people.  There  is 
a  complete  absence  of  sanction  by  the  people  of  this  oppressive 
power,  which  forcibly  introduces  and  maintains  political  and  econo- 
mical principles  and  forms  which  have  nothing  in  common  with 
the  wishes  and  ideals  of  the  people. 

3.  Notwithstanding  these  conditions,  there  are  still  alive  among 
the  people  old  traditional  ideas — of  the  right  of  the  people  to  the 
land,  of  communal  and  district  self-government,  of  the  beginnings 
of  federal  organization,  freedom  of  conscience  and  speech.  These 
ideas  would  be  developed  and  would  give  a  wholly  new  direction 
to  the  history  of  Russia,  if  only  the  people  could  live  as  they 
wished. 

4.  Therefore  the  nearest  task  is  to  remove  from  the  people  the 
crushing  weight  of  the  existing  system,  and  to  make  a  political 
revolution  with  the  object  of  giving  the  power  into  the  hands  of  the 
people.  The  results  of  this  revolution  would  be — {a)  that  the  de- 
velopment of  the  people  would  go  on  independently,  in  accordance 
with  its  will,  and  (b)  that  pure  socialist  principles  (common  to  the 


NARODNATA    VOLT  A  119 

Narodnaya  Volya  party  and  to  the  people)  would  be  recognized  and 
supported. 

5.  The  will  of  the  people  would  be  quite  well  expressed  in  a 
Constituent  Assembly,  elected  freely  by  universal  suffrage,  with 
"  instructions "  from  the  electors.  A  Constituent  Assembly  is, 
however,  far  from  an  ideal  institution  for  the  expression  of  the  will 
of  the  people,  but  it  is  the  only  practicable  form  of  such  an  institu- 
tion at  present. 

6.  "  We  therefore  aim  at  the  removal  of  power  from  the  existing 
Government  and  the  transference  of  it  to  a  Constituent  Assembly. 
This  Assembly  would  have  as  its  task  to  survey  all  our  State  and 
social  institutions,  and  to  rebuild  them  according  to  the  instructions 
received  from  the  electors. 

7.  "  While  we  submit  to  the  will  of  the  people,  we  consider  it 
our  duty,  as  a  party,  to  place  our  programme  before  it.  We  shall 
make  it  our  propaganda  before  the  revolution,  we  shall  recommend 
it  throughout  the  period  of  agitation,  we  shall  defend  it  before  the 
Constituent  Assembly." 

8.  The  specific  points  of  the  programme  are  :  {a)  A  gradual 
popular  representation,  with  full  powers  (to  be  enjoyed,  it  is  to 
be  presimied  by  the  representative  assembly)  over  all  affairs  of 
State  ;  (&)  a  large  measure  of  local  autonomy,  secured  by  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  mir  and  the  economical  independence  of  the  people  ; 
(c)  "  the  land  must  belong  to  the  people  "  ;  ^  {d)  the  transference 
to  the  workmen  of  all  mills  and  factories  ;  (e)  complete  freedom  of 
conscience,  speech,  press,  meeting,  associations,  and  election  ;  (/) 
universal  suffrage,  without  any  class  or  property  limitation  ;  (g)  the 
replacement  of  the  standing  army  by  a  territorial  militia. 

9.  The  means  of  realizing  this  programme  are  as  follows  :  (a) 
Propaganda  with  the  general  objects  of  familiarizing  all  classes  of 
the  population  with  the  idea  of  a  democratic  political  revolution  as 
a  means  towards  social  reform,  and  of  popularizing  the  progranune 
of  the  party,  and  with  the  special  aims  of  protesting  continually 
against  the  existing  order,  and  of  demanding  the  convocation  of  a 
Constituent  Assembly  :  the  forms  of  protest  being  meetings,  de- 
monstrations, petitions,  addresses,  and  refusal  to  pay  taxes,  &c.  ; 
(h)   destructive  and  terroristic  activity,   consisting  in  the  exter- 

^  Like  some  other  points  in  the  programme,  this  is  vague.  The  phrase 
might  mean  State,  provincial,  communal,  or  individual  ownership. 


I20     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

mination  of  the  most  prejudicial  persons  in  the  Government,  in 
defending  the  party  against  espionage,  in  punishing  those  who  en- 
gage in  the  most  important  acts  of  violence  on  behalf  of  the  Gov- 
ernment :  the  objects  of  these  activities  is  to  destroy  the  influence 
of  governmental  power,  and  to  give  continuous  evidence  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  struggling  against  it,  and  by  this  means  to  raise  a  revolu- 
tionary spirit  among  the  people ;  (c)  the  organization  of  secret 
societies  and  the  binding  of  them  about  one  centre  ;  (d)  to  acquire 
influential  connections  and  position  in  the  administration,  in  society, 
and  among  the  people  ;  (e)  it  is  necessary  for  the  party  (of  Narodnaya 
Volya)  to  take  the  initiative  in  the  revolution,^  and  not  to  wait 
until  the  people  do  it  without  the  party. 

In  the  separate  issue  of  the  programme  as  a  manifesto  there 
were  added  the  following  points  : 

"  I.  Towards  the  Government,  as  an  enemy,  the  end  justifies 
the  means  ;  we  regard  as  permissible  every  means  leading  towards 
the  end. 

"2.  All  oppositional  elements,  even  although  not  associated 
with  us,  will  find  in  us  help  and  defence. 

"3.  Individuals  and  social  groups  which  are  exterior  to  our 
struggle  are  regarded  as  neutral ;  their  persons  and  property  will 
be  respected. 

**  4.  Individuals  and  social  groups  consciously  and  actively 
helping  the  Government  in  our  struggle  with  it,  are  regarded  as 
conamitting  a  breach  of  neutrality,  and  therefore  as  enemies."  ^ 

These  documents  disclose  sufficiently  the  point  of  view  of  the 
Narodnaya  Volya  ;  there  remains  to  be  noticed  the  personalities 
of  those  who  composed  its  inner  circle,  and  the  more  important  of 
the  terroristic  attempts  in  which  they  engaged. 

The  first  "  Executive  Committee  "  seems  to  have  been  indefi- 
nitely self-appointed  within  the  ranks  of  the  Narodneke,  or  ad- 
herents of  the  V  Narod  movement.^  The  leading  spirit  in  this 
committee  was  Valerian  Osinsky,  whose  first  attempt  at  political 
crime  is  graphically  described  by  Debogoriy-Mokrievich.  "  At 
night,  on  the  23rd  February  1878, 1  was  aroused  by  a  slight  tapping 
at  my  window.     I  found  that  the  tapping  was  by  Valerian,  and 

*  Here  there  apparently  followed  a  specific  plan  which  was  not  published. 

2  Third  edition  of  the  Programme,  15th  August  1881. 

3  See  supra,  p.  1022. 


NARODNAYA    VOLT  A  121 

I  hastened  to  open  the  door.  He  was  accompanied  by  two  com- 
rades. The  night  was  damp  and  cold,  and  I  immediately  returned 
to  bed.  Osinsky  approached  me,  and,  looking  over  his  pince-nez, 
the  glasses  of  which  were  damp,  whispered,  '  Kotlyarevsky  is  killed.' 

*  When  ?  *  I  asked,  feeling  as  if  tar  were  being  poured  upon  me, 
'  Just  now.  We  are  directly  from  there.'  I  pulled  down  the 
curtain  at  the  window,  so  that  the  light  could  not  be  seen  from 
the  street,  and  began  to  inquire  how  it  was  done.  Osinsky  told 
me  that  they  had  overtaken  Kotlyarevsky  near  his  own  house,  and 
that  they  had  fired  upon  him.  After  the  first  shot  he  fell,  with  an 
awful  cry.  They  had  fired  one  or  two  more  shots,  and  had  then 
run  away.  Ivichevich  (one  of  the  comrades  of  Osinsky)  had  pro- 
posed to  make  sure  by  stabbing  Kotlyarevsky,  but  the  others  dis- 
suaded him,  because  it  was  dangerous  to  remain.  *  All  the  same, 
the  affair  is  completed,'  Osinsky  said.  I  sat  up  in  bed  in  silence, 
trying  to  digest  the  fact,  and  I  confess  that  I  could  not  digest  it. 
A  shiver  ran  down  my  spine,  and  a  burdensome  and  awfully  un- 
pleasant feeling  gradually  took  possession  of  me.  *  Are  you  going 
to  spend  the  night  here  ?  '  I  inquired.  '  Necessarily  ;  where  else 
could  we  go  ?    A  terrible  hunt  is  going  on  all  over  the  streets.' 

*  Then  let  us  go  to  bed.  The  light  must  be  put  out.'  Beds  were 
made  on  the  floor,  and  the  three  lay  down.  I  put  out  the  lamp, 
and  the  room  became  dark.  For  a  certain  time  I  lay  in  silence, 
then  I  asked  Osinsky  by  what  streets  they  had  escaped.  When 
he  had  replied,  I  said,  *  Very  well,  let  us  sleep.'  '  But  we  cannot 
sleep.'  My  nerves  were  agitated  ;  my  hands  and  feet  became 
cold.  I  listened  intently  in  the  calmness  of  the  night,  but  every- 
thing was  still.  After  a  time  there  came  suddenly  from  a  distance 
a  continuous  noise.  *  They  are  beating  the  alarm.'  Whenever 
the  idea  entered  into  my  mind,  I  felt  a  new  wave  of  impleasant 
feeling,  never  before  experienced  by  me,  and  involuntarily  I  rose 
slightly  in  order  to  bear  it.  It  is  difficult  to  define  of  what  sort 
was  this  feeling.  There  was  fear — fear  not  merely  of  responsi- 
bility and  of  punishment,  but,  so  to  say,  of  the  very  fact,  as  well 
as  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  with  this  fact.  I  realized  that  for 
Osinsky  this  was  his  own  immediate  affair,  but  for  me  it  was  strange. 

*  Valerian  !  do  you  hear  ?  '  I  whispered.  '  Yes  !  '  as  if  the  drum- 
beats had  revived  him.  We  fell  into  silence.  '  Which  of  you  is 
snoring  so  noisily  ?  '  I  asked.     *  It  is  Ivan  '  (Ivichevich),  answered 


122     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

Osinsky.  '  They  are  both  sleeping.'  I  also  began  to  slumber, 
but  I  heard  Osinsky  turning  on  the  floor  and  coughing  quietly. 
Next  day  it  came  out  that  Kotlyarevsky  was  not  only  not 
killed,  but  was  not  even  wounded.  His  thick  fur  coat  had 
saved  him."  ^ 

Although  this  passage  from  real  life  ends  in  the  spirit  of  comedy, 
it  is  most  stimulating  to  the  imagination  and  pregnant  with  sug- 
gestion of  the  psychology  of  the  NarodovoHsi. 

The  change  of  attitude  which  had  been  in  progress  among  the 
Narodneke  in  South  Russia  during  1878  had  its  counterpart  among 
the  Narodneke  of  St.  Petersburg.  On  4th  August  in  that  year 
General  Mezentsev,  chief  of  the  Third  Section,  was  killed  by  Sergey 

1  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit.,  pp.  329-31.  Valerian  Osinsky  (1853- 
1879)  was  the  son  of  a  landowner  near  Taganrog.  His  father,  who  had  been 
an  engineer  in  the  service  of  the  Government,  was  a  man  of  liberal  tendencies, 
who,  becoming  dejected  and  embittered,  partly  through  defects  in  his  own 
character,  and  partly  through  the  unfavourable  social  conditions  in  which 
he  felt  himself  involved,  gave  way  to  drink,  and  ill-treated  his  family.  Young 
Osinsky,  otherwise  unhappy  in  his  home  life,  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  a 
good  library,  although  his  education  was  miscellaneous  rather  than 
systematic.  At  an  early  age  he  was  influenced  by  the  writings  of  Dobrolubov, 
Pisarev,  and  Turgueniev,  and  of  other  writers  of  the  sixties.  After  studying 
at  the  Institute  of  Ways  of  Communication  in  St.  Petersburg,  he  entered 
into  the  service  of  the  Landvarovo-Romensky  Railway,  which  was  then  under 
construction.  The  period  was  a  bad  one.  Corruption  on  the  part  of  officials 
and  contractors  was  rampant,  and  the  exploitation  of  the  labourers,  usual  in 
such  cases,  was  none  the  less  that  traditions  of  bondage  relations  still  re- 
mained, and  that  there  was  a  great  surplus  of  labour  (c/.  p.  362).  The  conditions 
of  the  labourers  affected  Osinsky  profoundly.  At  that  moment  the  hopes  of 
social  reform  were  concentrated  upon  the  Zemstvos,  and  Osinsky  returned  to 
St.  Petersburg  determined  to  study  social  science  in  order  that  he  might 
be  able  to  take  some  share  in  Zemstvo  administration.  After  three  years  of 
such  studies  he  became  a  clerk  in  the  Rostov  Zemstvo  bureau.  Here  also  he 
was  disappointed.  He  found  the  Zemstvo  controlled  by  people  who  did  not 
desire  any  change  in  the  existing  system.  Reflecting  that  this  inertia  was 
reproduced  in  the  higher  spheres  of  State  administration,  his  mind  was  pre- 
pared for  the  admission  of  extreme  views.  While  he  was  under  the  influence 
of  disappointed  enthusiasm  he  became  acquainted  with  the  ideas  of  Lavrov  (c/. 
p.  10 1  ff.),  and  joined  a  "  circle  "  devoted  to  his  views.  But  even  here  he  was 
disappointed.  The  propaganda  of  Lavrov  was  too  mild  and  too  slow.  In 
1875,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  he  joined  the  V  Narod  party,  and  in  1877, 
and  1878  gradually  drifted  to  the  extreme  wing  of  that  party,  becoming 
eventually  one  of  the  NarodovoHsi.  He  exercised  a  considerable  influence 
over  his  contemporaries  in  that  group,  and  came  to  be  known  as  "  the 
empirical  creator  of  terrorism."  He  was  arrested  in  May  1879,  and  accused 
of  forming  a  secret  society,  having  for  its  object  the  overthrowal  of  the 
State.  When  asked  to  what  class  and  profession  he  belonged,  Osinsky 
boldly  announced  himself  as  a  social  revolutionary.  He  was  found  guilty 
by  the  military  court  before  which  he  was  brought,  and  was  hanged  on 
iSth  May  1879.     See  Narodnaya  Volya,  No.  2  ;  Literature,  Sec,  p.  101-16. 


» 


NARODNATA    VOLT  A  123 

Kravchinsky,^  who  immediately  drove  off  in  a  carriage  and  escaped. 
One  of  the  consequences  of  this  act  was  the  promulgation  of  an 
ukase  which  transferred  cases  of  political  murder  and  attempts  at 
murder  from  the  ordinary  criminal  courts  to  courts  martial .  Further 
assassinations  and  attempted  assassinations  of  high  personages 
followed  at  intervals  throughout  1879.  On  9th  February  1879 
Prince  Dmitri  N.  Kropotkin,  Governor-General  of  Kharkov,  was 
assassinated  by  Goldenberg.  On  12th  March  the  successor  of 
General  Mezentsev,  General  Drenteln,  was  killed  by  Mirsky.  On 
2nd  April  Soloviev  fired  five  shots  at  the  Tsar  Alexander  II  without 
wounding  him.  The  Government  now  took  fresh  measures.  The 
whole  country  was  divided  into  six  general  governorships,  and 
systematic  attempts  were  made  everywhere  to  hunt  down  the 
revolutionaries  ;  but  these  strenuous  measures  seemed  to  serve  only 
to  increase  their  numbers  and  their  boldness.  From  17th  June  to 
2ist  June  1879  what  was  called  a  congress  was  held  at  Lipetsk.^  To 
this  meeting  there  came  leading  members  of  the  Zemlyae  Volya 
party,  as  well  as  Narodneke  of  many  shades  of  opinion.  It  was  de- 
cided to  meet  shortly  at  Voronej  with  a  worked-out  plan  of  action.' 
The  outcome  of  the  Lipetsk- Voronej  meeting  was  the  election 
of  a  terrorist  committee  composed  of  Tikhomirov,*  Frolenko,  and 
Alexander  Mikhaelov.^    But  the  chief  advocate  of  terrorism  at 

^  Better  known  as  Sergius  Stepniak.    Cf.  supra,  p.  1 10.     '  See  supra,  p.  1 1 1. 

'  A.  Tun,  History  of  the  Revolutionary  Movement  in  Russia  (Paris,  1904), 
p.  198. 

*  Tikhomirov,  who  took  at  this  time  so  leading  a  part  in  the  terrorist 
camp,  afterwards  recanted,  became  an  official,  and  afterwards  became  editor 
of  the  Moscow  Gazette. 

^  Alexander  Mikhaelov  was  bom  in  1855  or  1856  at  Putivl,  in  Kurskaya 
guh.  His  father  was  a  land  surveyor.  Like  many  others  who  became 
conspicuous  in  the  revolutionary  movement,  he  began  his  career  as  an 
agitator  while  he  was  a  schoolboy.  He  organized  a  "  self -education  "  circle 
and  a  secret  library  in  the  Gymnasium  of  Putivl.  and  there  also  led  a  revolt 
against  his  teachers,  and  engaged  actively  in  spreading  popular  pamphlets 
among  the  people.  These  activities  interfered  so  much  with  his  studies 
that  he  was  obliged  to  leave  the  classical  course  at  the  Gymnasium  and  to 
enter  a  Real  Schule  in  another  town.  In  1875  he  entered  the  Technological 
Institute  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  immediately  began  to  organize  "  self- 
education  "  groups  in  that  institution.  In  a  short  time  he  had  succeeded 
in  forming  a  students'  society,  with  branches  in  various  universities.  Again 
his  activities  resulted  in  neglect  of  his  studies,  and  in  a  few  months  he  was 
rusticated.  He  spent  the  winter  of  1 875-1 876  in  an  "Odyssey"  over  all 
Russia.  In  the  first  instance  he  went  to  Kiev,  where  he  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  revolutionary  groups  then  concentrated  there.  Among  them  he 
found  propagandists,  rioters  (buntari),  and  Jacobins,  the  groups  in  which  the 


124     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

the  Voronej  meeting  was  Andrey  Jelyabov/  who  startled  the  older 
and  more  moderate  Narodneke  by  his  advocacy  of  what  appeared 
to  them  to  be  purely  political  terrorism.  Jelyabov's  appearance, 
indeed,  almost  resulted  in  the  fruitless  dissolution  of  the  meeting. 
In  the  end  a  compromise  was  effected.     The  programme  remained 

revolutionary  party  was  at  that  time  divided.  But  the  division  of  the 
oppositional  forces  disappointed  him.  He  saw  in  it  the  impossibility  of 
creating  a  great  All-Russian  movement.  In  Kiev  there  were  only  generals 
and  officers  ;  there  were  no  rank  and  file  wherewith  to  form  an  effective 
force.  In  tlie  summer  of  1876  he  returned  to  St.  Petersburg  and  frequented 
the  "  communes  "  (obtschina)  or  meetings  of  students.  He  also  became 
acquainted  with  the  then  newly  founded  society  of  the  "  Troglodites,"  which 
afterwards  became  the  Zemlya  e  Volya  (Land  and  Liberty).  In  the 
spring  of  1877  he  joined  the  stream  of  Narodneke,  and  went  "into  the 
people."  Mikhaelov,  with  Olga  Natanson  and  other  members  of  the  central 
group,  went  to  Saratov.  Mikhaelov  established  himself  at  the  house  of  a 
dissenting  sectarian  {raskolnik),  and  undertook  the  study  of  the  Scriptures 
and  of  the  dogmas  of  the  sect  for  the  purpose  of  becoming  a  sectarian 
teacher.  At  that  time  and  for  long  after  many  revolutionaries  entertained 
the  idea  that  sectarianism  offered  a  favourable  field  for  revolutionary  pro- 
paganda, because  the  sectarians  were  traditionally  opposed  to  Orthodoxy,  and 
therefore  to  the  Government.  (Stepniak  went  so  far  as  to  think,  as  he  told 
the  writer,  that  the  revolution  might  be  brought  about  through  the  growth 
of  religious  dissent.)  This  anticipation  was,  however,  not  realised.  Saratov 
became  the  scene  of  a  police  battue,  and  Mikhaelov  went  to  St.  Petersburg, 
where  he  became  the  leading  spirit  in  the  Zemlya  e  Volya  (Tun,  op.  cit., 
pp.  145-7).  In  April  and  May  1878,  in  discussions  upon  party  organisation, 
Mikhaelov  urged  a  complete  change  involving  high  centralisation  and  sub- 
mission of  the  local  groups  to  the  central  committee.  On  15th  September 
1878  nearly  all  the  members  of  the  Zemlya  e  Volya  were  arrested.  Of 
fifty  or  sixty  members,  only  five  or  six  remained  at  liberty.  But  among 
these  was  Mikhaelov.  With  characteristic  energy  he  set  himself  to  re- 
habilitate the  party.  "  He  collected  money,  fabricated  passports,  and 
established  connections,"  so  that  the  Zemlya  e  Volya  not  only  did  not 
fall  to  pieces  but  continued  (its  underground  printing  office  having  been 
saved)  to  issue  its  organ  regularly.  Mikhaelov  himself  was  everywhere. 
He  lived  like  "  a  Red  Indian  on  the  war-path  "  (Tun,  op.  cit.,  p.  254).  He 
thought  of  everything  and  for  everybody.  He  knew  every  one  of  the  spies, 
and  spied  upon  them.  "  Russians  are  not,  as  a  rule,  good  conspirators  ; 
Sophie  Perovskaya  and  Mikhaelov  were  rare  exceptions  "  (Stepniak,  Under- 
ground Russia  (London  Russian  edition,  1893),  p.  166).  Eventually 
Mikhaelov  was  captured  by  the  police.  He  was  one  of  the  twenty-two  who 
were  prosecuted  on  9th  February  1882,  and  with  nine  others  he  was  sentenced 
to  death.  His  sentence  was,  however,  commuted.  In  his  speech  before  the 
court  he  admitted  that  he  was  a  member  of  a  revolutionary  organization. 
"  The  struggle,"  he  said,  "  has  made  us  personal  enemies  of  His  Majesty  the 
Emperor  "  {Literature  of  Soc.-Rev.  Party,  N.-V.,  p.  589). 

^  Andrey  Jelyibov  (i 850-1 881)  was  bom  in  the  Crimea.  His  parents 
were  dvorovie  lyude  (domestic  serfs).  Among  his  first  impressions  were  the 
flogging  of  his  uncle  and  the  dishonouring  of  his  aunt.  His  grandfather,  a 
raskolnik  (dissenting  sectarian)  taught  him  the  Old  Slavonic  or  ecclesiastical 
alphabet  and  obliged  him  to  commit  the  Psalter  to  memory.  The  pomyet- 
schek  (landowner)  to  whom  his  family  belonged  was  attracted  by  the  boy. 


NARODNATA    VOLT  A  125 

unchanged;  but  it  was  agreed  that  the  activity  of  the  struggle 
against  the  Government  should  be  increased,  and  that  in  the  event 
of  the  infliction  of  capital  punishment  for  propaganda,  "  the  tyrant 
should  be  punished  also."  ^ 

The  Executive  Committee,  which  was  composed  of  terrorists 

and  taught  him  the  modem  Russian  or  civil  alphabet,  and  afterwards  sent 
him  to  school,  where  he  distinguished  himself  alike  for  his  industry  and  for 
his  bad  conduct.  He  entered  the  University  in  1868,  and  soon  became  a 
leader  in  a  demonstration  against  a  professor.  For  this  he  was  expelled. 
He  was  permitted  to  return  ;  but  again,  for  a  similar  offence,  he  had  to 
submit  to  expulsion.  After  he  left  the  University,  he  became  an  adherent 
of  Nechdiev  (cf.  supra,  p.  75).  In  1 872-1 873  he  came  to  be  associated 
with  the  less  aggressive  "  circle  "  of  Tchaikovsky  (cf.  pp.  75-76).  Under 
the  influence  of  the  V  Narod  movement,  he  went  "into  the  people" 
and  sold  cucumbers  in  the  market.  But  work  of  this  kind  was  un- 
suited  to  his  passionate  and  eager  disposition.  Rapid  and  even  dangerous 
movement  was  necessary  for  him.  He  was  always  ready  for  an  exploit  which 
involved  unusual  risk.  Between  1873  and  1877,  however,  he  lived  for  the 
most  part  in  his  native  village,  married,  and  worked  as  a  peasant,  but 
nevertheless  engaged  in  propaganda.  He  was  a  man  of  powerful  physique  ; 
and  notwithstanding  his  education,  fragmentary  as  it  was,  he  exhibited  in 
his  character  many  peasant  traits.  When  the  prosecution  of  the  193  took 
place  in  1877  {cf.  p.  106)  he  was  among  the  accused.  After  undergoing 
imprisonment  for  seven  months  in  St.  Petersburg,  he  was  released.  This 
experience  made  him  more  bitterly  hostile  towards  the  Government  than 
he  had  been  formerly.  Up  till  this  period,  save  for  his  brief  connection  with 
the  conspiracy  of  Nechdiev,  he  had  allied  himself  with  the  more  moderate 
groups  of  the  revolutionary  party.  Now  he  threw  himself  into  the  active 
wing.  He  had  made  himself  conspicuous  at  the  meetings  at  Lipetsk  and  at 
Voronej.  In  the  autumn  of  1879  he  laid  the  mine  at  Aleksandrovsk,  which 
on  19th  November  1879  was  intended  to  destroy  the  train  by  which 
Alexander  II  was  travelling.  The  attempt  was  a  failure,  and  Jely^bov  went 
immediately  to  St.  Petersburg,  where  he  was  placed  by  the  committee, 
in  charge  of  the  preparation  of  dynamite.  He  organized  the  plan  for  the 
assassination  of  Alexander  II  ;  but  was  arrested  on  27th  February  1881. 
two  days  before  the  assassination  took  place.  He  is  reported  to  have  heard 
in  the  cell  in  which  he  was  confined  the  explosions  on  the  Katherine  Canal, 
wliich  told  of  the  carrying  out  of  his  design.  Jelyibov  was  executed,  along 
with  those  who  had  actually  accomplished  the  deed.  Jelydbov  seems  in 
some  fashion  to  have  modelled  himself  upon  Taras  Bulba,  the  Cossack  leader 
immortahzed  by  Gogol.  He  hated  the  principle  of  despotism — the  uncon- 
trolled power  of  one  person — and  he  entertained  the  belief  that  in  liberating 
the  peasants  the  Tsar  had  merely  the  intention  to  increase  the  power  of  the 
Government,  and  to  increase  its  income  by  means  of  the  exploitation  of  the 
peasants,  while  at  the  same  time  the  rising  power  of  the  nobles  was  curtailed. 
Muraviev  the  public  prosecutor  at  Jelyabov's  trial  characterized  him  as  "  a 
typical  conspirator  in  his  gesticulations,  mimicry,  movements,  speeches,  and 
theatrical  effects.  That  he  has  cleverness,  talents,  and  acuteness  cannot  be 
denied."  Stepniak  makes  Jelyibov,  under  the  name  of  Andrey  Kojukhov, 
the  hero  of  his  remarkable  novel.  The  Career  of  a  Nihilist  (London,  1889). 
For  Jelyabov's  career,  see  A.  Tun,  History  of  the  Revolutionary  Movement  in 
Russia  [Paris  ?],  1904  ;  and  Debogoriy-Mokrievich,  op.  cit. 
*  A.  Tun.  op.  cit.,  p.  199. 


126  ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

drawn  from  various  groups,  was  organized  in  three  sections,  accord- 
ing to  the  degree  of  confidence.^  Jely^bov,  for  example,  was  of 
the  inner  circle.  The  members  of  this  circle  selected  their  agents 
and  devised  the  methods  of  attack.^  The  committee  entered  upon 
its  terroristic  programme  at  once.  During  the  summer  elaborate 
preparations  for  the  destruction  of  the  imperial  train  which  was  to 
convey  the  Tsar  from  the  Crimea  to  St.  Petersburg  were  made. 
Three  mines  were  laid — one  at  Aleksandrovsk,  a  second  at  Moscow, 
and  a  third  at  Odessa,  in  case  the  Tsar  made  a  detour  by  that  city. 
The  chief  mine  was  at  Aleksandrovsk,  where  it  was  intended  to 
throw  the  imperial  train  into  a  ravine.  In  October  1879  Jelyabov 
purchased  a  piece  of  land  adjoining  the  railway  at  Aleksandrovsk, 
ostensibly  for  a  leather  factory.  From  this  land  two  mines  were 
driven  beneath  the  railway  line.^  The  train  passed  on  the  19th 
November,  but  owing  to  some  defect  in  the  mechanism  the  antici- 
pated explosion  did  not  take  place. 

At  the  same  time  two  revolutionists,  Hartmann^^  and  Sophie 
Perovskaya,^  took  a  house  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Moscow  and 
pretended  to  carry  on  trade.     The  house  was  otherwise  occupied 

^  This  was  the  account  given  by  Goldenberg,  who  assassinated  Prince 
D.  N.  Kropotkin  ;  his  statement  was  objected  to  by  Mikhaelov.  Cf.  Tun, 
op.  cit.,  p.  208. 

*  Their  secrets  were  well  guarded.  None  of  the  attempts  upon  Alexander 
II  were  betrayed  to  the  police.     Cf.  Tun,  op.  cit.,  p.  208. 

^  Tun,  op.  cit.,  p.  210. 

*  Hartmann  was  the  son  of  a  German  colonist  at  Archangel.  He  became 
a  village  clerk  near  Saratov.  Because  of  his  knowledge  of  chemistry  he  was 
enlisted  in  the  Moscow  affair.  He  escaped  to  the  United  States,  and  after- 
wards went  to  England,  where  he  was  employed  as  an  electrical  engineer. 

^  Sophie  Perovskaya  (i  854-1 881)  belonged  to  the  higher  aristocracy.  Her 
grandfather,  Leo  Perovsky,  was  Minister  of  Interior  ^cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  369.) ; 
her  father  was  the  Governor  of  Pskov  ;  her  uncle  won  some  of  the  Central  Asiatic 
provinces  for  the  Tsar.  The  family  of  Perovsky  was  the  younger  branch  of 
that  of  Razumovsky,  which  owed  its  origin  to  a  morganatic  union  of  the  Em- 
press Elizabeth.  Sophie  Perovskaya,  like  many  other  Russian  revolutionaries, 
suffered  in  her  early  years  from  parental  neglect  and  tyranny.  She  was  not 
taught  to  read  until  she  was  eight  years  of  age,  and  her  education  was  assumed 
to  be  finished  when  she  was  fourteen.  She  began,  however,  to  read  serious 
books  on  her  own  account,  and  when  the  family  removed  to  St.  Petersburg 
from  the  Crimea,  where  they  had  been  residing,  she  went  to  the  Gymnasium, 
where  she  became  acquainted  with  several  girls  who  afterwards  entered  the 
ranks  of  the  revolution.  Her  father  objected  to  such  friendships,  and  at  the 
age  of  sixteen  she  left  her  home,  and  soon  afterwards  joined  the  Tchaikovsky 
circle,  going  "to  the  people"  in  the  V  Narod  movement.  She  prepared 
herself  to  become  a  village  teacher,  and  went  from  village  to  village  in 
Tverskaya  gub.,  and  elsewhere,  sometimes  suffering  great  privations.  In 
November  1873  she  was  arrested,  but  was  liberated  on  a  bail  of  5000  rubles. 


NARODNATA    VOLT  A  127 

by  a  number  of  men  who  made  the  excavation.  On  the  19th 
November  the  mine  was  exploded  at  a  signal  from  Sophie  Perov- 
skaya ;  but  the  train  that  was  blown  up  was  not  the  imperial  train, 
which  passed  safely  to  St.  Petersburg.  The  perpetrators  of  both 
of  the  attempts  escaped. 

Undismayed  by  these  failures,  the  terrorists  organized  more 
definitely  than  formerly  the  Narodnaya  Volya  party,  and  proceeded 
to  the  execution  of  a  still  more  elaborate  and  bold  design,  the 
preliminary  stages  of  which  had  previously  been  in  progress  in 
case  the  attempts  on  the  railway  line  should  fail.  This  design 
consisted  in  the  blowing  up  of  the  imperial  family  in  their  own 
palace.  Its  accomplishment  was  entrusted  to  Stepan  Khalturin.^ 
Khalturin  had  organized  the  North  Russian  Labour  Union,*  and 
had  published  a  newspaper  as  its  organ.  His  printing-office  was 
visited  by  the  police,  and  his  work  appeared  to  be  destroyed.  He 
seems  then  to  have  conceived  the  idea  of  putting  an  end  to  the 
life  of  the  Tsar.  Khalturin's  trade  was  that  of  a  vamisher,  and 
he  was  a  workman  of  unusual  skill.  He  therefore  readily  obtained 
employment  in  the  Winter  Palace.  In  October  1879,  during  the 
absence  of  the  imperial  family  at  their  palace  of  Livadia  in  the 

She  then  decided  to  be  a  nurse.  After  having  taken  a  course  in  nursing  at 
Simferopol  she  associated  herself  once  more  with  the  V  Narod  groups. 
She  was  one  of  the  193,  but  was  released,  and  was  sent  into  "  administrative 
exile  "  in  Olonetskaya  guh.  She  escaped  from  her  station,  and  returned  to 
St.  Petersburg  in  1878.  There  she  joined  Zemlya  e  Volya.  At  Voronej 
she  agreed  with  both  parties,  urged  the  continuance  of  agitation  among  the 
people,  and  at  the  same  time  urged  the  assassination  of  the  Tsar,  arguing 
that  the  latter  occurrence  would  pass  unnoticed  unless  the  agitation  among 
the  people  were  continued.  Yet  she  did  not  join  either  the  Chorno  Pered- 
yeltsi  or  the  terrorists,  although  she  helped  both.  Her  share  in  the  explosion 
near  Moscow  (19th  November  1879)  is  described  in  the  text.  After  this  event 
she  returned  to  St.  Petersburg  and  offered  to  join  the  Chorno  Peredyeltsi 
if  they  would  consent  to  organize  a  large  movement  among  the  people. 
They  declined,  and  she  said,  "  Then  I  have  only  to  join  the  Narodnaya 
Volya!"  On  ist  March  1881,  she  gave  the  signal  for  the  assassination  of 
Alexander  II.  She  was  not  arrested  at  the  time,  and  up  till  the  moment  of 
her  arrest  on  loth  March  she  probably  might  have  escaped  abroad.  But 
she  did  not  seek  to  do  so,  either  from  fatalism  or  from  love  of  Jelydbov,  who 
had  already  been  arrested  before  the  attempt  took  place.  Sophie  Perovskaya 
was  hanged  on  3rd  April  1881. 

^  Stepdn  Khaltunn,  one  of  the  organizers  of  the  North  Russian  Working 
Men's  Union,  was  himself  a  working  man.  Patient,  obedient,  and  resourceful, 
he  seems  to  have  carried  out  the  plan  of  Jelydbov.  An  unknown  revolu- 
tionist was  hanged  in  Odessa  on  22nd  March  1882.  He  was  afterwards 
discovered  to  be  Khalturin  (Literature  of  the  Soc.-Rev.  Party,  N.-V.,  p.  610). 

»  Cf.  supra,  p.  113. 


128     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Crimea,  Khaltiirin  had  opportunities  of  examining  the  imperial 
apartments.  He  discovered  that  the  private  dining-room  was 
above  the  carpenters'  workshop,  although  separated  from  it  by 
one  floor,  the  intervening  room  being  occupied  by  the  guard. 
Kvyatkovsky,  one  of  the  members  of  the  Executive  Committee, 
who  maintained  communications  with  Khalturin,  was  arrested. 
A  plan  of  the  Winter  Palace,  with  the  dining-room  marked  with  a 
cross,  was  found  in  his  possession.  This  circumstance  led  to  searches 
in  the  basement  of  the  palace.  A  gendarme  was  posted  in  the 
carpenters'  workshop,  and  the  guards  were  warned  to  be  careful. 
These  precautions  delayed,  but  did  not  prevent  Khalturin's  pro- 
ceedings. The  dynamite  had  to  be  brought  into  the  palace  in 
very  small  quantities.  Khalturin  stored  it  under  his  pillow.^ 
Meanwhile  he  continued  with  his  varnishing  work,  with  so  great 
satisfaction  to  the  authorities  of  the  palace  that  he  received  a 
present  of  a  hundred  rubles.  Otherwise  he  was  not  idle.  He  came 
to  be  on  very  friendly  terms  with  the  guard,  and  the  gendarme  on 
duty  in  the  carpenters*  workshop  even  wanted  him  to  marry  his 
daughter.  Khalturin  is  said  to  have  felt  that  in  any  case  many 
lives  would  have  to  be  sacrificed,  and  therefore  he  wanted  to  have 
at  his  disposal  as  much  dynamite  as  possible,  in  order  to  make  sure 
of  the  death  of  the  chief  victim.  Jelyabov  is  said  to  have  insisted 
upon  haste,  and,  moreover,  the  risk  of  discovery  became  greater 
every  day.  The  guard  was  stronger  and  more  careful.  The 
dynamite  cartridges  were  put  in  the  corner  of  the  main  wall  of  the 
palace  beneath  the  dining-room  on  5th  February  1880,  and  shortly 
after  the  hour  of  dinner  the  fuse  was  fired.  The  explosion  com- 
mitted tremendous  havoc  —  ten  people  were  killed  and  fifty- 
three  were  injured ;  but  the  Tsar  escaped.  He  had  been  late 
for  dinner,  having  waited  for  the  arrival  of  a  high  personage. 
Khalturin  also  escaped  into  the  palace  yard  before  the  explosion 
took  place.2 

Meanwhile,  the  Government  had  been  endeavouring  to  cope 
with  the  forces  of  the  revolution  by  the  employment  of  spies,  and 
by  frequent  wholesale  arrests  of  persons  who  were  betrayed  or  who 
were  suspected  of  having  revolutionary  literature  in  their  posses- 

^  Khalturin  is  reported  to  have  suffered  from  headaches  in  consequence 
of  evaporation  from  the  nitro -glycerine  cartridges. 
2  Tun,  op.  cit.,  pp.  212-4. 


NARODNATA   FOLTA  129 

sion.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were  endeavouring  to  counteract 
the  influence  of  the  V  Narod  movement  amongst  the  peasantry 
by  contradicting  the  rumours  of  a  redistribution  of  the  land,  which 
had  obtained  currency  among  the  peasants.  The  circular^  of 
Makov,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  was  issued  with  this  intention. 
Referring  to  the  rumours,  the  Minister  says  that,  on  the  instruc- 
tions of  his  Imperial  Majesty,  he  has  to  announce  that  "  neither 
now,  nor  at  any  future  time,  will  any  additional  amount  of  land 
be  added  to  peasant  lots.  Under  our  laws  upon  the  right  of  owner- 
ship, such  an  injustice  as  the  taking  of  land  from  its  lawful  owner 
and  transferring  it  to  another  cannot  be  permitted.  The  peasants 
themselves  own  the  land  given  to  them  under  the  Act  of  19th 
February  1861.  Such  being  the  case,  according  to  law,  they  are 
peacefully  profiting  by  their  lots,  and  they  have  the  right  to  obtain 
more  land  from  other  owners  on  terms  voluntarily  agreed  upon 
with  them.  By  this  means  the  laws  leave  everyone  his  own,  and 
do  not  permit  the  appropriation  of  the  things  of  others.  Thus  the 
peace  of  the  State  is  secured.  The  false  rumours  about  the  re- 
partition of  the  land,  and  about  the  distribution  of  supplementary 
lots  for  the  benefit  of  the  peasants,  are  disseminated  in  the  villages 
by  evil-intentioned  persons  whose  interest  lies  in  the  agitation  of 
the  people  and  in  the  disturbance  of  the  social  peace.  Unfor- 
tunately these  rumours  are  frequently  believed  by  simple-minded 
people  who  propagate  them,  not  suspecting  their  falsity  and  not 
thinking  of  the  misfortunes  into  which  they  might  themselves 
fall,  dragging  others  with  them.  In  accordance  with  the  will  of 
the  Emperor,  I  therefore  warn  the  inhabitants  of  villages  against 
these  insidiously  inspired  rumours,  and  I  impose  upon  all  village, 
volost,  and  police  officials  the  duty  to  observe  vigilantly  the  ap- 
pearance of  evil-minded  newsmongers,  and  to  explain  and  prevent 
from  spreading  these  injiuious  devices." 

The  wisdom  of  the  issue  of  such  a  circular  is,  from  any  point 
of  view,  extremely  doubtful.  It  increased  rather  than  allayed  the 
unrest  among  the  peasants,  whose  demands  for  more  land  were 
becoming  urgent,  and  it  gave  into  the  hands  of  the  Narodneke  fresh 
material  for  agitation. 

The  explosion  at  the  Winter  Palace  led  immediately  to  a  change 
in  general  policy  on  the  part  of  the  Government.     In  the  weeks 

1  Dated  i6th  July  1879. 
VOL.  II  I 


I30     ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

immediately  following  the  gth  February  1880,  Count  L6ris  M^lik6v  ^ 
was  appointed  to  a  practical  dictatorship,  and  Count  Pahlen  and 
Count  Dmitri  Tolstoy  were  dismissed.  It  seemed  to  be  necessary 
to  provide  a  lightning  conductor  to  draw  from  the  Tsar  the  revolu- 
tionary electrical  discharge.  In  spite  of  their  repeated  failures  to 
accomplish  what  they  aimed  at,  the  revolutionists  had  contributed 
to  bring  about  a  decided  change  in  the  political  situation.  In  the 
'*  higher  spheres  "  people  began  to  talk  about  a  National  Assembly. 
In  spite  of  the  formal  maintenance  of  the  self-existent  autocracy, 
efforts  were  made  to  raUy  important  elements  of  society  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  throne.  Counsel  was  sought  of  the  leading  people  in 
St.  Petersburg,  interviews  were  given  to  journalists,  and  above  all, 
rumours  were  set  afloat  of  the  approaching  dissolution  of  the  cele- 
brated Third  Section — the  political  police.^  L6ris  Melikov  had  the 
general  reputation  of  being  a  Liberal,  and  those  who  believed  in  the 
desirability  of  a  National  Assembly  began  to  build  their  hopes  upon 
him.  During  the  period  of  revolutionary  quiescence  after  the  Winter 
Palace  explosion,  there  were  no  attempts  upon  the  life  of  the  Tsar. 
M^likov's  dictatorship  in  effect  ceased,  and  he  became  simply  Min- 
ister of  the  Interior.  Melikov  had  prepared  a  constitutional  scheme, 
but  the  Tsar  vacillated  and  hesitated.  He  proposed  to  leave  it  to  his 
successor,  in  order  that  a  constitution  might  be  his  gift  to  the  Rus- 
sian people.  In  February  1881  an  attempt  was  made  upon  the  life 
of  Melikov,^  and  at  the  same  time  Melikov  intimated  to  the  Tsar 
that  preparations  were  being  made  by  the  Executive  Committee 
for  another  attempt  upon  his  life.  Alexander  then  decided  that  an 
Assembly  should  be  convoked,  which  should  comprise  delegates  from 
the  provinces.  He  is  said  to  have  called  it  Assemblee  des  Notables, 
under  the  influence  of  the  idea  which  seems  to  have  possessed  him, 
that  his  fate  would  be  the  same  as  that  of  Louis  XVI.*  The  scheme 
was  prepared,  and  after  some  hesitation  and  "  a  final  warning  " 
from  Loris  Melikov,  the  Tsar  on  the  morning  of  Sunday,  ist  March 
1881,  ordered  it  to  be  placed  before  the  Council  of  State.  M61ik6v 
endeavoured  to  persuade  the  Tsar  not  to  go  into  the  streets  of  St. 

^  L6ris  Melik6v  was  of  Armenian  extraction.  He  had  been  chief  of 
Tyerskaya  Oblast  and  Governor  of  Kharkovskaya  gub.  Although  his  adminis- 
tration in  these  posts  had  not  been  without  severity,  he  was  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  of  liberal  tendencies. 

2  Cf.  infra,  p.  573- 

3  By  Molodetsky,  who  was  hanged  for  the  attempt  on  22nd  February  1881. 
*  Kropotkin,  Memoirs,  p.  431. 


NARODNATA    VOLTA  131 

Petersburg  on  that  day,  his  agents  having  warned  him  of  the  prob- 
ability of  an  attempt  upon  his  life  ;  ^  but  the  Tsar  desired  to  visit 
his  cousin,  the  Grand  Duchess  Catherine  (daughter  of  Elena  Pav- 
lovna,  the  advocate  of  emancipation)  .2  He  went,  and  on  his  way 
back  to  the  palace  he  met  his  fate.  A  bomb  thrown  under  his  iron- 
clad carriage  injured  it,  and  killed  several  of  his  Circassian  escort. 
The  Tsar,  who  possessed  the  traditional  courage  of  the  Romanovs, 
alighted  from  the  carriage,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  coachman, 
and  approached  the  wounded  Circassians.  He  even  spoke  to  Rysa- 
kov,  the  youth  who  had  thrown  the  bomb.  He  passed  another  of 
the  conspirators,  Grenevetsky,  who  threw  another  bomb.  So  close 
was  the  Tsar  to  his  assassin  that  the  bomb  killed  both.  According 
to  Prince  Kropotkin,  the  guards  whose  duty  it  was  to  attend  the 
Tsar,  and  who  had  survived  the  first  explosion,  had  disappeared 
before  the  second  bomb  was  thrown.  The  Tsar  was  raised  from  the 
snow  by  cadets  from  the  School  of  Pages,  was  placed  by  them  in  a 
sleigh,  covered  with  the  cloak  and  cap  of  one  of  them,  and  conveyed 
to  the  Palace.^  He  died  in  the  afternoon.  Had  the  Tsar  escaped 
the  bombs  which  killed  him  and  his  escort,  it  is  known  that  there  were 
others  in  the  hands  of  several  revolutionaries  who  were  near  the 
spot  where  he  fell.  Moreover,  Little  Sadovaya  and  the  bridge  over 
the  canal  were  both  mined.  JelysLbov  had  laid  his  plans  with  skill 
and  the  Executive  Committee  had  accomplished  its  design. 

After  the  assassination  of  Alexander  II  the  numerically  insig- 
nificant forces  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya  were  depleted  by  arrests, 
followed  by  imprisonments  and  executions.  Those  who  were 
immediately  executed  on  account  of  their  participation  in  the  con- 
spiracy for  the  assassination  of  the  Tsar  were :  Jely^bov,^  Sophie 
Perovskaya,^  Kebalchech,*  Timothy  Mikhaelov,  and  Nikolai  Rysa- 

^  JelyAbov,  the  organizer  of  the  attempt,  had  been  arrested  on  the  previous 
Friday  (cf.  supra,  p.  125  w.)- 

*  Kropotkin,  loc.  cit.     See  also  supra,  vol.  i.  Z77  w.  &c. 

3  Prince  Kropotkin  relates  that  one  of  the  terrorists  (Emeliinov).  who 
even  had  a  bomb  under  his  arm,  went  to  the  assistance  of  the  wounded  Tsar 
and  aided  the  cadets  in  placing  him  in  the  sleigh  (loc.  cit.,  p.  432). 

*  See  supra,  p.  124.  *  See  supra,  p.  126. 

*  Nikolai  KSbalchSch  (c.  18 50-1 881)  was  a  Little  Russian.  In  the  early 
seventies  he  was  a  student  in  a  military  medical  high  school.  He  organized 
there  "  circles  "  of  self -education  among  the  students,  as  well  as  lectures  on 
pohtical  economy,  &c.  In  1875  ^  girl  friend,  hearing  of  a  domiciliary  visit  of 
the  police,  asked  KSbalchech  to  take  charge  of  some  books  which  had  been 
sent  to  her  from  abroad.     Kebalchech  took  them  ;  a  few  days  afterwards  he 


132     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

kov.i  Grenevetsky,  who  threw  the  bomb  which  killed  the  Tsar,  was 
also  killed  by  the  explosion.  Nikolai  Sablen  committed  suicide  upon 
being  arrested.  The  two  most  active  survivors  of  the  Executive 
Committee,  and  of  its  immediate  outer  circle,  seem  to  have  been 
Bogdanovich  ^  and  Khaltiirin,  who  began  at  once  to  organize  plans 
for  the  escape  of  members  of  the  party  who  were  in  prison,  and  in 
administrative  exile  in  Siberia.  The  partial  success  of  these  plans 
enabled  them  to  recruit  their  ranks  to  some  extent.  But  these 
ranks  were  again  thinned  through  the  activities  of  Sudeikin,  the 
astute  chief  of  the  Third  Section.  Sudeikin  adopted  the  plan  of 
visiting  the  accused  members  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya  in  prison,  and 
of  endeavouring  to  convert  them  into  spies  upon  their  former  com- 
rades. He  succeeded  in  this  design  in  the  case  of  a  revolutionary 
called  Degaiev,  by  whose  means  a  large  number  of  members  of 
the  Narodnaya  Volya  and  their  sympathizers  were  arrested.^  Yet 
simultaneously  with  these  occurrences  there  was  proceeding  a  con- 
siderable increase  of  revolutionary  organization  in  the  army.  De- 
gaiev and  another  spy,  Zlatopolsky,  turned  their  attention  to  this, 
Degaiev  having  been  himself  formerly  an  officer.  The  result  of  his 
operations  at  Kronstadt  and  elsewhere  was  the  arrest  of  about  two 
hundred  officers.*    The  members  of  the  Executive  Committee  who 

received  himself  a  domiciliary  visit,  and  he  was  put  in  prison.  After  having 
been  in  prison  for  three  years,  he  was  tried  and  sentenced  to  two  months' 
imprisonment.  The  prison  affected  his  health  seriously;  but  it  also  trans- 
formed him  into  a  revolutionary.  When  he  emerged  in  1878,  he  began 
to  study  explosives.  The  use  of  dynamite  as  a  revolutionary  agent  seems 
to  have  been  suggested  by  him.  He  studied  the  literature  of  the  subject  in 
French,  German,  and  English,  and  although  he  was  not  regarded  as  a  good 
conspirator  so  far  as  practice  was  concerned,  his  theoretical  knowledge  and 
his  facility  in  rapid  calculation,  e.g.  of  the  quantities  of  explosive  necessary 
for  a  given  operation,  and  of  the  least  expensive  and  most  convenient  method 
of  arriving  at  a  given  result,  were  of  the  greatest  service  to  the  Executive 
Committee.  His  time  was  wholly  spent  in  the  laboratory  making  experi- 
ments and  fabricating  the  cartridges  for  terroristic  attempts.  For  some 
time  before  his  arrest  he  had  been  devising  a  flying-machine,  which  was  to  be 
operated  with  a  powerful  motor  actuated  by  a  high  explosive.  He  was 
arrested  on  17th  March  1881,  and  on  3rd  April  was  executed.  (See  Russian 
Revolutionaries  (issued  by  the  Sociahst-Revolutionary  Party),  ii.,  Nikolaif 
Ivanovich  Kebalchech  (Paris  ?),  1903. 

*  Rysakov  was  a  boy  of  nineteen  years. 

2  Bogdanovich  had  controlled  the  mine  under  Little  Sadovaya  Street 
in  St.  Petersburg  on  ist  March  1881. 

3  As  a  result  of  the  actiAdty  of  Sudeikin  upwards  of  seventy  were  arrested 
in  the  summer  and  autunm  of  1881.  In  1882  further  arrests  followed 
(Tun,  op.  cit.,  p.  310). 

*  Tun,  op.  cit.,  p.  317. 


NARODNATA    VOLT  A  133 

had  escaped  arrest  up  till  the  end  of  1882  were  now  all  abroad, 
excepting  Vera  Figner,  who  remained  at  her  post.  She  was  arrested 
at  Kharkov  on  loth  February  1883.  These  wholesale  arrests  put 
an  end  to  the  activities  of  the  Executive  Committee  in  Russia  ;  but 
they  also  suggested  to  those  who  were  abroad  the  presence  of  a 
traitor  in  their  ranks.  Spies  had  occasionally  made  their  way  into 
revolutionary  circles ;  but  the  traitorous  defection  of  a  trusted 
member  of  the  party  was  previously  probably  altogether  unknown. 
Eventually  the  principal  traitor  was  found  to  be  Degaiev,  who 
thought  it  expedient  to  leave  Russia.  He  went  to  Geneva,  where  he 
was  discovered.^  Fearful  that  his  life  would  be  endangered  he 
offered  to  return  to  St.  Petersburg  and  to  assassinate  Sudeikin. 
The  assassination  was  committed  by  him,  or  with  his  connivance, 
in  his  house  in  St.  Petersburg,  on  i6th  December  1883.^  The  arrests 
resulting  from  the  operations  of  Degaiev  are  understood  not  to  have 
affected  exclusively  those  who  were  engaged  in  conspiracy,  or  even 
in  propaganda.  He  is  alleged  to  have  organized  **  self-education  *' 
circles  of  youths,  and  then  to  have  betrayed  them  to  the  police.' 
These  events,  together  with  the  effect  of  the  assassination  of  the 
Tsar  upon  the  minds  of  the  groups  from  which  the  revolutionary 
elements  were  recruited,  the  general  influence  of  governmental 
activity  and  of  the  political  reaction,  and  the  beginnings  of  active 
industrial  development  combined  to  put  an  end  altogether  to  the 
operations  of  the  Executive  Committee.  Yet  in  January  1884  the 
emigrants  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya  group  assembled  in  Paris  to 
devise  means  of  reorganization.  The  result  of  this  meeting  was  the 
election  of  a  new  committee,  of  which  the  principal  member  was 
Lopatin,  "  an  old  revolutionary,  well  known  and  very  popular."  * 
Lopatin  returned  to  Russia  and  organized  a  number  of  groups, 
principally  of  students  in  Moscow,  Kiev,  and  more  importantly  ixk 
Rostov-on-Don.  Slenderly  as  the  Narodnaya  Volya  had  been  sup-' 
ported  either  by  the  working  men  of  the  towns  or  by  the  peasants,! 
the  support  given  to  the  new  organization  was  still  more  slender.  1 

*  Tan  says  by  Tikhomirov,  who  was  then  in  the  ranks  of  the  Narodnaya 
Volya  (cf.  supra,  p.  123). 

*  The  Socialist-Revoiutionary  party  afterwards  considered  that  the  accept- 
ance of  DegaiSv's  offer  was  unwise  from  a  revolutionary  point  of  view. 

*  For  later  instances  of  this  so-called  "  provocation,"  see  infra,  188  and  572. 

*  Tun,  op.  cit.,  p.  334,     Lopatin  was  tried  in  1887  for  complicity  in  the 
murder  of  Sudeikin.     He  was  sent  to  Schlusselburg,  and  was  released  in  1906. 


134     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Lopatin  was,  moreover,  arrested  in  the  Nevsky  Prospekt,  St.  Peters- 
burg, on  7th  October  1884.  Upon  him  was  found  a  list  of  sym- 
pathizers. He  attempted,  unsuccessfully,  to  destroy  this  list  by 
swallowing  it.  About  five  hundred  persons  were  afterwards  ar- 
rested. The  revolutionary  forces  were  thus  once  more  defeated 
and  disorganized.  Yet  the  revolutionary  movement  of  this  period 
was  not  yet  over.  Ivanov,  Orgich,  Bogoraz,  and  others  attempted 
to  organize  a  fresh  group.  They  held  a  meeting  at  Ekaterinoslav 
in  September  1885.  Throughout  the  autumn  preparations  went  on 
for  another  onslaught  upon  the  Government.  D5mamite  bombs 
were  manufactured,  and  new  relations  were  established  with  sym- 
pathizers in  the  army.  In  1886  Orgich  was  arrested  at  Taganrog, 
and  his  printing-office  was  seized  ;  the  organization  was  conducted 
for  a  short  time  by  Bogoraz,  but  nothing  was  accomplished.  With 
these  futile  efforts  the  Narodnaya  Volya  came  finally  to  an  end.  A 
small  group  of  independent  terrorists,  representing  themselves  as  a 
fraction  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya,  were  arrested  in  St.  Petersburg  on  . 
ist  March  1887,  with  bombs  in  their  possession.  They  were  exe-  | 
cuted  on  8th  May  1887,  and  with  them  died  the  last  expiring  embers  j 
of  the  revolutionary  movement  which  began  in  1879. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  REACTION 

The  dictatorship  of  Count  Loris  M^likov  failed  of  its  apparent 
lobject.  The  struggle  against  the  Tsar  in  person  had  continued, 
[and  after  repeated  attempts  he  had  eventually  fallen.  Alexander  III 
Ls  at  first  apparently  inclined  to  adopt  the  project  of  a  constitu- 
tion prepared  by  Loris  M^hkov,  but  he  speedily  came  under  the  in- 
fluence of  his  former  tutor,  Pobyedonostsev,^  then  Ober-Procurator 
of  the  Holy  Synod.  Pobyedon6stsev  was  an  able  man  and  a  jurist 
of  high  reputation,  but  his  belief  in  autocracy  was  as  profound  as 
his  scepticism  of  all  forms  of  democracy.  To  him  the  movement 
of  Western  Europe  was  towards  decay  and  not  towards  progress. 
His  ideal  of  government  was  Asiatic  rather  than  European.  Under 
such  influence  the  way  was  open  for  the  victory  of  reaction,  and 
this  victory  came  speedily.  A  certsdn  exhaustion  of  spirit  which 
supervened  among  the  Liberal  elements  after  the  assassination  of 
the  Tsar,  and  a  widespread  fear  lest  organized  government  should 
be  rendered  impossible  by  continued  assassination,  must  be  re- 
garded as  accounting  for  the  weakness  of  the  resistance  to  a  re- 
actionary poUcy.2  Moreover,  there  appeared  a  general  disposition 
to  give  the  new  Tsar  his  opportunity,  a  phenomenon  which,  imder 
similar  circumstances,  is  almost  invariable  in  Russian  history. 
Yet  the  ceremonial  of  the  coronation  was  postponed  until  two  years 

^  Constantine  Petrovich  Pobyedon6stsev  (1827-  ),  author  of  Course 
of  Civil  Law,  3  vols.  (St.  Petersburg,  1 868-1 875),  and  Reflections  of  a  Russian 
Statesman  {translated,  London,  1898). 

"  Yet  those  who  had  been  looking  forward  to  some  form  of  constitution 
were  reluctant  to  resign  the  struggle.  According  to  a  pamphlet  published  in 
London  (mentioned  by  Prince  Kropotkin  in  his  Memoirs,  p.  435)  and 
purporting  to  contain  the  posthumously  available  papers  of  Loris  M6Uk6v, 
General  Skobelov  (famous  for  his  assault  on  the  redoubts  at  Plevna  on 
nth  September  1877)  proposed  to  Melik6v  and  to  Ignati§v  to  arrest  Alex- 
ander III,  and  to  compel  him  to  sign  a  constitutional  manifesto.  IgnatiSv  is 
said  to  have  denounced  the  scheme,  and  thus  to  have  secured  his  appointment 
as  minister.     (Kropotkin,  op.  cit.,  p.  436.) 

«35 


136     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

after  the  accession  of  Alexander  III,  for  the  administration  was 
nervous  and  apprehensive  of  hostility.  In  course  of  time  the 
revolutionary  party,  formidable  in  the  intelligent  and  self-regard- 
less utilization  of  its  numerically  insignificant  forces,  was  destroyed 
or  dispersed,  and  the  wave  of  reaction  gradually  overwhelmed  the 
national  life. 

The  revolutionary  movement  had  been  recruited  largely  from 
the  universities  and  professional  institutions,  medical  and  technical 
colleges,  and  the  like.  The  government  of  these  institutions  had 
been  retained  in  the  hands  of  the  Minister  of  Education,  but  prior 
to  the  period  of  reaction  the  teaching  bodies  enjoyed  a  considerable 
amount  of  autonomy.  In  1884  the  universities  were  completely 
subordinated,^  even  in  academic  affairs,  to  the  Minister.  The 
control  of  examinations  was  removed  from  the  professors  and 
transferred  to  commissions  appointed  by  the  Government.  Students 
were  forbidden  to  pass  from  one  academic  course  to  another  with- 
out permission  from  the  Government  nominees.  These  also  were 
required  to  advise  the  students  not  to  be  carried  away  by  crude 
doctrines,  and  not  to  permit  themselves  to  be  distracted  by  studies 
other  than  those  to  which  they  were  assigned.  The  wearing  of 
uniform  was  insisted  upon  strictly.  For  the  purpose  of  excluding 
Jews,  the  State  stipendium,  or  scholarship  stipend,  was  to  be  paid 
only  to  Christians.  Professors  of  liberal  or  independent  tendencies 
were  either  dismissed,  like  Stasyulevich,  or  their  positions  were  ren- 
dered so  uncomfortable  that  they  resigned,  like  Maxime  Kova- 
levsky.  In  the  gymnasia  the  pupils  were  forbidden  to  read  any 
"  civil  books  "  (i.e,  non-theological  books)  without  the  consent  of 
the  authorities.  In  the  theological  seminaries  the  pupils  were 
forbidden  to  leave  their  houses  after  five  o'clock  in  the  evening. 
The  possession  of  an  unauthorized  book  or  the  suspicion  of  politi- 
cally unorthodox  opinions,  if  discovered,  resulted  in  imprisonment, 
and  sometimes  in  bodily  punishment.  Many  gymnasium  pupils 
committed  suicide.  The  public  elementary  schools  were  not  sup- 
pressed, but  efforts  were  made  to  replace  them  by  schools  under 

^  By  the  statute  of  Delydnov,  Minister  of  Education,  13th  August  1884. 
The  project  of  the  statute  had  been  prepared  by  Count  Dmitri  Tolstoy. 
The  majority  of  the  Council  of  State  was  opposed  to  the  measure,  but  it  was 
nevertheless  passed  into  law.  Brockhaus  and  Ephron,  Russia  (St.  Petersburg, 
1900).  p.  390. 

2  Editor  of  Vestnik  Evropy. 


THE    REACTION  137 

the  control  of  the  clergy,  in  which  education  was  practically  con- 
fined to  theology  and  vocal  music.  Wherever  there  was  a  clerical 
school,  a  "  civil  "  school  could  not  be  established  without  the 
consent  of  the  bishop. 

In  the  law  courts  the  principle  of  the  irremovability  of  judges 
was  abrogated.  Judges  who  did  not  meet  the  wishes  of  the  ad- 
ministration were  moved  from  one  place  to  another  or  dismissed. 
The  jury  system  was  modified,  and  the  practice  of  changing  the 
venue,  when  it  was  unlikely  that  a  conviction  could  be  secured, 
was  extended.  Local  officials,  eager  to  propitiate  the  Govern- 
ment and  to  secure  promotion,  utilized  these  measinres  to  their 
own  advantage. 

It  is  true  that  even  democratic  countries  are  not  without  ex- 
perience of  many  of  these  measures,  that  most  governments  have 
interfered  with  the  course  of  justice,  that  the  venue  has  been 
changed  in  political  causes,  that  criticism  of  governmental  action 
has  frequently  resulted  in  condign  punishment ;  but  in  the  case  of 
Russia  a  self-existent  autocracy  lay  behind  the  measures,  and 
they  were  adopted  avowedly  rather  for  the  maintenance  of  that 
autocracy  than  for  the  benefit  of  the  people.  Moreover,  proceed- 
ings which  are  in  democratic  countries  after  all  only  occasional, 
and  which,  when  they  occur,  are  openly  criticized  and  generally 
condemned,  became  in  Russia  normal  incidents.  Behind  the  acts 
of  repression  there  lay  the  desire  to  determine  the  direction  of  the 
development  of  the  national  life  and  to  exclude  influences  which 
might  come  from  the  progress  of  Western  Europe.  "  In  Russia 
the  Government  fears  the  current  of  fresh  air  which  comes  east- 
wards, and  would  like  to  close  all  the  windows."  ^ 

The  destructive  effect  of  the  reaction  upon  the  incipient  organiza- 
tion of  the  artisans  in  towns  into  groups  analogous  to  trade  imions 
has  already  been  noticed.^  The  policy  of  the  Government  im- 
doubtedly  rendered  the  exploitation  of  the  working  class  easier, 
and  therefore  more  frequent.  Between  1880  and  1885  the  depres- 
sion of  trade  which  had  been  affecting  industrial  Europe  since  1876 
had  not  been  without  influence  in  Russia,  now  being  gradually 
drawn  into  the  industrial  and  commercial  network.     Prices  fell 

^  Narodnaya  Volya,  Nos.  11-12,  October  1885;  Literature,  &c..  p.  756. 
'  See  supra,  pp.  106  and  127,  and  Svyatlovsky,  The  Trade  Union  Movement 
in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg,  1908).  pp.  11 -12. 


138     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

sharply,  and,  high  protection  notwithstanding,  profits  disappeared 
and  wages  remained  low  or  diminished.  Large  numbers  of  work- 
men were  thrown  out  of  employment.  The  conditions  of  labour 
revealed  the  survival  of  pre-Emancipation  oppression — they  were, 
indeed,  frequently  destructive  of  human  dignity — ^while  the  con- 
ditions of  life  were  often  debasing.  Prohibited  from  combination 
by  the  Government,^  the  workmen  were  at  the  mercy  of  their 
employers.  Inevitably  the  workmen  were  disposed  to  throw  the 
blame  of  every  evil  upon  the  Government.  The  employers  on  their 
side  were  disposed  to  censure  the  Government  whenever  it  failed, 
as  it  frequently  did,  to  make  immediate  military  dispositions  to 
protect  their  property.  The  centralization  of  authority  had  its 
counterpart  in  local  weakness. 

The  peasants  urgently  demanded  more  land,  but  the  circular 
of  Makov^  brusquely  refused  any  governmental  assistance  in 
procuring  it.  The  congestion  of  the  population  in  Central  and 
Southern  Russia,  and  the  scantiness  of  the  population  in  the  vast 
cultivable  area  of  Siberia,  suggested  a  generous  system  of  coloniza- 
tion ;  but  there  were  at  that  time  inadequate  means  of  communi- 
cation, and  the  different  departments  of  the  Government  could 
not  agree  upon  a  colonizing  policy.  At  the  same  moment  free 
grants  of  land  were  offered  in  Siberia,  and  emigration  from  certain 
guberni  was  prohibited.^  Peasants  were  even  refused  permission 
to  leave  their  villages.*  Notwithstanding  these  conditions,  flights 
of  peasants  became  frequent.  Many  wandered  they  knew  not 
whither.  Great  masses  of  peasants,  with  their  wives  and  children, 
and  suffering  from  lack  of  food  and  clothing,  wandered  over  the 
regions  of  Rostov,  Saratov,  Samara,  and  Ekaterinburg.  Some 
foimd  their  way  to  America.  In  the  Caucasus  some  peasants 
squatted  upon  free  lands  and  built  houses  upon  them.  Their 
houses  were  destroyed  and  the  peasants  were  ruined. 

On  the  non-Russian  elements  in  the  Russian  Empire  the  Govern- 
ment re-enforced  its  disciplinary  measures.     In  the  Baltic  Pro- 

^  The  situation  was  similar  to  that  which  existed  in  England  in  the  first 
twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

'  See  supra,  p.  129. 

'  In  Voronej  the  Governor  forbade  emigration  altogether.  Peasants  were 
forbidden,  without  special  permission,  to  go  to  the  Caucasus,  where  there 
were  free  lands. 

*  Two  circulars  were  issued,  on  22nd  April  and  7th  May  1882,  forbidding 
emigration  without  special  permission. 


THE    REACTION  139 

vinces  the  Russian  language  replaced  German  in  the  law  courts 
and  in  the  schools.  In  Poland  restrictions  were  imposed  upon  the 
acquisition  of  land  by  Poles.  The  Bank  of  Poland  was  closed,  and 
branches  of  the  State  Bank  of  Russia  were  estabUshed  in  place  of 
them.     The  Russification  of  Finland  began.^ 

In  brief,  the  Government  was  doing  its  utmost  "  to  turn  the 
nation  into  human  dust."  ^  Had  the  nation  submitted  tamely 
to  this  process,  it  would,  as  Professor  Kluchevsky  said  of  the  Russia 
of  an  earlier  period,  have  been  lacking  in  the  elements  of  human 
dignity .3  The  demoralization  of  the  Government  had  its  coimter- 
part  in  the  demoralization  of  the  people. 

Freedom  is  not  invariably  wisely  used,  for  the  mere  absence 
of  restriction  permits  growth  in  all  directions.  On  the  other  hand, 
restriction  in  one  direction  induces,  and  sometimes  forces,  growth 
in  other  directions.  The  insistent  thwarting  of  movement  in 
Russia  reproduced  for  many  the  conditions  of  a  prison,  involving 
abnormal  mental  phenomena.  Mania  of  all  kinds  resulted  from 
the  widespread  psychological  disturbance.  Suicide  became  epi- 
demic. There  were  many  outbursts  of  reUgious  fanaticism.*  New 
sects  made  their  appearance.^  A  false  Tsar,  a  characteristic  of 
many  movements  of  political  unrest  in  Russia,  was  not  wanting. 
This  man  appeared  in  Bogoduchovsky,  attired  in  uniform  and 
accompanied  by  an  "  aide-de-camp."  Under  his  influence  the 
peasants  stopped  pa5nTient  of  their  taxes.  Disorders  in  the  villages 
were  frequent,  and  in  the  towns  riots  occurred  through  conflicts  of 
people  of  different  races.  There  were  outbreaks  of  brigandage  in 
the  Caucasus,  and  pillage  was  committed  in  many  places.  Murders 
became  more  numerous.  Industrial  strikes  in  factories  produced 
many  disturbances  and  much  loss  of  hfe.  In  the  industrial  cities 
of  Poland  there  was  much  unemployment  and  much  unrest.  In 
Russia  proper  there  were  strikes  of  weavers  at  Ivanovo- Voznesensk, 
of  railwajmtien  at  Sevastopol,  and  of  dock  labourers  at  Ribinsk. 
Jewish  pogroms  occurred  in  Rovno  (Volynskaya  gub.),  where  the 

*  On  the  Finnish  question,  see  infra,  p.  246. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  11.  '  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  79- 

*  There  was  a  revival  among  the  Stundists  in  Bogoduchovsky  district, 
and  an  "  Old  Mohammedan  "  movement  led  by  a  preacher  called  Vaisov,  in 
Kazan. 

■*  A  new  sect  calling  itself  "  GolubchSke  "  (good  fellows),  of  a  character 
similar  to  that  of  the  Molokani  appeared  in  Atkarsk  (Saratovskaya  gub.). 


I40     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

houses  of  Jews  were  destroyed  ;  one  Jew  was  killed  and  two  were 
wounded.  In  Kovno  (Kovenskaya  gub.)  a  fight  took  place  be- 
tween Germans  and  Russians  over  some  village  quarrel ;  ten  were 
killed  and  twenty  wounded.  In  the  district  of  Bogorodsky  the 
peasants  of  two  villages  quarrelled  and  fought.  The  peasants 
fought  with  the  authorities  at  Kuban,  and  also  at  Novo-Slavkin 
(Saratovskaya  gub.),  where  they  fought  the  police  who  came  with  a 
veterinary  surgeon  to  kill  plague-infested  cattle.  There  were  many 
such  distmrbances  in  different  villages.  In  Belebeyevsky  district 
(Ufimskaya  gub.)  the  Tartar  peasants  disapproved  of  the  insurance 
of  their  cattle  by  the  village  clerk  and  starosta  (alderman),  and  beat 
them  both.  Property  was  damaged  everywhere.  In  1885,  192,000 
complaints  were  made  of  damage  to  forests,  a  number  about  one- 
fourth  more  than  that  of  the  previous  year.  Such  was  the  situa- 
tion in  1885,1  about  one  year  after  the  reaction  had  begim  in  earnest. 

In  the  same  year  the  Government  sought  for  support  in  the 
most  powerful  class  of  the  population,  in  a  manifesto  to  the  nobihty 
on  2ist  April  1885.  While  the  peasants  had  been  making  demands 
upon  the  Government,  the  nobUity  had  been  having  dreams  of 
their  own.  They  were  willing  to  support  the  central  authority  of 
the  Government,  but  they  desired  to  have  for  themselves  the  lead- 
ing part  in  local  affairs.  They  desired  also  exclusive  right  to 
occupy  the  higher  offices  in  the  service  of  the  State,  and  the  right 
of  acceptance  or  rejection  of  new-comers  into  their  ranks.  The 
Government  yielded  to  a  certain  extent.  Plebeian  officials  were 
in  some  cases  discharged  from  public  offices  and  replaced  by  noble- 
men. To  propitiate  the  mercantile  class,  the  Government  gave 
subsidies  to  industrial  enterprises  and  increased  the  already  pro- 
tective tariff.  Not  for  the  first  time  in  Russian  history  did  the 
higher  classes  secure  advantage  for  themselves  from  poUtical  dis- 
turbance by  seUing  their  support  at  a  high  price  to  an  enfeebled 
and  unstable  Government. 

While  these  measures  placated  the  superior  orders,  the  working 
men  in  the  towns  and  the  peasants  in  the  villages  were  becoming 
quiescent  from  other  causes.  The  fever  of  pohtical  and  social  un- 
rest has,  Uke  other  fevers,  its  periods  of  high  and  its  periods  of  low 

^  Several  of  these  details  are  drawn  from  Narodnaya  Volya,  Nos.  1 1  and  12 
(October  1885).  The  "legal"  newspapers  of  the  time  were  prevented  by 
the  pencil  of  tiie  censor  from  full  disclosure  of  the  state  of  the  coimtry. 


THE   REACTION  141 

temperature,  as  well  as  an  exhausting  influence  upon  the  frame. 
Moreover,  the  revival  of  trade  which  occurred  in  Western  Europe 
from  about  1886  reacted  upon  Russia.  Industrial  employment 
increased  and  wages  advanced,  while  fairly  good  harvests  improved 
the  condition  of  the  peasants. 

In  the  decade  of  the  nineties  conditions  were  otherwise.  The 
crop  deficiency  of  1891  produced  famine  throughout  a  great  part  of 
Russia  ;  and  there  were  again  serious  deficiencies  in  the  crops  of 
1897,  1898,  and  1899.1  But  starving  peasants  do  not  revolt,  and 
these  economically  critical  periods  passed  over,  the  Government  \ 
having  taken  exceptional  means  to  meet  the  emergencies. 

Such  incidents,  trade  malaise,  and  trade  prosperity,  famine,  and 
relief  did  not  affect  the  idealists,  who  saw  in  them  only  temporary 
material    advantages  or   disadvantages   unaccompanied  by  any  of 
those  radical  changes  which  they  regarded  as  indispensable  for 
permanent  well-being.     But  among  the  general  mass  of  the  Russian 
intelligent  pubHc  there  was  a  real  reaction,  not  merely  against  re- 
volutionary violence,  but  also  against  serious  political  thought.     The 
problems  which  presented  themselves  were  too  intricate  and  too 
exhausting.    The  nation  needed  a  mental  rest.    The  general  mass  \ 
of  the  peasantry  and  the  working  men  in  the  towns  became  supine  | 
sometimes  through  increased  prosperity,  sometimes  through  in-  / 
creased  misery.     Under  these  conditions  the  task  of  the  Govern- 
ment   was  easy.      The    revolutionary  forces  were  destroyed   or  \ 
dispersed,  and  what  was  even  more  to  the  purpose,  widespread  I 
sympathy  with  them  had  disappeared.     Only  in  a  new  epoch  could 
new  forces  arise. 

*  See  Collection  of  Answers  to  Questions  issued  by  the  Imperial  Free  Econo- 
mical Society  on  the  Crop  Deficiency  of  the  Year  1891,  edited  by  Ya.  O. 
Kalinsky  (St.  Petersburg,  1893) ;  Issue  of  Provision  (Issue  of  Governmental 
Assistance  from  Grain  Reserves)  in  1 897-1 898  ;  Discussion  in  the  Free  Eco- 
nomical Society  (St.  Petersburg,  1898),  and  infra,  p.  289. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC   MOVEMENT   IN   RUSSIA 

The  Government  had  scattered  its  enemies  ;  but  danger  lay  in  this 
fact.  Following  upon  the  destruction  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya,  the 
Chorno  Peredyeltsi  had  gone  abroad,  principally  to  Switzerland, 
where  Zurich,  Geneva,  and  some  of  the  smaller  towns  had  been 
"  cities  of  refuge  "  for  Russian  propagandists  during  intervals  of 
reaction.  Among  the  refugees,  in  1883,  there  were  Plekhanov, 
Aksekod,  Deitch,  Ignatov,  and  Vera  Zasulich,  all  of  whom  had  been 
Chorno  Peredyeltsi,  including  the  last-mentioned,  who  had  passed 
over  from  Narodnaya  Volya.  This  group  seems  at  first  to  have 
devoted  itself  to  the  examination  of  the  question  why  their 
movement  had  failed  of  its  purpose.  They  appeared  to  have  ar- 
rived at  the  conclusion  that  their  methods  had  been  too  naive,  and 
that  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  call  in  the  aid  of  science.  They 
seemed  to  feel  that  while  the  social  gulf  between  the  revolutionary 
intelligentsia  and  the  peasantry  might  be  crossed,  the  intellectual 
gulf  remained,  and  it  appeared  to  the  disappointed  Narodneke  that  the 
will  of  the  people — ^that  is,  of  the  peasantry — ^was  an  inadequate  guide; 
that,  indeed,  the  peasants  were  seeking  guidance  from  the  Narodneke 
themselves.  Relatively  educated  as  the  propagandists  were,  they 
felt  a  need  for  more  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  human  progress  to 
enable  them  to  deal  with  the  situation,  if  not  to  the  advantage  of  the 
peasants,  at  least  to  their  own  satisfaction.  They  were  thus  thrown 
back  upon  the  studies  with  which  many  of  them  had  begun.  They 
now  became  acquainted  with  the  socialist  movement  as  it  had  been 
developing  in  Western  Europe,  and  they  began  to  be  sceptical  of  the 
soundness  of  the  "  Utopist "  views  of  "  the  old  Russian  revolu- 
tionaries," when  "  poUtical  tendencies  began  to  develop  amongst 
them."  ^  "  Being  convinced  that  our  ideas  were  wrong  or  out  of 
date,  we  shall  see  what  place  in  the  political  struggle  is  reserved  for 

^  Plekhanov,  Socialism  and  the  Political  Struggle  (Geneva,  1905),  p.  7. 

142 


SOCIAL    DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     143 

the  science  to  which  even  bourgeois  opponents  do  not  refuse  the 
name  of  *  scientific  sociaUsm.'  Afterwards  we  have  to  make  what 
modifications  in  our  conclusions  may  be  necessary,  because  of  the 
pecuharity  of  our  contemporary  conditions  in  Russia ;  and  the 
pohtical  struggle  of  the  working  class  in  Russia  will  be  more  clearly 
understood  when  it  is  considered  in  relation  to  general  problems."  ^ 
That  a  few  revolutionaries,  even  if  they  could  obtain  possession  of 
the  Government,  would  be  quite  powerless  to  liberate  the  people  in 
any  real  sense,  and  that  the  people  alone  could  Hberate  itself,  and 
that  by  consciously  discarding  the  old  order,  became  clear  to  the 
group.2 

In  1883  this  group  of  refugees  in  Switzerland  formed  the  first 
definite  social  democratic  organization  in  the  Russian  movement. 
It  was  called  Osvobojdenie  Truda,  the  Emancipation  of  Labour. 
The  programme  of  the  new  party  was  issued  in  1885.  The  views 
expressed  in  this  document  are  the  famihar  Marxist  views  of  that 
period.  "  The  Russian  social  democrats  "  (the  small  group  in  ques- 
tion) "  Uke  the  social  democrats  of  other  countries  are  seeking 
complete  Hberation  from  the  yoke  of  capital."  ..."  The  present 
development  of  international  commerce  has  made  it  inevitable 
that  the  revolution  can  be  forced  only  by  the  participation  in  it  of  the 
society  of  the  whole  civihzed  world.  The  sohdarity  of  the  interests 
of  the  producers  of  all  countries  is  recognized  and  declared  by  the 
International  Brotherhood  of  Working  Men.  Since  the  Hberation 
of  the  working  men  must  be  the  act  of  the  working  men  themselves, 
and  since  the  interests  of  labour  are  in  general  diametrically  opposed 
to  the  interests  of  the  exploiters,  and  since,  therefore,  the  upper 
classes  must  always  try  to  prevent  the  reorganization  of  the  social 
relations,  the  inevitable  condition  precedent  to  this  reorganization 
must  be  the  taking  possession  by  the  working  classes  of  the  political 
power  in  any  given  country.  Only  the  rule  for  a  time  of  the  working 
clasi  can  paralyze  the  forces  of  the  counter-revolution,  and  put  an 
end  to  the  existence  of  classes  and  to  the  struggle  between  them." 
The  programme  goes  on  to  point  out  that  the  practical  problems 
which  are  encountered  by  the  democracies  must  vary  with  the  vary- 
ing phases  of  economical  development.     A  country,  for  example, 

^  Plekhanov,  Socialism  and  the  Political  Struggle  (Geneva,  1905),  p.  7. 
*  Lyadov,    The  History  of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Labour  Party 
(St.  Petersburg,  1906),  vol.  i.  p.  35. 


144     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

which  possesses  fully  developed  capitalistic  production  and  distribu- 
tion presents  problems  different  from  those  presented  by  a  country 
"  where  the  labouring  masses  find  themselves  under  the  double  yoke 
of  capitaHsm  and  of  an  expiring  patriarchal  economy."  Russia  is 
in  the  latter  position.  Since  the  aboUtion  of  bondage  right  there 
has  been  a  great  growth  of  capitalistic  enterprise.  "  The  old  system 
of  natural  economy  is  giving  place  to  commercial  production,  and  a 
large  interior  market  has  thus  been  opened  up  for  the  products  of 
industry  conducted  upon  a  large  scale."  The  chief  support  of  the 
autocracy  lies  in  the  political  indifference  and  mental  backwardness 
of  the  peasantry.  As  a  consequence  of  that  condition  there  is  weak- 
ness and  timidity  among  the  educated  classes  who  find  the  present 
poUtical  system  inimical  to  their  own  material  and  moral  interests. 
When  they  raise  their  voices  in  favour  of  the  people,  they  find  the 
people  indifferent.  Thus  there  arises  instability  of  political  opinions 
and  complete  disillusionment  among  the  Russian  intelligentsia.  The 
situation  would  be  quite  hopeless  were  it  not  that  the  economical 
development  of  Russia  creates  at  the  present  time  *'  fresh  oppor- 
tunities for  the  defenders  of  the  interests  of  the  labouring  classes." 
The  means  of  political  struggle  are  the  spreading  of  socialistic  ideas 
among  the  working  men,  and  the  aim  of  it  is  a  democratic  constitu- 
tion.i 

This  project  of  a  programme  was  written  chiefly  by  Plekhanov, 
and,  as  he  afterwards  observed,  it  was  rather  a  leading  article  than 
a  programme.  The  "  project  "  is  not  free  from  a  strain  of  Utopism. 
It  is  optimistic  in  respect  to  the  "  conscious  "  action  of  the  working 
class  in  a  socialist  direction,  and  in  respect  to  their  eventually 
adopting,  of  their  own  volition,  methods  of  governmental  adminis- 
tration founded  upon  socialist  doctrines,  which  methods  must  result 
in  an  ideal  commonwealth.  Yet  the  "  project  "  brings  sharply 
into  the  field  of  Russian  discussion  the  questions  of  the  inevitabiUty 
of  the  process  and  the  inevitability  of  the  share  in  it  of  the  working 
class.  From  this  point  of  view  there  was  an  important  deduction — 
viz.  that  the  process,  being  an  organic  one,  was  most  effectually 
facilitated  by  organic  means,  and  that,  while  revolutionary  violence 
might  hasten,  such  violence  might  retard  the  process.  This  deduction 
was  fully  accepted,  and  Plekhanov  and  his  group  ceased  to  have  any 

*  "  The  Project  of  a  Programme  of  the  Russian  Social  Democrats,  1885," 
Soc.  Dem.  Calendar  (Geneva,  1902) ;  quoted  by  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i.  pp.  35-8. 


i 


SOCIAL    DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     145 

direct  connection  with  the  revolutionary  movement  in  Russia. 
The  principal  converts  to  the  doctrines  of  the  new  group  were  among 
the  Russian  students  who  were  attending  the  universities  in 
Switzerland.^  Through  them  it  exercised  a  considerable  influence 
upon  the  direction  of  the  Russian  movement  afterwards.  One  of 
its  members,  Deitch,  who  probably  alone  among  the  group  possessed 
organizing  abiUty,  was  arrested. 

Subsequently  Plekhanov  gave  a  more  definite  indication  of  the 
programme  which  he  considered  his  party  should  adopt.     "  We 
think,"  he  says,  in  his  first  pamphlet  on  social  democracy,  "  thatj 
the  sole  non-fantastic  aim  of  the  Russian  Socialists  must  now  be; 
the  conquest  of  free  political  institutions  on  the  one  hand,  and,  | 
on  the  other,  the  working  out  of  the  elements  for  the  formation  of' 
a  future  Russian  social  democratic  party.  .  .  .  The  working  men  \ 
.  .  .  will  join  our  revolutionary  intelligentsia  in  its  struggle  with 
absolutism,  and  then,  gaining  political  freedom,  they  will  organize 
themselves  into  a  labour  socialist  party."  ^    Akselrod  supported 
this  view,  but  considered  that  there  was  a  possibiUty  of  organizing 
a  socialist  labour  party  even  before  the  fall  of  absolutism,  and 
during  the  process  of  struggle.^ 

Arising  out  of  the  interest  in  social  democratic  ideas  popularized 
among  the  Russian  intelligentsia  by  the  Plekhanov  group  in  Switzer- 
land, and  derived  from  direct  study  of  Marxist  hterature,  there 
appeared  in  St.  Petersburg,  in  1885,  a  social  democratic  group 
formed  by  Blagoev  (a  Bulgarian),  Charitonov,  and  others.*  This 
group  issued  two  numbers  of  a  newspaper,  Rabochaya  Gazeta 
(Workmen's  Gazette).  They  were  then  arrested.  Their  ideas 
seem  to  be  a  mixture  of  Marxist  sociaUsm  and  Lavrism.^  The  aim 
of  the  group  was  to  separate  the  working  class  and  to  form  it  into 
an  independent  political  party,  the  final  object  of  which  was  to 
be  the  reorganization  of  society  upon  a  socialist  basis — viz.  the 

*  Lyadov.  op.  cit.,  vol.  i.  p.  45. 

*  Plekhanov,  Socialism  and  the  Political  Struggle,  in  collection.  On  Two 
Fronts  (Geneva,  1905),  p.  75;  cited  by  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii.  p.  39.  The 
pamphlet  was  originally  issued  in  1894. 

'  Lyadov,  loc.  cit. 

*  Egorov,  A.,  "  The  Germination  of  Political  Parties  and  their  Activity," 
in  Social  Movements  in  Russia  in  the  Beginning  of  the  Twentieth  Century 
(St.  Petersburg,  1909),  vol.  i.  p.  375.  Lyadov  {op.  cit.,  pp.  46-49)  says  that 
this  group  was  formed  quite  independently  of  the  Plekhanov  group,  and  that 
it  did  not  have  any  connection  with  it  until  some  time  after  its  formation. 

'  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  p.  46. 

VOL.  II  K 


146     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

collective  use  of  the  means  of  production.  In  order  to  achieve  that 
object  the  working  man's  party  must  struggle  for  a  constitution ; 
but  a  constitution  would  be  a  dream  unless  there  was  a  working 
man's  party  with  aims  independent  of  those  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
Plekhanov  contributed  an  article  to  the  second  number,  in  which 
he  called  the  social  democratic  party  an  "  exclusively  working  men's 
party."  .  .  .  "Our  revolutionary  intelligentsia  must  go  with  the 
working  men,  and  the  peasantry  must  follow  them.''  This  blunt 
statement  of  the  determinism  of  undiluted  Marxist  doctrine  pro- 
bably represents  fairly  the  view  of  the  few  Russian  Marxists  of 
that  time.  From  such  a  point  of  view  there  are  two  courses — 
either  to  await  inactively  the  operation  of  the  impUed  social  law, 
or  to  study  intimately  the  actual  working  of  the  social  forces  in 
order  to  be  in  a  position  to  estimate  their  direction  and  rate  of 
movement,  and  to  utilize  this  knowledge  in  practical  action.  In 
the  middle  of  the  eighties  the  first  part  of  this  latter  course  was 
adopted,  not  exclusively  by  people  of  tendencies  in  opposition  to 
the  Government,  but  also  by  many  who  found  a  new  field  of  scien- 
tific research  in  which  they  might  work  without  ulterior  social  or 
poUtical  aims.  The  result  of  this  state  of  mind  was  a  greatly 
renewed  interest  in  problems  of  local  government,  and  in  economic 
questions  leading,  e.g.,  to  the  collection  of  exact  data  upon 
the  movements  of  commodities  in  the  interior  market,  upon 
wages,  cost  of  hving,  and  the  like.^  A  great  mass  of  official  and 
non-official  studies  were  undertaken,  and  reports  of  great  value 
were  issued  upon  the  economical  state  of  the  nation.  In  such 
studies  the  Imperial  Free  Economical  Society  of  St.  Petersburg 
was  especially  active.^  With  renewed  interest  in  life,  Russian 
students  returned  from  foreign  universities  and  plunged  into 
economical  inquiries.  They  also  plunged  headlong  into  recondite 
studies  for  which  in  many  cases  no  doubt  their  preliminary  pre- 
paration was  inadequate — into  history,  sociology,  ethnography, 
and  philosophy .3    Some  of  them  developed  a  varied  if  not  very 

*  For  activities  in  the  latter  direction,  see,  e.g.,  Lyatschenko,  Outlines  of 
Agrarian  Evolution  in  Russia,  vol.  i.  p.  285-6. 

*  Cf.  Beketov,  A.  N.,  Historical  Sketch  of  Twenty-Five  Years'  Activity 
of  the  Imperial  Free  Economical  Society,  1865-1890  (St.  Petersburg,  1890); 
and  Zemstvo  Year  Book,  1 885-1 886,  edited  by  L.  V.  Khodsky  (St.  Peters- 
burg, 1890). 

'  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i.  p.  56, 


SOCIAL    DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     147 

deep  erudition.  The  older  intelligentsia,  and  even  many  of  the 
revolutionary  youth,  looked  askance  at  this  rapid  absorption  and 
application  of  knowledge.  To  the  former,  educational  methods 
seemed  to  have  been  turned  upside  down  ;  to  the  latter,  the  doc- 
trines of  Marx  and  his  social  democratic  followers  seemed  abruptly 
contradictory  to  all  that  they  had  learned  from  Lavrov,  Mikhail- 
ovsky,  and  the  moderate  collectivists. 

The  strength  of  the  Marxist  movement  was  thus  devoted  up 
till  1890  to  self-education  and  inquiry.  Foreign  writings  upon 
socialist  questions  were  devoured  with  avidity — Marx,  Engels, 
Kautsky,  Liebknecht,  Bebel,  Lafargue,  and  Guesde.^  There  was 
an  insatiable  appetite  for  all  knowledge  that  might  bear  upon  the 
social  question .2  Meanwhile  there  was  an  almost  entire  absence 
of  political  agitation.  PoUticians  and  "  economists  "  ahke  were 
peacefully  engaged  in  the  equipment  of  their  intellectual  arsenal. 

With  the  famine  of  1891  there  came  a  psychological  moment. 
Not  merely  did  this  occurrence  provide  material  for  agitation,  but  it 
brought  the  ideahsts,  and  even  a  large  number  of  moderate  Hberals, 
to  a  new  point  of  view.  Famines  were  ascribed  to  a  number  of 
causes.  Incompetence  and  impoverishment  of  landowners,  incom- 
petence and  impoverishment  of  peasants,  absence  of  agricultural 
organization,  absence  of  insurance  against  the  consequences  of 
fluctuation  of  seasons,  absence  of  communications  by  which  the 
deficiency  of  one  region  might  be  instantly  compensated  from  else- 
where, and  the  hke.  That  all  these  deficiencies  could  be  prevented 
by  competence  and  capital  seemed  obvious ;  that  such  competence 
and  capital  were  more  likely  to  be  appHed,  and  applied  continuously, 
by  a  democratic  State,  which  should  have  full  ownership  and  con- 
trol of  all  production  and  all  of  means  of  communication  and  dis- 
tribution, was  suggested  in  effect  by  the  famine  itself.  The  social 
democratic  gospel  from  that  moment  became  "  a  fashionable  doc- 
trine," and  Marxist  collectivism  became  so  popular  that  recruits 
appeared  for  it  from  all  social  ranks. 

The  small  group  of  emigrants,  led  by  Plekhanov,  attempted  to 
take  advantage  of  the  situation  produced  by  the  famine  and  of  the 
general  state  of   mind,  by  formulating  a  policy  based  upon  the 

*  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  p.  56. 

*  There  was  a  similar  outbreak  of  enthusiasm  for  such  studies  among  the 
working  men  of  St.  Petersburg  in  1905.     Cf.  infra,  p.  457. 


148     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF   RUSSIA 

famine.  They  sought  to  unite  with  the  hberal  and  the  democratic 
oppositional  elements  in  carrying  on  a  propaganda  against  the 
Government.  Although  this  movement  had  no  definite  pohtical 
aim  it  had  a  certain  efiect  among  the  radical  youth.^  Simultane- 
ously in  those  Zemstvo  Assemblies  in  which  there  were  active 
liberal  elements,  there  was  developed  a  considerable  amount  of 
opposition  to  the  Government.  This  opposition  was  maintained 
for  about  four  years,  when  it  subsided. 

The  social  democratic  agrarian  programme,  indefinite  as  it  was, 
^as  swept  into  the  background  in  the  years  immediately  succeeding 
1891  by  the  revival  of  industry  and  by  the  diversion  of  the  energies 
of  the  social  democratic  groups  into  the  industrial  field,  which 
indeed  was  more  appropriate  to  their  activities.  The  incipient 
attempts  to  form  trade  unions  which  the  working  men  were  making 
at  that  time  were  aided  by  the  social  democrats,  who  then  found  at 
once  a  platform  for  their  propaganda  and  an  opportunity  for  prac- 
tical action.  These  proceedings  had,  however,  a  certain  disin- 
tegrating effect,  for,  in  order  that  they  might  not  excite  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Government,  the  social  democrats  were  most  careful  to 
avoid  not  merely  centralization,  but  even  association  of  the  various 
groups  and  various  unions.^  They  also  studiously  kept  themselves 
apart  alike  from  the  "  active  "  groups  of  social  revolutionary  ten- 
dencies and  from  the  social  democratic  groups  abroad.  By  these 
means  they  concentrated  their  activities  upon  the  local  organization 
of  social  democratic  groups  among  working  men,  and  they  fre- 
quently promoted  strikes.^  This  policy  was  very  effective  in  form- 
ing organizations  analogous  to  the  "  trade  clubs "  or  "  trade 
societies,"  of  the  pre-  "  trade  union  "  days  in  England ;  *  but  it  led  to 
the  absence  of  common  ideas  and  of  common  action,  and  it  neutral- 
ized the  force  of  the  social  democratic  movement  when  it  was 
summoned  by  the  course  of  events  at  a  later  period.  It  is  true  that 
in  1896  there  was  formed  in  St.  Petersburg  the  Union  for  the  Libera- 
tion of  the  Working  Classes,  to  which  the  Government  appeared  at 
the  time  to  attach  importance,  and  in  Moscow  the  Working  Men's 

1  Egorov,  A.,  op.  cit.,  p.  375.  2  /^^^ 

3  e.g.  at  Vilna,   in   1 893-1 894,   among  Jewish    tradesmen  ;    in   1 894   in 

Moscow,  in  1895  and  1896  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  in  1897  at  Ekaterinoslav. 

Cf.  Egorov,  op.  cit.,  p.  376. 

*  That  is.  before  1830.     Cf.  Webb,  S.  and  B.,  History  of  Trade  Unionism 

(London,  1894),  pp.  99-103. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     149 

Union,  afterwards  the  Union  for  Struggle.  Similar  unions  were 
formed  at  Nijni-Novgorod,  Vilna,  Minsk,  and  Kharkov.  But  these 
unions  were  composed  almost  exclusively  of  social  democrats  from 
the  intelligentsia.  They  were  rarely  entered  by  even  the  most  ad- 
vanced working  men.^  These  unions,  however,  distributed  both 
legal  and  illegal  literature,^  and  kept  their  members  informed  of 
the  state  of  affairs.  They  also  maintained,  principally  through 
students,  and  thus  only  periodically,  connections  with  the  local 
organizations.  But  they  had  no  power  over  the  working  men's 
societies  and  no  very  intimate  association  with  them.  The  need  for 
union  among  the  latter  soon  made  itself  felt.  The  local  unions 
began  to  develop  an  incipient  federation  by  appointing  influential 
working  men  "  who  played  the  r61e  of  connectors,"  and  who  con- 
tributed to  common  action.  The  local  unions  also  began  to  form 
interior  "  circles  "  of  young  working  men,  who  occupied  themselves 
with  the  study  of  socialism  under  the  leadership  of  propagandists.* 
At  the  same  time  there  were  organized  "  treasuries,"  which  were 
supported  by  contributions  from  the  organized  working  men.  The 
funds  of  these  "  treasuries  "  were  used  for  assistance  during  strikes, 
for  forming  libraries  (of  legal  and  illegal  hterature),  and  for  helping 
"  victims  of  poHce  repression."  * 

The  important  fact  about  the  working-class  movement  fromj 
1892-1896  was  that  for  the  first  time  it  was  really  spontaneous.     It  i 
was  aided,  no  doubt,  by  the  social  democratic  elements  of  the  intel- ' 
ligentsia,  but  it  was  not  originated  by  them.     They  found  in  the 
working  men's  organizations  a  favourable  field  for  their  propaganda, 
but  they  did  not  initiate  and  could  not  direct  the  movement.     While, 
however,  the  working-class  movement  of  this  period  was  a  genuine 
working-class  movement,  it  was  by  no  means  either  originated  in, 
nor  did  it  materially  affect,  the  general  mass  of  working  men.     It 
was  initiated  by  a  comparatively  small  number  of  "  advanced  " 
working  men,  some  of  whom  had  been  previously  more  or  less  con- 
nected with  revolutionary  circles,  and  some  of  whom  had  in  the 

1  Egorov.  he.  cit. 

'  "  Legal  "  literature  comprised  those  publications  which  had  passed 
the  censor.  Illegal  literature  was  published  abroad  and  smuggled  into 
Russia  or  was  printed  in  "  underground  "  printing  offices. 

*  Egorov,  loc.  cit. 

*  These  "treasuries"  were  formed,  e.^.  at  Vilna,  Minsk  (in  1895),  and 
Moscow  (1 895-1 896). 


ISO     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

capitals  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  Marxist  ideas.  Many  of  the 
smaller  trade  societies  were  formed,  however,  originally  on  purely 
economical  grounds,  and  only  after  their  existence  had  become  known 
were  they  entered  by  propagandist  elements,  either  from  the  work- 
ing class  or  from  the  intelligentsia. 

The  activities  of  the  social  democrats  among  the  working  men 
in  helping  them  to  organize  into  trade  societies,  and  in  aiding  them 
to  form  "  treasuries,"  gave  a  practical  direction  to  social  democratic 
energies,  and  drew  into  their  ranks  enthusiasts  who  were  wiUing 
to  undertake  practical  functions.  Experience  in  organic  contact 
with  working  men  gave  them  also  a  certain  knowledge  of  actual 
conditions,  and  also,  no  doubt,  a  better  knowledge  of  the  limitations 
of  the  working  man's  mind  and  character.  But  all  this  impUed 
neglect  of  development  on  the  side  of  theory.  The  Marxian  dog- 
matics were  accepted  as  final  truth,  and  although  some  of  the  social 
democrats  realized  that  Russia  presented  many  problems  with 
which  Marx  had  not  dealt  at  all,  they  were  unable  at  that  moment 
to  formulate  the  modifications  upon  the  Credo  of  Marxism  which 
Russian  conditions  rendered  necessary.  They  were  thus  driven  to 
accept  the  Marxian  position  pure  and  simple,  and  so  far  as  their 
practical  tactics  were  concerned,  rather  to  follow  the  working  men 
than  to  lead  them.  To  a  certain  extent  they  tended  to  imitate  the 
German  social  democrats,  and  when  the  Erfurt  programme  was 
promulgated  in  1892,  the  Russian  groups  generally  accepted  it.  At 
the  same  time  they  appear  to  have  considered,  and  to  have  deliber- 
ately rejected,  the  English  trade-union  policy  on  the  ground  that  it 
was  destitute  of  ulterior  socio-political  aims.^ 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  numerical  importance  of  the  various 
societies  among  working  men  that  were  at  this  time  more  or  less 
directly  influenced  by  social  democratic  tactics  and  ideas.  There 
were,  however,  probably  a  few  thousand  working-men  members  of 
\  these  societies,  and  there  were  besides  a  few  hundred  social  demo- 
crats of  the  intelligentsia  who  assisted  in  forming  or  in  directing 
the  local  working-class  groups.  There  were,  in  addition  to  these, 
the  societies  formed  on  purely  economical  grounds,  and  not  as 
yet  affected  by  propagandist  ideas. 

About  1894  the  Government  turned  its  attention  to  the  move- 
ment. They  began  to  arrest  those  of  the  intelligentsia  who  had 
1  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  p.  70. 


SOCIAL    DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     151 

taken  part  in  the  organization  of  working-men's  societies.  Large 
numbers  of  students  were  arrested  ;  but  so  great  was  the  enthusiasm 
that  theirjfplaces  were  quickly  filled,  so  that  the  ranks  of  the  social 
democrats,  far  from  being  depleted,  became  more  numerous.  The 
Government  also  "  banished  "  to  their  villages  the  working-men 
members  of  the  organizations  ;  but  in  so  doing  it  contributed  to 
the  dissemination  of  the  opinions  which  it  desired  to  suppress,  for 
the  banished  working  men  carried  the  social  democratic  propa- 
ganda into  every  part  of  the  country,  especially  into  the  villages, 
and  at  the  same  time  carried  in  their  hearts  a  bitter  feeUng  against 
the  Government.  Under  the  influence  of  these  events,  the  social 
democratic  intelligentsia  began  to  see  in  the  working-class  move- 
ment a  "  lever  "  which  might  be  employed  by  them  to  force  the 
Government  into  political  reforms.^  Disappointed  with  the  results 
of  previous  attempts  to  agitate  among  the  peasants,  they  now 
looked  forward  with  hope  to  the  organization  of  the  working  men 
as  a  means  of  forcing  concessions  from  the  Government. 

In  the  end  of  April  1895  the  Moscow  social  democratic  organiza- 
tion determined  to  make  a  census  of  the  working  men  who  had 
definitively  enhsted  under  their  banner,  by  holding  on  ist  May 
a  meeting  which  would  have  the  character  of  a  demonstration, 
invisible,  however,  to  the  authorities.  Secret  Labour  Day  meetings 
had  been  held  in  1891  at  St.  Petersbiurg  and  in  1892  at  Vilna ; 
but  no  other  demonstrations,  secret  or  otherwise,  had  been  made. 
The  Moscow  meeting,  which  was  held  in  the  coimtry  near  Moscow, 
was  attended  by  about  250  working  men  and  5  intelligentsia.  At 
this  meeting  it  was  decided  to  create  immediately  "  a  widespread 
organization,"  to  be  called  "  The  Moscow  Working  Men's  Union," 
and  to  be  not  merely  a  working-man's  union,  but  to  be  also  inclusive 
of  sympathetic  intelligentsia.^ 

The  social  democratic  intelligentsia,  small  in  number  as  they 
were,  gained  experience  in  these  movements,  and  they  contributed 
to  regularize  strikes  when  they  occurred,  and  to  replace  the  elemental 
forms  of  struggle — indiscriminate  riot  and  the  like — by  more 
peaceful  and  dignified  demonstrations. 

Meanwhile  Russian  industry  was  developing  with  immense 
rapidity.  The  peasants  were  leaving  the  villages  and  streaming 
into  the  industrial  centres  ;  the  small  towns  even  were  deserted  for 

*  Egorov,  op.  cit.,  p.  378.  *  Lyadov,  op.  ciL,  pp.  115-16. 


152     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

these.  Among  the  economic  results  of  this  movement  of  popula- 
tion were  the  disturbance  of  the  interior  markets,  the  fall  of  prices 
in  the  villages  which  were  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  depopulated 
small  towns,^  and  the  increase  of  the  industrial  cities.  The  char- 
acteristic of  the  time  was  the  growth  of  huge  industrial  enter- 
prises. It  seemed  as  if  Russia  were  going  to  leap  at  once  from 
an  agricultural  economy  to  an  economy  of  great  industry.  More- 
over, these  industrial  enterprises  were  of  a  magnitude  to  which 
there  is  no  parallel  save  in  the  recent  great  combinations  in  the 
United  States.  The  exploitation  of  the  natural  resources  of  Russia 
attracted  capital  from  Western  Europe,  and  the  high  protective 
tariff  enabled  promoters  to  offer  highly  remunerative  returns.^ 

Some  influential  persons  in  the  *'  higher  spheres  "  ^  began  to 
see  in  these  movements  a  serious  danger  to  the  autocracy.  Others 
saw  in  them  a  period  of  prosperity  in  which  revolutionary  impulses 
might  subside.*  The  general  drift  of  orthodox  Marxism,  on  its 
purely  economical  side  and  apart  from  its  democratic  elements, 
was  not  out  of  consonance  with  the  industrial  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment. The  Government  was  not  only  by  far  the  greatest  land- 
owner in  Russia,  it  was  by  far  the  greatest  capitalist  and  the  greatest 
employer  of  labour.  Its  railways,  its  mines,  its  factories  of  many 
different  kinds,  were  in  every  part  of  the  country.  An  economical 
policy  which  urged  the  extension  of  governmental  enterprise  over 
all  fields  was  thus  of  itself  not  obnoxious  to  the  Government.  The 
obnoxious  feature  of  the  social  democratic  propaganda  was  its 
democratic  character,  the  insistence  that  the  existing  Government 
should  be  dismounted  and  a  democratic  Government  put  in  its 
place.  There  thus  arose  in  the  minds  of  the  authorities  a  sharp 
distinction  between  Marxism  as  an  economical  theory  and  social 
democracy  as  a  political  propaganda.  Moreover,  the  labour  move- 
ment, which  had  been  in  progress  from  1892,  could  not  escape  the 
notice  of  the  "  legal  "  press.  The  character  of  the  movement  was 
discussed  in  the  leading  newspapers,  and  the  influence  of  Marxist 

^  This  process  was  very  manifest  in  the  Upper  Dnieper  region,  where 
numbers  of  people  from  the  small  towns  migrated  into  the  industrial  towns 
of  Poland. 

2  Cf.  infra,  p.  372. 

3  M.  von  Plehve,  for  example,  who  is  reported  to  have  said  that  M.  Witte, 
through  his  policy  of  high  protection,  was  creating  revolutionists. 

*  Like  M.  Witt6,  e.g. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     153 

economics  could  not  fail  to  be  noticed.  The  antagonism  of  the 
Marxist  doctrines  to  those  of  the  Narodovoltsi  was  brought  out 
sharply.  Thus,  when  Peter  Struve  published  in  1894  his  Critical 
Essays}  the  book  passed  the  censor,  and  "  legal  "  Marxism  was 
a  fact.  The  writings  of  Marx  were  also  admitted  to  circulation,  so 
that  from  that  date  onwards  they  were  exposed  for  sale  in  the 
windows  of  the  ordinary  booksellers.*  There  also  arose  a  group 
of  "  legal "  Marxists,  comprising  persons  who  adhered  to  the 
Marxist  economic  theories  without  taking  part  in  social  demo- 
cratic organizations.^  "  Legal  Marxism  "  did  not,  however,  be- 
come of  importance  immediately.  Its  evolution  was  conditioned 
by  the  gradual  acceptance  of  the  doctrines  of  Marx  as  consonant 
with  the  negative  aspects  of  philosophical  materialism,  which 
represented  then,  as  it  does  now,  the  predominant  point  of  view 
in  philosophy  of  Russian  men  of  science.*  The  growth  of  "  legal  " 
Marxism  and  the  open  discussion  of  the  Marxist  dialectics  to  which 
it  gave  rise  led  to  an  attitude  towards  collectivism  not  as  a  doctrine 
concerning  merely  a  struggle  of  classes  ending  inevitably  with  the 
victory  of  the  proletariat,  but  towards  it  as  belonging  to  the  theory 
of  social  evolution  in  general.  Not  all  of  those  who  were  fairly 
entitled  to  be  called  "  legal  Marxists  "  remained  within  the  fold 
of  orthodox  Marxism  ;  many  of  them  either  joined  the  social 
democratic  groups,  or  became  advocates  of  constitutional  and 
social  reform.^ 

The  defence  of  the  Marxist  position  was  not,  however,  left  to 
the  "  legal  Marxists  "  properly  so  called.  Plekhanov  made  a  direct 
appeal  to  the  intelligentsia  in  his  book.  Towards  the  Development 
of  the  Monistic  View  of  History,  published  in  1895.®  According  to 
this  lively  polemic,  the  Narodneke  were  Utopists  similar  to  the 

»  Struv§,  P.,  Critical  Essays  (St.  Petersburg,  1894). 

*  Although  when  Maxx's  writings  were  found  on  domiciliary  visits,  they 
continued  to  be  regarded  as  confirmatory  evidence  of  undue  interest  in 
political  questions. 

'  Among  these  there  was,  e.g.  the  well-known  Professor  of  Political 
Economy,  M.  Tugan-Baranovsky.  There  were  also  many  of  the  junior 
members  of  the  teaching  staffs  of  nearly  all  the  universities. 

*  Cf.  Egorov,  op.  cit.,  p.  379. 

^  Some  of  them  identified  themselves  at  a  later  period  with  the  consti- 
tutional democrats,  and  some  of  them  became  merely  observant  critics  of 
all  parties. 

*  Published  under  the  pseudonym  of  "  N.  Beltov,"  republished  St.  Peters- 
burg, 1905. 


154     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Utopists  of  Western  Europe.  They  had  nothmg  in  common  with 
revolution.  They  were  not  Hberals,  or  conservatives,  or  mon- 
archists, or  repubHcans,  but,  consecrated  to  their  own  idees  fixes, 
they  were  ready  to  follow  any  of  them  in  so  far  as  by  doing  so 
they  might  hope  to  reaUze  their  own  "  practical "  plans.  Plek- 
hanov  similarly  attacked  the  Russian  "  subjectivists."  He  ac- 
cused them  of  faiUng  to  understand  Marx's  materialistic  theory  of 
history,  when  they  reproach  the  Marxists  for  the  passive  observance 
of  the  social  forces  to  which  they  consider  the  theory  logically  leads 
them.  "  The  degree  of  development  of  the  productive  forces," 
says  Plekhanov,  "  defines  the  measure  of  power  over  nature.  The 
dialectical  method  "  (the  method  of  Marx)  "  not  only  strives,  as 
its  enemies  recognize,  to  convince  people  that  it  is  absurd  to  make 
an  uprising  against  economical  necessity,  but  for  the  first  time  it 
shows  how  to  deal  with  it.  Once  we  understand  the  iron  law,  it 
devolves  upon  us  to  throw  off  its  yoke  and  to  make  necessity  an 
obedient  slave  to  reason.  '  I  am  a  worm,'  says  the  idealist.  *  I 
am  a  worm,'  says  the  materialist  dialectician,  *  so  long  as  I  am 
ignorant.  I  am  a  god  when  I  know.  Tantum  possumus,  quantum 
scimus.'  "  ^ 

One  of  the  consequences  of  "  legal  Marxism  "  was  the  pubHca- 
tion  of  several  newspapers  ^  in  which  "  legal  Marxism  "  was  pro- 
pagated, although  the  contributors  to  these  were  frequently 
members  of  the  revolutionary  social  democratic  ranks.  The 
association  of  these  discordant  elements  in  the  production  of  party 
newspapers  contributed  in  the  first  instance  to  an  absence  of  definite 
theoretical  basis,  as  the  result  of  compromise  on  questions  of 
principle,  and  led  afterwards  to  divisions  in  the  ranks  of  the  social 
democrats.  From  the  Marxist  point  of  view,  the  association  of 
these  groups  led  also  to  the  transformation  of  the  labour  move- 
ment into  a  liberal  "  tail."  ^ 

Up  till  the  year  1895,  partly  because  of  the  comparatively 
slender  growth  of  great  industries  in  Russia,  and  more  largely 
because  of  the  hostiUty  of  the  Government  to  labour  combinations, 

1  "  Beltov  "  (Plekhanov),  op.  cit.,  p.  232 ;  quoted  by  Lyadov,  op.  cit., 
vol.  i.  p.  151. 

*  The  first  of  these  was  Deenas  Lapa,  published  at  Riga  in  Lettish.  Then 
followed  the  Samara  Gazette,  Novae  Slovo  (New  Word),  Nachalo,  and  Jizn 
(Life).     Cf.  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i.  p.  154. 

*  Cf.  e.g.  Lenin,  What  to  do,  p.  10  ;  cited  by  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i.  p.  155. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT 


155 


there  had  been  few  strikes.  In  that  year  they  began  to  increase, 
in  1896  there  were  many  more,  and  in  1897  the  number  of  strikes 
and  the  numbers  of  men  involved  were  the  highest  during  that 
period.^  The  causes  of  these  strikes  were  exclusively  economical. 
The  era  of  the  poUtical  strike  had  not  yet  begun.  In  1895  about 
75  per  cent,  of  the  men  who  were  on  strike  struck  for  higher  wages, 
3  per  cent,  for  reduction  in  the  number  of  hours  of  labour,  and  22 
per  cent,  for  improvement  in  the  conditions  of  labour.  In  1896 
the  proportions  were  quite  different ;  only  about  36  per  cent,  struck 
for  advance  in  wages,  while  about  60  per  cent,  struck  for  reduction 
in  the  number  of  hours  of  labour.  In  1897  the  numbers  striking 
for  each  of  the  two  principal  causes  was  almost  equal,  the  number 
striking  for  improved  conditions  being  5  per  cent.^ 

The  growth  of  great  industries  now  brought  a  new  factor  into 
the  situation.  Large  fortimes  were  made  by  merchants  and  by 
financiers  who  had  embarked  in  various  enterprises.  The  factories, 
emplojdng  many  thousands  of  hands,  had  sometimes  in  their  im- 
mediate vicinity  the  new  and  costly  houses  of  their  owners.  For 
the  first  time  in  Russian  history  since  the  absorption  of  the  free 
towns  into  the  Moscow  State  there  arose  definitely  a  bourgeoisie, 
exercising,  autocracy  notwithstanding,  a  certain  political  influence. 
This  bourgeoisie  was  small  in  number,  but  it  was  important  because 
the  conditions  of  Russian  finance  had  brought  it  into  relations 
with  the  network  of  the  international  money  market.  If,  for 
example,  the  Russian  Government  was  unwilling  to  serve  certain 
ends  of  the  great  manufacturers,  pressure  which  was  difficult  to 
resist  might  be  brought  to  bear  from  Belgium,  France,  Germany, 

^  The  official  statistics  are  : 


189$. 

1896. 

1897. 

Number  of  establishments  involved 

„           workmen  involved          .... 

„           days  lost 

,,                „        where  workmen  gained 
„                 „         where  employers  gained 

„         where    there    was    a    com- 
promise     .... 
„                 „         where  result  is  unknown 

68 

31.X95 

156,843 

59.332 

15.417 

82,094 

118 

29.527 

189,313 

8,143 

173.087 

7.659 
324 

59.870 
321.349 
138,988 
132,662 

59.594 
105 

Ministry  of  Trade  and  Industry:  Statistical  Reports  of  Labour  Strikes  in 
Factories  and  Foundries.  1 895-1904,  V.  E.  Varzar  (St.  Petersburg,  1905), 
p.  72,  and  App.,  p.  3. 

'  Cf.  Varzar,  op.  cit.,  p.  55. 


156     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

or  England.  Moreover,  many  of  the  very  large  industries  had 
been  established  by  foreigners,  who  remained  subjects  of  their 
respective  countries,^  and  who  on  occasion  called  upon,  as  they 
were  entitled  to  do,  for  the  diplomatic  services  of  their  respective 
ambassadors.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  social  democrats,  the 
landowning  nobihty  were  effete  and  powerless.  Their  political 
influence  had  been  quite  unable  to  prevent  the  development  of  the 
protective  tariff,  and  was  now  a  "  negligible  quantity,"  and  their 
liberal  elements,  which  had  shown  themselves  in  the  Zemstvos, 
had  easily  been  rendered  useless.  The  new  bourgeoisie,  rising  into 
power  through  the  great  industry,  though  small  in  number,  was 
the  really  formidable  supporter  of  the  Government  and  the  for- 
midable enemy  of  the  working  class.  This  was,  of  course,  in  com- 
plete accordance  with  the  Marxist  hypothesis,  and  to  the  social 
democrats  the  rise  of  the  bourgeoisie  in  the  nick  of  time  to  justify 
the  prescience  of  Marx  was  no  accident,  but  was  an  inevitable 
necessity .2  The  only  real  antagonist  of  the  allied  forces  of  the 
bureaucratic  autocracy  and  the  great  factory-owning  bourgeoisie 
was  the  proletariat.  The  peasantry,  in  spite  of  the  years  of  hard 
toil  among  them  of  the  Narodnik  groups,  were  poHtically  value- 
less. The  intelligentsia,  in  view  of  the  current  reaction  in  the 
opinion  of  the  working  class  against  the  previous  idealization  of 
their  political  virtues  by  the  Narodovoltsi  and  the  subjectivists,  were 
described  by  Struve  as  **  in  sociological  relations  *  une  quantite 
negligeable.'  "  ^ 

From  this  point  of  view  it  became  evident  that  the  working 
class,  in  its  struggle  against  the  employing  class,  must  endeavour 
•to  secure  its  victories  by  means  of  changes  in  the  legislation  and 
administration  of  the  State.  It  must  thus  be  brought  soon  into 
collision  with  **  the  whole  State  mechanism."  ^    Thus  the  working 

1  Conspicuous  instances  of  this  are  the  woollen  mills  of  the  Thorntons 
on  the  Neva  and  the  engineering  works  of  the  Maxwells  at  St.  Petersburg, 
belonging  to  and  managed  by  Englishmen,  and  of  the  silk  factory  of  Girot 
at  Moscow,  belonging  to  and  managed  by  Frenchmen.  The  Nobels  (English 
and  French  capital)  have  large  interests  in  Southern  Russia. 

2  Struve,  P.  B.,  Critical  Essays  (St.  Petersburg,  1894),  quoted  by  Egorov, 
op.  cit„  p.  380. 

3  It  is  to  be  observed  that  historical  conditions  in  Russia  have  made 
for  the  sharper  division  of  the  classes  than  in  any  other  country.  Moreover, 
there  is  there  no  such  diffusion  of  industrial  and  commercial  capital  as  there 
is  in  Western  Europe.  Russian  enterprises  are  indeed,  as  pointed  out  above, 
largely  financed  from  abroad.  *  Egorov,  op.  cit.,  p.  380. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     157 

class,  even  if  it  conquered  an  eight-hour  day  by  means  of  an  econo- 
mical strike,  must  insist  further  upon  a  legal  eight-hour  day ;  or, 
if  it  conquered  a  recognition  by  the  employers  of  the  right  of  com- 
bination, it  must  further  have  that  right  secured  by  law,  and  so 
forth.  Such  appears  to  have  been  the  psychology  of  the  social 
democratic  movement  in  and  among  the  working  class  in  the  period 
succeeding  1894.  This  came  to  be  known  as  the  period  of  "  econo- 
mism."  * 

These  views  necessarily  isolated  the  working-class  social  demo- 
crats from  all  other  social  groups.  The  movement  came  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  "  pure  working-class  movement  "  by  its  advocates,  and 
as  merely  "  opportunist  "  by  its  critics.  The  latter,  indeed,  regarded 
it  as  opposed  in  principle  to  the  ultimate  aims  of  the  older  social 
democratic  groups,  as,  for  instance,  that  of  Plekhanov,  and  as 
struggling  for  no  aims  other  than  those  which  might  with  pressure 
be  realized  without  displacing  the  existing  form  of  government,  and 
without  altering  the  fundamental  character  of  the  administration 
of  law.2  The  development  of  "  economism  "  had  indeed  led  the 
social  democratic  working  men's  movement  unconsciously,  but  sub- 
stantially, to  the  point  of  view  of  Enghsh  trade  unionism,  as  inter- 
preted by  Brentano.  Indeed  the  critics  of  "  economism  "  appUed 
also  to  it  the  name  "  Brentanism."  ^  Their  views,  however,  corre- 
sponded more  closely  and  directly  with  those  of  Bernstein,  whose 
polemics  against  Kautsky  are  well  known.* 

It  seems  advisable  now  to  glance  at  the  fluctuations  of  opinion 

*  Egorov,  op.  cit.,  p.  380. 

■  Cf.  Egorov,  op.  cit.,  p.  381.  Some  social  democrats  afterwards  recog- 
nized in  the  "  economist  movement  of  this  period  a  direct  playing  into 
the  hand  of  the  great  bourgeoisie  through  concentration  of  attention  upon 
merely  trade-union  methods.     Cf.  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  p.  158. 

'  Professor  Lujo  Brentano  published  in  1872  the  second  volume  of  his 
Die  Arbeitergilden  der  Gegenwart,  in  which  he  endeavoured  "to  demonstrate 
the  possibility  of  a  solution  of  the  labour  question  under  the  social  and 
political  order  of  the  present."  (Preface  to  his  Das  Arbeitsverhdltniss  Gemdss 
dem  heutigen  Recht  (Leipzig,  1877),)  He  had  further  developed  the  same 
theme  in  "  Meine  Polemik  mit  Karl  Marx :  Zugleich  ein  Betrag  zur  Frage  des 
Fortschrittes  der  Arbeiterclasse  und  seiner  Ursachen  "  (in  Deuischen  Wochen- 
blatt,  6th  November  1890).  See  also  Bernstein,  Edouard,  Brentano  Abet 
die  Socialdemokratie  und  das  Lohngesetz  (i  890-1 891).  republished  in  his 
Zur  Geschichte  und  Theorie  des  Socialismus  (Berlin,  1901),  pp.  32-6. 

*  Book  \^  chap.  xi.  Bernstein  indeed  was  very  popular  at  this  time. 
Three  editions  of  a  collection  of  his  writings  were  published  in  Russia.  He  was 
one  of  the  writers  recommended  by  Zubdtov  to  be  read  by  those  whom  he 
wished  to  convert  from  social  democracy.     (Cf.  infra,  p.  189  n.) 


158     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

within  the  groups  whose  principle  was  characterized  as  "  econo- 
mism."  The  "Unions  for  Struggle"  were  composed  for  the  most 
part  of  working  men,  whose  principal  objects  were  to  improve 
the  conditions  of  their  own  labour  and  incidentally  of  the  labour  of 
other  working  men,  aUke  as  regards  the  physical  conditions,  the 
number  of  working  hours,  and  the  remuneration.  Only  a  relatively 
small  number  of  them  could  be  described  as  being  consciously 
engaged  in  a  struggle  between  the  working  class  and  the  owners  of 
capital  allied  with  the  Government.  On  the  '*  peripheries  "  ^  of 
these  circles  there  were  such  working  men,  and  in  the  centre  there 
were  groups  of  intelligenti  who  guided  the  organization.  These 
latter  groups  maintained,  to  begin  with,  their  association  with  the 
immediately  preceding  socio-political  elements  from  whom  they 
had,  indeed,  inherited  or  acquired  their  starting-point.  Such  groups 
appear  to  have  regarded  "  economism  "  as  a  temporary  phase — as, 
indeed,  an  evil  which  should  have  to  be  abandoned.  But  in  the 
periphery  of  the  circle,  occupied  by  working  men  of  the  character 
described,  and  by  intelligenti  of  similar  character,  there  was  a  ten- 
dency towards  the  increase  of  the  influence  of  "  economism."  In 
those  unions  where  the  intelligent  guides  at  the  centre  were  new- 
comers, the  working  men  at  all  stages  of  "  sociaHst  education  " 
were  inclined  to  insist  upon  managing  the  unions  themselves.^  As 
the  imions  grew  in  dimensions,  the  working  men  in  them  greatly 
outnumbered  the  intelligenti,  and  thus  the  control  of  the  unions  by 
the  latter  came  to  have  more  and  more  an  undemocratic  aspect, 
and  "  democratism  "  became  a  new  watchword  in  this  interior 
struggle.  In  St.  Petersburg  and  in  Kiev,  e.g.  there  emerged  a  party 
within  the  unions  which  proposed  a  unification  of  the  unions,  and  the 
formation  of  a  political  party,  on  the  basis,  however,  of  a  programme 
which  was  confined  within  the  limits  of  "  economism."  This  pro- 
posal was  not  received  with  favour  either  by  the  working  men  on 
the  "  periphery  "  or  by  those  who  were  "  socially  educated,"  and 
were  therefore  well  within  the  circle.  They  saw  in  the  project  a 
means  of  strengthening  the  central  control  and  of  diminishing  the 
democratic  character  of  the  structure  of  the  unions.  They  saw  in 
it  also  the  increase  of  the  influence  of  the  "  ideologists  "  over  that 
of  the  **  practitioners."  They  urged  that  a  working  men's  party 
can  grow  only  organically  from  the  inside,  and  that  the  formation 

^  A  phrase  of  Egorov's,  op.  cit.,  p.  381.  2  According  to  Lyadov. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC  MOVEMENT     159 

of  a  social  democratic  political  party  would  be  a  mistake.  They 
also  anticipated  the  moment  when  the  local  organizations,  losing 
their  "  hierarchical  character  and  intelligentsia  influence  shall  be- 
come (really)  working  men's  organizations,  which  would  embrace 
all  of  the  strugghng  portion  of  the  proletariat."  They  denounced 
any  other  way  of  forming  a  party  as  being  "  conspirative,"  and  as 
savouring  of  Narodnaya  Volya} 

In  spite  of  the  adverse  interior  conditions  of  the  social  demo- 
cratic groups,  they  appeared  to  be  making  progress  in  so  far  as 
concerned  the  arousal  of  the  working  men  from  political  ignorance 
and  apathy.  It  is  difficult  to  assess  the  proportions  of  the  purely 
spontaneous  labour  movement  apart  from  the  social  democratic 
and  "  active  "  revolutionary  propaganda.  It  is  possible  that  it 
was  very  considerable.  The  dispersal  of  working  men,  occasioned 
by  the  Government's  poHcy  of  banishing  by  administrative  order,* 
was  undoubtedly  influential  in  spreading  discontent  as  well  as 
in  spreading  the  social  democratic  ideas  with  which  at  least  some 
of  them  had  become  inoculated. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  year  1896  it  became  quite  apparent  that 
an  incipient  mass  movement  was  in  progress.  Where  it  would  end, 
no  one  could  tell.  The  liberal  elements  in  Russian  society  were 
conscious  of  an  altered  state  of  affairs,  but  they  seemed  to  be  imable 
to  grasp  the  situation.  The  feeUng  that  the  working  men  and  the 
peasants  were  too  ignorant  to  be  trusted  with  political  power  com- 
pletely possessed  them,  and  their  prevaihng  mood  throughout  the 
nineties  was  one  of  pessimism.  This  attitude  on  the  part  of  the 
liberals  was  undoubtedly  favourable  to  the  reactionaries,  and  the 
poUcy  of  arrest,  imprisonment,  banishment,  and  exile  went  on.  So 
long  as  social  democratic  intelligenti  only  were  imprisoned,  the  ten- 
dency was  for  them  to  be  idealized  by  the  working  men ;  now  that 
social  democratic  working  men  were  arrested,  they  came  to  be 
idealized  by  the  intelligenti.  It  was  only  a  step  farther  for  them  to 
idealize  the  whole  working  class.  The  Russian  youth  following  in 
this  direction  found  so  great  a  spontaneous  revival  among  the  work- 
ing men,  that  they  refused  to  give  the  social  democratic  inUUigenH 
the  whole  credit  of  the  movement .^    They  thus  discounted  the 

^  Egorov,  loc.  cit. 

'  The  prisons  could  not  have  held  the  workmen  banished  by  the  local 
governmental  authorities. 

•  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii.  p.  21. 


i6o     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

effect  of  propaganda,  and  came  to  attach  great  importance  to  organi- 
zation. This  attitude  was  to  a  certain  extent  confirmed  by  the 
demands  of  the  strike  period,  when  practical  organizing  abiUty  was 
called  for  on  all  hands.  The  result  of  this  "  state  of  mind  "  was  the 
formation  of  groups  of  the  younger  men  rivalling  the  groups  of  the 
older  propagandists  of  various  shades  of  opinion.  The  Molodykh 
(youths)  group,  and  other  groups  of  the  same  kind,  were  formed 
in  St.  Petersburg,  and  in  one  case  a  number  of  "  Technologists  "  left 
their  union  and  formed  a  group  of  their  own.  The  Molodykh  group 
developed  interior  differences  and  divided  into  two  factions. 

These  divisions  and  subdivisions  gave  rise  to  a  situation  in 
which  it  was  said  that  wherever  two  Russian  social  democrats  meet 
together,  there  will  be  three  social  democratic  parties  ;  ^  and  that 
in  the  mouths  of  self-styled  social  democrats  "  nonsense  was  elevated 
into  a  principle."  ^     In  Russia  socialism  was  still  a  "  chaos."  ^ 

One  way  out  of  this  chaos  seemed  to  be  to  convene  a  congress. 
The  Moscow  group  had  proposed  in  1894  to  convene  a  congress  in 
order  to  fix  the  "  political  physiognomy  "  of  the  party ;  but  the 
arrest  of  nearly  all  of  its  members  prevented  this  project  from  being 
carried  out. 

Projects  of  unification  of  the  unions  were  repeatedly  made,  but 
they  were  always  met  by  the  same  objections,  advanced  by  the 
same  groups,  who  came  to  be  known  as  the  "  Men  of  the  Nineties." 
The  reaction  against  the  formation  of  what  they  considered  *'  im- 
mature parties  out  of  innumerous  and  unstable  circles,"  culminated 
in  1897. 

Two  different  currents  combined  to  bring  about  a  partial  change 
of  view  among  the  social  democrats  :  the  growth  of  industry,  ac- 
companied as  it  was  by  strikes  in  the  winter  of  1 896-1 897  ;  and  the 
popularization  of  "  orthodox  "  Marxism  through  the  legal  press. 
The  strike  situation  brought  the  need  of  union  into  the  first  place, 
and  the  percolation  of  Marxist  opinions  prepared  the  way  for  a 
poUtical  programme.  Notwithstanding  the  traditional  opposition 
to  such  a  project,  and  in  consequence  of  these  currents,  the  central 
groups  of  the  "  Unions  for  Struggle  "  in  St.  Petersburg  and  in  Kiev, 
and  the  central  committee  of  the  Jewish  "  Bund,"  convened  a  con- 

1  Akimov,  Outline  oj  the  Development  of  Social  Democracy  in  Russia 
(St,  Petersburg,  1906),  p.  46  ;   cited  by  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii.  p.  24. 

2  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii.  p.  25.  »  Cf.  the  phrase  of  V.  Considerant. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC   MOVEMENT     i6i 

gress  at  Minsk  for  February  1898.  The  congress  was  held  in 
March  ;  there  met,  besides  the  groups  mentioned,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  "  Unions  for  Struggle  "  of  Moscow  and  Ekaterinoslav. 
The  meeting  was  held  in  strict  secrecy;  even  the  working  men 
of  the  "periphery"  knew  nothing  about  it.  The  occasion  was, 
however,  important,  for  there  was  then  formed  a  "  Russian  ' 
Social  Democratic  Working  Men's  Party."  The  congress 
appeared  to  be  divided  into  three  groups,  representing  three 
streams  of  tendency,  which  had  manifested  themselves  in  the 
isolated  and  disparate  organizations.^  There  were  some  ad- 
herents of  the  "  Group  for  the  Emancipation  of  Labour,"  who 
adopted  the  platform  of  Plekhanov,  which  has  already  been 
described.  The  second  group  represented  local  organization  and 
"  economism,"  the  idea  of  the  "  immediate  improvement  of  the 
condition  of  every  working  man."  The  third  group  represented 
the  idea  of  limited  centralization,  involving  the  preservation  of  the 
secret  or  conspirative  character  of  the  "general  staff"  or  central 
organization,  but  by  gradually  enlarging  its  structure  to  bring  it 
into  more  direct  contact  with  the  locally  organized  groups,  other- 
wise the  "  army."  According  to  this  group,  the  organized  mass 
should  not  have  any  control  of  the  "  party."  The  mass  should  be 
"  disciplined  by  continuous  agitation,"  strikes  should  be  steadily 
"  developed,"  and  it  should  take  part  in  "  propaganda  circles  "  and 
in  managing  the  strike  funds.  The  principal  exponent  of  the  ideas  , 
of  the  last-mentioned  group  was  Lenin,  who  had  issued  a  pamphlet  / 
advocating  them  immediately  before  the  congress  was  held.*  The 
congress  practically  adopted  the  position  of  Lenin.  The  drift  of 
the  manifesto  is  interesting  because  it  exhibits  the  mental  content 
of  the  groups  that  were  at  that  time  endeavouring  to  change  the 
current  of  Russian  life.  The  manifesto  begins  by  drawing  a  com- 
parison between  the  French  revolution  of  1848  and  the  future 
Russian  revolution.  From  the  customary  Marxist  point  of  view, 
this  revolution  marked  the  beginning  of  the  proletarian  struggle  in 
Western  Europe.     The  reference  to  the  revolution  of  1848  in  pre- 

1  According  to  Lyadov,  no  account  of  the  proceedings  at  this  congress 
has  been  preserved.  All  that  remains  are  the  programme  of  the  initiators 
and  the  manifesto  of  the  conp-ess.  The  manifesto  was  printed  in  The  Work- 
man's Gazette  (Lestka  Rahotneka),  No.  8,  June  1898,  pp.  3-8.  It  is  quoted 
in  extenso  by  Lyadov,  op,  cit.,  ii.  pp.  67-72. 

"  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  ii.  p.  64. 

VOL.  II  L 


1 62     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF   RUSSIA 

ference  to  the  revolution  of  1789  is  significant,  because  the  authors 
of  the  manifesto  seemed  to  think  that  in  Russia  a  social  revolution 
would  be  either  contemporaneous  with,  or  precedent  to,  a  political 
revolution.  But  either  social  democrats  of  the  congress  did  not 
agree  with  the  Marxist  position,  or  were  careless  in  their  historical 
allusion,  for  they  went  on  to  say,  that  it  is  necessary  for  the  Russian 
proletariat  to  struggle  first  for  "  poUtical  freedom,"  because  this 
is  as  needful  for  them  "  as  pure  air  is  for  healthy  respiration." 
Profiting  by  the  lessons  derived  from  Western  European  experience, 
the  Russian  proletariat  will  achieve  this  conquest  alone  without 
waiting  for  help  from  the  bourgeoisie.  While  the  accomplishment 
of  the  socialist  revolution  must  be  "  the  great  historical  mission  of 
the  proletariat,  the  first  step  must  be  the  poUtical  revolution."  So 
far  as  the  congress  was  concerned,  here  was  the  end  of  "  economism." 
There  could  be  no  question  of  Umiting  the  aims  of  the  social  demo- 
cratic labour  movement  to  the  immediate  economic  needs.  The 
congress  also  pronounced  in  favour  of  centralization.  "  All  the 
organizations  must  act  according  to  one  plan,  and  must  obey  the 
directors."  At  the  same  time,  the  Jewish  "  Bund,"  which  was 
already  a  centraUzed  organization  within  the  social  democratic 
movement,  was  given  full  separate  autonomy.^  The  congress  also 
decided  that  the  Working  Men's  Gazette  should  be  the  organ  of  the 
central  committee.  It  is  significant  that  the  manifesto  contains  no 
reference  to  the  agrarian  question.  The  document  appears  to  have 
been  drawn  up  by  P.  B.  Struve,  who,  however,  seems  to  have  ex- 
pressed, not  his  personal  opinions,  but  those  eventually  agreed  upon 
by  the  congress. 

The  document  was  not  well  received.  The  unions  refused  to 
circulate  it,  and  the  "  periphery  "  elements  resented  the  action  of 
the  intelligent  centres  in  summoning  a  meeting  without  their  know- 
ledge and  without  representation  from  them.  The  unions  on  the 
frontier  held  a  congress  in  the  autumn  of  1898,  and  rejected  a 
motion  of  sympathizers  with  the  "Group  for  the  Emancipation 

^  The  reasons  for  this  are  stated  in  an  article  in  the  organ  of  the  Bund, 
pubUshed  immediately  after  the  congress.  These  reasons  were :  the  pecuUar 
situation  of  the  Jews  in  Russia,  the  policy  of  the  Government  towards  them, 
the  fact  that  the  Jews  have  a  separate  language,  and  the  like.  (Quoted  by 
Lyadov,  vol.  ii.  p.  74.)  The  Jewish  "  Bund,"  or  "  The  Pan- Jewish  Working 
men's  Union  of  Russia  and  Poland,"  was  composed  of  Jewish  Lithuanian 
and  PoUsh  social  democrats. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     163 

of   Labour"   to  the  effect  that  the  principle  of  the  manifesto 
should  be  accepted.^ 

It  appeared  that  the  hostiUty  to  the  policy  of  centralization 
was  not  merely  justifiable  from  a  democratic  point  of  view,  but 
that,  in  the  condition  of  Russian  affairs  at  that  time,  to  centralize 
organization  was  to  make  the  task  of  suppression  by  the  Govern- 
ment easier.  No  sooner  were  the  details  of  the  organization  of 
the  central  committee  and  of  its  relations  to  the  local  committees 
settled,  than  the  members  of  all  of  these,  together  with  the  editors  \ 
of  their  newspaper,  were  arrested,  and  the  newspaper  office  was  \  ^ 
seized  by  the  poUce.  There  had  been  a  spy  at  the  centre,  and  1 
all  were  arrested  who  were  in  any  way  engaged  in  the  organization. 
"  Economism  "  was  justified  after  all,  in  spite  of  its  neglect  of 
the  distant  aims  of  the  "  poUticians."  Yet  in  some  of  the  groups 
there  remained  the  conviction  that  the  new  organization,  which 
must  arise  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old,  must  be  centralized.  The 
destruction  of  the  centres  by  the  measures  of  the  Government, 
together  with  the  interior  disputes  between  "  economism  "  and 
"  poHticalism,"  resulted  in  the  pulverization  of  the  imions  into 
small  detached  groups  of  varying  tendencies.  There  remained  a 
so-called  "  committee "  of  the  party,  but  this  committee  was 
composed  chiefly  of  representatives  of  the  "  periphery  "  elements  ; 
it  was  destitute  of  political  aims,  and  it  did  not  engage  in  political 
action.  In  the  autumn  of  1898  there  was  not  a  single  strong  socials  "i 
democratic  organization  of  "  political "  tendencies.*  The  labour 
movement  as  a  social  democratic  movement  existed,  but  only  as 
independent  and  dissociated  fragments.  Trusting,  as  the  local 
groups  did,  in  the  "  experience  and  erudition  "  of  the  emigrants 
in  the  "  Group  for  the  Emancipation  of  Labour  "  headed  by  Ple- 
khanov,  they  naturally  looked  for  guidance  and  for  a  supply  of 
pamphlet  hterature  suitable  for  propaganda  purposes,  but  neither 
of  these  were  forthcoming.  There  was  a  lack  of  comprehension  of 
the  real  needs  of  the  hour  on  the  part  of  the  emigrants,  and  Ple- 

*  Egorov  quotes  a  document  of  this  time  called  the  Credo,  which  denounced 
the  idea  of  the  formation  of  a  social  democratic  pohtical  party  on  the  ground 
that  such  a  party  would  be  an  imitation  of  Western  European  examples, 
and  urges  the  social  democrats  to  unite  with  the  liberal  opposition  in  its 
struggle  against  the  Government.  He  says  that  this  document  was  "  very 
influential  "  among  the  unions  of  the  frontier.  Egorov,  <»/).  cit.,  p.  383,  and 
cf.  infra,  p.  166. 

*  Egorov,  op.  cit.,  p.  384. 


1 64     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

khanov's  learned  polemics  were  not  suited  either  to  the  understand- 
ings or  to  the  stage  of  "  social  education  "  of  the  working  men, 
and  still  less  of  the  peasants.^  The  emigrants  spoke  constantly  of 
**  the  future  labour  movement,"  but  the  labour  movement  was 
already  in  being,  and  they  did  not  realize  the  fact.  But  among 
the  emigrants  movements  were  in  progress  corresponding  to  those 
in  the  interior  of  the  social  democratic  circles  in  Russia.  A  crisis 
was  precipitated  by  some  of  them,  who  separated  themselves  from 
the  "  Group  for  the  Emancipation  of  Labour  "  and  formed  a  new 
group,  which  they  called  the  "  Union  of  Russian  Social  Democrats 
Abroad. "  The  members  of  this  group  were,  for  the  most  part,  young 
emigrant  students  who  had  had  connections  with  the  social  demo- 
cratic organizations  in  Russia.  In  one  of  the  publications  of  this 
group  2  Akselrod  ^  wrote  **  a  mild  criticism  "  of  the  course  of  Russian 
social  democracy,  and  suggested  that  the  scope  of  its  immediate 
aims  might  well  be  enlarged.  During  the  winter  of  1897-1898  the 
relations  between  the  '*  Union  "  and  the  **  Group  for  the  Eman- 
cipation of  Labour  "  became  very  strained  over  the  question  of  "  eco- 
nomism,"  and  the  **  Group  "  abandoned  its  publications,  while  soon 
afterwards  the  **  Union  "  was  split  into  two  fractions.  The  larger 
fraction  was  led  by  the  editors  of  the  newspaper  Working  Men's 
Activities,  who  adopted  an  eclectic  attitude  towards  "  economism  " 
and  '*  political  activity "  alike.  The  smaller  fraction  united 
with  the  members  of  the  "Group  for  the  Emancipation  of 
Labour,'*  and  formed  the  "  Revolutionists*  Organization  of  Social 
Democrats."  * 

The  critical  paper  of  Akselrod,  referred  to  above,^  spoke  of  the 
fundamental  solidarity  of  interests  of  all  classes  of  society  in  so 
far  as  these  were  progressive,  and  of  the  identity  of  interest  of 
the  democratic  intelligentsia  and  the  democratic  working  men. 

^  Cf.  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i.  p.  161. 

2  The  series  of  publications  comprised,  About  Agitation;  Towards  the 
Question  of  the  Fundamental  Problems  and  Tactics  of  the  Russian  Social  Demo- 
crats ;  Historical  Conditions  and  the  Relations  of  the  Liberal  and  Social  Demo- 
cracy ;  A  Letter  to  the  Editors  of  "  Workmen's  Activities."  Cf.  Egorov,  op. 
cit.,  p.  381. 

^  Formeriy  one  of  the  Chorno  Peredyeltsi,  then  one  of  Plekhanov's  group. 
Cf.  supra,  p.  III. 

*  Egorov,  op.  cit.,  p.  382. 

•  "On  the  Question  of  the  Contemporary  Problems  and  Tactics  of  the 
Russian  Socialists."     Rabotnik,  No.  56  (1899). 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC   MOVEMENT     165 

Akselrod's  critics  pointed  out  that  in  this  view  Akselrod  looked 
upon  the  labour  party  not  as  a  class  party,  but  as  a  democratic 
bourgeois  party,  acting  upon  and  among  working  men,  and  that 
his  view  did  not  differ  materially  from  "  the  pale  Hberalism  "  of 
the  bourgeoisie.  They  insisted  that  the  "  general  national  prob- 
lem "  did  not  coincide  with,  and  that  it  was  indeed  hostile  to,  the 
problem  of  the  class  interests  of  the  proletariat.^  It  is  clear  that 
these  critics  decidedly  undervalued  the  * '  social  point  of  view. ' '  They 
appear  to  have  thought  that  disinterested  movement  was  quite 
impossible,  and  that,  since  the  point  of  the  social  democratic  agita- 
tion among  the  proletariat  was  to  provoke  what  they  called  class 
consciousness,  that  therefore  any  movement  among  the  bour- 
geoisie or  any  fraction  of  it  must  be  a  class-conscious  movement 
also.  As  one  of  them  puts  it :  "  Akselrod  did  not  believe  in  the 
class  character  of  the  demands  of  the  landowners  and  the  lawyers, 
because  he  thought  they  were  able  to  stand  upon  the  revolutionary 
point  of  view  of  the  proletariat  owing  to  their  common  hatred  of 
capitalism."  ^ 

Aksehod  was,  however,  probably  more  Marxian  than  his  critics, 
for  Marx  always  insisted  that  the  class  war  was  a  temporary  though 
necessary  phase,  and  that  the  end  of  it  would  be  the  aboHtion  of 
classes  and  the  merging  of  society  into  one  social  group.  Akselrod 
was,  therefore,  not  antagonistic  to  Marxist  principles  when  he 
advocated  the  utilization  of  the  democratic  intelligentsia,  so  far 
as  this  intelligentsia  would  go.® 

According  to  Lyadov,*  one  of  these  critics,  the  great  misfortune 
of  the  social  democratic  party  in  the  late  nineties  was  the  fact  that 
it  absorbed  "  too  great  a  dose  of  the  bourgeois  intelligentsia — so  much 
of  it  that  the  latter  did  not  even  desire  to  organize  into  separate 
bourgeois  revolutionary  circles  or  fractions."  He  considered  that 
the  social  democracy  of  the  bourgeois  intelligentsia,  including  among 
them  the  "  legal  Marxists,"  had  not  left  one  stone  upon  another 
of  the  fabric  of  scientific  socialism,  to  the  great  joy  of  the  survivors 

*  As  stated  by  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  96-8. 

*  Lyadov.  ii.  p.  98. 

*  The  question  had  been  fought  out  in  the  International.  Had  it  been 
decided  in  accordance  with  the  views  of  the  social  democrats,  who  were 
opposed  to  Akselrod.  Marx  himself  would  have  been  excluded  from  the 
Association  he  was  instrumental  in  bringing  into  existence. 

*  See  Lyadov»  op.  cit.,  ii.  p.  115. 


166     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

among  the  old  Narodnik  elements,  and  to  the  neutralization  of 
the  efforts  of  the  other  revolutionary  oppositional  organizations. 
The  intelligentsia  had  cultivated  an  innocuous  socialism,  and  had 
been  at  pains  to  direct  the  movement  into  the  channels  of  trade 
unionism.  The  two  documents  in  which  the  views  of  the  intelli- 
gentsia and  the  supposititious  views  ^  of  the  proletariat  are  most 
sharply  contrasted  are  the  Credo  and  the  Protest.^  The  former, 
which  bears  the  marks  of  the  views  of  Akselrod,  although  its 
authorship  appears  to  be  unknown,  states  its  general  point  of  view 
in  these  terms  :  "  The  Marxism  which  is  negative,  the  primitive, 
intolerant  Marxism  (which  employs  in  a  too  schematical  way  its 
division  of  societies  into  classes)  must  give  way  to  democratic 
Marxism,  and  the  position  of  the  party  in  contemporary  society 
will  thereby  be  greatly  changed.  The  party  will  find  its  narrow 
corporative  and  mostly  sectarian  aims  changed  into  a  tendency  to 
reform  contemporary  society  in  the  democratic  direction  adapted 
to  the  contemporary  state  of  affairs,  with  the  aim  of  more  suc- 
cessfully and  completely  defending  the  rights  (which  vary)  of  the 
labouring  classes."  ^  xhe  Credo  originated  in  St.  Petersburg. 
The  Protest,  which  was  compiled  by  seventeen  social  democratic 
exiles  in  Switzerland,  warned  the  party  of  what  it  considered 
the  danger  which  menaced  it,  in  the  attempt  to  divert  it 
from  the  path  it  had  chosen — viz.  the  formation  of  an  in- 
dependent political  labour  party,  inseparable  from  the  class 
struggle  of  the  proletariat,  with  the  primary  object  of  conquering 
pohtical  freedom.* 

In  his  criticism  of  the  Credo  and  of  the  policy  of  **  economism," 
Lyadov  argues  that  "  economism  "  was  really  a  political  move- 
ment, and  that  the  effect  of  inducing  the  working  men  to  adhere 
closely  to  economical  demands  must  be  to  leave  politics  in  the 
hands  either  of  the  bureaucratic  autocracy  or  of  the  bourgeois 
intelligentsia,^    He  also  pointed  out  that  the  latter  groups  had 

^  By  supposititious  is  meant  that  the  views  in  question  were  expressed 
rather  for  than  by  the  proletariat.  The  controversy  was  really  between 
intelligentsi. 

*  Both  were  published  in  Vade  mecum  for  the  Editors  oj  Workmen's 
Affairs  (Geneva,  1900). 

*  Quoted  by  Lyadov,  op.  cit.,  ii.  p.  116. 

*  Ihid.,  p.  121. 

"  Cf.  the  idea  of  Zubdtov,  infra,  p.  188. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC   MOVEMENT     167 

drifted  away  from  their  revolutionary  sympathies  of  the  seventies 
and  the  eighties,  and,  together  with  the  "  agrarians,"  or  advo- 
cates of  agrarian  reform,  had  organized  a  merely  Uberal  opposition, 
attaching  significance  to  the  possibiUty  of  the  success  of  the  Zemstvos 
in  a  struggle  against  the  autocracy. 

There  were  thus  two  main  currents  tending  towards  the 
cessation  of  revolutionary  activity  —  one  in  the  bom-geois 
intelligentsia  and  the  other  in  the  working  class.  The  former 
had  arrived  at  its  position  by  means  of  a  destructive 
criticism  of  the  doctrines  of  Marx,  and  through  the  sense  of 
the  absence  of  preparation  on  the  part  of  the  town  artisans 
for  the  assumption  of  a  r61e  so  important  as  the  "dictator- 
ship of  the  proletariat."  The  latter  had  found  in  combination 
and  in  strikes  a  cure  for  their  immediate  ills,  and  although 
they  identified  the  interests  of  their  employers  with  the 
interests  of  the  Government,  they  found  continuous  organization 
and  continuous  pressure  towards  gaining  material  advantage  more 
advantageous  than  spasmodic  outbreaks  of  violence  which  ap- 
peared to  result  only  in  suppression  by  the  Government.^  The 
percentage  of  strikes  after  which  the  workmen  gained  was  high 
in  1895  ;  it  was  low  in  1896  ;  it  rose  again  in  1897.2  The  strike 
movement  on  any  considerable  scale  was  quite  new  in  1895,  and 
these  were  looked  upon  as  satisfactory  results.  But  these  gains, 
and  the  attitude  of  the  working  men  in  so  far  as  it  was  dependent 
upon  continuous  gains,  came  to  an  abrupt  ending  when,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  inferior  harvests  of  1897  and  1898,  and  in  consequence 
of  depression  of  trade  abroad,  employment  on  any  terms  became 
more  difl&cult  to  procure.  The  stream  of  people  from  the  villages 
to  the  industrial  centres  continued,  and  the  supply  of  labom:  being 
in  excess  of  the  demand  for  it,  and  that  demand  being  steadily 
subsiding,  strikes  became  in  1899  at  once  more  nimierous  and 
more  imsuccessful  so  far  as  the  working  men  were  concerned. 
Judged  by  its  practical  results,  "economism"  had  been  pro- 
nounced  a   wise  and  materially  profitable  poUcy ;    now,  judged 

^  The  appointment  of  factory  inspectors,  and  the  enforcement  of  factory 
legislation,  tnough  not  regarded  entirely  with  favour  by  the  working  class, 
had  a  certain  influence  in  producing  the  state  of  mind  described  in  the  text. 
For  factory  legislation,  see  supra,  p.  407  et  seq. 

*  See  table  following. 


1 68     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


by   its   results,    it   appeared   to   be  doomed   to  be   a   thing  of 
the  past.^ 

Up  till  the  year  1895  arrests  among  the  social  democratic  ranks 
had  been  chiefly  of  intelligentsia  ;  from  that  time  onwards  larger 
numbers  of  working  men  were  arrested,  although  the  practice  of 

*  Table  I,  showing  the  numbers  of  strikes  in  Russia  and  of  workmen 
involved  in  respect  to  the  causes  of  the  strikes. 


895.  1896.  1897.  1898.  1899.  Z900.  X901 


z9oa.   Z903 


1904. 


I.  For  advance 


°!{ 


II.  For  reduction    of 
tim3 

III,  For  improvement 
of  labour  conditions 

IV.  Other  causes     .     . 


53 
23,376 

6 

1,021 

II 
6,938 


75 
8,890 

27 
19,063 

II 
1.235 

5 
239 


71 
27,503 

66 
28,818 

6 
3,042 

2 
517 


152 
16,430 

35 
17,633 

22 
7,527 

6 
1,560 


132 
40,490 

36 
9,825 

10 
4,051 

II 
3,123 


66 
15,203 

40 
9,300 

9 
707 

16 
4,179 


95 
8,654 

53 
15,933 

II 
7,111 

5 
520 


68 
16,394 

24 
7,126 

21 
8,009 

II 
5,042 


309 
41,671 

95 
16,706 

20 
9,433 

126 
19,022 


50 
9,840 

4 
3,943 

12 
10,619 

2 
501 


Table  II,  showing  numbers  of  strikes  in,  Russia  and  of  workmen  involved 
in  which  the  workmen  and  the  employers  gained  respectively  and  in  which 
compromises  were  effected  during  the  years  1 895-1904. 


Workmen 
Gained. 

Employers 
Gained. 

Compromised. 

Result 
Indecisive. 

1  1  1  1  1  1  1  t  1  1 

37 
59,332 

26 
8,143 

44 
128,988 

49 
30,732 

31 
47,030 

13,576 

67 
37,365 

37 
35,949 

147 

78,893 

28 

7,448 

12 
15,417 

77 
173,087 

132,662 

52 
39,012 

131 
171,125 

56 

57,214 

64 
59,109 

68 
81,866 

226 
248,765 

32 
170,504 

19 
82,094 

8 
7,659 

15 
.    56,594 

89,010 

27 
46,701 

36 
44,435 

33 
13,719 

16 
10,000 

109 

76,498 

8 

7,460 

7 
324 

2 
105 

I 
144 

2 
4,300 

I 

385 

68 

40,763 

Totals.    .    .    .{ 

478 
447,456 

802 
1,148,761 

384 
437,170 

81 
46,021 

From  Varzar,  V.  E.,  op.  cit.,  pp.  55  and  72. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC   MOVEMENT     169 

banishment  still  continued.  In  many  of  the  industrial  and  com- 
mercial centres — in  Warsaw,  Lodz,  Moscow,  St.  Petersburg,  Nijni- 
Novgorod,  &c. — the  most  active  working  men  belonging  to  the 
social  democratic  groups  were  arrested.^  Partly  spontaneously,  and 
partly  through  the  propaganda  of  the  social  democratic  intelli- 
gentsia, the  mass  movement  had  really  begun.  The  arrests  of  so 
large  numbers  of  working  men  were  convincing  proofs  that  this 
was  the  case,  or,  at  all  events,  that  the  Government  believed,  or 
affected  to  believe,  that  it  was. 

"  The  appearance  "  in  the  prisons  and  "  in  the  streets  of  the 
political  mujik  soon  destroyed  the  ice  which  separated  the  few 
revolutionaries  from  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  created  a  series  of 
cords  which  bound  the  revolutionaries  to  the  mass."  *  The  strikes 
not  only  brought  together  the  working  men  and  the  revolutionary 
elements,  but  they  inflicted  a  severe  blow  upon  the  traditions  of 
factory  employment  which  had  come  down  from  pre-Emancipation 
days.  The  obvious  success  of  "  economism  "  in  producing  this 
effect  had  an  important  influence  upon  the  "  state  of  mind  "  of 
the  working  men.  They  began  to  see  in  the  strike  a  cure  for 
everything,  and  to  feel  that,  after  all,  a  complete  pohtical  change 
was  not  so  necessary  as  appeared  at  first  sight.  But  the  con- 
tinuance of  this  attitude  was  dependent  upon  the  continuance  of 
successful  strikes,  and  external  influences  contributed  to  render 
such  continuance  impossible. 

Up  till  1898  Western  European  capital,  increasing  rapidly  in 
volume,  sought  employment  in  all  countries  where  the  rate  of 
interest  was  relatively  higher  than  in  England  and  in  France.  The 
United  States,  Canada,  Germany,  and  Russia  all  benefited  by  this 
condition.  Immense  sums  flowed  from  the  Western  European 
money  market  to  all  of  these  countries.  The  South  African  War 
broke  out  in  1899,  the  supply  of  gold  from  the  Transvaal  suddenly 
ceased,  the  money  market  in  Western  Europe  became  stringent, 
and  the  supply  of  capital  for  Russian  enterprises  was  checked  at 
its  source.     Inferior  crops  in  Russia  in  1897,  1898,  and  1899  intensi- 

*  Between  1894  and  1896,  according  to  Lyadov,  there  were  726  political 
cases,  and  3531  persons  were  brought  to  trial.  This  number  does  not  include 
those  who  were  dealt  with  by  "  police-administrative  order,"  and  who  Mrere 
banished  to  the  northern  provinces  or  to  Siberia.  See  Lyadov,  op.  cit., 
i.  p.  125. 

*  Ibid.,  ii.  p.  5. 


ijo     ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

fied  the  situation,  and  industry  became  stagnant.  Wages  fell, 
especially  in  the  south  of  Russia.  In  the  great  ports  of  Odessa 
and  Nikolayev  starving  labourers  wrecked  the  shops.  Disorder 
spread  all  over  the  south.  There  were  few  strikes,  but  there  was 
much  unemployment.  The  labourers  who  had  left  their  villages 
for  the  relatively  high  wages  current  during  the  preceding  period 
could  readily  return  to  them.  They  began  to  feel  the  instabiUty 
of  employment  which  depends  on  foreign  commerce  and  upon  the 
large  industry.  In  the  north,  too,  there  were  hordes  of  unemployed. 
In  Riga  there  were  strikes  against  reduction  of  wages,  and  the 
city  was  given  over  to  riot.  PoHce  and  troops  were  used  to  quell 
the  disturbances ;  the  crowds  were  beaten  with  the  naga'ika}  The 
mob  was  desperate.  Always  on  the  edge  of  subsistence,  depriva- 
tion for  a  day  meant  starvation.  There  was  no  organization  of 
any  effective  kind  for  deaUng  with  a  situation  which  had  not  been 
provided  for.  The  working  men  and  the  advocates  of  "  econo- 
mism "  blamed  the  employers.  The  critics  in  general  of  the 
Government  found  in  the  autocracy  the  explanation  of  the  impasse. 
The  social  democrats  denounced  the  autocracy  and  the  employers 
aUke,  and  urged  that  the  only  exit  was  by  means  of  a  social  revolu- 
tion and  a  socialist  State,  under  which  industry  would  be  organized 
in  such  a  way  as  to  obviate  commercial  and  industrial  crises,  or  at 
least  to  mitigate  their  effects.  On  the  other  hand,  the  employers 
complained  that  the  Government  gave  them  inadequate  protection, 
in  spite  of  a  promise  that  their  property  would  be  protected.  The 
Government  was  indeed  between  two  fires.  If  it  refrained  from 
protecting  the  factories,  it  practically  abdicated  its  functions  ;  if 
it  protected  them,  it  excited  the  forces  of  the  revolution,  already 
sufl&ciently  perturbed.  The  Government  was  thus  inevitably 
brought  into  the  position  of  an  enemy  of  the  working  class.  "  The 
struggle  of  the  labouring  class  with  the  capitalists,"  says  one  of 
the  social  democratic  newspapers  of  that  time,  "  has  brought  into 
the  field  a  new  enemy,  the  Government  of  the  Tsar,  and  we  must 
fight  with  it  for  our  political  rights."  ^ 

The  commercial  and  industrial  crisis  which  began  in  1899  afforded 
"  rich  material  for  agitation,"  and  in  spite  of  the  watchfulness  of  the 

Xl    ^  "  The  Labour  Riots  in  Riga,"  in  Working  Men's  Affairs  (Geneva,  August 
r899),  p.  65  ;   quoted  by  Lyadov,  ii.  p.  158. 

2  Forwards  (Kiev),  No.  4,  January  1899  ;  quoted  by  Lyadov,  ii.  p.  164. 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     171 

police  and  the  hostility  of  the  Government,  fresh  social  democratic 
organizations  sprang  up  everywhere,  and  the  previously  existing 
fragments  of  older  organizations,  frequently  harried  by  the  poUce, 
were  revivified.  The  political  propaganda  became  active ;  "  illegal 
Uteratiu"e  "  from  the  Russian  presses  abroad  once  more  came  into 
Russia  in  great  quantities.  The  "  Group  for  the  Liberation  of 
Labour,"  under  the  leadership  of  Plekhanov  and  Akselrod,  was 
again  active,  after  having  been  relegated  to  the  backgroimd  during 
the  period  of  "  economism."     New  journals  made  their  appearance.^ 

These  events  gave  a  fresh  impetus  to  controversy.  The  forces  of 
the  opposition  were  once  more  distracted  by  disputes  upon  the  fami- 
Uar  topics.  Bemsteinism  and  all  that  it  impUed  were  again  sub- 
jected to  attack. 

Meanwhile,  the  spontaneous  movement  of  labour,  regardless  of 
the  contestations  sterile  of  the  social  democratic  scholastics,  was 
spreading  widely — its  branches  ran  along  the  Siberian  Railway  so 
far  as  Krasnoyarsk  and  penetrated  the  Caucasus  to  Tiflis. 

Among  the  students  there  were  also  spontaneous  movements, 
leading  to  strikes,  in  which  the  students  demanded  "  guarantee  of 
personaUty."  The  Government  replied  by  issuing  "  temporary 
regulations"  about  the  enhstment  of  students  in  the  army.*  Re- 
volutionary impulses  began  to  make  their  appearance,  and  the 
students  denounced  in  resolutions  the  action  of  the  "  Asiatic  Gov- 
ernment," demanding  "  freer  forms  of  Ufe."  At  Kharkov  the 
medical  students  joined  the  social  democrats,  and  attempted  to 
make  a  demonstration.  The  demonstration  was  a  failure,  many  of 
the  students  who  took  part  in  it  being  arrested.  In  the  evening  of 
the  same  day  (19th  February  1900)  the  working  men  of  Kharkov 
made  a  demonstration  in  favom*  of  the  students,  singing  the  "  Mar- 
seillaise "  and  other  revolutionary  songs.'  llie  crowd  was  charged 
by  Cossacks,  and  at  midnight  was  dispersed  with  difficulty,  the 
demonstration  having  lasted  for  five  hours.  At  St.  Petersburg  a 
similar  demonstration  of  students  on  the  same  day — the  anniver- 
sary of  peasant  emancipation — failed,  but  in  Moscow  a  meeting  of 
students  was  held,  only  to  be  surrounded  and  captured  by  the  police. 

*  e.g.  Iskra. 

*  One  hundred  and  eighty-three  students  were  enlisted  as  a  consequence  of 
these  disturbances. 

*  Lyadov.  op.  cit.,  ii.  p.  223. 


172     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Crowds  of  working  men  came,  however,  to  the  rescue,  and  succeeded 
in  hberating  about  half  of  the  students  who  had  been  arrested. 
Disturbances  continued  to  take  place  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
University  for  several  days.  Arrests  of  working  men  and  of  students 
continued.  On  Sunday,  25th  February,  the  day  upon  which  Count 
Leo  N.  Tolstoy  was  excommunicated,  crowds  surged  along  the  prin- 
cipal streets  of  Moscow  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  Cossacks  and  the 
poUce.  In  Lubianka  the  crowd  recognized  Tolstoy,  who  was  walk- 
ing in  the  street.  He  received  an  ovation,  and  with  difficulty  escaped 
from  the  pressure  of  his  admirers.  The  crowds  were  not  dispersed 
until  three  o'clock  the  following  morning. 

On  4th  March  a  demonstration,  accompanied  by  charges  of  troops 
and  bloodshed,  took  place  at  the  Kazan  Cathedral,  St.  Petersburg. 

Demonstrations  now  became  frequent  in  the  capitals  and  else- 
where. The  working  men  seem  to  have  thrown  timidity,  and  even 
prudence,  aside.  On  nth  March  there  was  a  demonstration  on  a 
small  scale  at  Kazan  ;  on  19th  September  about  400  persons  made 
a  demonstration  in  St.  Petersburg,  nearly  all  being  arrested ;  on 
7th  November  a  demonstration  to  protest  against  the  exile  of  Maxim 
Gorki  took  place  at  Nijni  Novgorod.  On  the  following  day  a 
similar  demonstration  for  a  like  reason  was  made  at  Moscow  to 
greet  Gorki  who  was  passing  through  the  city.  On  i8th  November 
a  meeting  to  be  held  in  memory  of  Dobrolubov^  was  prohibited, 
and  a  demonstration  in  protest  was  held.  On  2nd  December  there 
was  a  demonstration  at  Kharkov,  in  which  students  and  working 
men  took  part.  On  15th  and  i6th  December  students  and  working 
men  made  a  demonstration,  revolutionary  songs  were  sung,  and 
shouts  were  heard,  "  Away  with  the  autocracy  I  "  "  Vive  political 
freedom  !  "  **  Vive  social  democracy  !  "  The  crowds  were  at- 
tacked by  soldiers  and  police. 

In  1902  another  series  of  demonstrations  began  at  Kiev  on  2nd 
February,  and  continued  at  Ekaterinoslav,  Rostov-on-Don,  and 
Odessa.  On  9th  February,  at  the  University  of  Moscow,  a  number 
of  students  made  a  demonstration  within  the  walls  of  the  University, 
and  barricaded  themselves  in  one  of  the  buildings.  In  the  night 
the  barricades  were  carried  by  the  poHce,  the  students  who  were 
behind  them  were  arrested  and  sent  to  Eastern  Siberia. 

In  March,  April,  and  May  numerous  arrests  were  made,  yet  the 

1  1 836-1 86 1.     One  oj  the  allies  oj  Chernishevesky  in  "  The  Contemporary." 


SOCIAL   DEMOCRATIC    MOVEMENT     173 

enthusiasm  for  demonstration  continued,  to  die  down  somewhat  in 
the  summer,  and  then  later,  in  the  beginning  of  1903,  to  come  up 
with  renewed  force. 

The  value  of  the  poUcy  of  demonstration  could  not  be  denied. 
The  practice  of  meeting  in  great  numbers  thrust  the  conspirative 
groups  into  the  background.  Yet  the  social  democrats  lost  heavily, 
partly  by  wholesale  arrests  during  these  large  open  meetings,  and 
partly  through  the  eclectic  phase  in  which  the  social  democratic 
groups  had  come  to  be  involved.  The  idealists  among  the  social 
democrats  saw  in  demonstration  a  further  means  of  "  unifying  " 
the  interests  of  the  numerous  groups  of  intelligentsia,  and  later  they 
began  to  see  in  demonstration  an  entirely  new  means  of  propaganda. 
As  the  meetings  grew  larger  it  became  more  difficult  for  the  police 
to  disperse  them.  While  people  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowds 
might  be  arrested,  it  was  practically  impossible  to  arrest  social 
democratic  orators  surrounded  by  thousands  of  people  in  a  dense 
mass.  The  result  of  these  conditions  was  that  in  1902  and  1903  the 
social  democratic  movement  in  the  towns  became,  in  a  propagandist 
sense,  a  formidable  force,  especially  in  the  south  of  Russia.^ 

So  great  was  the  success  of  the  social  democrats  among  the  work- 
ing men  in  the  towns,  so  eager  did  the  audiences  appear  in  listening 
to  social  democratic  speakers,  that  the  latter  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  they  were  the  centre  of  a  mass  movement  which  was  destined 
soon  to  sweep  over  the  whole  of  Russia.  At  the  same  time  they  pro- 
ceeded to  denounce  the  rival  revolutionary  elements.  They  ac- 
cused the  social  revolutionaries  of  serving  the  interests  of  the  UberalJ^ 
bourgeoisie. 

^  For  the  share  of  the  social  democrats  in  the  strike  movement  in  South 
Russia  in  1903,  see  infra,  p.  442  et  seq. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   SOCIAL  REVOLUTIONARY   MOVEMENT 

We  have  seen  how,  during  the  reaction  which  succeeded  the  assas- 
sination of  Alexander  II  on  ist  March  1881,  the  revolutionary 
groups  were  hunted  down,  and  how  the  Narodnaya  Volya  was 
finally  suppressed  in  1887.  The  depression  of  trade  of  the  early 
nineties  produced  much  discontent  among  the  city  proletariat, 
and  the  famine  of  1891  reduced  large  numbers  of  the  peasantry  to 
starvation.  People  who  are  really  starving  do  not  revolt,  though 
there  may  be  sympathetic  revolts  by  those  who  are  not  starving. 
It  was  not  until  the  revival  of  trade  had  been  in  progress  for  some 
years — not,  indeed,  until  1897  and  1899 — that,  under  the  influence 
of  the  strike  movement  of  these  years,  there  came  about  a  new 
revolutionary  agitation.  This  movement  may  be  regarded  as 
having  two  not  very  intimately  associated  sides.  On  the  one  hand 
there  was  the  spontaneous  labour  movement,  expressing  itself  in 
strikes,  and  becoming  of  revolutionary  tendencies  at  intervals, 
but  even  then  only  in  a  vague  way  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
was  the  propagandist  revolutionary  movement,  those  who  took 
part  in  it  being  for  the  most  part  intelligentsia  drawn  from  different 
classes,  who  sought  to  take  advantage  of  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
working  men  and  to  utilize  the  strikes  for  revolutionary  purposes. 
On  both  sides  the  new  movement,  if  such  it  may  be  called, 
sprang  up  spontaneously  and  therefore  lacked  organization.  The 
alertness  of  the  police,  indeed,  made  organization  almost  impossible. 
Yet  there  was  in  the  movement  a  fresh  feature.  This  was  the 
extent  to  which  it  was  an  agitation  among  the  masses  of  the  working 
men  spontaneously  arising  among  themselves,  similar  in  this 
respect  to  the  mass  movements  among  the  peasantry  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  Like  these  movements,  the  agitation  of  the  late 
nineties  was,  to  begin  with,  of  a  purely  economical  character.     In 

so  far  as  the  strikes  were  successful  the  movement  remained  purely 

174 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENT     175 

economical  ;  only  in  the  unsuccessful  strikes  did  it  exhibit  a  ten- 
dency towards  political  aims.  This  tendency  was  reinforced  by 
the  propagandist  elements ;  but  the  hands  of  the  more  purely 
revolutionary  fractions  of  these  were  tied,  partly  by  the  watchful- 
ness of  the  poHce,  and  partly  by  their  own  want  of  sympathy  for 
the  "  economism  "  of  other  fractions  and  for  the  "  strikism  "  of  the 
working  men.  On  the  one  hand  the  workmen  demanded  leader- 
ship, and  "  not  merely  empty  scholasticism  "  ;  ^  on  the  other  hand, 
the  revolutionists  despised  the  narrow  aims  of  the  workmen,  and 
felt  aggrieved  because  the  latter  capitulated  when  their  economical 
demands  were  met.  The  social  democrats  of  the  nineties  were  I 
undoubtedly  nearer  to  the  working  men  and  to  their  point  of  view 
than  were  the  social  revolutionaries.  The  latter  were  more  purely 
ideaHstic,  and  were  therefore  impatient  with  social  democrat  and 
workman  alike.  This  attitude  of  mind  produced  during  the 
nineties  a  pessimistic  mood  so  profound  that  there  was  among  / 
the  revolutionaries  an  epidemic  of  suicides.^  From  the  point  of  j 
view  of  the  social  democrats,  the  strike  movement  of  the  nineties  i 
was  the  sign  of  the  existence  of  class  consciousness  in  the  city 
proletariat ;  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  social  revolutionists,  it 
was  merely  the  first  awakening  of  the  working  men  to  the  fact 
of  the  immaturity  of  the  development  of  this  class  consciousness. 
The  social  revolutionists  laboured  to  explain  to  the  working  men 
that  striking  could  not  be  an  end  in  itself — that  the  serious  problem 
with  which  they  had  to  grapple  was,  what  next  ?  This  propa- 
ganda led  many  of  the  working  men  to  the  behef  that  the  revolu- 
tionists were  opposed  to  the  labour  movement,  and  such  an  attitude 
inevitably  increased  the  difficulties  of  the  revolutionary  propa- 
ganda among  the  city  proletariat. 

Towards  the  close  of  1899  the  industrial  crisis  caused  reduction 
in  the  demand  for  labour,  while  contemporaneously  the  agricultural 
crisis  drove  peasants  into  the  towns  to  seek  for  employment  in  a 
market  already  overstocked.  Wages  fell  sharply,  and  the  working 
men  were  powerless  to  prevent  this  consequence  of  the  economic 
conditions  through  strikes  or  any  other  means.     Confidence  in  the 

^  Towards  the  Question  of  Programme  and  Tactics.  Collection  of  articles 
from  Revolutionary  Russia  (Paris  ?  1903),  p.  5. 

"  Among  the  better-known  revolutionaries  who  died  in  this  way  at  this 
time,  were  A.  L.  Safonov,  A.  T.  Oryekhov,  and  N.  V.  EfSmov.     Ibid.,  p.  4. 


176     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

utility  of  strikes  speedily  declined,  and  the  working  men,  having 
no  other  weapon  in  their  arsenal,  turned  helplessly  to  the  intelli- 
gentsia for  leadership.  At  this  moment,  the  beginning  of  the  year 
1900,  the  students'  movement  for  a  "  guarantee  of  personality," 
which  has  been  alluded  to  in  the  previous  chapter,  broke  out  in 
open  demonstrations.  The  workmen  took  their  cue  from  the 
students,  joined  the  demonstrations  of  the  students,  and  organized 
demonstrations  of  their  own.  This  gave  them  a  new  form  of 
struggle.^  Demonstration,  in  spite  of  the  risk  involved  through 
conflict  with  the  poHce,  became  a  habit.  Both  sexes  and  all  ages 
took  part  in  it  .2  **  The  furore  for  strikes  was  readily  changed  into 
a  furore  for  demonstration."  ^  For  what  were  they  demonstrating  ? 
It  cannot  be  said  that  the  crowds  of  workmen  and  workwomen, 
most  of  them  youths,  had  any  clear  or  uniform  idea  of  what  they 
wanted. 

These  chaotic  demonstrations  forced  the  revolutionists  into  a 
dilemma.  They  knew  the  futility  of  them  perfectly  well.  They 
knew  that  unarmed  demonstrationists  would  never  frighten  the 
Government  into  any  positive  action.  They  knew  also  that  the 
demonstrations  played  into  the  hands  of  the  reactionaries  by 
frightening  those  who  regard  public  order  as  a  primary  neces- 
sity. Yet  if  they  refrained  from  throwing  in  their  lot  with  the 
demonstrationists  they  sacrificed  their  revolutionary  reputation. 
They  were  not  ready  for  a  serious  struggle  with  the  Government, 
and  yet  they  had  to  engage  in  one.  "  Taking  into  consideration 
the  fact  that  the  Government  of  the  Tsar  always  tries  to  show 
that  revolutionists  are  agitators  who  thrust  the  people  forward 
before  the  bullet  and  the  rod,  and  then  take  themselves  to  flight, 
we  have  to  remember  that,  in  case  of  bloodshed  at  demonstrations 
which  we  have  brought  about,  we  must  be  in  the  foremost  ranks, 
and  we  must  show  the  example  of  self-sacrifice."  *  The  sociaHst 
revolutionary  groups  were  thus  compelled  by  the  force  of  circum- 
stances to  do  what  they  could  to  assist  the  working  class  in  its 
economical  struggle,  while  at  the  same  time  they  recognized  that 

1  Towards  the  Question  of  Programme  and  Tactics,  &c.,  p.  14. 

^  Young  Russian  workpeople  who  became  addicted  to  the  habit  of  demon- 
stration and  who  afterwards  emigrated  to  America,  found  conditions  there 
intolerably  dull  and  uninteresting  because  there  were  no  demonstrations. 

3  Towards  the  Question  of  Programme  and  Tactics,  &c.,  p.  15. 

*  Ihid.,  p.  19. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENT     177 

the  economical  struggle  was  only  an  incident  in  the  poUtical  con- 
flict which  they  were  themselves  attempting  to  wage. 

In  1899  the  authorities  discovered  the  existence  of  a  revolu- 
tionary propaganda  among  the  peasants  of  Saratov,  Tambov,  and 
other  places.  This  propaganda  was  conducted  by  means  of  the 
circulation  of  "  illegal  Hterature  "  by  small  isolated  revolutionary 
groups.  In  order  to  carry  on  the  propaganda  more  effectively, 
larger  groups  were  formed — e.g.  the  "  Brotherhood  for  the  Defence 
of  the  Rights  of  the  People,"  and  in  1900  the  "  Agrarian  SociaHst 
League." 

"  In  the  end  of  the  'nineties  "  groups  of  this  kind  united  them- 
selves under  the  general  name  of  socialist  revolutionaries,  and  out 
of  this  union  there  grew  the  Socialist  Revolutionary  Party,^  which 
issued  its  first  manifesto  in  1900.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the 
end  of  1 90 1  that  all  the  socialist  revolutionary  organizations  asso- 
ciated themselves  with  the  party .2  From  the  date  of  the  Congress 
of  Socialist  Revolutionaries  in  1898  the  propaganda  among  the 
peasants  was  looked  upon  as  of  great  importance,  and  one  of  the 
first  publications  of  the  party  in  1900,  before  the  final  union,  was 
a  pamphlet,  specially  designed  for  the  use  of  peasants,  entitled 
**  19th  February,"  the  date  of  Emancipation  in  1861.  In  1902 
the  Peasants'  Union  issued  an  appeal  to  all  socialist  revolutionaries 
which  was  pubUshed  in  Revolutionary  Russia,  the  organ  of  the 
united  party .^  This  document  is  important  because  it  shows  how 
in  1902,  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  the 
revolutionary  state  of  mind  was  already  a  factor  with  which  the 
Government  had  to  reckon.  After  reciting  a  portion  of  the  history 
of  previous  revolutionary  movements,  and  especially  that  of 
Zemlya  e  Volya,  and  narrating  some  of  the  incidents  of  the  reaction, 
the  manifesto  goes  on  to  say  :  "  The  terrible  time  has  passed  when; 
after  a  great  struggle,  the  expenditure  of  our  forces  exceeded  the 
income.  Now  when  the  powerful  resources  of  the  working  masses 
are  opened  to  us,  no  pohce  terror  can  frighten  us  ;   we  can  only 

1  There  had  been  previously  in  existence  the  "  Union  of  SociaHst  Revolu- 
tionaries "  which  sent  representatives  to  the  SociaUst  Congress  held  in  London 
in  1896  ;  but  they  were  excluded,  leaving  the  Social  Democratic  Party  group 
as  the  sole  representatives  of  Russia,  the  old  Narodovoltsi  group  which  had 
been  accepted,  having  withdrawn  by  way  of  protest  against  the  exclusion 
of  the  sociaUst  revolutionaries.     Revolutionary  Rtcssia,  No.  8  (1902),  p.  25. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  26. 

*  The  first  number  of  RevoltUionary  Russia  appeared  in  1900. 
VOL.  II  M 


178     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

become  stronger  every  year.  We,  the  founders  of  the  *  Peasant 
Union  of  the  Party  of  Socialist  Revolutionaries/  as  a  result  of  a 
critical  examination  of  our  programme  in  consequence  of  the 
emergence  of  new  conditions,  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
these  conditions  permit  and  demand  the  enlargement  of  our  activities 
and  the  guidance  by  us  of  the  labouring  masses,  and  hence  of  the 
peasantry,  and  the  introduction  into  our  programme  of  all  the 
means  of  struggle,  beginning  with  peaceful  propaganda,  until 
armed  terroristical  attacks  upon  the  autocracy  are  included.  .  .  . 
The  labouring  masses  are  swallowing  tens  of  thousands  of  pro- 
clamations, revolutionary  pamphlets,  papers,  &c.  .  .  .  The  dogma 
of  Russian  social  democracy  of  the  end  of  the  'eighties  and  the 
middle  of  the  'nineties,  to  the  effect  that  no  revolutionary  force 
can  exist  outside  of  the  city  proletariat,  was  wholly  based  upon 
belief  in  the  remoteness  of  open  political  struggle  and  in  the  in- 
evitabiUty,  as  a  preparation  for  this,  of  some  decades  of  prole- 
tarianization of  the  peasantry.  But  is  it  wise  to  set  ablaze  a 
revolutionary  fire  among  hundreds  of  thousands,  or  even  milUons, 
of  proletarians,  when  tens  of  millions  of  peasantry  may  come  Uke 
ice-cold  water  and  extinguish  the  fire  ?  In  order  to  do  so  it  is  not 
€ven  necessary  for  the  peasantry  to  act  against  the  proletariat, 
it  is  sufficient  if  they  only  remain  neutral."  From  this  condition 
the  manifesto  draws  the  conclusion  that  propaganda  among  the 
peasants  is  desirable.  It  also  considers  it  possible,  because  not 
only  are  the  peasants  dissatisfied  with  their  economical  position, 
but  they  are  advancing  steadily  in  cultural  development.  Formerly 
the  peasant  wandered  httle ;  now  "  ten  million  peasants "  are 
tramping  all  over  Russia  and  are  coming  in  contact  with  "  wealth 
and  poverty,  education  and  ignorance."  For  these  reasons  the 
manifesto  rejects  the  "  superstition  which  depicts  the  peasantry 
as  a  dark,  hopeless,  inert,  and  reactionary  force.  .  .  'JThat  the 
patience  of  the  peasant  masses  is  almost  exhausted,  that  the  mass 
may  rise  up  at  the  first  acute  moment  in  its  chronic  suffering — this, 
after  the  movement  of  the  peasants  in  Little  Russia,  is  unnecessary 
to  show  .  .  .  and  we  shall  ourselves  set  fire  to  this  combustible 
material  with  the  torch  of  the  struggle  for  Hberty,  and  this  flame 
shall  join  the  other.  In  the  streets  of  the  towns  and  in  the  fire  of 
the  terror  the  rotten  structure  of  the  autocracy  shall  be  destroyed. 
.  .  .  Our  final  aim  is  the  accomplishment  of  the  socialist  ideal  in 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENT     179 

its  fullness ;  ■  but  we  do  not  think  that,  woven  out  of  brotherhood 
and  freedom,  the  socialist  order  can  be  born  immediately  from  the 
soil  of  our  contemporary  enslaved  Russia.  We  are  convinced  that 
the  different  elements  of  our  ideal  shall  be  accomplished  partially 
and  in  various  forms,  because  some  of  them  are  logically  and  his-  \ 
torically  necessary  phases.  Therefore  the  problem  of  our  work  is 
not  in  preparing  for  a  fantastic  giant  jump  at  once  to  the  final 
aim,  but  in  a  deliberate  and  measured  advance  through  the  phases 
of  changes  and  revolutions  as  they  occur  in  history.  .  .  .  For  the 
peasantry  in  the  first  place  we  put  the  sociaUzation  of  the  land — 
that  is,  the  passing  of  the  land  into  social  property,  and  the  raising 
up  of  those  who  cultivate  it ;  second,  the  development  among  the 
peasantry  of  different  forms  of  social  union,  economical  co-opera- 
tion, for  the  dual  aim  of  the  liberation  of  the  peasants  from  the 
power  of  money  capital  and  for  the  preparation  of  the  forthcoming 
collective  agricultural  production.  ...  In  printed  and  verbal 
addresses  to  the  peasants  we  must  emphasize  especially  the  poU- 
tical  element,  and  must  employ  the  economical  mainly  as  an  argu- 
ment in  agitation.  .  .  .  We  have  to  show  the  impossibiUty  of 
serious  improvement  in  the  economical  conditions  of  the  peasants 
until  free  universal  suffrage  shall  place  their  fate  in  their  own  hands. 
We  have  to  repeat  to  the  peasant  that,  when  everything  shall 
depend  upon  his  will,  he  shall  be  given  land.  We  have  to  call  the 
peasant  by  Land  to  Freedom,  and  lead  him  through  Freedom  to 
Land."  1 

The  forces  by  means  of  which  the  "  revolutionization  of  the  \ 
peasant "  was  to  be  carried  out  were  to  be  drawn  largely  from   • 
prison  and  from  the  exiles  in  Siberia.     "  Escapes  are  becoming  more    . 
and  more  frequent."  ^    Efforts  were  to  be  made  by  the  revolu-    i 
tionary  propagandists  to  influence  the  peasants  in  all  mir  affairs,    \ 
to  try  to  secure  the  election  of  their  own  men  to  elective  offices, 
to  endeavour  to  induce  the  peasants  to  unite  in  mutual  cultural- 
educational  and  other  useful  associations.     Finally,  the  authors 
of  the  manifesto  fully  acknowledge  that,  besides  these  peaceful 
although  illegal  measures,  they  recognize  from  the  beginning  the 
possibihty    of    the    secret    revolutionary    peasants'    organization 
passing  at  some  time  into  an  armed  struggle.^ 

1  Revolutionary  Russia,  No.  8,  April  1902. 
«  Ibid.  »  Ibid. 


i8o     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

In  February  1903  the  socialist  revolutionary  party  addressed 
a  manifesto  to  the  Russian  youth  in  the  universities  and  in  other 
higher  educational  institutions,  calling  upon  the  students  not  to 
neglect  their  studies,  but  to  consecrate  these  to  social  ends ;  and 
concluding  "  When  the  youth  went  to  demonstrations  in  1901,  there 
was  no  thought  of  resistance.  Now  the  possibility  and  necessity  of 
armed  demonstration  is  in  the  air.  Peaceful  demonstrations  have 
revealed  the  necessity  of  open  struggle  and  have  uplifted  the  fight- 
ing mood  of  the  masses."  ^ 

The  activities  of  isolated  socialist  revolutionaries  did  not  disturb 
the  social  democratic  organizations,  but  when  they  united  them- 
selves and  formed  a  party,  the  social  democrats  found  that  their 
own  propaganda  was  imperilled.  In  1903  in  the  second  issue  of  the 
Red  Banner,  the  then  new  organ  of  the  "  Union  of  Russian  Social 
Democrats,"  there  appeared  what  the  social  revolutionists  inter- 
preted as  a  declaration  of  war.  "  The  chief  political  sin  "  of  the 
latter,  from  the  social  democratic  point  of  view,  "  was  that  they  de- 
sired to  unite  the  mass  of  labouring  intelligentsia  into  one  party  with 
the  proletariat,  and  that  they  desired  to  unite  into  one  party  all 
the  labouring  peasantry  with  the  proletariat.  Such  a  party  would 
be  wider  than  a  social  democratic  party,  but  would  be  so  unstable 
that  its  building  up  would  be  an  impossibility.  Thus,  instead  of  a 
socialist  programme,  the  socialist  revolutionaries  present  only  a 
'  socialist  mist,'  which  merely  obscures  the  class-consciousness  of 
the  proletariat." 

The  socialist  revolutionists  answered  by  accusing  the  social 
democrats  of  lack  of  political  perspicacity.  The  social  democrats^ 
they  said,  certainly  sought  the  aid  of  the  intelligentsia  in  their 
struggle  with  the  autocracy ;  and  they  realized  that  so  soon  as 
political  oppression  should  disappear,  there  might  suddenly  be  dis- 
closed a  situation  in  which  only  a  small  part  of  the  intelligentsia 
would  unite  their  fortune  with  the  tempestuous  fate  of  the  working 
man's  life,  while  the  remainder  "  would  go  over  into  the  service  of 
the  bourgeoisie."  What  they  did  not  realize  was  that  some  portion 
of  the  proletariat  would  pursue  the  same  course.  The  socialist 
revolutionaries  pointed  out  that  such  had  been  the  case  in  England, 
where  the  working  men  were  satisfied  with  the  purely  economical 

1  Revolutionary  Russia,  February  1903. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENT     i8i 

movement.  Even  in  Germany,  social  democracy  had  not  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  uniting  all  the  proletariat. 

It  is  not  surprising,  they  say,  that  when  political  freedom  is 
gained  and  when  an  economical  struggle  becomes  legal,  the  working 
men  should  abandon  socialism.  It  is  thus  necessary  to  develop 
among  working  men  the  socialistic  conscience.  **  To  us,"  the  socia- 
list revolutionists  say,  "  all  labouring  interests  summed  up  and  co- 
ordinated in  the  highest  ideals  of  sociaUsm  are  equally  precious. 
We  have  ideals  ;  but  we  have  no  idols.  The  proletariat  is  not  an 
idol  to  us  ;  and  we  shall  not  worship  it  by  erecting  an  altar  for  sacri- 
fices, in  which  we  would  offer  up  the  interests  of  other  labouring 
and  exploited  classes.  If  union  with  social  democracy  can  only  be 
purchased  at  the  price  of  our  convictions,  we  do  not  want  it  and 
must  struggle  against  it."  The  socialist  revolutionary  author  con- 
tinues. The  social  democrats  find  in  Russia  two  revolutionary 
classes — the  proletariat  and  the  peasantry  ;  but  they  do  not  recog- 
nize an  identity  of  interest.  According  to  them  only  the  proletarians 
are  the  grave-diggers  of  bourgeois  society,  the  peasants  are  impos- 
tors. Both  can  obtain  satisfaction,  from  the  sociahst  revolutionary 
point  of  view,  only  by  the  abolition  of  private  property.  The  aims 
of  the  sociahst  revolutionary  party  then  are — free  popular  rule, 
nationalization  of  the  land,  and  nationalization  of  all  great  industries. 
This  programme,  they  think,  "  will  unite  working  men  and  peasants 
under  one  fighting  banner."  ^ 

The  sociahst  revolutionary  party  found  itself  almost  at  the  outset 
of  its  existence  confronted  with  a  problem.  Propaganda  among  the 
peasants  and  among  the  working  men  was  necessary  to  bring  them 
out  of  the  narrow  economic  views  and  interests  in  which  they  were 
involved ;  but  propaganda  not  only  took  time,  it  involved  con- 
tinual conflict  with  the  authorities.  The  propagandists  were  beaten, 
imprisoned,  sent  into  the  army,  sometimes  into  the  penal  battahons, 
or  exiled  to  the  extreme  north  of  European  Russia  or  the  far  eastern 
regions  of  Siberia.  How  were  they  to  be  protected  ?  Measures 
might  be  organised  for  their  escape,  and  such  measures  were  taken  ; 
but  when  they  returned  to  active  revolutionary  service  as  "  illegal 
men  "  they  were  again  liable  to  arrest  and  imprisonment.  Revolu- 
tionary movements  of  the  past  had  been  slowly  and  surely  pounded 

*  Revolutionary  Russia,  January  1903,  and  Towards  the  Question,  &c., 
pp.  56-71. 


1 82     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

to  pieces  in  this  way.  The  sociaUst  revolutionists  believed  strongly 
in  their  ideals,  and  these  ideals  appeared  to  them  to  be  saturated 
with  a  moral  force  and  a  disinterestedness  which  distinguished  them 
not  only  from  those  of  governmental  and  bourgeois  society,  but 
even  from  those  of  the  social  democrats.  They  were  fully 
aware  that  the  mass  of  Russian  society  was  excited  almost  to  the 
pitch  necessary  for  a  vigorous  open  movement  against  the  autocracy, 
and,  in  point  of  fact,  subsequent  events  showed  that  in  this  they 
made  a  correct  diagnosis.  The  continuance  of  their  propaganda 
was  essential,  the  means  of  protecting  it  remained  to  be  considered. 
The  propaganda  was  a  fundamental  condition  precedent  to  open 
revolt,  therefore  it  could  be  protected  only  by  conspirative  actions. 
By  this  mental  process  the  socialist  revolutionists  seem  to  have  been 
led  into  terrorism.  While  the  preparation  of  individual  acts  was 
carefully  guarded  no  attempt  was  made  to  conceal  the  fact  of  the 
terror.  Notwithstanding  the  collapse  of  previous  terroristic  move- 
ments, like  that  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya,  for  example,  they  found 
consolation  in  the  fact  that  these  movements  were  conducted  by 
very  small  numbers  of  persons  against  a  strong  Government  and  in 
the  teeth  of  a  public  opinion  acquiescent  to,  if  not  even  sympa- 
thetic with,  governmental  authority.  Yet,  to  a  certain  extent,  even 
these  insignificant  forces  had  succeeded  in  altering  the  course  of 
events.  Now,  the  case  was  different.  The  growth  of  the  pro- 
letariat in  numbers,  its  concentration  in  the  cities,  the  famines  and 
the  discontent  among  the  peasantry,  the  industrial  and  agricultural 
crises,  together  with  the  apparent  inabiUty  of  the  Government  to 
grapple  with  these  questions,  and  the  consequent  diminution  of  its 
prestige,combined  to  prepare  the  soil  for  propaganda  as  it  had  never 
been  prepared  before.  Therefore  it  appeared  that  terroristic  blows 
deUvered  with  skill  might  at  the  right  moment  change  the  current 
of  things  and  re-enforce  the  propaganda.  So  much  for  diagnosis  of 
the  state  of  mind  of  the  revolutionaries,  we  shall  see  how  far  their 
utterances  at  this  period  (1902-1904)  support  this  view. 

An  article  in  Revolutionary  Russia  for  June  1902  puts  the  case 
for  terrorism  on  the  formation  of  the  new  party. 

"  We  should  be  the  first,"  says  this  article,  "  to  protest  against 
one-sided  isolated  terrorism.  We  do  not  by  any  means  want  to 
exchange  the  mass  struggle  for  the  courageous  blows  of  our  advance- 
guard,  but  rather  to  aid  and  reinforce  the  mass  struggle.    Terror- 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENT     183 

istic  acts  must  be  organized.  They  have  to  be  supported  by  the 
party,  which  must  regulate  their  direction  and  must  undertake  the 
moral  responsibility  for  them.  But  although  in  a  tactical  sense 
there  is  a  necessary  co-ordination  between  the  terrorist  struggle 
and  other  forms  of  revolutionary  activity,  in  a  technical  sense  the 
separation  of  the  terrorist  struggle  from  the  other  functions  of  the 
party  is  not  less  necessary.  There  must  be  a  severe  unity  of  prin- 
ciple and  a  not  less  severe  division  of  organization.  In  accordance 
with  the  decision  of  the  party  there  exists  apart  from  it  a  special 
*  fighting  organization,'  which  has  taken  upon  itself  the  functions 
of  an  isolated  disorganizational  terroristic  activity  on  the  founda- 
tion of  hard  conspiracy  and  division  of  labour.  The  revolutioniza- 
tion  of  the  masses,  that  is  our  fundamental  affair  as  a  socialist 
revolutionary  party.  Terror  is  one  of  the  temporary  and  transitory 
technical  means  which  we  adopt,  not  for  itself,  but  as  a  very 
heavy  duty  which  we  have  to  perform,  and  which  we  have 
derived  from  conditions  of  Russian  hfe  thrice  as  heavy  as  the 
duty  itself."  ^ 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  socialist  revolutionists  the  conflict 
with  the  Government  had  become  a  civil  war,  in  which  the  campaign 
on  one  side  was  conducted  by  the  Government,  possessing  all  the 
instruments  with  which  a  modem  Government  can  be  equipped 
for  the  maintenance  of  order,  and  supported  by  the  active  assist- 
ance of  great  numbers  of  people  and  by  the  inertia  of  the  masses, 
and,  on  the  other  side,  a  small  but  active  irregular  force  of  self- 
regardless  men  who  were  prepared  to  take  their  Uves  in  their 
hands  and  to  attack  the  enemy.  In  such  a  campaign  every  hope 
is  a  forlorn  hope.  The  combatants  are  sustained  alone  by  the  idea 
that  their  end  must  be  gained  eventually,  and  that  the  sacrifices, 
though  inevitable,  are  not  futile.  The  socialist  revolutionaries 
pointed  out,  not  without  justice,  that  peaceful  demonstrations 
involved  sacrifices.  The  demonstrators  were  arrested,  imprisoned 
or  exiled,  in  many  cases  prematurely  aged  or  killed  by  their 
experiences.  Terror  has  its  sacrifices,  but  so  also  have  peace 
and  acquiescence.  Moreover,  they  said,  an  armed  struggle  is 
necessary,  but  an  armed  demonstration  cannot  be  created  of  a 
sudden ;  it  must  be  prepared.  Terror  can  be  created  by 
individual  action. 

^  Towards  the  Question,  &c.,  pp.  71-84. 


1 84     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

These  extracts  and  summaries  from  the  Hterature  of  the  socialist 
revolutionists  during  the  course  of  the  propaganda  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War  show  that  there  was  in  exist- 
I  ence  a  more  or  less  widespread  revolutionary  spirit,  and  that  those 
I  who  were  imbued  with  it  were  of  similar  temperament  to  the  ad- 
I  herents  of  Zemlya  e  Volya  and  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya,  and  that, 
therefore,  a  similar  result  might  be  anticipated.  Soon  after  the 
formation  of  the  Fighting  Organization  of  the  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionary Party,  they  seem  to  have  pronounced  sentence  of  death 
upon  Sipiaghin,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  and  upon  the  aged 
Pobyedonostsev,  the  Ober-Procurator  of  the  Holy  S5mod.^  A  youth 
of  twenty-one  years,  named  Balmashev,  was  selected  as  the  slayer  of 
Sipiaghin.  This  young  man  was  the  son  of  a  revolutionist  of  the 
'seventies,  and  he  had  during  his  childhood  been  with  his  father  in 
banishment  in  a  remote  part  of  Arkhangelskaya  gub.  In  1891  he 
was  sent  to  the  gymnasium  at  Saratov,  where  he  at  once  organized 
reading  circles  for  the  purpose  of  reading  the  revolutionary  journals 
and  the  works  of  Dobrolubov,  Pesarev,  Chemyshevsky,  Lavrov, 
and  others.  In  1899  he  entered  the  University  of  Kazan,  and 
subsequently  went  to  Kiev.  Here  he  also  engaged  in  organization 
and  connected  himself  with  the  Obrazovanie  group.  In  January 
1901  Balmashev  was  arrested  within  the  buildings  of  the  univer- 
sity, the  total  number  of  arrests  of  students  at  that  time  being 
183.  Along  with  many  others  he  was  sent  into  the  army.  In 
September  1901,  however,  we  find  him  again  in  Kiev  University 
busily  engaged  in  organization,  and  shortly  afterwards  in  Saratov, 
and  a  member  of  the  Fighting  Organization  of  the  Socialist  Re- 
volutionaries. In  February  1902  he  disappeared  from  Saratov. 
On  2nd  April  in  St.  Petersburg  he  shot  and  killed  Sipiaghin.  On 
3rd  May  he  was  hanged.  The  Minister  of  Interior,  with  a  view  to 
extracting  from  him  information  about  the  organization  to  which 
he  belonged,  had  encouraged  him  to  make  an  appeal  for  mercy,  but 
Balmashev  is  reported  to  have  said  to  him  :  '*  You  seem  to  find  it 
harder  to  kill  me,  than  it  is  for  me  to  die.  All  I  ask  of  you  is  that 
the  rope  should  be  strong  enough,  for  you  are  not  very  competent 

*  Some  light  upon  these  proceedings  was  afterwards  shed  by  the  publi- 
cation of  details  in  the  Azef  and  Lopukhin  cases.  It  is  highly  probable  that 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  sociaUst  revolutionary  party  there  were 
spies  in  their  camp.     Cf.  infra,  p.  577. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENT     185 

even   as   hangmen."  ^    There   were   many   such — human   bullets 
fired  at  the  heads  of  the  Government. 

From  the  tone  of  the  articles  in  the  socialist  revolutionary 
press  of  this  period  it  is  evident  that,  although  there  was  a  certain 
animus  against  the  social  democrats,  and  although  between  them 
and  the  social  revolutionists  there  was  much  difference  in  methods 
of  action,  especially  in  the  pre-revolutionary  days,  there  was  little 
difference  in  point  of  ultimate  aim.  Both  desired  the  overthrowal 
of  the  autocracy,  and  both  desired  a  social  revolution.  Both  also 
desired  the  nationalization  of  the  land  and  the  nationaUzation  of 
all  the  means  of  production.  The  social  democrats  were  in  general 
Marxists  pur  sang,  and  the  socialist  revolutionists  took  from  Marx 
what  suited  their  purpose.  In  1903,  for  example,  they  drew  atten- 
tion to  Marx's  suggestion,  advanced  rather  casually,  that  the 
revolutionary  movement  in  Russia  should  have  as  its  aim  one  or 
other  of  the  following — either  (i)  to  compel  the  Tsar  to  convene  a 
Constituent  Assembly,  or  (2)  to  frighten  the  Tsar  and  his  entourage 
by  creating  deep  disturbances  which  would  compel  the  convoca- 
tion of  a  Constituent  Assembly.^  The  socialist  revolutionists 
thought  that  Marx  looked  upon  Russia  as  developing  rapidly  into 
a  capitalist  industrial  State,  and  that  the  Constituent  Assembly 
must  inevitably  lead  not  to  a  mere  liberal  constitution,  but  to  a 
radical  social  change.  Whether  the  original  suggestion  came  from 
this  source  or  not  does  not  appear,  but,  as  we  shall  see  later,  in 
1905  the  phrase  "  Constituent  Assembly  "  was  in  every  one's  mouth. 
The  phrase  was  being  shouted  in  the  streets  by  people  whose  pro- 
nunciation of  the  words  showed  that  they  had  not  the  slightest  idea 
of  their  meaning.  So  diversified  a  group  as  the  socialist  revolu- 
tionaries cannot  be  regarded  as  representing  any  formal  dogma. 
Many  of  them  threw  themselves  into  the  movement  from  motives  of 
revenge  for  imprisonment  or  exile  on  the  ground  that  they  were  found 
guilty  of  possessing  some  book  of  which  a  poHceman  did  not  ap- 
prove, or  for  standing  on  the  outskirts  of  some  unlicensed  meeting. 
Others  threw  themselves  into  it  because  they  were  convinced  that 
at  all  hazards  one  revolutionary  dogma  or  another  ought  to  be 

1  Zasvobodu  ("For  Liberty")  [album  of  revolutionary  portraits  with 
biographies].     Nagasaki,  Japan  [n.d.],  fo.  16. 

*  Letter  of  Hermann  Lopatin  on  ids  conversations  with  Marx  and  Engels, 
published  in  1893  ;  cited  by  Revoltitionary  Russia,  No.  20,  15th  March  1903, 
p.  4. 


1 86     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

propagated,  others  because  of  their  deep  sympathy  with  people 
whom  they  looked  upon  as  oppressed  by  employers  or  by  Govern- 
ment, or  by  both.  There  were  many  men  and  many  minds.  In 
general,  however,  while  the  social  democrats  were  anxious  that, 
when  the  new  order  came,  it  should  bear  their  stamp,  the  socialist 
revolutionists  seemed  to  be  more  anxious  to  destroy  the  old  order 
than  prematurely  to  determine  the  direction  of  the  new. 

In  the  light  of  later  disclosures  of  political  and  police  intrigues, 
and  of  the  alleged  manipulation  of  the  social  revolutionary  forces 
by  unscrupulous  officials  to  gain  private  ends,  it  is  as  yet  quite 
impossible  to  discriminate  between  those  terroristic  acts  which 
were  the  outcome  of  spontaneous  action  on  the  part  of  the  militant 
division  of  the  socialist  revolutionary  party  and  those  which  were 
suggested  to  them  by  provocators.  The  only  persons  who  are  in 
a  position  to  tell  the  truth  about  these  mysterious  transactions  are 
persons  whose  actions  have  rendered  their  evidence  valueless.  It 
is,  however,  certain  that  during  the  terroristic  periods  which  im- 
mediately preceded  and  immediately  succeeded  the  war  with 
Japan  there  were  many  acts  for  which  the  militant  social  revolu- 
tionists were  exclusively  responsible.  Notices  of  the  following 
kind  are  not  infrequent  in  the  pages  of  Revolutionary  Russia  : 

'*  On  13th  March  1903  the  Governor  of  Ufa,  N.  M.  Bogdano- 
vich,  ordered  the  troops  at  Zlatoust  to  fire  upon  a  group  of 
striking  workmen.  The  crowd  ran  away,  but  the  troops  continued 
to  fire.  Twenty-eight  people  were  killed,  and  about  200  were 
wounded.  Among  the  killed  and  wounded  were  many  women  and 
children.  ...  On  6th  May,  by  the  order  of  the  Fighting  Organiza- 
tion of  the  Party  of  Socialist  Revolutionaries,  two  of  its  members 
shot  and  killed  N.  M.  Bogdanovich,  Governor  of  Ufa."  ^ 

"  On  Thursday,  15th  July  1904,  about  9.50  a.m.,  at  the  Ismai- 
lovsky  Prospect  in  St.  Petersburg,  there  was  killed  by  means  of  a 
bomb  the  Minister  of  Interior,  Plehve."  ^ 

*'  On  28th  June  1905  the  Chief  of  the  city  of  Moscow,  Count  P. 
Shuvalov,  was  killed  by  a  member  of  the  Fighting  Drujina  of  the 
Moscow  Committee  of  the  Party  of  Socialist  Revolutionaries."  ^ 

When  the  general  strike  occurred  in  South  Russia  in  1903* 

^  Revolutionary  Russia,  isth  May  1903,  No.  24,  p.  i. 

*  Ibid.,  supplement  to  No.  56. 

'  Ibid.,  ist  July  1905,  No.  70,  p.  i.  *  See  infra,  p.  443. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  MOVEMENT     187 

the  socialist  revolutionaries  hastened  to  give  it  their  approval. 
"  The  *  general  strike/  "  they  said,  "  is  one  of  the  best  forms  of 
struggle,  and  therefore  we  include  it  in  our  programme,  not  instead 
of  other  methods,  but  together  with  them."  ^ 

Many  of  the  local  branches  of  the  socialist  revolutionaries  had 
their  fighting  contingent,  sometimes  well  armed,  who  attended 
demonstrations  and  carried  out  conspirative  acts.  In  the  capitals 
these  contingents  played  an  important  r61e  in  the  open  outbreaks 
which  occurred  throughout  1905.  In  that  year  the  terror  became 
submerged  in  the  general  movement. 

The  r61e  of  the  social  revolutionaries  in  the  acute  stage  of  the 
revolutionary  period  is  described  in  the  following  book. 

1  Revolutionary  Russia,  5th  August  1903,  No.  29,  p.  i. 


CHAPTER   XI 

"POLICE   SOCIALISM"  AND   THE   LABOUR 
MOVEMENT— "ZUBATOVSHINA" 

The  course  of  the  political  as  well  as  of  the  labour  movement  was 
seriously  influenced,  from  1900  till  1905,  by  attempts  on  the  part  of 
the  political  poUce  to  control  the  labour  movement  in  detail.  The 
design  was  elaborated  by  a  police  officer  in  Moscow  called  Zubatov,^ 

^  Sergey  Vasilyevich  Zubdtov  was  bom  in  Moscow  (?)  about  1864.  In 
1880  he  entered  the  Fifth  Moscow  Gymnasium.  The  young  Zubdtov  is 
described  as  an  "  ugly  and  old-fashioned  "  boy  {Osvobojdenie,  vol.  i.,  1902- 
1903  (No.  26),  p.  393).  Within  a  year  he  had  so  far  conquered  the  first 
unfavourable  impression  that  he  succeeded  in  forming  a  group  of  fellow- 
pupils  and  in  organizing  a  debating  society.  Zubdtov  seems  to  have  been 
especially  attractive  to  the  youths  in  the  school  because  he  was  the  only 
member  of  his  group  who  had  relations  with  the  representatives  of  the  revolu- 
tionary party,  then  the  Narodnaya  Volya.  Zub^tov  appears  to  have  been 
already  a  traitor  {Osvobojdenie,  loc.  cit.).  The  meetings  of  the  society  of 
schoolboys  organized  by  Zubdtov  were  held  at  a  circulating  Ubrary  where, 
among  others,  prohibited  books  were  to  be  obtained.  In  1 882-1 883  Zubatov 
left  the  Gymnasium  and  formed  "  a  more  active  "  revolutionary  circle. 
About  the  same  time  he  married  the  proprietress  of  the  circulating  library, 
which  was  thenceforward  carried  on  under  his  name.  In  1883  the  circle 
was  entered  by  another  spy,  who  actively  "  revolutionized  "  all  the  young 
company,  so  that  after  a  few  months  the  members  of  it  were  arrested  {Osvo- 
bojdenie, loc.  cit.),  and  one  of  them  shortly  afterwards  died  in  banishment. 
Although  Zubdtov  was  owner  of  the  premises  in  which  the  meetings  were 
held,  and  although  he  was  the  organizer  of  the  group,  he  was  not  arrested. 
It  was  known  that  he  was  called  to  the  Department  of  Political  Police,  and  from 
that  time  he  was  regarded  with  suspicion.  For  about  three  years  he  appears  to 
have  been  quiescent ;  but  in  1886  he  proposed  to  some  former  fellow-pupils 
of  the  Gymnasium  to  form  a  "  self -education  circle  "  among  the  students 
of  the  Petrovsky  Academy  (a  Forest-Agricultural  High  School).  After  the 
organization  of  this  circle  Zubdtov  proposed  to  form  a  united  library  for 
all  such  circles  in  Moscow  and  for  working  men.  The  object  of  Zub5,tov  in 
interesting  himself  in  the  Petrovsky  students  soon  became  apparent.  That 
Academy  had  always  been  noted  for  its  revolutionary  tendencies,  and  when 
the  Moscow  branch  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya  party  was  arrested,  during  the 
general  debacle  of  the  party  which  followed  the  assassination  of  Alexander  II, 
some  of  the  students  of  the  Academy  had  attempted  to  keep  together  the 
wreck  of  the  Moscow  branch.  They  took  over  the  printing  office  of  the 
organization  and  its  cash  and  entered  into  relations  with  the  provincial 
members.  They  had  thus  lists  of  sympathizers  with  the  Narodnaya  Volya  ; 
and  these  Usts  might  be  made  of  value  in  skilful  hands.  At  first  the  revolu- 
tionary group  at  the  Academy  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  Zubdtov; 


"POLICE    SOCIALISM"  189 

and  for  that  reason  the  episode  has  come  to  be  known  as  the 
"  Zubatovshina."    The  idea,  though  probably  original,  was  not 

but  he  managed  ultimately  to  obtain  admittance  to  it.  Shortly  afterwards, 
when  one  of  the  provincial  members  of  the  former  Narodnaya  Volya  came  to 
Moscow,  he  was  arrested  on  his  return,  and  Zub^tov  once  more  fell  under 
suspicion.  Meanwhile  Zubdtov  was  busily  occupied  in  forming  "  self -educa- 
tion circles  "  among  young  men  and  girls  attending  pedagogical  courses  and 
among  gymnasium  girls  and  boys,  and  especially  among  the  pupils  of  the 
Moscow  Technical  School.  In  1887  Zubdtov's  circulating  library  was  a 
regular  storing  place  for  revolutionary  literature,  which  was  distributed  from 
it  in  bundles.  On  17th  May  1887,  Zubdtov's  blow  fell  upon  the  Petrovsky 
Academy,  and  numerous  arrests  were  made.  The  first  certainty  of  the  role 
of  Zubdtov  as  "  provocative  agent  "  and  spy  was  obtained  by  his  former 
comrades  in  prison,  when,  previously  unknown  to  one  another,  they  compared 
notes.  All  were  found  to  be  united  by  the  personality  of  Zubdtov.  (Osvo- 
bojdenie,  loc.  cit.)  Most  of  those  who  were  arrested  were  raw  youths,  who 
learned  to  their  astonishment  that  they  were  accused  of  complicity  in  a 
gigantic  conspiracy  {ibid.).  Many  were  banished  to  Siberia.  Zubitov  was 
rewarded  for  this  exploit  by  his  appointment  as  Deputy  Chief  of  the  Moscow 
PoUtical  PoHce.  It  is  alleged  that  by  means  of  an  intrigue  he  shortly  after 
procured  the  dismissal  of  his  chief  and  his  own  appointment  as  his  successor. 
{Osvohojdenie,  loc.  cit.)  In  this  position  he  continued  to  carry  out  his  policy 
of  keeping  in  touch,  now  through  others,  with  the  revolutionary  groups,  and 
to  recruit  his  army  of  spies  by  corrupting  members  of  these  groups.  Under 
his  influence  many  political  prisoners  in  the  Moscow  gaols  were  given  quite 
imprecedented  privileges.  "  They  were  allowed  to  go  out  of  the  prisons, 
and  to  go  to  the  theatres  "  and  other  places  of  amusement  (F.  Dan,  History 
of  the  Labour  Movement  and  Social  Democracy  in  Russia,  2nd  ed.  (St.  Peters- 
burg, 1905),  p.  41).  Zub^tov  had  long  conversations  with  these  selected 
prisoners  (Dan),  "  mostly  after  midnight  "  (according  to  a  correspondent), 
arguing  with  them  upon  the  subjects  of  the  revolutionary  propaganda,  pro- 
fessing his  ardent  devotion  to  the  cause  of  labour,  and  assuring  them  that 
"  the  struggle  for  poUtical  freedom  in  the  existing  state  of  affairs  is  only  an 
idea  of  the  bourgeois  intelligentsia,  and  that  it  could  only  injure  the  interests 
of  the  working  men."  (Dan,  loc.  cit.)  He  told  them  that  the  Government 
was  now  "  willing  to  give  to  the  working  men  freedom  to  form  themselves 
into  unions  and  to  strike,  and  was  also  willing  to  assist  them  in  their  struggle 
against  their  employers.  What  stops  the  Government  "  (in  this  benevolent 
design)  "  '  is  the  political  agitation  on  the  part  of  the  social  democrats.' 
Further,  Zubdtov  pointed  out  that  in  Western  Europ)e,  Marxism  had  reached 
a  '  crisis,'  and  that  this  had  confirmed  him  in  his  views.  At  the  same 
time  he  recommended  them  to  read  the  works  of  Bernstein  and  Sombart. 
as  well  as  those  of  the  Russian  '  Revisionists.'  "  (Dan,  op.  cit.,  p.  42.)  I  am 
informed  by  a  correspondent  that  for  some  time  prior  to  this  period,  Zubdtov 
had  been  accumulating  a  library  of  forbidden  books  upon  the  social  question. 
At  all  events  he  had  informed  himself  upon  the  controversies  in  which  the 
leading  Marxists  had  become  involved.  The  movement  described  in  the 
text  began  in  1900  and  ended  in  1904.  In  the  course  of  it  Zabdtov  was 
promoted. 

After  the  Odessa  disorders  (described  below),  which  were  the  direct  out- 
come of  his  proceedings,  and  were  regarded  by  M.  von  Plehve  as  proving  fully 
the  dangers  of  his  manoeuvres,  Zubdtov  was  dismissed,  and  was  banished 
to  Arkhangelskaya  gub.,  while  his  subordinate  agents  were  arrested  and  some 
of  them  were  sent  to  Siberia. 


I90     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

novel.  In  one  form  or  another  attempts  have  been  made  to 
control  the  labour  movement  by  administrative  means  even  in 
democratic  comitries.  Those  who  were  responsible  for  the  poUcy 
in  Russia  seemed  to  realize  that  the  labour  movement  could  not 
be  suppressed  by  administrative  severity,  and  to  imagine  that 
it  was  possible  to  control  and  direct  it  into  channels  chosen  by 
themselves. 

The  object  of  controlling  the  labour  movement  was  to  separate 
the  economical  from  the  political  aspect,  by  concentrating  the 
attention  of  the  working  men  upon  the  improvement  of  the  con- 
ditions of  their  labour,  and  thus  to  withdraw  them  from  the  influ- 
ences of  political  agitation  and  revolutionary  propaganda.^  By 
this  means  the  attack  by  the  working  men  upon  the  Government 
might  be  foiled  by  converting  it  into  an  attack  upon  employers. 

It  thus  appears  to  have  occurred  to  Zubatov,  then  chief  of  the 
Political  Department  of  the  Moscow  poUce,  that  it  might  be  pos- 
sible to  draw  off  the  working  men  from  the  revolutionary  propa- 
ganda by  inducing  and  encouraging  them  to  engage  in  a  purely 
economical  struggle  with  their  employers. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  idea  was  a  bold  and  ingenious  one, 
nor  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  such  a  suggestion.  The  immediate 
and  considerable  success  of  the  movement  of  Zubatov  cannot  be 
otherwise  accounted  for.  The  revolutionary  propagandists  had  all 
along  insisted  that  the  autocracy  was  the  chief  obstacle  to  any 
improvement  of  their  condition,  and  that  nothing  could  be  hoped 
for  until  the  autocracy  was  overwhelmed.  But  the  process  was 
evidently  a  long  one,  and  meanwhile  the  workers  were  suffering. 
The  offer  of  immediate  relief  was  too  seductive  to  reject. 

So  far  as  it  is  possible,  from  the  available  evidence,  to  fathom 
the  personal  motives  of  Zubatov,  it  appears  that  his  design  was  to 
make  a  career  by  a  grand  coup  which  should  earn  for  himseK  the 
gratitude  of  "  the  highest  authority."  The  course  of  events  in- 
duces the  inevitable  suspicion  that  he  intended  to  produce  a  pre- 
mature rising  which  might  easily  be  crushed,  and  the  futility  of  a 
labour  revolutionary  movement  be  thus  fully  demonstrated ;  but 
there  is  no  certain  evidence  of  this.  The  views  of  Zubatov  were 
not  without  a  certain  breadth,  and  his  manner  of  carrying  them 

^  See  Svyatlovsky.  V.  V..  Professional  (Trade  Union)  Movement  in  Russia 
(St.  Petersburg,  1907),  p.  53,  and  F.  Dan,  op.  cii.,  p.  6. 


"POLICE   SOCIALISM"  191 

into  effect  did  not  lack  boldness.  Realizing  that  the  organization 
of  workmen  into  societies,  secret  or  open,  was  an  inevitable  con- 
comitant of  factory  industry  on  a  large  scale,^  he  determined  to 
recommend,  not  only  that  such  organizations  should  not,  as  hitherto, 
be  impeded  or  prevented,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  they  should 
be  permitted  and  encouraged.  He  intended,  however,  that  the 
organizations  should  be  completely  under  the  control  of  the  poHce. 
The  organizations  were  to  have  exclusively  economical  aims,  and 
by  diverting  into  this  channel  the  enthusiasm  of  the  working  men, 
he  hoped  to  keep  them  out  of  the  revolutionary  movement,  which 
would  be  dealt  with  otherwise.  If  the  revolutionary  parties  could 
be  isolated  from  the  working  men,  and  if  they  coidd  thus  be  de- 
prived of  their  chief  numerical  support,  they  might  be  more  easily 
crushed. 

The  state  of  mind  of  the  working  men  at  this  time  is  described 
as  having  been  "  very  ominous.*'  ^  The  most  intelligent  groups 
were  showing  an  extraordinary  interest  in  poUtical  questions ;  even 
those  working  men  who  were  opposed  to  interference  in  pohtics 
were  discussing  poHtical  affairs.  They  began  to  discuss  such 
questions  as  "Is  an  income  tax  necessary  ?  "  "  How  should  uni- 
versal education  be  instituted  ?  '*  &c. 

Zubatov's  idea  was,  on  the  one  hand,  to  keep  the  revolutionary 
ranks  and  the  ranks  of  the  working  men  distinct,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  prevent  spontaneous  poUtical  discussion  among  the 
working  men  by  inducing  them  to  discuss  economical  questions 
only. 

In  order  to  earn  the  confidence  of  the  working  men,  Zubatov 
proposed  that  imder  certain  circumstances,  strikes  for  higher  wages 
should  not  merely  be  permitted  by  the  poKce,  but  should  be  facili- 
tated, and  even  suggested,  by  them.  Of  course,  the  fact  of  the 
direction  of  the  whole  movement  by  the  police,  as  well  as  the  real 
springs  and  final  purposes  of  the  movement,  were  to  be  kept  a  pro- 
found secret.    The  organization  of  labour  was  to  be  effected  by 

^  He  was  not  alone  in  this  view.  M.  von  PlehvS  had  consistently  opposed 
M.  Witte's  policy  of  industrial  and  commercial  expansion,  on  the  ground 
that  it  must  lead  to  the  growth  of  an  urban  proletariat,  and  therefore  to 
revolution. 

2  The  social  democratic  organ  Iskra,  No.  89,  24th  February  1905,  p.  3. 
(Reprinted  St.  Petersburg,  1906,  in  Iskra  za  dva  goda  {Iskra  for  two  years), 
vol.  i.  p.  293.) 


192     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

means  of  carefully  selected  agents,  who  were  not  to  be  known  to 
have  any  connection  with  the  political  police  department.  Although 
many  persons  were  in  the  secret,  it  was  well  kept,  and  sympathy 
with  the  movement  was  enhsted  in  quarters  both  honest  and  in- 
fiuential.i 

Zubatov  appears  at  an  early  stage  to  have  secured  for  the 
execution  of  his  plan  the  sanction  of  the  Grand  Duke  Sergey ,2  then 
General  Governor  of  the  Moskovskaya  gub.,  and  General  Trepov,^ 
then  chief  of  the  Moscow  police. 

Both  Zubatov  and  his  Moscow  superiors  appear  to  have  under- 
taken the  experiment  of  "  playing  with  fire  "  with  a  light  heart.* 

Zubatov's  first  step  was  to  effect,  in  1901,  the  organization  in 
Moscow  of  "The  Society  of  Mutual  Assistance  of  Workers  in  the 
Mechanical  Industries,"  and  also  of  "  The  Council  of  Workers  in 
the  Mechanical  Industries.*'  ^  The  organization  of  these  societies 
was  accomplished  with  great  ingenuity. 

In  the  spring  of  1901  some  working  men,  directly  or  indirectly 
inspired  by  Zubatov,  called  upon  Professor  Ozerov,*  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Moscow,  and  invited  him  to  assist  in  the  formation  of  work- 
ing men's  societies.     Professor  Ozerov  consented,  and  together  with 

^  As  in  the  case  of  Professor  Ozerov,  cf.  infra. 

2  During  the  "  reign  "  of  the  Grand  Duke  Sergey,  Moscow  was  practi- 
cally a  "  State  within  the  State."  The  Grand  Duke,  who  was  the  fourth 
son  of  Alexander  II  and  uncle  of  Nicholas  II,  was  assassinated  in  Moscow 
on  4th  February  1905. 

^  General  Trepov,  then  Chief  of  Police  in  Moscow,  was  the  son  of  the 
General  Trepov  who  was  shot  by  Vera  Zassiilich.  General  Trepov  fils  was 
a  thoroughly  honest  but  not  very  able  officer,  who  evidently  did  not  see  to 
the  end  of  Zubatov's  designs. 

*  Subsequent  events  showed  that  M.  von  Plehve  disapproved  of  Zubdtov's 
plan  from  the  beginning.  Probably  the  influence  of  the  Grand  Duke  Sergey 
sufficed  to  prevent  his  interference  with  it  until  a  late  stage  ;  but  when 
M.  von  Plehve  did  interfere,  he  used  the  failure  of  the  plan  in  Moscow  and 
its  still  more  disastrous  outcome  at  Odessa  to  discredit  M.  WittS.  Zubdtov 
was  thus  a  mere  pawn  in  the  pohtical  game. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  53. 

^  Professor  I.  Kh.  Ozerov  was  at  that  time  incumbent  of  the  chair  of 
Finance  Law  in  the  University  of  Moscow.  Since  then  he  has  been  appointed 
to  the  chair  in  the  same  subject  in  the  University  of  St.  Petersburg.  He 
is  a  productive  writer,  his  principal  works  being  upon  financial  poUcy  and 
taxation.  One  of  these  is  Podohodnie  Nalog  v  Anglie  (Income  Tax  in  Eng- 
land) [chiefly  in  relation  to  the  struggle  of  classes],  Moscow,  1898.  He  has 
also  written  upon  co-operation.  His  "  Politika  po  rabochemu  voprosu  v  Rossie  " 
(Policy  on  the  Labour  Question  in  Russia),  Moscow,  1906,  is  the  principal 
available  authority  for  the  early  phases  of  the  Zubdtov  movement,  in  which 
Professor  Ozerov  played  a  conspicuous  though  unconscious  part. 


"POLICE   SOCIALISM"  193 

Mr.  V.  J.  Den,  Privat-docent  in  the  University  of  Moscow,  drew  up 
a  form  of  constitution.  This  constitution  was  modelled  upon  that 
of  the  Society  of  Craftsmen  of  Kharkov.  After  some  formal  ob- 
jections by  General  Trepov,  to  whom  the  constitution  had  inevitably 
to  be  submitted,  the  document  was  forwarded  with  his  endorsation 
to  the  Minister  of  the  InterioD  (M.  von  Plehve). 

Meanwhile  Professor  Ozerov  and  Mr.  Den  were  occupied  in  dis- 
cussions with  the  working  men  upon  the  whole  question  of  labour 
organization,  explaining  to  them  the  methods  of  friendly  societies 
in  England,  about  co-operative  societies,  labour  exchanges,  work- 
men's dweUings,  duration  of  the  working  day,  factory  legislation, 
collective  contracts,  arbitration  courts,  workmen's  clubs,  hygiene, 
&c.  &c.^  These  meetings  were  held  in  the  auditorium  of  the  His- 
torical Museum.  They  were  attended  by  large  numbers,  although 
a  fee  of  20  kopeks  {$d.)  per  month  was  charged,  and  none  were 
admitted  who  had  not  paid  their  fees.  By  the  autumn  of  1901  the 
meetings  were  multipUed  in  different  working  men's  districts,  and 
the  determination  of  the  programmes  of  these  meetings,  together 
with  the  arrangements  for  the  discussions,  led  to  the  formation  of  a 
so-called  "  Board  of  Working  Men  in  the  Mechanical  Trades  of 
Moscow."  The  first  indefinite  indications  of  the  agency  of  Zubatov 
appear  in  the  "  Instructions  "  of  this  board  to  the  branches  or 
"  regional  meetings."  These  instructions  were  understood  to  be 
prepared  by  the  working  men  themselves,  but  Professor  Ozerov 
'remarks,  that  "in  them  was  seen  the  hand  of  someone  else."^ 
Who  that  "  someone  else  "  was  does  not  appear  to  have  been  sus- 
pected at  the  time  by  the  academic  allies  of  the  working  men.  When, 
after  some  delay,  the  "  constitution  "  prepared  by  Professor  Ozerov 
came  back  from  St.  Petersburg,^  there  was  no  doubt  about  the  in- 
timacy of  the  control  of  the  society  intended  to  be  carried  on  by  the 
poUce. 

Professor's  Ozerov's  draft  had  provided  for  the  submission  of  a 
yearly  report  to  the  chief  of  pohce  ;  but  this  was  not  regarded  as 
sufficient.  Clause  after  clause  required  submission  to  the  chief  of 
poUce  on  practically  every  point. 

"  The  new  constitution  bound  the  organization  hand  and  foot. 

1  Ozerov,  I.  Kh.,  Policy  on  the  Labour  Question  in  Russia  (Moscow,  1906), 
pp.  195-254. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  206.  »  It  was  granted  on  14th  February  1902. 
VOL.  II  N 


194     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

It  was  not  permitted  to  make  a  step  without  the  approval 
of  the  local  authorities.  '  The  seal  of  the  police  spirit  was 
stamped  upon  this  constitution  in  dense  colours/  "  writes 
Professor  Ozerov.^ 

It  is  evident  that  M.  von  Plehve  had  little  confidence  in  the  ad- 
ministrative supervision  of  Zubatov  and  his  agents  in  the  unions, 
and  that  he  determined  to  secure  so  far  as  possible  a  definite  admis- 
sion of  the  supervision  of  the  police  in  the  constitution  of  the  society. 
It  is  improbable  that  this  overt  control  was  any  part  of  the  plan  of 
Zubdtov.  Indeed,  it  may  be  held  to  have  led  to  the  disclosure 
which  ere  long  deprived  him  of  the  unconscious  participation  in  his 
designs  of  those  who  made  his  organization  possible. 

While  the  "  constitution  "  was  still  under  the  consideration  of 
the  St.  Petersburg  authorities,  the  "  Board  of  Workers  engaged  in 
the  Mechanical  Industries  "  was  extending  its  influence.  It  was  the 
first  open  and  legal  organization  of  the  working  class  in  Russia.  Its 
meetings  were  permitted  by  the  police.  The  close  supervision  was 
effected  by  means  of  spies,  and  was  invisible.  The  possibility  which 
this  organization  afforded  of  discussing  the  conditions  of  labour, 
imder  legalized  circumstances,  drew  into  its  ranks  the  working  men 
of  Moscow  in  the  trades  which  it  concerned,  practically  en  masse. 
Zubatov's  organization  had  succeeded  in  attracting  numbers  beyond 
his  most  sanguine  hopes.  So  far  there  was  neither  revolution  nor 
politics  in  the  discussions.  They  were  concerned,  to  all  appearance, 
exclusively  with  the  conditions  of  employment.  Soon  the  meetings 
resulted  in  demands  being  made  upon  the  Factories  and  Mill  Ad- 
ministration for  the  Moscow  district.  These  demands  are  sum- 
marized by  Mr.  Grigoryevsky  from  the  tmpublished  reports  of  the 
Moscow  factory  inspectors.^  The  demands  were  made  by  mechanics 
and  weavers. 

1.  Demands  for  improved  conditions  of  labour  generally,  by 
means  of  changes  in  the  terms  of  contracts,  considerable  increase  in 
wages,  and  at  the  same  time  reduction  in  working  hours. 

2.  Demands  for  payment  for  several  previous  years  (some- 
times for  the  whole  of  the  period  of  the  working  men's  emplo5mnient 
in   the    factory),   for    imemployment    through   no    fault    of   the 

^  Svyatlovsky,  op,  cit.,  p.  60,  and  Ozerov,  op.  cit.,  p.  226. 
*  Quoted  by  Svyatlovsky,   op.   cit.,   p.   60,   from  Grigoryevsky,   Police 
Socialism  in  Rtcssia,  pp.  14  and  15. 


"POLICE   SOCIALISM"  195 

working  men,  for  loss  of  time  while  waiting  for  materials, 
paLyment  for  giving  out  finished  goods,  and  for  canying  them 
to  warehouses,  &c. 

3.  Demands  for  payment  (a)  for  idleness  through  no  fault  of  the 
workers,  to  the  amoimt  of  average  piecework  wages  (payment  was 
usually  made  for  idleness  from  this  cause  by  day  wages,  which  are 
considerably  lower  than  the  usual  piecework  rate  in  the  same  em- 
ployment) ;  (b)  for  remuneration  for  repairing  or  putting  in  working 
order  mills  or  looms,  for  joining  threads  in  weaving,  for  spooUng, 
for  cleaning  materials,  for  sweeping  passages  between  spinning 
mules,  for  loss  of  time  owing  to  defects  in  the  warp.  [These  details 
were  understood  to  be  provided  for  in  the  wages  scales,  yet  in  the 
general  review  of  the  position,  they  became  the  subject  of  special 
demands] ;  (c)  for  overtime  work  for  all  past  years,  for  payment 
for  carrying  '  mules  '  from  one  place  to  another,  for  washing  floors 
in  the  workmen's  rooms  (in  the  barracks  of  the  factory),  and  for 
cleaning  oil  lamps. 

4.  Demands  for  changes  in  the  following  conditions  of  work ; 
(a)  The  institution  of  a  more  exact  manner  of  receiving  goods 
(recording  and  crediting  piecework  payments  due  to  workers),  the 
workers  being  very  distrustful  (of  the  methods  customarily  em- 
ployed) ;  (b)  the  institution  of  a  rule  whereby  the  spool  boys 
should  be  provided  by  the  employers,  and  not  by  the  weavers 
themselves;  (c)  the  aboUtion  of  charges  made  to  the  working 
men  for  lodging,  use  of  dining-rooms,  and  for  water,  firewood,  &c., 
in  the  common  kitchens. 

There  were  in  addition  numerous  other  complaints  and  de- 
mands, some  of  them  of  a  trivial,  and  some  of  even  an  obviously 
unfair,  character  from  any  point  of  view.^  The  demand  for  pay- 
ment on  account  of  retrospective  claims  is  characteristic.  These 
demands  were  made  through  the  factory  inspectors  for  the  Moscow 
district  in  the  first  four  months  of  1902.  How  far  Zubatov  was 
actually  responsible  for  the  demands  does  not  appear ;  but  these 
afford  suf&cient  evidence,  confirmed  by  the  nature  of  others  not 
detailed,  that  the  workmen  who  were  at  the  head  of  the  movement 
(many  of  whom,  hke  Afanasyev,  the  chairman  of  the  board,  were 
undoubtedly  agents  of  Zubdtov)  were  a  thoroughly  inferior  class  of 

1  The  working  men  "  were  anxious  '  to  scalp  '  "  the  employer  ;  to  take 
from  him  "  as  much  money  as  possible."     See  Grigoryevsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  15. 


196     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

men,  whose  presence  in  the  labour  movement  could  under  any 
circumstances  only  compromise  and  discredit  it. 

In  the  spring  of  1902  the  first  steps  in  presenting  and  enforcing 
these  demands  took  effect.  The  most  important  attack  was  made 
upon  a  factory  established  by  French  capital  and  under  French 
management — the  factory  of  Goujon — one  of  the  best-managed 
factories  in  Moscow.  Two  men,  one  representing  himself  as  presi- 
dent and  the  other  as  secretary  of  the  **  Moscow  Union  of  Workers," 
presented  themselves  to  the  factory  manager  and  asked  to  be 
allowed  to  meet  the  workers  in  the  factory.  Their  request  was 
refused  on  the  ground  that  the  right  of  visiting  workers  tete-d-tete 
belonged  exclusively  to  the  factory  inspector.  The  visitors  dis- 
appeared, to  return  almost  immediately  with  a  requisition  from 
the  president  of  the  Moscow  Council  on  Factory  Affairs,  to  the 
effect  that  the  men  be  admitted  for  a  tete-d-tete  conference  with  the 
workers.  The  meeting  took  place,  and  on  the  evening  of  the  same 
day  the  workers  intimated  to  the  manager  that  they  were  ordered 
not  to  return  to  work  on  the  following  day,  on  the  ground  that  the 
firm  owed  them  40,000  rubles  for  retrospective  claims.^  The 
factory  stopped  work  next  morning.  The  Political  Police  Depart- 
ment, for  some  strange  reason,  showed  its  hand  for  the  first  time 
in  these  proceedings.  The  police  intimated  to  M.  Goujon  that 
he  must  either  grant  the  demands  of  his  workers  or  submit  to  be 
banished  from  Moscow.^ 

It  appears  that  at  the  same  moment  the  working  men  at  the 
head  of  the  movement  threatened  those  who  were  reluctant  ta 
join  in  it  that  if  they  did  not  concur  in  presenting  the  demands 
they  would  be  '*  transplanted  from  Moscow "  ^ — an  evident 
indication  that  they  had,  or  thought  they  had,  the  power  of  the 
poUce  behind  them.  The  upshot  of  the  affair  was  very  natural. 
M.  Goujon  appealed  to  the  French  Ambassador,  who  at  once  inters 
viewed  M.  von  Plehve,  and  the  result  was  an  imperative  order  to 
the  Moscow  authorities  to  put  an  end  to  the  strike.* 

1  See  RusskoeDyelo  (Russian  Affairs)  (1905),  No.  3,  p.  9,  and  Svyatlovsky, 
op.  cit.,  p.  62. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  loc.  cit. 

*  Report  of  the  manager  of  Smimovoy's  factory,  published  in  Torgovo- 
Promishlennaya  Gazeta  (1906),  No.  36  ;  quoted  by  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  63. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  62.  This  appears  to  have  been  done  in  spite 
of  the  support  of  the  strike  by  General  Trepov. 


"POLICE   SOCIALISM''  197 

The  circumstance  that  Zubatov  or  his  agents  selected  a  well- 
managed  factory  established  by  foreign  capital  for  their  operations 
is  significant.  It  exhibits  the  hollowness  of  the  movement,  if  even 
it  does  not  suggest  sinister  aims.  There  were  undoubtedly  in  the 
Moscow  district  factories  in  which  abuses  were  rampant,  and  in 
reference  to  which  even  a  Zubatov  strike  might  have  done  some 
good,  but  in  this  particular  case  the  answer  was  easy  and  effective. 
The  attack,  notwithstanding  its  ostentatious  support  by  the  poUce, 
failed,  and  in  its  failure  suggested  to  the  working  people  the  im- 
possibiUty  of  labour  organization.  The  motives  are  obscure,  and 
the  evidence,  copious  though  it  is,  is  lacking  in  some  Hnks,  so  that 
conclusions  upon  the  affair  must  be  taken  as  provisional. 

While  the  Goujon  strike  was  in  progress  the  movement  de- 
veloped rapidly.  The  spirit,  so  long  repressed,  of  the  ventilation  of 
grievances,  real  and  imaginary,  was  in  the  air,  and  infected  the 
working  masses  in  Moscow  practically  as  a  whole.  "  Enormous 
and  imprecedented  quantities  of  collective  announcements  of 
grievances  "  ^  came  into  the  offices  of  the  factory  inspectors.  These 
inspectors  report  that  complaints  came,  in  January  and  February 
1902,  almost  "  exclusively  "  from  the  factories  in  the  city  of  Moscow, 
while  in  March  about  one-third  of  the  complaints  come  from  out* 
lying  districts,  thus  showing  the  rapid  spreading  of  the  movement 
initiated  in  Moscow.  The  Digest  of  Factory  Inspectors*  Reports,^ 
issued  by  the  Ministry  of  Finance,  contains  the  following  details : 
In  the  district  of  Kharkov  the  total  number  of  complaints  diminished 
in  1902  to  about  one-half  of  the  number  of  1901.  They  also  dimi- 
nished in  Kiev  and  in  Warsaw.  In  St.  Petersburg  the  number 
increased  by  approximately  one-third,  while  in  Moscow  district 
the  complaints  increased  three  times,  and  in  1902  composed  more 
than  half  of  the  total  number  of  complaints  from  workers  against 
the  managers  of  industrial  factories  in  all  districts.^  Still  more 
striking  is  the  circumstance  that,  while  in  other  districts  the  per- 
centage of  well-grounded  complaints  to  the  total  number  either 
increased  or  remained  without  change,  the  percentage  of  well- 

^  Unpublished  reports  of  the  factory  inspectors,  quoted  by  Professor 
Ozerov  from  papers  in  the  Ministry  of  Finance  ;  cited  by  Svyatlovsky,  op, 
cit.,  p.  63. 

2  Quoted  by  Svyatlovsky  at  length,  op.  cit.,  pp.  64  et  seq. 

3  The  figures  were  for  Moscow  in  1901,  16,815  complaints  ;  in  1902,  52.051. 
Total  number  from  all  districts,  97,843.     Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  64. 


198     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

grounded  complaints  in  Moscow  greatly  diminished.  The  number 
of  well-grounded  complaints  varied  in  1902  between  68  per  cent,  in 
Kharkov  and  78.4  per  cent,  in  Kiev,  while  in  Moscow  district  the 
percentage  in  1902  was  40.2.  In  1901,  before  the  manoeuvres  of 
Zubatov,  the  percentage  of  well-founded  complaints  was  71.5. 
In  Moscow  government  (the  city  of  Moscow)  the  number  shrank 
from  72  per  cent,  in  1901  to  37.5  per  cent,  in  1902.^  While  thus 
there  was  a  very  considerable  increase  in  complaints  for  which  on 
inquiry  insufficient  foundation  was  found,  it  is  very  significant 
that  the  number  of  serious,  well-founded  complaints  increased 
very  materially.  The  number  of  complaints  in  the  Moscow  district 
of  bad  treatment  and  of  beating  of  workers  in  factories  in  1901 
was  161.  In  1902  "  this  number  increased  more  than  ten  times, 
and  reached  2146."  In  the  government  of  Moscow  alone  there 
were  2098  complaints.  The  district  factory  inspector  also  points 
out  that,  whereas  the  well-founded  complaints  of  bad  treatment 
and  of  beating  did  not  exceed  56  per  cent,  in  1901,  the  percentage 
of  weU-founded  cases  of  such  treatment  in  1902  was  95.  The 
conclusions  of  the  factory  inspector  are  as  follows  : 

1.  All  these  unfavourable  appearances  (referring  to  the  increase 
in  the  number  of  all  complaints,  together  with  the  increase  in  the 
percentage  of  ill-founded  complaints)  coincide  with  some  move- 
ment among  the  workers  during  the  year.  That  movement  ap- 
peared most  considerably  in  Moscow,  and  it*  evidently  accounts  for 
the  advancing  of  many  demands  which  had  not  previously  been 
made,  and  which  were  not  always  well  founded. 

2.  The  workers,  influenced  by  the  above-mentioned  movement, 
began  to  consider  more  closely  the  behaviour  of  managers  and 
owners  of  factories,  &c.,  and  began  to  make  complaints  of  actions 
which  they  had  formerly  disregarded.^ 

In  June  1902  Zubatov  convened  a  meeting  of  Moscow  manu- 
facturers in  order  to  give  to  them  some  explanations  of  his  poUcy. 
This  meeting  was  held  in  Testov's  Hotel  on  26th  June.  To  them 
Zubatov  formally  announced  his  "  programme  "  in  sixteen  clauses. 

^  Of  the  total  number  of  52,051  complaints  in  the  Moscow  district,  there 
were  found  well  grounded  only  20,914  ;  for  Moskovskaya  gub.  there  were 
48,074  complaints,  of  which  18,029  were  well  grounded.  Digest  for  1902, 
pp.  58-61. 

^  Condensed  from  Digest  of  Factory  Inspectors'  Reports  (1902),  p.  xviii. ; 
cited  by  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  pp.  64-6. 


"POLICE   SOCIALISM"  199 

These  clauses  were  committed  to  writing  by  some  of  the  manu- 
facturers and  confidentially  communicated  to  St.  Petersburg 
"  spheres."  ^  By  way  of  introduction,  Zubatov  is  alleged  to  have 
addressed  the  manufacturers  in  some  abrupt  and  uncomplimentary 
phrases.  According  to  the  report,  he  told  them  that  their  ex- 
ploitation of  their  workpeople  had  made  them  universally  detested 
in  Moscow,  not  merely  among  the  workers,  but  among  the  whole 
population.  He  told  them  that  the  people  generally  regarded  them 
as  moshenneke,  which  can  only  be  translated  as  "  fakirs."  He 
reminded  them  of  the  outbreaks,  with  attacks  upon  private  pro- 
perty, which  had  taken  place  during  the  spring  of  that  year  in  two 
districts  of  Poltavskaya  gub.,  and  in  certain  districts  in  the  govern- 
ment of  Kharkov.2  In  order  to  prevent  the  spread  of  this  spirit 
of  disorder,  Zubatov  said  that  it  was  imperative  that  "  the  rights 
of  workers  should  be  widened,"  and  that  "  not  by  legislation,  but 
by  means  of  administrative  action." 

The  principal  points  in  Zubatov's  "  programme "  were  as 
foUows  : 

"  I.  At  present  the  law  confides  the  safeguarding  of  the  legal 
rights  of  employers  and  employees  to  the  factory  inspectorship ; 
but  this  institution,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Political  Police  Department, 
has  proved  to  be  powerless  to  discharge  this  function,  having  forfeited 
the  confidence  of  the  workers  owing  to  its  partiality  to  the  em- 
ployers. Therefore  the  Political  Police  Department,  from  considera- 
tions of  State  importance,  has  not  only  decided  to  take  upon  itself 
that  part  of  factory  inspectorship  duties  which  comprises  the  mutual 
relations  of  employers  and  employed,  but  even  is  almost  inclined 
to  put  an  end  to  the  institution  as  an  anachronism.  .  .  . 

"2.  The  widening  of  the  rights  of  factory  workers  (in  spite  of 
the  statute  law)  shall  consist  in  uniting  the  workers  of  each  factory 
into  separate  groups,  each  having  its  committee,  voluntarily  elected 
by  workers  of  both  sexes  from  among  themselves.  These  com- 
mittees must  point  out  changes  desirable  for  workers,  in  the  scale 
of  wages,  distribution  of  working  time,  and  general  changes  in  the 
rules  of  internal  order.    The  employer  must  communicate  in  future 

*  Syyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  54.  This  "  programme "  was  published  in 
Russkoe  Dyelo  (Russian  Affairs)  in  1905,  Nos.  3-5. 

*  These  disturbances  occurred  in  the  last  months  of  the  "  reign  "  of 
Sipiaghin  and  the  first  months  of  that  of  von  Plehvfi.  Chateaux  had  been 
robbed  and  granaries  looted  by  the  peasants. 


200     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

not  immediately  with  his  workers,  but  through  the  committee. 
The  committees  of  separate  factories  of  a  given  district  are  in  com- 
munication with  each  other  with  a  view  to  uniformity  of  action, 
the  general  supervision  of  the  committees  being  centraUzed  in  the 
PoUtical  Police  Department.  For  the  purposes  of  this  supervision 
the  department  appoints  special  agents  from  among  the  experienced 
and  promising  workers  who  are  wise  by  long  experience  in  the  art 
of  nding  the  masses  of  the  people. 

"3.  In  order  to  form  this  institution,  mutually  useful  as  it  must 
be  for  employees  and  employers  ahke,  the  Political  Police  Depart- 
ment, in  order  that  the  coming  occurrences  should  not  take  it 
unaware,  took  care  not  only  to  seek  workers  promising  and  ex- 
perienced in  strikes,  even  from  among  those  who  had  been  in  ad- 
ministrative banishment,  but  also  of  establishing  a  school  ^  for 
training  the  future  actors,  under  the  management  of  people  experi- 
enced in  this  branch.  All  these  teachers  receive  decent  remunera- 
tion. 

"  4.  The  sums  required  for  the  support  of  this  institution  are 
afforded  by  the  *  Society  of  Mutual  Assistance  of  the  Workers  in 
Mechanical  Industries,*  the  constitution  of  which  was  granted  on 
14th  February  1902.  In  this  society  there  are  taking  part  as 
members  thousands  of  workers  of  both  sexes,  and  even  those  under 
age.  Besides  contributions  from  these,  there  are  the  subscriptions 
from  high  exalted  personages,  educated  classes,  clergy,  and  dif- 
ferent persons,  but  as  yet  no  merchants  or  manufacturers. 

"  5.  By  the  means  described  the  Political  Police  Department 
succeeded  in  a  short  time  in  inspiring  the  most  sincere  confidence 
of  the  working  men,  because  they  became  convinced  that  every 
humbled  and  insulted  person  finds  in  the  Political  Police  Depart- 
ment paternal  attention,  advice,  support,  and  assistance  by  word 
and  deed  ;  so  that  even  the  Museum  of  Labour,  established  by  the 
Imperial  Technical  Society,  began  to  lose  ground."  ^ 

After  he  had  succeeded  in  establishing  the  society  of  workers 
in  the  mechanical  trades,  Zubatov  set  himself  to  organize  the 
weavers,  especially  in  the  cotton  factories,  of  which  there  are  a 
very  large  number  in  the  Moscow  district.  On  21st  December 
1902  there  began  the  enrolment  of  members  in  a  "  Union  of 

*  Zubdtov  actually  used  the  word  "  stud." 

*  These  points  are  slightly  condensed  from  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  pp.  54-6. 


*' POLICE   SOCIALISM"  201 

Weavers."  On  19th  January  1903  there  were  800  members.  The 
president  of  the  miion  was  an  agent  of  the  Political  Police 
called  Krasivsky.  This  union  numbered  among  its  honorary 
members  the  MetropoHtan,  Vladimir ;  the  Right  Rev.  Parfeni, 
the  chief  of  poHce,  Trepov  ;  the  editor  of  the  Moscow  Viedomosti  : 
and  N.  J.  Prokhorov  (the  largest  manufacturer  in  Moscow)  and  others. 
The  workers  in  towns  other  than  Moscow  began  to  become  aware 
of  the  growth  of  trade  unionism  in  that  city,  and  imitative  unions 
sprang  up  in  many  places.  For  example,  the  factory  inspectors 
reported  that  in  1902,  in  the  government  of  Vladimir,  "  the  success 
achieved  by  the  Moscow  working  men  is  known  to  the  locksmiths 
of  Kovrov,  is  hotly  discussed  by  them,  and  is  evidently  agitating 
them."  In  Perm,  Ryazanskaya  gub.,  and  other  places  the  working 
men  were  becoming  greatly  excited.  Meanwhile  in  Moscow  fresh 
organizations  were  brought  rapidly  into  existence  ;  button-makers, 
candy-makers,  perfume-makers,  cigar-makers,  &c.,  were  organized. 
The  activity  of  the  pupils  of  Zubatov  manifested  itself,  however, 
most  conspicuously,  apart  from  Moscow,  in  St.  Petersburg,  Odessa, 
and  Minsk. 

In  the  autumn  of  1902,  the  first  steps  towards  open  organization 
of  working  men  took  place  in  St.  Petersburg.  The  appUcation  to 
form  a  society  similar  to  the  Moscow  societies  was  presented  to  the 
Chief  of  PoHce  of  St.  Petersburg  (V.  J.  Fresh).  This  functionary  not 
only  gave  the  applicants  an  attentive  hearing,  but  the  appUcation 
to  hold  a  meeting  of  working  men  was  granted  by  the  Director  of 
the  Imperial  PoUce  Department  (Lopukhin).^  This  meeting,  the 
first  meeting  of  working  men  officially  permitted  in  St.  Petersburg, 
was  held  on  Sunday,  17th  November  1902.  On  21st  November  the 
representatives  of  the  working  men  were  received  by  M.  von  Plehve.^ 
These  representatives  (agents  of  Zubatov)  thanked  M.  von  Plehve 
for  giving  them  permission  to  hold  the  meeting.  Yet  this  attempt 
bore  no  fruit.  The  St.  Petersburg  working  men  seem  to  have  been 
more  wary  than  their  comrades  in  Moscow,  for  they  looked  upon 
the  movement  with  undisguised  hostihty.^  The  attempt  also 
created  some  alarm  among  the  pubUcists,  who  were  more  or  less  in 

1  Svyet  (St.  Petersburg).  Quoted  by  Svyatlovsky,  op.  ctt.,  pp.  68  and  69. 
For  Lopukhin,  see  infra,  pp.  572  et  seq. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  69. 

'  Dan,  F.,  History  of  the  Labour  Movement  and  Social  Democracy  in  Russia, 
pp.  42  and  43. 


202     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  confidence  of  the  Tsar,  although  it  is  doubtful  if  at  this  time  they 
fully  understood  its  real  origin.  For  example,  Prince  Metschersky 
wrote  in  his  newspaper,  Grajdanin}  "  It  must  be  remembered 
that  in  this  labour  question,  there  is  fire,  and  with  fire  one 
must  not  joke,  because  of  the  risk  of  burning.  If  they  (the 
organizers)  are  not  sincere,  and  speak  for  effect  only,  nothing 
except  harm  can  come  of  these  public  honours  to  factory  workers. 
Why  is  there  such  honour  to  Moscow  working  men  ?  may  be  asked 
by  other  workers." 

More  important  in  the  history  of  the  Zubatov  movement  are  the 
proceedings  at  Minsk  and  at  Odessa.  Zubatov's  special  agents  at 
Minsk  appear  to  have  been  two  women  ;  but  the  movement  there 
was  carried  on  under  the  open  patronage  of  an  ofi&cer  of  gensdarmes, 
Vasilyev.  Under  his  auspices  there  was  formed  "  The  Jewish 
Independent  Labour  Party."  The  policy  of  the  party  was  set  forth 
as  a  purely  economical  one,  strictly  legal  modes  of  action  were  ad- 
vocated, and  profession  was  made  of  loyalty  towards  the  Govern- 
ment. Here  also  Zubatov's  agents  met  with  opposition,  especially 
from  the  **  Universal  Jewish  Labour  Union  in  Russia  and  Poland," 
a  spontaneous  organization  of  Jewish  working  men.  This  society 
devoted  itself  to  exposure  of  the  alleged  independent  party.  The 
want  of  success  in  St.  Petersburg  and  in  Minsk  led  Zubatov  to  con- 
centrate his  attention  upon  the  cities  of  Southern  Russia.  In  the 
beginning  of  1903  an  agent  of  Zubatov,  known  as  "  Dr."  Shaevich, 
engaged  in  the  organization  of  labour  unions. 

^  Prince  Metschersky,  grandson  of  Karamsin  the  historian,  is  a  charac- 
teristic figure  in  Russian  society.  Oriental  not  merely  in  his  habits,  but 
also  in  his  ideas,  which  "  are  those  of  the  Dahomey  of  fifty  years  ago  or  the 
Bokhara  of  to-day,  modified  in  two  important  points."  According  to  him, 
every  governor  of  a  province,  every  village  starosta,  should  share  the  irre- 
sponsible power  of  the  autocrat,  and  when  dealing  with  the  peasantry  need 
observe  no  law.  "  Questions  of  the  Zemstvo  have  no  more  to  do  with  law 
courts,"  he  writes,  "  than  questions  of  family  life.  If  a  father  may  chastise 
his  son  severely  without  invoking  the  help  of  the  courts,  the  authorities — 
local,  provincial,  and  central — should  be  invested  with  a  similar  power  to 
imprison,  flog,  and  otherwise  overawe  and  punish  the  people."  (Art.  "  The 
Tsar"  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  No.  399,  July  1904.)  Prince  Metschersky 
edited  and  published  Grajdanin,  a  newspaper  which  he  maintained  for  the 
dissemination  of  his  ideas.  The  title  was  recently  changed  to  Diary  of  a 
Conservative.  Not  infrequently  he  spoke  out  against  the  Government  in  a 
manner  for  which  only  his  birth  and  high  position  enabled  him  to  secure 
immunity.  Together  with  the  late  M.  Pobyedonostsev,  he  was  of  the  inner 
circle  of  the  confidants  of  the  Tsar.  Both  represented  the  autocracy  in  its 
most  extreme  and  uncompromising  form.     (Cf.  Quarterly  Review,  art.  cited.) 


"POLICE   SOCIALISM"  203 

The  factory-owners  were  ordered  by  the  police  to  employ  only 
workers  belonging  to  the  union,  the  conditions  of  emplojnnent  were 
dictated^  and  wages  were  fixed  also  by  the  poUce.  Workmen  who 
refused  to  belong  to  the  imion  were  expelled  from  the  factories,  and 
were  even  beaten  in  the  streets,  under  the  eyes  and  with  the  ac- 
quiescence of  the  poUce.  "  The  acting  chief  of  poHce  at  Odessa 
received  delegates  from  unions  and  strikers,  entered  into  negotia- 
tions with  them,  and  sympathized  with  the  unions."  ^ 

The  movement  at  Odessa  seems  at  an  early  stage  to  have  passed 
wholly  beyond  the  control  of  Zubatov  as  well  as  of  the  local 
police.*  The  general  strike  of  July  1903  was  put  down  with 
much  bloodshed,  for  which  it  is  impossible  to  hold  Zubatov 
as  otherwise  than  guilty. 

The  Odessa  affair  was  the  undoing  of  Zubatov.  Events  there 
led  to  inquiry  into  the  whole  system  of  police  organization  of  labour 
on  the  part  of  the  St.  Petersburg  authorities.  Shaevich  and  Zubatov 
were  banished  to  the  North  of  Russia,  and  this  phase  of  poUce 
patronage  of  the  labour  movement  was  brought  to  an  abrupt  con- 
clusion. Meanwhile  among  the  working  men  strong  suspicion  of 
Zubatov  and  his  agents  had  been  developing  into  active  hostihty. 
The  official  fall  of  Zubatov  had  been  in  a  large  measure  discounted 
so  far  as  the  working  men  of  St.  Petersburg,  Moscow,  and  Minsk 
were  concerned. 

These  details  of  the  manoeuvres  of  Zubatov  are  not  without 
serious  significance.  They  show  that,  notwithstanding  the  doubtful 
origin  of  the  poHce  "  imions,"  and  notwithstanding  the  doubtful 
character  of  many  of  their  chief  promoters,  they  did  have  an 
important  influence  upon  the  beginnings  of  Russian  labour 
organization.  Universal  long  hours,  low  wages,  and  imfavour- 
able  conditions  of  labour,  rendered  the  whole  industrial  fabric 
insecure. 

Socialist  revolutionary  propaganda,  or  any  propaganda  which 
offered  a  prospect  of  relief,  found  a  favourable  soil  for  the  dissemina- 
tion of  its  ideas.  Zubatov  was  indisputably  right  on  that  point ; 
and,  honest  or  otherwise,  he  saw  farther  than  his  superiors,  ffis 
*'  imions  "  came  at  a  psychological  moment.     His  mistake  lay  in 

1  Report  cited  by  Professor  Ozerov,  op.  cit.,  pp.  238-9. 
'  The  history  of  the  Zubitov  movement  in  Odessa  is  told  at  length  in  Iskra. 
See  also  infra. 


204     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

supposing  that  it  was  possible  to  control  the  forces  which  his 
"  unions  "  concentrated.  Zubatov  thus  **  builded  better  than  he 
knew  "  ;  for  his  "  unions,"  the  first  "  open  "  trade  unions  in  Russia, 
taught  the  working  men  how  to  organize,  and  gave  them  a  taste  for 
power. 

Profiting  by  the  example  of  the  Zubatov  unions,  other  organiza- 
tions made  their  appearance,  to  the  great  perplexity  of  the  author- 
ities. M.  von  Plehve  in  particular  felt  that  the  furore  for  labour 
organization  had  already  gone  so  far  that  it  was  impossible  to  stop 
it.  He  got  rid  of  Zubatov  ;  but  it  was  not  easy  to  get  rid  of  the 
Frankenstein's  monster  which  Zubatov  appeared  to  have  been 
instrumental  in  creating.^ 

The  policy  of  controlling  the  labour  movement,  and  of  separating 
it  from  the  revolutionary  movement,  with  the  design  of  turning  it 
to  account  in  the  interests  of  the  autocracy,  came,  in  all  the  three 
cases  of  which  account  has  been  given,  to  a  disastrous  end.  There 
is  nothing  novel  in  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Crown,  of 
adherents  acting  in  the  assumed  interest  of  the  Crown,  or  of 
an  oligarchy,  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  one  class  against  another, 
and  thus,  by  producing  internecine  dissension,  to  divide  the  forces 
of  the  nation.^ 

Nor  was  there  any  novelty  in  the  idea  that  the  poUce  system 
might  be  utilised  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  design  in 
detail.^  The  gravamen  of  the  charge  against  Zubatov  is  that  he 
deliberately  incited  the  working  men  to  make  unprecedented  de- 
mands upon  their  employers,  to  strike  when  these  demands  were 
not  granted,  and  to  create  by  this  means  a  condition  of  social  unrest 

^  M.  von  PlehvS  did  not  give  evidence  in  this  affair  of  insight  into  the 
conditions  with  which  he  had  to  deal.  The  event  proved  that  Zubdtov's 
dangerous  activity  should  have  been  arrested  at  its  beginning.  Even  if  it 
be  admitted  that  the  relations  between  MM.  von  Plehve  and  Witte  demanded 
a  complete  exposure  of  the  results  of  M.  Witte's  industrial  policy,  the  national 
risk  of  exposmg  them  in  this  way  was  clearly  too  great  from  any  point 
of  view. 

*  Historical  examples  abound  ;  instances  are  to  be  found  in  the  sales  of 
grain  at  nominal  prices  in  Rome  (see  Mommsen,  iii.  chap.  xii. ;  iv.  chap.  iii. ) ; 
in  the  legislation  of  Basil  I  (Finlay,  Hist,  of  the  Byzantine  Empire,  bk.  ii. 
chap.  i. ) ;  and  in  Russian  history  in  the  reigns  of  Ivan  IV  and  Paul  I. 

*  It  is  alleged  by  social  democrats  that  the  pohce  had  been  similarly 
employed  in  "  assisting  "  in  the  organization  of  the  labour  movement  by 
Napoleon  III  and  Bismarck.  The  view  of  the  intelligentsia  is  expressed 
sharply  by  Moskvitch  in  art.  "  Die  Pohzei "  in  Russen  iiber  Russland 
(J.  Melnik  ed.,  Frankfurt-am-Main,  1905),  p.  439. 


"POLICE   SOCIALISM"  205 

which  would  divert  attention  from  the  shortcomings  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  the  shortcomings  of  private  employers.  At  the  same  time, 
by  preoccupying  the  working  men  with  the  wages  question  to  the 
exclusion  of  interest  in  political  propaganda,  Zubatov  contributed 
to  the  antagonism  between  the  working  men  and  the  intelligentsia, 
and  deprived  the  latter  of  numerical  support  to  their  propaganda. 
Moreover,  Zubatov  proposed  to  deal  with  the  whole  matter  "  ad- 
ministratively " — ^that  is,  that  there  was  to  be  no  question  of  legisla- 
tion, but  that  orders  were  to  be  given  (as  they  were  given  in  the 
Goujon  case),  which  proceeded  from  the  authorities,  and  the  full 
credit  for  which  was  to  go  to  them.  The  employers  were  indeed 
to  be  despoiled,  and  the  spoils  handed  over  to  the  workmen. 
Thus  the  socialist  revolutionaries  were  outbid  by  promises  of 
immediate  realization  of  excessive  largesse  extorted  from  the 
employers. 

When  it  was  eventually  exposed,  the  method  of  Zubatov  in- 
curred the  disapprobation  not  only  of  the  employing  class,  but 
also  of  the  reactionary  party,  which  felt  itself  discredited  by  the 
dishonesty  of  the  proceedings,  as  well  as  compromised  by  the 
danger  of  international  compUcations,  and  of  the  working  men, 
who  felt  themselves  deceived  by  Zubatov  and  his  agents. 
Everywhere  the  working  people  hastened  to  dissociate  themselves 
from  the  wreck  of  the  societies  founded  by  Zubatov  or  under  his 
influence. 

While  Zubatovshina  was  submerged  under  a  wave  of  general  dis- 
approbation, it  must  be  held  to  be  significant  in  so  far  as  it  taught 
the  working  men  how  to  combine,  and  gave  them  experience  of 
what  open  combination  without  continual  fear  of  police  suppression 
meant  for  them.  The  discussions  of  social  questions,  especially  at 
Moscow  and  St.  Petersburg,  were  unquestionably  of  educational 
value,  although  the  social  democratic  writers^  are  incUned  to 
depreciate  them.  Altogether,  with  other  incidents  of  the  time,  the 
Zubatov  series  of  movements  must  be  held  to  have  rendered  an 
important  though  unintentional  service  in  the  initial  stages  of  the 
revolution.  The  panic  into  which  the  authorities  in  Odessa,  in 
Moscow,  and  in  St.  Petersburg  were  thrown  showed  that  they  had 
arrived  at  complete  mistrust  of  police  methods,  and  the  chapter 
of  police  sociedism,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  labour  combination,  was, 

*  F.  Dan,  e.g.  op.  cit. 


2o6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

at  all  events  for  the  time,  wholly  closed.^  Police  socialism,  however, 
assumed  a  new  and  much  more  dangerous  aspect  in  the  hands  of 
others  than  Zubdtov — viz.  in  those  of  Rajkovsky,  Lopukhin,  and 
most  of  all  of  Azef,  the  account  of  whose  proceedings  will  be  given 
in  a  subsequent  chapter.* 

^  The  movement  of  Father  Gapon  is  described  infra.  Some  writers 
ascribe  this  movement  to  the  influence  of  Zubdtov.  The  validity  of  this 
ascription  is  discussed  also  infra. 

»  See  infra,  pp.  572-584. 


CHAPTER   XII 

JEWISH   POGROMS 

Jews  are  permitted  to  reside  only  in  the  so-called  Cherta  Osedlosti, 
or  line  of  settlement — ^that  is,  in  the  following  guberni :  Bessarab- 
skaya,  Vilenskaya,  Vitebskaya,  Volinskaya,  Grodnenskaya,  Eka- 
terinoslavskaya,  Kievskaya  (excepting  the  city  of  Kiev),  Koven- 
skaya,  Minskaya,  Mohilevskaya,  Podolskaya,  Poltavskaya,  Tav- 
richeskaya  (the  cities  of  Sevastopol  and  Yalta  excepted),  Kherson- 
skaya  (the  city  of  Nikolayev  excepted),  Chemigovskaya,  and  in  the 
tsardom  of  Poland.  In  Poland  Jews  may  Uve  anywhere,  but  in 
the  other  localities  mentioned  their  "  right  of  residence  "  is  Umited 
to  urban  places,  and  it  is  also  Umited  to  an  area  within  a  zone  of 
50  versts  roimd  the  boundaries.  According  to  an  ukase  of  1882, 
certificates  of  sale  of  estates  and  mortgages  upon  estates  may  not 
be  drawn  in  favour  of  Jews,  nor  may  they  enter  into  rent  contracts 
for  estates  outside  the  hmits  of  cities  and  towns,  nor  may  they  act 
as  proxies  for  the  management  or  sale  of  property.  These  restric- 
tions, however,  do  not  apply  to  certain  classes  of  Jews.  They  do 
not  apply  to  Karaim  or  non-Talmudical  Jews,  nor  do  they  apply 
to  Jews  who  have  received  a  university  or  equivalent  education, 
nor  to  dentists,  pharmacists,  merchants  of  the  first  and  second 
gilds,  or  to  direct  descendants  of  persons  who  rendered  miUtary 
service  in  the  time  of  Nicholas  I.^ 

Jew-baiting  is  not  new  in  Russia.  The  following  is  an  account 
of  a  characteristic  scene.  A  group  of  idlers  who  have  lounged  out 
of  bars,  tea-rooms,  dens  of  various  kinds,  stand  at  a  street  comer. 
A  Jew  passes.  The  group  of  idlers  jeer  at  him.  If  he  answers  the 
jeers,  the  idlers  attack  him.  Other  Jews  come  to  his  assistance. 
These  are  attacked.  Then  stones  are  thrown  into  the  neighbouring 
houses.  The  rioters  enter  the  houses  and  drag  out  the  people. 
Gradually  the  disorder  spreads  from  one  district  to  another.    Shouts 

^  Cf.  Osvobojdenie  (Stuttgart),  i.  No.  22,  8th  May  1903,  p.  378. 

207 


2o8     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

of  "  Bey  jedov  /  "  (Beat  the  Jews  !)  are  heard  in  the  streets.  Some- 
times the  Jews  form  into  groups  and  defend  themselves  ;  then  the 
police,  and  even  the  troops,  come  into  action,  and  the  Jews  find 
themselves  attacked  by  those  whose  duty  it  is  to  protect  them. 
Frequently  the  Jews  offer  money  to  escape  worse  consequences  at 
the  hands  of  the  rioters.  Jewish  women  offer  themselves  to  escape 
death. 

In  the  early  seventies  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  again  in 
the  early  eighties,  such  pogroms  or  riots  occurred.  The  principal 
scene  of  these  riots  was  Kishenev,  the  capital  of  Bessarabia.  The 
fundamental  cause  of  the  pogroms  was  described  by  the  Russian 
review  Vestnik  Evropy  in  1883  ^  as  the  legislation  of  Russia,  in 
which  the  Jew  is  regarded  as  "  a  stranger,  a  pariah,"  and  therefore 
beyond  the  protection  of  the  law.  Yet  there  is  probably  some 
foundation  for  the  assertion  of  Osvohojdenie^  that  the  anti-Semitic 
feeling  had  died  down  in  Russia  after  the  pogrom  at  Odessa  in 
1873.  It  was  aroused  once  more  in  1881,  when  M.  von  Plehve  became 
Director  of  the  Department  of  Police  during  the  reaction  which 
followed  the  assassination  of  Alexander  II.  "  All  this  year  there 
were  continual  anti- Jewish  pogroms,  in  which  even  the  official 
communications  could  not  always  conceal  the  fact  of  the  actual 
participation  of  the  local  authorities."  ^  In  1882  and  later  years 
pogroms  were  sporadic ;  but  they  had  practically  disappeared  for 
some  years  when,  in  1903,  once  more  the  control  of  the  police  passed 
into  the  hands  of  M.  von  Plehve,  when  immediately  pogroms  began 
again  to  occur.  They  began  at  Kishenev.  Since  1897  the  press  of 
Kishenev  had  been  suppressed,  with  the  exception  of  two  news- 
papers, Bessarahits  and  Znamya  (Banner),  both  edited  by  a  certain 
Krushevan.  The  close  relation  between  these  newspapers  and  the 
local  administration  is  undoubted.  In  March  1903  Bessarahits 
pubUshed  an  account  of  an  alleged  ritual  murder  by  Jews  at  Dubos- 
sari,  a  small  town  in  the  province  of  which  Kishenev  is  the  capital. 
This  account  was  false,  and  on  its  exposure  M.  von  Plehve  issued  a 
circular  on  22nd  March  prohibiting  further  newspaper  reference  to 
the  subject.  Whether  under  the  auspices  of  M.  von  Plehve  or  of  Kru- 
shevan does  not  appear,  but  soon  after  the  Jewish  Passover,  some 

1  Vestnik  Evropy  (1883),  part  ix.  p.  354. 

*  Edited  by  P.  Struvg,  vol.  i.  No.  22,  8th  May  1903. 

3  Osvobojdenie  (Stuttgart),  vol.  i  No.  22,  8th  May  1903,  p.  379. 


JEWISH    POGROMS  209 

persons  made  their  appearance  in  Kishenev  as  agitators  in  favour 
of  a  Jewish  pogrom.  The  Jews  became  alarmed,  and  sent  a  depu- 
tation to  the  governor  to  request  protection.  The  governor  pro- 
mised to  take  measures  for  their  safety.  This  he  failed  to  do,  and 
the  destruction  of  Jewish  houses  began,  while  the  police  stood  by 
indifferently,  or  even  attacked  those  Jews  who  attempted  to  defend 
themselves.  According  to  Osvobojdenie  the  people  who  took  part 
in  the  pogroms  were,  in  the  first  instance,  peasants  from  the  neigh- 
bouring country  districts,  who  had  had  no  previous  relation  with  the 
Jews  of  Kishenev.  Later  the  local  inhabitants,  who  found  the 
Jews  keen  competitors  in  their  business,  joined  the  anti-Semitic 
movement,  and  engaged  in  pogroms.  The  Kishenev  pogrom  took 
place  on  6th  and  7th  April.  About  a  fortnight  previously  (on 
25th  March)  von  Plehve,  then  Minister  of  Interior,  had  sent  a 
despatch  to  General  von  Raben,  Governor  of  Kishenev.  This 
despatch,  which  was  published  at  the  time  by  The  Times,  was  as 
follows  : 

"  I  have  been  informed  that  in  the  locality  entrusted  to  you 
there  are  in  preparation  vast  disorders  against  Jews  who  are  ex- 
ploiting the  local  population.  Because  of  the  generally  unquiet 
state  of  mind  of  the  people  of  the  city,  a  state  of  mind  which  is 
seeking  for  an  outlet,  and  also  because  of  the  undesirability  of 
exciting  anti-governmental  feelings  among  the  population  not  yet 
touched  by  the  propaganda,  and  of  applying  too  severe  measures, 
your  Excellency  will  not  fail  to  stop  immediately  by  persuasion, 
not  using  armed  force,  the  disorders  which  are  about  to  begin."  ^ 

This  despatch  was  naturally  interpreted  at  the  time  as  a  callous 
instruction  to  leave  the  Jews  to  the  mercy  of  the  rioters  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  Government,  which  von  Plehve  seemed  to  think  would 
be  served  by  the  diversion  of  popular  fury  from  an  anti-govern- 
mental to  an  anti-Semitic  direction.  Znamya  and  Bessar obits, 
Krushevan's  newspapers,  offer  another  explanation.  The  Jews  of 
Kishenev  were,  he  said,  "  the  redeeming  sacrifice  for  the  revolu- 
tionary propaganda  of  their  fellow- Jews."  ^  Xhat  the  Jewish  pog- 
roms were  intended  as  a  counter-revolutionary  stroke  appears  also 
from  the  circumstance  that  the  dates  fixed  for  revolutionary  demon- 
strations were  also  the  dates  fixed  beforehand  for  the  Jewish  pog- 

*  Osvobojdenie,  ibid. 

*  Quoted  by  Osvobojdenie,  No.  22,  p.  380. 

VOL.  II  O 


2IO     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

roms}  The  policy,  if  such  it  may  be  called,  was  to  some  extent 
successful.  The  revolutionary  groups,  reaUzing  the  connection  be- 
tween their  proceedings  and  the  pogroms  against  the  Jews,  cancelled 
many  of  these  demonstrations,^  and  thus  it  may  be  said  that  through- 
out the  south  of  Russia,  the  revolutionary  movement  was  thrown 
back  for  about  two  years.  In  May  1903  a  deputation  of  three 
influential  Jews  went  from  Odessa  to  St.  Petersburg  to  remonstrate 
with  von  Plehve  and  to  endeavour  to  see  the  Tsar.  The  case  for  the 
Jews  was  skilfully  put  by  Konigshatz,  a  Jewish  lawyer.  Von 
Plehve  answered  that  he  was  considering  measures  for  the  improve- 
ment of  the  condition  of  the  Jews  ;  "  but,"  he  said  (according  to 
the  report  of  the  deputation,  drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  height 
and  assuming  a  menacing  tone),  "  tell  this  to  the  Jewish  youth,  your 
sons  and  daughters — ^tell  all  your  intelligentsia.  Let  them  not  think 
that  Russia  is  an  old  and  rotting  organism ;  the  new  developing 
Russia  will  win,  and  will  put  down  the  revolutionary  movement. 
Much  is  said  about  the  cowardice  of  Jews.  This  is  not  true.  The 
Jews  are  the  boldest  of  people.  In  Western  Russia  about  90  per 
cent,  of  the  revolutionists  are  Jews,  and  in  Russia  as  a  whole,  about 
40  per  cent.3  I  will  not  conceal  from  you  that  the  revolutionary 
movement  in  Russia  is  disturbing  us.  From  time  to  time  when, 
here  and  there,  demonstrations  are  arranged,  we  come  even  to  con- 
fusion ;  but  we  shall  control  this.  I  wish  to  let  you  understand  that 
unless  you  detain  your  youth  from  the  revolutionary  movement,  we 
will  make  your  situation  so  intolerable  that  you  will  have  to  go 
away  from  Russia  to  the  last  man."  * 

This  was  undoubtedly  the  true  explanation  of  the  pogroms  ;  and 
M.  von  Plehve  must  have  known  that  in  putting  it  in  set  terms,  he 
was  pronouncing  his  own  sentence  of  death. 

^  Osvobojdenie,  ibid.  *  Ibid. 

3  This  was  probably  correct  at  the  time  when  von  PlehvS  spoke.  It 
would  not,  of  course,  have  been  true  in  1905  and  1906. 

*  From  Latest  Information  (the  organ  of  the  Jewish  Bund),  No.  132  ; 
quoted  in  Osvobojdenie,  No.  i  (25),  July  1903. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

RUSSIA   IN  THE   FAR  EAST 

The  eastward  expansion  of  Russia  and  her  conflict  with  Japan  have 
been  important  incidents  in  her  economic,  as  well  as  in  her  poUtical 
history  ;  but  the  progress  of  the  one  and  the  causes  of  the  other  have 
extended  over  so  long  a  period  of  time,  and  in  the  earlier  stages  these 
were  so  far  removed  from  the  main  currents  of  Russian  economic 
life,  that  it  has  appeared  to  be  necessary  to  treat  them  separately 
in  this  place. 

The  Russians  reached  the  Ural  Mountains  early  in  the  fifteenth 
century ,1  and  settlements  were  estabhshed  upon  the  western  slopes 
by  enterprising  adventurers,  who  engaged  in  the  fur  trade  and  in 
salt-boiling.  Amongst  these  early  adventurers  was  the  founder  of 
the  celebrated  family  of  Strogonov.^ 

Towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  hostile  tribes 
beyond  the  low  range  of  hills  which  constitute  the  Ural  Mountains, 
on  the  frontiers  of  which  are  now  the  guberni  of  Perm  and  Ufa,  dis- 
tressed the  fur  traders  by  frequent  attacks  upon  their  settlements. 
These  attacks  led  the  Strogonovs  to  petition  the  voyevoda  of  the 
district  to  authorize  them  to  raise  a  force  for  the  purpose  of  repel- 
hng  the  tribesmen.  Permission  was  given,  and  a  force  under  the 
command  of  a  Cossack  ataman  was  sent  across  the  mountains. 

*  The  relations  of  Russia  with  the  Far  East  began,  however,  much  earlier. 
Russia  had  been  repeatedly  overrun,  and  in  the  thirteenth  century  had  been 
subjugated  by  Asiatic  hordes.  (For  ethnical  affinities  between  some  of  the 
races  of  Russia  and  the  Northern  Mongols,  see  Vol.  I.  Appendix  No.  II.)  The 
great  Asiatic  empire  of  Genghis  Khan  and  of  Oktai  extended  from  the  Pacific 
Ocean  to  the  western  shores  of  the  Black  Sea.  The  Mongolo-Tartar  con- 
querors were  masters  of  the  plains  of  Asia  and  of  Russia.  They  were  stayed 
only  by  the  mountaineers  of  Moravia  and  Bohemia.  There  are  Chinese  tradi- 
tions of  Russian  guards  being  taken  to  Peking  in  the  thirteenth  century.  (C/. 
Parker,  E.  H.,  China,  Her  History,  Diplomacy,  and  Commerce  (London,  1901), 
p.  96.) 

*  The  Industries  of  Russia,  vol.  v.  Siberia  and  the  Great  Siberian  Railway, 
edited  by  J.  M.  Crawford  (St.  Petersburg  (in  English),  1893),  p.  3. 


212     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

The  Cossack  ataman  was  Yermak  Timofeyevich,  whose  energetic 
conduct  of  the  expedition  won  Siberia  for  the  Tsar. 

Ivan  IV  (the  Terrible),  whose  policy  was  one  of  consolidation 
of  conquests  rather  than  of  extension  of  territory,  disapproved  of 
the  aggressive  character  which  the  ostensibly  merely  punitive  ex- 
pedition had  assumed  in  the  hands  of  Yermak,  and  ordered  its 
recall.  It  was  too  late.  The  Siberian  tribes  were  unacquainted 
with  gunpowder,  and  they  fell  before  the  bullets  of  Yermak's  insigni- 
ficant army.  Yermak  was  drowned  in  1584,  but  the  conquest  and 
settlement  of  the  vast  Siberian  region  went  on  rapidly.  In  1587 
Tobolsk  was  founded,  in  1604  Tomsk,  in  1619  Yeniseisk,  and  in  1632 
Yakutsk.  A  party  of  Cossacks  was  sent  in  1636  from  Tomsk  to  the 
Aldan  River,  in  order  to  reduce  a  band  of  Tunguses  to  subjection. 
The  Aldan  has  its  rise  on  the  northern  slopes  of  the  Stanovoi  Moun- 
tains, on  the  southern  slopes  of  which  rise  many  of  the  tributaries 
of  the  Amur.  Rumours  of  the  existence  of  a  mighty  stream  to  the 
south  reached  the  Cossacks,  who,  however,  at  that  time  made  no 
attempt  to  visit  it,  but  pushed  eastwards  to  the  Sea  of  Okhotsk, 
on  whose  shores  they  arrived  in  1639.  ^^  "this  year  the  rumours 
about  the  Amur  region  were  confirmed,  and  in  1643  an  expedition 
was  despatched  from  Yakutsk  for  the  purpose  of  exploring  it.  The 
party  was  injudiciously  led,  and  its  leaders  succeeded  in  converting 
friendly  peoples  with  whom  they  came  in  contact  into  formidable 
enemies.  The  Russians  were  driven  back  famished  and  decimated- 
Nevertheless,  they  had  reached  the  jimction  of  the  Sungari  with  the 
Amur,  and  had  acquired  much  knowledge  of  the  resources  and  de- 
fences of  the  region.  In  1649  another  expedition  was  fitted  out  at 
the  expense  of  Khabarov,  a  wealthy  Cossack.  With  seventy  Cos- 
sacks, Khabarov  reached  the  Amur,  and  found  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Urka,  a  Daurian  prince,  Lavkai,  who  interrogated  him  about  his 
object  in  visiting  the  country.  Khabarov  professed  trade,  but 
Lavkai  suggested  conquest. 

The  expedition  was  mainly  for  reconnaissance,  and  Khabarov 
returned  to  Yakutsk.  In  the  following  year,  1650,  he  commanded 
a  second  and  stronger  expeditionary  force  for  the  region  of  the  Amur. 
Khabarov's  company  was,  after  all,  of  no  great  strength,  considering 
the  magnitude  of  the  task  he  was  about  to  undertake  ;  but  men 
were  scarce  in  Eastern  Siberia,  and  his  total  force  consisted  of 
twenty-one  Cossacks  and  one  hundred  and  seventeen  volunteers. 


RUSSIA    IN   THE   FAR   EAST        213 

On  the  advance  of  the  Russians  into  the  Amur  region,  most  of  the 
inhabitants  fled ;  those  who  resisted  were  cut  to  pieces  without 
quarter.  Arrows^  were  useless  against  bullets.  The  Daurian 
princes  and  their  people  retired  everywhere  before  the  Russians  ; 
occasionally  some  of  them  were  surprised  and  killed  or  captured. 
The  Manchu  Emperor  at  Peking,  Shun-chi,  claimed  suzerainty  over 
the  Daurians  and  collected  tribute  from  them,  but  the  few  Manchu 
horsemen  who  were  in  the  region,  and  whose  duty  it  was  to  protect 
the  tributaries  of  their  master,  fled  before  the  Russians  and  left  the 
Daurians  to  their  fate.  The  poUcy  of  the  Russians  and  the  tactics 
of  the  Daurians,  who  deserted  their  villages,  carrying  off  their  food 
supplies,  together  rendered  the  continued  occupation  of  the  region 
by  Khabarov's  company  impossible.  Khabarov  built  a  fort,  and 
sent  out  foraging  expeditions  ;  but  he  was  repeatedly  attacked  by 
the  Ducheri  and  the  Achani,  Khabarov  having  moved  his  quarters 
into  the  country  of  the  latter.  He  was  also  attacked  by  Manchus, 
who  were  then  armed  with  matchlocks  and  artillery.  Khabarov 
repulsed  these  attacks  at  the  expense  of  a  considerable  number  of 
his  force  ;  but  he  was  obUged  to  reascend  the  Amur.  As  Khabarov 
was  returning  to  Yakutsk,  he  met  in  the  pass  of  the  Bureya  Moun- 
tains a  party  nearly  as  large  as  his  own  original  company,  which 
had  been  sent  to  reinforce  him.  Khabarov  therefore  retraced 
his  steps  ;  but  he  was  speedily  embarrassed  by  a  mutiny  among  his 
men  and  the  desertion  of  more  than  a  third  of  them. 

These  expeditions  were  unquestionably  conducted  with  cruelty 
unusual  even  in  such  adventures.  Khabarov  admitted  that  he 
tortured  and  burnt  his  hostages.^  The  memory  of  his  atrocities 
remained  among  the  natives  of  the  Amur  until  our  own  day,  and 
doubtless  still  remains.^  The  number  of  the  natives  slaughtered  by 
him  does  not  appear,  but  the  loss  of  natives  and  Manchus  together, 
killed  in  frequent  attacks,  is  put  at  1600  men.  Khabarov's  own 
losses  are  stated  at  233  by  death  or  desertion.* 

The  irregular  and  non-productive  exploits  of  Khabarov  led  the 
Moscow  Government  to  decide  to  send  out  an  army  of  3000  men  for 
the  occupation  of  the  Amur  region .    Khabarov  himself  had  suggested 

1  There  is  a  very  interesting  collection  of  bows  and  arrows  in  the  Ro5ral 
Palace  of  the  Manchus  at  Mukden.  The  bows  are  of  great  size  ;  their  use 
must  have  involved  the  exercise  of  a  high  degree  of  muscular  strength. 

*  Ravenstein,  E.  G.,  The  Russians  on  the  Amur  (London,  1861),  p.  19, 

»  Ihid.  *  Ibid.,  p.  25. 


214     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

double  that  number,  on  the  ground  that  the  number  of  Manchus 
which  would  have  to  be  reckoned  with  was  about  40,000.  The 
most  exaggerated  reports  of  the  riches  of  the  Amur  were  circulated 
by  Khabarov's  returning  Cossacks.  The  result  of  these  reports 
was  a  stream  of  adventurers.  "  Lawless  bands  "  of  such  people 
passed  through  Eastern  Siberia,  plundering  the  villages  as  they 
went.  The  expeditionary  force  which  was  to  have  been  sent  from 
Moscow  to  the  Amur  was  sent  only^to  Siberia,  where  its  presence 
was  more  necessary.  The  Chinese  were  aroused,  numerous  Manchu 
troops  were  sent  into  the  region,  the  small  Russian  forces,  now 
under  Stepanov,  who  had  succeeded  Khabarov,  were  inadequately 
supplied  with  ammunition,  and  thus,  in  spite  of  considerable  gal- 
lantry exhibited  in  the  face  of  overwhelming  numbers  of  Manchus, 
the  main  force  of  the  Russians  was  killed  or  captured.  The  Lower 
Amur  was  completely  evacuated  by  1660.  Although  the  Russians 
had  consoHdated  themselves  upon  the  Shilka,  an  important  tributary 
of  the  Upper  Amur,  had  occupied  Trans-Baikaha  and  had  founded 
Nerchinsk,  they  allowed  several  years  to  pass  before  any  renewed 
attempts  were  made  to  occupy  the  Lower  Amur. 

The  adventurous  spirit  of  the  Russians  in  Eastern  Siberia  led  to 
the  occupation,  in  1665,  of  Albazin,  on  the  Amur,  by  a  bandit  of 
Siberia,  named  Nikita  Chemigovsky.^  Chemigovsky  was,  as  his 
name  imphed,  of  Little  Russian  extraction.  He  had  been  exiled  to 
Siberia,  where  he  became  the  leader  of  a  predatory  band.  The 
voyevoda  of  Ilimsk  having  fallen  at  his  hands,  Chemigovsky,  with 
about  eighty  of  his  followers,  fled  to  Albazin,  where  they  found  one 
of  the  old  forts  of  Lavkai,  the  Daurian  prince.  Here  the  bandits 
established  themselves.  Recruits  came  to  them  in  groups,  con- 
tributed by  the  lawless  bands  of  Eastern  Siberia.  In  1671  the  com- 
mand of  this  Httle  settlement  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  an  official 
sent  from  Nerchinsk.  In  1672  the  group  of  settlers  assumed  a  new 
character.  Formerly  they  had  hved  chiefly  upon  the  exploitation, 
by  forced  tribute  and  otherwise,  of  the  native  population.  This 
they  had  been  able  to  carry  on  in  spite  of  protests  to  Moscow  from 
Peking.  Now  peasants  began  to  go  into  the  country,  to  cultivate 
the  soil,  and  to  deal  with  the  natural  resources.  Many  villages 
began  to  be  built  in  a  wide  region,  the  centre  of  which  naturally  was 
Albazin,  which  thenceforward  came  to  be  a  position  of  importance. 

'  1  Crawford,  op.  cit.,  p.  7. 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST        215 

The  Russians  were  now  after  a  manner  established  on  the  Amur, 
within  territory  over  which  the  Chinese  had  exercised  a  somewhat 
ineffective  sovereignty,  collecting  tribute  from  tribal  groups  whom 
they  did  not  attack  so  long  as  the  tribute  was  paid,  but  whom  they 
did  little  to  protect  except  from  one  another.  As  the  event  proved, 
the  Chinese  were  unable  to  protect  them  against  the  Russians.  To- 
wards the  east  the  river  Bureya  flows  into  the  Amur  at  Skobeltsin, 
about  700  miles  above  the  mouth,  and  the  river  Amgun,  which, 
although  its  sources  are  on  the  slopes  of  the  Bureya  Mountains  at 
no  great  distance  from  those  of  the  Bureya,  flows  into  the  Amur 
near  the  mouth. 

The  valleys  of  these  rivers  were  occupied  by  tribal  groups  which 
admitted  no  allegiance  and  paid  no  tribute  either  to  the  Chinese  or 
to  the  Russians.  In  spite  of  interior  difficulties  at  Albazin,  by  1682 
several  posts  had  been  established  by  the  Russians  in  widely  sepa- 
rated parts  of  the  region  embraced  by  the  great  bend  of  the  Amur 
and  watered  by  its  northern  tributaries. 

It  is  necessary  now  to  turn  to  the  region  upon  which  the  Russians 
had  encroached.  The  valley  of  the  Amur  had  formed  the  heart  of 
successive  Tungusian  empires,^  whose  boundaries  from  the  beginning 
of  the  tenth  until  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century  had  extended 
from  the  Great  Wall  of  China  northwards  to  the  Altai  Mountains, 
and  westwards  so  far  as  Kashgar,  in  what  is  now  Chinese  Turkestan. 
Even  China  fell  under  the  control  of  the  Tungusian  Emperors,  for  a 
Tungusic  dynasty  ruled  North  China  from  Peking  (960-1260), 
during  approximately  the  same  period  as  the  Sung  dynasties  ruled 
South  China  from  Nanking,  Hangchow,  and  other  capitals  (915- 
1232)  ,2  the  latter  power  paying  tribute  to  the  former  during  a  great 
part  of  the  period.  Among  the  Tungusic  peoples,  the  group  which 
has  made  more  impression  than  any  other  upon  history  has  been 
the  Manchu.  These  people,  whose  cradle  was  probably  either  the 
plains  through  which  the  Sungari  River  flows,  or  the  Shan  Alin 
range  to  the  south  of  these,  appear  to  have  invited  Koreans  and 
Chinese  into  their  country,  and  to  have  cultivated  the  arts  and 
sciences  at  an  early  period.  In  the  tenth  century  they  were  con- 
quered by  the  Kitans,  another  Tungusic  people,  who  were  masters 

I  The  origin  of  the  name  Tungus  is  obscure.  See  discussion  upon  it  by 
A.  H.  Keane,  Man,  Past  and  Present  (Cambridge,  1900),  p.  287. 

*  The  reign  of  the  Sung  dynasties  embraces  the  great  literary  and  artistic 
period  of  China. 


2i6     ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

of  the  region  between  the  Liao-tung  peninsula  ^  and  the  Amur,  as 
well  as  all  that  is  now  MongoHa.  These  were  the  people  who  gave 
China  her  Tungusic  Emperors,  and  who  through  Marco  Polo  gave 
the  name  by  which  China  is  known  in  Russia  (Kitai),  and  also  gave 
the  name  Cathay.  During  the  period  of  Mongol  domination  in 
China  from  1260  till  1368,  Manchuria  seems  to  have  been  the  battle- 
ground of  constant  wars  between  the  Mongol  Emperors  and  the 
Tunguses,  now  represented  chiefly  by  the  Chin  or  Golden  dynasty. 
The  population  was  decimated  and  the  towns  destroyed.  The 
Mongol  power  was  overthrown  by  a  revolution  in  1368,  and  the 
Ming  dynasty  came  to  the  throne.  Manchuria  was  divided  into 
three  provinces  in  the  fourteenth  century ;  and  in  the  early  part 
of  the  fifteenth  these  provinces  were  made  tributary  to  China. 

In  one  of  these,  the  province  of  Tsyan-chzu,  there  lived  about 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  a  certain  Aishin-goro,  who  was 
recognized  as  a  descendant  of  the  Golden  dynasty,  several  villages 
acknowledging  his  sovereignty.  A  reputed  descendant  of  this  man, 
three  hundred  years  later — ^in  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century — 
succeeded  in  enlarging  the  boundaries  of  Manchu  influence.  This 
heir  to  the  Golden  Throne  was  Nurkhatzi.^  The  gradual  growth  of 
his  power  enabled  him  to  establish  himself  at  Mukden,  which  became 
his  capital.  He  threw  off  the  yoke  of  the  Chinese  and  declared 
himself  Emperor.  The  Chinese  troops  sent  against  him  were  de- 
feated. Nurkhatzi  died  in  1626 ;  but  his  successor,  on  being  invited 
to  Peking  as  recognized  vassal  of  the  Chinese  Emperor,  in  order  to 
aid  in  the  suppression  of  a  rebellion,  not  only  put  down  that  rebeUion, 
but  himself  seized  the  throne  of  China  (1644)  as  the  first  Emperor  of 
the  d5masty  which  fell  in  191 1.  Nurkhatzi  died  in  the  year  of  his 
triumph,  and  the  throne  fell  to  a  child  of  six  years.  During  the 
minority  of  the  young  Emperor,  and  for  many  years  afterwards, 
the  stability  of  the  dynasty  was  by  no  means  secure. 

Although  the  Manchus  from  the  beginning  had  disputed  the 
Russian  advance,  and  had  prevented  the  invaders  from  estabHshing 

1  The  Liao-tung  peninsula  was  from  early  ages  an  independent  kingdom, 
until  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era.  Under  the  Han  dynasty,  the 
region  was  annexed  to  China.  Then  followed  successively  the  suzerainty  of 
China,  independence,  conquest  by  Korea,  Chinese  rule,  Tungusian  control. 
With  the  seizure  of  power  in  China  by  the  Manchus,  it  passed  once  more  into 
the  hands  of  China. 
*  Or  Nurhachu. 


RUSSIA    IN    THE    FAR    EAST         217 

themselves  on  the  Sungari,  the  ancient  cradle  of  the  Manchus,  they 
had  not  been  able  altogether  to  expel  the  Russians  from  the  Amur 
region. 

In  1683  the  Manchu  Emperor  K'anghi  determined  to  adopt 
vigorous  measures  to  recover  the  rich  alluvial  soils  of  the  Amur 
basin,  some  portion  of  which  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  Russia. 
A  considerable  force  was  sent  to  Aigun  in  the  summer  of  1683,  and 
many  of  the  smaller  Russian  settlements  were  captured  or  dispersed. 
In  the  following  year  Albazin  was  besieged  and  was  forced  to  sur- 
render. The  Russians  were  permitted  to  withdraw.  They  retreated 
to  Nerchinsk,  meeting  on  their  way  too  tardy  reinforcements. 
The  Chinese  forces,  having  driven  out  the  Russians,  withdrew  up 
the  Simgari  River.  Within  a  few  days  after  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Chinese,  Albazin  was  reoccupied  by  the  Russians.  They  immedi- 
ately proceeded  to  improve  the  defences.  In  the  following  year  the 
Chinese  returned  in  force,  and  invested  Albazin.  They  tried  to 
carry  the  place  by  assault,  but  failed.  Although  they  had  reduced 
the  garrison  to  small  numbers  and  to  great  extremities,  they  volun- 
tarily raised  the  siege  after  an  investment  of  five  months  ;  and  left 
the  region  altogether  in  the  following  year  (1687). 

The  reason  for  this  action,  inexplicable  to  the  besieged,  was  a 
diplomatic  one.  An  emissary  had  been  despatched  from  Moscow 
to  Peking,  where  he  had  arrived  in  1686.  The  negotiations  thus 
initiated  by  Russia  led,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  raising  of  the 
siege  of  Albazin,  and,  secondly,  to  an  agreement  that  representa- 
tives of  Russia  and  China  should  meet  at  Selenginsk  to  arrange 
about  the  delimitation  of  the  frontier  between  the  two  countries. 

Plenipotentiaries  were  desp)atched  by  each  power,  one  from 
Peking  and  one  from  Moscow,  suitably  escorted.  Strangely  enough, 
both  embassies  were  attacked  by  Mongols  as  they  approached  their 
meeting  place  ;  the  Russians  beat  off  their  assailants,  but  the 
Chinese  were  compelled  to  retire.  A  fresh  arrangement  was  neces- 
sary, and  after  some  delay  the  plenipotentiaries  met  at  Nerchinsk, 
the  Chinese  appearing  in  considerable  force,  greatly  outnumbering 
the  Russians.  After  many  difficulties  and  at  least  one  moment 
when  hostilities  seemed  likely  to  break  out  inmiediately,  the  Russians 
being  surrounded  by  hostile  Chinese,  the  draft  of  a  treaty,  after- 
wards known  as  the  Treaty  of  Nerchinsk,  was  signed,  29th  August 
1689.    The  Stanovoi  Mountains  and  the  Argun  River  were  accepted 


21 8     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

as  the  boundaries,  the  Russians  having  the  north  and  the  Chinese 
the  south  banks  of  the  latter  river.  The  Russian  fortress  of  Albazin 
was  to  be  demolished,  and  hunting  was  not  to  be  permitted  on  either 
side  to  the  "  nationals  "  of  the  other ;  conmierce  and  intercourse 
were,  however,  to  be  permitted.  The  terms  of  the  treaty  were  to 
be  graven  upon  stones  in  Tataric  (Manchu)  Chinese,  Russian,  and 
Latin,  and  these  stones  were  to  be  erected  on  the  frontier.  The 
treaty  was  a  complete  victory  for  the  Chinese  ;  not  only  were  they 
left  with  the  rich  basin  of  the  Amur,  but  they  retained  also  the 
valuable  hunting  grounds  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Stanovoi 
Mountains,  as  well  as  the  basins  of  the  numerous  tributaries  of  the 
Amur  which  had  their  sources  in  them. 

During  the  eighteenth  century  the  colonization  of  Siberia  pro- 
ceeded after  a  fashion,  the  aboriginal  tribes  were  driven  away  from 
the  settlements,  stockaded  posts  and  fortresses  being  built  at  inter- 
vals for  purposes  of  protection.  Meanwhile,  exploration  of  Siberia 
was  carried  out  by  several  scientific  expeditions.  Under  Peter  the 
Great,  and  on  his  initiative,  an  expedition  was  despatched  in  1725 
to  find  whether  there  existed  a  passage  into  the  Arctic  Ocean  from 
the  Pacific  between  America  and  Asia.^  This  expedition  was  com- 
manded by  Vitus  Berend,  a  Danish  sailor  in  the  Russian  service. 
The  successful  issue  of  this  voyage  led  to  a  series  of  expeditions, 
which  resulted  in  the  gradual  discovery  and  occupation  by  the 
Russians  of  the  region  which  came  to  be  known  as  Alaska.  During 
the  same  period  the  Aleutian  Islands  were  discovered  and  occupied. 
These  expeditions  were  performed  between  1739  and  1769.2 

During  the  eighteenth  century  the  Chinese  seat  of  government 
of  the  Amur  was  Tsitsikar,  at  which  town  and  at  Aigun  there  was  a 
mihtary  governor.  Both  of  these,  together  with  the  Governor  of 
Kirin,  were  under  the  authority  of  the  Governor-General  of  Man- 
churia at  Mukden.  The  males  of  the  Manchu  population  were 
practically  all  under  arms.  In  addition  to  the  Manchus  there  were 
nomadic  tribes,  who  were  for  the  most  part  hunters.  The  former 
paid  taxes  and  the  latter  tribute.  The  tribute  exacted  (in  sables 
and  in  grain)  was  heavy,  and  the  tribesmen  were  thus  not  reluctant 
to  pass  under  the  rule  of  Russia.     Up  till  1820  a  policy  of  rigid 

*  The  existence  of  such  a  passage  had  akeady  been  demonstrated  by  Simeon 
Dejnyev  in  1 648 ;  but  Peter  seems  to  have  been  unaware  of  the  fact.  Cf . 
Siberia  and  the  Great  Siberian  Railway,  edited  Crawford,  pp.  526-810. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  II. 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST        219 

exclusion  was  carried  out  by  China,  and  immigration  into  Manchuria 
was  prevented  even  in  the  case  of  Chinese.  In  that  year,  however, 
the  policy  was  changed  and  the  Chinese  flocked  into  the  coimtry. 

Throughout  the  eighteenth  century  the  Chinese  were  frequently 
requested  by  Russia  to  permit  the  free  navigation  of  the  Amur,  but 
they  persistently  refused.  Meanwhile  Russian  settlements  had  been 
formed  on  the  Pacific  coast,  and  the  supplies  for  these  had  to  be 
transported  by  land  at  considerable  cost.^  The  Russian  Govern- 
ment was,  however,  reluctant  to  employ  coercive  measures  at  so 
great  distance  from  any  mihtary  base.  The  region  was  compara- 
tively little  known  and  little  valued.  The  event  which  ultimately 
changed  altogether  the  attitude  of  Russia  towards  the  Pacific  and 
towards  the  Amur  was  the  appointment  of  Count  Nikolas  N.  Mura- 
viev  as  Governor  of  Eastern  Siberia  in  1847.  This  officer  became 
an  enthusiastic  advocate  of  Russian  advance  in  Eastern  Asia,  and 
although  his  ardent  appeals  fell  into  dull  ears  at  St.  Petersburg,  he 
persevered  until  the  force  of  circumstances  came  to  his  aid.  His 
first  step  was  to  send  in  1848  a  small  party  of  four  Cossacks  with  an 
officer  down  the  Amur.^  The  party  was  never  heard  of  again.  The 
next  step  was  the  despatch,  through  Muraviev's  initiative,  of  a  sur- 
veying vessel  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Pacific  with  instructions  to 
explore  the  coasts  of  the  Sea  of  Okhotsk  and  the  mouth  of  the  Amur. 
In  1850  this  vessel  entered  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  in  1851  two 
towns  were  estabUshed  upon  the  banks.  Although  the  Russians 
had  been  shut  off  by  China  from  the  Upper  Amur,  they  had  now 
succeeded  in  establishing  themselves  some  distance  above  its  mouth. ^ 

The  decisive  event  which  precipitated  action  on  the  part  of 
Muraviev  was  the  outbreak  of  the  Crimean  War.  In  1854  there 
were  three  Russian  frigates  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Whether  or  not 
there  was  real  risk  of  these  vessels  running  short  of  supphes  owing 

*  In  1 816  the  price  of  flour  in  Kamchatka  was  8^d.  per  lb.  Ravenstein, 
op.  cit.,  p.  114.  The  cost  of  transport  by  pack-horses  at  that  time  was,  how- 
ever, only  about  id.  per  cwt.  per  mile. 

'  This  was  not,  however,  the  first  attempt  to  navigate  the  river.  The  first 
vessel  to  appear  upon  the  waters  of  the  Amur  was  the  Constantine,  which, 
under  the  command  of  Gavrilov,  entered  the  estuary  of  the  river  on  5th  May 
1846  (Crawford,  p.  230). 

'  On  the  history  of  the  Amur,  see  Temonov,  Sketch  of  the  Principal 
Watercourses  of  the  Amur  Region  (St.  Petersburg,  1897),  and  Reports  of  the 
Imperial  Russian  Geographical  Society,  and  those  of  The  Imperial  A  cademy 
of  Science.  See  also  Bussye,  Literature  of  the  A  mur  Region  (St.  Petersburg, 
1882),  and  bibUography  by  Ravenstein,  op.  cit. 


220     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

to  the  difficulty  of  getting  them  by  sea  or  by  land  by  the  usual  pack- 
horse  route  in  time,  the  possibiUty  of  this  contingency  was  sufficient, 
in  Muraviev's  mind,  to  justify  him  in  adopting  an  unusual  course. 
He  determined  to  send  the  supphes  down  the  Amur  from  Shilkinsk 
on  the  Shilka,  and  to  take  command  of  the  ejcpedition  himself.  He 
appHed  to  the  Chinese  Governor  of  Kiakhta  and  to  the  Viceroy  at 
Urga  for  permission  to  navigate  the  Amur,  but  these  functionaries 
declined  to  grant  permission  without  consulting  their  Government 
at  Peking.  Muraviev  left  Shilkinsk  on  27th  May  1854,  without 
permission.  He  had  one  small  steamer  and  about  fifty  barges, 
besides  numerous  rafts.  He  took  with  him  about  a  thousand  troops 
and  several  guns.  He  reached  Mariinsk,  on  the  Lower  Amur,  without 
mishap  on  27th  June.  Muraviev  found  that  the  Chinese  garrisons 
of  the  posts  on  the  Amur  were  miserably  armed,  and  were  quite 
unable  to  do  more  than  make  a  formal  protest  against  his  passage. 

Meanwhile  war  had  been  declared,  and  a  small  allied  squaton 
was  making  its  way  from  Callao  to  the  Sea  of  Okhotsk.  The  only 
armed  vessels  belonging  to  Russia  in  these  seas  at  that  time  were 
one  frigate  and  a  hulk,  a  store  ship,  and  two  transports.  Their  total 
armament  was  130  guns.  The  alUed  squadron  consisted  of  two 
English  frigates,  a  steamer,  and  a  brig,  and  of  one  French  frigate 
and  a  corvette,  with  altogether  190  guns  and  about  2000  men. 

The  Russian  ships  concentrated  at  Petropavlovsk.  While  the 
allied  squadron  was  about  to  attack,  the  EngHsh  Admiral  committed 
suicide.  The  French  Admiral  succeeded  to  the  command,  but  being 
unable  to  exercise  sufficient  authority  over  the  officers  of  the 
squadron,  he  was  obliged  to  permit  a  premature  and  ill-managed 
assault,  which  was  repulsed.  Five  days  after  the  arrival  of  the 
squadron,  it  sailed  away  without  having  accomplished  the  object 
of  the  expedition.  In  the  spring  of  1855  the  Russians  abandoned 
Petropavlovsk,  the  Russian  vessels  slipping  unobserved  in  a  fog, 
past  the  allied  fleet,  which  had  returned  reinforced  with  instructions 
to  take  the  port.  The  Allies  landed,  found  the  town  deserted, 
destroyed  the  batteries,  and  then  departed.  Some  engagements  of 
no  moment  took  place  later  ;  but  the  Pacific  naval  operations  had 
no  more  influence  upon  the  course  of  the  campaign  than  had  the 
similarly  fruitless  expedition  to  the  White  Sea.^    Quite  otherwise 

1  When  a  few  shots  were  fired  at  the  Solovietsky  Monastery  by  the  fleet 
under  Admiral  Erasmus  Ommaney. 


RUSSIA    IN    THE    FAR    EAST        221 

was  the  influence  of  the  attack  upon  the  Amur  with  regard  to  the 
development  of  the  region  and  the  extension  of  Russian  authority 
over  it. 

The  experiment  of  unHcensed  navigation  carried  out  successfully 
by  Muraviev  led  to  the  diversion  of  the  traffic  between  Eastern 
Siberia  and  the  Pacific  from  the  land  route  to  the  Amur.  The 
Russo- American  Company  ^  also  used  the  river  for  the  transporta- 
tion of  colonists  and  goods  destined  for  Alaska.  Muraviev's  policy 
of  expansion  now  received  a  definite  impulse.  In  order  to  protect 
the  trade  which  had  grown  up  on  the  Amur,  in  1857,  i^  ^^^  necessary 
to  occupy  certain  posts  on  the  river  in  force.  Muraviev  went  to 
St.  Petersburg  and  obtained  the  means  and  the  men  to  carry  out 
this  design.  When,  however,  he  arrived  with  his  forces  at  Ner- 
chinsk, the  situation  on  the  Amur  had  changed. 

The  Chinese  had  observed,  no  doubt  with  misgiving,  the  use 
made  of  the  Amur  by  the  Russians,  but  they  were  evidently  un- 
willing to  provoke  hostilities.  An  attempt  had  been  made  in 
Southern  China  in  1840  to  put  an  end  to  foreign  trade  .^  This 
attempt  had  brought  on  the  war  of  1840-1842,  and  had  resulted  not 
only  in  the  compulsory  opening  of  Canton,  Shanghai,  Ningpo, 
Foochow,  and  Amoy  to  foreign  commerce,  but  also  in  the  loss  to 
China  of  the  island  of  Hong-Kong.  In  1856  the  anti-foreign  feeling 
in  China  again  became  acute  and  resulted  in  the  war  of  1858-1859, 
in  which  Great  Britain  and  France  took  part.  The  Allies  at  first 
were  repulsed  by  the  Taku  Forts,  but  later  they  marched  upon 
Peking,  destroying  the  Summer  Palace  ^  to  the  north  of  the  city, 
and  demanded  the  opening  of  Tientsin,  Chefoo,  Swatow,  Hankow, 
Kiu-Kiang,  and  Chinkiang.  These  incidents  revealed  to  the  Chinese 
more  demonstratively  than  before  the  material  force  which  might 
be  brought  into  play  by  European  powers. 

Thus  when  Muraviev  arrived  on  the  Amur  in  May  1858,  he  found 
the  local  Chinese  authorities  much  more  complaisant  than  he  had 
expected.  He  was  indeed  able  to  achieve  without  any  display  of 
force  the  Treaty  of  Aigun  (28th  May  1858),  by  which  the  north  bank 

^  Founded  in  1799  and  liquidated  in  1867  in  consequence  of  the  sale  of 
Alaska  to  the  United  States.     Siberia  and  the  Great  Siberian  Railway,  p.  12. 

2  Not  only  to  the  trade  in  opium.  Cf.  Parker,  E.  H.,  China,  Her  History, 
Diplomacy,  and  Commerce  (London,  1901),  p.  92. 

^  The  ruins  of  this  palace  still  lie  north  of  the  outer  walls  of  Peking.  At  a 
distance  of  a  few  miles  farther  north  is  situated  the  modem  Summer  Palace 
with  its  lake  and  beautiful  park. 


222     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

of  the  Amur  was  ceded  so  far  as  the  Ussuri  River,  as  well  as  both 
banks  of  the  Ussuri.  The  Sungari,  the  Ussuri,  and  the  Amur  were 
to  be  open  to  Russian  trade.  Count  Putiatin,  who  had  been  sent 
by  the  Russian  Government  to  Peking,  concluded  almost  at  the 
same  date  (13th  June)  the  Treaty  of  Tientsin,  by  which  certain 
ports  were  opened  to  Russian  trade  and  Russia  was  permitted  to 
maintain  an  embassy  at  Peking.^  During  the  negotiations  the 
Chinese  Government  is  alleged  to  have  invited  the  Russians  to  assist 
it  in  repelling  the  attacks  of  England  and  France,  but  the  Russian 
envoy  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  soHcitation. 

During  the  summer  of  1858  Muraviev  was  not  idle.  He  founded 
Blagovesh'chensk,  near  the  Chinese  fortress  of  Aigun,  Khabarovsk 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Ussuri,  and  Sofyevsk  on  the  Lower  Amur. 

The  Russian  Government  had,  in  an  ukase  of  31st  October  1857, 
assumed  possession  of  the  Amur  region,  and  for  administrative 
purposes  had  constituted  it,  together  with  the  coast  of  the  Sea  of 
Okhotsk  and  Kamchatka,  the  "  Maritime  Province  of  Eastern 
Siberia."  On  31st  December  1858  another  ukase  was  issued  refer- 
ring to  the  **  reacquisition  "  of  the  Amur  region,  and  recognizing 
it  as  the  "  Province  of  the  Amur,"  separating  it  from  the  Maritime 
Province.  Settlement  upon  the  Amur  was  carried  out  too  speedily 
to  be  effectual.  Cossacks  and  their  famiUes,  to  the  number  of 
20,000,  were  established  there  prior  to  1859  '»  ^^^  ^^^  Cossacks  are 
not  good  farmers,  and  their  agricultural  settlements  cannot  be  held 
to  have  been  successful.  The  Amur  Company,  incorporated  23rd 
January  1858,  was  founded  for  the  purpose  of  the  commercial 
exploitation  of  the  region.  This  company  also  projected  a  telegraph 
line  from  Moscow  to  the  Amur. 

The  Government  gave  faciUties  in  money  and  otherwise  to 
poUtical  exiles,  sailors,  and  others  who  were  willing  to  establish 
themselves  in  colonies.  In  the  beginning  of  1859,  10,000  colonists 
passed  through  Irkutsk  from  European  Russia  and  Western  Siberia 
on  their  way  to  the  Amur. 

In  the  summer  of  1859  China,  having  for  the  moment  relieved 
herself  of  the  pressure  of  the  Allies,  repented  of  the  generosity  of 

1  A  so-called  "  clerical  mission  "  at  Peking  had  been  established  in  1692. 
This  mission  had  served  the  purpose  to  a  certain  extent  of  a  diplomatic  mis- 
sion, although  it  had  been  at  least  partly  maintained  by  the  Chinese  Govern- 
ment.    [Art.  10,  Treaty  of  Tientsin  (Russian  Chinese).] 


RUSSIA    IN   THE    FAR   EAST        223 

the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Aigun,  forbade  the  ascent  of  the  Sungari 
by  a  group  of  Russians,  and  even  interfered  with  Russian  navigation 
on  the  Amur.  At  an  opportune  moment,  however,  the  Allies 
marched  upon  Peking  ;  and  this  diversion  enabled  the  Russians  to 
avoid  the  use  of  force  in  insisting  upon  the  observation  of  the  terms 
of  their  treaty. 

Meanwhile  the  Russian  Government  engaged  to  a  small  extent 
in  colonizing  experiments.  Forty-seven  German  families  were 
taken  from  California,  and  a  hundred  Mennonites  from  South  Russia. 

In  November  i860  Russia  concluded  a  new  treaty  with  China. 
This  treaty  gave  Russia  the  whole  coast  of  Manchuria  to  the  Korean 
frontier,  and  provided  for  trade  free  of  all  duties  and  restrictions 
between  Russia  and  China  on  the  land  frontiers.  The  new  territory 
thus  acquired  enabled  Russia  to  found  her  great  eastern  seaport — 
Vladivostok — ("  Dominion  of  the  East  ").  Writing  immediately 
afterwards,  Ravenstein  predicted  that  when  the  Chinese  Empire 
fell  to  pieces,  Russia  would  possess  herself  of  the  whole  of  Manchuria, 
including  the  Liao-tung  peninsula.^ 

The  efforts  of  Russia  to  colonize  the  basin  of  the  Amur  were  not 
very  successful ;  while,  meantime,  immigrants  from  China  poured 
not  only  into  Manchuria  south  of  the  Amur,  but  even  into  the  region 
ceded  to  Russia  on  the  north  bank.  Koreans  also  crossed  the 
frontier  into  Maritime  Manchuria  and  formed  colonies  there.  The 
reason  for  the  non-success  of  Russia  in  the  colonization  of  the  region 
she  had  acquired,  undoubtedly  lay  in  the  circumstance  that  until 
after  emancipation  had  been  fully  carried  into  effect,  and  until  the 
system  of  "  mutual  guarantee  "  for  the  payment  of  taxes  was 
abohshed,  it  was  quite  impossible  to  promote  any  considerable 
voluntary  emigration  movement  from  European  Russia,  either  to 
Siberia  or  to  Manchuria.  Further  reason  may  be  found  in  the  facts 
that  owing  to  serfdom  the  peasants  were  destitute  of  the  funds 
which  were  necessary  to  undertake  so  great  a  land  journey  as  was 
involved  in  traversing  Siberia,  then  without  railways,  and  that 
Siberia  itself  was  most  scantily  populated,  although  great  areas 
were  nearly  as  fertile  as  the  soils  of  the  Amur  basin.  Those  peasants 
who  did  make  their  way  in  the  predatory  bands,  whose  existence 
has  already  been  mentioned,  did  not  form  sufficiently  stable  com- 
munities to  occupy  outposts  of  the  Empire.     Even  in  Siberia  the 

*  Ravenstein,  The  Russians  on  the  Amur,  p.  154. 


224     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

pioneers  were  **  vagabonds  and  nomad  adventurers,  so  that  the 
Government  had  to  make  great  efforts  to  bind  them  to  the  land.'*  * 
It  was  also  apparent  that  the  climate  of  the  north  bank  of  the  Amur 
was  severe  in  winter,  and  that  settlers  were  inclined  to  go  south- 
wards,2  impelled  by  a  desire  for  a  milder  cHmate.  This  southerly 
tendency  meant,  however,  ultimate  conflict  with  the  Chinese 
authorities. 

The  Amur  was  too  distant  from  European  Russia  to  benefit  by 
the  presence  of  those  peasants  who,  fleeing  from  their  proprietors 
in  Russia,  populated  the  gub.  of  Tobolsk,^  and  even  made  their  way 
farther  east.  It  must  also  be  reahzed  that,  simultaneously  with  the 
attempt  to  settle  the  Amur  region,  Russia  was  engaged  in  the 
colonization  of  the  ZaUiish  slopes  on  the  frontier  of  Central  Asia,  as 
well  as  in  the  occupation  of  Turkestan.  In  this  region  also  Russia 
and  China  came  into  contact. 

After  the  suppression  of  the  Tai-ping  rebelHon  a  Mohammedan 
revolt  took  place  in  China  ;  and  Russia  occupied  the  province  of 
Ili,  in  the  extreme  west  of  the  Chinese  Empire,  to  the  south  of  Lake 
Balkash.  This  occupation  continued  up  till  1881,  when  China 
negotiated  a  treaty  with  Russia,  providing  for  the  evacuation  of  Ih, 
and  for  the  security  of  Russian  merchants  on  the  land  routes.  One 
of  the  most  important  of  these  passes  from  Hankow  by  the  river 
Han,  through  Ih  to  Kashgar  and  Russia.* 

The  effective  colonization  of  Siberia  really  began  only  after 
Emancipation  in  1861 ;  and  then  began  also  a  serious  effort  to 
attract  colonists  to  the  Amur.  The  obhgatory  settlement  of 
Cossacks  promising  at  best  a  restricted  colonization,  it  was  necessary 
to  offer  inducements  to  peasants  to  migrate  thither  from  the  con- 
gested regions  in  European  Russia.  The  Government  did  not  grant 
free  land,  but  it  offered  100  dessyatin  per  family  in  free  use  for 
twenty  years,  with  right  of  purchase  or  of  renting  at  the  end  of  that 
period.  If  immediate  purchase  was  desired,  the  land  was  sold  at 
three  rubles  per  dessyatin.    The  settlers  were  also  exempted  from 

1  Siberia  and  the  Great  Siberian  Railway,  cit.,  p.  3. 

*  Kropotkin,  Prince,  Memoirs  (Boston,  1899),  p.  269. 
3  Siberia  and  the  Great  Siberian  Railway,  p.  9. 

*  This  route  was  discovered  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era  by 
Han  Wu  Ti.  It  is  the  shortest  existing  route  between  China  and  the  Western 
world .  ' '  Sooner  or  later  it  must  be  the  line  of  China's  chief  trunk  railway  to  the 
west."     Parker,  E.  H.,  China,  Her  History,  Diplomacy,  and  Commerce,  p.  149. 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST 


225 


imperial  taxation  for  twenty  years,  from  military  service  for  ten 
years,  and  from  rural  taxes  for  three  years. 

Even  when  Emancipation  had  been  effected,  however,  there 
remained  the  great  obstacles  of  distance  and  of  the  inadequacy  of 
the  means  of  communication  across  the  immense  Siberian  r^on, 
which  intervened  between  European  Russia  and  the  Amur. 

It  thus  became  indispensably  necessary,  if  the  acquisition  of 
the  territory  was  to  bear  any  fruit  for  Russia,  that  cheap  and  rapid 
means  of  commimication  should  be  estabhshed  between  European 
Russia  and  the  head  waters  of  the  Amur.  In  other  words,  the  con- 
struction of  the  Siberian  Railway  became  from  i860  an  imperious 
necessity. 

This  necessity  was  clearly  foreseen  by  Muraviev.  Several  pro- 
jects were  advanced  for  partial  or  complete  railway  communication. 
The  earliest  of  these  projects  was  brought  forward  in  1850,  when  the 
Russians  had  only  just  estabhshed  themselves  upon  the  Lower  Amur. 
From  time  to  time  projects  were  brought  before  the  authorities  at 
St.  Petersburg,  but  they  met  with  small  encouragement,  partly  be- 
cause the  railway  system  of  European  Russia  was  as  yet  very  imper- 
fectly developed ;  while  the  Crimean  War,  the  advances  of  Russia 
in  Central  Asia,  and  the  Russo-Turkish  War,  successively  pre- 
occupied the  Government.  The  finances  were  not  in  a  flourishing 
condition,  and  the  administration  of  pubHc  works  was  costly  and 
corrupt.  Even  after  the  financial  feasibihty  of  the  construction  of  a 
line  came  to  be  admitted,  the  question  of  the  route  to  be  followed 
occasioned  prolonged  controversy.  In  the  seventies  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  three  routes  were  proposed,  and  each  of  them  had 
many  adherents — the  northern  route,  the  middle,  and  the  southern.^ 

The  discussion  of  these  routes  concerned  itself  not  so  much  with 
the  hne  through  Siberia,  as  with  the  point  in  the  Ural  Mountains 
which  should  be  connected  with  the  Russian  European  hues,  and 
divergent  interests  at  once  manifested  themselves.  The  Eastern 
Siberian  interests  began  to  clamour  for  local  lines ;  e.g.  a  petition  was 
sent  in  1875  from  Vladivostok  to  provide  a  line  from  that  port  to 
Lake  Khanko.*  Meanwhile  the  construction  of  the  European  net- 
work brought  the  Russian  railways  to  the  Ural  Mountains  in  1880,* 
when  the  great  bridge  across  the  Volga  was  completed.    The  ques- 

*  Siberia  and  the  Great  Siberian  Railway,  p.  240. 
»  Ibid.,  p.  241.  3  ji^id. 

VOL.  II  P 


226     ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

tion  of  a  Siberian  line  now  assumed  a  new  phase.  The  construction 
of  the  Obi-Yenesei  canal,  together  with  a  project  for  the  removal  of 
the  rapids  in  the  river  Angara,  had  offered  an  alternative  combined 
rail  and  water  route  from  the  Urals  to  the  Amur.  A  special  com- 
mission was  appointed  in  the  end  of  1890  for  the  purpose  of  deter- 
mining what  was  to  be  done.  The  principal  consideration  of  the 
Commission  seems  to  have  been  the  economical  development  of 
Siberia,  rather  than  the  political  and  strategic  consequences  of  the 
construction  of  a  trans- Asiatic  hne.  Although  the  increasing 
military  importance  of  Japan  had  been  very  manifest  from  about 
1886,  yet  this  does  not  seem  to  have  had  any  material  inJBiuence 
upon  the  Russian  plans  prior  to  1890  or  1891.  In  the  former  year 
Russian  attention  was  drawn  to  the  surveys  which  were  being  made 
by  an  English  railway  engineer,  Mr.  Kinder,  in  the  emplo5nTient  of 
the  Chinese  Government.  These  surveys  were  performed  at  the 
instance  of  Li  Hung  Chang,  who  was  then  in  a  powerful  position  at 
Peking.  His  instructions  to  Mr.  Kinder  were  to  the  following  effect : 
to  survey  a  line  from  Shanhaikwan,  a  Chinese  military  camp  at  the 
point  where  the  Great  Wall  reaches  the  Gulf  of  Chihh,  in  a  north- 
easterly direction  by  Mukden  and  Kirin  towards  the  Russo-Chinese 
frontier.^  A  survey  was  also  to  be  made  of  a  branch  line  to  New- 
chwang,  then  the  principal  port  from  which  Manchurian  produce 
was  shipped. 

The  visit  to  Japan  and  to  Maritime  Manchuria  of  the  present 
Tsar  Nicholas  II,  then  Tsarevich,  accompanied  as  he  was  by  Prince 
Ukhtomsky,  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  of  Imperialists,  further 
excited  activity  in  the  "  higher  spheres  "  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  the 
construction  of  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway  was  decided  upon  on 
2ist  February  1891.  Construction  was  commenced  immediately 
at  both  ends,  surveys  being  pushed  forward  from  Chelyabinsk  and 
from  Vladivostok  simultaneously .^ 

1  These  survejrs  were  intended  to  be  performed  secretly  ;  but  before  the 
surveying  party  started  upon  its  mission,  its  object,  as  is  usually  the  case  in 
China,  leaked  out.  "  The  Chinese  move  certainly  had  the  effect  of  forcing 
Russia's  hand  to  the  extent  of  compelling  her  to  hasten  the  execution  of  her 
plans."  Kent,  P.  H.,  Railway  Enterprise  in  China  :  An  Account  of  its  Origin 
and  Development  (London,  1908),  p.  41. 

2  Actual  construction  was  begun  at  Vladivostok  on  19/31  May  1891,  and 
at  Cheliabinsk  on  17/29  July  1892.  See  Administration  de  la  Construction 
des  Chemins  de  Fer  de  V Empire  (Russe)  (Paris,  1900),  p.  15.  The  construction 
was  begun  under  M.  Hubbenet,  Minister  of  Ways  of  Communication,  and  was 
continued  under  MM.  Witte,  Krivosh6ine,  and  Prince  Khilkov. 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST         227 

The  line  as  projected  in  1891  extended  from  Cheliabinsk,  on  the 
eastern  slope  of  the  Urals,  by  Omsk,  Krasnoyarsk,  Irkutsk,  Chita, 
Stretinsk,  and  Albazin,  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Amur,  to  Khaba- 
rovsk and  Vladivostok.  It  was,  so  far  as  the  Amur  and  Ussuri 
sections  were  concerned,  entirely  within  the  territory  ceded  by 
China  to  Russia  in  the  Treaty  of  Aigun  in  1858.  The  project  of  a 
railway  from  Irkutsk  through  Northern  MongoUa  and  Northern 
Manchuria  south  of  the  Amur,  to  Vladivostok,  had  been  proposed 
and  rejected.^  The  Vladivostok- Khabarovsk  section,  commenced 
in  1891,  was  finished  in  1902.  The  sections  between  Chelyabinsk, 
and  Irkutsk,  commenced  in  1892,  were  finished  in  1900  ;  the  section 
between  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Baikal  and  Khabarovsk,  com- 
menced in  1895,  was  finished  in  1904.  The  short  section  round  the 
southern  shore  of  Lake  Baikal  was  finished  during  the  war  in  1905. 
The  length  of  the  Siberian  line  proper  from  Chelyabinsk  to  Vladi- 
vostok was  6484  kilometres.2  The  total  distance  from  St  Petersburg 
to  Vladivostok  was  9431  kilometres.  The  cost  of  the  Siberian  line 
proper  was  about  400,000,000  rubles. 

The  desire  on  the  part  of  Russia  to  extend  her  markets  arose 
naturally,  for  Russia  has  comparatively  little  sea-going  commerce  ;  ^ 
and  her  exports  to  European  countries  consist  chiefly  of  grain  and 
raw  materials.  But  from  the  remotest  time  her  caravan  trade  with 
China  had  been  very  considerable,  and  thus  traffic  from  the  opening 
of  the  line  was  assured  in  silks,  tea,  and  furs,  by  way  of  imports, 
while  the  development  of  Manchuria  as  a  grain-producing  country 
might  be  calculated  upon  to  produce  a  demand  for  manufactured 
cotton  and  other  commodities.* 

It  is  well  now  to  pause  and  to  reflect  upon  the  evidence  which 
the  above  historical  recital  affords  of  "  land  hunger,"  and  of  deep 
and  far-reaching  designs  on  the  part  of  Russia.  How  far  is  it  true 
that  the  Government  up  to  the  moment  of  embarkation  upon 

^  See  map  in  Siberia  and  the  Great  Siberian  Railway. 

2  It  is  now  considerably  reduced  by  improvements,  chiefly  in  Central 
Siberia. 

*  From  1872,  however,  Russia  had  developed  a  sea-going  trade  with  China, 
At  the  present  time  large  steamers  run  from  Hankow,  on  the  Yiangtse  Kiang, 
to  Odessa  and  to  Kronstadt.  Parker,  E.  H.,  China,  Her  History,  Diplomacy, 
and  Commerce  (London,  1901),  p.  155. 

*  Of  late  years  the  principal  exports  from  Manchuria  have  been  beans  and 
wild  silk  cocoons.  The  seaports  of  Newchwang,  Dalny,  and  Vladivostok  are 
practically  built  upon  the  bean  trade. 


228     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Siberian  railway  enterprise  in  1891  was  consciously  striving  to 
possess  itself  of  the  whole  of  Manchuria  and  of  Korea,  of  checking 
the  growth  of  Japan,  and  of  exercising  a  dominant  influence  over 
China  ?  It  must  be  recognized  that  while  Muraviev  saw  in  the 
fifties  the  value  of  the  region  of  the  Amur,  and  while  he  realized 
that  it  formed  an  important  route  between  Trans-Baikalia  and  the 
Pacific,  he  was  able  with  great  difficulty  to  induce  the  "  higher 
spheres  "  in  St.  Petersburg  to  share  his  views>  They  were  naively 
ignorant  of  the  region  which  had  inspired  in  him  so  much  enthusi- 
asm. The  opening  of  Japan  to  foreign  intercourse  had  not  taken 
place  until  eleven  years  after  Muraviev  arrived  in  Trans-Baikalia. 
He  could  not  see  the  protentous  potential  strength  of  Japan,  nor 
could  he  foresee  the  intricate  political  relations  that  would  result 
from  her  emergence  as  a  great  power  in  the  Pacific.  It  must  be 
allowed  that  up  till  1891,  there  is  no  proof  of  aggressiveness  on  the 
part  of  the  Russian  Government  in  the  Far  East.^  The  evidence 
goes  to  show  that  the  Government  was  reluctantly  forced  into 
acquiescence  in  the  earlier  projects  for  a  Siberian  line,  partly  through 
the  advocacy  of  enthusiasts  and  interested  merchants,  and  partly 
by  circumstances  chiefly  connected  with  the  economical  develop- 
ment of  Siberia.  Indeed,  so  far  as  the  motives  which  inspired  the 
scheme  of  a  Siberian  railway  were  concerned,  these  may  be  regarded 
as  primarily  economical  and  as  only  secondarily  strategical. ^  But 
when  the  construction  of  the  line  through  to  the  Pacific  coast  was 
actually  undertaken  in  1891,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  strate- 
gical advantage  began  to  loom  up  in  large  proportions. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  effect  of  the  construction  of  the 
line  upon  the  political  relations  of  Russia,  Japan,  and  China. 

1  See  the  very  interesting  account  of  the  attitude  of  St.  Petersburg  officials 
towards  Manchuria  at  this  period,  in  Prince  Kropotkin's  Memoirs,  p.  196. 
Prince  Kropotkin  was  aide-de-camp  to  Korsakov,  the  Governor-General  of 
Eastern  Siberia,  successor  of  Muraviev. 

"  Earlier  than  this  period  there  was  undoubtedly  in  Russia  a  party,  more 
or  less  influential,  which  had  designs  upon  India.  In  the  time  of  the  Tsar 
Paul  I,  this  party  induced  that  eccentnc  monarch  to  make  preparations  for 
an  invasion  of  India  through  her  northern  frontier,  and  inheritors  of  this  policy 
have  not  been  lacking.  Their  influence  contributed  to  the  advance  of  Russia 
in  Central  Asia,  and  this  advance,  so  long  as  it  continued,  preoccupied  Russia 
and  prevented  it  from  similar  adventures  in  the  Far  East. 

*  This  is  shown  by  the  circumstance  that  the  early  projects  did  not  involve 
a  through  railway  line,  but  merely  separate  lines  linking  up  the  waterways. 
Even  in  1901  the  lines  were  discontinuous  and  the  steamer  service  on  the 
Amur  was  defective. 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST         229 

Up  till  1891  the  preoccupation  of  Russia  in  the  Balkans  and  in 
Central  Asia,  together  with  the  jealousies  of  the  Powers  and  the 
uncertainty  of  the  defensive  strength  of  China,  combined  to  prevent 
the  advance  of  Russia  south  of  the  Amur  and  west  of  the  Ussuri. 
The  colonization  of  Maritime  Manchuria  had  proceeded  slowly. 
Few  Russian  settlers  had  migrated  there  ;  the  chief  immigrants 
had  been  Koreans,  for  whom  the  Russians  had  estabUshed  schools. 
In  the  Amur  province,  on  the  north  bank  of  the  river,  the  Chinese 
had  settled  in  considerable  and  the  Russians  in  lesser  numbers; 
Affairs  were  in  this  posture  when  the  construction  of  the  Siberian 
Railway  was  begun  in  1891.  For  some  years  prior  to  that  date  the 
Japanese  Government  had  undoubtedly  viewed  with  apprehension 
the  inevitabihty  of  the  Russian  advance  southward  so  soon  as  con- 
venient opportunity  should  arise. 

The  geographical  situation  involved  the  masking  of  the  Russian 
advance  by  China  and  her  quasi-dependency  Korea,  and  at  the 
same  time  involved  the  practical  immunity  of  Russia  from  effective 
attack  at  the  mouth  of  the  Amur  or  on  the  coast  of  Maritime  Man- 
churia. A  naval  defeat  might  have  been  inflicted  upon  Russia  by 
Japan,  and  might  readily  have  been  inflicted  at  any  period  subse- 
quent to  1886 ;  but  a  naval  victory  would  have  been  fruitless 
without  a  land  campaign.  For  a  land  campaign  of  the  necessary 
magnitude,  Japan  was  not  ready  in  1891  nor  for  several  years  after 
that  date.  Wisdom,  therefore,  dictated  to  Japan,  Fabian  tactics. 
It  was  wise  to  wait  until  Russia  by  her  own  acts  should  extend  her 
operations,  as  she  must  do,  ever  farther  and  farther  from  her  military 
base  and  ever  nearer  the  mihtary  base  of  Japan.  If  Japan  were 
able  to  prepare  herself  to  strike  hard  when  the  moment  to  strike 
should  arrive,  Russia  would  be  compelled  to  retire  probably  for  a 
generation. 

The  preparation  was  a  long  and  formidable  task.  If  it  failed, 
not  only  would  the  whole  of  Manchuria  and  Korea  fall  into  the  hands 
of  Russia,  but  Japan  might  become  a  mere  province  of  the  Empire.^ 

An  essential  part  of  the  preparation  for  the  driving  back  of 
Russia  was  the  control  by  Japan  of  Korea  and  the  neutralization 
of  China.    No  power  imderstood  China  better  than  Japan.     It  was 

1  The  opinion  is  prevalent  in  well-informed  circles  in  Russia  that  prior 
to  the  war  of  1904-1905,  this  idea  was  actually  in  the  minds  of  the  "  higher 
spheres." 


230     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

perfectly  evident  to  the  latter  power  that  China  could  not  resist  the 
advance  of  Russia,  and  that,  so  far  as  she  was  concerned,  the  existence 
of  Manchuria  and  Korea  as  buffer  States  between  Russia  and  Japan 
was  a  negligible  quantity. 

It  was  also  evident  that  so  soon  as  the  opportune  moment  arrived, 
Japan  must  bring  about  a  quarrel  with  China,  and,  if  possible,  occupy 
^^^^^^^  a  portion  of  Southern  Manchuria  as  well  as  Korea,  in  order  to  enable 
her  to  offer  effective  resistance  to  Russia  when  that  power  made  her 
southward  advance.  The  Korean  question  was  sufficiently  apposite 
to  afford  an  excuse  for  the  adoption  of  the  military  measures  neces- 
sary to  eliminate  China  from  the  field,  and  to  prevent  a  futile  attempt 
on  her  part  to  avoid  the  occupation  of  South  Manchuria  by 
Russia.  The  Sino- Japanese  War  of  1895  resulted  in  the  complete 
victory  of  Japan.  China  was  compelled  to  surrender,  and  the 
weakness  of  her  miUtary  position  was  laid  bare  to  all  the 
world.  Japanese  ambition  was  satisfied  with  the  outcome  of 
the  war,  for  she  was  now  entitled  to  interfere  in  Manchurian 
and  Korean  affairs  ;  but  she  had  disclosed  her  hand,  and  in 
doing  so  had  stimulated  Russian  diplomacy  to  the  exercise  of  the 
greatest  ingenuity  in  order  to  deprive  her  of  the  substantial  fruits 
iof  her  victory.  It  was  inevitable  that  Russia  should  rely  upon 
diplomatic  action,  for  military  measures  were  not  at  that  time 
(Practicable.  The  Siberian  Railway  was  not  completed,  and  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  her  to  throw  into  Manchuria  a  force 
sufficient  to  effect  the  seizure  of  the  Liao-tung  peninsula  from  Japan. 
She  therefore  used  the  Yellow  Peril  argument  with  such  effect  that 
Germany  and  France  joined  her  in  insisting  upon  the  withdrawal  of 
Japan  from  Port  Arthur  and  from  Korea.  Japan  had  to  accept  the 
inevitable,  and  to  withdraw,  for  she  could  not  have  withstood  a 
naval  attack  upon  her  shores  by  three  allied  powers.^  She  had, 
however,  gained  something  ;  she  had  exhibited  the  helplessness  of 
China,  and  although  in  doing  so  she  had  encouraged  Russia  to 
encroach  upon  Manchuria,  she  had  justified  her  title  to  interfere 

^  The  Russian  fleet,  together  with  two  German  cruisers,  lay  off  Chef 00, 
opposite  Port  Arthur,  on  8th  May  1895,  when  the  ratifications  of  the  treaty 
were  being  exchanged.  The  French  Admiral  de  la  Bonniniere  de  Beaumont 
did  not  join  in  this  demonstration  although  France  was  acting  with  the  other 
two  powers,  and  in  the  event  of.  the  refusal  of  Japan  to  agree  to  the  com- 
promise urged  by  the  three  powers,  the  French  ships  might  have  been  brought 
into  action.  C/.,  however,  Pierre  Leroy-Beaulieu,  The  Awakening  of  the  East 
(New  York,  1900),  pp.  250-252. 


RUSSIA    IN   THE    FAR   EAST         231 

whenever  that  encroachment  had  proceeded  to  what  she  might 
consider  a  dangerous  extent. 

To  suppose  that  Japan  foresaw  precisely  the  events  which 
followed  the  restoration  of  the  Liao-tung  peninsula  to  China  would 
be  to  imply  an  incredible  prescience  ;  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  astute  Japanese  statesmen  saw  somewhat  of  the  future,  and  there 
can  equally  be  no  doubt  that  the  surrender  appeared  to  them  to  be 
temporary.  The  principles  of  jiu-jitsu  have  penetrated  so  deeply 
into  the  Japanese  mind  that  it  is  permissible  to  believe  that,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  these  principles  were  applied  to  the  titanic 
struggle  between  the  two  powers.^  It  thus  appeared  that  while 
Russia  was  able  to  effect  an  agreement  with  China  which  gave  her 
not  only  permission  to  build  a  railway  across  the  north-eastern 
comer  of  Mongolia  and  the  northern  part  of  Manchuria,  but  also  a 
lease  of  the  Liao-tung  peninsula,  she  had  gained  without  a  campaign 
an  important  strategic  advantage.  Yet,  to  the  Japanese  mind,  the 
very  advance  which  this  advantage  implied  brought  Russia  within 
striking  distance  when  the  appropriate  moment  arrived. 

The  history  of  the  series  of  agreements  by  means  of  which  Russia 
obtained  a  footing  in  Southern  Manchuria  has  not  yet  been  fully 
disclosed.  Russian  diplomacy  was  exceedingly  active  at  Peking 
in  1890  and  1891,  and  it  was  directed  towards  delaying  the  con- 
struction by  China  of  the  Manchurian  railways  projected  by  Li 
Hung  Chang,  in  order  that  concessions  for  railways  in  this  region 
should  be  granted  to  Russia.  What  the  relations  between  Li  Hung 
Chang  and  Russia  were  at  this  time  may  perhaps  never  be  known  .^ 
He  may  or  may  not  have  intended  from  the  beginning  to  concede 
these  lines  to  Russia  for  a  consideration. 

The  war  between  Japan  and  China  came  to  an  end  on  17th  April 
1895,  when  the  Treaty  of  Shimonoseki  was  concluded.  Li  Hung 
Chang  was  the  plenipotentiary  of  China  in  the  negotiations  which 
preceded  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty.     His  conduct  during  the 

^  The  first  maxim  of  the  Japanese  Jiu-jitsu  is,  "  Do  not  resist  an  oppo- 
nent, but  gain  the  victory  by  pliancy."  In  other  words,  yield  precisely  at  the 
right  moment,  so  that  the  opponent  exhausts  himself.  The  weight  and  the 
impetus  of  an  opponent  will,  under  given  circumstances,  even  cause  him  to 
break  his  own  arm.  For  an  interesting  technical  account  of  Jiu-jitsu,  see 
"The  Legacy  of  the  Samurai,"  by  R.  Tait -Mackenzie,  M.D.,  in  American 
Physical  Education  Review,  December  1906. 

2  Li  Hung  Chang's  papers  and  those  of  his  English  secretary  are  supposed 
to  have  disappeared.     They  may  have  been  destroyed. 


232     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

negotiations,  when  viewed  in  the  Hght  of  subsequent  events,  requires 
explanation,  which  has  not  yet  been  fully  forthcoming.  He  seemed 
to  be  indifferent  about  the  cession  of  the  Liao-tung  peninsula  and 
Korea,  and  devoted  his  energies  to  an  attempt  to  save  Formosa  from 
falling  into  the  hands  of  Japan>  Had  he  succeeded  in  this  attempt, 
Japan  would  have  had  to  be  content  with  a  pecuniary  indemnity 
alone,  and  would  not  have  gained  any  territory  as  the  result  of  the 
campaign. 

Upon  the  supposition  that  Li  Hung  Chang  knew  of  the  project 
by  which  Russia  hoped  to  thwart  Japan,  his  conduct  is  intelligible  * 
The  proceedings  of  Russia  after  the  conclusion  of  the  Treaty  of 
Shimonoseki  have  already  been  alluded  to.  After  the  war  was  over, 
the  continuation  of  the  railway  beyond  Shanhaikwan  was  not  pro- 
ceeded with  by  the  Chinese.  Again  it  is  alleged  the  hand  of  Russia 
is  discoverable,  although  the  delay  may  have  been  due  to  the  fluctua- 
tion of  exclusively  Chinese  poUtical  influences  in  Peking. 

One  year  after  these  events  Li  Hung  Chang  was  sent  as  Pleni- 
potentiary Extraordinary  to  be  present  at  the  coronation  of  the 
Tsar  in  Moscow.^  During  his  visit  to  Russia  there  were  rumours  of 
the  confirmation  by  him  of  a  secret  convention  which  had  been 
entered  into  between  China  and  Russia  in  1895,*  the  so-called  Cassini 
Convention.  Official  denials  were  at  once  pubHshed ;  but  subse- 
quent occurrences  justified  the  belief  that  an  agreement  of  some  kind 
had  been  arrived  at,  which  enabled  Russia  to  take  her  next  important 
step.  This  step  was  the  establishment  of  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank, 
which  was  destined  to  play  a  great  r61e  in  the  immediately  succeed- 
ing events.  The  bank  was  founded  by  imperial  ukase  on  loth 
December  1895,  after  the  Cassini  Convention,  and  a  few  months 
before  the  aUeged  confirmation  of  that  convention  by  Li  Hung 
Chang.    The  capital  stock  of  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank  was  opened 

1  Cf.  Kent,  op.  cit.,  p.  43. 

»  It  has  been  hinted  (by  Mr.  Michie)  that  Russia  had  intimated  to  Li  Hung 
Chang  before  the  treaty  negotiations  began  that,  should  he  be  obliged  to 
cede  territory  on  the  mainland,  Russia  would  bring  pressure  to  bear  upon 
Japan  to  have  such  a  provision  annulled.  Cf.  Kent,  op.  cit.,  p.  43.  and  Weale, 
Manchu  and  Muscovite,  p.  129.  It  may  also  be  mentioned  here  that  diplo- 
matic gossip  of  the  time  attributed  the  speedy  fall  of  Port  Arthur  to  a  pecuni- 
ary arrangement  between  Li  and  certain  Japanese.  If  any  credence  can  be 
given  to  this  story,  the  conduct  of  Li  appears  m  a  still  more  unfavourable  light. 

*  The  coronation  took  place  on  14th  May  (O.S.)  1896. 

*  The  terms  of  this  alleged  document  were  published  by  Mr.  R.  W.  Little 
in  the  North  China  Daily  News,  and  were  copied  in  the  newspapers  of  the  time. 
Cf,  Kent,  op.  cit.,  p.  47. 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST         233 

to  public  subscription,  and  was  largely  subscribed  for  in  Paris, 
Brussels,  and  in  Amsterdam^  Li  Hung  Chang  arrived  in  China, 
via  Vancouver,  in  August  1896,  and  on  the  29th  of  that  month  an 
"  agreement  "  was  concluded  "  between  the  Chinese  Government 
and  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank  for  the  construction  and  management 
of  the  Chinese  Eastern  Railway."  ^  This  agreement,  together  with 
a  supplementary  document,  entitled  "  Statutes  of  the  Chinese 
Eastern  Railway  Company,"  provided  for  the  formation  of  the 
company  by  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank,  and  for  the  construction  by 
it  of  a  railway  of  the  Russian  gauge  (5  feet)  from  the  western  border 
of  the  province  of  Hei-Lun-Tsian  to  the  eastern  border  of  the  pro- 
vince of  Kirin,  and  for  the  connection  of  this  railway  with  the  im- 
perial Russian  railways  by  the  Trans-BaikaUan  and  the  Southern 
Ussuri  lines.  The  Chinese  Eastern  Railway  was  to  be  under  Chinese 
direction  ;  but  in  the  event  of  disagreement  between  the  Chinese 
railway  authorities  and  those  of  the  Russian  railways,  the  Russian 
Minister  of  Finance  was  to  decide  the  points  in  dispute.  Imports 
and  exports  by  this  railway  were  to  be  subject  to  preferential  customs 
duties  to  the  extent  of  a  diminution  of  one-third.  The  railway 
company  was  to  have  its  own  police  ;  but  the  Chinese  Government 
undertook  to  protect  the  Une  against  extraneous  attacks.  The 
ordinary  shares  of  the  company  were  not  to  be  guaranteed,  but  the 
bonds  were  to  be  guaranteed  by  the  Russian  Government.^ 

This  agreement  enabled  Russia  to  dispense  with  the  originally 
projected  line  along  the  north  bank  of  the  Amur  to  connect  Ner- 
chinsk with  Khabarovsk,  and  also  prepared  the  way  for  further 
extensions  southwards.  The  construction  of  the  Hne  through 
Northern  Manchuria  was  quite  indispensable  for  Russia  if  any 
material  advantage  was  to  be  gained  by  the  possession  of  Maritime 
Manchuria,  apart  altogether  from  any  adventures  in  Southern 
Manchuria  or  in  China  or  Korea.  The  building  of  the  extension  of 
the  Trans-Siberian  line  as  originally  planned,  along  the  northern 
bank  of  the  Amur,  was  recognized  at  an  early  stage  as  very  difficult 
from  an  engineering  point  of  view.*     The  river  Amur  presented 

1  Weale,  op.  cit.,  p.  126. 

*  This  agreement  was  signed  on  8th  September  1 896.  A  translation  from 
the  Chinese  text  is  given  by  Kent,  op.  cit.,  p.  21 1. 

3  In  addition,  the  line  was  redeemable  by  purchase  in  thirty-six  years,  and 
was  to  revert  to  China  without  payment  in  eighty  years. 

*  It  is  now  (1 91 3),  however,  in  course  of  construction. 


234     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

grave  difficulties  in  bridging.  The  variation  in  its  waters  between 
the  wet  and  the  dry  seasons  was  so  great  that  bridges  of  unheard-of 
length  would  have  had  to  be  constructed,  with  piers  of  unusual  depth, 
in  order  to  reach  secure  foundation  in  the  river  bed.  The  cost  of 
such  a  line  was  at  the  time  in  effect  prohibitive. 

The  construction  of  the  Chinese  Eastern  Railway  was  begun  in 
1897.  Meanwhile  diplomacy  appears  to  have  been  active  in  pre- 
paring for  the  southern  extension  of  the  hne  towards  the  Gulf  of 
Chihli  in  order  to  secure  a  port  which  should  be  free  from  the  dis- 
advantage which  attached  to  Vladivostok  of  being  annually  icebound 
for  several  months.  Events  again  facilitated  and  hastened  Russian 
movements.  Germany  had  compelled  the  Chinese  Government  to 
give  a  lease  of  the  region  round  Kiaochau  Bay  for  ninety-nine  years, 
by  way  of  compensation  for  the  murder  of  two  German  missionaries 
in  the  province  of  Shantung.  It  has  been  suggested  that  China  was 
under  promise  to  grant  Russia  a  concession  in  the  Kiaochau  region, 
and  that  Russia  embraced  the  opportunity  of  the  grant  to  Germany 
to  insist  upon  a  lease  of  the  Liao-tung  peninsula,  including  the  har- 
bour and  fortress  of  Port  Arthur,  for  twenty-five  years,  and  upon  the 
right  to  construct  a  railway  to  connect  Port  Arthur  with  the  Chinese 
Eastern  Railway.  The  lease  of  the  Liao-tung  peninsula  was  granted 
on  27th  March  1898,  including  the  right  to  build  a  railway  connecting 
Port  Arthur  with  Kharbin,  and  another  connecting  Talien-wan 
i(later  Dalny  ^)  with  Newchwang.  There  was,  however,  the  proviso 
that  the  railway  concession  was  **  never  to  be  used  as  a  pretext  for 
encroachment  on  Chinese  territory,  nor  to  be  allowed  to  interfere 
with  Chinese  authority  or  interests."  2  xhe  gauge  of  this  railway 
was  to  conform  to  the  Russian  standard,  viz.  5  feet. 

The  extension  of  the  Chinese  railways  beyond  the  Great  Wall  at 
Shanhaikwan  now  began  to  engage  the  attention  both  of  Russia 
and  of  Great  Britain.  During  the  discussions  which  ensued,  Russia 
openly  declared  her  intention  of  preventing  "  the  provinces  of 
China  bordering  upon  the  Russian  frontier  from  coming  under  the 
influence  of  any  nation  except  Russia."  ^  The  discussions  arose 
out  of  the  proposed  loan  to  the  Chinese  Government  for  the  con- 

^  Now  called  Dairen  by  the  Japanese. 

2  Clause  8  of  the  agreement  quoted  by  Kent,  op.  cit.,  p.  49.  The  branch 
to  Newchwang  was  completed  in  1 899. 

8  M.  Pavlov,  quoted  by  Sir  Claude  Macdonald  in  despatch  to  Lord  Salisbury, 
19th  October  1897.     Parliamentary  Paper,  China,  No.  i  (1898).  p.  5. 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST         235 

struction  of  the  line  by  the  Hong-Kong  and  Shanghai  Bank.  A 
compromise  was  eventually  arrived  at,  Great  Britain  receiving,  so 
far  as  Russia  was  concerned,  a  free  hand  in  the  Yangtse  Valley,  the 
Hong-Kong  and  Shanghai  Bank  agreeing  to  advance  the  capital 
required  on  the  security  of  the  Peking-Shanhaikwan  section  with  a 
charge  upon  the  revenues  of  the  extension.  There  thus  remained 
no  mortgage  to  a  foreign  Power  of  the  hne,  which  extended  from 
Shanhaikwan  to  Newchwang  and  Mukden.^  This  arrangement 
between  Great  Britain  and  Russia  gave  the  former  the  right  to 
construct  railways  in  the  Yangtse  Valley,  so  far  as  Russia  was 
concerned,  and  gave  Russia  the  right  to  construct  railways  beyond 
the  Great  Wall  at  Shanhaikwan  so  far  as  Great  Britain  was  con- 
cemed.2 

In  1900  the  Boxer  disturbances  threw  the  whole  of  North  China 
into  chaos  ;  and  Russia  immediately  occupied  Manchuria,  ostensibly 
to  secure  the  maintenance  of  order.  After  the  Legations  had  been 
reheved  by  the  international  expeditionary  force,  the  Powers  pro- 
ceeded to  negotiate  wdth  China  upon  the  terms  under  which  they 
they  would  evacuate  Peking.  These  terms  included,  of  course,  the 
settlement  of  the  amount  and  periods  of  payment  of  the  indemnity 
exacted  for  the  cost  of  the  expedition.  Until  a  general  treaty  was 
concluded  between  China  and  the  co-operating  Powers,  it  was 
obvious  that  it  would  be  at  least  inappropriate  for  any  individual 
Power  to  seek  to  negotiate  a  separate  treaty  with  China.  The 
obUgations  of  China  to  the  Powers  jointly  might  be  prevented  from 
being  implemented  if  China  were  beforehand  to  transfer  any  material 
portion  of  her  liquifiable  resources  to  an  individual  Power. 

On  3rd  January  1901  The  Times  published  the  draft  of  an  agree- 
ment into  which  China  was  alleged  to  have  entered  with  Russia, 
respecting  Manchuria.  The  existence  of  such  an  agreement  was 
denied  by  Count  Lamsdorf,  the  Russian  Foreign  Minister,  to  both 
the  British  and  the  Japanese  Ambassadors  at  St.  Petersburg,^  and 

1  See  Kent,  op.  cit.,  pp.  51-5  ;  and  Identic  Note,  28th  April  1899,  quoted 
by  Kent,  op.  cit.,  p.  220. 

*  The  arrangement  was  not  a  favourable  one  for  Great  Britain,  for  the 
Yangtse  Valley  had  already  been  tapped  at  Hankow  by  the  concession  granted 
in  August  1 898  to  a  Franco-Belgian  Syndicate  for  the  construction  of  a  rail- 
way from  that  port  to  Peking  and  no  quid  pro  quo  was  really  obtained.  On 
the  other  hand,  Russia  was  permitted  to  expand  her  influence  in  Manchuria. 
Cf.  Kent,  op.  cit.,  p.  56. 

3  See  Despatches  Nos.  30,  31,  &c.,  China,  No.  6  (1901).  Further  Corre- 
spondence respecting  the  Disturbances  in  China  (Cd.  675)  (London,  1901). 


236     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

China  was  warned  by  both  Great  Britain  and  Japan  that  no  separate 
agreements  should  be  made  with  any  individual  Power>  In  spite 
of  Count  Lamsdorf's  disclaimer,  it  appeared  that  an  agreement 
respecting  Manchuria  was  being  urged  upon  China  by  Russia.^ 

The  Chinese  Ministers  furnished  a  copy  of  this  proposed  agree- 
ment to  the  Powers,  and  requested  their  advice.  This  meant,  of 
course,  that  should  the  Powers  advise  China  to  refuse  to  accept  the 
agreement,  they  should  be  prepared  to  guarantee  China  against  the 
consequences  of  such  refusal.  The  explanation  of  Count  Lamsdorf 
was  to  the  effect  that  the  proposed  agreement  was  of  a  limited  and 
temporary  character,  and  that  it  did  not  affect  the  permanent  in- 
terests of  China.  The  Powers  did  not  in  effect  accept  this  disclaimer. 
China  delayed  the  conclusion  of  the  agreement  until  after  the  time 
stipulated  for  its  conclusion  had  elapsed,  and  the  project  came  to 
nothing.^  The  negotiations  were  clearly  intended  by  Russia  to  be 
regarded  as  "  most  secret,"  *  but,  as  might  have  been  readily  foreseen, 
the  Chinese  Government  attempted  to  make  the  most  out  of  inter- 
national rivalries  and  to  break  up  the  concert  of  the  Powers  by 
promptly  revealing  the  terms  of  the  draft. 

The  clumsy  diplomacy  of  Russia  at  this  time  contributed  materi- 
ally to  her  isolation.  The  ardour  of  the  Franco-Russian  entente 
had  cooled  steadily  since  1898  ;  ^  and  all  the  Powers,  including 
Germany,  who  had  supported  Russia  in  protesting  against  the 
Japanese  occupation  of  the  Liao-tung  peninsula  and  Korea,  were 
unanimous  in  opposing  the  transparent  attempt  on  the  part  of 
Russia  to  secure  exclusive  advantages  for  herself  out  of  the  con- 
fusion of  Chinese  affairs.  In  1858  Russia  had  successfully  played 
a  diplomatic  game  of  this  kind ;  but  then  her  diplomacy  was  in 
more  skilful  hands,  and  Great  Britain  and  France,  who  had  made  the 

1  A  similax  view  was  taken  later  by  the  United  States  and  the  German 
Governments.     (C/.  Despatches  Nos.  153  and  156,  China,  Sec.) 

2  The  text  of  this  agreement  is  given  in  No.  158,  ibid. 

3  Its  withdrawal  was  announced  by  Russia  in  a  despatch  on  5th  April  1901 
(No.  237,  ibid.). 

*  Even  after  the  existence  of  the  draft  treaty  was  demonstrated  by  the 
disclosure  of  its  terms  by  the  Chinese  Government,  Count  Lamsdorf  continued 
to  express  himself  ambiguously  and  to  refuse  to  supply  the  Powers  with  an 
authentic  copy  of  the  proposed  treaty,  while  at  the  same  time  he  affected  to 
throw  doubts  upon  the  genuineness  of  the  Chinese  copy.     (Cf.  ibid.) 

5  The  Dreyfus  affair  destroyed  the  confidence  of  Russia  in  France,  and  the 
Fashoda  affair  (i8q8),  during  which  France  appealed  to  Russia  for  assistance 
in  case  of  need,  and  received  a  refusal,  destroyed  the  confidence  of  France  in 
Russia. 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST         237 

gratuitous  success  of  Russia  possible,  had  just  defeated  Russia  in  a 
long  and  costly  campaign,  and  did  not  desire  a  renewal  of  hostilities. 
Moreover,  the  region  in  which  Russia  gained  her  advantage  was  at 
that  time  very  remote  from  the  spheres  of  interest  of  either  Power. 
In  1901,  however,  the  case  was  different.  The  Powers  were  engaged 
in  the  humanitarian  task  of  reheving  their  embassies  from  invest- 
ment during  a  period  of  barbaric  anarchy,  and  none  of  them  had 
been  more  profuse  than  Russia  had  been  in  announcements  of  the 
purity  of  motive  which  had  dictated  the  operations.^  Each  Power 
was  on  the  qui  vive  in  case  an  advantage  should  be  gained  by  any 
other,  and  alUances  might  easily  be  made  against  any  Power  which 
attempted  to  act  selfishly. 

The  incidents  connected  with  the  projected  treaty  and  those 
connected  with  the  seizure  by  Russia  of  railway  lands  and  material 
at  Tientsin  and  Newchwang,^  convinced  the  Powers  that  Russia 
was  determined  to  gain  important  advantages  for  herself.  In  these 
proceedings  and  in  the  ambidexterous  conduct  of  them  Russia  was 
preparing  the  way  for  an  inevitable  combination  against  her.  This 
combination  came  in  the  Anglo- Japanese  Treaty,  negotiated  in  1902 
by  Lord  Lansdowne,  and  in  the  simultaneous  isolation  of  Russia 
from  France  and  Germany. 

The  fatuous  diplomacy  of  Russia  was  accompanied  by  hurried 
exploitation  on  the  part  of  Russian  speculators  of  the  valuable 
timber  region  of  the  Yalu  River ,2  by  encroachments  upon  Korea, 
by  enormous  expenditures  at  Dalny,  which  the  Russians  destined 
for  a  great  commercial  port,*  and  by  extraordinary  neglect  of  the 
mihtary  measures  necessary  to  maintain  the  security  of  the  hostages 
she  had  given  to  fortune  in  so  extended  and  advanced  outposts. 

In  these  adventures  and  in  the  neglect  of  mihtary  precautions, 
Russia  was  simply  playing  the  game  of  Japan  and  hastening  the 
moment  when,  with  greatly  diminished  prestige,  she  should  have 

^  See,  e.g..  Despatches  Nos.  149,  238,  and  239,  in  China,  No.  3  (1900)  (Cd. 
257)  (London,  1900). 

*  For  correspondence  in  connection  with  the  Tientsin  and  Newchwang 
disputes,  see  Chtna,  No.  7  (1901),  Correspondence  respecting  the  Imperial  Rail- 
way of  North  China  (Cd.  770)  (London,  1901). 

^  An  account  of  the  relation  of  the  Russian  Timber  GDmpany  with  the 
political  situation  in  1903  is  given  in  Osvobofdenie,  No.  75  (Stuttgart,  19th 
August  1905). 

*  To  Count  Witte  is  attributed  the  expenditure,  unauthorized  probably, 
upon  Dalny  and  the  determination  to  make  it  instead  of  Port  Arthur  the  ter- 
minus of  the  Siberian  line.     Cf.  Kuropatkin.  Military  and  Political  Memoirs. 


238     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

to  submit  to  be  driven  back  towards  the  Amur.  Whatever  the 
unrevealed  ambitions  of  Russia  may  have  been,  and  however  she 
may  have  been  convinced  of  the  legitimacy  of  her  efforts  to  force 
Russian  civihzation  upon  the  Far  East,  perhaps  even  to  the  extent 
of  playing  the  same  rdle  in  North  China  and  Japan  which  England 
had  played  in  India,  the  mode  of  approach  was  hopelessly  ineffectual. 
The  morale  of  the  Russian  civil  official  class  was  not  equal,  save  in 
rare  cases,  to  any  such  task,  nor  was  the  morale  of  the  superior 
officers  of  the  army  by  any  means  equal  to  the  momentous  demands 
which  such  an  enterprise  would  have  made  upon  them.^ 

Incompetent  guidance  in  St.  Petersburg,  incompetent  and  even 
dishonest  conduct  by  her  agents  in  the  Far  East,  led  Russia  along 
the  road  to  ruin.  The  occupation  of  Manchuria,  which  had  been 
effected  in  order  to  re-establish  order  during  the  Boxer  outbreak  in 
1900,  was  still  maintained  in  1904,  notwithstanding  repeated  pro- 
mises to  evacuate  the  region.  There  is  abundant  evidence  of  divided 
counsels  at  St.  Petersburg.  Now  one  party  and  now  another  secured 
ascendency,  and  sometimes  the  Tsar  appears  to  have  acted  upon 
his  own  initiative.^ 

The  incidents  of  the  war  need  not  be  recounted  here.  It  is 
necessary,  however,  to  consider  the  position  in  which  Russia  stood 
in  the  Far  East  at  the  conclusion  of  the  war  with  Japan.  The 
Chinese  Eastern  Railway,  which  extends  from  Manchuria,  a  station 
on  the  Russo-Chinese  frontier  between  Trans-Baikalia  and  Man- 
churia and  the  border  of  Primorskaya  ohlast  and  Vladivostok,  is 
now  wholly  in  her  hands,  together  with  the  region  through  which 
it  runs.  The  Chinese  Government  possesses,  under  the  agreement 
of  1896,  the  right  of  purchase  of  the  Hue  thirty-six  years  after  the 
commencement  of  traffic.  This  period  expires  about  the  year  1937. 
It  is  impossible  to  determine  whether  or  not  China  will  be  in  a  posi- 
tion at  that  distant  period  of  time  to  exercise  the  option  of  purchase. 

1  A  view  of  the  Russian  occupation  of  Manchuria,  somewhat  distorted  by 
prejudice,  is  to  be  found  in  Manchu  and  Muscovite,  by  B.  L.  Putnam  Weale 
(London,  1907),  passim. 

2  The  division  of  parties  was  not  constant.  At  one  moment  M.  von  Plehve, 
who  was  in  general  opposed  to  commercial  and  industrial  development,  had 
the  ear  of  the  Tsar,  and  had  as  an  ally  Bezobrazov,  the  promoter  and  specu- 
lator, who  manipulated  the  Russian  Trading  Company,  the  exploiters  of  the 
timber  limits  on  the  Yalu  River  ;  at  another  moment  the  influence  of  M. 
Witte  was  dominant,  and  this  influence  was  exerted  towards  the  commercial 
enterprises  of  Russia  in  the  Liao-tung  peninsula  and  the  foundation  of  the 
port  of  Dalny. 


RUSSIA    IN    THE   FAR   EAST         239 

It  is,  however,  more  than  likely  that  Russia  will  plead  conquest, 
and  will  retain  the  line.^  Russia  may  be  held  therefore  to  have 
gained  permanently  a  large  portion  of  North  Manchuria  to  which 
previously  she  had  no  real  claim.  The  post-bellum  agreement 
between  Russia  and  Japan  suggests  that  Japan  and  Russia  have 
made  up  their  minds  to  divide  Manchuria  between  them,  and  to 
get  rid  at  the  first  convenient  opportunity  of  the  presence  of  Chinese 
Government  officials  in  the  country.  Meanwhile,  of  course,  as 
regards  Southern  Manchuria,  Japan  has  possession  of  the  railway 
Une  and  the  stations  alone,  together  with  the  Liao-tung  peninsula, 
the  remainder  of  the  lease  of  which  to  Russia  has  been  taken  by  her 
as  war  spoil.  This  lease,  which  was  originally  drawn  for  twenty-five 
years  from  27th  March  1898,  expires  on  26th  March  1923,  although 
in  terms  of  the  original  agreement  it  may  be  renewed.  The  unknown 
quantity  in  both  cases  is  China.  If  China  develops  during  the  next 
few  years  a  formidable  military  strength,  which  is  quite  within  the 
bounds  of  possibility,  the  lease  may  not  be  renewed  by  her,  and  thus 
Russia  and  Japan  ahke  may  be  driven  out  of  South  Manchuria. 

It  should  be  observed  that  grave  difficulties  present  them- 
selves in  cases  where  Powers  attempt  to  hold  permanently  regions 
which  are  occupied  entirely  by  alien  peoples  belonging  to  powerful 
neighbouring  nations ;  and  that  if  Russia  is  unable  to  populate 
Northern  Manchuria  with  a  population  predominantly  or  largely 
Russian,  and  if  Japan  is  unable  to  populate  the  Liao-tung  peninsula 
with  a  population  predominantly  or  largely  Japanese,  neither  of 
these  Powers  can  expect  to  hold  the  respective  regions  permanently. 
The  Russian  migration  into  Northern  Manchuria  is  at  present  in- 
considerable, while  as  regards  Japan,  she  has  been  up  till  the  present 
time  unable  to  induce  her  people  to  settle  in  the  Liao-tung  peninsula 
in  any  considerable  numbers.  Manchurian  winters  seem  to  be  too 
severe  for  Japanese,  and  Manchurian  wages  are  too  low  to  induce 
migration.  2  Under  these  circumstances,  the  principal  determining 
point  in  the  future  of  Manchuria  is  the  result  of  the  mihtary  and 
political  development  of  China. 

*  The  original  agreement  provided  that  the  shareholders  should  be  ex- 
clusively Russian  or  Chinese.  As  no  Chinese  are  understood  to  have  invested 
in  the  stock,  it  may  be  presumed  to  be  wholly  in  Russian  hands. 

*  C/.  "The  Emigration  Question  in  Japan,"  in  The  Round  ^Table, 
London,  vol.  i.  (19 n),  p.  263. 


240     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

It  is  now  necessary  to  consider  the  effect  of  these  events  in  the 
Far  East  upon  the  miHtary  and  diplomatic  position  of  Russia  in 
Europe.  During  the  war  and  during  the  revolutionary  period 
which  followed,  Russia  was  reduced  to  impotency.  She  found 
herself  isolated.  The  Franco- Russian  entente  had  melted  away; 
and  two  events  occurred  almost  immediately  which  could  not  have 
occurred  had  not  Russian  prestige  been  seriously  weakened.  These 
were  the  separation  of  Norway  and  Sweden  and  the  annexation  of 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  by  Austria.  The  desire  of  Russia  to  secure 
a  port  in  the  North  Sea  by  the  continuation  of  the  Finnish  railway 
line  from  Uleiborg  via  Tornea  across  Sweden  to  Hammerfest,  or 
some  other  port  on  the  North  Sea,  had  scarcely  been  concealed. 
Alone  Sweden  could  not  dare  to  hope  to  resist  the  pressure  of  Russia, 
the  continuation  of  the  union  with  Norway  was  therefore  indispens- 
able for  her.  The  preoccupation  of  Russia  in  Manchuria  and  the 
diminished  prestige  of  an  unsuccessful  campaign,  offered  the  oppor- 
tunity of  which  Norway  availed  herself.  Almost  at  the  same 
moment  Austria  seized  the  opportunity  for  which  she  had  long  lain 
in  wait,  to  appropriate  the  two  Balkan  provinces,  without  fear  of 
the  strenuous  protest  which  would  otherwise  have  come  from 
Russia. 

Up  till  the  present  time  there  has  been  no  obvious  recrudescence 
of  Russian  activity  in  Western  Europe ;  although  such  recrudes- 
cence may  at  any  time  occur  in  the  troubled  waters  of  Balkan 
poUtics.  That  Russia  has  preferred  to  permit  the  Balkan  peoples 
to  exhaust  one  another  instead  of  interfering  prematurely  in  their 
disputes,  is  a  tenable  hypothesis  ;  but  there  may  have  been  another 
reason.  The  Far  East  still  contains  immense  possibilities  for  Russia, 
and  it  was  indispensable  to  prepare  for  eventualities  there.  That 
ever  since  the  close  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war  the  position  of 
China  has  been  precarious,  has  obviously  been  the  view  of  Russia. 
In  accordance  with  this  view,  she  has  been  concentrating  troops 
upon  her  new  Manchurian  frontier.^  Russia  has,  moreover,  estab- 
lished a  new  military  base  at  Krasnoyarsk,  in  Siberia,  at  which  place 
she  is  understood  to  have  been  concentrating  immense  military 

1  During  the  winter  of  19  lo,  on  the  outbreak  of  plague  at  Kharbin,  Russia 
is  reported  to  have  taken  advantage  of  the  situation  to  mass  troops  upon 
the  Chinese  frontier  ostensibly  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  Chinese  from 
crossing  it.  Under  these  circumstances  encroachments  upon  the  indefinite 
boundaries  between  Russian  and  Chinese  territories  are  more  than  probable. 


RUSSIA    IN    THE    FAR    EAST         241 

stores.  China  is  at  present  in  no  position  to  resist  encroachments 
should  they  be  made,  and  Japan  cannot  yet  be  said  to  have  re- 
covered so  fully  from  the  exhaustion  of  the  war  as  to  be  able  to 
resist  a  Russian  advance  far  from  the  Japanese  base. 

Thus,  so  far  from  having  been  thrown  back  upon  Europe,  as  it 
were,  Russia  seems  eager  to  recover  some  of  her  lost  ground  in  the 
East,  if  a  suitable  opportunity  should  arise  for  its  recovery.  In 
addition  to  the  comer  of  MongoHa  which  is  traversed  by  the  Chinese 
Eastern  Railway,  now  an  integral  portion  of  the  Siberian  line,  the 
vast  region  of  Mongolia  lies  along  the  southern  frontier  of  the  Russian 
Empire  from  Transcaspia  to  the  Khingan  Mountains,  upon  the  crest 
of  which  the  Great  Wall  still  constitutes  a  formidable  barrier.  In 
February  1910  the  treaty  of  1881  between  China  and  Russia 
expired,  and  Russia  embraced  the  opportunity  to  reopen  the  Far 
Eastern  question.  This  treaty  was  concluded  for  the  purpose  of 
putting  an  end  to  the  Russian  occupation  of  the  province  of  Hi, 
and  of  facihtating  the  trade  in  brick  tea,  which  was  conveyed  from 
Hankow,  on  the  Yangtse-kiang,  to  Hi  and  Kashgar  for  Russia. 
The  importance  of  this  great  land  route  has  already  been  noticed. 
It  is  not  without  reason  that  Russia  laid  her  hand  upon  lU.^ 
Secluded  as  it  is  in  the  heart  of  Asia,  no  Power  could  dispute  the 
possession  of  it  with  Russia  ;  and  lying  across,  as  it  does,  the  route 
for  caravan  tea  from  China,  as  well  as  offering  facilities  for  tapping 
the  trade  of  the  Upper  Yangtse  Valley  by  means  of  the  river  Han, 
it  possesses  enormous  economic  importance.  Extension  of  the 
Transcaspian  railways  of  Russia  to  Hi  would  bring  Russia  by 
another  route  to  the  back  door  of  China — a  route  from  which  she 
could  with  difficulty  be  driven  by  any  conceivable  combination  of 
Powers.  In  the  event  of  a  second  Trans-Asiatic  line  being  con- 
structed by  this  route,  as  it  might  be,  the  guarantees  respect- 
ing the  Yangtse  Valley,  which  Great  Britain  secured  from 
Russia,  would  be  worthless,  and  a  most  serious  situation  might 
readily  arise  between  the  two  countries.  Moreover,  checked  as  she 
has  been  in  Manchuria  by  Japan,  the  seizure  of  the  whole  of 
Mongolia  looms  up  as  an  immediate  possibility.  Indeed  MongoUa 
has   already   become  in   effect  a   protectorate  of  Russia,  under 

1  On  the  events  in  the  province  of  Hi  in  191 2,  see  Major  Pereira's  Report 
of  Journey  from  Kashgar  to  Lanchou  Fu  in  China,  No.  3  (191 3),  Parlia- 
mentary Paper,  August  191 3,  London  [Cd.  7054]  pp.  47-52. 

VOL.  II  Q 


242     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

the  Russo-Mongolian  Agreement  and  Protocol,  2ist  October-3rd 
November  1912.^ 

The  relations  between  Russia  and  China  cannot  be  understood 
without  taking  into  account  the  fact  that  in  spite  of  encroachments 
upon  China  by  Russia,  the  two  countries,  excepting  for  the  affair 
in  lU  during  the  Mohammedan  disturbances,  have  not  actually  been 
in  a  state  of  conflict  since  the  siege  of  Albazin  in  1687.  No  Euro- 
pean Power  has  quite  the  same  sympathetic  relations  with  China 
as  has  Russia.  While  European  powers  in  general  were  not  per- 
mitted to  send  diplomatic  representatives  to  Peking  until  1858, 
Russia  had  maintained  a  semi-official  embassy  there  from  1692,^  and 
the  expenses  of  the  embassy  even  were  partially  sustained  by  China. 
The  Russian  representative  has  always  been  persona  grata  at  the 
Court  of  China,  and  has  thus  been  able  to  enjoy  a  confidence  denied 
to  others. 3 

The  attitude  of  Russia  towards  Asiatic  peoples  and  the  rule  by 
her  of  subject  races  in  Asia,  are  less  humane,  conscientious,  and 
educative  than  the  attitude  of  England  and  the  rule  by  her  of  Asiatic 
subject  races ;  but  the  Russians  who  exercise  the  administrative 
functions  in  the  East  are  naturally  more  affable  than  the  EngUsh. 
Both,  no  doubt,  have  the  faults  of  their  qualities  ;  but  the  Russians 
are  habitually  more  indifferent  than  the  English,  and  when  hostile, 
much  more  hostile  to  moral  and  religious  propagandas  which  dis- 
turb the  settled  course  of  Asiatic  life  and  affect  profoundly  the 
social  structure.*    In  brief,  from  origin,  temperament,  and  personal 

1  See  China,  No.  i  {1913) :  Despatches  .  .  .  transmitting  the  Russo-Mongolian 
Agreement  .  .  .  ParliamentaryPaper,  February  191 3,  London  [Cd.  6604].  For 
a  rather  passionate  account  of  the  economical  interests  of  Russia  in  MongoUa, 
see  Ular,  Alexandre,  Un  Empire  Russo-Chinois.  EngUsh  version,  London, 
1904.  See  also  for  an  account  of  the  more  recent  phases  of  the  Mongolian 
question,  With  the  Russians  in  Mongolia,  by  H.  G.  C.  Perry-Ayscough  and 
Captain  R.  B.  Otter-Barry  (London,  1914). 

2  Ravenstein,  The  Russians  on  the  Amur,  p.  71. 

*  It  should  be  observed,  however,  that  the  abuses  of  Russian  officials 
in  Manchuria  and  the  cruelties  perpetrated  by  them  during  the  occupation 
[cf.  e.g.  Veretschagen,  V.  V.,  Memoirs),  sometimes  under  the  influence  of 
panic,  as  at  Blagoveschensk  by  the  late  General  Grodekhov,  for  example, 
seriously  compromised  the  relations  between  Russians  and  Chinese.  During 
the  Russo-Japanese  War  the  Chinese  assisted  the  Japanese  actively.  They 
were  by  no  means  strictly  neutral. 

*  For  example,  notwithstanding  its  domestic  policy  of  anti-clericalism, 
France  encourages  missionary  enterprise,  as  also  do  Great  Britain  and  Germany. 
Russia,  on  the  other  hand,  is  spared  the  friction  which  is  due  to  an  intricate 


RUSSIA   IN   THE   FAR   EAST         243 

habits,  and  through  intimate  contact  with  Asiatics  from  the  dawn 
of  history,  the  Russian  is  nearer  to  the  Asiatic  point  of  view  than 
is  the  Enghshman,  whose  origin,  if  Asiatic,  is  so  only  in  a  sense 
inconceivably  remote,  whose  temperament  is  more  active  and  less 
reflective,  whose  habits  are  more  fastidious,  and  whose  desire  for 
personal  comfort  is  more  insistent  than  those  of  the  Russian  or  the 
Asiatic.  The  EngUsh  have,  moreover,  come  into  contact  with  the 
Asiatic,  in  any  serious  sense,  only  in  very  modern  times.^ 

series  of  reactions  arising  out  of  missionary  attempts  to  change  the  current  of 
Asiatic  life.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Greek  Orthodox  Church  does  not 
proselytize. 

1  C/.  the  suggestive  treatment  of  this  subject  by  Mr.  Townsend  Meredith 
in  Asia  and  Europe  (London,  1901),  passim. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

NATIONAL   PARTICULARISM   WITHIN   THE 
RUSSIAN   EMPIRE 

The  ethnical  and  linguistic  distribution  of  the  population,  which 
has  been  described,^  indicates  to  some  extent  the  Unes  of  national 
cleavage,  but  it  does  not  do  so  fully. 

The  principal  nationalities  which  have  become  incorporated  in 
the  Russian  Empire  are  the  following  : 

The  "  Russians,"  or  people  of  Moscow,  whose  Grand  Princes 
(Velikye  Kniazia)  graduaUy  encroached  upon  the  surroimding 
nations  and  absorbed  them.  While  the  "  Russian  "  national  feeling 
cannot  be  regarded  as  particularist,  there  is  a  very  definite  dis- 
tinction, in  the  mind  of  the  Russian,  between  the  "  Russian  "  and 
the  "  non-Russian  "  elements.  Recent  political  events  have  con- 
tributed to  emphasize  this  distinction.  The  reactionary  Russian 
party  advocates  the  complete  absorption  and  assimilation  of  the 
non- Russian  peoples ;  the  Liberal  parties  in  general  object  to  the 
Russification  even  of  the  smaller  nationaUties.  The  latter  parties 
advocate  the  "  self -definition  "  of  the  constituent  nationalities  of 
the  Empire.  They  think,  for  example,  that  each  nationaUty  should 
have  the  right  to  decide  what  language  should  be  taught  in  the 
local  schools  and  should  be  used  in  the  churches  and  in  the  courts 
of  law.  This  implies  a  certain  exclusive  Russian  national  feeling,* 
and  a  willingness  on  the  part  of  the  Liberals  to  permit  a  similar 
feeling  to  other  than  the  Russian  constituents  of  the  Empire. 

Between  no  two  of  the  main  races  in  the  above  catalogue  are 
the  relations  very  cordial.^ 

The  Little  Russians. — The  most   numerous  of  the  non-Great 

^  See  supra,  voL  i.,  App.  II. 

*  The  disfranchisement  of  several  non-Russian  elements  under  the  new 
Electoral  Law  is  one  of  the  evidences  of  this  exclusive  nationalism. 

'  Strategic  use  of  racial  antagonism  is  made  in  the  military  administration. 


NATIONAL    PARTICULARISM       245 

Russian  groups  is  the  Little  Russian.  The  antagonism  between 
the  two  races  expresses  itself  in  popular  nicknames  1  The  aim  of 
the  patriotic  Little  Russian  movement  is  an  independent  Ukraine. 
It  has  its  chief  adherents  among  the  intelligentsia;  yet  the 
intelligenti  are  for  the  most  part  members  of  the  Constitutional 
Democratic  Party,  and  are  thus  brought  into  friendly  relations 
with  Russian  LiberaUsm. 

The  Poles. — The  historical  struggle  between  Russia  and  Poland 
was  undoubtedly  promoted  and  sustained  by  deep  racial  antagon- 
isms. The  Russians  have  alleged  that  the  Poles  were  cruel  and 
vindictive,  and  that  in  early  times  their  captives  taken  in  war  were 
tortured.  The  Poles  in  more  recent  times  have  had  experience 
of  the  remorseless  severity  of  the  Russian  Government.  The 
difference  in  reUgion,  the  Poles  being  Roman  CathoUcs,  counts 
for  much,  and  the  different  personal  habits  of  the  two  peoples  count 
for  even  more  in  their  mutual  attitude.  The  Polish  artisan  dresses 
smartly,  and  he  is  conspicuous  for  his  polite  manners.  He  is 
frequently  well  educated  and  even  cultivated.  The  Russian 
workman  dresses  himself  as  a  rule  in  a  slovenly  fashion.  His 
peasant  traits  exhibit  themselves  in  his  manners,  and  he  is  rarely 
educated. 

Notwithstanding  the  partition  of  Poland  among  Russia,  Austria, 
and  Prussia,  a  strong  Polish  national  f eeUng  still  remains ;  and  this 
feeling  has  lent  much  force  to  the  revolutionary  movement  within 
the  Tsardom  of  Poland.  The  Polish  Socialist  Party,  e.g.,  advocates 
autonomy,  although  it  does  not  advocate  separation  from  Russia. 
It  desires  the  admission  of  Poland  as  an  equal  partner  in  a  federa- 
tion of  Russian  States.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Polish  Patriotic 
Party  undoubtedly  desires  separation,  and  the  re-establishment 
of  a  Polish  kingdom,  dreaming  even  of  the  acquisition  of  at  least  a 
portion  of  Prussian  Poland.^    The  adherents  of  the  autocracy  in 

1  The  Great  Russian  wears  habitually  a  full  beard,  a  habit  which  has 
earned  him  the  Little  Russian  nickname  of  "  The  Goat."  Little  Russians 
wear  only  a  moustache. 

*  The  Polish  population  in  the  United  States  in  1900  was  668,536,  includ- 
ing only  persons  born  in  Poland  or  bom  in  the  United  States,  both  parents 
being  Polish.  [See  Reports  of  Twelfth  Census  (Washington,  1901),  i.  p.  810.] 
This  large  group,  of  which  about  one-third  is  concentrated  in  Chicago,  New 
York,  and  Milwaukee,  is  not  without  its  patriotic  dream.  They  entertain 
the  fantastic  idea  of  a  kingdom  of  Poland  in  America  {Krulevstvo  Polskov 
Ameritze).     Extensive  agricultural  colonies  of  Poles  have  settled  in  a  region 


246     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Russia,  and  even  some  Russian  Liberals,  point  out  with  much  force 
that  complete  autonomy  would  be  simply  a  step  towards  separa- 
tion, and  that  separation  must  lead  to  an  attack  on  an  independent 
Poland  by  Germany,  in  order  to  crush  similar  ambitions  on  the  part 
of  her  own  PoHsh  population.  Austria,  whose  interests  are  similar, 
would  also  have  to  be  reckoned  with. 

The  Finlanders. — The  most  successful  of  all  the  groups  in  pre- 
serving their  national  institutions  and  privileges,  have  been  the 
Finlanders.  In  spite  of  attempts  at  Russianization,  they  have 
retained  a  large  measure  of  constitutional  liberty. 

While  Finland  adheres  strongly  to  the  principle  of  autonomy, 
there  is  no  manifestation  of  any  desire  for  separation,  nor  even  for 
the  abolition  of  autocracy  excepting  so  far  as  concerns  Finland.^ 

The  dislike  of  Russian  and  Finn  is  mutual.  The  general  level 
of  culture  in  Finland  is  unquestionably  higher  than  it  is  in  Russia  ; 
but  the  Russians  look  upon  the  Finns  as  narrow-minded  and  selfish. 
The  Finlanders,  on  the  other  hand,  look  upon  all  Russians  as  merely 
stupid  peasants.  They  have  thus  never  sympathized  either  with 
the  liberal  movements  in  Russia  or  with  the  imperiahsm  of  the 
autocracy.  From  the  Russian  point  of  view,  all  that  they  desired 
was  to  be  let  alone  and  enjoy  selfishly  the  benefits,  such  as  they 
were,  of  belonging  to  a  great  empire,  without  paying  for  them  in 
men  or  money,  and  without  being  subjected  to  any  imperial  control. 
This  has  been  the  Russian  view  of  the  case,  and  thus  at  most 
moments  when  either  people  was  struggling  against  the  autocracy, 
no  effective  moral  or  material  support  came  from  the  other.  ^ 

The  general  doubt  and  suspicion  entertained  in  respect  to  the 
"  non-Russian  elements  "  in  the  population  appears  in  the  mani- 
festos of  the  Tsar,  especially  after  the  dissolution  of  the  Second 
Duma,  when  their  influence  was  diminished  seriously  by  depriving 
some  of  them  of  the  franchise. 

Even  if  the  autocracy  were  swept  absolutely  aside,  there  would 

officially  called  "  New  Poland,"  in  the  State  of  Parana  in  Brazil.  [See  B.  J. 
de  Siemiradzki,  "  La  Nouvelle  Pologne,"  £iat  de  Parana  {BrisiJ)  (Brussels, 
1899).] 

^  The  Finnish  constitutional  question  has  given  rise  to  a  considerable 
amount  of  special  literature. 

2  For  example,  during  the  Finnish  constitutional  struggle  of  1899,  the 
Finns  obtained  practically  no  assistance  from  Russians,  even  from  those 
beyond  the  reach  of  autocratic  reprisals. 


NATIONAL    PARTICULARISM       247 

still  remain  racial  difficulties  and  racial  prejudices  to  be  con- 
sidered. 

The  Letts. — Since  about  1895  a  literary  revival  of  the  Lettish 
language  has  led  to  the  development  of  a  strong  nationalist  move- 
ment in  Livland.  Where  formerly  German  alone  was  spoken, 
the  people  now  speak  Lettish. 

The  Georgians. — ^The  Georgian  kingdom  became  Russian  in 
the  time  of  Paul  I.  Among  the  masses  of  the  Georgian  population 
in  the  Caucasus  there  is  a  very  strong  national  feeling.  During 
the  last  ten  years  there  has  been  a  considerable  intellectual  move- 
ment, having  its  centre  in  Tiffis,  but  extending  to  the  small  towns. 
This  movement  appears  in  scientific  and  literary  periodicals  in  the 
Georgian  language.^  The  Georgian  nobiUty  enters  the  Russian 
service  and  makes  itself  conspicuous  by  its  loyalty. 

Remnants  of  other  small  nationalities  which  have  been  absorbed 
and  Russianized  are  not  of  sufficient  magnitude  to  produce  national 
feeUng  properly  so  called.  Some  of  them  (the  Crimean  Tartars, 
e.g.)  have,  however,  a  feehng  of  nationaUty  as  against  other  peoples, 
but  they  have  exhibited  no  positive  nationalist  feehng  as  against 
the  Russian  Empire. 

The  immense  variety  of  languages  in  Russia  gives  rise  to  grave 
practical  difficulties.  Desire  for  uniformity  and  for  complete 
Russification  of  the  minor  nationaUties  led  to  the  compulsory 
teaching  of  Russian  in  the  schools  and  to  the  prevention  of  the 
teaching  of  the  native  languages.  The  result  was  that  in  those 
regions  where  the  national  feeUng  was  strong,  "  not  to  learn  "  became 
a  patriotic  duty.  Thus  in  Livland  the  people  lapsed  into  indiffer- 
ence to  all  education.  Only  since  the  relaxation  of  the  regulations 
on  the  language  question  has  there  been  any  revival  of  intellectual 
hfe.2  The  inconvenience  of  the  state  of  mind  induced  by  the 
Russif5dng  regulations  made  itself  very  manifest  in  the  army. 
Large  numbers  of  conscripts  do  not  speak  Russian,  and  they  have 
to  be  taught  in  the  regimental  schools.  The  teaching  in  these 
schools  is  not  efficient,  and  as  a  rule  the  young  conscript  learns 

^  The  monthly  journal,  Moambe,  (Newsletter),  (in  Georgian),  published 
in  Tiflis,  is  an  outcome  of  this  intellectual  movement. 

*  This  renaissance  of  intellectual  energy  has  expressed  itself,  in  the  Baltic 
provinces  especially,  in  many  unexpected  directions.  For  example,  the 
chess  players  of  these  provinces  have  become  famous  for  the  originaUty  of 
their  end-game  compositions. 


248     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

little  more  than  the  words  of  command  and  other  purely  miUtary 
terms,  even  when  he  is  drafted  into  a  regiment  where  there  are  few 
of  his  special  compatriots. 

In  spite  of  the  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  Russian  Government 
ever  since  the  conquest  or  annexation  of  the  regions  occupied  by 
the  nationalities  which  have  been  mentioned,  to  Russianize  the 
respective  peoples,  and  perhaps  because  of  these  attempts,  the 
national  spirit  remains  more  or  less  intense.  In  each  important 
case — ^Poland,  Finland,  Georgia — there  is  at  the  root  of  the  national 
spirit,  and  constantly  stimulating  it,  a  romantic  tradition  and 
history,  and  a  flexible  and  living  language.  These  national  pos- 
sessions have  contributed  greatly  to  the  intellectual  life  of  the  differ- 
ent peoples,  and  have  conduced,  especially  in  recent  years,  to 
extraordinary  outbursts  of  literary  activity.  The  romantic  episodes 
of  Polish  history  have,  for  example,  been  rewritten  by  popular 
novelists,  and  Finnish  and  Georgian  writers  are  even  enriching 
their  respective  languages  with  new  forms  of  expression  conceived 
in  the  traditional  spirit.  While  these  incidents  have  vitalized  the 
intellectual  life  of  the  people,  they  have  also  undoubtedly  tended 
to  separatism,  and  have  contributed  greatly  to  the  complexities 
of  the  present  political  situation.  It  will  be  recognized  that  among 
the  incidental  effects  of  the  various  nationalist  movements,  there 
has  been  the  practical  disappearance  of  Pan-Slavism.  If  Pan- 
Slavism  united  the  Slavonic  elements,  it  would  set  in  still  greater 
reUef  than  is  now  the  case  the  non-Slavonic  elements,  and  thus, 
so  far  from  uniting  the  various  factions  in  Russia,  would  tend  to 
emphasize  their  differences.  Excepting  among  the  masses,  and 
there  only  to  an  insignificant  extent,  and  among  the  extreme 
obscurantists,  the  Pan-Slavic  movement  has  ceased  to  have  any 
force. 


BOOK    V 


) 


THE  AGRARIAN  QUESTION  AND  ITS 
REVOLUTIONARY  PHASES 


INTRODUCTION 

The  special  feature  of  the  revolutionary  movement  of  1905-1907, 
which  distinguished  it  from  all  other  Russian  movements  of  the 
same  order,  was  the  association  of  the  peasant  masses,  for  at  least 
a  short  time,  with  the  urban  artisan.  During  the  epoch  of  agrarian 
disturbances  in  the  eighteenth  century  there  was  no  urban  artisan 
class,  or  none  sufficiently  numerous  to  aid  in  any  material  way  the 
revolting  peasants.  The  seats  of  the  central  government  thus 
remained  secure,  although  not  without  anxiety,  while  the  peasants 
and  the  Cossacks  attacked  the  outskirts  and  the  frontier  fortresses 
and  small  towns.  At  the  time  of  the  Dekabristi  there  was  again  a 
want  of  cohesion  in  the  oppositional  forces.  The  Dekahrist  move- 
ment was  conducted  by  intellectuals,  who,  while  advocating  hbera- 
tion  of  the  serfs,  were  not  in  contact  in  any  real  sense  with  the 
peasantry,  and  who,  therefore,  were  not  in  a  position  to  obtain  their 
aid,  even  if  they  had  desired  to  do  so.  The  growth  of  an  urban 
proletariat  altered  the  relation  of  the  constituent  elements  of 
society.  It  came  as  a  class  between  the  peasantry  and  the  intelli- 
gentsia,  and,  touching  both,  brought  them  in  a  sense  together.  That 
which  the  V  Narod  movement  failed  to  accompHsh  was  in  a  large 
measure  reaHzed  by  the  working  men  who  oscillated  between  the 
village  and  the  industrial  town.  When  they  became  inoculated 
with  social  democratic  or  social  revolutionary  ideas  they  dissemi- 
nated these  either  by  means  of  their  customary  migrations  or 
through  banishment  to  their  native  places. 

The  interior  changes  in  the  structure  of  society,  the  decomposi- 
tion of  the  family,  and  the  increasing  individuaHsm  of  the  members 
of  the  disintegrated  family  groups,  accompanied  as  these  were  by 
distiurbance  of  the  incidence  of  taxation,  must  also  be  regarded  as 
important  revolutionary  agents. 

The  pomyetschek  of  the  twentieth  century  was  not  so  harsh  as 

his  forefathers  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  was  perhaps  even 

more  anxious  to  obtain,  through  high  rents  and  low  wages,  as  large 

231 


252     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

a  return  from  his  estate  as  possible.  Emancipation  notwithstand- 
ing, the  interests  of  the  peasant  were  with  difficulty  reconcilable 
with  those  of  the  landowner,  and,  allotment  notwithstanding,  the 
peasant  found  it  hard  to  obtain  sufficient  land  for  his  needs  under 
the  existing  conditions  of  agriculture.  The  social  classes  remained 
sharply  differentiated,  and  the  proprietors  of  land  retained  by  far 
the  larger  share  of  loccJ  authority.  The  slendemess  of  agricul- 
tural capital  and  of  agricultural  credit  placed  the  peasant  landowner 
at  a  great  disadvantage,  and  the  large  landowner  often  found  it 
difficult  to  obtain  sufficiently  competent  working  hands.  The 
skilful  peasants  were  in  some  regions  reluctant  to  become  mere 
wage-earners,  excepting  where  it  was  impossible  to  obtain  land  for 
cultivation  on  their  own  account. 

It  is  clear  that  the  peasants  were  impatient  with  the  slowly 
moving  processes  of  law,  and  that  they  did  not  have  the  West 
European  conception  of  constitutional  government  and  regularized 
administration.  Having  made  up  their  minds  that  there  must  be 
popular  government,  and  regarding  themselves  as  "  the  people," 
they  saw  no  use  in  waiting  for  debates  and  discussions,  but  proceeded 
immediately  to  act  upon  their  belief.  The  land  must  belong  to  the 
peasants,  therefore .  the  land  should  at  once  be  taken  from  the 
proprietors  and  given  to  the  peasants.  Although  the  manners 
of  the  age  were  not  quite  so  violent  as  they  were  in  the  age  of  Puga- 
chev,  the  process  of  V action  directe  was  not  dissimilar  from  the  pro- 
cess adopted  by  the  peasants  in  1773-1775. 


CHAPTER  I 

PEASANT  CHARACTER  AND    PEASANT   CLASSES 

The  dweller  in  cities  and  the  "  habitant,"  or  rural  person,  appear  to 
one  another  more  or  less  mutually  shrouded  in  mystery.  The  con- 
tents of  their  minds  are  different,  and  they  look  at  life  from  different 
angles.  When  a  man  leaves  the  country  and  goes  to  the  town,  he 
never  completely  shakes  off  his  rusticity  ;  but  he  never  completely 
retains  it.  When  a  man  leaves  the  city  and  goes  to  the  coimtry, 
he  never  completely  shakes  off,  nor  does  he  ever  completely  retain,  his 
urbanity.  Thus  fullmutual  understanding  between  the  townsman  and 
the  countrjnnan  is  exceedingly  rare.  To  the  peasant  the  townsman 
is  a  person  of  dissolute  habits  and  dishonest  character ;  while  the  idea 
is  prevalent  among  townsmen  that  the  peasantry  of  all  countries  is 
stationary  and  stupid.  Inarticulate  as  the  peasant  appears  to  the 
civilian,  it  is  not  surprising  that  this  opinion  should  be  common  ; 
but  it  cannot  be  accepted  without  qualification.  The  peasant's 
vocabulary  is  limited  so  far  as  poUte,  or  urban,  language  is  concerned, 
but  he  has  an  ample  vocabulary  of  his  own,  appropriate  to  his  own 
purposes.  So  also  with  the  contents  of  his  mind.  These  are  limited 
enough  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  urban  person,  but  they  are 
ample  in  directions  wholly  unknown  to  dwellers  in  towns.  Life  is 
made  easy  for  people  who  live  in  large  groups  ;  they  organize  ex- 
istence for  each  other,  and  they  combine  to  employ  people  to  or- 
ganize Ufe  for  them.  The  peasant  organizes  life  for  himself  or  as  a 
member  of  a  relatively  small  group.  He  is,  therefore,  brought  more 
immediately  into  the  presence  of  the  facts  of  raw  nature,  and  the 
energy  of  his  mind  is  occupied  with  those  to  an  extent  from  which 
the  townsman  is  relieved  by  the  organized  life  to  which  he  is  accus- 
tomed. In  the  absence  of  this  organized  life  the  townsman  is  help- 
less ;  but  the  peasant  is  Jack  of  all  trades,  and  incipient  professor 


254     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

of  all  the  arts  and  sciences.^  In  his  crude,  primitive,  and  empirical 
way  he  knows  some  things  thoroughly  well,  and  he  is  full  of  confi- 
dence and  resource  when  the  town  dweller  is  confused,  helpless,  and 
ignorant.  His  methods,  often  based  upon  centuries  of  tradition, 
are  shorter  and  more  direct  than  the  complicated  and  longer  methods 
of  organized  production,  and  these  methods  are  not  necessarily 
employed  without  intelligent  understanding.  When  he  is  credited 
with  the  possession  of  mysterious  powers  by  his  neighbours,  as  in 
finding  water,  for  instance,  inquiry  will  generally  show — although  the 
water-finder  will  not  always  admit  the  fact — ^that  he  simply  applies 
his  intelligence  to  the  problem.  The  peasant  is  sometimes  even 
skilled  in  rude  but  effective  surgery,  and  some  of  their  women  make 
unrivalled  nurses.  Far  from  being  stationary,  peasant  hfe,  to  an 
intimate  view,  is  extremely  fluctuating.  Peasants  frequently  dis- 
cuss matters  concerning  the  most  fundamental  conditions  of  their 
economic  life,  and  sometimes  arrive  at  decisions  which  have  the 
effect  of  tearing  this  life  up,  as  it  were,  by  the  roots.  They  oscillate 
between  the  extremes  of  individualism  and  communaHsm,  and  often 
carry  suddenly  into  effect  the  most  drastic  changes.  The  limits  of 
these  fluctuations  and  the  substance  of  them  vary  in  different  races, 
and  at  different  times  in  the  same  race ;  but  it  is  probable  that 
everywhere,  and  at  all  times,  within  the  hard  shell  of  the  economic 
system  in  which  they  find  themselves  encased  by  external  pressure, 
this  animated  life  goes  on  like  the  movement  of  microscopic  creatures 
in  a  drop  of  water.     Occasionally  the  shell  itself  is  ruptured  by  the 

1  The  writer  lived  for  a  short  time  with  a  group  of  Russian  peasants  who 
had  just  migrated  to  a  new  neighbourhood.  They  took  with  them  practi- 
cally nothing  but  some  flour,  some  leather,  some  iron  bars,  and  their  tools 
for  carpentry  and  blacksmithing.  Immediately  upon  their  arrival  on  the 
site  they  had  chosen,  they  searched  for  clay,  found  it,  made  bricks,  sun-dried 
them,  and  built  two  sets  of  ovens.  In  one  set  the  women  made  the  bread 
for  the  group,  in  the  other  the  men  burned  wood  for  charcoal.  Within  two 
days  after  their  arrival  they  had  six  blacksmiths'  forges  going  by  means  of 
the  charcoal,  and  bellows  which  they  made  out  of  the  leather.  Within  other 
two  days  they  had  made  several  dozen  spades  and  a  wagon,  whose  wheels 
were  rimmed  with  iron  forged  by  them  on  the  spot.  During  the  same  time 
they  had  made  shoes  for  their  horses.  During  the  four  days  some  of  them 
had  been  engaged  in  building  houses,  and  within  a  few  more  days  these  were 
completed.  Yet  not  one  of  these  peasants  could  either  read  or  write.  They 
could  nevertheless  discuss  with  great  gravity  and  intelligence  their  reasons 
for  adopting  an  immovable  instead  of  a  movable  whiffle  tree  on  their  wagon 
and  for  making  their  spades  with  long  instead  of  short  handles,  and  for  their 
preference  for  the  light  Russian  plough  in  stony  ground  to  the  heavy  plough 
of  the  manufacturer. 


PEASANT   CLASSES  255 

interior  changes,  and  these  changes  become  more  obvious  to  the 
observer.  Inert  or  slow  in  its  movements  as  the  peasant  mind 
appears  to  be  when  confronted  with  problems  to  which  it  is  unaccus- 
tomed, its  instant  and  decisive  grasp  of  other  problems  disproves 
the  common  charge  of  mental  inactivity.  In  this  real  activity, 
limited  as  its  range  may  be,  Hes  the  immense  reserve  power  which 
enables  the  peasant  blood  to  reinforce  the  blood  of  the  classes 
deteriorated  and  rendered  infertile  through  inbreeding  and  relatively 
high  Hving.  The  reinvigoration  of  the  governing  class  by  draughts 
of  peasant  blood  has  not  only  prevented  the  former  from  dying  out, 
but  it  has  enabled  it  to  lead  a  vigorous  Ufe  in  all  countries  where 
this  reinvigoration  has  taken  place.  The  normal  peasantry,  physi- 
cally strong,  with  good  teeth,  good  digestion,  appetite  un jaded  by 
excess,  and  good  heredity,  constitutes,  as  it  were,  the  well  of  Ufe  from 
which  Ufe  intellectuaUy  superior  is  ultimately  drawn.^ 

In  the  historical  sketch  given  in  a  preceding  book  it  has  been 
shown  that  the  course  of  Russian  history  has  resulted  in  the  sepa- 
ration of  the  governing  classes  from  the  peasantry — that  is  to  say, 
that  the  supply  of  invigorating  influences  for  the  upper  classes  was 
stopped  at  its  source.  The  classes  suffered  from  lack  of  reinforce- 
ment, and  the  peasant  mass  suffered  not  merely  from  the  Jack  of 
sympathy  which  such  a  condition  involved,  but  suffered  also  from 
the  accumulation  of  untrained  and  unused  powers.  The  major 
part  of  peasant  energy  thus  ran  to  mere  fecundity.  Nature  has 
revenged  herself  upon  the  whole  system  by  producing  enormous 
numbers  separated  from,  yet  indissolubly  united  in  their  fate  with, 
an  exclusive  and  for  many  generations  increasingly  inept  governing 
class.  The  dislocation  of  national  Ufe  caused  by  serfdom,  and 
perpetuated  by  the  class  prejudice  which  has  outUved  serfdom, 
has  apparently  been  chiefly  responsible  for  bringing  the  national 
life  to  the  present  pass. 

The  Russian  peasant  is  not  customarily  suspicious  about  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  Ufe.  He  is,  however,  extremely  suspicious 
about  all  "  papers  "  or  documents  to  which  he  is  asked  to  put 

*  It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  the  psychological  and  moral  conse- 
quences of  migration  of  peasants  are  sometimes  very  unfavourable  to  the 
development  of  improved  types.  The  peasant  who  migrates  not  infrequently 
loses  his  primitive  culture  without  acquiring  any  other,  or  without  acquiring 
it  for  some  generations.  The  history  of  all  colonization  affords  ample  evidence 
of  this  fact. 


256     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

his  signature/  and  he  is  similarly  suspicious  about  all  contracts 
or  arrangements  concerning  land.  It  is  probable  that  the  origin 
of  the  first  suspicion  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  Kabala  "  days,  and  in 
the  tradition  of  documentary  binding  of  the  peasant  in  land  or 
personal  bondage  ;  and  of  the  second  to  the  tradition  of  the  frauds 
which  were  perpetrated  in  the  carrying  out  of  emancipation  under 
the  ukase  of  1803,  and  later  under  that  of  19th  February  1861. 

It  is  impossible,  however,  to  refer  accurately  to  Russian  peasants 
as  a  whole.  Their  characteristics  and  habits  of  life  vary  widely 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  nor  can  the  migratory  habits  of 
large  numbers  of  the  peasants  be  left  out  of  account.  For  example, 
the  peasants  of  Northern  Russia,  since  the  aboUtion  of  the  mutual 
guarantee  and  since  the  removal  of  restrictions  upon  their  mobility, 
have  been  migrating  southwards.  Moreover,  of  late  years  they 
have  been  exhibiting  a  preference  for  employing  themselves  as 
labourers  upon  large  estates  rather  than  cultivating  land  of  their 
own.  The  responsibilities  are  less,  and  the  return  to  their  labour 
is  more  certain,  and  sometimes  much  more  considerable.  Their 
labour  is  better  organized  and  more  productive.  Some  of  the 
northern  peasants — e.g.  those  of  Yaroslavskaya  gub.,  are  very 
enterprising.  The  men  leave  their  villages,  and  even  the  district 
towns,  to  go  to  St.  Petersburg,  where  they  become  street  vendors 
or  artisans,  or  they  go  in  the  season  of  grain  shipment  to  the  Volga, 
and  work  as  labourers  in  operations  connected  with  the  grain  trade. 
Thus  in  many  of  the  towns  and  villages  in  this  gubernie  the  men 
have  all  gone  ;  only  the  women,  children,  and  old  men  remain.  ^ 

Some  regions  have  acquired  special  celebrity  for  the  supply  of 
labourers  in  certain  occupations.  For  example,  the  Zubtsovsky 
district,  in  Tverskaya  gub.,  supplies  shepherds,  and  the  Pokrovsky 
district  of  Vladimirskaya  gub.  supplies  carpenters,  bricklayers,  and 
painters  for  all  Russia. 

The    manufacturing    centres    draw    their    permanent    recruits 

^  The  rationale  of  this  is,  with  high  probability,  the  primitive  idea  that  in 
placing  his  name  or  his  mark  upon  a  paper  which  is  given  into  the  hands  of 
another,  a  part  of  the  writer  himself  is  transferred,  and  that  through  the 
possession  of  this  part,  the  owner  of  the  paper  may  exercise  power  over  the 
personality  of  the  writer.  So  also  in  the  case  of  signatures  with  blood  marks 
which  were  affixed  by  the  Daimios  of  Japan  to  the  oath  of  fealty  to  the 
Shogun. 

2  Examples  of  deserted  towns  in  this  gub.  are  Mishkin  (2238  inhabitants) 
and  Uglich  (9500  inhabitants). 


PEASANT   CLASSES  257 

chiefly  from  Middle  Russia.    The  harvest  season,  extending  from 
the  beginning  of  June,  when  the  hay  harvest  may  be  said  to  begin,       / 
until  August,  when  other  crops  are  reaped,  draws  an  immense      t-- 
migratory    population    southwards    from    Northern    and    Middle  \ 
Russia.     The  annual  migration  involves  about  a  million  and  a  half  \ 
of  peasants.     To  some  regions  they  go  only  for  the  hay  harvest,  / 
returning  to  their  villages  to  reap  their  own  crops.     In  the  less 
fertile  and  less  skilfully  cultivated  regions  in  the  north  the  yield 
of  crops,  usually  about  two  and  a  half  to  three  times  the  quantity 
of  seed  sown,^  does  not  afford  sufficient  subsistence  for  the  culti- 
vators, and  it  is  therefore  necessary  for  the  peasants  to  supplement 
their  income  by  going  for  a  period  to  the  more  fertile  regions, 
where  labour  during  harvest  is  relatively  highly  paid.     The  migra- 
tion is  not  well  organized.     Owing  to  the  absence  of  employment 
bureaux  or  similar  agencies,^  the  farmers  in  one  region  in  the  south 
during  harvest-time  may  find  it  impossible  to  procure  a  sufficient 
number  of  labourers,  although  they  offer  as  much  as  ten  rubles 
a  day,  while  a  few  miles  away  thousands  of  labourers  are  starving 
because  they  can  find  no  employment.^ 

The  habits  of  the  peasantry  vary  very  much  in  different  parts 
of  Russia  and  among  different  races.  In  the  north,  drunkenness 
is  perhaps  more  common  than  in  the  central  and  southern  regions. 
A  statement  is  current  among  officials  in  the  north  that  the  State 
peasants  in  five  of  the  northern  guberni  have  "  drunk  up  "  the 
forests  since  Emancipation.*  But,  indeed,  drunkenness  ever5rwhere 
is  spasmodic  rather  than  continuous.  On  festival  days,  of  which 
there  are  a  great  number,  it  is  not  unusual  for  peasants  to  drink 
to  excess,  but  only  well-to-do  peasants  can  afford  to  do  so  fre- 
quently. In  the  regions  where  beer  is  made,  and  where  it  is  cheap, 
as  in  the  gubernie  of  Kharkov,  the  consumption  is  very  great. 
During  the  harvest-time  peasants  are  expected  to  work  on  Sun- 
days, but  even  now  they  do  not  usually  receive  wages  for  this 
work.     They  are  customarily  satisfied  with  a  collation  of  bread 

1  In  very  good  years  the  yield  reaches  4^  times  only. 

*  Up  till  1901  the  Zemstvos  organized  employment  bureaux  ;  but  they 
were  discontinued  because  they  were  supposed  to  be  utilized  for  purposes 
of  propaganda. 

*  The  principal  centres  to  which  these  annual  migrants  go  are  Rostov-on- 
Don,  No VI  Cherkask,  and  Simferopol. 

*  In  the  far  north,  among  the  Ziranes,  for  example,  drunken  orgies  seem 
to  be  not  infrequent.     Cf.  Russko'e  Bogatstvo,  No.  8,  August  1905,  p.  29. 

VOL.  II  R 


258     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

and  cucumbers,  washed  down  with  a  few  glasses  of  vodka.  Drunken- 
ness on  such  occasions  is  very  unusual. 

The  wants  of  a  Russian  peasant  are,  as  a  rule,  very  simple. 
The  prison  allowance  for  the  food  of  prisoners  of  inferior  rank  is 
six  kopeks  per  day,  the  ration  being  bread,  bouillon,  small  pieces 
of  meat,  small  quantities  of  barley,  and  vegetables.  Peasant 
prisoners  are  reported  to  find  this  ration  quite  satisfactory ;  it  is 
probably  more  than  they  customarily  enjoy.  If  even  they  have 
bread  enough  they  consider  themselves  fortunate.  In  the  villages 
the  peasants  subsist  largely  on  murtsofka — water  in  which  bread 
and  salt  are  put.  This  fare  is  supplemented  with  berries,  vege- 
tables, and  mushrooms  in  the  summer.  The  indispensable 
"  luxuries  "  of  the  peasant  are  a  watch,  a  pair  of  long  boots,  a 
red  shirt,  music  from  a  German  accordion— his  own  or  someone 
else's — and  a  dance  on  Sundays.  If,  in  addition  to  these,  he  has 
a  drink  now  and  again  on  Sunday  or  on  a  hoUday,  he  is  usually 
happy  and  contented.^ 

Different  regions  in  Russia  present  different  economic  con- 
ditions, and  therefore  various  social  habits,  and  thus  a  general 
picture  is  not  likely  to  be  universally  faithful.  Moreover,  each 
village  includes  in  its  population  various  classes  of  peasants. 

These  classes  may  be  summarized  as  follows  : 

1.  The  well-to-do  peasants,  who  form  the  backbone  of  the  com- 
munity. These  have  usually  a  sufficient  amount  of  land,  and  some 
of  the  members  of  the  family  have  earnings  other  than  agricultural 
earnings.  They  are  what  is  known  as  "  firm  "  peasants.  They  go 
to  church  regularly,  and  they  can  be  relied  upon  by  the  Zemskiy 
Nachalnik  to  support  him  in  the  volost.  They  are  not  usually 
addicted  to  revolutionary  tendencies.  They  are  popularly  known 
as  kulaki  or  "  fists." 

2.  There  are  the  "  middle  "  peasants,  not  so  well  off  as  the  first, 
possessing  little  land  and  cultivating,  for  the  most  part,  land  for 
which  they  pay  rent  in  labour  upon  the  estate  of  the  landlord,  but 
whose  agricultural  labour  and  whose  extra-agricultural  earnings 
together  yield  a  fair  Uving.  This  class  feels  the  need  of  land,  and 
some  of  the  members  of  it  could  find  the  necessary  resources  to  cul- 
tivate more  than  they  can,  under  present  conditions,  obtain  at 

^  The  temperamental  contentment  of  the  Russian  peasant  has,  of  course, 
permitted  the  exploitation  to  which  for  ages  he  has  been  subjected. 


PEASANT   CLASSES  259 

reasonable  rents.    They  have  cattle,  and  could  obtain  implements 
to  work  the  land. 

3.  Beneath  these  two  classes  there  is  the  village  proletariat. 
Landless,  or  almost  landless,  almost  destitute  of  agricultural  capital 
of  any  kind,  feeling  at  once  the  **  need  of  land  "  and  the  impossi- 
bihty  of  purchasing  or  of  renting  it.     This  is  the  class  for  whom 
schemes  of  purchase  through  the  Peasant  Bank  have  practically  no 
interest,  and  for  whom  any  scheme,  revolutionary  or  otherwise, } 
which  will  give  land  without  the  necessity  of  burdensome  redemption  | 
payments,  offers  invincible  attractions.     The  agricultural  skill  of  I 
this  class  is  small,  and  they  are  in  chronic  need.     When  a  badj 
season  occurs  they  suffer  more  than  others,  because  their  land  is  not! 
in  good  condition,  and  their  produce  is  proportionately  much  smaller  \ 
than  that  of  their  neighbours.     These  peasants,  working  for  them-  \ 
selves  on  minute  holdings,  or  working  for  low  agricultural  wages,    I 
comprise  a  very  large  fraction  of  the  97,000,000  of  Russian  peasants,    I 
and  their  difficulties  constitute  the  crux  of  the  agrarian  problem. 

Primitive  Customs. — Primitive  customs  abound  in  all  parts  of 
Russia.  The  following  examples  may  suffice.  Land  is  usually 
measured  by  the  peasants  with  a  pole.  Although  this  pole  is  not 
divided  into  fractions  by  any  marks,  the  peasants  are  accustomed  to 
estimate  the  fractions  very  exactly.  The  strips  of  land  are  so  long 
that  even  an  inch  in  width  means  a  large  number  of  square  yards. 

Tally  sticks  are  still  kept  by  shepherds  and  herdsmen.  On  these 
sticks  they  cut  the  number  of  sheep,  calves,  horses,  &c.,  under  their 
charge.  This  stick  is  handed  to  the  starosta,  who  places  it  before 
the  mir  once  a  year.  On  the  record  provided  by  these  tallies,  the 
Zemstvo  statistician  bases  his  calculations,  and  upon  them  also  the 
payments  to  the  landowners  for  pasturage  and  the  payments  to 
the  herdsmen  are  based.  These  tallies  receive  different  names 
in  different  regions.  For  example,  in  Vladimirskaya  guh.,  the 
tally  is  called  a  doMment ;  while  in  Kharkovskaya  guh.  it  is 
called  a  gramota. 

Modes  of  observance  of  great  holidays  vary  in  different  regions. 
The  following  account  of  the  observance  of  Christmas  was  obtained 
from  a  peasant  of  Vitebskaya  gub.^  Early  in  the  morning  of  the 
day  before  Christmas  the  head  of  the  family  goes  into  the  town  and 

*  He  was  a  peasant  of  the  village  Barshuksky,  Stninskaya  volost,  near 
the  town  of  Polovtsi.    The  conversation  took  place  in  1909. 


# 


26o     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

buys  fish  and  vodka.  The  supper  of  Christmas  Eve  is  called  kolada?- 
At  this  supper  all  of  the  fish  which  has  been  purchased  in  the  morn- 
ing must  be  consumed,  no  matter  what  the  quantity  may  be.  At 
midnight,  between  Christmas  Eve  and  Christmas  Day,  the  women 
begin  to  prepare  the  Christmas  dinner,  one  of  the  great  events  of 
the  year  in  the  peasant  household.  This  feast  is  called  razgovenye."  ^ 
The  traditional  menu  is  composed  of  sausages,  made  from  liver  and 
from  beef,  and  boiled  pork.^  Before  dinner  a  candle  is  lighted  be- 
neath the  ikon,  which  finds  a  place  in  every  Russian  dwelling,  and 
even  in  every  place  of  business.  The  whole  family  kneel,  pray,  and 
prostrate  themselves  several  times.  The  head  of  the  family  occupies 
a  conspicuous  place  at  the  table,  and  the  other  members  sit  around 
him.  The  dinner  begins  with  a  service  of  peppered  vodka.  Usually 
all,  beginning  with  the  head  of  the  family  and  ending  with  the 
youngest  member,  drink  in  succession  from  the  same  glass  or  silver 
cup.  Then  they  eat  without  ceremony,  and  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
youths  often  drop  off  to  sleep  towards  the  afternoon.  After  dinner 
the  head  of  the  family  goes  to  church.*  Sometimes  during  the 
service  non-canonical  incidents  occur.  The  mujiki  prostrate  them- 
selves, and  their  long  locks  rest  on  the  pavement.  Drunken  com- 
rades, with  their  boots  well  tarred  for  the  holiday,  accidentally  or  by 
intention  step  upon  the  hair  of  the  prostrate  mujiki,  who  reproach 
them  with  remarks  little  appropriate  to  the  occasion  and  the  edifice. 
In  the  evening  the  youths  go  to  the  egreshya,^  or  play-house,  usually 
the  house  of  the  starosta  or  village  elder,  or  of  some  other  important 
villager.  This  play-house  is  the  primitive  village  club.  In  those 
families  where  the  peasants  are  too  poor  to  buy  vodka,  they  some- 
times buy  cabinetmaker's  varnish.  Out  of  this,  by  a  method  of 
his  own,  the  peasant  makes  an  evil-smelUng  Uquid  which  he  con- 
sumes instead  of  vodka.^ 

^  In  the  district  in  question.  In  general,  the  word  kolada  is  apphed  to  the 
carols  sung  on  Christmas  Eve.  The  ordinary  Great  Russian  word  for  supper 
is  ujen. 

2  The  same  word  is  used  in  Byelozerskoe  district,  and  no  doubt  elsewhere. 

3  About  I  piid  (36.11  lbs.  avoir.)  per  ten  persons. 

*  In  Byelozerskoe,  the  head  of  the  family  goes  to  church  before  dinner. 

*  From  egrat,  to  play.  In  Byelozerskoe  district  the  pla,y-house  is  called 
beseda  in  the  Korelhan  villages,  and  posedka  in  the  villages  inhabited  by  Great 
Russians. 

«  Well-to-do  peasants  drink  vodka  made  from  com,  less  well-to-do  drink 
that  made  from  potatoes. 


PEASANT   CLASSES  261 

Disregard  of  Private  Property  among  the  Peasantry. — Everyone 
who  has  spent  any  time  in  rural  Russia  must  have  noticed  the 
enormous  iron  bars  and  the  huge  padlocks  which  fasten  even  inner 
rooms  in  country  houses,  and  perhaps  may  have  experienced  petty 
thefts.  One  condition  is  necessary  to  prevent  the  other.  The 
explanation  of  the  prevalence  of  petty  thieving  seems  to  lie  in  the 
survival  of  ideas  originating  in  bondage.  Under  bondage  the  peas- 
ant had  no  legal  right  to  any  property.  It  was  therefore  difficult 
for  him  to  conceive  of  any  such  right  on  the  part  of  anyone 
else.  The  pomyetschek  assumed  himself  to  have  the  right  of 
possession,  but  the  peasant  never  fully  admitted  this  right.  More- 
over, the  community  of  occupancy  of  land  and  the  community 
of  use  of  agricultural  instruments — although  not  invariable  or 
imiversal — bred  in  the  peasant  a  certain  indifference  to  property 
considered  as  an  individual  possession.  Appropriation  by  a 
neighbour  of  the  goods  of  another  peasant  was  looked  upon  as 
a  venial  offence,  if,  indeed,  it  were  an  offence ;  but  appropria- 
tion by  a  stranger  of  the  cattle  or  goods  of  a  village  or  of  a  villager 
was  in  a  different  category.  Horse-stealing  is,  for  example,  a  com- 
mon crime  in  Russia,  and  it  is  punished  by  the  villagers  with  fright- 
ful severity.^ 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  know  how  much  importance  to  attach 
to  general  statements  made  by  peasants  about  the  prevalence 
or  otherwise  of  theft  in  their  districts.  Yet  peasant  evidence  is 
of  value  on  such  a  point,  because  the  authorities  as  a  rule  know 
only  those  cases  which  have  been  brought  to  their  notice  or  which 
have  been  made  the  subject  of  public  inquiry.  The  peasants, 
on  the  other  hand,  know  probably  all  the  cases,  although  their 
accounts  of  the  circumstances  may  not  always  be  impartial.  For 
example,  "  orthodox  "  peasants  will  narrate  lurid  stories  of  the 
crimes  of  their  neighbours  who  are  raskolneke,  or  dissenters,  while 
Jews  will  be  equally  vociferous  about  the  offences  of  adherents  of 
all  faiths  except  their  own.  The  following  details  upon  the  con- 
ditions in  this  respect  in  Vitebskaya  gub.  were  obtained  for  the 

^  The  writer  has  before  him  a  statement  contained  in  a  letter  from  a 
peasant  to  his  brother,  of  revolting  details  of  torture  applied  to  a  horse  thief 
in  a  village  of  Strunskaya  volost  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1909.  The  parti- 
cipants in  this  fiendish  outrage  were  prosecuted,  and  the  headman  of  the 
village  was  punished.     The  case  came  up  in  the  court  at  Vitebsk. 


262     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

writer  by  a  very  astute  observer,  himself  a  peasant,  in  whose  good 
faith  he  has  every  reason  to  have  the  fullest  confidence.  It  appears 
that  theft  is  highly  prevalent  in  the  gubernie.  Orthodox  {i.e.  Greek 
Orthodox)  peasants  steal  timber  only,  but  raskolneke  steal  any- 
thing. This  latter  remark  applies  especially  to  the  sect  of  "  Old 
Behevers."  The  Jews  steal  by  cheating  in  money  and  in  weight. 
The  sectarians,  "  Old  Behevers,"  are  in  this  particular  gubernie 
traditionally  thieves  until  they  reach  the  age  of  thirty  years.  They 
steal  anything,  from  home-woven  cloth  to  horses.  The  peasants 
hobble  their  horses  with  heavy  iron  chains,  but  these  are  cut,  and 
the  horses  are  driven  away.  This  practice  prevails  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  peasants  are  unable  to  keep  good  horses,  even  when 
they  are  sufficiently  well  off  to  do  so.  Up  till  the  age  of  thirty 
the  "  Old  Behever  "  (starovyer)  is  known  as  mirskoy,  or  "of  the 
world" — a  worldly  man;  afterwards  he  becomes  a  rabskoy,  or 
*'  of  service  " — i.e.  a  servant  of  God.  The  peasants  say  that  he 
devotes  himself  to  the  service  of  God  when  he  has  been  beaten 
so  soundly  by  those  whom  he  has  robbed  that  he  can  serve  Mammon 
no  more.  The  rabskoy  will  not  eat  with  a  mirskoy,  any  more  than 
he  would  do  so  with  an  "  Orthodox."  The  peasant  view  is  that  an 
"  Old  Believer,"  while  forbidden  to  smoke  or  drink,  is  nevertheless 
allowed  to  steal.  If  a  mirskoy  steals  the  last  horse  of  a  peasant, 
his  priest  orders  him  to  fast  and  to  prostrate  himself ;  but  if  he 
steals  from  abundance,  he  is  not  obliged  to  undergo  penance.  The 
"  Old  Believers,"  according  to  the  peasants,  steal  wives,  and  if 
they  become  tired  of  them  they  turn  them  away.  On  predatory 
expeditions  the  "  Old  Believers  "  go  armed  with  a  crowbar  for 
breaking  open  lockfast  places,  and  with  knives  for  defence.  They 
usually  go  in  pairs,  one  watching  while  the  other  abstracts  the 
horse  they  have  determined  to  steal.  When  they  make  a  raid 
upon  the  granary  of  a  pomyetschek  they  go  in  a  large  group,  with 
carts  and  horses  to  carry  off  the  plunder.  The  "  Old  Believers  " 
are  conspicuous  for  their  loyalty  to  one  another.  If  one  of  them 
falls  into  the  hands  of  the  police,  the  utmost  torture  will  not  suffice 
to  draw  from  him  the  names  of  his  accomplices.  While  he  is  in 
durance  his  fellows  support  his  family.  When  an  "  Orthodox  " 
peasant  takes  an  oath  in  a  court  of  justice,  he  usually  regards  the 
oath  as  a  matter  of  great  importance,  and  in  general  tells  the  truth ; 
but  an  **  Old  Believer  "  is  indifferent  about  an  oath  when  testimony 


PEASANT   CLASSES  263 

is  to  be  borne  against  a  member  of  his  own  sect.  Orthodox  peasants, 
when  they  are  robbed  by  "  Old  BeUevers,"  are  very  severe  upon 
them  when  they  succeed  in  capturing  the  offenders.  The  thieves 
are  beaten  immercifully,  and  are  sometimes  killed  by  the  peasants. 

The  reasons  advanced  by  the  "  Orthodox "  peasants  for  the 
inclination  to  steal  exhibited  by  the  "  Old  Believers  "  are  these. 
The  sectarians  were,  during  bondage  times,  generally  free  peasants. 
They  had  therefore  no  allotments  ;  and  since  their  reUgion  forbids 
them  to  work  for  or  to  eat  with  pagans,  among  whom  they  regard 
all  who  are  not  of  their  commimion,  they  were  obUged  to  steal  in 
order  to  support  themselves.  As  a  rule,  in  Vitebskaya  gub.  at 
the  present  time  the  "  Old  BeUevers "  are  wealthier  than  the 
Orthodox  peasants  in  whose  neighbourhood  they  Uve. 

These  notes  upon  the  customs  of  the  sectarians  in  Vitebskaya 
gub.  are  of  value  chiefly  because  of  the  Ught  they  throw  upon  the 
opinions  about  the  sectarians  entertained  by  the  Orthodox  peasants. 
Whether  the  evil  reputation  of  the  sectarians  is  well  deserved  or 
not,  the  fact  that  the  peasants  in  general  think  that  it  is  accounts 
for  the  difficulty  of  uniting  the  peasants  in  any  common  action 
for  the  benefit  of  the  peasantry  as  a  whole. 


CHAPTER   II 

SURVIVALS  OF  PRIMITIVE  FAMILY  CUSTOMS  AND  OF 
POPULAR  CONCEPTIONS  REGARDING  THE  TENURE 
OF   LAND 

The  Undivided  or  Joint  Family 

The  survival  of  the  undivided  family  in  Russia  long  after  this 
institution  had  ceased  to  have  any  living  force  in  Western  Europe/ 
has  been  a  potent  factor  in  determining  the  character  of  social  and 
economic  life.  The  German  observer,  von  Haxthausen,^  described 
very  fully  the  undivided  family  as  he  found  it  in  Russia  seventy 
years  ago.  Although  the  number  of  such  families  has  greatly 
diminished  since  that  time,  his  description  is  still  true  so  far  as 
regards  the  main  features  of  the  institution,  the  minor  features 
varjdng  with  the  character  of  the  head  of  the  household.  The 
characteristic  family  of  this  kind  appears  to  have  consisted  of 
from  ten  to  twenty,  and  occasionally  even  of  fifty  or  more  persons,^ 
engaging  in  common  labour.  Among  the  members  of  the  family 
are  "  the  grandfather  *  and  grandmother,  the  father  and  mother, 

1  The  undivided  or  joint  family  is  prevalent  througliout  Asia,  and  is 
still  to  be  found  in  Eastern  Europe,  elsewhere  than  in  Russia.  See,  for 
example,  notes  on  the  joint  family  among  the  Croats  in  Hungary,  by  Pro- 
fessor A.  Herrmann  in  The  Millennium,  of  Hungary  and  its  People,  ed.  by 
J.  de  Jekelfalussy  (Buda  Pest,  1897),  p.  407.  It  has  been  highly  prevalent 
m  Turkey,  where  separations,  which  had  been  discouraged  by  the  Govern- 
ment, have  been  taking  place  since  the  revolution  in  1908  ;  and  in  Japan 
where^separations  have  also  been  taking  place  since  the  revolution  in  1 869. 

2  Etudes  sur  la  Situation  inthieure,  la  Vie  nationale,  et  les  Institutions  rurales 
de  la  Russie  (Hanovre,  1 847-1 848),  vol.  i.  pp.  115  et  seq.  A  more  recent 
description  is  given  by  M.  Kovalevsky  in  Modern  Customs  and  Ancient  Laws 
of  Russia  (London,  1890),  pp.  15  and  47  et  seq.  See  also  Maine,  Ancient  Law 
(London,  1874)  (5th  ed.),  pp.  133,  260,  and  266,  and  Heam,  The  Aryan  House- 
hold, Its  Structure  and  Development  (London,  1891),  pp.  188  and  230. 

^  I  have  been  informed  by  a  trustworthy  correspondent  that  in  the  village 
of  Stepankova  (Moskovskaya  gub.)  there  was  an  undivided  family  which  con- 
sisted in  1 886-1 887  of  seventy-five  persons.  The  family  possessions  included 
thirty-seven  horses  and  sixty  cows.  The  family  was  considered  to  be  very  well 
off.     Large  undivided  families  are  now  rare. 

*  Even  also  sometimes  a  great-grandfather. 

264 


PRIMITIVE    FAMILY   CUSTOMS      265 

sons  and  daughters,  grandsons  and  granddaughters,  brothers  and 
sisters,  nephews  and  nieces,  with  such  other  persons  as  may  be 
united  to  them  by  ties  of  marriage,  as  daughters-in-law  in  right 
of  their  husbands,  and  sons-in-law  in  right  of  their  wives."  ^  Close 
relationship  is,  however,  not  invariable.^  "  The  house  elder  is 
primus  inter  pares."  He  is  chief  of  the  family  council,  and  repre- 
sentative of  his  household  before  the  authorities.  He  appears  in 
court  to  answer  complaints  against  the  members  of  his  own  house- 
hold, and  to  make  complaints  against  those  of  others.  He  is 
regarded  as  responsible  for  the  payment  of  taxes  due  by  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family,  collectively  or  individually.  Yet  he  has  no 
right  to  dispose  of  the  family  property  without  the  consent  of  all 
its  adult  members.  The  house  elder  arranges  the  daily  labour 
of  the  members  of  the  family.  If  there  is  a  surplus  of  labour  for 
the  agricultural  purposes  of  the  group,  which  often  occurs  when 
the  family  is  large  and  when  for  any  reason  there  is  difficulty  in 
obtaining  land,  members  of  the  family  may  be  sent,  or  may  be 
permitted  to  go,  abroad  to  earn  money,  their  surplus  earnings 
being  required  to  be  remitted  to  the  house  elder  for  the  benefit 
of  the  household,  while  the  dependents  of  the  absentees  are  mean- 
while nourished  at  the  common  charge.  This,  at  all  events,  is 
the  law  of  the  household.  The  law  is  not  improbably  frequently 
evaded  by  conceadment  of  individual  resources. 

The  system  of  land  occupation  and  cultivation  under  the  un- 
divided family  may  be  regarded  as  semi-communal.  Although  the 
family  group  is  strictly  communal,  there  is  a  certain  recognition  of 
individual  interests.  Thus,  although  the  land  remains  imdivided 
so  long  as  the  family  holds  together,  each  member  of  the  household 
has  his  recognized  share.  Nor  are  the  shares  equal.  Brothers  have 
equal  shares,  but  others  have  lesser  fractions  of  the  common  heritage. 
Any  partner  in  the  property  of  the  family  group  may  sell  his  land  to 
a  relative  or  to  a  stranger,  but  the  purchaser  is  expected  to  conform 

^  Kovalevsky,  op.  cit.,  pp.  53  and  54. 

*  Haxthausen,  op.  cit.,  i.  p.  90.  Although  Haxthausen  quotes  a  specific 
case,  there  is  no  reason  to  beUeve  that  "  adoption "  of  strangers  into 
the  family  was  customary.  Orphans  were,  however,  confided  to  peasant 
famihes  by  the  great  orphanages  at  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  and  payment 
was  made  for  them  by  the  orphanages,  usually  two  rubles  per  month,  until 
the  age  of  sixteen  years.  These  orphans  might  marry  into  the  peasant 
families  ;  but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  legally  adopted  by  them, 
the  process  of  adoption  being  expensive  and  troublesome. 


266     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

to  the  family  regulations.  The  meadows  are  undivided,  but  they 
are  annually  apportioned  for  mowing,  and  for  the  purposes  of  each 
individual  family  in  the  larger  family  group.  Pasture  and  forest 
are  also  common  property,  although  they  may  not  belong  to  one 
imdivided  family.  They  may  belong  in  common  to  a  larger  group  of 
several  undivided  families,  or  even  to  undivided  families  together  with 
families  which  had  been  "  separated  "  from  their  own  family  kin. 

The  prevalence  and  the  persistence  of  the  undivided  family  has 
affected  profoundly  the  character  of  the  peasant.  To  the  regulations 
of  the  undivided  family  may  be  attributed  to  a  large  extent  the  cus- 
tomary submissiveness  of  the  Russian  peasant  to  authority.  Even 
adult  men  are  under  the  system  obHged  to  be  submissive  to  their 
elders.  The  prevalence  during  recent  years  of  separations  has  un- 
doubtedly contributed  to  the  new  spirit  of  resistance  to  authority 
which  animated  the  peasant  youth  especially  in  the  revolutionary 
year  of  1905,  and,  in  general,  separations  have  effected  a  considerable 
change  in  the  attitude  of  the  peasant  towards  regulative  authority 
of  any  kind. 

"  That  the  character  of  the  Russian  mujik  has  been  modified  by 
the  system  of  the  great  family  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  wherever 
a  division  of  the  common  property  has  taken  place,  wherever  the 
peasant  has  been  reduced  by  his  own  will  to  depend  entirely  upon 
his  personal  industry  for  his  success  in  life,  he  has  become  the  push- 
ing, unscrupulous  man  whom  the  American  novelist  has  rendered 
familiar  to  us."  ^ 

The  causes  of  the  survival  of  the  undivided  family  in  spite  of 
individualistic  tendencies  which  naturally  emerge  within  the  family 
itself,  and  the  causes  of  the  breaking  up  of  the  family,  have  been 
partly  spontaneous  and  partly  administrative. 

Spontaneous  Disintegration  of  the  Undivided  Family. — The  un- 
divided family  implied  the  exercise  of  authority  by  the  elders,  and 
conduced  to  a  considerable  degree  of  ease  on  their  part.  The  pater- 
familias  oppressed  his  sons,  acting,  indeed,  as  a  driving  foreman  of 
the  working  force  of  the  family,  while  the  materfamilias  equally 
oppressed  her  daughters-in-law.  ^  The  reasons  given  by  the  peas- 
antry for  separation  are  these  : 

^  Kovalevsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  61. 

'  Peasant  lads  generally  marry  at  about  eighteen  or  nineteen  years  of 
age.     At  twenty-one  they  go  to  military  service.     Their  wives  remain  members 


PRIMITIVE   FAMILY   CUSTOMS      267 

"  Non-division  causes  the  able  and  laborious  to  work  for  the  idle 
and  incapable.  It  is  unjust  to  force  an  unmarried  person  to  divide 
his  savings  with  a  relative  enjoying  the  pleasures  of  married  Ufe 
and  a  numerous  progeny,  who,  on  account  of  their  youth,  are  not 
yet  able  to  earn  anything  by  the  work  of  their  hands.  They  also 
affirm  that  as  the  dwelling-place  is  too  small  to  accommodate  a  large 
family,  they  are  forced  to  divide  in  order  to  Uve  with  decency."  ^ 
The  strongest  motive,  however,  making  for  "  separations  "  has  been 
the  excessive  labour  of  the  subordinate  members  of  the  undivided 
family.  Family  quarrels  arising  out  of  this  excessive  labour  fre- 
quently rendered  separation  inevitable,  and  when  separation  oc- 
curred from  this  cause,  the  filial  relations  were  altered,  and  this 
circumstance  contributed  importantly  to  the  revolutionary  state  of 
mind  of  the  younger  and  more  vigorous  peasants.  Thus  the  younger 
inhabitants  of  the  villages,  suffering  at  once  from  exactions  by  their 
family  elders,  by  the  community,  and  by  the  Government,  suffering 
from  interferences  with  their  personal  freedom  and  mobility  prac- 
tised by  all  of  these  external  forces,  and  suffering  also  from  want  of 
land  and  of  agricultural  capital,  took  the  lead  in  the  revolutionary 
movements,  feehng  that  some  extraordinary  demonstration  was 
necessary  to  improve  their  condition.  In  many  cases  they  dragged 
their  elders  after  them  into  these  movements.  In  the  acts  of  revolt 
against  administrative  authority  there  thus  often  lay  concealed  acts 
of  revolt  against  the  authority  of  their  parents  and  elders.  The 
breaking  up  of  the  undivided  family  thus  plays  an  important  role  in 
the  revolutionary  movement  by  preparing  the  minds  of  the  younger 
people  in  the  peasant  communities. 

But  the  tendency  towards  separations  has  been  at  intervals 
checked  by  the  spontaneous  action  of  the  commimities  themselves. 
The  elders  found  that  separation  was  being  used  by  the  younger  people 
to  enable  them  to  escape  the  payment  of  their  share  of  the  redemption 

of  the  paternal  households  during  the  four  years  of  the  military  service 
rendered  by  their  husbands.  This  practice  leads  to  undesirable  results. 
The  young  husbands  are  corrupted  in  the  army,  and  the  young  wives  (con- 
temptuously called  by  the  peasants  soldatki)  are  too  frequently  corrupted 
at  home.  On  the  return  of  the  young  soldiers,  family  quarrels  take  place, 
and  for  this  reason,  and  because  of  the  hard  toil  of  the  peasant  life,  to  which 
during  his  military  service  he  has  been  unaccustomed,  the  reservist  often 
leaves  his  family  and  goes  into  the  city,  where  he  becomes  a  policeman  or  a 
janitor.  His  wife  is  frequently  left  permanently  behind. 
\  Kovalevsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  66. 


268     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

tax.  They  thus  attempted  to  check  the  tendency  by  refusing  to 
permit  separations  even  of  a  temporary  character.  This  attitude 
of  the  communities  led  those  who  desired  separation  to  undertake 
to  continue  to  pay  their  share  of  the  tax  after  separation.  On  this 
understanding  conditional  separations  took  place.^ 

Administrative  Discouragements  of  Separations. — It  is  obvious 
that  the  administration  was  under  the  necessity  either  of  discourag- 
ing separations,  because  they  compromised  the  collection  of  taxes, 
or  of  altering  the  system  of  taxation,  and  of  abolishing  the  system 
of  mutual  responsibility  for  the  punctual  payment  of  taxes.  Prior 
to  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs  in  1861,  separations  were  discour- 
aged by  the  landowners,  because  the  management  of  the  serfs  by 
their  owners  was  greatly  facilitated  by  the  circumstance  that  the 
number  of  heads  of  households  was  small,  while  their  authority  over 
the  members  of  their  households  was  great.  After  Emancipation, 
when  the  redemption  tax  came  to  be  imposed,  the  head  of  the 
family  became  responsible  for  the  whole  of  the  tax  due  by  his  house- 
hold. The  collection  of  the  tax  was  simpler  than  it  would  have 
been  had  the  tax-collector  been  obliged  to  deal  with  each  member 
individually.  Thus  when  the  question  of  tjjc  responsibility  was 
fixed  upon  the  head  of  the  household  the  difficulty  of  breaking  up 
the  family  by  separations  was  greatly  increased. 

Yet  separations  continued,  permitted  and  unpermitted,  the 
latter  sometimes  greatly  predominating  over  the  former.  Where 
the  head  of  an  undivided  family  was  a  man  of  strong  character, 
separations  were  unusual.  When,  however,  the  contrary  was 
the  case,  there  was  a  tendency  to  disputes  which  led  ultimately  to 
separations.  These  were  frequently  postponed,  however,  until  the 
death  of  the  head  of  the  household,  or  until  the  return  of  some  mem- 
ber of  the  family  from  military  service.  The  effects  of  the  separa- 
tions upon  the  prosperity  of  the  peasants  involved  in  them  were 
very  serious.  The  separated  groups  took  with  them  their  shares  of 
the  farm  implements  and  the  cattle,  and  the  family  land  was  fre- 
quently subject  also  to  division  ;  but  the  separated  groups  had 
rarely  sufficient  means  to  establish  themselves  independently  with 
any  likelihood  of  success.  The  need  for  land,  which  had  manifested 
itself  even  in  the  undivided  family,  became  more  insistent  as  separa- 

^  It  is  said  that  sometimes  permission  to  separate  was  obtained  from  the 
volost  courts  by  treating  the  people  of  the  village  to  vodka. 


N 


PRIMITIVE   FAMILY   CUSTOMS      269 

tions  took  place,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  peasants  affected  was 
diminished.  Many  were  for  this  reason,  as  well  as  on  account  of 
the  attractions  in  the  form  of  opportunities  of  labour  and  for  amuse- 
ments, driven  or  drawn  into  the  industrial  towns.  The  economic 
consequences  of  separations  having  become  very  obvious,  a  com- 
mittee was  appointed  by  Alexander  III  to  make  inquiry  into  the 
matter.  The  local  functionaries  reported  that  in  spite  of  the  pro- 
hibition of  separations  by  the  authorities,  and  in  spite  of  reluctance 
on  the  part  of  the  communities  to  permit  them,  separations  were 
going  on  in  great  numbers.  Peasants  who  separated  from  joint 
famihes  were  put  in  gaol.  They  served  their  terms,  returned  to 
their  villages,  and  separated  again.  Only  five  per  cent,  of  all  separa- 
tions in  villages  are  said  to  have  been  permitted  separations. 

Divisions  were,  indeed,  going  on,  in  spite  of  administrative  and 
communal  discouragement,  to  such  an  extent  that  the  Government 
became  increasingly  embarrassed  in  the  collection  of  the  redemption 
tax,  the  mutual  guarantee  notwithstanding.  The  redemption  tax 
fell  heavily  into  arrear.  The  embarrassment  of  the  Government  led 
to  the  law  of  April  1889,  and  later  to  that  of  loth  April  1894,  both 
having  for  their  object  the  hmitation  of  the  number  of  permitted 
family  separations.  As  a  result  of  these  laws,  about  5  per  cent, 
only  of  the  applications  for  separation  were  granted  by  the  local 
authorities. 

Vacillation  of  the  Government  on  the  Separation  Question. — 
While  M.  Yermolov  was  Minister  of  State  Domains  and  Agricul- 
ture, he  proposed  in  1889  to  check  separations  by  abolishing  the 
duties  on  artificial  manure  and  agricultural  implements,  in  order 
that  the  larger  peasant  family  groups  might  cultivate  their  land 
to  more  advantage  by  devoting  their  family  capital  to  improve- 
ments. M.  Witte,  however,  opposed  this  measure  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  inconsistent  with  the  protective  policy  which  he  was 
then  advocating,  and  which  was  brought  to  a  high  point  in  1891. 
In  this  attitude  M.  Witte  was  quite  consistent  with  his  general 
policy  of  promoting  Russian  industrial  development.  From  his 
point  of  view  separations  were  to  be  desired  rather  than  prevented. 
The  organic  family  group,  occupying  itself  as  it  did  in  ineffective 
agriculture,  were  better  broken  up,  in  order  that  its  constituent 
elements  might  enter  into  fresh  artificial  combinations  under  the 
auspices  of  capitalistic  industry. 


270     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

From  the  commercial  and  industrial  point  of  view  the  breaking 
up  of  the  undivided  family  was  to  be  desired  ;  from  the  com- 
munal, agricultural,  and  Slavophil  points  of  view  it  was  to  be 
deprecated.  To  the  communaUsts  the  new  order  meant  new 
slavery,  to  the  industriahsts  it  meant  escape  from  the  practical 
slavery  of  the  younger  generations  which  the  communal  system 
involved. 

Impetus  to  Separations  given  by  the  Abolition  of  the  Redemption 
Tax. — The  attitude  of  the  Government,  of  the  local  authorities, 
and  of  the  community  changed  only  when  the  redemption  tax 
was  abolished.  The  aboUtion  gave  a  great  impetus  to  separations 
through  the  removal  of  the  obligation  of  mutual  guarantee.  The 
increase  of  individualism,  or,  at  all  events,  the  increase  in  the 
manifestation  of  it,  the  altered  parental  relations  consequent  upon 
separation,  and  the  increased  self-assertiveness  of  the  young  re- 
sulted, at  least  temporarily,  in  the  diminution  of  social  soUdarity, 
as  well  as  in  increased  migration  from  the  village  to  the  town. 
The  disintegration  of  the  undivided  family  has  thus  been  a  struc- 
tural change,  involving  an  alteration  in  the  character  of  the  peasant, 
in  which  some  of  the  finer  peasant  qualities  may  not  improbably  be 
lost  during  the  transition  from  an  old  to  a  new  family  order. 

Peasant  Views  about  the  Tenure  of  Land. — Associated  with  the 
conceptions  naturally  arising  out  of  the  conditions  of  the  undivided 
household  are  the  views  about  the  land  common  to  the  peasantry 
in  different  parts  of  Russia.  These  views  are  illustrated  in  the 
writings  of  several  of  the  Russian  novelists — e.g.  in  Turgueniev's 
sketch  Moumou,  in  Tolstoy's  Russian  Proprietor,  in  Uspensky's 
Ivan  Afanasiev,  and  in  Zlatovratsky's  Oustoy  (The  Solid  Base).^ 
A  vivid  description  of  the  attitude  of  the  mujtk  towards  the  land 
is  given  by  Stepniak  in  his  Russian  Peasantry.  Stepniak  quotes 
the  translation  in  John  Stuart  Mill's  Political  Economy  ^  of  a  passage 
from  Michelet's  People^  in  which  he  describes  with  warmth  the 
passion  of  a  French  peasant  for  his  land,  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
trasting it  with  Uspensky's  sketch  in  his  Ivan  Afanasiev  of  a  Russian 
peasant,  "  a  genuine  husbandman,  indissolubly  bound  to  the  soil 
both  in  mind  and  heart.     The  land  was  in  his  conception  his  real 

^  Quoted  by  Kovalevsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  62. 
2  Mill,  J.  S.,  Political  Economy,  p.  172  n. 
'  Michelet's  People,  pt.  i.  chap.  i. 


PRIMITIVE   FAMILY   CUSTOMS      271 

foster-mother  and  benefactress,  the  source  of  all  his  joys  and 
sorrows,  and  the  object  of  his  daily  prayers  and  thanksgivings  to 
God.  ...  He  and  his  land  are  almost  living  parts  of  the  same 
whole.  Nevertheless  Ivan  Afanasiev  does  not  feel  in  the  least 
Hke  a  bondsman  chained  to  the  soil ;  on  the  contrary,  the  union 
between  the  man  and  the  object  of  his  cares  has  nothing  com- 
pulsory in  it.  It  is  free  and  pure  because  it  springs  spontaneously 
from  the  unmixed  and  evident  good  the  land  is  bestowing  on  the 
man.  Quite  independently  of  any  selfish  incentive,  the  man 
begins  to  feel  convinced  that  for  this  good  received  he  must  repay 
his  land,  his  benefactress,  with  care  and "  labour. '  ^  Stepniak 
points  out  that,  unlike  the  French  peasant,  the  Russian  mujik 
has  in  his  "  longing  after  land  more  of  the  love  of  a  labourer  for  a 
certain  kind  of  work  which  is  congenial  to  him,  than  of  a  concrete 
attachment  of  an  owner  to  a  thing  possessed."  ^ 

The  attitude  of  the  Russian  peasant  to  the  land  is  quaintly  put 
in  a  petition  to  the  Canadian  Government  by  Peter  Veregin,  the 
leader  of  the  Dukhobortsi  in  Canada. 

"  The  earth  is  God's  creation,  created  for  the  benefit  of  the 
human  race,  and  for  all  that  Uve  on  it.  The  earth  is  our  common 
mother,  who  feeds  us,  protects  us,  rejoices  us,  and  warms  us  with 
love  from  the  moment  of  our  birth  until  we  go  to  take  our  eternal 
rest  in  her  maternal  bosom."  ^ 

From  this  point  of  view  land  is  a  gift  of  God  to  the  cultivator, 
to  use,  but  not  to  appropriate.  This  was  undoubtedly  the  ancient 
Russian  view.  "  The  word  property,  as  appUed  to  land,  hardly 
existed  in  ancient  Russia.  No  equivalent  to  this  neologism  is  to 
be  found  in  old  archives,  charters,  or  patents.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  meet  at  every  step  with  rights  acquired  by  use  and  occupation. 
The  land  is  recognized  as  being  the  natural  possession  of  the  hus- 
bandman, the  fisher,  or  the  hunter — of  him  *  who  sits  upon  it.*  "  * 
*'  In  the  Uving  language  of  peasants  of  modem  times  there  is  no 

*  Uspensky.  Ivan  Afanasiev,  quoted  in  Stepniak,  Russian  Peasantry  (ed. 
New  York,  1888)  pp.  148  et  seq. 

2  Stepniak,  op.  cit.,  p.  148. 

»  Petition  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  and  all  People  of  Canada  from  the 
Christian  Community  of  the  Universal  Brotherhood  of  the  Doukhobors  in 
Canada,  7th  March  1907. 

*  Prince  Vasilchikov,  Land  Tenure  and  Rural  Economy  (St.  Petersburg, 
1881),  quoted  by  Stepniak,  op.  cit.,  p.  6. 


272     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

term  which  expresses  the  idea  of  property  over  the  land  in  the 
usual  sense  of  the  word."  ^ 

This  conception,  not  by  any  means  entertained  by  the  peasants 
in  Russia  exclusively,  of  the  use  of  land  as  the  function  of  the 
peasant,  while  the  appropriation  of  it  in  any  form  of  ownership  is 
regarded  as  inadmissible,  is  probably  a  survival  of  the  idea  of  land 
occupancy  which  naturally  arises  in  the  minds  of  pastoral  people. 
Among  such  people  land  belongs  to  no  one  ;  it  is,  so  to  say,  free 
as  air,  but  its  use  is  enjoyed  by  those  who  traverse  it.  From  this 
point  of  view  rent  is  an  anomaly.  Yet  the  quarrels  of  pastoral 
tribes  about  their  routes  upon  the  steppes  show  that  even  they 
had  definite  ideas  of  a  tribal  interest  in  the  land  traversed  by  them 
periodically.  Although  this  conception  frequently  reappears  in 
peasants'  discussions  about  land,^  the  practical  difficulties  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  rights  of  permanent  occupancy  and  rights  of 
ownership  become  very  great,  especially  when  population  is  in- 
creasing and  the  available  area  of  land  is  naturally  or  artificially 
limited.  These  difficulties  appear  even  in  the  "  undivided  family,  **^ 
whose  definite  regulations  about  ownership  of  land  within  the 
family  have  been  noticed  above. 

Peasant  Conceptions  of  Equality  and  Unanimity 

A  firm  sense  of  equality  within  the  class  pervades  Russian  peasant 
opinion.  This  sense  of  equality  tends  to  prevent  the  rise  of  aggressive 
individuals,  although  it  is  not  always  effectual  in  doing  so.  With  \ 
it  is  very  definitely  associated  the  practice,  universal  in  peasant 
assemblies,  of  requiring  unanimity  in  decisions.  In  the  beginning  vl 
of  discussions  there  is  always  a  majority  and  a  minority,  but  as 
the  discussion  proceeds  one  party  convinces  the  other  or  induces  or 
compels  the  other  into  acquiescence.  This  practice  involves  often 
very  noisy  proceedings.  The  orators  try  to  shout  one  another  down, 
although  the  most  influential  are  not  always  the  most  vociferous. 
The  practice  of  securing  unanimity  also  involves  sometimes  very 
long  meetings,  one  party  relying  upon  its  physical  endurance  to 
wear  the  other  out.     Eventually  the  opposition  melts  away  or 

*  Stepniak,  loc.  cit. 

'  An  account  of  some  of  the  discussions  is  given  in  the  next  chapter. 
The  peasant  views  about  land  are  further  discussed  in  chapter  x.,  infra. 


PRIMITIVE   FAMILY   CUSTOMS       273 

abandons  its  position,  and  the  measure,  whatever  it  is,  is  passed^ 
Frequently,  however,  hard  feeUngs  remain,  to  accumulate  in  course 
of  time  into  more  or  less  formidable  hostility.  Thus  beneath  ap- 
parent harmony  in  a  village  community  there  often  lurks  real  dis- 
cord, and  then  unanimity  being  regarded  as  essential,  there  is 
nothing  to  be  done  but  for  the  malcontents  to  leave  the  community 
or  to  be  expelled  from  it.  Unanimity  is  inconsistent  with  agree- 
ment to  differ.  The  rule  of  the  majority,  with  the  proviso  that 
the  rights  of  minorities  will  be  respected,  seems  less  likely  to  result 
in  tyranny  than  a  system  of  compulsory  unanimity.  The  extent 
to  which  the  mir  has  availed  itself  of  its  powers  to  flog  and  to  exile 
its  members  shows  that  "  unanimity  "  is  not  unaccompanied  by 
t)^anny.  Yet  in  certain  phases  of  social  development  the  univer- 
sality of  the  practice  of  unanimity  seems  to  suggest  advantages  in 
securing  the  safety  and  the  continuity  of  the  political  and  social 
structure.  The  nonconformist  and  the  heretic  are  enemies  to  the 
family  hearth,  and  they  must  be  got  rid  of.  The  practice  of  the 
autocracy  in  stamping  out  what  it  considers  as  subversive  ten- 
dencies, and  in  exiUng  or  destroying  all  who  presume  to  criticize 
the  administration,  may  be  related,  along  with  the  peasant  con- 
ception of  compulsory  unanimity,  to  primitive  social  conceptions, 
naturally  arising  under  conditions  when  social  soUdarity  is  the 
first  essential.^ 

It  may  be  regarded  as  doubtful  that  the  tradition  of  unanimity 
would  have  prevented  the  disintegration  of  the  family  had  it  not 
been  reinforced  by  the  powerful  agency  of  the  mutual  guarantee. 
The  friction  produced  by  the  mutual  guarantee  was,  nevertheless, 
an  important  factor  in  producing  family  disintegration,  the  tendency 
to  unanimity  notwithstanding. 

Redistribution  of  Peasant  Lands  in  Practice 

The  practice  of  redistribution  of  peasant  lands  varies  widely  in 
different  parts  of  Russia.  In  the  following  sketch  two  typical  dis- 
tricts are  taken  by  way  of  example  :  (i)  A  district  in  the  forest 
region  in  the  north,  where  the  soil  is  poor  ;  and  (2)  a  district  in  the 
rich  Black  Soil  region. 

*  For  a  very  lively  account  of  such  an  assembly  among  the  Ziranes  in  the 
Arkhangelskaya  gi*b.,  see  Shukin,  P.,  "  With  the  Ziranes."  in  Russkoe  BogcUstvo, 
No.  8,  August  1905,  pp.  17  et  seq. 

'  See  also  supra,  pp.  lo  et  seq. 

VOL.  II  S 


274     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

I.  The  District  of  By  dozer  sk. — ^This  district  is  in  Novgorodskaya 
guh.  The  land  is  too  poor  for  wheat  cultivation  ;  the  chief  crops 
are  rye  and  oats.  The  three-field  system  of  rotation  is  generally 
adopted — rye,  oats,  and  fallow.  The  redistribution  of  the  land 
takes  place  at  no  fixed  period ;  but  whenever  a  number  of  people 
become  dissatisfied  with  the  quality  of  the  land  allotted  to  them,  or 
with  the  quantity  of  it  in  relation  to  the  number  of  revision  souls 
in  their  families,  such  people  complain  to  the  skhod,  or  village  as- 
sembly, and  if  they  succeed  in  convincing  the  skhod  that  the  time 
for  redistribution  has  arrived,  a  sentence  of  the  skhod  is  passed,  and 
redistribution  takes  place.  The  skhod  is  not  bound  to  divide  the 
land  in  accordance  with  the  number  of  revision  souls  ;  but  it  usually 
does  so,  because  this  is  the  traditional  basis  of  division.  The  system 
of  redistribution  does  not,  however,  apply  to  all  the  land  in  the 
possession  of  the  community.  Meadow  land  which  has  been  cleared 
by  a  peasant  is  allowed  to  remain  in  his  possession,  and  is  not 
subject  to  redi vision ;  nor  is  the  peasant  who  has  brought  it  into 
cultivation  liable  for  taxes  in  respect  to  it.  Meadow  land,  however, 
on  the  banks  of  the  rivers,  which  overflow  and  which  deposit  mud 
upon  the  meadows,  and  thus  enrich  them,  is  subject  to  distribution 
like  the  field  lands. 

Until  about  1904  garden  land  was  also  exempt,  but  now  garden 
as  well  as  "  field  "  land,  or  land  under  oats  and  rye,  is  subject  to 
division  on  complaint  to  the  skhod.  If  a  widow,  whose  husband 
had  cultivated  land  and  paid  taxes  for  one  revision  soul,  is  able  to 
work  the  land,  either  by  her  own  labour  or  by  that  of  her  family, 
and  if  she  can  pay  the  taxes  to  the  amount  due  by  one  revision  soul, 
she  is  not  disturbed  in  possession  ;  but  if  she  is  unable  to  pay  the 
taxes,  the  land  will  be  taken  from  her  by  the  skhod,  and  will  be 
handed  over  by  it  to  someone  who  undertakes  to  pay  taxes  in  respect 
to  one  revision  soul  more  than  the  number  to  which  he  had  been 
himself  entitled.  If  a  peasant  who  is  entitled  to  land  in  respect  to 
two  revision  souls  finds  the  corresponding  taxes  burdensome,  he 
may  transfer,  if  the  skhod  permit,  one-half  of  his  privileges  and 
obligations,  retaining  the  right  to  the  amount  of  land  due  to  one 
revision  soul  and  undertaking  to  pay  the  taxes  in  respect  to  one 
soul.  In  this  way  the  equihbrium  of  the  distribution  is  preserved 
among  the  able-bodied  members  of  the  village  community. 

As  the  village  grows  and  the  number  of  ezbas  increases,  a  peasant 


PRIMITIVE   FAMILY   CUSTOMS      275 

often  builds  his  ezba  on  the  land  allotted  to  another.  Complaint  is 
made  to  the  skhod,  and  the  peasant  upon  whose  land  the  ezba  of 
another  has  been  built  receives  compensation  in  land  elsewhere.  It 
is,  however,  now  usual  for  a  peasant  to  get  permission  from  the 
skhod  before  he  builds  his  dweUing.  Formerly  the  land  upon  which 
the  ezba  was  built  was  not  taken  into  account  in  allotting  the  lands, 
but  now  it  is  taken  into  account. 

2.  Saratovskaya  Gub. — In  the  Black  Soil  region,  where  the  land 
is  relatively  valuable,  the  land  is,  as  a  rule,  redistributed  every  four, 
or  at  farthest  every  six,  years.  The  distribution  is  effected  in  terms 
not  of  revision  souls,  but  of  male  souls  in  the  family.  There  are  no 
forests,  and  thus  the  whole  of  the  land  tends  to  become  field  land 
and  subject  to  redi vision.  The  allotments  are  relatively  small — 
4-5  dessiatines  per  revision  soul.  As  the  land  deteriorates  in  quaUty 
from  continuous  cropping  it  becomes  more  sensitive  to  climatic 
changes,  and  thus  two  important  influences  make  for  diminished 
crops.  Although,  in  consequence  of  the  scarcity  of  land  other  than 
the  field  land,  there  is  httle  pasture,  the  peasants  have  some  cattle  ; 
but  the  manure  from  these  is  not  put  upon  the  land  to  fertiHze  it, 
but  is  made  into  fuel,  because  there  is  no  timber.  The  manure  is 
put  into  piles,  dried  by  its  own  combustion,  and  then  trampled  into 
powder  by  the  treading  of  horses.  The  powdered  material  is  mixed 
with  water,  pressed  into  briquettes,  and  so  used  as  fuel.  Some  oi 
the  peasants  who  have  knowledge  of  what  is  done  elsewhere  object 
to  the  system  of  distribution,  on  the  ground  that  it  does  not  conduce 
to  high  cultivation  ;  but  this  effect  may  be  due  to  other  causes,  and 
perhaps  chiefly  to  the  absence  of  agricultural  knowledge  as  well  as 
to  the  absence  of  agricultural  capital.^ 

1  These  details  have  been  obtained  from  peasants  in   the  districts  in 
question. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   CONTEMPORARY  POMYETSCHEK 

The  pomyetschek,  or  estate  proprietor,  of  to-day  falls  into  one  or 
other  of  several  classes.  The  peculiarities  of  each  class  will  neces- 
sarily be  described  in  various  ways  by  people  who  have  had  different 
opportunities  for  observation  and  who  have  varied  prepossessions. 
On  the  great  estates,  the  administration  of  which  is  in  the  hands  of 
German  managers,  skilled  in  the  technique  of  agriculture  and  in  the 
management  of  labourers,  the  great  proprietors  seldom  live.  In 
the  winter  they  are  to  be  found  in  St.  Petersburg,  as  members  of  the 
Council  of  State  or  of  the  Duma,  or  merely  as  members  of  the  fashion- 
able society  of  the  capital,  in  Moscow  in  society  there,  at  their  villas 
at  Yalta,  Alupka,  or  Gurzuf,  in  the  Crimea — on  the  Riviera  or  in 
Italy —  cultivated,  intelligent,  and  benevolent,  or  ignorant,  dull,  and 
cynical,  according  to  their  temperament.  In  rare  cases  proprietors 
of  large  estates  reside  almost  altogether  upon  them,  taking  an  active 
share  in  their  management,  and,  on  the  whole,  working  them  not 
only  to  their  own  advantage  but  to  the  advantage  of  the  peasantry 
upon  them.  Another  class  of  large  proprietors  rent  their  lands  to 
Jews,  who  pay  a  stipulated  amount  to  the  proprietors,  and  then 
sub-let  the  land  to  peasants,  exacting  from  these  in  most  cases  as 
much  as  is  possible.  Such  proprietors  come  little  in  contact  with 
the  peasants  even  when  they  live  in  their  country  houses.  They 
frequently  travel  abroad  for  sport  or  pleasure,  and  if  they  are  mem- 
bers of  one  or  other  of  the  important  bodies  by  means  of  which  the 
central  government  is  carried  on,  they  spend  a  portion  of  each  year 
at  St.  Petersburg.  Members  of  the  first  or  second  classes  above 
mentioned  are  usually  members  of  the  local  administration  of  the 
district  or  gubernie  in  which  their  estates  are  situated — the  govern- 
ment of  the  gubernie  or  the  Zemstvo  Assembly.  The  third  class 
may  be  regarded  as  much  more  numerous  than  either  the  first  or  the 

second.    This  class  embraces  the  proprietors  of  estates  of  from  three 

276 


CONTEMPORARY   POMTETSCHEK     277 

thousand  to  five  thousand  dessiatines — considerable,  but  not  large, 
estates.  Many  such  proprietors  are  also  public  officials — spending 
the  larger  part  of  the  year  either  in  one  or  other  of  the  capitals,  or  in 
the  capital  of  the  gubernie.  Some  of  them  are  judges,  some  are 
members  of  the  central  or  local  governments,  some  are  military 
men.  The  estates  of  members  of  this  class  are  sometimes  managed 
very  efficiently,  even  although  the  proprietors  may  not  spend  more 
than  a  few  months  in  each  year  upon  them.  The  proprietors  are  in 
many  cases  not  merely  well-educated  men,  but  they  are  also  skilled 
in  estate  management.  They  have  attended  forestry  or  agricul- 
tural schools,  and  have  kept  in  touch  with  improved  methods  of 
agriculture  in  their  own  or  in  other  countries.  Other  members  of 
the  same  class,  who  are  not  officials,  have  similarly  acquired  a 
knowledge  of  the  business  of  estate  management,  hve  con- 
tinuously upon  their  estates,  and  maintain  production  upon 
them  at  a  high  level. 

In  all  the  above  groups,  with  the  exception  of  some  of  those 
whose  estates  have  been  let  to  Jews,  the  estates  are  as  a  rule  well 
managed,  the  roads  are  in  good  order,  the  buildings  properly  main- 
tained, the  forests  not  depleted,^  and  the  industry  of  the  peasants 
is  well  organized  in  such  a  way  as  to  provide  continuous  employ- 
ment. 

A  fourth  group  may  be  regarded  as  comprising  those  proprietors 
of  estates  of  the  same  magnitude  as  the  last  who  from  ignorance, 
indolence,  or  otherwise,  allow  their  estates  to  be  incompetently 
managed,  the  roads  and  buildings  to  fall  into  disrepair,  and  the  fields, 
forests,  and  orchards,  to  be  neglected.  On  such  estates  the  peasants 
are  sometimes  subjected  to  severe  exactions,  while  no  efforts,  or 
merely  spasmodic  efforts,  are  made  to  enable  them  to  live  prosper- 
ously. The  consequences  of  this  state  of  matters  are  easily  dis- 
cernible in  the  aspect  of  the  villages.  The  peasants'  houses  fall 
into  cureless  ruin.^  The  negUgence  of  the  pomyetschek  is  reflected 
in  the  negligence  of  the  peasants.  Even  where  the  fields  of  the 
pomyetschek  are  well  cultivated,  the  contiguous  fields  of  the  peasants 

*  There  axe  stringent  forest  regulations  ;  but  in  some  parts  of  Russia 
these  are  habitually  neglected. 

«  The  writer  has  seen  on  such  estates  in  1 899  peasants'  houses  fairly  well 
built  of  brick,  erected  under  the  influence  of  spasmodic  energy.  In  1910 
these  same  houses  were  found  by  him  to  be  rapidly  tumbling  to  pieces  under 
the  influence  of  a  careless  proprietor  and  hopeless  and  indifferent  peasants. 


2/8     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

are  not  always  so ;  but  where  the  fields  of  the  pomyetschek  are 
neglected,  the  peasants*  fields  are  invariably  neglected  also. 

A  fifth  group  might  be  discerned,  in  which  there  might  be  included 
the  proprietors  of  estates  of  less  than  3000  dessiatines,  in  which 
there  would  also  appear  a  similar  subdivision  into  inteUigent  and 
conscientious  proprietors  who  conceived  their  duty  in  a  high  sense, 
and  those  who  were  indolent,  dissolute,  and  careless — both  dissemi- 
nating their  qualities  round  about  them  among  the  peasantry.^ 

In  his  very  interesting  Notes  of  a  Governor — Kisheniev,  Prince  S.  D. 
Urusov  gives  an  estimate  of  the  changes  which  have  been  occurring  in 
the  inner  life  of  the  pomyetschek  class  during  the  past  thirty  years. 

"  I  have  known  well,"  he  says,  "  the  customs,  character,  tradi- 
tions, and  peculiarities  of  the  gentry  of  the  Great  Russian  provinces, 
particularly  the  provinces  of  the  Moscow  region.  .  .  .  In  the  eighties 
and  nineties  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  might  be  found  not 
seldom  large  estates  with  traces  of  former  greatness,  with  parks, 
centuries  old,  with  artificial  lakes  and  peach  orchards,  with  valuable 
furniture,  rare  bronzes,  family  portraits,  and  libraries  in  large  rooms 
in  old  but  still  quite  habitable  houses.  It  was,  however,  even  then 
to  be  noticed  that  the  former  Ufe  of  the  nobility  on  such  estates  was 
dechning,  that  old  houses  and  old  luxuries  could  not  in  the  majority 
of  cases  be  maintained  on  the  former  plane  ;  yet  the  spirit  of  the  old 
nobility  still  survived,  and  the  sight  of  all  this  antiquity  might 
inspire  a  certain  amount  of  aesthetic  satisfaction.  ..."  Besides 
these,  there  were  at  that  time,  "  households  more  closely  adapted  to 
the  contemporary  conditions — households  without  agricultural 
experts  or  managers,  but  being  managed  by  the  owner  himself, 
who  Hved  upon  his  estate,  and  who  had  as  assistants  a  starosta  (or 
peasant  foreman)  or  a  clerk.  In  the  majority  of  such  estates  there 
was  no  luxury. 2  A  few  days  of  hunting  in  the  autumn,  three  home- 
bred horses,  and  some  pet  colt,  upon  whom  there  were  placed 
exaggerated  and  in  most  cases  false  hopes — these  comprised  the  lux- 
uries of  the  pomyetschek,  who  received  from  his  estate  modest  but 

^  Many  of  the  smaller  gentry  are  scarcely,  if  at  all,  superior  in  respect  to 
education  to  the  peasantry.  The  writer  has  met  with  cases  in  which  educated 
peasants  were  applied  to  by  indifferently-educated  pomyetscheke  to  conduct 
for  them  official  correspondence  which  they  were  unable  to  conduct  for 
themselves. 

2  There  was,  however,  a  certain  rude  comfort  and  general  evidence  of 
well-being. 


CONTEMPORARY   POMTETSCHEK     279 

genuine  profits  in  those  rubles  which,  according  to  the  Russian  pro- 
verb, '  are  thin  but  long.'  Quick  enrichment  from  the  management 
of  such  estates  could  not  be  expected.  Yet  notwithstanding  com- 
plaints of  bad  yields,  of  deamess  of  labour,  of  dishonesty  of  neigh- 
bouring peasants,  the  possessors  of  small  estates  were  Hving  modestly, 
but  with  satisfaction,  and  although  sometimes  they  adorned  the 
pages  of  bank  publications,  they  nevertheless  were  becoming  rich 
owing  to  the  slow  but  continuous  advance  in  the  price  of  land.  Of 
such  steady  landowning  gentry  I  knew  many,  especially  in  the  non- 
Black  Soil  region,  and  I  should  say  that  they  constituted  a  pheno- 
menon— in  general  favourable.  Their  relations  with  peasants,  in 
spite  of  occasional  disagreements,  were  in  most  cases  not  uncordial. 
Exploitation  of  peasants  on  their  part  was  rare ;  on  the  contrary, 
there  was  in  their  relations  with  working  peasants  a  certain  kind  of 
union,  which  was  developed  by  continuous  mutual  activity.  .  .  . 
Simphcity  of  hfe,  absence  of  class  exclusiveness  and  class  pride  in 
the  sense  of  ostentation,  a  laborious  nural  hfe,  understanding  of 
popular  wants,  and  considerate  relations  with  the  neighbouring 
peasantry  characterized  the  average  fomyetschek  with  whom  I  was 
acquainted  in  Kalujskaya  gub. 

"  Quite  another  picture  was  presented  in  Bessarabia.  There  on 
the  estates  of  rich  pomyetscheke  great  luxury  might  be  met  with ; 
but  in  them  there  was  none  of  that  old  magnificence  which  in  Great 
Russia  had  come  from  the  time  of  Katherine  II  and  Alexander  I. 
The  houses  of  the  Bessarabian  gentry  are  sometimes  Hghted  with 
electricity,  but  there  are  not  to  be  found  the  oil  lamps  of  the  style  of 
the  First  Empire,  or  the  bronze  candelabra  and  lustres  by  which  in 
Central  Russia  the  houses  of  the  old  gentry  are  distinguished.^  The 
book-presses  of  the  Bessarabian  gentry  are  full  of  the  latest  romances ; 
but  there  are  no  French  encyclopaedists  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
bound  in  leather  with  gold  letters.  Nor  could  there  be  seen  in  their 
houses  the  old  furniture  made  by  home-bred  carpenters.  In  them 
everything  is  made  according  to  the  prevailing  fashion — everything 
is  new  and  everything  is  often  changed.  Perhaps  there  is  much 
more  of  convenience  in  these  houses  than  there  is  with  us,  but  they 
are,  after  all,  only  splendidly  furnished  rooms — they  are  not  old  Rus- 
sian gentry  nests.  Moreover,  among  the  Bessarabian  gentry  there 
was  not  noticeable  that  love  for  the  estate  which  with  us  is  indepen- 
*  These  are  also  to  be  found  in  such  houses  in  St.  Petersburg. 


28o     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

dent  of  the  beauty  and  profitableness  of  it.  We  look  upon  our 
estates  as  upon  inanimate  persons,  and  love  them  for  themselves, 
and  not  for  what  they  bring  to  us."  ^ 

In  Bessarabia,  owing  to  the  advance  in  the  price  of  wheat  and 
rye  during  recent  years,  the  accessibility  of  two  important  seaports — 
Odessa  and  Nikolaiev — greatly  increased  faciUties  in  these  ports, 
differential  railway  rates,  which  favoured  exportation,  the  income 
from  the  possession  of  land  greatly  increased,  and  the  prices  of  land 
advanced  rapidly.  *'  Estates  which  were  obtained  in  the  seventies 
for  25  to  35  rubles  per  dessiatine  were  transferred  in  my  time  into 
fifth  hands  for  250  to  350  rubles  per  dessiatine."  ^  At  the  first- 
mentioned  period  enrichment  of  the  soil  by  manure  was  unusual. 
The  increasing  value  of  land,  coupled  with  the  fact  that  the  land- 
owning gentry  were  frequently  very  indifferent  farmers,  led  to  the 
sale  of  the  land  to  others  who  were  better  able  to  exploit  them.  Thus 
the  estates  of  the  landholding  famiUes  speedily  melted  away. 

Even  when  the  estates  fell  into  the  hands  of  competent  owners, 
these  were  not  always  succeeded  by  competent  heirs,  and  thus  the 
process  of  enrichment  and  impoverishment  contributed  to  frequent 
changes  of  ownership  and  to  the  disappearance  of  successive  land- 
owning famiUes.3 

1  Prince  S.  D.  Urusov,  Notes  of  a  Governor :  Kisheniev  (Berlin,  1907), 
pp.  128-32. 

*  Urusov,  op.  cit.,  p.  133. 

^  Fondness  for  the  pleasures  of  the  table  is  a  usual  trait  among  landed 
proprietors  almost  throughout  Russia.  The  following  is  the  daily  routine 
even  in  households  which  pride  themselves  upon  their  simplicity  :  8  o'clock 
light  breakfast — tea,  bread,  and  honey,  e.g.  ;  1 1  o'clock,  breakfast  h  la  four- 
chette — a  formidable  meal ;  i  o'clock,  lunch  of  similar  character  ;  4-5  o'clock, 
tea  and  bread,  &c.  ;  7  o'clock,  dinner  of  numerous  courses  ;  9  o'clock,  supper  ; 
II  o'clock,  a  snack  before  retiral.  Prince  Urusov  gives  an  amusing  picture 
of  the  manage  of  a  Bessarabian  pomyetschek  whose  hospitality  he  had  accepted 
upon  the  distinct  understanding  that  simple  fare  must  alone  be  provided. 
"  At  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  we  sat  down  to  dinner.  The  table  was 
filled  with  bottles  and  zakuska  {hors  d'cBuvres)  of  various  kinds.  Having 
moderated  our  hunger,  we  continued  our  dinner  at  leisure.  We  were  served 
with  four  courses  of  nutritious  food  without  soup.  Having  sat  at  the  table 
for  an  hour  and  a  half,  I  waited  impatiently  for  an  opportunity  to  take  a 
walk  ;  but  I  found  that  what  we  had  despatched  had  been  merely  the  Bess- 
arabian zakuska,  and  that  the  Bessarabian  dinner  had  not  yet  "begun.  Two 
soups  were  then  served,  followed  by  seven  different  enormous  heavy  dishes. 
By  way  of  tacit  protest  I  refrained  from  touching  the  dishes  served  in  this 
unexpected  continuation  of  the  dinner.  I  regarded  the  conduct  of  my  host 
as  an  attempt  upon  my  health.  We  rose  from  the  table  about  seven  o'clock, 
having  sat  for  four  hours."     Urusov,  op.  cit.,  p.  136. 


CONTEMPORARY   POMTETSCHEK    281 

Apart  from  his  function  of  landowner,  the  typical  pomyetschek  is 
expected  to  bear  his  share  in  local  administration.  If  he  is  a  great 
landowner  he  will  probably  be  marshal  of  the  nobility  of  his  guberniya, 
or  he  may  serve  as  a  district  marshal,  or  as  an  honorary  judge  for 
a  district,  or  he  may  be  a  member  or  the  president  of  the  Zemstvo 
Assembly.  Sometimes  these  offices  are  filled  conscientiously  and 
efficiently.  During  the  period  prior  to  1905  the  Zemstvo  Assem- 
bUes  were  composed  very  largely  of  men  of  liberal  tendencies.  They 
promoted  on  the  one  hand  educational  enterprises,  and  on  the  other 
sought  to  improve  agriculture  by  employing  the  services  of  agronoms, 
whose  function  it  was  to  advise  about  the  improvement  of  agricul- 
ture. Frequently  their  relations  with  the  central  Government  were 
those  of  not  unfriendly  critics.  They  enjoyed  and  availed  them- 
selves of  a  considerable  freedom  of  speech.  But  the  agrarian  move- 
ments of  1905  excited  much  anxiety  among  them.  They  began  to 
see  in  the  agrarian  movement  a  force  that  might  make  for  their 
impoverishment  or  even  their  ruin.  Thus  there  came  about  the 
so-called  "  Righting  of  the  Zemstvos,"  or  their  turning  from  an 
attitude  of  benevolent,  though  sometimes,  perhaps,  superciUous, 
interest  in  the  peasantry,  to  one  of  extreme  devotion  to  the  Throne. 

In  Bessarabia  up  till  this  moment  the  Zemstvos,  led  by  enthusiasts 
among  the  nobility,  had  embarked  in  many  enterprises  which  were 
designed  to  educate  or  in  some  way  to  serve  the  peasantry.  These 
enterprises  sometimes  consisted  in  the  erection  in  the  casual  Bessara- 
bian  way  of  handsome  buildings  for  various  purposes — houses  for  pen- 
sioners, museums,  asylums,  and  the  like.  Sometimes  the  funds  for 
the  erection  of  these  came  from  the  central  Government,  and  some- 
times they  came  from  the  Zemstvo  taxes.  In  spite  of  the  good  in- 
tentions with  which  these  enterprises  were  conceived,  they  were 
constructed  on  a  scale  of  magnificence  which  heavily  taxed  the 
Zemstvos  to  maintain.  Thus,  although  some  of  them  were  works  of 
utiUty,  the  Zemstvos  were  unable  sometimes  even  to  utiUze  them, 
because  of  the  continuous  expense  involved  in  their  use.^ 

^  An  instance  of  this  is  given  by  Prince  Unisov,  op.  cit.,  p.  141. 


CHAPTER  IV 

AGRICULTURE  AFTER   EMANCIPATION 

n  Between  the  period  of  Emancipation  and  1887,  the  arable  land  of 
I  Russia  increased  25  per  cent.    This  increase  was  not,  however,  ex- 

!  tended  all  over  Russia  ;  in  the  Black  Soil  regions  the  arable  land 
increased  50  per  cent.,  while  in  the  non-Black  Soil  it  decreased 
10  per  cent.  The  area  of  arable  land  in  forty-six  guberni  of  Euro- 
pean Russia  (excluding  from  the  fifty  guberni  Penzinskaya,  Astra- 
khanskaya,  Liflandskaya,  and  Donskoye  oblast)  was  estimated  in 
)  1887  at  107.3  miUions  of  dessiatines,  or  28.2  per  cent,  of  the  total 
'area.  In  the  Black  Soil  zone  the  proportion  of  arable  land  was 
55.2  per  cent.,  and  in  the  non-Black  Soil  regions  12.7  per  cent.  The 
proportion  is  highest  in  Khersonskaya  gub.,  where  it  is  77.6  per  cent. , 
and  lowest  in  Arkhangelskaya  gub.,  where  it  is  o.i  per  cent.  Of  the 
total  of  arable  land  62.5  milUons  of  dessiatines,  or  58.3  per  cent.,  was 
imder  crop ;  23.5  millions  of  dessiatines,  or  21.9  per  cent.,  under 
annual  fallow ;  6.6  millions  of  dessiatines,  or  6.1  per  cent.,  under 
grass,  and  14.7  miUions  of  dessiatines  under  fallow  for  several  years. 
This  last  is  known  as  zalesh,  or  resting  land.^  Peasant  lands  at  that 
time  (in  1887)  were  being  ploughed  more  than  lands  in  the  hands  of 
landowners.  In  peasant  lands  61  per  cent,  was  under  seed,  while 
in  landowners'  lands  only  53  per  cent. 

Between  1861  and  1887  the  proportion  of  land  imder  winter  and 
spring  grains  respectively  altered  considerably,  the  land  under  spring 
grains  increasing.  Spring  wheat,  e.g.  increased  by  39.5  per  cent,  in 
area,  while  winter  wheat  increased  by  only  7.5  per  cent. 

1  Such  land  is  common  in  intermediate  "economies,"  not  in  large 
economies  or  in  peasant  holdings. 

282 


AGRICULTURE   AFTER    1861         283 

In  1900,  in  the  fifty  guberni  of  European  Russia,  the  area  under 
crop  was  71,276,925  dessiatines,  distributed  as  follows  : 

Dessiatines. 

Rye 24,350,271 

Spring  wheat 11,360,819 

Winter  wheat 2,730,564 

Oats 13,853,117 

Barley 6,513,848 

Other  crops 

71,276,925 


Rye  is  the  chief  crop  everywhere  in  Russia,  except  in  the  New 
Russian  and  Middle  Volga  (steppe)  regions,  where  wheat  predomi- 
nates. Maize  is  cultivated  to  the  extent  of  32.4  per  cent,  of  the  total 
arable  area  in  Bessarabskaya  gub.  ;  oats  to  the  extent  of  20  per  cent, 
in  the  Middle  Volga  region  and  in  the  Black  Soil  zone,  and  barley 
55  per  cent,  in  Arkhangelskaya  gub}  "  Everywhere  and  for  all  plants 
the  crops  on  landowners'  lands  yield  more  than  on  peasant  lands."  * 
The  yields  are  highest  in  the  Ad-Baltic  region  ;  they  are  lowest  in 
the  New  Russian  district  and  in  Minskaya,  Astrakhanskaya,  Samar- 
skaya,  and  Orenburgskaya  gub. 

The  yields  from  Russian  agriculture  fluctuate  very  greatly,  yet 
over  any  long  period  of  time  there  does  not  appear  any  tendency 
either  to  the  increase  or  the  diminution  of  the  yields.  Landowners' 
crops  and  peasants'  crops  fluctuate  alike. 

The  average  of  fifty  guberni  shows  that  the  lands  in  peasants* 
hands  produce  68.1  per  cent,  of  the  total  yield,  or  more  than  two- 
thirds.  The  statistics  of  5deld  show  that  the  increase  is  due,  not  to 
increase  of  crops,  but  to  the  increase  of  arable  area. 

The  cultivation  of  the  sugar  beet  has  spread  over  almost  one-half 
of  the  guberni  of  European  Russia.  In  the  twenty-three  guberni  in 
which  sugar  beet  is  cultivated,  there  were  in  1902-1903, 278  factories. 
In  ten  years,  1892-1902,  the  number  of  factories  increased  19  per  cent, 
and  the  area  of  plantations  73  per  cent.  The  fields  in  cultivation 
increased  97  per  cent.  Poland  gives  the  highest  yield  and  the  best 
beet ;   the  eastern  region  gives  the  lowest  yield.     Tobacco  is  culti- 

^  Chennak,  L.,  in  Brockhaus,  Supplementary  Volume,  p.  xliii. 
2  Ibid. 


284     ECONOMIC  HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

vated  in  thirty  guberni  of  European  Russia.  The  principal  seat  of 
the  cultivation  is  in  Chernigovskaya  and  Poltavskaya  gub.  ;  but  it 
is  also  cultivated  in  the  Caucasus,  Trans-Caucasus,  and  in  Poland.^ 
Tea  is  grown  in  Batumskoe  district ;  cotton  is  grown  in  Middle 
Asia, 
i  Fertilizers  are  being  increasingly  used  throughout  European 
'  Russia,  natural  manure  being  chiefly  employed.  Peasants  are  as  a 
rule  applying  less  manure  than  private  owners,  a  natural  conse- 
quence of  the  deficiency  of  cattle  among  the  peasants.  In  the  Black 
Soil  zone  the  quantities  of  manure  used  by  peasants  and  by  land- 
owners respectively  are  2000  and  2800  pMs  per  dessiatine.  The  use 
of  artificial  fertilizers  is  increasing  yearly  ;  the  imports  of  slag  from 
Thomas  furnaces  and  superphosphates  have  increased  largely,  while 
the  production  in  Russia  has  also  increased,  some  of  the  product 
being  utilized  in  Russia,  and  a  large  quantity  being  exported.  The 
total  quantity  of  artificial  fertiUzers  consumed  in  1901  is  stated  as 
6,800,000  puds. 

I  Agricultural  implements  of  modem  character  are  being  increas- 
ingly used.  In  1900  there  were  162  factories  for  manufacturing 
such  implements,  producing  yearly  12,000,000  rubles  worth.  In 
addition  there  were  imported  in  1904  agricultural  implements  of  the 
value  of  18,903,000  rubles.  Between  1896  and  1905  the  weight  of 
agricultural  implements  imported  increased  by  360  per  cent. 

Cattle  Raising. — In  fifty  guberni  of  European  Russia  there  were 
in  1900,  113,775,000  head  of  all  cattle,  of  which  18.4  per  cent,  be- 
longed to  landowners  and  81.6  per  cent,  to  peasants.  The  propor- 
tions of  different  animals  were  as  follow  :  In  each  1000  head  of  all 
cattle  in  peasants'  herds  there  were  173  horses,  289  head  of  homed 
cattle,  436  sheep,  100  swine,  and  2  head  of  others.  Landowners  had 
proportionately  fewer  horses,  more  sheep,  and  more  swine.  In  the 
Black  Soil  zone  there  are  more  sheep  and  fewer  homed  cattle,  and 
in  the  non-Black  Soil  vice  versa. 

The  increase  of  ploughing  has  driven  the  sheep  to  the  cheaper 
lands  of  Northern  Caucasus  and  the  south-east,  so  that  in  Euro- 
pean Russia  the  number  of  sheep  has  contracted  from  14  to  9  million 
head.  The  deficiency  in  cattle  experienced  by  the  peasantry  is 
shown  in  a  general  way  in  the  following  table  : 

^  The  total  quantity  of  tobacco  produced  in  1903  was  6,169,000  ptids,^-) 
38  per  cent,  being  of  the  finer  qualities.     Chermak,  loc.  cit. 


AGRICULTURE   AFTER    i86i 


285 


Head  of  Cattle 

PER   1000. 

Dessiatines. 

Souls  of 
both  Sexes. 

Working 
Males. 

House- 
yards. 

Land  suitable 
for  Cattle. 

Arable 
Land. 

1870 

664 

II44 

1456 

6344 

9329 

1880     . 

655 

1 130 

1238 

5416 

8345 

1890 

631 

1062 

II35 

4948 

7294 

1900 

602 

887 

1026 

4426 

6474 

I 


This  table  illustrates  vividly  the  progressive  decline  of  peasant  - 
well-being,  the  number  of  all  cattle  per  peasant  houseyard  having 
decUned  within  thirty  years  about  30  per  cent.  During  the  same 
period  the  number  of  working  horses  per  1000  dessiatines  decUned 
from  163  to  126  per  head,  or  23  per  cent.  ;  per  1000  working  males 
from  904  to  629,  or  30.5  per  cent.  ;  and  per  1000  houseyards  from 
1329  to  920,  or  30.5  per  cent.  Thus,  in  1870,  on  the  average  every 
houseyard  had  at  least  one  horse,  now  not  nearly  all  houseyards  have 
even  one  horse.  In  forty-three  guberni  of  European  Russia,  accord- 
ing to  the  military  horse  census  of  1899-1901,  there  were  of  each 
100  peasant  houseyards  29.6  without  horses,  32.2  with  one  horse, 
21.4  with  two  horses,  and  17.8  with  three  horses  or  more. 

While  European  Russia  has  been  impoverished  in  cattle,  there 
has  been  a  great  development  of  cattle  raising  in  Western  Siberia. 
The  immense  prairie  regions  in  the  region  of  Omsk  sustain  enormous 
herds.  Statistics  of  these  are  wanting ;  but  the  exportation  of 
butter  from  Siberia  has  already  reached  great  dimensions,  and  the 
Siberian  railway  enables  beef  to  be  sent  into  the  markets  of  European 
Russia  in  considerable  quantities.  Much  remains  to  be  done,  how- 
ever, in  improving  the"  breed  of  the  cattle. 

Systems  of  Agriculture. — Great  changes  have  been  effected  during 
recent  years  in  the  systems  of  agriculture  in  vogue  in  Russia.  Up 
till  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago  exhaustion  of  the  soil  by  continuous 
cropping  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  rule.  Where  the  soil  was 
enriched,  this  was  effected  by  burning  timber  upon  it,  a  wasteful 


286     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

method,^  which  has  come  to  be  impracticable  in  all  but  the 
extreme  northern  parts  of  Russia,  because  timber  has  become 
scarce  and  dear. 

During  the  past  fifteen  years  Russia  has  come  to  be  divided  into 
three  regions  :  the  timber  region  of  the  north,  the  central  region, 
where  the  "  resting  land  "  system  is  adopted — a  system  involving 
leaving  land  in  fallow  for  several  years  in  succession,  and  the  regions 
of  the  east  and  south,  where  the  three  field  system  is  adopted.  The 
latter  system  is,  of  course,  the  most  advanced  in  an  agricultural 
sense,  whether  the  land  left  in  fallow  is  treated  with  fertiUzers  or  not. 
The  second  system  is  the  inevitable  outcome  of  continuous  cropping  ; 
the  land  requires  years  to  recover  its  productive  powers.^  In  the 
Moscow  district  there  appears  to  be  a  tendency  to  pass  from  the 
three  field  system  to  a  many  field  system.  An  extensive  rotation  of 
crops  is  of  course  possible  only  within  a  reasonable  distance  of  an 
extensive  market  in  which  there  is  a  varied  demand.  The  organiza- 
tion of  the  market  in  products,  even  other  than  the  great  staples, 
has  facilitated  this  change.  On  the  peasant  lands  there  is  inevit- 
ably a  tendency  to  produce  exclusively  those  crops  which  are 
required  for  peasant  consumption,  viz.  principally  rye,  wheat,  oats, 
potatoes,  and  vegetables.  The  area  of  peasant  land  per  household 
is  too  small  for  the  production  of  any  considerable  surplus  for  sale. 
The  peasant  agricultural  economy,  is  thus  in  general  more  varied, 
because  it  is  more  self-contained  than  the  agricultural  economy  of 
the  landowner,  who  cultivates  his  land  by  the  aid  of  peasant 
labour,  and  who  sells  almost  all  the  product.  In  Central  and 
Southern  Russia  and  in  the  Ad-Baltic,  Polish,  and  north-eastern 
regions,  the  proprietors  engage  chiefly  in  the  production  of  grain 
and  potatoes  for  the  manufacture  of  alcohol  in  their  own  distilleries, 
for  sale  to  the  Government,  which  possesses  a  monopoly  for  the  sale 
of  vodka. ^  Very  few  of  the  landowners  devote  themselves  to  cattle 
raising.     The  scarcity  of  peasant  cattle  is  noticed  elsewhere. 

1  The  writer  saw  this  method  in  practice  in  the  north  of  Finland  in  1 899. 
It  is  probably  still  employed  there,  but  it  is  understood  to  be  now  unusual  in 
European  Russia. 

2  In  the  Black  Soil  regions  continuous  cropping  has  in  the  course  of  eighty 
years  in  some  cases  reduced  the  yield  to  an  insignificant  amount.  This 
"  mining  "  of  the  land  is  the  usual  practice  in  the  United  States  and  Canada. 
Unless  it  ceases  impoverishment  of  the  farmers  there  must  ensue. 

^  In  1903  the  number  of  such  estates  to  which  distilleries  were  attached 
throughout  Russia  was  1952. 


AGRICULTURE   AFTER    1861         287 

The  Zemstvos  have  played  an  important  part  in  the  spreading  of 
agricultural  knowledge  among  the  peasants,  and  also  among  the 
smaller  landowners,  who  stood  as  much  in  need  of  instruction  as  did 
the  peasants.  Among  the  most  active  of  the  Zemstvos  in  this  con- 
nection those  of  Moscow  and  Kharkov  take  a  high  place.  Alto- 
gether the  Zemstvos  of  European  Russia,  between  1895  and  1904, 
increased  their  expenditure  on  this  account  from  about  1,000,000 
rubles  to  nearly  4,000,000  rubles.  The  Zemstvos  found  that  in 
Russia,  as  elsewhere,  the  agricultural  schools  led  their  scholars  away 
from  peasant  life.  In  order  to  counteract  this  tendency  some  of 
the  Zemstvos  devoted  themselves  to  the  organization  of  special 
courses  of  instruction  in  dairying  and  of  lectures  at  country  fairs 
upon  agricultural  questions.  They  have  also  estabUshed  more 
numerous  experimental  stations  and  agricultural  museums,  and 
have  organized  more  frequently  agricultural  exhibitions.  They 
have  also  employed  in  large  numbers  agronoms,  or  agricultural  ex- 
perts, whose  services  are  placed  at  the  disposal  of  peasants,  and  by 
these  numerous  local  agricultural  associations^  have  been  estabhshed. 
The  Zemstvos  have  also  assisted  the  peasants  in  certain  localities  in 
the  struggle  against  quicksands,  in  drying  up  swamps,  in  irrigation,' 
and  in  the  estabUshment  of  shops  for  the  sale  of  agricultural  imple- 
ments, artificial  manure,  and  pure  seeds,  as  well  as  workshops  for  the 
repair  of  agricultural  implements.  In  addition  to  these  activities 
the  Zemstvos  have  done  much  to  improve  cattle  breeding  by  estab- 
hshing  breeding  points  and  studs.  They  have  also  contributed  to 
the  encouragement  and  improvement  of  flax  culture,  grape  growing, 
the  cultivation  of  hops,  &c.  The  Zemstvos  have  also  organized  the 
granting  of  small  loans  to  peasants  to  enable  them  to  adopt  improved 
means  of  production,  and  to  enable  them  to  buy  land.* 

Most  of  the  Zemstvo  statisticians  have  embraced  their  calling 
from  ideaUstic  motives.  Many  of  them  are  intelligentsia  who  have 
left  the  universities  voluntarily  or  compulsorily  on  account  of  their 
hberal  views.  Occasionally  university  professors  work  as  Zemstvo 
statisticians,  because  the  exercise  of  their  functions  brings  them  into 
direct  contact  with  the  conditions  of  the  peasantry.  Among  them 
also  are  to  be  found  many  privat-docenten  of  the  universities. 

^  There  were  956  of  these  associations  in  Russia  in  1906. 
'  The  Government  has  also   engaged  in  extensive  irrigation  works  in 
Turkestan,  e.g.  and  has  expended  large  sums  in  combating  insect  pests. 
*  Chermak,  loc.  cit. 


288     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

The  Zemstvo  statisticians  and  the  Zemstvo  agronoms  are  not 
usually  regarded  with  favour  by  the  officials  of  the  Central  Govern- 
ment, nevertheless  their  statistics  are  universally  regarded  as 
reliable,  and  they  are  accepted  for  administrative  purposes.  The 
taxation  of  land  is  based  upon  the  valuations  made  in  the  Zemstvo 
offices,  and  these  valuations  are  founded  upon  the  statistics  fur- 
nished by  the  Zemstvo  statisticians. 

In  addition  to  private  mortgages  upon  land,  which  in  Russia  are 
not  registered  in  any  public  office,  the  following  enormous  indebted- 
ness had  accumulated  upon  land  up  till  ist  July  1905  :  ^ 


[  Mortgages  upon  land  in  the  hands  of  the —  Million  Rubles. 

1.  Nobility  Bank 716.0 

2.  Nobility  Bank  Special  Department    .        .        .  47.6 

3.  Peasants'  Bank 405.1 

4.  Other  Banks .        9594 

Total        .        .        .      2128.1 


1  • 

1 


'  Groman,  Agrarian  Question  and  Agrarian  Projects  (Moscow,  1906),  p.  39. 


CHAPTER  V 

GRAIN   DEFICIENCY  AND  THE   MARKETING   OF   CROPS 

The  peasant  produces  primarily  for  his  own  needs.  His  land  allot- 
ment, unless  it  is  supplemented  by  land  purchased  or  rented  by  him, 
excepting  in  the  case  of  rich  peasants,  is  insufficient  to  produce 
grain  beyond  these  needs.  Yet  after  harvest  each  year  the  peasant 
sells  grain,  even  although  he  may  reserve  an  inadequate  quantity  to 
maintain  his  family  until  the  next  harvest,  and  even  although  he 
may  reserve  no  seed.  Why  does  he  do  this  ?  The  answer  is  that  in 
the  autmnn  he  requires  money  to  pay  his  quit-rent  and  his  taxes 
and  to  meet  the  principal  or  the  interest  of  his  other  obligations. 
Ere  long  he  has  to  go  into  the  market  to  buy  back  his  own  or  other 
grain,  sometimes  from  the  very  persons  to  whom  he  has  sold  it.  But 
the  price  of  grain  in  August  and  September,  when  the  granaries  are 
full,  is  at  its  minimum  ;  in  January  or  February,  when  exports  have 
drawn  off  a  large  part  of  the  crop  and  when  consumption  has  dimin- 
ished the  supplies,  the  price  is  usually  higher,  in  the  spring  the  price 
approaches  its  maximum.  Thus  the  peasant  sells  in  a  cheap 
market  and  buys  in  a  dear  one.  All  this  is  so  common  that  the 
practice  is  the  subject  of  quaintly  humorous  jests  among  the 
peasants.  After  his  manner,  when  the  mujik  loads  his  grain  to 
take  it  to  market,  he  addresses  it : 

"  Don't  thou  be  sorry.  Mother  Rye  !  that  thy  path  is  city- wards. 
In  spring  I  will  overpay  ;  but  I  will  take  thee  back." 

"  Don't  be  sorry,  Oats !  that  I  brought  you  into  Moscow. 
Afterwards  I  will  pay  three  times  more ;  but  I  will  take  you  home 
again."  ^ 

This  practice  involves  a  very  expensive  form  of  credit.  The 
peasant  really  pawns  his  grain  in  the  autumn  and  redeems  it  in  the 
spring  or  earher  at  a  considerable  cost  for  the  loan. 

According  to  investigations  conducted  in  1895,  the  quantity  of 

*  "  Towards  the  Theory  of  the  Class  Struggle,"  in  Revolutsionnaya  Rossiya, 
No.  34,  15th  October  1903,  p.  7. 

VOL.  II  289  T 


290     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

breadstuffs,  which  barely  sufficed  to  meet  the  needs  of  peasants, 
was  found  to  be  19  fMs  per  soul,  while  the  quantity  required  to 
meet  these  needs  fully  was  26.5  pMs  per  soul>  Only  in  cases  where 
the  production  in  any  group  amounted  to  26.5  pMs  per  soul  could 
there  be,  properly  speaking,  any  excess  of  grain  for  sale. 

In  forty-six  guberni  of  European  Russia  the  following  is  the 
result  of  investigations  conducted  upon  the  basis  of  the  normal 
quantities  as  indicated  above : 


Thousand 

Percentage 

Souls. 

of  Total. 

Peasants  experiencing  inadequate  production   for 

necessary  consumption 

33,533 

52.0 

Peasants   just    secured  —  that    is    with   an    exact 

balance  of  production  and  consumption . 

20,428 

31.8 

Peasants  having  an  excess  of  production  over  quan- 

tities required  for  consumption  .... 

10,176 

15.9 

All  of  these  figures  are  open  to  criticism,  and  the  net  conclusion 
dt  subsequent  inquiries  of  the  same  character  is  that  they  are  too 
favourable,  that  in  brief  the  numbers  of  peasants  who  do  not  pro- 
duce grain  enough  for  their  subsistence  is  considerably  more  than 
52  per  cent.     They  must  make  up  the  deficiency  by  working  upon 
land  other  than  their  own — an  indication  either  that  they  have  too 
4     little  land,  or  that  their  methods  of  production  do  not  utilize  fully 
j  what  they  have,  or  that  the  deficiency  must  remain  with  its  inevit- 
'i  able  concomitants — reduced  standard  of  hving  and  accumulating 
\l  debt.     The  reduced  standard  of  Hving  expresses  itself  partly  in  the 
if  purchase  of  foodstuffs  of  inferior  nutrition — potatoes,  oats,  and 
/I  barley,  e.g.  in  the  domestic  manufacture  of  inferior  kvass  or  turia, 
jlan  indigestible  mechanical  mixture  of  water,  flaxseed,  and  flour,^ 
I  and  partly  in  mere  abstinence. 

1  The  Zemstvo  statistics  disclose  these  conditions  very  clearly. 
The  Central  Black  Soil  region  possesses  the  richest  agricultural  land 
in  Russia,  and  yet  these  statistics  show  that  even  there  the  defici- 

^  Mares:  "The  Production  and  Consumption  of  Breadstuff s  in  Peasant 
Economy,"  in  The  Influence  of  Yield  and  Breadstuff  Prices  on  some  sides  of 
Russian  Economic  Life,  edited  by  Chuprov  and  Posnikov  (St.  Petersburg, 

i89S)»  i.  P-  35. 

*  Cf.  Statistical  Description  of  Kalujskaya  Gub.  (Kaluga,  1898),  i.  pp. 
666  et  seq. 


GRAIN    DEFICIENCY 


291 


ency  of  grain  is  considerable  in  very  many  districts.  In  Orlovsky 
district,  for  example,  the  deficiency  of  grain,  or  the  difference  be- 
tween the  quantity  normally  requisite  for  peasant  consumption  and 
the  quantity  available,  is  stated  at  326,000  puds  of  rye.  "  Of  the 
total  number  of  peasant  households,  84.6  per  cent,  have  a  deficit, 
and  only  15.4  per  cent,  have  a  real  excess."  ^  Local  investigations 
show  that  sales  of  foodstuffs  by  the  peasants  are  "  nearly  always  " 
followed  by  subsequent  purchases.  The  difference  between  the 
autumn  and  the  spring  prices  amounts  to  24.6  kopeks  per  pud  of 
rye,  and  39.4  kopeks  per  pM  of  oats.  Moreover,  the  prices  in  the 
villages  and  small  towns  are  usually  higher  than  they  are  in  the 
cities.  In  other  districts  of  the  same  gubernie,  the  same  conditions 
obtain.  In  Bolkhovsky  district,  for  example,  in  some  villages  all 
peasants  have  to  buy  breadstuffs  every  year.  Some  are  reduced  to 
the  purchase  of  food  by  the  middle  of  November,  20  per  cent,  are 
able  to  refrain  from  buying  until  Christmas,  only  a  few  are  able  to 
postpone  buying  until  the  middle  of  February.  In  the  neighbouring 
/  gubernie  of  Tula,  in  the  district  of  Tula,  there  is  a  deficiency  of  grain 
/I  feven  in  the  most  fertile  part  of  the  district.  In  seven  volosts  of  this 
/u  district  only  38.7  per  cent,  of  all  households  have  enough  bread- 
/  I  stuff  for  their  annual  consumption,  24.3  per  cent,  have  enough  for 
/  f  from  two  to  six  months  only,  while  7.9  households  rent  their  aUot- 
f  ments  to  others  and  thus  require  to  supply  themselves  by  purchase 
exclusively.  In  Ryazanskaya  gub.,  from  which  large  quantities  of 
ain  are  exported,  the  shortage  of  grain  was  950,000  chetverti  each 
year.  In  poor  years  some  peasants  begin  to  buy  immediately  after 
harvest,  and  by  February  three-fourths  of  the  peasants  are  buying. 
In  Mikhaelovsky  district  of  this  gubernie,  the  peasants  in  years  of 
deficient  crops,  e.g.  in  1897,  began  to  buy  in  August,  16.1  per  cent, 
of  their  households  being  under  the  necessity  of  doing  so.  By  De- 
cember more  than  one  half  were  buying.  Cattle  were  sold  by 
23  per  cent,  in  order  to  secure  money  wherewith  to  buy  food.  These 
peasants  were  obhged  during  that  year  to  sell  35.3  per  cent,  of  their 
cattle.  In  that  year  also,  after  the  cattle,  the  buildings  began  to  be 
used  up.*     It  became  necessary  to  deroof  the  houses  in  order  to 


) 


*  Book  of  Statistical  Information  about  Orlovskaya  Gub.,  viii.  (Orel.  1895). 
Quoted  by  Lyatschenko,  P.  J.,  Outlines  0/  Agrarian  Evolution  in  Russia  (St. 
Petersburg,  1908),  i.  p.  389. 

*  Lyatschenko,  op,  cit.,  p.  391. 


292     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

give  the  straw  to  the  remaining  cattle,  while  some  were  wholly 
utilized  either  for  food  for  cattle  or  for  fuel.  The  cattle  were,  of 
course,  purchased  by  well-to-do  peasants  ;  but  there  remained  the 
impoverished  famiUes,  who  were  in  effect  ruined. 

In  Samarskaya  gub.,  a  rich  region,  in  1899,  although  the  crops 

[  were  above  the  average  and  much  above  the  crops  of  the  im- 

(u  mediately  preceding  years,  the  Zemstvo  office  reported  a  shortage 

f|  of  foodstuffs  before  the  beginning  of  field  work  in  62.3  per  cent,  of  all 

|||  peasant  statements.     In  some  districts  this  percentage  was  very 

1 1  much  higher,  in  Nikolayevsk  for  instance  it  was  86  per  cent.,  and 

in  Boozuluk  94  per  cent.     Immediately  after  the  harvest,  25  per 

cent,  of  the  peasant  statements  of  the  whole  gubernie  showed  that 

the  peasants  concerned  had  recourse  to  loans  for  consumption, 

32  per  cent,  had  to  buy  grain,  and  about  28  per  cent,  had  to  "  work 

out."     In  years  of  average  crop  in  this  gubernie  38.6  per  cent,  of  all 

houseyards  have  an  excess  of  breadstuff s,  and  the  remaining  61.4 

per  cent,  are  compelled  to  sell  and  to  buy  again,  or  to  buy  inferior 

foodstuffs. 

In  Ostrogorjsky  district  of  Voronejskaya  gub.,  according  to  the 
"Zemstvo  statistics  of  1886,  58.1  per  cent,  of  peasant  households 
could  not  subsist  upon  their  own  grain  production.    The  incidence 
of  this  shortage  was  as  follows  :  ^ 

Per  Cent,  of 

Household. 

Landless  peasants 63.00 


Households  having  1-5  dessiatines 
Households  having  5-15  dessiatines  . 
Households  having  15-25  dessiatines  . 
Households  having  over  25  dessiatines 


64.20 
61.30 
48.30 
36.60 


The  statistics  of  Ufimskaya  gub.  show  the  same  results  in  another 
way.  If  the  whole  of  the  yield  of  grain  on  landowners*  estates  is 
sent  to  market,  and  if  the  peasants  have  an  excess  of  grain,  calcula- 
ting the  net  excess  of  all  peasants,  the  result  for  the  whole  gubernie 
would  be  as  follows  : 

Million  pflds. 

Landowners'  grain 4 

Surplus  of  peasant  grain  above  normal  requirements 
for  consumption 2.5 

6^7 

*  Statistical  Information  for  Voronejskaya  Gub.,  iii.  (Voronej,  1886). 


I\ 


GRAIN   DEFICIENCY  293 

But  the  balance  of  grain  exported  from  the  gubernie  is  14.2 
million  puds,  so  that  there  is  left  a  deficiency  which  presses  wholly 
upon  the  peasants  of  7.7  milUon  puds} 

In  many  guberni  the  grain  is  purchased  from  the  peasants  by 
small  dealers,  who  do  not  export  it  out  of  the  district  in  which  it 
is  bought ;  they  simply  store  it,  well  knowing  that  the  peasants 
will  return  and  will  require  to  pay  an  enhanced  price  for  it.  In 
Slobodskoy  district  of  Viatskaya  gub.,  for  example,  the  difference 
between  the  price  in  autumn  and  the  price  in  spring  represents 
interest  at  the  rate  of  38  per  cent,  for  rye,  and  of  62  per  cent,  for 
oats.2  Similar  rates  of  interest  might  be  calculated  for  other 
guberni. 

Even  in  Khersonskaya  gub.,  which  is  one  of  the  richest  grain- 
producing  regions  in  Russia,  peasants  having  less  than  11  dessiatines 
of  land  per  household  experience  a  deficiency  of  rye  for  consumption, 
while  those  who  have  less  than  6  dessiatines  have  a  deficit  of  wheat 
and  millet  as  well. 

/      In  Moskovskaya  gub.  the  total  requirement,  at  the  very  small 
jfigure  of  16  pMs  per  soul,  is  20,324,000  pMs.     The  ordinary  yield 
i  is  about  7,555,000  puds,  so  that  there  is  a  normal  deficit  of  bread- 
/  stuffs  in  the  gubernie  of  12,769,000  puds,  or  10  puds  per  soul.     That 
i  is  to  say,  that  the  population  can  be  fed  by  means  of  breadstuff s  of  ft 
■'  local  production  for  only  four  months  and  a  half  in  the  year.     Not-  j  / 
withstanding  this  general  deficiency,  rye  is  sold  in  autumn  in  order  !; 
to  provide  cash  for  quit-rent  payments  at  from  50-60  kopeks  per  || 
pM,  and  is  bought  in  spring  at  90  kopeks.^ 

These  are  the  conditions  in  the  best  agricultural  regions  of  Euro-  *^ 
pean  Russia.     Into  the  forest  regions  of  the  north,  where  grain  is    ^ 
produced  in  small  quantity,  imports  of  grain  must  take  place.  / 

Statistical  material  regarding  the  internal  trade  of  all  countries  is 
obtainable  with  difficulty,  and  in  no  case  can  it  be  held  to  be  com- 
plete. The  means  of  communication  are  varied  and  of  some  of 
them  no  records  are  kept.  Moreover  there  is  much  urban  and 
village  interchange  which  is  too  elusive  to  record,  yet  which  is, 
nevertheless,  in  the  aggregate  probably  in  general  greater  in  magni- 
tude in  respect  to  quantity  and  value  than  the  export  and  import 
trade  of  the  country. 

^  Lyatschenko,  op.  cit.,  p.  392-4. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  395.  '  Ibid.,  p.  397. 


294     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

The  change  from  a  self-contained  to  a  money  economy,  in  spite 
of  the  increase  in  individual  Hberty  which  such  a  change  usually 
implies,  may  result  in  the  increasing  dependence  of  those  whose 
productive  powers  and  whose  capacity  for  bargaining  are  aUke 
inferior.  On  the  other  hand,  such  a  change  may  redound  greatly 
to  the  advantage  of  those  who  possess  either  high  productive  or 
high  bargaining  powers,  and  still  more  of  those  who  possess  both. 
Thus  in  the  village  there  speedily  arise  the  two  classes  whose  char- 
acteristic features  have  already  been  described — the  poor  peasants, 
who  gravitate  into  a  landless  class,  and  the  rich  peasants,  ktdaM  or 
fists,  who  gradually  accumulate  botkiand  and  capital. 

Under  a  self-contained  system,  such  as  obtained  prior  to  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs,  production  in  the  villages  was  varied,  and 
for  this  reason  relatively  inefficient  when  compared  with  high 
speciaHzation  in  each  of  the  varied  activities.  The  weaver  and  the 
fruit-grower,  who  speciaHzes  in  his  particular  business,  must  in 
general  produce  more  than  the  non-specialist  can  produce  in  either 
of  the  occupations  in  question.  The  life  of  the  specialist  may  be 
more  monotonous  than  the  fife  of  the  general  producer,  but  it  is 
within  its  limits  more  productive  in  a  physical  sense.  Where  there 
is  a  sufficiency  of  free  and  suitable  land,  and  where  the  generally 
producing  peasant  is  industrious,  given  good  atmospheric  conditions, 
the  peasant  will  in  general  be  able  to  subsist  himself  and  even  per- 
haps to  accumulate  a  reserve  in  various  products.  Money  economy 
introduces  numerous  factors  of  which  the  following  are  the  most 
important : 

1.  Exchange  of  products  on  terms  determined  partly  by  relative 
powers  of  bargain  making  and  partly  by  conditions  beyond  the 
control  of  the  parties  to  the  bargain. 

2.  Competition  of  buyers  and  sellers  respectively  within  the 
local  market,  and  competition  of  external  buyers  and  sellers. 

3.  The  necessity  of  selUng  in  order  to  buy. 

4.  The  specialization  of  production,  which  is  induced  by  the 
need  of  producing,  not  what  is  required  to  be  consumed  by  the  pro- 
ducer, but  what  can  be  sold. 

5.  The  acquisition  by  land  of  value  which  it  did  not  formerly 
possess,  because  it  was  neither  bought  nor  sold.  This  value  is  ac- 
quired by  land  because  of  the  relative  suitabihty  of  it  for  productive 
purposes. 


GRAIN    DEFICIENCY  295 

The  reactions  of  those  factors  upon  the  character  and  the  habits 
of  the  peasants  who  fall  under  the  influence  of  money  economy- 
result  in  the  changes  in  the  structure  of  peasant  society  which  bring 
into  reUef  the  agrarian  problem.  The  social  outcome  of  the  process 
is  the  gradual  dissolution  of  the  self-sufficing  rural  community,  its 
dispersal  among  towns  and  concentration  in  them,  and  the  growth 
there  of  industries.  These  industries  afford  the  means  of  producing 
a  mass  of  industrial  goods  available  for  exchange  for  the  means  of 
Ufe  which  are  produced  by  the  remaining  rural  population.  This 
process  as  a  whole  involves  the  creation  of  reserves,  which  are  above 
all  necessary  in  towns  where,  notwithstanding  increasing  faci- 
lities of  commimication,  suppHes  of  certain  commodities  are  not 
immediately  available,  the  scenes  of  their  production  being  more  or 
less  distant.  Only  in  highly  developed  urban  societies  are  the 
supplies  which  are  daily  and  hourly  required  for  consumption  de- 
hvered  so  constantly  that  large  reserves  become  no  longer  necessary. 
But  this  continuous  supply  requires  organization  and  means  of 
commimication.  These  can  only  be  created  by  means  of  capital, 
and  thus  urban  and  rural  communities  aUke  come  to  be  more  and 
more  dependent  upon  capital  and  upon  those  who  control  its  move- 
ments. The  urban  communities  require  urgently  goods  for  con- 
sumption, and  the  rural  communities  which  devote  themselves  to 
the  speciaHzed  production  of  products  for  town  consumption  be- 
come themselves  dependent  upon  the  towns  for  those  commodities 
which  they  need,  but  cannot  produce  because  their  productive 
powers  are  otherwise  employed.  \ 

The  principal  fact,  then,  which  demands  study  in  connection  with  \ 
peasant  economy  is  the  movement  of  the  staples  of  urban  consump- 
tion from  the  village  to  the  town. 

The  fundamentsd  material  for  the  study  of  the  economical  condi- 
tion of  an  agricultural  country  hes  in  the  statistics  of  the  reserves, 
if  any,  carried  over  from  one  year  to  another,  and  of  the  5delds  of 
successive  years.  Unfortunately,  the  first  element  is  not  readily 
ascertainable  with  exactitude  for  Russia.^    Comparison  of  yields  of 

1  For  the  United  States  and  for  Canada  reserves  are  customarily  esti- 
mated by  adding  together  the  quantities  of  grain  in  the  elevators  and  "  in 
farmers'  hands  "  on  31st  August.  The  former  is  susceptible  of  exact  state- 
ment ;  the  latter  can  be  merely  an  estimate.  Such  statistics,  however,  leave 
out  of  account  grain  in  the  hands  of  millers  and  in  transport,  as  well  as  all 
flour. 


^- 


296     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

early  dates  is  difficult  owing  to  the  questionable  reliability  of  the 
earlier  data  ;  but  since  1883  statistics  of  yields  are  available.^ 

Two  principal  causes  induce  the  movement  of  grain  from  the 
hands  of  the  producer.  These  are  the  price  which  is  to  be  obtained 
for  it,  and  the  need  for  selling  it  at  any  price  which  may  be  obtained. 
The  scale  of  prices  in  different  centres  determines  the  direction  of 
the  movement.  It  is  obvious  that  this  direction  is  determined,  not 
by  the  peasant  when  he  sells  the  grain,  because  he  cannot  be  sup- 
posed to  be  familiar  with  the  markets  external  to  his  locaUty,  but 
by  the  middleman  who  buys  his  grain,  and  who,  keeping  himself 
acquainted  with  the  conditions  of  the  grain  trade,  disposes  of  it  in 
the  market  which  yields  him  the  greatest  net  advantage.  Even 
the  large  landowners  sell  their  grain  through  such  middlemen. 

During  the  past  ten  or  twelve  years  great  facilities  have  been 
afforded  by  the  Government  and  otherwise  for  the  movement  of 
grain.  Stores  and  **  elevators  "  have  been  provided,  and  differ- 
ential railway  rates  have  been  instituted  between  interior  producing 
centres  and  the  great  shipping  ports  of  Odessa  and  Nikolayev. 

These  differential  rates  are  lower  from  the  producing  centres  to 
the  ports  than  they  are  from  these  centres  to  the  interior  consuming 
centres,  so  that  it  is  more  profitable  to  export  grain  than  to  send  it 
to  the  cities  for  domestic  consumption.  The  object  of  this  poUcy  on 
the  part  of  the  Government  railways  when  it  was  initiated  was  to 
excite  the  exportation  of  grain  in  order  to  induce  imports.  Imports 
were,  however,  checked  by  a  highly  protective  tariff.  This  conition 
was  expected  to  result  in  the  influx  of  gold,  the  special  object  of 
this  desired  influx  being  the  rehabihtation  of  the  paper  ruble,  which 
had  become  depreciated  through  over-issue.  The  policy  has  been 
successfully  carried  out ;  an  enormous  hoard  of  gold  has  been  accum- 
ulated ;  the  paper  ruble  has  been  completely  rehabilitated  ;  indus- 
trial enterprise  has  been  fostered  ;  the  cities  have  grown  rapidly ; 
and  the  reactions  of  all  of  these  conditions  have  involved  the  growth 
of  a  discontented  city  proletariat  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  an  im- 
poverished peasantry  on  the  other. 

^  An  excellent  account  of  the  development  of  agricultural  statistical 
methods  is  given  by  P.  J.  Lyatschenko  in  his  Outlines  of  Agrarian  Evolu- 
tion in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg,  1908),  vol.  i.  pp.  278  et  seq. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   PEASANTS'   UNION  ^ 

Side  by  side  with  the  propaganda  carried  on  in  the  villages  by  the 
social  democrats  and  by  the  social  revolutionary  parties,  there  grew 
up  in  the  villages  a  special  peasant  movement  in  the  early  summer 
of  1905.  This  movement  appears  to  have  arisen  out  of  antagonism 
to  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  ardent  adherents  of  the  bureaucracy  to 
secure  from  the  peasants'  assemblies  formal  approval  of  the  war,  and 
of  the  projects  of  agrarian  legislation  known  as  the  Plehve-Stishin- 
sky  reforms. 

The  leader  in  this  attempt  was  Samarin,  marshal  of  the  Moscow 
nobility,  who  had  distinguished  himself  also  as  leader  of  "  The  Union 
of  the  Russian  People."  ^  Samarin  endeavoured,  by  careful  mani- 
pulation, through  the  Zemskiye  Nachalneke  and  the  police,  to  obtain 
the  passing  of  "  sentences  "  of  a  patriotic  character  by  the  Zemstvos 
in  the  Bogorodsky  district  of  Moscow  Government.  These  **  sen- 
tences **  contained  a  declaration  of  the  acceptance  by  the  peasants 
of  the  principle  of  "  unUmited  supremacy  of  the  landowners  and 
authorities  over  the  Russian  peasantry."  ^  By  careful  selection  of 
obedient  peasants  it  was  possible  in  many  cases  to  ^et  such  resolu- 
tions passed,  but  the  attempt  aroused  antagonism  among  those  who 
were  already  more  or  less  infected  with  revolutionary  ideas.  Some 
of  those  who  Uved  in  villages  in  the  Bogorodsky  district,  associated 
with  peasants  living  in  the  cities  and  with  intelligentsia  Uving  in 
villages  and  in  the  cities  alike,  seem  to  have  made  up  their  minds 
to  convoke  a  "  congress  "  of  peasants  and  their  immediate  sym- 
pathizers, for  the  purpose  of  counteracting  the  influence  of  Samarin 
and  his  concocted  "  sentences."    This  **  congress,"  which  took  place 

*  "  Krestyanski  Soyooz." 

*  Or  "  Black  Hundred,"  cf.  p.  499,  infra. 

'  V.  Groman,  ed.  Materials  on  the  Peasant  Question.  Report  of  Sessions 
of  the  Assembly  of  Delegates  of  the  All-Russian  Peasant  Union,  6-ioth 
November  1901;  (Moscx>w,  1905),  p.  3. 

297 


298     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

in  Moscow  in  May  1905,  contented  itself  with  passing  resolutions  in 
effect  simply  negativing  Samarin's  "  sentences."  At  the  same  time 
it  was  decided  to  form  an  "  All- Russian  Peasant  Union."  ^  The 
I  formation  of  a  bureau  of  organization  was  assisted  by  the  "  Agro- 
noms'  and  Statisticians'  Union,"  which  had  in  March  pronounced 
itself  in  favour  of  the  "  transference  of  the  land  to  the  hands  of  the 
people."  The  result  of  this  co-operation  between  the  peasants  and 
intelligentsia  was  the  convocation  of  a  "  congress  "  or  assembly, 
which  was  held  in  Moscow  on  31st  July  and  ist  August  1905.  The 
membership  of  this  assembly  consisted  of  one  hundred  peasant 
representatives  from  twenty-two  guberni,^  and  of  twenty-five  in- 
telligentsia. 

From  the  report  of  the  proceedings  at  the  first  assembly  it  may 
be  gathered  that  in  the  villages  the  universal  topic  was  *  *  Land. ' '  This 
ancient  topic  had,  however,  through  force  of  circumstances,  acquired 
for  the  peasant  a  new  meaning.  Although  there  was  no  unanimity 
in  the  speeches  or  resolutions,  the  majority  of  the  peasant  repre- 
sentatives seem  to  have  given  their  adhesion  to  the  "  sentence  " 
of  the  peasants  of  the  village  of  Ekaterinovka  (in  the  Donyetsky 
district,^  in  the  Black  Soil  zone  in  South  Russia).  In  addition  to 
the  poUtical  demands,  this  "  sentence  "  formulates  the  following 
agrarian  programme.  "  To  aboUsh  all  private  property  in  land, 
and  to  transfer  all  private,  fiscal,  udelnya,  monastery,  and  Church 
lands  to  the  disposal  of  all  the  people.  The  use  of  the  land  is  to  be 
enjoyed  only  by  those  who  by  their  families  or  by  partnership,  but 
without  hired  labour,  cultivate  the  land,  and  to  the  extent  only  of 
such  powers  of  cultivation."  * 

Some  thought  that  the  abolition  of  private  property  in  land 
should  be  accompHshed  by  means  of  redemption,  others  thought 
that  redemption  would  be  unjust,  as  already  the  landowners  had 
received  enough.    Some  argued  that  the  redemption  money  should 

1  Groman,  op.  cit.,  p.  4.  It  will  be  recognized  that  this  Union  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  "  Peasants'  Alliance  "  mentioned,  e.g.  by  Professor  Milyukov 
in  Russia  and  its  Crisis  (Chicago,  1905),  p.  510. 

2  Vladimir,  Vologda,  Voronej,  Vyatka,  Kazan,  Kostroma,  Kursk,  Moscow, 
Nijni  Novgorod,  Orel,  Poltava,  Ryazan,  Saratov,  Smolensk,  Tula,  Kharkov, 
Kherson,  Chernigov,  Ifaroslave,  Black  Sea,  and  Don  ohlast.  See  Groman, 
op.  cit.,  p.  4. 

3  District  of  the  Don  troops  (mostly  Cossacks). 

*  Unsigned  article  summarizing  the  agrarian  question  in  1905  in  Russkiya 
Viedomosti,  ist  January  1906. 


THE   PEASANTS'   UNION  299 

be  paid  by  the  State,  not  by  peasants.  Very  rarely  did  anyone  pro- 
pose to  postpone  the  question  until  a  constitutional  and  representa- 
tive assembly  should  be  estabUshed.  One  representative  said  that 
it  was  "  quite  clear  that  land  would  not  be  given  without  redemption. 
It  will  be  necessary  to  pay  for  it  in  blood.  If  this  is  the  case,  would 
it  not  be  better  to  agree  to  redemption  in  order  to  avoid  the  shedding 
of  peasants*  blood  ?  "  One  pointed  out  the  indirect  social  effects  of 
confiscation  in  the  annihilation  of  the  credit  of  the  landowners  and 
loss  to  their  creditors.  This,  he  said,  would  create  much  hostiUty 
to  the  imion.  A  social  democratic  representative,  who  was  present 
at  this  assembly,  insisted  that  redemption  should  not  be  discussed. 
Eventually  the  assembly  passed  a  resolution  to  the  following  effect : 

"  That  the  land  must  be  considered  the  common  property  of  all  '^ 
the  people,  that  private  property  must  be  aboUshed,  that  the  mon- 
astery. Church,  udelnya,  cabinet,  and  Tsar's  lands  must  be  taken 
without  compensation,  and  that  the  lands  of  private  owners  must 
be  taken  partly  with  and  partly  without  compensation ;  that  the 
detailed  conditions  of  the  mobihzation  of  private  lands  must  be 
defined  by  the  coming  Constitutional  Convention  or  Constituent 
Assembly."  ^ 

By  November  1905  the  new  peasants'  movement  had  spread 
practically  over  all  the  guberni  of  European  Russia  ;  and  from  the 
6th  to  the  loth  of  that  month  another  meeting  of  the  peasants' 
representatives  took  place  in  Moscow.  The  reports  of  the  proceed- 
ings at  the  meeting  in  August  ^  and  those  of  the  meeting  in  Novem- 
ber ^  are  of  the  greatest  importance,  because  a  comparison  of  them 
confirms  the  conclusion  already  stated,  viz.  that  the  peasants  were 
really  more  extreme  than  the  revolutionary  parties,  and  that  the  latter  . 
had  been  obliged  to  amend  their  programmes  in  accordance  with  5  j 
the  views  of  the  peasants.  As  an  integral  element  in  the  peasants' 
progranmie,  there  was  the  contribution  of  "  banished  "  peasant 
working  men  already  f amiUar,  through  their  residence  in  the  towns, 

1  Unsigned  article  summarizing  the  agrarian  question  in  1905  in  Russkiya 
Viedomosti,  ist  January  1906. 

2  The  "  ProtokoUs  "  of  the  first  assembly  were  published  under  the  title. 
The  Constituent  Assembly  oj  the  All-Russian  Peasants'  Union,  issued  by  the 
Chief  Committee  of  the  Union  (Moscow,  1905).  The  ProtokoU  of  the  "As- 
sembly "  of  6-ioth  November  1905,  together  with  the  party  progranmie, 
are  given  in  full  in  Groman's  Maieriali,  cited  above.  He  gives  also  a  good 
analysis  of  both  ProtokoUs. 

'  Groman,  op.  cit.,  p.  33. 


300     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

with  the  revolutionary  propaganda  which  had  been  going  on  there. 
Yet  the  net  influence  of  the  propaganda  upon  the  peasant  was 
inconsiderable.  His  fundamental  views  about  land  were  the  same 
as  before.  If  he  used  new  words,  caught  from  the  propaganda, 
he  said  always  the  same  thing.  **  The  land  is  ours — give  it  to  us, 
and  let  us  cultivate  it." 

The  peasant  probably  did  not  see  through  the  tactical  manoeuvre 
I   of  the  social  democrats.     Their  evident  purpose  was  to  utilize  the 
j   peasant  for  the  revolution,  which  to  their  mind  was  chiefly  for  the 
benefit  of  the  urban  artisan.     The  peasant  must  benefit,  too,  in  the 
long  run  ;  but,  meanwhile,  as  a  revolution  in  Russia  was  impossible 
without  the  aid  of  the  peasant,  it  was  necessary  to  utiHze  him,  and 
to  utilize  him  it  was  necessary  to  compromise  on  points  of  economic 
doctrine.     The  social  revolutionary  party  was  not  quite  in  the 
I   same  position,  but  they  also  undoubtedly  felt  that  there  was  a 
i   danger  in  the  possible  separation  of  the  interests  of  the  city  pro- 
letariat and  those  of  the  peasantry. 
N        The  second  note,  dominant  at  least  in  the  addresses  of  the  repre- 
sentative peasants  who  attended  the  assembly,  was  volya  or  "  will  " 
— the  will  of  the  people.     This  word  represented  for  them  the  whole 
question  of  their  local  autonomy  and  of  what  they  conceived  to  be 
their  rights,  including  as  an  important  element  the  "  right  "  to  land. 
In  the  first  assembly  there  were  complaints  of  the  Zemiskiye 
Nachalneke.     "  Those  gentlemen  stop  all  endeavours  of  the  peas- 
ants towards  education  for  instance."      They  **  stack  "  the  "  sen- 
tences." ^    Some  complained  also  of  the  village  priests.     A  peasant 
from  Orel  said  that  the  landowners'  lands  came  up  close  to  the 
houses  in  the  villages,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to  prevent  cattle 
from  trespassing,  and  that  fines  for  trespass  were  imposed  daily .^ 

The  first  assembly  decided,  with  only  one  dissentient  voice,  that 
the  land  should  he  considered  as  the  common  property  of  the  whole 
nation.^  The  first  assembly  also  declared  itself  as  in  favour  of  the 
popular  election  of  judges.* 

In  the  first  assembly  there  is  no  definite  tendency  towards  ad- 
vocacy of  a  change  in  the  form  of  government,  although  there  is 

^  A  peasant  delegate  from  Vologda.  "  Stack  the  sentences  "  is  a  vulgarism 
for  arranging  the  resolutions  as  if  cheating  at  cards. 

^  Groman,  op.  cit.,  p.  8.  One  ruble  for  a  horse,  50  kopeks  for  a  cow,  and 
35  kopeks  for  a  sheep. 

*  Groman,  loc.  cit.  *  Ibid.,  p.  9. 


\ 


THE    PEASANTS'    UNION  301 

observable  a  vague  idea  of  a  possible  "  supremacy  of  the  nation  "  ^  [ 
to  replace  the  supremacy  of  the  Tsar.     This  idea  makes  its  appear-  | 
ance  vaguely  and  doubtfully  in  the  speeches  alone,  not  in  the  resolu- 
tions.*   The  peasant  attitude  upon  the  question  of  the  autocracy 
may  be  gathered  from  the  few  quaint  words  of  a  peasant  from 
Kursk  in  the  first  assembly  : 

**  The  Tsar  ought  not  to  be  touched.  He  is  still  breathing  as 
something  great  to  the  peasants.     This  in  its  turn  will  be  over."  ^ 

This  literally  translated  cryptic  utterance  almost  needs  inter- 
pretation. The  Tsar,  it  means,  must  not  be  attacked  in  the  pro- 
clamations and  party  manifestoes.  He  still  exists  as  the  **  Dear 
Father  "  of  his  people  ;  but,  after  all,  in  this  benevolent  rdle,  he  only 
just  exists — breathes,  and  no  more.  In  a  short  while  all  will  be  over. 
This  may  be  taken  as  significant  of  the  peasant  mind  at  the  date  of 
the  first  assembly  in  July  and  August  1905. 

The  peasants  may  thus  be  described,  as  they  were  at  this  date,  as     , 
being  hopeful,  calm,  and  moderate.     They  were  anxious  to  get^^ 
more  land  and  to  obtain  rehef  from  abuses  of  various  kinds ;   but 
they  did  not  obviously  connect  the  land  scarcity  and  the  abuses 
with  the  autocracy.     They  seemed  to  think  that  the  autocracy  was 
in  any  event,  at  the  point  of  death  from  natural  causes,  and  that 
therefore  it  was  a  matter  which  would  be  waste  of  energy  to  trouble 
about.     The  Zemski  Nachalnek  was  a  much  more  closely  pressing 
autocrat  than  the  Tsar.*    It  was  necessary  to  protest  against  him. 
The  village  priest  was  troublesome,  and  his  services  were  expensive. 
He  also  must  be  put  in  his  place.     The  land  scarcity  question  must 
be  dealt  with,  and  private  property  in  land  somehow  abohshed.^ 

When  the  second  assembly  met  on  6th  November  1905  there  was 
immediately  observable  a  somewhat  different  tone.  At  the  Novem- 
ber meeting  the  effect  of  the  revolutionary  propaganda  in  the  villages 

^  Groman,  op.  cit.,  p.  g.  ^  Ibid.  ^  Ibid. 

*  The  peasants  were  not  alone  in  their  belief  that  the  Zemski  Nachalnek 
was  a  petty  autocrat.  This  was  the  view  of  the  position  taken,  for  example, 
by  so  renowned  an  exponent  of  autocracy  as  Prince  Meshtchersky.  See 
Quarterly  Review^  article,  "  The  Tsar,"  July  1904. 

^  This  phase  of  opinion  makes  its  appearance  in  all  countries  contempo- 
raneously with  the  emergence  of  definite  schemes  of  expropriation.  See,  for 
instance,  the  scheme  of  "  a  progressive  agrarian  law  "  developed  by  W.  Ogilvie 
in  The  Right  of  Property  in  Land  (London,  1782)  (republished  London,  1891). 
in  which  he  completely  ignores  the  difficulties  of  the  transition.  Schemes  of 
expropriation  appeared  about  the  same  time,  e.g.  Thomas  Spence's  Lecture  at 
Newcastle-on-Tyne  (1775),  reprinted  London,  1882. 


;\ 


302     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

becomes  evident  in  the  resolution  calling  upon  the  Peasants'  Union 
not  merely  to  lead  in  the  agrarian  question,  but  to  agree  with  the 
urban  proletariat,  "  with  factory  and  mill  workers,  with  railway  and 
other  unions  and  organizations  formed  to  defend  the  interests  of  the 
toiling  classes."  The  meeting  also  resolved  to  adopt  as  principles 
of  immediate  action,  "  Not  to  buy  lands  from  owners  at  all.  Not  to 
rent  lands.  Not  to  enter  upon  land  contracts  of  any  kind  with 
owners.  In  case  the  demands  of  the  people  are  not  compUed  with, 
the  Peasants'  Union  will  have  recourse  to  a  general  strike."  ^ 

The  peasants  seemed  to  consider  that  the  solution  of  the  agrarian 
question  was  to  be  imposed  upon  the  new  State  Duma,  but  they  re- 
garded the  Duma  as  bound  to  solve  it  in  accordance  with  the  mandate 
of  the  Peasants'  Union.  It  was,  therefore,  necessary  that  they 
should  formulate  their  demands  unmistakably  in  order  that  the 
Duma  might  know  what  was  necessary  to  be  done. 

In  the  event  of  the  prosecution  of  the  Peasants'  Union,  the  meet- 
ing resolved  to  refuse  to  pay  taxes,  to  refuse  to  supply  recruits  and 
reservists  for  the  army,  to  demand  the  pa5mient  of  all  deposits  from 
the  State  Savings  Banks  (the  only  Savings  Banks),  and  to  close  all 
the  State  liquor  shops — by  destroying  them.^ 

Thus,  in  spite  of  the  possibility  of  agrarian  reform  of  a  more  or 
less  important  character  being  proposed  by  the  Duma,  the  agitation 
went  on  even  more  vigorously  than  formerly,  the  seizures  of  land  by 
peasants  and  peasant  riots  continued,  and  at  the  close  of  the  year 
fears  came  to  be  felt  that  a  new  Pugachevshina,^  or  peasant  revolt, 
was  imminent. 

The  Government  threw  a  sop  to  Cerberus  by  remitting  the  in- 
stalment payment  on  account  of  the  redemption,  first  by  reduction 
to  one-half  for  1906,  and  then  by  aboUtion  from  1907.*  Had  the 
Government  made  this  concession  earlier  rather  than  incur  great 
risk  by  delay  until  it  was  vociferously  demanded  by  the  revolu- 
tionary parties,  a  much  better  impression  would  have  been  created, 
and  much  bloodshed  might  have  been  saved. 

It  is  now  necessary  to  turn  to  detailed  reports  from  the  villages 
in  order  to  ascertain  the  actual  course  of  events  as  well  as  the 
motives  and  phases  of  opinion  which  affected  the  masses  of  the 
peasantry  during  the  autumn  of  1905  and  the  spring  of  1906. 

^  Russkiya  Viedomosti,  ist  January  1906.  2  ii,id. 

*  Pugachev.     See  supra.  *  By  the  ukase  of  3rd  November  1905. 


CHAPTER  VII 

INQUIRIES   INTO  THE   CONDITION   OF  THE 
PEASANTRY   IN    1905 

In  the  year  1906  the  Imperial  Free  Economical  Society  of  St.  Peters- 
burg instituted  an  extensive  inquiry  into  the  condition  of  the  peas- 
antry and  into  the  facts  of  the  discontent  and  disturbances  among 
them  which  manifested  themselves  in  1905.  These  inquiries  were 
conducted  by  means  of  a  series  of  questions  submitted  to  persons 
in  different  districts  in  forty-eight  guberni  of  European  Russia. 
Altogether  1400  answers  were  received.  These  answers  inevit- 
ably vary  very  much  in  value  ;  but  sometimes  they  amount  to  an 
exhaustive  account  of  the  subject  so  far  as  the  districts  in  question 
are  concerned.  Before  attempting  to  draw  any  general  conclusions 
from  the  voluminous  evidence  which  is  presented  in  the  Transactions 
of  the  Society,  it  seems  well  to  give  examples  of  some  of  the  details 
which  this  evidence  contains.^ 

The  group  of  reports  from  the  guberni  of  Novgorod  and  Pskov 
has  been  analyzed  and  reported  upon  by  M.  Rikachov.  He  remarks 
that  the  best  of  all  the  reports  is  the  detailed  description  of  the 
agrarian  movement  in  Byelozyersky  district,  Novgorodskaya  gub., 
by  S.  S.  Kholopov,  until  recently  chief  of  the  Zemsivo  Board  of 
Byelozyersky.2 

The  report  was  written  in  October  1907  ;  it  refers  especially  to 
the  agrarian  movement  in  1905-1906.  The  movement  began  in 
November  1905.  It  affected  almost  the  whole  district ;  but  it  was 
especially  strong  in  the  Markovskaya,  Megrinskaya,  and  Churinov- 
skaya  volosts.  The  people  of  Markovskaya  volost  had  an  old  standing 
grievance  against  a  timber  firm  in  respect  to  a  piece  of  land  which 
they  held  had  been  a  "  gifted  allotment,"  and  which  had  not  been  cut 
off  from  the  e^ate  of  the  pomyetschek  from  whom  the  timber  firm  had 

^  Transactions  of  the  Imperial  Free  Economical  Society,  Nos.  3-5,  May- 
June  1908  (St.  Petersburg,  1908). 

2  Independent  inquiries  about  Mr.  Kholopov  show  that  although  he  is 
a  man  of  liberal  tendencies,  his  report  is  singularly  free  from  bias. 

303 


304     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

bought  their  property.  It  does  not  appear  that  this  dispute  was 
brought  into  court ;  but  between  1890  and  1900  ^  the  peasants  re- 
taliated upon  the  firm  by  cutting  timber  upon  the  disputed  land, 
regarding  it  as  common  property.  The  firm  appealed  to  the  Govern- 
ment, and  several  peasants  were  arrested  by  **  administrative  order  '* 
and  sent  to  Siberia  for  settlement.  The  cutting  of  timber  was 
stopped ;  but  the  peasants  continued  to  regard  themselves  as 
imjustly  treated.2 

In  the  same  way,  prior  to  the  recent  disturbances,  a  dispute  arose 
between  the  peasants  of  the  villages  of  Sorky  and  Malakhova  and 
the  owners  of  the  estate  upon  which  these  villages  were  situated,  the 
Messrs.  B.  *'  From  old  time  "  the  peasants  had  "  possessed,"  in 
addition  to  their  allotments,  a  **  waste,"  extending  to  about  1200 
dessiatines,  although  they  had  no  documents  to  show  that  they 
were  entitled  to  possession.  In  the  nineties  the  manager  of  Messrs. 
B.  claimed  possession  of  this  land  and  began  to  prevent  the  peasants 
from  using  it.  He  acted  resolutely,  ordering  the  hay  which  had 
been  cut  upon  the  land  by  the  peasants  to  be  destroyed.^  This 
action  seemed  likely  to  lead  to  violence  when  the  District  Circuit 
Court  decided,  on  the  ground  of  long  possession,  that  the  "  waste  '* 
belonged  to  the  peasants.  An  appeal  was  taken  to  a  higher  court, 
and  it  was  there  decided  in  favour  of  Messrs.  B.  While  the  affair 
was  in  dispute,  the  peasants  cut  timber  upon  the  land.  The  police 
seized  the  timber  and  took  it  back.  Then  the  peasants  were  ac- 
cused of  offering  armed  resistance  to  the  police,  and  some  were 
sentenced  to  imprisonment.  Ultimately  Messrs.  B.  sold  the  dis- 
puted land  to  the  peasants  through  the  Peasants'  Bank.  In  other 
places  in  the  same  district  there  were  similar  disputes  about  land, 
fisheries,  and  the  like.  They  usually  ended,  as  in  one  of  the  cases 
above  mentioned,  in  some  compromise,  the  subjects  in  dispute  being 
sold  to  the  peasants  through  the  Peasants'  Bank.  In  one  of  the 
above  cases  and  in  many  others,  painful  memories  remained  of 
imprisoned  and  expatriated  peasants.  The  peasants  had  often  no 
doctmientary  evidence  to  present  in  support  of  their  claims.    They 

1  The  writer  is  informed  by  a  resident  of  this  volost  at  the  time  that  the 
dispute  came  to  a  head  in  1895. 

2  A  new  survey  was  ordered  in  1907,  and  the  firm  offered  to  surrender 
part  of  the  land  in  its  possession.     Kholopov,  Transactions,  No.  3,  p.  266. 

3  The  writer  is  informed  by  a  peasant  that  this  manager  was  a  German- 
Russian,  "  very  strict  and  unsociable  with  his  peasant  neighbours." 


CONDITION   OF  THE   PEASANTRY     305 

founded  these  upon  tradition,  long  possession,  or  established  usage  ; 
and  "  they  were  firmly  satisfied  that  they  were  claiming  justly."  ^ 
The  general  movement  of  1905  began  in  the  Byelozyersky  district 
quite  independently,  no  similar  movement  being  observable  in  the 
surrounding  districts.  But  Mr.  Kholopov  says  that  it  is  possible 
that  the  newspaper  accounts  of  the  agrarian  movement  in  South 
Russia  "  gave  a  push  to  it."  ^ 

The  movement  began  in  November  1905  by  the  cutting  of  timber 
upon  the  lands  of  private  owners  and  upon  those  of  the  State. 
Secret  stealing  of  timber  had  been  previously  practised,  but  now 
the  illegal  cutting  was  open,  whole  villages  participating  in  it.  In 
Markovo  the  greater  part  of  the  land  of  the  volost  belongs  to  two 
proprietors — one  the  timber  firm  above  mentioned,  and  the  other  a 
timber  dealer  ;  and  the  cutting  was  performed  chiefly  on  their  lands. 
"  The  previously  existing  acute  relations  with  the  firm  and  the  beUef 
of  the  people  in  their  right  to  the  use  of  the  estate,  made  the  peas- 
ants very  resolute."  The  peasants  cut  openly  and  to  a  great  ex- 
tent. The  local  administration  tried  ineffectually  to  put  a  stop  by 
persuasion  to  this  wholesale  cutting,  and  the  Governor  of  the 
gubernie  went  down  to  the  place,  but  the  peasants  treated  him 
discourteously,  and  told  him  that  they  intended  to  go  on  with  their 
cutting. 

The  Zemstvo  Board  attempted  to  influence  the  peasants  by  a 
proclamation  in  which  the  poverty  of  the  peasants  was  admitted, 
together  with  the  need  for  additional  allotments  of  land.  It  was 
pointed  out  that  representative  government  was  approaching,  and 
that  no  long  time  could  elapse  before  the  position  of  the  peasants 
must  be  improved.  Therefore  violence  and  its  inevitable  result, 
punishment,  were  ahke  unnecessary.  The  proclamation  pointed 
cut  that  appHcation  had  been  made  for  military  force,  that  that 
application  had  been  granted,  and  that  violence  would  be  punished, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  would  be  represented  that  the  people  were 
not  ripe  for  freedom.  The  proclamation  also  said  that  all  poUtical 
parties,  with  the  exception  of  the  "  Black  Hundred,"  ^  united  in 
deprecating  violence.  But  the  peasants  were  not  moved  by  these 
pacific  representations,  and  the  proclamation  was  torn  up  in  the 
villages.      The  outcome  of  the  timber-cutting  of  Markovo  was 

^  Kholopov,  report  cited,  p.  266. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  267.  *  Cf.  p.  499,  infra. 

VOL.  II  U 


3o6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  death  of  the  local  chief  of  poUce  after  a  severe  beating,^  the 
arrival  of  troops,  arrests,  banishments,  and  the  seizure  of  the  illegally 
cut  timber. 

In  Megrinskaya  volost  the  movement  had  other  features. 
The  whole  of  the  land  of  this  volost  was  formerly  State  or 
Treasury  land.  There  were  no  pomyetscheke  in  the  volost,  and 
the  peasants  were  all  formerly  State  peasants.  At  the  Emanci- 
pation the  peasants  received  allotments,  otherwise  all  the  land 
belongs  to  the  State.  Under  the  Emancipation  arrangements 
the  peasants  of  this  volost,  Hke  nearly  all  the  peasant  population 
elsewhere,  received  in  allotment  less  land  than  they  had  used 
under  the  bondage  system.  A  considerable  part  of  their  former 
possessions  was  "  cut  off "  and  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
Treasury.  Seven  of  the  nineteen  villages  of  which  the  volost  is 
composed  are  situated  on  the  shores  of  Byeloye  Lake,  and  the 
peasants  of  these  villages  are  fishermen  as  well  as  farmers.  The 
remaining  twelve  villages  are  inland,  and  for  the  peasants  of 
these,  agriculture  is  the  principal  means  of  livelihood.  The 
movement  arose  in  the  farming  villages.  The  land  formerly 
cultivated  by  the  peasants  prior  to  Emancipation,  which  had 
been  "  cut  off,"  had  been  allowed  to  go  out  of  cultivation,  and 
had  been  afforested.  Upon  it  during  the  forty  years  since  Emanci- 
pation there  had  grown  up  a  quantity  of  building  timber  (large 
pine),  and  the  State  began  to  sell  this  timber  to  dealers.  **  The 
peasants  of  Goroditschsky  Parish  could  not  accustom  themselves 
to  the  idea  that  the  land  upon  which  this  timber  was  growing 
was  not  their  own  possession "  ;  ^  and  therefore,  when  the 
dealers  who  had  bought  the  standing  timber  from  the  Treasury 
began  to  cut  it,  the  peasants  protested.  The  work  was 
stopped,  but  the  Treasury  did  not  abandon  the  land.  In 
November  1905  the  peasants  resolved  to  enforce  what  they 
considered  their  rights  upon  these  forest  sections,  and  by 
^'general  consent  of  the  villages"  began  openly  to  cut  down  the 
trees.  The  Treasury  manager  tried  to  persuade  them  to  stop 
cutting,  but  without  success.  A  high  police  functionary  (Stan- 
ovoy  prestav,  chief  over  several  volosts)  was  arrested  by  the  peasants 
and  kept  in  durance  for  two  days.     The  peasants  proposed  to  sell 

1  He  was  really  an  employ^  of  the  timber  firm. 
*  Kholopov,  report  cited,  p.  268. 


CONDITION   OF  THE   PEASANTRY     307 

the  timber  to  dealers.^  The  results  were  the  same  as  in  Markovskaya 
volost.  Troops  were  brought,  and  numerous  arrests  were  made.  In 
this  case,  however,  "  administrative  order "  was  not  employed. 
The  accused  were  brought  before  the  ordinary  court  nearly  two 
years  after  the  offences  were  committed.  Of  sixty-six  accused, 
eleven  were  found  not  guilty,  and  the  remaining  fifty-five  were  sent 
to  prison  or  to  "  penal  battalions  "  in  the  army.  Among  those  who 
were  found  not  guilty  was  a  local  teacher  who  had  been  regarded  by 
the  authorities  as  the  leader  of  the  movement.  He  had  been  in 
prison  for  more  than  a  year  and  a  half. 

In  Churinovskaya  volost,  however,  affairs  took  a  happier  turn. 
The  chief  of  the  Zemstvo  Board  persuaded  the  peasants  to  agree  to 
stop  arbitrary  cutting,  provided  he  obtained  permission  for  them 
to  cut  what  they  required  for  repairing  their  houses.  He  did  so, 
and  the  arbitrary  cutting  was  stopped. 

But  elsewhere  arbitrary  cutting  of  timber  took  place  all  over 
the  district.  No  assessment  of  the  damage  can  be  accurately 
made.  Landowners  even  can  estimate  the  damage  to  their  estates 
only  approximately.  Mr.  Kholopov  says  that  it  is  equally  im- 
possible to  state  precisely  what  was  the  dominant  motive  in  the 
minds  of  the  peasants  at  the  time.  The  movement  appears  to  him 
to  have  been  "  spontaneous  and  original."  It  was  not  regulated  by 
any  plan  worked  out  beforehand  or  by  any  external  influences, 
but  there  appeared  to  be  an  underlying  current  of  knowledge  about 
the  approach  of  freedom  and  about  the  reorganization  of  the  State. 
With  this  knowledge  in  their  minds  the  peasants  rushed  instinc- 
tively to  get  what  they  wanted.  Moreover,  the  bulk  of  the  timber 
lands  in  the  Byelozyersky  district  was  the  property  of  wealthy 
companies,  which  were  being  further  enriched  by  the  exploitation 
of  these  estates.  It  is  significant  to  notice  that,  excepting  in  the 
single  instance  of  the  Churinovskaya  volost,  where,  after  all,  the 
proceedings  were  easily  stopped,  the  smaller  estates  belonging  to 
individual  owners  were  not   touched.     The  peasants  recognized 

*  This  may  have  been  actually  carried  out  in  this  case,  but  in  the  Mar- 
kovskaya case,  I  am  informed  that  the  peasants  immediately  proceeded  to 
build  ezhas  with  the  cut  timber,  showing  that  they  probably  really  needed 
it.  Only  kulakiy  or  "  fists,"  are  said  to  have  been  able,  by  means  of  hired 
assistance,  to  cut  more  timber  than  they  really  needed.  An  ordinary  peasant 
family  of  four  persons  with  two  horses  could  not  cut  and  drive,  under  the 
conditions  at  the  time,  more  than  the  family  could  use. 


3o8     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

that  the  pomyetscheke  on  these  small  estates  lived  in  a  modest  way, 
and  even  had  dif&culty  in  making  their  income  meet  their  neces- 
sary expenditure.  The  peasants  refrained  from  touching  the 
estates  of  such  owners  as  they  knew  to  be  poor,  but  they  attacked 
the  estates  of  the  rich  owners,  and  even  those  of  owners  not  very 
rich,  and  they  attacked  also  the  estates  of  some  of  those  owners 
with  whom  they  had  been  on  good  terms.  Some  of  those  whose 
property  was  attacked  had  been  looked  upon  by  the  peasants  as 
their  defenders,  and  some  of  them  had  been  elected  by  means 
of  peasant  votes  to  represent  the  peasant  interests  in  the  State 
Duma. 

Mr.  Kholopov  says  also  that  the  "  cutters  "  of  timber  saw  in 
the  movement  not  merely  a  means  of  satisfying  the  immediate 
needs  of  their  households,  but  a  means  of  enriching  themselves  as 
well.  This  was  apparent  from  the  circumstances  that  "  cuttings  " 
on  State  and  other  lands  were  performed  by  villages  which  had 
their  own  uncut  forests,  and  that  timber  in  excess  of  the  peasant 
requirements  was  exposed  for  sale.  Finally,  the  movement  died  out 
last  in  the  district  round  a  town  where  timber  might  readily  be  sold. 

The  attitude  of  the  proprietors  towards  these  occurrences  varied. 
Pomyetscheke  generally  tried  to  persuade  the  peasants  to  desist 
from  "  arbitrary  cutting,"  while  the  large  timber  firms  applied  to 
the  Government  for  protection  against  depredations  upon  their 
property. 

In  addition  to  the  arbitrary  cutting  of  trees  in  this  district, 
the  movement  also  expressed  itself  in  the  discontinuance  of  pay- 
ment of  taxes  by  the  peasants.  This  tax-boycott  was  applied 
not  merely  to  State  taxes,  but  also  to  the  Zemstvo  and  Mir  or  local 
taxes.  Subsequent  fiscal  arrangements  had  determined  that  the 
local  ofiices  receive  all  taxes,  and  that,  after  its  full  quota  had  been 
retained  by  the  local  administration,  the  balance  only  was  payable 
to  the  State  Treasury.  In  the  district  in  question,  out  of  each 
100  rubles  payable  in  taxes,  the  local  administration  should  receive 
about  i6J  rubles,  and  the  State  about  83J.  Since  the  total  collec- 
tions in  the  district  in  1905  amounted  to  only  37  per  cent.,  the 
amount  left  for  the  State  was  about  25  per  cent,  of  the  assessed 
total  of  the  State  taxes.^    The  tax-boycott  was  an  entirely  new 

1  In  1905  in  the  Byelozyersky  district  the  total  assessed  taxes  amounted 
to  35,000  rubles.     Of  this  only  -^7  per  cent,  was  paid.     In  1906  50  per  cent. 


CONDITION   OF  THE   PEASANTRY     309 

feature  in  the  agrarian  movement.  The  peasant  communities  in 
the  district  had  been,  prior  to  1905,  most  punctual  taxpayers. 
Mr.  Kholopov  says  that  the  boycott  could  not  be  ascribed  wholly 
to  the  desire  to  embarrass  the  Government.  It  was  due,  he  says, 
partly  to  the  low  yield  of  grain  in  the  district  and  to  the  high  prices 
of  grain,^  and  partly  to  the  inactivity  of  the  administration.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  movement  the  Government  *'  lost  its  head  and 
avoided  all  occasion  of  activity  against  the  peasants."  The  fact 
seems  to  be  that  they  were  afraid  of  a  general  peasant  uprising, 
and  were  naturally  anxious  to  avoid  any  friction  that  might  provoke 
such  a  movement.  Its  attention  was,  moreover,  concentrated 
upon  the  rooting  out  of  kramola  (sedition).  In  1907,  however, 
the  Government  began  to  set  to  itself  the  task  of  collecting  taxes. 
This  it  accomphshed  by  expeditionary  forces  which  marched  upon 
the  villages. 

It  has  already  been  noticed  that  the  timber  trade  is  the  im- 
portant industry  of  the  Byelozyersky  district.  Large  numbers  of 
the  peasants  are  employed  in  feUing  the  timber  and  in  "  driving  " 
the  logs  on  the  rivers.  The  logs  are  committed  to  the  streams 
in  the  forests  and  allowed  to  float  to  the  sawmills  in  the  lower 
reaches.  "  Driving  "  consists  in  disengaging  the  logs  when  they 
become  jammed  or  when  they  become  lodged  on  the  banks.  In  the 
spring  of  1906,  when  the  "  drives  "  were  in  progress,  the  peasants 
whose  villages  were  situated  upon  the  driving  rivers  made  artificial 
obstacles  and  stopped  the  "  drives,*'  at  the  same  time  demanding 
that  they  should  all  be  employed  by  the  timber  merchants  at 
increased  rates  of  wages.  Sometimes  they  demanded,  also,  compen- 
sation for  the  passing  of  timber  on  the  rivers  flowing  through  their 
land,  on  the  ground  that  their  meadows  were  damaged  by  logs 
lodging  upon  them  during  floods.     These  demands,  according  to  the 

was  paid.  (Kholopov,  report  cited,  p.  269.)  I  am  informed  that  in  this 
distnct  in  1909  many  peasants  were  still  refraining  from  paying  their  taxes, 
even  although  the  State  redemption  tax  had  been  abolished.  The  reason 
alleged  for  this  boycott  is  that  the  taxes  are  not  considered  by  the  peasants 
to  fall  equably  upon  themselves  and  the  landowners.  When  the  peasant 
defaults  in  payment  of  his  taxes,  his  movable  goods  are  distrained ;  when 
the  landowner  defaults,  he  is  allowed  to  remain  in  debt  to  the  Zemstvo. 
The  fiscal  reasons  for  this  are  obvious,  but  the  practice  constitutes  a 
grievance. 

^  Although  some  grain  is  produced  in  the  district,  there  is  not  at  any  time 
sufi&cient  for  the  normal  consumption  of  the  population.  Grain  is  therefore 
imported  into  the  district  from  other  producing  areas. 


3IO     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

timber  merchants,  were  excessive.  The  stoppage  of  the  "  drives  " 
occasioned  loss,  and  where,  as  sometimes  occurred,  the  "  booms  " 
which  impomided  the  timber  were  damaged  and  the  workmen 
who  were  attending  to  the  drive  driven  away,  the  situation  became 
even  dangerous.  In  addition,  "  arbitrary  driving  '*  of  timber  by 
the  peasants  themselves  was  resorted  to.  The  timber  was  "  driven  " 
to  the  next  village,  which  in  turn  presented  similar  demands,  and  so 
on.  These  proceedings  took  place  upon  almost  all  the  "  driving  " 
rivers  of  the  district.  Sometimes  the  timber  merchants  and  the 
peasants  arrived  at  an  agreement,  but  more  frequently  the  miUtary 
were  called  into  the  district. 

Besides  these  unusual  interferences  with  the  ordinary  routine, 
there  were  numerous  strikes  for  higher  wages,  the  strikers  some- 
times demanding  that  peasants  of  villages  other  than  their  own 
be  not  permitted  to  work.  Such  strikes  were,  however,  usually 
brought  to  an  end  by  mutual  concessions. 

All  these  occurrences  were  regarded  so  seriously  by  the  timber 
merchants  that  they  seem  to  have  contemplated  discontinuing 
their  operations  until  the  state  of  the  peasant  mind  changed.  This 
would  have  been  a  serious  matter  for  the  district,  as  timber 
"  driving  "  and  the  labour  connected  with  it  form  the  sole  occupa- 
tion of  the  peasants  in  winter. 

Another  detail  from  Mr.  Kholopov's  report  has  certain  sig- 
nificant features.  This  is  the  case  of  the  so-called  fyaglo  promish- 
lennek  movement.  The  Byelozyersky  Circle  Canal,  which  passes 
roimd  Byeloye  Lake,  gives  emplojmient  to  about  1500  men  and 
3000  horses  in  drawing  barges.  These  people  are  known  as  tyaglo 
promishlenneke.  Each  spring,  before  the  opening  of  navigation, 
at  a  definite  date  there  begins  registration  of  all  who  are  wiUing 
to  engage  in  this  industry.  The  persons  so  registered  form  a  society 
or  corporation.  There  is  no  limit  to  the  number  of  persons  who 
may  register,  but  the  number  of  horses  which  each  registered 
person  may  employ  is  Hmited.  Formerly  the  number  of  horses 
was  five,  now  it  is  three.  The  corporation  thus  organized  elects 
an  alderman  or  starosta.  This  starosta  manages  all  the  affairs 
of  the  corporation.  He  receives  payment  from  the  shipowners 
for  services  rendered  by  its  members,  hands  over  to  the  serving 
members  the  stipulated  amount,  arranges  the  rotation  of  work  of 
the  members,  notifies  them  when  their  turn  of  work  comes,  and 


CONDITION   OF  THE   PEASANTRY     311 

manages  the  capital  of  the  corporation.  The  price  for  the  work 
is  fixed  by  the  Department  of  Ways  and  Communications  at  St. 
Petersburg  together  with  the  Ribinsk  Exchange  Committee. 
The  estabHshed  rate  is  7J  rubles  for  each  horse  for  the  course  of 
63  versts  or  return.  In  normal  years  more  than  3000  ships  pass 
through  the  canal.  Each  ship  requires  an  average  of  four  horses, 
so  that  the  total  summer  earnings  of  the  corporation  amount  to 
upwards  of  100,000  rubles.^ 

In  1905  the  Department  of  Ways  and  Communications,  acting 
in  concert  with  the  Ribinsk  Exchange  Committee,  decided  to 
replace  the  horse-driven  barges  gradually  by  barges  propelled  or 
towed  by  steam.  The  tyaglo  promishlenneke  were  disturbed  at 
the  prospect  of  losing  their  profitable  employment,  and  at  the 
passing  of  the  business  into  the  hands  of  "  rich  steamship  owners." 
They  held  numerous  meetings,  and  uttered  threats  against  the 
shipowners  and  against  the  Department  of  Ways  and  Communica- 
tions. It  seemed  Ukely  that  attacks  would  be  made  upon  any 
steamships  that  might  make  their  appearance  on  the  canal.  The 
President  of  the  Zemstvo  intervened  in  order  to  prevent  this  ;  but, 
notwithstanding,  steam  tugs  which  entered  the  canal  were  bom- 
barded from  the  banks  by  stones  and  by  rifle-shots.  This  led  to 
their  withdrawal  and  to  a  modification  of  the  scheme  of  the  Govern- 
ment Department,  which,  however,  did  not  abandon  the  idea  of 
introducing  steam  power.  In  1906  the  experiment  was  repeated, 
the  steam  tugs  being  placed  under  guard  of  gens  d'armes.  But 
the  attacks  continued,  some  of  the  gens  d'armes  being  beaten.  In 
1907  a  peasant  who  had  thrown  a  stone  at  a  steamboat  was  killed 
and  several  men  were  arrested.  The  struggle  died  out  from  natural 
causes.  Owing  to  the  falling  off  of  trade  by  the  canal,  the  use  of 
steamboats  was  abandoned  and  the  customary  method  of  hauling 
by  horse-power  continued. 

The  above  incidents  seem  to  be  characterized  by  spontaneity.    \ 
There  is  no  evidence  that  they  were  in  any  way  connected  with 
movements   elsewhere,  or  that  the   disputes  were  fomented  by    I 
outside  influence  or  by  propaganda.     Had  they  not  been  con- 
temporaneous with  similar  and   different  movements  elsewhere,    , 
they  would  have  been  regarded  as  isolated  phenomena.     Yet  they  I 
reveal,  if  not  a  change,  at  all  events  a  development  which  had  been  i 

^  About  66  rubles  per  man  per  year. 


312     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

I  going  on  among  the  peasantry.     There  is  evident  in  all  of  the 

I  cases  a  certain  spirited  resistance  to  those  in  authority,  and  a 

1  widespread  determination  on  the  part  of  the  peasants  to  take 

;  their  own  measures  for  the  purpose  of  securing  their  own  interests. 

We  now  pass  to  some  cases  in  which  the  general  movement 

which  was  going  on  all  over  Russia  seems  to  have  influenced  the 

peasants  of  the  Byelozyersky  district. 

Churinovskaya  volost,  occupied  entirely  by  former  State  peasants, 
surrounds  the  town  of  Byelozyersk.  The  peasants  of  this  volost, 
being  habitually  in  contact  with  the  townspeople,  are  reported 
to  be  more  developed  intellectually  than  those  in  the  more  rural 
districts.  The  peasant  youths  frequently  continue  their  educa- 
tion beyond  that  afforded  by  the  elementary  schools,  and  pass 
into  the  towns  as  clerks,  &c.,  "entering  into  intellectual  employ- 
ments." By  this  means  they  came  to  take  a  lively  interest  in  the 
poHtical  struggle,  and  found  their  S5nTipathies  engaged  by  the 
"  programmes  "  of  one  or  other  of  the  parties  of  the  "  Left."  The 
domiciliary  searches,  arrests,  banishment  of  peasants  for  attending 
political  meetings,  the  "  underground  "  literature  which  was  being 
widely  disseminated,  all  had  an  effect  upon  their  minds.  Their 
connection  with  their  peasant  famiUes,  maintained  through  close 
proximity  to  them,  in  spite  of  their  urban  employment,  enabled 
them  to  influence  the  immediately  surrounding  peasantry.  Mr. 
Kholopov  conjectures,  without  being  certain  upon  the  point, 
that  these  conditions  led  to  the  germination  among  the  peasants 
of  Churinovskaya  volost  of  the  idea  that  they  should  organize  them- 
selves, and  should  join  the  Peasants'  Union.  At  all  events  they 
did  organize  themselves,  and  a  committee  was  formed  of  members 
of  the  union,  which  "  determined  to  adopt  the  tactics  of  one  of 
the  parties  of  the  '  Left.'  "  Although  Mr.  Kholopov  does  not 
say  so,  the  party  whose  tactics  they  adopted  was  clearly  the  social 
revolutionary  party. 

Thus  in  the  hay-harvest  time  of  1906  the  peasant  renters  of 
meadows  belonging  to  "  merchantress "  B  and  to  peasant  C,^ 
offered  a  lower  price  for  hay  than  had  previously  been  customary, 
with  the  threat  that,  if  this  lower  price  were  not  accepted,  the 
meadows  would  be  mown,  and  nothing  would  be  paid.  The  owners 
refused  the  price  offered,  and  the  meadows  were  mown  ;   but  the 

*  This  peasant  was  a  kulak,  or  "  fist." 


CONDITION  OF  THE  PEASANTRY     313 

hay  was  taken  away  from  the  peasants  by  troops.  This  *'  experiment 
in  expropriation  "  was  not  repeated  in  this  district.  Some  cases  of 
arson  were  reported,  but  they  were  not  traced  to  the  members 
of  the  Peasant  Union  ;  they  were  attributed  to  "  separate  disquiet 
elements." 

In  other  volosts  there  were  numerous  cases  of  arson  and  attempted 
arson,  and  buildings  of  private  owners  and  reserves  of  grain  and 
hay  were  damaged  or  destroyed.  Mr.  Kholopov  dechnes  to  accept 
the  responsibiUty  of  an  estimate  of  the  losses  occasioned  by  these 
occurrences,  or  to  decide  whether  in  particular  cases  the  fires  were 
due  to  intention  or  to  carelessness  ;  but  there  were  certain  quite 
indisputable  cases  of  firing  with  a  purpose. 

Opinions  vary  very  widely  upon  the  most  prevalent  motives 
for  these  acts.  Some  peasants  explain  that  they  were  acts  of  per- 
sonal resentment ;  others  that  they  were  intended  to  terrorize 
the  owners  in  order  that  they  might  surrender  their  possessions ; 
others  that  the  disorderly  acts  were  intended  to  proclaim  to  the 
Government  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  peasants  with  their  existing 
organization,  this  method  of  protest  being  employed  because  they 
conceived  that  they  had  no  other  ;  still  others  that  the  acts  were 
a  form  of  revenge  for  the  "  Black  Hundred  "  ^  pogroms  and  for  the 
tendency  of  that  group  to  assist  the  Government  in  a  reactionary 
policy  involving  administrative  repressions.  The  first  alleged 
motive,  viz.  personal  resentment,  has  been  illustrated  ;  the  second, 
the  desire  to  terrorize  the  landowners,  appears,  according  to  Mr. 
Kholopov,  a  real  motive  only  in  the  arson  cases  in  Churinovskaya 
volost,  although  there  does  not  appear  to  have  existed  any  real 
object  in  such  acts.  He  thinks  that  they  were  inspired  by  "  ideals  " 
— that  is  to  say,  by  the  state  of  mind  into  which  the  people  were 
brought  by  the  propaganda  which  was  going  on  in  the  provinces. 
The  estates  upon  which  the  arsons  were  committed  are,  with  one 
exception,  too  small,  and  have  upon  them  too  small  a  number 
of  peasant  households  for  any  important  oppressive  exploitation  to 
have  taken  place.  As  regards  the  other  forms  of  the  movement  in  the 
district,  rumours  of  a  rent-boycott,  or  no-rent  movement,  were  not 
confirmed.  There  was  no  "  outside  element  "  in  the  district,  so  that 
whatever  was  done  seems  to  have  been  due  either  to  original  ideas 
arising  in  the  minds  of  the  peasants  themselves,  or  to  ideas  derived 

*  Cf.  p.  499.  infra. 


314     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

from  the  propaganda  communicated  to  them  through  Uterature  or 
through  members  of  peasant  families  who  had  in  some  way  come 
in  contact  with  the  general  movement.  From  the  details  it  is 
apparent  that  in  some  cases  there  was  a  preUminary  agreement 
among  the  peasants  to  carry  out  the  disorderly  acts.  The  only  case, 
however,  in  which  such  a  preUminary  agreement  was  the  subject  of 
a  formal  sentence  was  the  case  of  Goroditschsky  Parish,  in 
Megrinskaya  volost}- 

The  administrative  authorities  seemed  to  entertain  the  idea 
that  the  movement  was  originated  by  local  teachers  and  Zemstvo 
ofl&cials,  and  a  number  of  these  were  arrested  and  banished  by 
"  administrative  process."  As  they  were  not  brought  before  a 
court,  they  had  no  opportunity  of  defending  themselves,  save  in 
the  Megrinsk  case,  which  has  already  been  referred  to.  In  that 
case  the  accused  teacher  was  found  not  guilty.  Mr.  Kholopov, 
however,  says  that  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  teachers  and  Zemstvo 
officials,  who  form  the  class  of  village  intelligentsia,  did  make  the 
people  aware  of  the  general  movement  for  political  reform,  and 
also  of  the  principal  points  in  the  party  struggle  which  was  in  pro- 
gress. Immediately  after  the  issue  of  the  manifesto  of  the  Tsar 
of  17th  October  1905,^  meetings  were  organized  in  the  district  by 
the  intelligentsia.  At  these  meetings  newspapers  and  party  pro- 
grammes were  read  and  discussed.  The  meetings  were  held  openly 
in  the  schools,  and  were  attended  by  alj  classes  of  the  village  com- 
munities. Mr.  Kholopov  says  that  he  attended  several  of  these 
meetings,  and  that  he  formed  the  impression  that  the  character 
of  the  people  who  attended  them  formed  the  best  guarantee  against 
any  call  to  violence  being  made,  that  they  served  to  draw  the 
different  classes  more  closely  together,  that  the  controversies 
showed  how  much  preliminary  discussion  was  necessary  upon  the 
extremely  intricate  social  and  economic  questions  which  were  in- 
volved, and  that  for  this  reason  these  meetings  formed  an  important 
means  of  political  education. 

But  soon  after  the  issue  of  the  Manifesto  of  Liberties  the  meetings 
were  forbidden,  and  the  organizers  of  them  were  arrested  and  placed 
in  prison.  This  did  not  put  an  end  to  discussion ;  it  was  merely 
driven  underground.     Secret  meetings  were  held  in  the  forests, 

*  This  case  was  investigated  in  court,  where  the  fact  in  question  came  out. 
2  Cf .  infra,  p.  493. 


CONDITION   OF  THE  PEASANTRY     315 

and  secret  plots  were  hatched.  The  action  of  the  administration 
had  deprived  the  movement  of  the  moderating  influence  of  the 
intelligentsia,  whose  members  did  not  take  part  in  these  proceedings. 

Arrests  by  "  administrative  order  '*  were  followed  by  reprisals  on 
the  part  of  the  peasantry.  PoUcemen  were  attacked,  and  some 
were  killed. 

These  details  from  Mr.  Kholopov's  report  may  be  supplemented 
by  some  additional  information  derived  by  the  writer  from  village 
intelligentsia  in  the  district  in  question. 

The  influence  of  teachers  was  probably  greater  in  Markovskaya] 
volost  than  anywhere  else  within  the  Novgorodskaya  gub.  This/ 
circumstance  arose  from  the  Uberal  character  of  the  Zemstvo  admini- 
stration, during  the  preceding  twelve  years,  under  Mr.  Kholopov 
himself.  He  had  appointed  '*  quick "  young  teachers,  drawn 
from  the  ranks  of  the  local  peasaliUy,  and  lllJiiiy  new  sdiuols  had 
been  opened.  These  young  teachers,  belonging  to  local  peasant 
famiUes,  were  very  close  to  the  peasants  in  their  interests,  and 
their  education  gave  them  considerable  influence  in  their  communi- 
ties. This  influence  was  exercised  in  many  ways,  but  among 
them  was  the  part  which  the  teachers  took  in  the  skhod,  or  assembly 
of  the  mir.  The  clerk  of  the  mir,  although  capable  of  drawing 
up  the  "  sentences  "  or  decrees  of  the  skhod  when  they  related 
to  simple  routine  business,  was  frequently  unable  to  draw  up  the 
more  extended  and  formal  "  sentences  "  which  now  began  to  be 
passed  by  the  skhod  in  relation  to  the  interests  of  the  community. 
The  teacher  was  thus  often  called  in  to  perform  the  functions  of 
legal  draughtsman  for  the  "  sentences  "  of  the  skhod.  This  gave 
the  teacher  a  peculiar  influence,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  new 
spirit,  which  might  be  called  self-assertiveness  or  class  conscious- 
ness, exhibiting  itself  among  the  peasantry  during  recent  years 
was  due  largely  to  the  influence  of  the  teachers.^ 

Up  till  1905  the  pomyetscheke  of  the  district,  with  few  excep- 
tions, were  Hberal  in  their  tendencies.  They  were  responsible 
for  the  election  of  Mr.  Kholopov  as  President  of  the  Zemstvo  Board, 
and  they  supported  him  in  his  educational  activities.  In  that 
year,  however,  they  reaUzed  that  the  education  of  the  peasants 

^  On  the  occasion  of  the  visit  of  the  Governor  of  Novgorodskaya  gub.. 
Count  Medem,  above  referred  to,  he  was  met  by  a  band  of  village  youths 
carrying  red  flags  and  singing  revolutionary  songs,  led  by  the  teacher. 


3i6     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

was  leading  them  to  assertions  of  equality,  and  that  the  privileges 
of  the  upper  classes  were  becoming  serious  matters  of  discussion 
in  peasant  "  spheres."  They  realized,  also,  that  their  material 
interests  were  likely  to  suffer  if  the  peasants  continued  to  agitate 
about  a  redivision  of  the  land  and  a  readjustment  of  their  relations 
to  the  landowners.  Private  interest  clearly  conflicted  with  their 
political  principles,  and  the  latter  gave  way.  The  landowners  of 
the  district  thus  reversed  their  policy,  and,  being  masters  of  the 
Zemstvo,  owing  to  the  small  share  of  influence  which  the  peasants 
exercised,  they  were  able  to  sweep  away  the  liberal  members  of 
the  local  administration,  and  to  elect  others  whose  opinions  were 
in  conformity  with  those  which  they  had  just  formed.  Among 
the  landowners,  also,  there  were  some  whose  social  and  poUtical 
ambitions  were  served  by  supporting  the  central  authority  at  a 
critical  juncture.  Private  economical  interests  and  their  ambi- 
tions thus  together  induced  them  to  throw  the  weight  of  their 
influence  on  the  side  of  the  reaction.  They  **  killed  two  hares  with 
one  shot,"  pleasing  the  Government  and  acquiring  influence  in  the 
Zemstvo.^ 

Another  reason  for  the  collapse  of  the  peasant  movement  in 
the  Byelozyersky  district  is  to  be  found  in  the  growth  among  the 
peasants  of  a  class  which  has  frequently  made  its  appearance  in 
such  movements.  This  is  the  class  of  peasant  **  informers,"  or^ 
in  Russian  terms,  "  provocators."  These  peasants,  desiring  to 
ingratiate  themselves  with  the  authorities,  denounce  their  peasant 
acquaintances,  or  even  invent  conspiracies  for  the  purpose  of 
entrapping  unwary  enthusiasts.^ 

The  general  outcome  of  this  situation  was  a  complete  change 
in  local  administration,  and  especially  in  educational  policy.  The 
"  quick "  young  teachers,^  themselves  trained  in  the  Zemstvo 
schools,  were  dismissed,  and  their  places  were  taken  by  young 
men  and  women  educated  in  the  schools  and  seminaries  of  the 

^  The  Russian  axialogue  of  the  proverb,  "  killing  two  birds  with  one 
stone." 

*  A  highly  intelligent  peasant  of  revolutionary  tendencies,  speaking  of 
this  matter,  went  so  far  as  to  suggest  to  me  that  treachery  and  despotism 
are  both  deeply  engrained  in  the  Russian  people.  He  thought  that  they  were 
inherited  from  Tartar  times.  Disagreements  among  the  peasants  about  the 
division  of  the  loot  of  the  estates  appeared  in  some  districts. 

3  From  the  revolutionary  point  of  view,  there  were  two  types  of  teachers, 
the  "  quick  "  and  the  dead. 


\ 


CONDITION  OF  THE  PEASANTRY     317 

Holy  Sjmod,  and  therefore  well  indoctrinated  in  the  Greek  Catholic 
faith  and  in  extreme  loyalty.  The  whole  current  of  Ufe  in  the 
district  had  thus  undergone  a  series  of  changes.  Up  till  1905  the 
landowners  were  liberal  and  generally  philanthropic,  encouraging 
the  education  of  the  peasants  and  sharing  in  plans  for  their  wel- 
fare. From  1905  they  threw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  the 
reaction,  and  turned  the  whole  of  the  Zemstvo  activities  into  other 
channels  than  formerly. 

The  description  of  the  movement  in  Byelozyersky  district  given 
above  may  be  held  to  apply  generally  to  all  the  northern  guberni 
of  European  Russia,  saving  those  in  the  extreme  north,  where 
"^sQonditions  are  exceptional. 

We  now  turn  to  similar  inquiries  into  the  causes  and  course 
of  the  movement  in  the  central  agricultural  region.  As  a  type  of 
these  we  may  take  the  analysis  of  the  answers  by  correspondents 
of  the  Imperial  Free  Economical  Society  as  composed  by  Mr.  S.  N. 
Prokopovich.^  His  report  deals  especially  with  Tambovskaya  gub. 
From  this  gubernie  there  were  twenty-two  answers,  seventeen  of 
which  dealt  with  the  agrarian  movement. 

The  movement  seems  to  have  begun  by  arbitrary  pasturing  of 
cattle  by  peasants  in  the  fields  of  landowners  in  Ivanovskaya  volost. 
In  the  last  days  of  October  more  serious  manifestations  occurred  in 
Uvarovskaya  and  afterwards  in  Potgorinskaya  volosts.     These  mani-    / 
festations  are  reported  to  have  occurred  under  the  influence  of  the  f 
movement  in  Balashovsky  district  of  Saratovskaya  gub.     They 
consisted  in  pillage  of  estates   owned  by  pomyetscheke  and  by  j 
merchants,  in  driving  away  grain  and  cattle,  and  in  setting  fire  to  ■ 
the  buildings  with  piles  of  hay  and  straw.     Prior  to  these  attacks 
upon  the  courtyards  of  the  estate-owners,  there  had  been  numerous 
cases  of  burning  of  fodder  and  of  arbitrary  mowings  and  pastur- 
ings.     In  November  the  pillaging  developed   itself  in   Kirsanov  ■ 
Bogoroditsk,   and   in   Tambov.      In   the   last-mentioned   district,* 
in  the  end  of  October,  the  peasants  began  by  cutting  the  timber  at 
night.     These  acts  had  the  character  of  ordinary  theft,  but  in  a  few 
days  the  peasants  began  to  cut  in  the  daytime  en  masse.     Within  a 
week  they  had  cut  several  dessiatines  of  timber.     In  the  end  of  the 
month  they  burned  the  house  of  the  constable  in  the  village  Arjenka, 

*  Transactions,  No.  3,  1908,  pp.  47-89  et  seq.     Mr.  Prokopovich  is  a  well- 
known  writer,  of  Narodnik  tendencies,  upon  social  and  agrarian  subjects. 


31 8     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

and  in  the  night  of  the  31st  October  to  ist  November  the  pillage  of 
owners'  "  economies  "  became  general  in  many  volosts.  On  the  eve 
of  this  night  of  pillage  some  of  the  peasants  went  to  one  of  the 
pomyetscheke,  and  "  in  the  name  of  the  students/*  ^  advised  him  to  go 
away.  About  eleven  o'clock  they  arrived  with  horses  and  carts, 
and,  after  firing  several  shots  by  way  of  demonstration,  they  took 
with  them  whatever  they  found — rye,  oats,  peas,  &c.  For  light 
to  aid  them  in  their  depredations  they  burned  piles  of  straw.  At 
first  they  took  only  grain,  but  when  their  passions  were  roused 
they  took  things  for  which  they  had  no  possible  use — e.g.  house- 
hold fumiture.2 

In  November,  throughout  the  gubernie,  arbitrary  cutting  of 
grain  and  hay,  arbitrary  pasturing,  and  driving  away  of  cut  grain 
and  hay,  &c.,  continued. 

In  January  1906  timber-cutting  and  arbitrary  pasturing  began 
in  Shavskaya  volost,  and  spread  into  other  volosts  in  the  same  dis- 
trict. 

These  depredations  were  committed  upon  the  estates  of  private 
owners.  In  the  State  forests  arbitrary  cutting  began  on  the  17th 
November,  and  lasted  until  the  30th  November,  in  the  same  dis- 
tricts. Peasants  who  were  suffering  from  the  bad  yield  really 
needed  timber  for  heating  purposes,  but  they  did  not  confine  them- 
selves to  such  cutting.     They  arbitrarily  cut  building  timber. 

In  the  end  of  May  and  the  beginning  of  June  1906  a  move- 
ment began  in  Kozlovsky  district,  towards  the  north,  and  gradu- 
ally spread  southwards.  The  peasants  demanded  advance  of 
wages  and  reduced  rents.  In  the  autumn  of  1906  there  were 
further  arbitrary  pasturings  and  mowings.  In  the  spring  of  1907, 
on  the  plea  of  lack  of  pasture,  these  arbitrary  proceedings  were 
repeated. 

Some  details  of  the  proceedings  in  Kozlovsky  district,  derived 
chiefly  from  the  Kozlovskaya  Jezn,^  will  give  a  more  exact  idea  of 
the  course  of  events  than  any  general  description. 

On  30th  May  1906  there  was  a  representative  meeting  of  peasants 

^  Peasants  of  revolutionary  tendencies  were  at  this  time  fond  of  regard- 
ing themselves  as  allied  with  the  "  students  "  or  village  intelligentsia.  They 
simply  used  the  expression  as  offering  some  authority  for  their  acts. 

2  There  is  not,  as  a  rule,  any  furniture  in  a  peasant's  ezba.  Fixed  benches 
and  a  table  constitute  the  sole  fittings. 

^  Quoted  from  Kozlovskaya  Jezn  in  Transactions,  No.  3,  p.  j^. 


CONDITION  OF  THE  PEASANTRY     319 

from  all  parts  of  the  Kozlovsky  districts  There  were  seventy 
representatives  of  the  volosts.  This  meeting  decided  that  in  future 
the  peasants  themselves  must  regulate  the  rate  of  wages.  In  order 
to  do  this,  it  was  first  necessary  to  arrive  at  a  new  wage  scale,  and, 
having  done  so,  to  enforce  this  scale  by  means  of  peaceful  com- 
bination and  strikes.2  The  scales  of  wages  were  to  be  settled  by 
the  villages.  Immediately  after  this  decision  of  the  representative 
meeting,  the  villages  began  to  draw  up  the  new  scales.  For  example, 
in  the  large  village  of  Krugloe,  in  Epanchinskaya  volost,  the  peasants 
estabUshed  the  following  scale  : 

Rubles. 

For  harvesting  rye,  per  dessiatine 15 

For  harvesting  oats,  per  dessiatine 10  • 

For  ploughing  fallow  land,  per  dessiatine        ...        8 

Daily  wage  for  a  man 2 

Daily  wage  for  a  woman ij 

Monthly  payment  for  a  man 15 

Monthly  payment  for  a  woman 8  * 

A  delegate  was  elected  by  the  village  to  arrange  about  bringing 
this  new  scale  into  force.  Followed  by  peasants,  he  made  a  round 
of  visits  to  the  estate-owners.  He  inquired  about  the  number  of 
persons  employed,  and  about  the  wages  they  were  receiving.  He 
then  announced  the  new  scale.  If  the  estate-owner  agreed  to  it, 
he  was  required  to  sign  a  document  to  that  effect ;  if  he  did  not 
agree,  the  peasants  employed  by  him  were  carried  off  by  the  party. 
The  demands  of  different  villages  varied  very  much,  both  in  amount 
and  in  character.  Thus,  e.g.,  in  the  large  village  Ekaterinino, 
in  Ekaterininskaya  volost,  the  village  assembly  decided  that 
wages  should  be  3  rubles  for  a  man  and  ij  rubles  for  a  woman 
per  day ;  monthly  wages  were  not  to  be  less  than  30  rubles ;  for 
harvesting  rye,  20  rubles,  and  for  oats,  15  rubles ;  while  the  rent 
of  land  must  not  exceed  10  rubles  per  dessiatine.  These  demands 
were  formally  entered  in  a  village  "  sentence "  or  decree,  and 
stamped  with  the  stamp  of  the  starosta  or  village  alderman.     In 

^  This  representative  meeting  is  significant ;  in  none  of  the  northern 
guberni  of  European  Russia  did  the  peasants  have  district  meetings. 

*  Their  expression  was  mirna  stachka  e  zabastovka.  In  the  peasants  lan- 
guage strikes  are  always  referred  to  as  stachka  e  zabastovka,  Uterally  stachka  — 
agreement,  and  zabastovka=stx\\ie.     Mirna  means  peaceful. 

^  This  means  about  two  rubles  per  day  per  man. 

*  These  latter  payments  are  "  with  board." 


320     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

order  to  prevent  secret  agreements  between  the  estate-owner  and 
individual  peasants,  the  village  assembly  elected  a  delegate,  whose 
duty  was  to  receive  all  payments  from  the  estate-owner  and  hand 
them  over  to  the  persons  entitled  to  them.  In  the  large  village 
Novo  Aleksandrovka,  in  Bogolubskaya  volost,  the  peasants  in  a 
village  assembly  decided  that  the  hours  of  labour  should  be  from 
six  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  six  o'clock  at  night,  with  three  hours 
and  a  half  for  meals,  leaving  a  working  day  of  eight  and  a  half  hours. 
The  labour  of  children  was  to  be  regulated  by  the  peasants.  If  work 
beyond  their  strength  was  given  to  children  to  perform,  this  work 
was  to  be  given  to  adults,  and  appropriate  wages  paid  for  it. 
Monthly  wages  were  to  be  25  rubles  per  month,  excepting  in  winter, 
when  the  wages  were  to  be  15  rubles.  Food  was  to  consist  of  fresh 
products ;  meat  was  to  be  given,  i  lb.  per  man  per  day,  with  porridge 
and  potatoes  as  much  as  was  necessary.  Payment  for  work  was  to 
be  made  weekly,  on  Sundays.^  Any  peasant  who  accepted  wages 
at  less  than  the  fixed  scale  was  to  be  brought  before  the  court — 
that  is,  before  the  village  assembly  sitting  as  a  court. 

The  regulations  passed  by  the  peasants  of  the  village  of  Alek- 
sandrovka, Izosimovskaya  volost,  are  interesting,  because  they 
illustrate  the  methods  of  agriculture  presently  practised  in  South 
Russia.  The  daily  wages  for  a  mujik,  or  peasant  man,  were  fixed 
at  I  to  2  rubles,  according  to  the  season  ;  and  for  a  baba,  or  woman, 
at  50  kopeks  to  i  ruble.  A  horse  was  to  be  paid  for  at  the  same 
rate  as  a  man.  Ploughing  one  dessiatine  by  small  plough  (plujok) 
was  fixed  at  10  rubles  ;  and  by  sokha,  or  Russian  plough,  6  rubles, 
for  ploughing  once.  A  team  of  horses  with  harrow  was  to  be  paid 
for  at  the  rate  of  5  rubles  per  dessiatine,  and  seeding  5  rubles  per 
dessiatine.  Gathering  grain,  mowing  and  binding  rye,  and  putting 
into  stooks,  12  rubles  ;  oats,  10  rubles.  Driving  sheaves,  40  kopeks 
per  kopina  (10  sheaves).  Ploughing  of  rye-field,  8  rubles  per 
dessiatine  ;  and  by  sokha,  4J  rubles. 

All  land,  whether  previously  in  fallow  or  not,  is  ploughed  at 
least  twice.  2  Fallow  is  ploughed  in  June,  and  is  then  ploughed 
again  before  seeding.  The  second  ploughing  does  not  cost  so  much 
as  the  first.     This  village  also  passed  the  following  regulation  : 

*  Peasants  in  this  region  work  habitually  on  Sundays  as  on  week-days. 

*  In  another  village  the  rate  given  is,  for  ploughing  fallow  land,  three 
times. 


CONDITION  OF  THE   PEASANTRY     321 

Renting  of  fallow  land,  and  land  for  winter  rye  or  spring  oats  or 
barley,  was  to  be  for  one  seeding.  After  harvesting  once,  the  renter 
has  no  right  upon  this  land  unless  he  rents  it  for  the  following 
year,  the  rent  to  be  10  rubles  per  dessiatine.  Those  who  are  em- 
ployed by  landowners  at  20  rubles  per  month  are  obUged  to  pay 
3  rubles  per  year  for  the  needs  of  the  community  as  a  local  tax. 
No  work  must  be  performed  on  holidays,  under  a  penalty  of  2  rubles.^ 

In  Arkhangelskoe  village,  Ilovi-Dmetrievskaya  volost,  the  village 
assembly  demanded  that  the  manager,  clerks,  and  other  servants 
of  the  landowner,  should  treat  the  working  peasants  with  civility  ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  peasants  bound  themselves  to  refrain 
from  aggressive  acts  against  the  landowner.  "  We  peasants 
accept  an  obligation  to  look  after  peace  and  order.  No  one  of  us 
must  take  anything  from  the  economy  of  the  pomyetschek,  or  spoil 
it.  Those  who  break  this  decree  of  the  skhod  will  be  held  respon- 
sible by  the  community."  In  one  case,  that  of  Vachovskoe,  10 
kopeks  were  deducted  from  the  daily  pay  of  each  man  for  the 
payment  of  the  delegates  who  were  to  see  that  the  decree  of  the 
skhod  was  enforced.  In  the  decree  of  the  peasants  of  Tuchevskaya 
volost  it  is  provided  that  peasants  from  other  villages  may  be  em- 
ployed by  a  landowner,  but  the  wages  due  to  them  must  be  handed 
to  the  home  village  delegates,  and  by  them  paid  to  the  incomers. 
A  clause  is  also  added  to  the  effect  that  the  peasants  **  mutually 
guarantee  "  the  canying  out  of  the  decree.  The  delegates  must 
provide  that  all  peasants  work  in  turn. 

In  the  large  village  of  Volchok  it  had  been  customary  for 
peasants  to  be  paid  in  grain  part  of  their  wages  for  harvesting. 
The  new  scale  provided  that  for  harvesting  one-third  of  the  grain 
should  be  retained  by  the  owner,  and  two-thirds  should  be  given 
to  the  peasants.^ 

Numerous  strikes  followed  upon  the  adoption  by  the  peasants 
of  these  new  scales.  Sometimes  the  working  peasants  were  simply 
taken  from  work  by  the  delegates  of  the  village,  elected  for  the 
purpose.  Sometimes  the  whole  of  the  village  population — in  one 
reported  case  to  the  number  of  700 — ^took  part  in  "  taking  off " 
the  working  peasants.^    In  some  estates,  where  the  general  body 

^  In  another  village  the  fine  for  breach  of  rules  is  5  rubles. 

*  This  was  probably  a  simple  reversal  of  the  previous  arrangement. 

*  In  Moshkova  Suren.     Transactions,  No.  3,  p.  76. 

VOL.  II  X 


322     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

of  peasants  were  "  taken  off,"  some  were  left  to  look  after  the 
cattle.i 

We  have  now  to  consider  what  were  the  aims  of  the  peasants 
in  this  district  in  advancing  these  demands.  Opinions  of  different 
reporters  vary.  The  most  penetrative  analysis  of  the  motives 
is  given  by  the  correspondent  of  the  Kozlovskaya  Jezn?  According 
to  him,  it  would  be  incorrect  to  explain  the  demands  by  the  mere 
desire  to  earn  more  wages  from  the  landowner  for  work,  and  to 
pay  less  rent  to  him.  The  correspondent  thinks  that  the  demands 
form  an  entirely  new  phase  of  the  agrarian  movement.  This  was, 
jin  brief,  an  attempt  to  drive  the  landowner  from  the  land.  The 
peasants  were  well  aware  that  the  landowners  could  not  pay  the 
wages  demanded  by  them,  and  that  the  cultivation  of  the  land 
in  the  hands  of  landowners,  under  the  new  scales,  must  be  un- 
profitable. But  to  leave  the  land  uncultivated  or  the  grain  un- 
harvested  "  cannot  be  allowed."  The  peasants  are  said  to  have 
beheved  that  the  Government  would  "  punish  "  the  landowners 
by  taking  the  land  from  them  unless  they  cultivate  it.^  They 
thought  that  only  "  a  little  firmness  would  be  necessary  and  the 
end  would  be  reached  "  ;  the  landowners  were  in  a  position  from 
which  they  could  not  escape.  Another  report,  from  Khmeliovskaya 
volost,  confirms  this  explanation  of  the  aims  of  the  peasants. 
"  Peasants  consider  that  it  is  obhgatory  for  the  landowner  to  harvest 
the  crops,"  and  that  cultivation  is  a  condition  upon  which  they 
hold  their  land.  They  demand,  therefore,  that  the  new  scale  of 
wages  and  rents  should  be  accepted,  or  that  the  whole  of  the  yield 
of  grain  should  be  given  up  to  the  peasants.* 

The  correspondent  of  the  Kozlovskaya  Jezn  thinks  that  the 
peasants  realized  that  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  mere  pillage 
and  violence.  Such  acts  could  only  draw  upon  themselves  "  the 
horrors  of  pacification  " — that  is,  similar  violence  on  the  part 
of  the  authorities.  They  therefore  resolved  upon  peaceful  means 
to  obtain  what  they  wanted — ^viz.  complete  possession  of  the  land. 
To  this  end  they  organized  watching  of  the  fields  and  orchards 
of  the  landowners,  and  even  prosecuted  children  for  stealing  apples. 

^  In  the  large  village  of  Pokrovsk.     Ibid.  *  No.  37. 

'  This  seems  to  be  a  quaint  survival  in  the  peasant  mind  of  the  old  form 
of  tenure  by  service  and  of  the  right  of  resumption  by  the  Government. 
Cf.  supra. 

*  Transactions,  No.  3,  p.  y6. 


CONDITION   OF  THE   PEASANTRY     323 

During  the  whole  period  of  the  strike  movement  in  Kozlovo 
there  is  said  to  have  been  only  one  case  of  violence.  In  discussing 
the  strikes  with  the  chief  of  the  district  poUce,  the  peasants  of 
Aleksandrovskaya  volost  told  him  : 

"  We  have  a  right  to  work  for  that  price  which  we  ourselves 
consider  convenient  and  profitable.  The  landowners  were  within 
their  right  in  demanding  26  rubles  per  dessiatine  for  their  land. 
This  was  a  high  rent,  but  they  were  not  arrested  on  that  accoimt." 

In  the  large  village  of  Pokrovskoe  the  peasants  reasoned  in  this 
way : 

"  We  paid  20  rubles  for  a  sajen  of  rotten  straw,  and  25  to  30 
rubles  of  rent  per  dessiatine.  It  was  dear.  We  wept,  but  paid. 
Now  let  them  pay." 

A  correspondent  from  Spassky  district  attributes  the  rise  of 
the  movement  to  the  influence  of  revolutionary  newspapers  and 
booklets.  Another,  from  Tambovsky  district,  ascribes  the  rise 
of  the  movement  to  "  anarchist  agitators  "  ;  another  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Tsar's  manifesto  of  17th  October  1905  ;  another  to  the 
pogroms  against  the  Jews.  The  property  of  the  Jews  having  been 
pillaged  without  the  punishment  of  the  pillagers,  the  peasants 
are  alleged  to  have  thought  that  they  also  might  be  permitted 
without  punishment  to  pillage  the  property  of  the  landowners. 
Peasants  who  had  actually  taken  part  in  the  pogroms  against  the 
Jews,  returning  from  the  towns  to  the  villages,  told  their  neigh- 
bours how  the  soldiers  and  the  pohce  looked  on  at  the  pillaging 
and  did  nothing. 

Almost  everywhere  in  the  Tambovskaya  gub.  all  classes  of  the 
village  population  participated.  There  were,  however,  some 
anomalous  incidents.  In  Klunefskaya  volost,  Kozlovsky  district, 
the  poor  peasants  were  at  the  head  of  the  strike  movement  .^  In 
Kaminskaya  volost  of  Tambovsky  district  the  landless  peasants 
took  httle  part  in  the  movement,  because  they  had  no  horses  to 
enable  them  to  carry  off  plunder  from  the  pillage.  In  Usmansky 
district  the  movement  was  headed  by  rich  peasants.  In  Kimiev- 
skaya  volost,  in  Tambovsky  district,  the  rich  peasants  were  "  un- 
friendly" to  the  strike.     Generally  in  Tambovsky  and  Borislog- 

*  The  pacific  character  of  the  strike  movement  in  the  Kozlovsky  district 
has  akeady  been  noticed. 


324     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

lebsky  districts  the  rich  peasants  took  an  active  share  in  the 
pillage.  In  Kozlovsky  and  Lebedyansky  districts  peasants  who 
had  bought  land  through  the  Peasants'  Bank  or  otherwise  were 
uns5mipathetic  to  the  movement.  The  activity  of  peasants  who 
had  been  working  in  towns,  and  who  had  returned  to  their  villages, 
is  mentioned  only  in  two  communications  out  of  seventeen.  The 
activity  of  soldiers  who  had  returned  from  Manchuria  is  mentioned 
in  three  communications  out  of  the  same  number.  The  youthful- 
ness  of  the  leaders  is  remarked  by  three  correspondents.  Women 
generally  took  an  active  part,  especially  old  women  who  them- 
selves had  experienced  the  burden  of  bondage.^ 

In  Tambovsky  district  the  larger  landowners  among  the 
peasantry,  peasants  owning  loo  dessiatines  or  thereabouts,  took 
measures  to  protect  themselves  against  the  mobs.  The  smaller 
landowners  divided  their  households  into  two  ;  the  older  people 
defended  the  family  property,  and  the  younger  participated  in 
the  pillage. 

After  the  acute  stage  of  the  movement  had  passed,  disagree- 
ments began  to  break  out  among  the  peasantry  of  Tambovsky 
district.  The  distribution  of  the  spoil  was  the  first  occasion  of 
difficulty.  Some  had  employed  one  horse,  and  some  six.  The 
result  was  inequality  of  distribution.  A  second  occasion  was 
afforded  when  the  authorities  made  their  appearance  with  poUce 
and  military  force  to  inquire  into  and  to  suppress  the  disorder. 
Some  of  the  peasants  began  to  seek  favour  with  the  authorities 
by  denouncing  others.  These  disagreements  led  to  arsons,  per- 
formed by  peasants  upon  peasants'  properties.  In  the  large  village 
of  Ivanovka  the  manager  of  the  estate  promised  to  give  the  peasants 
400  dessiatines  of  land.  Under  the  influence  of  this  liberality, 
and  after  entertainment  with  vodka,  the  peasants  of  this  village 
raided  other  villages,  beating  the  peasants  in  them.  The  district 
of  Kozlovo  in  general  again  offers  distinct  phenomena.  After 
the  strike  movement  there  no  disagreements  are  reported.  If  there 
were  any,  they  are  alleged  to  have  been  due  to  fear  of  the  authori- 
ties after  the  suppression  of  the  movement.  In  Melevskaya  volost 
of  this  district,  however,  there  were  disagreements.  Those  who 
had  compelled  working  peasants  to  go  on  strike  were  driven  away 

1  The  Khlisti  or  Lyudi  Bojii  (People  of  God),  sectarian  flagellants,  took  qq 
part  in  the  disturbances,  their  tenets  being  very  severe  upon  theft. 


f 


CONDITION   OF  THE   PEASANTRY     325 

by  those  whom  they  had  formerly  obliged  to  leave  work.^  The 
landowners  in  this  volost  met  the  demands  of  the  strikers  to  some 
extent.  The  wages  in  the  volost  had  formerly  been  50  kopeks 
and  30  kopeks  a  day  for  men  and  women  respectively.  They  were 
now  raised  to  i  ruble  25  kopeks  and  65  kopeks  respectively,  with 
board. 

A  general  review  of  the  evidence  of  all  the  districts  in  this  |  / 
gubernie  shows  that  ten  correspondents  attribute  the  movement  I 
to  the  insufficiency  of  arable  land  and  meadows  as  fundamental  \ 
cause.     Five  correspondents  regard  the  bad  yield  of  the  immedi- 
ately preceding  years  as  an  important  cause.     In  regard  to  the 
first-mentioned    cause,   the   correspondent    from    Kozlovsky   dis- 
trict points  out  that  the  former  State  peasants  of  Lipetsk  dis- 
trict, which  adjoins  that  of  Kozlovo,  having  comparatively  large 
land   allotments,  took  no  part  in  the  movement,  although  they 
endeavoured  to  make  use  of  the  disorders  in  the  neighbouring 
region  to  their  own  advantage. 

Two  correspondents  only  deny,  in  respect  to  their  regions,  that 
the  peasants  do  not  suffer  from  insufficiency  of  land.  In  Mor- 
shansky  district,  e.g.,  the  peasants  are  reported  as  not  wanting 
land  because  they  do  not  rent  it  at  the  comparatively  low  rent 
of  7  to  14  rubles  per  dessiatine.^  In  Tambovsky  district  a  land- 
owner reports  that  the  former  State  peasants,  with  large  allot- 
ments— "  7  dessiatines  per  revision  soul  of  first-class  Black  Soil 
land  " — ^were  most  prominent  in  the  violent  attacks  upon  estates. 
Ten  of  the  correspondents  allude  to  personal  and  class  hostiUty 
against  the  landowners.  In  Kirsanov,  e.g.,  the  landowner  in- 
curred hostihty  because  he  refused  to  rent  some  land  to  peasants 
of  the  district,  and  rented  it  to  "  rich  peasants  of  a  far-distant 
village."  He  was  also  alleged  to  be  in  the  habit  of  prosecuting 
the  peasants  about  trifling  matters,  and  of  driving  cattle  off  his 
pastures,  even  when  the  fields  were  covered  with  snow.  In  Tam- 
bovsky district  the  arbitrary  cutting  of  timber  is  ascribed  to  re- 
venge against  an  owner  who  "  exploited  the  village  mercilessly." 
This  owner  laid  claim  to  the  best  part  of  the  village,  including  the 
market-place,  from  which  he  derived  30,000  rubles  annually.    The 

'  Such  disagreements  were  very  common  throughout  European  Russia. 
2  This  may  have  been  due  to  the  circumstance  that  the  peasants  refused 
on  grounds  of  policy  to  rent  at  any  price. 


326     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

peasants  thought  that  he  had  no  right  to  this  land,  and  they  had 
carried  on  protracted  Utigation  about  it  without  result. 

In  Spassky  district  the  movement  was  directed  against  shop- 
keepers, who  were  alleged  to  be  dealing  dishonestly  with  the 
peasants,  "  and  who  were  competing  with  them  in  renting  land." 

In  Volchkovskaya  and  Tuchevskaya  volosts  the  movement 
was  general  against  all  landowners ;  but  in  Spassk,  Morshansk, 
and  in  Kozlovo  the  movement  was  not  general.  In  Morshansk, 
according  to  one  correspondent,  the  peasants  believe  that  the 
possessions  of  their  former  pomyetscheke — that  is,  their  former 
owners  in  bondage  times — could  not  legally  be  sold  to  any  but 
the  peasants  who  had  been  in  bondage  or  their  descendants.  They 
thought,  also,  that  the  land  could  not  legally  be  rented  to  other 
than  peasants.  Two  of  the  correspondents  of  Tambovsky  and 
Borisoglebsky  districts  say  that  the  movement  was  directed 
against  large  estates  of  more  than  500  dessiatines  to  begin  with, 
and  later  against  estates  of  smaller  dimensions. 

In  Kozlovsky  district  the  starosta,  or  village  alderman,  was 
dismissed  because  he  refused  to  sign  the  decree  about  the  new 
scale  of  wages.  The  peasants  elected  a  new  starosta,  and  required 
him  to  affix  the  starosta' s  stamp  upon  the  decree. 

In  Uvarovskaya  volost,  Borisoglebsky  district,  grain  in  the 
railway  station  was  pillaged.  In  the  same  district  the  telephone 
station  was  pillaged,  the  reasons  being  a  quarrel  with  the  officials 
and  a  superstitious  f  eeUng  about  the  instruments,  which  were  looked 
upon  as  the  invention  of  the  devil.  In  Lebedyansky  district  the 
movement  was  partly  agrarian  and  partly  industrial.  The  peasants 
demanded  that  the  wages  of  workers  on  the  railway  should  be 
increased.  At  one  of  the  railway  stations  there  was  a  strike  of 
"  loaders,"  and  at  another  one  of  workers  who  were  repairing  the 
permanent  way.  So  also  in  Izosimovskaya  volost,  the  village 
"  decree  "  regulated  not  only  agricultural  labourers'  wages,  but 
also  wages  in  *'  various  kinds  of  industrial  enterprises."  In  Kozlov 
the  peasants  tried  to  get  domestic  servants  to  join  the  strike. 

Nor  were  the  formal  demands  confined  to  wages  and  rents. 
The  peasants  of  the  large  village  of  Mashkova  Suren  drew  up  a  new 
scale  for  the  performance  of  ceremonies  by  the  priest.  They 
proposed  to  pay  3  rubles  instead  of  8  rubles  for  a  marriage ;  for 
a  funeral,  i  ruble  instead  of  3  rubles ;  for  baptizing  or  burying 


CONDITION  OF  THE   PEASANTRY     327 

an  infant,  12  kopeks  instead  of  50  kopeks  ;  for  thanksgiving  and 
for  taking  ikons  out  of  church,  20  kopeks  instead  of  i  rubied 

The  action  of  the  authorities  in  the  districts  above  mentioned 
consisted  in  sending  Cossacks  and  pohce,  who  were  ordered  to 
whip  the  offending  peasants  with  nagaiki.  Sometimes,  upon  enter- 
ing a  village,  the  Cossacks  "  beat  the  first  people  they  met  "  ;  some- 
times the  people  were  obhged  to  prostrate  themselves  and  to 
apologize.  In  Poltavskaya  volost  the  Zemski  Nachalnek  arrived 
with  an  escort  of  dragoons,  and  ordered  the  peasants  to  take  back 
hay  which  they  had  removed  from  an  estate.  A  pubhc  meeting 
of  the  peasants  was  called,  and  those  who  refused  to  obey  the  order 
were  beaten.  In  Pavlodar  nineteen  peasants  were  killed.  In 
Kirsanovsky  district  the  peasants  were  brought  before  the  district 
court,  and  twenty-six  men  were  sentenced  to  eight  months  in  a 
penal  battaUon.  In  Lebedyansky  district  the  landowners  organized 
themselves  for  the  defence  of  their  property.  In  Kozlovsky 
district  the  landowners  demanded  that  martial  law  should  be 
adopted. 

In  relation  to  this  demand  the  Agricultural  Society  of  Kozlovo 
issued,  on  the  i8th  June  1906,  a  "  sentence  "  to  the  following 
effect.  The  peasant  movement  in  the  Kozlovsky  district  is  con- 
cerned chiefly  with  demands  that  wages  should  be  advanced  to 
a  point  which  "  does  not  correspond  to  the  standard  of  cultivation 
of  our  agriculture  at  present."  The  movement  had  as  a  basis 
"  chronic  want  of  land  and  poUtical  lawlessness."  According  to 
the  opinion  of  the  peasants  themselves,  the  intention  of  the  move- 
ment is  to  force,  by  means  of  the  difficulties  created  by  the  strike, 
the  landowners  to  use  all  their  efforts  for  the  solution  of  the  land 
question.  Only  general  State  reform  on  the  basis  of  the  reply  of 
the  State  Duma  to  the  Tsar  will  change  fundamentally  the  con- 
ditions of  the  life  of  the  people,  and  will  really  pacify  the  peasant 
masses.  No  private  means  are  of  any  use,  excepting  tact,  reason, 
and  quietness  in  each  separate  case.  To  answer  the  movement 
partly  by  repressive  measures  or  by  martial  law  would  be  "  ex- 
cessively dangerous,  and  might  result  in  transforming  the  move- 
ment, peaceful  until  the  present  time,  into  **  a  cruel  play  of  pas- 
sion and  bloodshed."  Only  the  State  Duma  and  the  Ministry 
can  pacify  the  country  and  *'  create  a  ground  for  transition  to  new 

*  Transactions,  No.  3,  p.  80. 


I 


328     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

forms  of  life."^  There  were  thus  among  the  landowners  in  this 
district  two  currents — one  in  the  direction  of  repression,  and  the 
other  in  that  of  profoimd  agrarian  reform." 

The  official  view  of  the  authorities  in  the  same  district  may 
be  gathered  from  the  report  of  the  Governor  of  Tambovskaya  gub. 
to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  dated  5th  June  1906. 

This  report  narrates  that  the  movement  in  Kozlovsky  district 
spread  from  the  neighbouring  volosts  of  Ryazanskaya  guh.  The 
movement  was  characterized  by  demands  for  fabulous  increases 
of  wages,  and  by  strikes.  In  order  to  re-estabUsh  order,  250 
Cossacks  were  drawn  into  the  district.  In  the  towns  all  is  quiet. 
The  police  guard  is  almost  useless,  and  reinforcements  of  Cossacks, 
at  least  to  the  extent  of  an  additional  force  of  200  to  300,  are 
urgently  required.  Agitators  are  being  "  mercilessly  prosecuted  " 
under  the  law  about  strikes  of  15th  April  1906. 

Among  the  "  agitators  "  arrested  and  prosecuted  during  these 
proceedings  were  elected  village  aldermen  (starostas),  delegates 
elected  to  look  after  the  payment  of  wages,  and  village  teachers. 
Altogether  600  persons  were  arrested.  These  were  kept  in  prison 
for  periods  ranging  from  two  weeks  to  three  months.  In  some 
cases  the  arrests  were  resisted.  For  example,  all  the  peasants  in 
Sergievskaya  volost,  and  some  of  those  in  Pavlovskaya  volost,  left 
their  ploughing,  and,  to  the  number  of  2000,  demanded  the 
release  of  the  arrested  peasants.  This  body  was  attacked  by 
150  soldiers  and  dispersed.  Some  of  the  peasants  carried  ikons. 
Some  threw  these  away,  but  others  used  them  to  protect  them- 
selves against  the  blows  administered  by  the  troops.  In  other 
villages  the  nabaf,  or  alarm  bell,  was  sounded,  the  peasants 
collected  together,  and  sometimes  the  prisoners  were  forcibly 
released  by  them.  In  some  villages  where  a  skhod  or  public 
meeting  had  been  called,  it  was  dispersed  by  dragoons  or  by 
Cossacks.2  In  the  village  of  Lebedyanka  four  peasants  were 
killed  by  a  volley  fired  by  dragoons.  The  village  was  saved 
from  "  extermination  "  by  the  priest,  who  prayed  for  them  on 
his  knees. 

As  an  immediate  consequence  of  these  proceedings,  landowners 

1  Transactions,  No.  3,  p.  82. 
*  For  examples,  see  ibid.,  p.  84. 


CONDITION   OF  THE   PEASANTRY     329 

began  to  sell  their  lands,  and  there  was  at  once  a  fall  m  the  value 
of  land  and  in  rents  ^ 

The  answers  to  questions  about  the  changes  in  the  disposition 
of  peasants  and  about  their  attitude  towards  the  landowners  and 
towards  the  Government  are  somewhat  indefinite.  In  one  district 
alone,  viz.  Morshansky  district,  a  correspondent  gives  some  indi- 
cations. He  says  that  in  the  occasional  meetings  of  the  peasants 
they  began  to  discuss  questions  more  broadly  than  they  did  before  ; 
but  that  they  found  the  difficult  question  of  their  rdation  to  the 
land  still  imsolvable.  Still  they  seemed  to  think  that  in  some 
way  or  other  their  demands  might  be  satisfied  and  that  they 
might  get  the  land  for  nothing.  In  Tambovsky  district  the 
peasants  seemed  to  think  that  they  might  buy  the  land  through 
the  Peasants'  Bank,  on  the  instalment  principle,  and  that  they 
then  need  not  pay  the  instalments.  Others  spoke  of  taking  as 
much  as  they  could  out  of  the  land  for  a  few  years,  and  of  then 
letting  the  Peasants'  Bank  have  it.  Still  others  were  opposed  to 
the  purchase  of  land  through  the  Peasants'  Bank,  and  were  hostile 
to  any  project  initiated  by  the  Government. 

As  regards  the  relation  of  the  peasants  to  one  another,  the  dis- 
agreements before  mentioned  were  very  prevalent,  and  out  of  these 
or  otherwise  there  grew  up  in  Kozlovsky  district  an  aversion  to 
"  separations."  The  peasant  communities  refused  "  separation," 
and  when  the  Zemski  Nachalnek  intervened  and  forced  them, 
under  the  Separation  Act  of  M.  Stolypin,  to  agree  to  it,  they  gave 

^  The  following  table  shows  the  depreciation  : 

Prices  of  Land  per  Dessiatine. 

Before  the  Movement.  After  the  Movement. 

Spassk 200     rubles.  150-170  rubles. 

Tambov 180-210   ,,  175             >. 

Borisoglyebsk      ....        240-300   ,,  160-220    ,, 

Lebedyan 200           „  150            ,, 

Rents  per  Dessiatine. 

Kozlovo :  Winter  seeding  .        .  25-30  rubles.  15  rubles. 

Spring  seeding    .         .  20-25      ,, 

Usman :  Winter  seeding     .        .  25  „  23  rubles. 

Spring  seeding      .        .  20  „  18     ,, 

Wages. 
Spassk:  Labourers      .        .        .        50 rubles  70-90 rubles, 

per  year  with  board. 
Domestics  (women)       .        24  rubles  36-60    „ 

Morshansk:  Ploughing  a  dessiatine      ii-2   ,,  2i-4 

Harvesting  a  dessiatine    3J-4    ,,  "    '' 

(See  Transactions^  &c.,  No.  3,  p.  84.) 


330     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  separated  peasants  the  poorest  land  and  land  farthest  from  the 
villages.  In  Usmansky  district  "  separation  "  was  looked  upon  as 
impossible. 

We  now  pass  to  a  typical  portion  of  the  Black  Soil  Region 
— Saratovskaya  gub.  The  agrarian  movement  of  recent  times 
makes  its  first  appearance  in  this  gubernie.  Every  year,  from 
1901  onwards,  in  one  district  or  in  another,  there  have  been  signs 
of  the  movement.  In  1901-1902,  Kamushynsky  district  was 
chiefly  affected  ;  in  1902-1903,  Balashovsky  district ;  in  1903- 
1904,  Serdobsky  district.  In  the  spring  of  1905  the  movement 
began  "  to  brew "  throughout  the  gubernie,  and  in  the  second 
half  of  October,  after  the  manifesto  of  the  17th  October,  the  first 
serious  wave  swept  over  the  villages ;  the  second  wave  passed  in 
the  summer  of  1906.  The  chief  features  of  the  first  wave  were 
the  pillage  and  burning  of  the  estates  of  landowners,  and  of  the 
second,  these  and  the  driving  away  of  hay  and  grain,  non-pajmient 
of  rent,  strikes,  expropriations  of  land  and  arbitrary  division  of  it 
among  the  peasants,  fixation  of  arbitrary  rents,  cutting  of  timber, 
and  arbitrary  pasturing.  The  proceedings  were  similar  in  all  the 
districts  of  the  gubernie.  Before  the  actual  movement  began,  there 
was  much  talk  among  the  peasants  about  "the  equaUzation  of 
land,"  "  revolution,-'  and  "  struggle  for  the  right." 

When  the  pillage  began  and  there  appeared  "  the  redness  in 
the  sky,"  the  sign  of  the  burning  of  landowners'  property,  "  un- 
known persons,"  made  their  appearance  in  the  villages  and  took 
the  leadership  of  the  movement  upon  themselves.  Before  an 
attack  began  the  peasants  sometimes  went  to  the  landowner  and 
demanded  "  keys,  money,  and  arms  "  ;  sometimes  they  demanded 
the  books  of  the  estate,  in  order  that  the  records  of  their  indebted- 
ness might  be  destroyed.     In  other  cases  no  warning  was  given. 

One  purpose  alone  animated  the  peasants — "  to  smoke  out " 

the  landowners,  to  force  them  to  leave  their  estates,  so  that  the 

peasants  might  obtain  the  land  for  nothing  or  for  a  low  price. 

"If  we  pillage  the  landowners  they  will  the  sooner  give  up  their 

land.     Land  is  the  gift  of  God.     It  must  belong  to  the  labouring 

people."  ^ 

*  In  one  case,  viz.  the  estate  of  Prince  G.  in  Kamushensky  district,  the 
peasants  demanded  that  rents  should  be  reduced  from  18  rubles  to  3  rubles 
per  dessiatine,  and  that  wages  for  mowing  should  be  raised  from  1.75  rubles 
to  4  rubles  per  dessiatine. 


I 


CONDITION   OF  THE  PEASANTRY     331 

All  classes  of  the  peasantry  joined  in  the  pillage — poor,  middle- 
class,  rich,  and  even  very  rich  peasants.  Each  took  his  turn  and 
carried  off  as  much  as  he  could.  In  all  villages,  however,  the  poor 
peasants  gave  direction  to  the  movement.  In  some  they  forced 
the  rich  peasants  to  join  in  the  pillage  under  threats  of  turning 
upon  them  ;  in  others  they  prevented  the  rich  from  engaging  in 
the  pillage  on  the  ground  that  they  would  be  inclined  to  take  too 
much  for  themselves.  "  There  were  cases  in  which  the  rich  peasants 
who  were  on  a  pillaging  expedition  found,  on  their  return,  that 
their  own  property  had  been  pillaged  by  poorer  peasants."  Some 
rich  peasants  neither  joined  in  the  movement  nor  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  pillaged;  they  collected  their  families  and  friends 
and  defended  their  property  against  the  pillagers.  In  general, 
the  rich  peasants,  whether  they  took  part  in  the  movement 
by  compulsion  or  not,  were  opposed  to  it.  They  spoke  con- 
temptuously of  the  agrarneke,  in  whose  ranks  were  the  idle  and 
the  poverty-stricken. 

The  village  youth  was  everywhere  in  the  front  of  the  move-  j 
ment.  The  older  men  at  the  beginning  tried  to  impede  the  move-f 
ment — "  to  keep  their  sons  from  sin  "  ;  but  later  they  were  drawn/ 
into  the  current.  They  saw  enviously  their  neighbours  enriching 
themselves,  and  they  could  not  withstand  the  temptation.  In 
some  cases  the  old  men  succeeded  in  stopping  the  movement. 
The  women  in  general  were  S5mnpathetic,  and  occasionally  were 
even  more  active  in  pillage  than  their  husbands. 

Soldiers  returning  from  Manchuria  found,  in  frequent  cases, 
that  their  households  had  been  impoverished  by  external  economic 
causes  or  by  bad  management  during  their  absence.  They  had 
nothing  to  eat,  and  no  fuel  to  heat  their  houses  with  ;  they  found 
that  their  families  were  getting  no  regular  assistance  or  no  assist- 
ance at  all.  Such  men  threw  themselves  into  the  pillaging  move- 
ment and  increased  the  general  excitement.  "  For  what,"  they 
said,  "  did  we  shed  our  blood,  when  we  have  no  land  ?  " 

There  were  two  types  of  strikes  in  Saratovskaya  gub. — one  had 
the  same  object  as  pillage,  viz.  the  starving  out  of  the  landowners  ; 
the  other  type  was  directed  merely  towards  an  improvement  of 
the  condition  of  the  peasant  and  of  his  relations  to  the  landowner, 
without  seeking  for  the  extermination  of  the  latter.  In  strikes  of 
the  first  type,  the  demands  upon  the  landowners  were  clearly 


332     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

confiscatory.  Such  strikes  were  sometimes  followed  by  demands 
that  rent  should  be  reduced. 

In  Serdobsky  district,  a  strike  of  the  second  type  occurred. 
The  object  of  this  strike  was  the  improvement  of  the  system  of 
izpolnya  renting.  Under  this  system  the  peasant  was  allowed  to 
cultivate  for  his  own  support  and  advantage  one  dessiatine  of 
land  on  condition  of  his  cultivating  one  and  one-third  dessiatine 
and  driving  three  loads  to  the  railway  station  for  the  landowner. 
The  peasants  demanded  that  they  should  receive  one  dessiatine 
of  land  for  the  cultivation  of  another  dessiatine — that  is,  that  they 
should  in  effect  receive  one-half  of  the  produce.  In  addition  to 
this,  they  demanded  that  money  rents  should  be  diminished  and 
wages  increased. 

The  movement  assumed  a  third  form  in  Kamushensky  district, 
where  the  owners  rented  their  land  on  varying  conditions,  deter- 
mined by  the  method  of  payment  of  rents.  Thus  some  tenants 
paid  rent  in  advance,  the  rent  of  the  land  for  the  succeeding  crop 
being  paid  in  the  autumn,  some  paid  only  after  the  harvest  was 
reaped.  The  best  land  was  thus  taken  by  the  peasants  who  had 
sufficient  capital  to  pay  the  rent  in  advance,  and  the  poor  land  was 
left  for  the  poor  people.  Rents  in  the  district  were,  moreover, 
advancing.  The  peasants,  under  the  influence  of  the  move- 
ment, divided  the  land  arbitrarily  and  fixed  a  general  arbitrary 
rent  in  order  "  to  equaUze  the  rented  sections  in  respect  to 
quality." 

A  special  character  was  given  to  the  struggle  on  the  Treasury 
estates  in  the  same  district.  The  peasants  organized  periodical 
illegal  pasturings  and  ploughing ;  and  they  threatened  the  large 
renters  to  set  fire  to  their  buildings  unless  they  gave  up  the  payment 
of  rent  to  the  Treasury. 

The  agrarian  movement  in  Saratovsky  and  Petrovsky  dis- 
tricts, for  example,  was  followed  by  the  dismissal  of  former  village 
authorities  and  the  substitution  of  others  favourable  to  the  move- 
ment ;  by  reduction  of  the  salaries  of  village  functionaries,  these 
salaries  being  settled  by  the  village  assembly ;  and  by  expropriation 
of  the  glebe  lands  and  reduction  of  the  payments  for  the  services 
of  the  clergy.  The  last-mentioned  incidents  took  place  especially 
where  the  local  clergy  were  known  to  have  sympathetic  relations 
with  the  landowners.    The  shops  kept  by  the  Government  for  the 


CONDITION   OF  THE  PEASANTRY     333 

sale  of  liquor  under  the  vodka  monopoly  were  pillaged  and  closed, 
and  the  stores  of  merchants  who  were  accused  of  engrossing  grain 
in  the  Balashovsky  district  were  pillaged.  These  merchants  who 
sometimes  rented  lands  belonging  to  them  for  cultivation  by 
peasants  were  accused  of  "  squeezing  the  peasants,  on  the  one 
hand,  by  high  rents,  and,  on  the  other,  by  cheating  them  "  in 
measuring  the  grain  in  which  these  rents  were  paid. 

In  the  latter  district  the  property  of  the  employees  of  the 
landowners  was  not  touched  by  the  pillagers.  "  Take  it  away," 
the  peasants  said,  "  so  that  it  may  not  be  pillaged  along  with  the 
property  of  the  landowners."  ^ 

Throughout  the  Saratovskaya  gubernie,  the  correspondents  state 
that  the  poor  peasants  and  those  with  the  smallest  allotments 
were  the  most  active  in  the  movement.  Throughout  the  gubernie 
also  the  correspondents  unanimously  regard  the  insufficiency  of 
land  and  the  poverty  of  the  peasants  as  the  chief  causes  of  the 
movement.  They  think  that  if  the  disturbances  had  not  broken 
out  at  that  time  they  were  inevitable  sooner  or  later.  "  The 
peasants  became  wearied  of  Uving  in  poverty  and  of  experiencing 
unsatisfied  "  need  of  land."  "  Not  the  agitators  caused  the 
movement,  but  the  poverty  of  the  peasants."  "  Even  the  so-called 
full  allotment  of  the  landowners  was  not  adequate."  "  The 
peasants  who  had  only  the  gifted  allotments  were  subject  to  ever- 
lasting hunger."  "  There  is  no  forest,  not  a  single  twig ;  there 
are  no  meadows  and  no  cultivated  land,  not  a  sajen."  "  The 
peasants  have  for  a  long  time  nourished  hatred  against  the  land- 
owners who  were  indifferent  (to  their  sufferings)  and  always  well 
fed  "  (while  they  went  hungry).  "  The  peasants  are  sitting  upon 
small  pieces  of  land  while  the  lands  and  forests  of  the  estate-owners 
surround  them." 

These  are  some  of  the  statements  of  the  correspondents  from 
various  districts  in  the  gubernie.  This  normal  state  of  poverty 
experienced  by  the  peasants  became  more  acute  than  usual  during 
the  two  years  immediately  preceding  1905  owing  to  the  inferior 
yields  of  grain. 

The  average  area  of  land  occupied  by  a  peasant  non-renter 
who  had  a  gifted  allotment  in  this  gubernie  is  stated  at  ij  dessia- 
tines,  the  average  of  a  peasant  renter  upon  the  estates  of  private 

^  Transactions ^  &c.,  No.  3,  p.  148. 


334     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

owners,  4  dessiatines,  and  the  average  holding  of  a  peasant  on 
the  State  lands  was  7  dessiatines. 

Even  8  dessiatines  per  holding,  which  was  the  average  of 
Kamushensky  district,  did  not  prevent  the  peasants  from  joining 
in  the  movement. 

Throughout  the  gubernie  the  movement  was  directed  against 
all  landowners — the  gentry,  the  merchants,  rich  peasants  and  large 
renters  of  pomyetschek  and  Treasury  lands.  The  pomyetschek  or 
private  landowner's  peasants  began  to  look  upon  the  land  as  their 
own,  while  the  peasants  upon  the  Treasury  lands  desired  that  the 
lands  should  simply  be  transferred  to  them.  Peasants  who  had 
formerly  been  subject  to  personal  bondage  were  eager  to  get,  and 
to  divide  amongst  themselves,  the  lands  of  the  barin^  to  whom 
they  had  formerly  been  bondaged. 

While  all  forms  of  landownership  were  attacked,  even  State 
ownership,  the  movement  assumed  specially  acute  forms  wherever 
there  had  been  unusually  high  rents  or  where  the  conditions  of 
labour  had  been  exploitative. 

In  Petrovsky  and  Kamushensky  districts,  the  rents  had  been 
rising  during  recent  years  on  private  and  State  lands  aUke.  The 
system  of  izpolya  or  metayer  tenancy  had  been  gradually  changed 
for  money-renting.  The  employment  of  day  labourers  had  been 
taking  the  place  both  of  izpolnya  and  of  otrabotok  or  rented  land, 
the  rent  of  which  was  paid  in  work.  The  meadows  ceased  to  be 
given  for  otrabotok — ^the  landowners  demanded  cash  for  them. 
Wood  for  fuel  had  formerly  been  given  as  payment  for  clearing  the 
forests,  now  it  was  charged  for  in  money .^ 

As  a  rule  the  mihtary  force  sent  by  the  Government  to  "  pacify  " 
the  peasants  was  not  sent  until  after  the  movement  had  spent 
itself.  The  effect  of  this  proceeding  upon  the  peasantry  was  not 
salutary.  They  became  frightened,  and  began  to  betray  one 
another  to  the  authorities.  Sometimes,  however,  they  offered 
resistance  en  masse.  In  Kamushensky  district,  e.g.,  forty-five 
peasants  were  wounded  in  a  bayonet  charge  by  the  troops,  six 
were  wounded  by  bullets,  and  one  old  man  and  three  women 
were  kiUed. 

*  Barin  is  a  corruption  of  Boyarin,  the  nom.  sing,  of  the  Russian  word 
corresponding  to  the  English  "  Boyard,"  nobleman. 

*  This  was  especially  the  case  in  Petrovsky  and  Kamushensky  districts. 


I 

\ 


CONDITION  OF  THE  PEASANTRY     335 

Immediately  after  the  movement  rents  fell  sharply,  m  some 
districts  to  the  extent  of  25  per  cent.,  in  others  to  the  extent  of 
50  per  cent.  So  far  as  the  details  in  the  answers  permit  of  definite 
statement,  the  following  illustrates  the  fact  of  the  fall  of  rent :  ^ 


District. 

Rent  before  Movement. 
Per  dessiatine. 

Rent  after  Movement. 
Per  dessiatine. 

Balashov     .... 
Petrovsk     .... 
Saratov       .... 
Kamushen  .... 
Volsk 

Rubles    Kopeks 
20            0 
14         40 

19  0 
10            0 

20  0 

Rubles    Kopeks 

12          80 

10          70 

9        50 

1          50 
6          0 

It  should  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  correspondents  do  not 
refer  the  fall  of  rents  to  the  movement,  but  to  the  inferior  yields 
of  the  two  years  immediately  preceding  1905.  In  some  places 
the  fall  was  only  temporary,  and  rents  began  again  to  rise  in  1907. 
Thus  in  Verhozimskaya  volost  of  Petrovsky  district,  rents  fell  from 
15  rubles  in  1905  to  6  rubles  in  1906,  and  rose  to  12  rubles  in 
1907.*  So  also  the  conditions  of  izpolnya  renting  which  had  been 
improved  in  1906  became  less  favourable  to  the  peasant  in  1907.^ 

*  Transactions,  &c..  No.  3,  p.  149. 
«  Ibid. 

'  This  is  stated  especially  with  regard  to  such  tenancies  in  Serdobsky 
district. 


k 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CONCLUSIONS  FROM  THE  FOREGOING  EVIDENCE  RE- 
GARDING THE  CONDITION  OF  THE  PEASANTRY 
IN    1905 

The  three  regions  selected  for  detailed  examination  have  been  the 
region  of  Novgorod  and  Pskov,  that  of  Tambov,  and  that  of  Saratov. 
The  first  is  a  forest  region,  in  which  grain  cultivation  has  a  sub- 
ordinate place ;  the  other  two  are  in  the  Black  Soil  Region,  the 
most  fertile  part  of  Russia,  and  that  in  which  the  cultivation  of 
grain  is  carried  on  to  an  immense  extent.     The  prevalence  in  the 

rtwo  latter  regions  of  grain  cultivation  on  a  large  scale  by  means 
S.  I  of  wage-earning  peasantry  upon  estates  belonging  to  landowners 

Lhas  already  been  noticed.  The  movement  seems  to  have  been,  in 
point  of  time,  earlier  in  Saratov  than  elsewhere,  but  in  all  the 
districts  of  all  the  guberni  it  is  very  evident  that  the  "  state  of 
mind  "  of  the  peasants  which  resulted  in  the  disturbances  was 
practically  universal ;  the  impulse  to  overt  action,  however  it  came, 
found  its  appropriate  soil  ready  everywhere.  The  characteristic 
;Of  the  movement  seems  to  have  been  the  new  spirit  of  resistance 

■  to  authority  which  emerged  almost  suddenly,  the  grounds  of  dis- 

■  satisfaction  being  of  old  standing.     A  general  review  of  the  evi-* 
dence  suggests  that  everywhere  the  peasants  were  animated  by 

[the  same  general  idea — viz.  that  the  land  must  be  obtained  some- 
how. They  seemed  to  think  that  they  must  secure  possession 
!  of  the  land,  and  that  they  were  being  unjustly  deprived  of  this 
possession  by  the  existing  owners,  whether  these  were  private 
owners,  or  whether,  as  State  lands,  the  lands  were  in  the  hands  of 
'  the  Treasury.  In  either  case,  they  thought  that  the  lands  should 
be  transferred  to  them,  in  order  that  they  might  cultivate  them. 
They  were  told — as,  for  example,  by  the  proclamation  of  the  Zemstvo 
of  Byelozyersky  district — that  the  Duma  would  speedily  settle 
the  land  question  in  a  way  satisfactory  to  them ;   but  they  were 

336 


CONCLUSIONS  337 

impatient.  They  knew  nothing  of  constitutional  procedure.  It  was 
enough  that  they  knew  what  they  wanted.  The  only  solution 
of  the  land  question  which  they  could  recognize  as  effectual  was  to 
give  the  land  to  them,  or  to  give  at  least  as  much  of  it  as  they  could 
cultivate.  Endless  time  might  be  consumed  in  debating  about 
the  terms  of  transference.  These  terms  could  be  discussed  after- 
wards. The  important  thing  was  to  get  the  land  at  once  into  their 
hands.  U action  directe^  was  the  simplest  and  speediest  method. 
If  they  had  force  enough  to  take  the  land,  the  transference  might 
be  accomplished  in  that  way  ;  if  they  had  not  force  enough  to 
take  the  land,  they  had  enough  at  least  to  make  occupation  of  the\ 
land  by  anyone  but  themselves  exceedingly  uncomfortable  and  even  | 
dangerous.  Landowner  and  State  ahke  might  be  compelled  to 
surrender  the  land  of  the  peasants  by  making  ownership  of  it  by 
anyone  else  impracticable.  So  far  as  the  peasants  were  concerned,!  ~\ 
there  is  no  evidence  of  wider  political  ideas.  The  supreme  ques4  ^ 
tion  for  them  was  the  question  of  the  land.  Their  demands  were 
concentrated  upon  possession  ot  land,  without  payment,  if  pos- 
sible, but  in  any  case,  possession.  The  demand  that  rents  be  re- 
duced must  be  construed  in  the  sense  that  the  reduction  insisted 
upon  was  in  many  cases  so  great  as  to  amount  to  complete  con- 
fiscation of  the  land.  The  peasants  knew  very  well  that  the  rents 
offered  by  them  were  not  economical  rents  in  the  strict  sense. 

While  it  is  no  doubt  true,  as  alleged  by  the  correspondents  of  the 
Imperial  Free  Economical  Society,  that  the  peasants  in  many  cases 
deUberately  made  demands  which  could  not  be  met  by  the  landowners 
out  of  the  resources  which  their  lands  afforded,  it  is  also  true  that 
the  peasants  were  quite  familiar  with  ineconomical  agriculture 
and  landholding.  In  many  districts  the  peasants,  in  order  to  en- 
able themselves  to  Uve  and  pay  their  rents  and  taxes,  were  obUged 
to  engage  in  industry — hunting,  fishing,  lumbering — and  to  obtain 
subventions  from  the  absent  members  of  their  families.  They 
thus  saw  no  inconsistency  in  making  demands  upon  the  landowners 
which  necessitated  similar  expedients  on  their  part.  If  the  land- 
owner had  or  could  obtain  sources  of  income  external  to  landowning 
pure  and  simple,  good  and  well ;  if  not,  he  might  be  forced  to  sur- 
render the  land  to  those  who  had.  The  peasants'  own  holdings! 
were  inadequate  for  their  support,  and  they  saw  no  reason  why  1 
the  landowners'  holdings  should  support  them  through  the  labour) 

VOL.  II  Y 


338     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

of  the  peasants.  The  landowner  might  have  a  salary  as  a  public 
functionary,  or  profit  as  a  man  of  business.  In  any  case,  the 
peasant  considered  that  it  was  no  affair  of  his  how  the  landowner 
might  live,  deprived  of  rent  or  ruined  by  high  wages  of  labour. 
The  peasant  even  had  other  sources  of  income,  so,  no  doubt,  had  the 
landowner. 

The  peasantry  in  general  seem  to  have  thought  that  for  ages 
they  had  been  exploited  by  the  landowners,  and  that  now  the  turn 

I  of  the  wheel  of  fortune  had  brought  them  uppermost.  Their  hour 
had  come.  Th&  new  Duma  was  to  be  a  peasants*  Duma,  therefore 
it  must  give  the  peasants  what  they  wanted.  What  they  wanted 
'was  land,  therefore  land  must  be  given  to  them. 

f        While  in  some  cases  the  influence  of  the  propaganda  of  the  socialist 

j  revolutionary  party  is  apparent,  it  must  be  realized  that  almost 
everywhere  the  movement  in  its  essential  features  was  spontaneous. 
Indeed,  the  peasants  were  "  more  advanced  "  than  the  revolution- 
ists. Although  they  did  not  work  out  the  implications  of  their 
movement,  it  meant  in  effect  that  the  land  was  to  be  given  to  them, 
and  that  they  were  to  be  allowed  to  cultivate  it  without  State 
taxes.  They  might  collect  taxes  from  themselves,  but  the  funds 
produced  by  these  taxes  were  to  be  expended  locally.  Under 
these  conditions,  of  course,  the  State  as  such  must  disappear,  and 
the  nation  must  dissolve  into  loosely-connected  groups  of  inde- 
>pendent  and    autonomous    communities.     Without   realizing  the 

i^course  of  the  development  of  their  ideas,  the  peasants  had  arrived 

J  Substantially  at  the  position  of  Baktmin. 

It  is  very  clear  that  the  drift  of  opinion  in  the  towns  among  the 
artisans,  and  in  the  capitals,  even  among  the  professional  classes, 
was  not  at  all  in  this  direction.  These  were  at  least  not  un- 
favourable to  nationalization  of  the  land,  but  for  that  very  reason 
they  were  not  prepared  for  the  disappearance  of  the  State.  They 
were  inclined  towards  State  organization  of  industry,  and  for  that 
reason  they  desired  the  State  to  be  powerful.  The  divergence  of 
opinion  and  of  interest  between  the  peasants  and  the  artisans, 
and  the  simultaneous  forcing  of  the  social  and  the  political  revolu- 
tions, together  with  the  absence  of  constructive  ideas  at  the 
critical  juncture,  seem  to  account  for  the  abortive  character  of  the 
revolution. 

Behind  this  fundamental  antagonism  of  the  peasant  and  the 


CONCLUSIONS  339 

artisan  there  lay  also  the  increasing  antagonism  between  the  rich  I 
and  the  poor  peasant,  between  the  peasant  who  had  both  land  i 
and  agricultural  capital  and  the  peasant  who  had  neither.  In 
presence  of  these  irreconcilable  antagonisms,  and  in  the  absence 
of  social  soUdarity  which  was  their  inevitable  outcome,  the  auto- 
cracy, enfeebled  as  it  was  from  inherent  defects,  was  able  after 
a  struggle  to  control  the  situation,  and  for  the  time  at  least  to  stem 
the  revolution.  This  cannot,  however,  be  made  fully  evident 
until  the  contemporary  industrial  situation  has  been  studied. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   LAW   OF   qth   NOVEMBER   1906 

The  law  upon  which  all  subsequent  projects  of  land  reform  in 
Russia  must  be  based  is  contained  in  the  ukase  of  9th  November 
1906.  This  law  effected  a  fundamental  change  in  the  relation^ 
between  the  peasant  and  the  land.  Old  Russian  habits  of  thought  1 
about  landownership  had  attached  to  the  idea  of  land  possession  J 
a  collective  character.  The  rights  of  the  community  in  the  land 
were  more  or  less  definitively  recognized,  both  before  and  after  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs.  The  proprietor  of  the  land  could  not 
do  with  it  precisely  what  he  liked.  It  was,  in  early  times,  when 
held  as  a  votchina,  his  own  heritable  property,  and  in  later  times 
the  distinction  between  votchinal  ownership  and  other  forms  being 
obscured  or  obliterated,  it  became  also  heritable  whether  it  was 
in  votchinal  ownership,  properly  speaking,  or  not.  But  the  later 
history  of  landownership  is  especially  characterized  by  restric- 
tions upon  the  mobility  or  free  transference  of  land.  Land  could 
not  be  sold  to  persons  not  authorized  to  possess  land,  and  in  this 
category  were  large  classes  of  the  community ;  land  might  not 
be  sold  without  the  peasants  who  cultivated  and  Hved  upon  it,  &c. 
The  community,  as  represented  by  the  State,  imposed  these  regula- 
tions, and  thus  confirmed  its  claim  to  an  interest  in  the  land. 
Moreover,  the  taxes  upon  land  being  assessed  in  accordance  with 
the  number  of  peasants  Hving  upon  it,  it  was  the  interest  of  the 
community  to  see  that  none  of  its  members  evaded  his  just  obUga- 
tions  by  leaving  the  community,  which  was  responsible  for  the 
pajTment  of  his  quota  of  the  taxes.  In  order  to  make  the  "  mutual 
guarantee "  effective,  it  was  necessary  for  the  community,  as 
represented  in  the  volost,  to  regulate  the  distribution  of  the  land, 
and  to  see  that  each  peasant  took  enough  land  to  enable  him  to 
^  support  his  family  and  to  contribute  his  quota  of  the  taxes.  In 
r  short,  the  community  appeared  everywhere ;  legislation  was 
directed  either  towards  securing  the  interest  of  the  State  or  com- 

l  mimity  as  central  authority,  or  of  the  volost  or  mir  or  community 

340 


LAW   OF   9TH    NOVEMBER    1906        341 

as  local  authority.     The  interest  of  the  individual  peasant  family*] 
was  secured  by  the  presence  of  its  head  in  the  volost  assemblies,  | 
and  by  his  right  to  appear  in  the  volost  court.     But  the  right  of 
the  individual  peasant  was  not  explicitly  recognized,  excepting 
that,  with  the  permission  of  his  family  and  of  the  volost,  he  could 
"  separate,"  and  in  "  separation  "  could  receive  a  specific    share 
of  the  land  of  the  family.     But,  as  has  been  shown  above,  the 
practice  of  "  separation  "  was  very  fluctuating.^    The  cancellation 
of  the  balance  of  the  redemption  tax  which  remained  put  an  end  to 
the  "  mutual  guarantee,"  and  the  peasant  family  was  face  to  face 
with  the  tax-collector,  and  was  so  far  free  from  the  interference 
in  its  affairs  by  the  volost  which  the  "  mutual  guarantee  "  impUed. 
But  the  commimity  land  and  the  community  interest  in  it  re- 
mained.    There  was  practically  no  land  in  individual  family  heri- 
table tenure. 

The  ukase  of  9th  November  1906  changed  all  that.    Under  it 
every  householder,  independently  altogether  of  the   will  of  the 
community,    was   endowed   with   the   right   to   fix   in   property, 
personal  to  himself  and  heritable,  that  portion  of  land  which  be- 
longed to  his  family  at  the  last  distribution.     This  right  involved 
the  further  rights  to  sell  the  land,  and  to  distribute  it  among  his 
descendants  at  his  own  discretion,  although  his  powers  in  this  i 
connection  were  much  modified  by  local  customs  as  well  as  by  | 
general  civil  law.     In  order  to  prevent  the  accumulation  of  large 
blocks  of  land  in  few  hands,  the  ukase  provided  that  no  single  ]  4^ 
purchaser  might   purchase   more   than   25   dessiatines   from   any  ! 
individual  seller.     The  ukase  of  9th  November  1906  may  thus  be 
held  to  have  in  reaUty  introduced  into  Russian  law  the  conception  1 
of  individual  ownership  of  property,  and  thus  to  have  brought  in  1 
tliis  respect  Russian  law  into  conformity  with  the  law  of  Western  | 
Europe  upon  the  subject.* 

*  Cf.  supra,  pp.  266  et  seq.  "  Separations  "  of  late  years  have  been 
very  numerous  wnere  the  peasants  have  forsaken  the  country  for  the  town ; 
and  "  separations  "  from  the  family,  but  not  from  the  village,  have  been 
frequent,  so  also  have  "  separations  "  on  account  of  distant  migration  ; 
but  cases  of  "  separation  "  where  the  peasant  has  carved  out  of  the  land  of 
the  community  a  lot  for  himself,  has  built  a  house  upon  it,  and  has  elected 
to  Uve  an  independent  life,  have  been  rare. 

■  Cf.  A.  Berezovsky  (Member  of  Third  Duma,  President  of  the  Executive 
Board  of  his  Zemstvo  and  of  the  Land  Reform  Committee  of  his  district), 
in  RusSt  31st  January  and  13th  February  1908  (O.S.),  art.  on  "Land, 
Peasants,  and  New  Laws." 


342     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

While  this  ukase  introduced  ia  reality  into  Russian  law  the 
conception  of  individual  private  property  in  land,  this  conception 
Thad  been  previously  introduced  in  form  into  the  Emancipation 
LActs.1 

The  community  was  permitted,  under  these  Acts,  to  allot  to 
individual  peasant  members  in  private  property  their  share  of 
the  lands  purchased  by  the  community ;  it  was  also  permitted 
to  compound  for  such  allotment  by  a  money  payment.  The  agree- 
ment was  to  be  mutual ;  but  it  is  clear  that,  since  the  land  belonged 
to  the  community,  that  body  had  the  right  to  dispose  of  it  or  not, 
as  it  might  think  fit,  under  the  terms  of  the  Act.  The  legal  defini- 
tion of  communal  property  as  distinguished  from  other  property 
held  by  members  of  the  community  has  been  put  thus  by  the 
Senate  in  one  of  the  decisions  of  the  Civil  Department : 

"  The  substantial  distinction  between  the  property  of  the 
community  and  general  property  is  that  the  proprietor  of  the 
former  is  the  community  as  juridical  person,  apart  from  the  mem- 
bers of  the  community ;  and  the  proprietors  of  the  latter  are  the 
separate  persons,  and  not  the  community."  ^ 

The  new  ukase  enables  the  individual  householder  to  take  the 
and  allotted  to  him  at  the  last  distribution,  and  to  hold  it  as  his 
\own  or  to  sell  it.  He  receives,  in  short,  without  compensation 
to  the  community,  a  |i1;l^  to  that  which  formerly  belonged  to  the 
community.  Thus,  whereas  previous  legislation  had  been  on  the 
whole  favourable  to  the  maintenance  of  landholding  in  community 
as  a  characteristic  Russian  institution,  the  new  ukase  was  ap- 
parently designed,  along  with  the  encouragement  of  "  separation," 
L  to  break  up  not  only  the  community,  but  the  family.  The  full 
effect  of  this  ukase  remains  to  be  seen.  It  is,  however,  clear  that 
it  endows  the  heads  of  peasant  families  with  considerable  powers, 
which  they  did  not  enjoy  under  previous  laws,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  it  not  only  removes  the  control  of  the  community  and 
abrogates  whatever  rights  it  may  be  presumed  to  have  had  in 
the  land,  but  it  cancels  a  previously  existing  right  of  the  children 
of  the  head  of  the  family  to  a  share  in  the  family  land.^    The  land 

^  The  series  of  Acts  by  means  of  which  Emancipation  was  effected  were 
called  "  General  Peasants'  Acts  "  or  "  General  Acts  upon  Peasant  Affairs." 
The  section  in  question  is  the  12th.     Quoted  by  Berezovsky,  loc.  cit. 

2  Ihid.  '  Cf.  ibid. 


LAW   OF   9TH   NOVEMBER    1906        343 

ceases  to  be  the  possession  of  the  family  as  a  part  of,  and  under 
the  control  of,  the  community,  and  becomes  the  possession  of  the 
head  of  the  family  alone.  He  may  aUenate  it  practically  at  will, 
the  rights  of  others  in  the  property  being  simply  cancelled  by  the 
imperial  ukase. 

There  is  thus  created  with  one  hand  a  peasant  proprietary,  and  " ! 
with  the  other  a  peasant  proletariat.  It  must  be  realized  that  the  ^ 
land  had  been  allotted  to  the  peasant  household  at  the  last  dis- 
tribution, as  a  rule,  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  revision  souls  in  the 
household.  Thus  those  souls  who  were  counted  as  belonging  to  the 
household  at  the  last  revision,  were  in  exactly  the  same  position 
as  those  who  were  bom  after  the  revision,  and  were,  therefore,  not 
counted.  It  is  true  that  extreme  subdivision  of  peasant  holdings 
may,  by  these  means,  be  avoided  ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  peasant 
heads  of  households  who  wish  to  do  so  may  sell  their  lands  to 
speculators.  Unaccustomed  to  the  possession  of  ready  money 
and  unacquainted  with  the  means  of  turning  it  to  advantage 
the  peasant  is  unlikely  to  benefit  by  this  arrangement.  He  and  his 
family  come  to  be  separated  from  their  customary  means  of  Uveh- 
hood,  and  they  necessarily  swell  the  ranks  of  the  proletariat  either 
in  the  villages  or  in  the  cities.  The  following  case  illustrates  thje 
working  of  the  law  : 

In  Simbirskaya  gtd).,  Ardatovsky  district,  between  nth  Sep- 
tember and  25th  December  1907,  ten  sales  of  peasant  land,  trans- 
ferred into  private  property  under  the  Act,  were  effected ;  the 
land  being  sold  very  cheaply.  This  region  is  in  the  Black  Soil  Zone, 
and  may,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  a  favourable  case.  In  the 
district  mentioned,  and  at  that  time  the  price  paid  for  land- 
owners* land  by  the  Peasant  Bank  was  120-130  rubles.  The  price 
paid  in  the  ten  cases  quoted  was  less  than  half  as  much,  being  from 
35-60  rubles  per  dessiatine.^ 

But  the  ukase  of  9th  November  1906  does  not  stamd  alone.: 
It  must  be  taken  in  connection  with  other  land  reforming  schemes  j 
of  the  Government.     These  schemes  involve  partly  the  utilization 
of  previously  existing  agencies,  for  example,  the  Peasant  Bank,   / 
and  partly  the  formation  of  new  administrative  mechanism.     The 
administrations  of  the  State  (Kazna)  and  that  of  Imperial  Family 
(Udelni)  lands  are  required  to  sell  to  land-seeking  peasants,  and 

^  Berezovsky,  he.  cit. 


344     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

these  may  also  purchase  lands  of  private  owners  through  the 
Peasant  Bank.  In  addition,  the  Government  has  brought  before 
the  Third  Duma  a  plan  for  the  regulation  of  the  relations  of 
peasant  proprietors  with  the  landowners  of  adjoining  estates. 
The  disposition  of  the  landowners  to  inflict  petty  fines  and  other 
annoyances  upon  peasants  owning  land  in  their  neighbourhood 
has  been  a  fruitful  source  of  friction,  and  accumulated  grievances 
of  this  kind  have  often  produced  grave  peasant  riots.  Measures 
are  also  to  be  taken  to  transfer  peasants  from  congested  districts 
'■  to  less  populated  places.  For  the  purpose  of  elaborating  these 
practical  plans  and  applying  them  in  detail  appropriately  to 
different  districts  the  Government  announced,  on  4th  May  1906, 
on  the  eve  of  the  caUing  of  the  First  Duma,  the  formation  of  local 
"I^Land  Reform  Committees  to  assist  the  operations  of  the  Peasant 

[Bank,  and  otherwise  to  faciUtate  the  carrying  out  of  the  projects 
of  the  Government. 

These  measures  promised  well,  but,  unfortunately,  from  the 
beginning  the  composition  of  these  committees  was  such  as  to 
invite  distrust.  The  personnels  of  the  committees  varied  in  different 
districts,  but  the  principle  upon  which  the  ex  officio  membership 
of  the  committees  was  fixed  threw  the  weight  of  the  influence  of 
the  committees  upon  the  side  of  the  landowners  and  of  the  bureau- 
cracy. This  proceeding  was  in  accordance  with  all  precedents  in 
Governmental  action  in  agrarian  reform.  It  was  indeed  another 
added  to  the  long  list  of  attempts,  which  have  been  recorded 
above,  to  benefit  the  peasants  without  diminishing  the  influence 
or  the  property  of  the  landowners — ^in  other  words,  to  make  the 
peasants  pay  out  of  their  empty  pockets  for  that  which  had  in 
the  nature  of  things  either  to  be  withheld  from  them  or  to  be  given 
to  them  at  the  expense  of  the  State  or  the  landowners,  or  both. 
The  "  indispensable  members  "  of  the  Land  Reform  Committees 

'  were  to  be  the  inspector  of  taxes,  the  district  member  of  *the  local 
government  court,  the  Zemski  Nachalnek,  together  with  the  district 
marshal  of  nobility,  the  president  of  the  Zemstvo  Executive  Board, 
three  representatives  of  the  Zemstvo  Assembly,^  and  three  peasant 

^  When  the  ukase  establishing  the  Land  Reform  Committees  was  pro- 
mulgated, the  Zemstvo  Assemblies  were  generally  of  liberal  tendency  ;  but 
after  the  dissolution  of  the  First  Duma,  when  agrarian  disorders  occurred, 
the  so-called  "  righting  "  of  the  Zemstvos  took  place,  and  their  influence  was 
then  directed  rather  towards  the  neutralization  of  reforms  than  the  pro- 
motion of  them. 


LAW    OF   9TH   NOVEMBER    1906        345 

representatives.  The  large  landowning  and  the  ofl&cial  influence 
thus  predominated  in  the  committees,  and  from  the  beginning  they 
did  not  inspire  confidence.  Moreover,  the  committees  were  not 
left  free  to  exercise  their  own  judgment.  They  were  constantly 
being  instructed  by  ministerial  circulars. 

The  Land  Reform  Committees  began  their  operations  by 
arranging  for  the  purchase  of  the  land  of  private  owners  by  the 
Peasant  Bank.  They  added  largely  to  the  land  fund  of  the  bank, 
sometimes  at  relatively  high  prices.  Valuation  of  land  is  a  special 
business  with  which  the  members  of  the  committees  were  rarely 
acquainted.  They  employed  no  expert  advice,  they  were  them- 
selves owners  of  land,  and  their  inevitable  inclinations  were  to 
maintain  rather  than  to  reduce  prices ;  the  cost,  moreover,  did 
not  come  out  of  their  own  pockets.  The  consequences  may  be 
imagined.  Estates  which  had  long  been  in  the  market  for  sale, 
and  which,  owing  to  non-fertihty  of  soil,  neglect,  or  otherwise, 
were  practically  imsaleable  under  ordinary  condition,  now  suddenly 
acquired  a  value,  and  found  a  facile  purchaser .^ 

When  the  phase  of  purchase  had  lasted  for  some  time,  there 
came  the  desirabiUty  of  distributing  the  land  among  the  peasants — 
the  end,  indeed,  of  the  whole  scheme.  But  after  the  exertions  of  ] 
purchase  the  Land  Reform  Committees  fell  asleep,  and,  in  spite  J 
of  the  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  central  Government  to  stimulate 
their  activity  through  the  local  officials  who  were  members  of 
them,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Government  sent  out  special 
fimctionaries  to  insist  upon  the  committees  proceeding  with  their 
work,  they  could  not  be  galvanized  into  further  activity.  In  so 
far  as  they  did  exercise  any  influence  upon  the  peasant  situation, 
they  seem  to  have  rather  intensified  existing  evils  than  to  have 
removed  them.  One  of  the  difficulties  of  the  system  of  frequent 
redistribution  of  land  had  been  the  cutting  up  of  arable  fields  into 
long  strips — a  form  of  field  which  is  not  convenient  for  intensive 
cultivation.  In  any  new  distribution  it  was  important  to  avoid 
this  so  far  as  possible,  yet  the  committees  sometimes  distributed 

^  A.  Berezovsky,  who  was  himself  President  of  a  Land  Committee  under 
Kutler's  scheme  (Kutler  was  Minister  of  Finance  for  a  few  months),  and  also 
of  one  of  the  new  Land  Reform  Committees,  narrates  a  case  in  which  an 
estate  which  was  offered  for  sale  to  the  first-mentioned  committee,  and  rejected 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  unsuitable  for  conversion  from  timber-bearing  into 
arable  land,  and  was  therefore  not  suitable  for  peasant  occupation,  was  sold 
at  a  high  price  to  the  Land  Reform  Committee.     Russ,  ist  February  1908. 


346     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  land  in  such  a  way  as  to  intensify  this  inconvenience,  not  only 
by  selling  the  land  in  long  and  very  narrow  strips,^  but  by  making, 
as  had  to  be  done  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  this  division  of  the  land! 
permanent.  Inconvenient  as  the  practice  was  under  the  former 
S5^tem  of  community  ownership,  it  might  be  altered ;  but  under 
the  new  system  of  private  ownership  alteration  was  practically 
impossible. 

The  failure  of  the  Land  Reform  Committees  to  accomplish 
what  was  expected  and  required  of  them  was  extremely  embarrass- 
ing to  the  Government,  but  censure  for  the  failure  cannot  be 
withheld  from  the  Government  itself,  which  determined  the  com- 
position of  the  committees  in  such  a  way  that  in  the  absence  of 
an  unusual  amount  of  self-abnegation  and  of  an  unusual  obUvious- 
ness  of  the  narrower  interests  of  their  class,  it  would  have  been 
difl&cult  for  the  members  of  the  committees  to  perform  their 
functions  in  such  a  way  as  to  inspire  confidence. 

j.|^  The  net  results  of  the  activity  of  the  Land  Reform  Committees 
appear  to  have  been  the  accumulation  in  the  hands  of  the  Peasant 
Bank  of  an  unreaUsable  fund  in  land  at  high  prices,  and  the  increase 
of  prices  of  land  generally  owing  to  considerable  areas  being  taken 

V  off  the  land  market.  All  this  was  done  in  teeth  of  the  clamour  on 
the  part  of  the  peasants  for  more  land  and  of  the  miserable  con- 
dition of  vast  numbers  of  them  because  of  land  insufficiency.  When 
■  the  Land  Reform  Committees  did  sell  land,  they  seem  to  have 
!  sold  it  to  well-to-do  peasants,  while  those  who  really  were  in  need 
of  land,  chiefly  the  peasants  whose  only  holdings  were  the  "  gifted 
allotments,"  were  obliged  to  go  without.  In  those  cases  where 
such  peasants  did  purchase  relatively  highly-priced  lands  through 
the  Peasant  Bank,  they  became  debtors  to  the  State  to  an  amount 
which,  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances  conceivable,  they 
would  never  be  able  to  extinguish.  Under  these  conditions  the 
State  must  suffer  pecuniary  loss  and  the  peasant  must  suffer  from 
hopeless  insolvency. 

<        ^  Berezovsky  mentions  a  case  in  which  a  Land  Reform  Committee  in 
•■  Simbirskaya  gub.  sold  strips  to  peasants  3500  ft.  long  by  from  105-140  ft. 
wide.     Rtiss,  ist  February  1908. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   AGRARIAN   SITUATION   SINCE   1906 

The  minds  of  the  peasants  during  the  years  1905  and  1906  came, 
through  many  channels,  to  be  filled  with  high  hopes.  The  agrarian 
question  was  to  be  settled  at  last.  Some  practical  steps  had  indeed 
been  made  in  this  direction.  State  lands  had  been  thrown  open 
to  the  peasants.  The  "  State  land  reservation  "  amounted  already 
to  40-50  miUions  of  dessiatines.^  It  appeared  that  everyone  was 
to  have  his  "  need  of  land  "  satisfied.  The  enthusiasts  began  to 
see  glowing  agricultural  prospects.  Destitution  among  the 
peasantry  was  to  give  way  to  plenty.  The  peasants  were  even 
to  devote  themselves  to  improvement  in  farming.  **  The  work  of 
raising  the  standard  of  agricultural  technique  began  to  boil,"  writes 
one,  for  example.^  Anticipation  of  a  drastic  land  pohcy  which  was 
to  be  adopted  by  the  new  State  Duma  in  obedience  to  the  demands 
of  the  peasants  led  to  the  development  of  agricultural  co-opera- 
tion. Even  the  farm  labourer  looked  forward  to  the  possibihty 
of  becoming  a  small  holder,  or  at  least  a  partner  in  a  holding ;  while 
the  small  holders  hoped  to  increase  their  holdings.  For  a  time 
these  anticipations  gave  a  great  stimulus  to  village  life,  and  the 
"  stagnation  "  of  the  village  which  the  chronic  "  need  of  land  " 
had  engendered  began  to  disappear. 

But  the  dissolution  of  the  Second  Dimia  and  the  new  electoral 
law  which  followed  changed  all  that.  The  peasants  awoke  to  find 
that  they  had  been  dreaming,  and  to  reaUze  that  the  Government 
had  no  intention,  and  perhaps  no  power,  to  give  them  what  they 
wanted. 

Prior  to  the  election  of  the  First  State  Duma,  the  Government 
seemed  to  think  that  the  most  e:ffective  method  of  limiting  the 
extent  of  poUtical  change  was  to  give  a  proportionately  large  reprc- 

^  That  is  between  1 10  and  138  millions  of  acres. 

*  A.  A.  Chuprov,  art.  "  The  Reforms  from  Above  and  the  Movement 
from  Below  in  Agrarian  Questions,"  in  Russkiya  Viedomosti,  ist  January  1908. 

347 


348     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

sentation  to  the  peasantry.  It  was  supposed  that  the  danger  of 
too  rapid  change  lay  in  the  influence  of  the  urban  proletariat,  and 
that  the  balance  of  poUtical  power  ought  to  be  so  adjusted  that 
the  conservative  instincts  of  the  peasantry  should  be  utilized  in 
such  a  way  as  to  counteract  the  radical  and  socialist  tendencies  of 
the  city  working  men.  To  the  apparent  amazement  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  of  the  staunch  supporters  of  the  autocracy,  the  First 
Duma  turned  out  to  be  strongly  desirous  of  deaUng  with  the  land 
question  in  a  way  which  meant  the  practical  extinction  of  the 
large  landowners  as  a  class.  The  ulterior  economical  and  social 
effects  of  this  were  set  forth  in  lurid  colours  by  the  Oktabristi,  who 
saw  in  the  destruction  of  that  class  a  danger  to  the  national 
interests.^ 

From  their  point  of  view,  the  absorption  of  the  large  estates 
by  the  peasants  had  been  going  on  quite  fast  enough,  although 
from  the  peasant  point  of  view  it  had  been  going  on  so  slowly  as 
to  be  an  ineffectual  solution  of  the  problem  of  land  scarcity.  The 
influence  of  the  large  proprietors  was  sufficient  to  determine  the 
character  of  the  measures  prepared  by  the  Government  in  the 
interval  between  the  dissolution  of  the  Second  Duma  and  the 
convocation  of  the  Third. 

These  measures  were  formulated  by  the  Premier,  M.  Stol5^in, 
aided  by  M.  Gourko,  Deputy  Minister  of  the  Interior ,2  and  Prince 
Vassilchikov.3  The  measures  in  question  are  characterized  by 
two  fundamental  negative  principles — (i)  that  "  compulsory  ex- 
propriation of  land  is  not  permissible,"  which  is  explicitly  set  forth, 
and  (2)  that  the  community  system  is  to  be  steadily  discouraged, 
which  is  implied  in  the  detailed  proposals.  With  these  principles 
in  view,  the  measures  provide  for  the  purchase  by  the  State  through 
the  Peasants'  Bank  of  those  estates  only  which  are  voluntarily 
offered  for  sale  and  for  the  purchase  of  land  by  peasants  for  indi- 
vidual occupancy.  Critics  of  the  measures  point  out  the  following 
objections : 

I.  Land  is  most  urgently  needed  in  those  locaUties  where  land 

^  The  point  of  view  of  the  large  landowners  is  stated,  for  example,  by 
Sir  Donald  Mackenzie  Wallace,  Russia  (London,  1905),  ii.  p.  227. 

*  Afterwards  dismissed  from  his  office  on  account  of  the  occurrence  of 
irregularities  in  his  department. 

'  Regarded  by  the  peasants  as  an  active  organizer  of  the ' '  Black  Hundred  ' ' 
in  Moscow  in  1905. 


THE   AGRARIAN   SITUATION         349 

is  dear  and  rents  are  high.  The  lands  which  the  proprietors  are 
willing  to  transfer  to  the  State  are  not  necessarily  situated  in  the 
locaUties  where  the  "  need  of  land  "  is  the  greatest.  If  the  land 
voluntarily  offered  is  situated  in  scantily  populated  locaUties,  the 
Government  will  find  itself  under  the  necessity  of  engaging  in 
migration  and  colonization  schemes,  more  or  less  expensive  and 
troublesome.^ 

2.  Where  lands  voluntarily  offered  for  sale  to  the  Government 
are  situated  in  locaUties  in  which  there  is  a  local  demand  for  land, 
relatively  high  prices  wiU  have  to  be  paid  for  it.  Thus  the  tendency 
will  be  for  the  land  to  be  purchased  either  by  weU-to-do  peasants 
only  or  by  speculators  who  will  hold  the  land  for  further  advances. 
The  real  "  need  of  land  "  on  the  part  of  smaU-holding  peasants 
will,  for  this  reason,  go  unsatisfied.* 

3.  The  smaU  holder  and  the  viUage  proletariat  would  thus  run 
the  risk  of  being  exploited  by  the  class  of  "  farmers  "  which  would, 
under  these  circumstances,  be  created.  The  results  of  this  ex- 
ploitation, coupled  with  their  disappointment  at  the  failure  of  the 
"  reforms  "  to  affect  their  situation  favourably,  would  be  further 
discontent.  This  discontent  would  manifest  itself  chiefly  against 
the  "  farmers  "  or  well-to-do  peasants,  rather  than,  as  now,  against 
the  great  landed  proprietors.  From  the  point  of  view  of  adminis- 
trative strategy,  this  might  be  [counted  as  the  outcome  of  an 
ingenious  device,  but  the  social  and  economic  advantage  of  it  is 
not  apparent.^ 

4.  The  measures  are  objected  to  in  general  on  the  ground 
of  their  inadequacy.  "  The  land  reformers  (in  the  Government) 
forget  that  they  have  before  them,  not  an  unpopulated  desert, 
but  a  densely-populated  country,  with  peasantry  in  convulsions 
and  in  the  noose  of  land  scarcity.* 

**  The  present  practice  of  land-reforming  measures  is  creating 
with  one  hand  the  prosperity  of  a  selected  few,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  bereaves  the  majority  of  the  peasants  needing  land  of 

^  C/.  A.  A.  Chuprov  in  Russkiya  Viedomosti,  ist  January  1908. 

*  Ibid. 

*  This  point  of  view  has  been  put  by  a  correspondent,  who  even 
considers  that  this  result  is  intended  by  the  framers  of  the  legislation.  The 
device  is  said  to  be  due  to  the  inventive  genius  of  MM.  Shisinski  and  Stunner. 
"  They  put  in  this  way  a  wall  between  the  landowners  and  the  peasants, 
upon  which  the  peasants  expend  themselves." 

*  A.  A.  Chuprov.     Art.  cited. 


r 


350     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

any  hope,  and  devotes  them  to  previously  unknown  privations. 
.  .  .  The  present  agrarian  pohcy  is  not  constructive,  but  de- 
structive." 1 

It  should  be  noticed,  however,  that,  from  the  administrative 
point  of  view,  the  agricultural  districts,  or  many  of  them,  may  be 
(  regarded  as  over-populated  under  the  present  conditions  of  agri- 
cultural technique,  and  that  it  is  necessary,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
promote  the  improvement  of  this  technique  by  encouraging  the 
cultivation  of  relatively  large  farms,  occupied  by  farmers  with  a 
sufficiency  of  farming  capital,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  promote 
the  growth  of  industry  by  driving  into  the  towns  labourers  who, 
if  left  to  themselves,  would  remain  in  the  rural  districts;*  The 
conception  of  the  inevitable  transformation  of  Russia  from  an 
almost  purely  agricultural  to  an  extensively  industrial  country 
naturally  affects  the  view  of  the  administration.  From  this  stand- 
point the  Government  may  be  held  to  be  engaged  in  promoting 
an  industrial  revolution,  while  at  the  same  time  it  is  energetically 
resisting  a  political  one. 

The  reactions  of  a  disturbed  system  are  not,  however,  to  be 
neglected.  If  the  extension  of  the  farms  and  the  discouragement 
of  small  holdings  by  restricting  them  to  an  inadequate  area  of 
land  are  fully  carried  out,  the  inevitable  result  must  be  that  the 
village  proletariat  will  to  a  certain  extent  be  driven  into  the  towns, 
to  increase  the  numbers  of  the  urban  proletariat.  The  very  means 
that  are  alleged  to  have  been  employed  largely  for  the  purpose  of 
strengthening  the  conservative  forces,  by  increasing  the  number  and 
improving  the  condition  of  the  well-to-do  farmers,  may  thus  react 
in  such  a  way  as  greatly  to  increase  the  urban  proletariat,  and  thus 
make  for  the  net  increase,  rather  than  the  diminution,  of  the  forces 
of  revolution.  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that,  under  the  assumed 
necessity  of  modem  economic  development,  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment should  be  taking  measures  to  diminish  the  rural  population 
by  driving  a  certain  proportion  of  it  into  the  towns,  at  the  very 
moment  when,  in  Great  Britain,  for  example,  efforts  are  being  made, 
by  means  of  legislative  encouragement  of  small  holdings,  to  retain 
the  rural  population  upon  the  land.     Russia  has  been  a  country 

^  A.  J.  Chuprov  (Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  the  University  of 
Moscow),  in  art.,  "  Struggle  over  the  Need  of  Land,  and  Colonization,"  in 
Russkiya  Viedomosti,  ist  January  1908. 

*  C/.  Sir  Donald  Mackenzie  Wallace,  Russia,  ii.  p.  221. 


THE   AGRARIAN   SITUATION         351 

of  small  holdings,  although  not  of  the  petite  culture  in  the  sense 
of  intensive  cultivation,  and  the  working  of  the  system  has  resulted 
in  an  increase  of  the  population,  so  great  and  so  rapid  that  either 
agriculture  must  be  greatly  and  quickly  improved,  the  population 
must  be  spread  out  over  a  greater  area,  or  it  must  be  forced  into 
the  industrial  centres  in  sufficient  numbers  to  reheve  the  pressure 
upon  the  rural  districts. 

The  following  details  of  wages,  &c.,  in  certain  districts  in  1907- 
1908  may  be  compared  with  similar  statistics  applicable  to  the 
period  prior  to  1905.  It  must  be  reaUzed  that  by  1907  the  agrarian 
disturbances  had  spent  themselves.  In  VoHnskaya  guh.  a  daily 
worker  (mower)  received  35  to  40  kopeks  per  day  without  board. 
A  yearly  worker  received  25  rubles  with  board,  and  with  pasture 
for  one  cow.  He  was  also  allowed  to  keep  a  pig  and  some  hens. 
Rent  was  from  5  to  7  rubles  a  year  per  dessiatine  for  sandy  land, 
•for  *'  Black  Soil  "  10  to  15  rubles.  The  izpolnya  system  (metayer 
tenancy)  is  common  in  the  district.^ 

In  Grodnenskaya  gub.  mowers'  wages  were  50  kopeks  without 
board  in  1907-1908  ;  work  from  sunrise  to  simset,  one  hour  for 
dinner,  and  half  an  hour  for  lunch.  The  wages  mentioned  are  those 
paid  by  a  landowner.  If  the  mujik  is  mowing  for  a  peasant,  he  gets 
45  kopeks  and  board.  At  the  harvest-time  a  woman  earns  from  25 
to  30  kopeks  without  board  ;  digging  potatoes,  15  kopeks.  Able- 
bodied  youths  from  fifteen  to  twenty  years  of  age  get  20  to  30  rubles 
per  year  with  board,  lodging,  dress,  and  boots.^  A  man  engaged  by 
the  year  received  50  to  60  rubles,  with  board  and  lodging.  The 
board  is  the  same  as  that  chronicled  for  Mohilevskaya  gub.  in  1901. 
A  woman  engaged  by  the  year  received,  in  1907-1908,  18  to  25 
rubles,  with  board  and  lodging.  The  landowners  do  not  employ 
daily  workers  in  the  winter,  but  the  rich  peasants  sometimes  employ 
daily  workers  in  the  winter  for  threshing,  paying  them  20  to  25  kop. 
per  day,  with  board.  They  work  from  sunrise  to  sunset.  Single 
workers  employed  by  the  year  sleep  in  bunks  in  an  ezba  belonging 

^  The  author  is  indebted  to  correspondents  in  the  various  districts  men- 
tioned for  the  details. 

'  The  boots  in  this  district  are  made  of  the  inner  bark  of  the  lime.  (In  the 
northern  gubernie  birch  bark  boots  are  used. )  Such  boots  are  called  lapii.  The 
feet  are  covered  with  linen  wrapping,  coiled  about  the  foot  and  leg  very  neatly 
(puttee  fashion).  This  wrappmg  is  vulgarly  known  as  onuchi  or  portyanki, 
or  little  trousers.  The  use  of  bark  for  boots  is  one  of  the  results  of  the  scarcity 
of  cattle,  there  thus  being  few  hides. 


352     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

to  the  landowner,  and  are  supplied  with  2  to  3  lb.  of  usually  badly- 
baked  rye  bread  per  day,  barley  groats,  buckwheat,  and  pork  fat 
for  making  soup,  the  quantities  being  approximately  the  same 
as  those  given  above  for  Mohilevskaya  gub.  They  are  also  suppUed 
with  soup  made  from  beets  and  sour  cabbage.  Labourers  with 
families  hve  separately  from  the  single  workers,  and  have  their 
own  kitchen,  to  which  the  food  is  supplied  by  the  landowner ; 
they  are  allowed  pasture  for  one  cow,  and  may  keep  a  pig  and  a 
couple  of  hens.  Boys  of  twelve  to  fifteen  years  of  age  generally 
look  after  the  pigs  and  sheep  of  the  landowner,  and  receive  as  wages 
7  rubles  per  year.  The  wife  of  a  labourer,  who  feeds  the  pigs, 
geese,  hens,  &c.,  of  the  landowner  receives  10  rubles  per  year.  The 
treatment  of  workers  is  rough,  but  they  are  not  beaten.^  In 
Grodnenskaya  gub.  the  landowners  in  most  cases  prefer  to  rent 
their  estates  to  Jews,  and  these  subrent  the  land  to  the  peasants.* 
The  usual  conditions  are  that  one-third  of  the  produce  is  given 
by  the  peasant  to  the  Jew  as  rent.  When  the  land  is  good,  the 
peasants  pay  one-half  of  the  produce.  The  landowners  in  the 
gubernie  are  nearly  all  Poles.  Good  board  and  lodging  in  the  vil- 
lages costs  5  rubles  per  month.  The  board  consists  of  cabbage, 
rye  bread,  potatoes,  fat,  and  a  little  milk.  Beef  is  given  occa- 
sionally. Boots  are  of  bark,  and  all  dress  is  of  home  manufacture. 
In  the  towns  of  the  same  gubernie  the  board  and  lodging  of  working 
men  costs  10  to  12  rubles  per  month.^ 

The  normal  allotment  in  this  district  is  3  to  4  dessiatines.*  The 
land  is  good  as  a  rule.  It  is  cultivated  by  the  peasant  on  the 
three-field  system.  The  landowners  who  farm  their  own  land 
employ  the  six  or  eight-field  system. 

In  the  northern  guberni,  where  the  peasants  engage  in  forest 
labour,  hunting,  &c.,  the  land  is  poor,  but  they  have  usually  at 
least  one  steer  besides  some  sheep  to  kill  each  year  in  a  peasant 
household,  and  hides  are  thus  available  for  making  boots. 

These  details  show  quite  vividly  that  up  till  the  present  time, 
commercial  econony  cannot  be  said  to  have  displaced  natural 
economy  in  the  rural  districts  so  far  as  the  peasants  are  concerned. 

1  Information  from  a  peasant  of  this  district. 

2  This  is  true  also  of  some  parts  of  Chemigovskaya  gub. 
'  Information  from  a  working  man. 

*  These  details  are  from  a  correspondent  in  the  sub-town  of  Kartusherioze, 
in  the  volost  of  that  name  in  Prujansky  district,  Grodnenskaya  gMft. 


THE   AGRARIAN   SITUATION         353 

The  peasant  weaves  his  own  cloth  and,  as  we  have  seen,  makes 
his  own  boots  from  the  bark  of  the  trees  grown  on  or  near  his  own 
land.  The  soil  gives  him  every  article  of  his  consumption,  except- 
ing, perhaps,  salt.  In  the  towns,  to  some  extent  in  the  larger 
villages,  and  in  the  landowners'  famihes,  commercial  economy  has 
made  great  inroads  since  Emancipation  set  free  the  dvorovie  or 
household  serfs.  Yet  natural  economy  is  still  predominant  among 
the  great  mass  of  the  Russian  population. 

The  following  are  the  results  of  an  investigation  into  peasants* 
budgets  in  Ordatovsky  district,  Simbirskaya  gub.,  made  by  Mr.  A. 
Berezovsky,  President  of  the  Land  Reform  Committee  of  that 
district.^  The  figures  apply  to  an  average  peasant  family  consisting 
of  three  adult  souls.^  It  is  assumed  that  this  family  purchases 
three-quarters  of  a  dessiatine  per  male  soul.^  This  is  the  quantity 
of  land  which  such  a  family  would  absolutely  require  for  its  sub- 
sistence in  that  district. 

Value  of  Peasants'  Buildings —  Rubles. 
Ezba,  with  doorway,  roofed  with  straw    .         .        .150 

Shed  (for  cattle,  implements,  &c.)    ....  50 

Barn  (for  grain,  &c.) 30 

Stable  (for  horses) 20 

Well 15 

Hay  loft  and  dairy  (hay  above  ;  below,  milk  and 

vegetables,  &c.) lo 

275 

Value  of  Live  Stock — 

2  horses loo 

1  cow 35 

5  sheep 20 

2  pigs 15 

170 

Value  of  Implements — 

2  carts  with  wheels 15 

2  ploughs,  wood 5 

2  yokes 12 

2  sleighs 5 

Sundries 8 

—  45 

490 

1  See  1?M5S,  6th  February  1908. 

*  That  is  to  say,  three  men  with  three  wives  and  children. 
'  About  7  acres  per  family. 
VOL.  II  Z 


354     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

The  average  annual  outlay  in  money  of  such  a  group  is  : 


Heating,  98  cub.  ft.  firewood 

Lighting,  4  puds  kerosene  oil  @  $2  ^tx  pM 

Clothing,  including  shoes  ^  (three  men)    . 

Furniture 

Repairs 

Taxes 

Vodka  on  Church  holidays 

Church  rites 


Rubles. 

Kopecks. 

20 

0 

8 

0 

90 

0 

10 

0 

10 

0 

6 

70 

10 

0 

5 

0 

159 

70 

The  allowance  for  clothing  is  for  the  three  men  only,  the  women 
are  expected  to  provide  their  own  clothing,  earning  the  means  to 
purchase  the  materials  by  spinning  flax  in  the  house  or  by  day 
work  elsewhere.  The  children's  clothes  are  made  from  the  cast-off 
clothing  of  their  elders. 

The  average  annual  consumption  of  such  a  group  is  : 

Piids. 
Rye  flour,  10  pilds  per  adult  (children  being  fed 

also  out  of  the  total) 120 

Millet  meal,  \  Russian  Tb  per  day     .         .         .         .         18 

Cattle  food  :  Flour 100 

Oats 50 

288 


1  Annual  outlay  for  clothing  for  one  man  : 


Two  shirts 

Three  pairs  trousers 

Thirty-six  pairs  bast  shoes 

One  leg  wrapper  (thick) 

Two  pair  wrappers  (thin) 

Cap  and  fur  cap  (lasting  2  years)  per  year 

Kaftan 

Short  overcoat  (lasting  3  years)  per  year 
Summer  overcoat  (lasting  4  years)  per  year 
Warm  overcoat  (lasting  3  years)  per  year 
Warm  boots  (lasting  2  years)  per  year  . 
Leather  boots  (lasting  2  years)  per  year 


Rubles. 

Kopecks. 

3 

0 

2 

SO 

3 

60 

I 

0 

0 

60 

I 

0 

5 

0 

5 

0 

2 

0 

2 

SO 

I 

50 

2 

SO 

30 


THE   AGRARIAN    SITUATION         355 

The  income  of  the  family  group  is  on  the  average  : 

Rubles. 
One  man  may  be  spared  to  work  externally.     His 

earnings  will  be 60 

The  whole  family  may  be  employed  during  harvest- 
time  externally.     They  will  harvest  2  dessiatines 

of  rye  for  5  rubles  per  dessiatine  .         .         .         .  10 
And  3  dessiatines  oats  for  3  rubles  per  dessiatine  9 

The  horses  will  earn 20 

One  calf  sold 10 

Three  lambs  sold 10 

Fifteen  sucking  pigs 15 

134 

Out  of  the  nine  and  three-quarters  dessiatines  of  land,  three- 
quarter  dessiatines  are  used  for  buildings,  &c. ;  of  the  remaining, 
six  dessiatines  are,  under  the  three-field  system,  annually  available 
for  cropping  ;  three  are  cropped  with  oats,  and  three  with  rye. 
The  average  yield  of  rye  in  the  district  in  question  is  50  puds  per 
dessiatine,  and  of  oats  33.5  puds  per  dessiatine.  If  the  family 
obtains  50  puds  per  dessiatine  of  seeded  land,  the  total  is  300  puds 
of  grain. 

The  grain  is  thus  httle  more  than  sufficient  to  provide  for  the 
subsistence  of  the  family  and  its  animals ;  there  is  practically  no 
surplus  for  sale.  The  money  expenses  of  the  family  are  159.70 
rubles  ;  while  the  money  income  is  only  134  rubles.  There  is  thus 
an  average  annual  deficit  of  25.70  rubles.  This  deficit  may  be 
met  by  economies  in  some  of  the  items  of  expenditure.  There 
remains,  however,  to  be  considered  the  means  of  meeting  the  interest 
upon  the  cost  of  the  land,  apart  from  the  amortization  of  the  amount. 
Land  in  the  district  in  question  costs  on  the  average  125  rubles 
per  dessiatine.  The  Peasant  Bank  requires  the  purchaser  to  pay 
4 J  per  cent,  per  annum  upon  the  purchase  price,  which  in  the  given 
case  would  be  1218  rubles.  The  interest  upon  this  sum  is  48.78 
rubles  per  year.  In  addition,  the  Zemstvo  taxes  (of  6  rubles 
60  kopeks  per  dessiatine)  with  inevitable  fines  for  delay,  would 
bring  the  average  annual  payments  under  the  head  of  interest 
and  taxes  to  60  rubles  per  year.  This  is  an  additional  deficit,  and 
this  deficit  must  be  met  somehow,  otherwise  the  peasant  family 
sinks  into  hopeless  insolvency,  and  eventually  loses  the  land  by 
means  of  which  they  live.     In  order  to  raise  the  additional  60  rubles 


3S6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

per  year,  the  peasant  family  would  require  to  add  50  per  cent,  to 
the  yield  of  their  crops — that  is,  they  would  require  to  increase 
the  yield  from  50  puds  per  dessiatine  to  75  pMs.  Since  the 
maximum  yield  in  the  best  and  most  intensively  cultivated  lands 
in  the  district  is  only  59  puds  per  dessiatine,  this  increase  is  un- 
attainable. 

It  is,  therefore,  plain  that  even  if  the  peasant  has  sufficient 
agricultural  capital  to  erect  his  house,  to  provide  himself  with  the 
necessary  implements  and  the  necessary  stock,  he  cannot  make 
his  budget  balance  saving  by  severe  economy,  even  without  taking 
into  account  interest  upon  his  own  capital  which  he  has  invested 
in  his  house,  or  interest  upon  the  cost  of  the  land  or  taxes.  In 
the  worse  case  of  a  peasant  who  has  no  agricultural  capital  to 
start  with,  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  prospect  of  his  ever  ac- 
quiring any,  because  instead  of  a  surplus  he  has  always  to  encounter  a 
deficit.  In  both  cases  the  problem  is  an  insoluble  one  on  any  terms 
as  yet  offered  through  the  Peasant  Bank  or  the  Land  Reform 
Committees.  The  quantity  of  land  is  too  small,  the  price  is  too 
high,  and  the  interest  is  too  high  also.  It  is  small  wonder  that 
the  peasants  should  refuse  to  purchase  on  these  terms,  and  that 
they  should  demand  that  land — plenty  of  land — should  be  given 
to  them. 

From  the  foregoing  the  following  provisional  conclusion  may  be 
arrived  at.  The  revolutionary  "state  of  mind"  among  the 
;  peasantry  seems  to  have  arisen  not  merely  because  of  the  political 
disabihties  to  which  they  were  subject,  nor  merely  from  the  eco- 
nomical pressure  caused  by  high  rents  and  low  wages,  nor  merely 
from  famine  and  its  results,  nor  merely  from  the  propaganda  of 
enthusiasts,  but  from  all  of  these  together.  It  must  be  allowed 
that,  especially  during  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War,  the  position  of  the  peasantry,  though  bad,  had  dis- 
tinctly improved.  People  who  are  in  the  depths  of  despair  through 
sheer  want  may  be  very  discontented,  but  they  rarely  revolt.  The 
prosperity  of  the  kulaki,  or  well-to-do  peasants,  is  one  of  the  signi- 
ficant features  of  the  period.  The  growth  of  this  class  was  facili- 
tated by  the  Peasants'  Bank  and  its  presence  as  an  important 
fraction  of  the  village  population  is  noticed  in  all  the  reports  from 
the  districts  of  which  details  have  been  given.  It  would  appear 
that  while  the  village  proletariat  had  not  been  similarly  prosperous. 


I 


THE   AGRARIAN   SITUATION         357 

while  they  had  been  undergoing  exploitation  at  the  hands  of 
landowners  and  rich  peasants  alike,  they  had  nevertheless  succeeded 
owing  to  the  economical  conditions  of  the  years  from  about  1900 
till  1905,^  in  forcing  their  wages  somewhat  upwards.  The  spectacle 
of  greater  relative  prosperity  of  the  exploiting  classes,  contrasted 
with  their  own  relatively  deficient  prosperity,  seems  to  have  in- 
spired them  with  the  desire  to  diminish  the  hardships  of  their  own 
lot  by  a  vigorous  stroke.  The  occasion  for  this  vigorous  stroke 
came  with  the  confusion  of  the  war  and  the  preoccupation  of  the 
Government,  together  with  the  relaxation  of  local  authority  which 
these  incidents  involved. 

The  poUcy  of  strikes  which  the  peasants  adopted  in  1905  was 
successful  up  to  a  certain  point.  They  lost  some  of  the  advan- 
tages which  they  gained  during  the  disturbances,  but  they  did 
not  lose  all  of  them.  Their  wages  remained  somewhat  higher 
than  they  were  before  the  agrarian  movement  began,  and  their 
rents  were  somewhat  lower.  The  principal  gain  which  they  have^ 
secured  Ues,  however,  in  the  fact  that  authorities  and  landowners? 
alike  were  thoroughly  frightened.  Punitive  expeditions  and  mili- 
tary and  police  suppression  of  the  movement  notwithstanding, 
the  peasants  have  exhibited  an  astonishing  latent  power,  and  the 
Government  at  least  must  have  reaUzed  that  the  days  of  peasant 
revolts  are  by  no  means  over.  The  landowners,  too,  must  have 
reaUzed  that  they  had  no  longer  to  deal  with  a  spiritless  peasantry, 
who  might  suffer  themselves  to  be  exploited  without  protest. 
Whatever  view  may  be  held  regarding  the  nature  of  the  demands 
made  by  the  peasants,  and  of  the  motives  which  lay  behind  these 
demands,  it  must  be  allowed  that  their  character  showed  that  the 
peasants  were  thoroughly  aroused,  and  that  they  might  at  any 
moment,  at  some  conjunction  of  events  similar  to  that  which  oc- 
curred in  1905  and  1906,  spring  again  at  the  landowners  with  arms 
in  their  hands.  It  is  obvious  that  under  these  conditions  contracts 
for  land  and  for  wages  must  be  at  least  slightly  more  favourable  to 
the  peasants  than  they  were  formerly,  and  that  thus  the  sacrifices 
made  in  the  agrarian  movement  were  not  wholly  fruitless. 

^  The  harvests  of  these  five  years  were  all  good. 


BOOK    VI 

INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT  UNDER 
CAPITALISM 


INTRODUCTION 

We  have  seen  that  there  were  large  industrial  establishments  in 
Russia  prior  to  Emancipation  in  1861.  These  establishments 
belonged  in  some  cases  to  the  State,  in  other  cases  to  great  nobles 
and  smaller  gentry,  and  in  others  to  merchants  or  even  to  pros- 
perous peasants.  Under  pre-emancipation  conditions  peasants 
not  infrequently  left  their  villages  by  permission  of  their  owners, 
and  worked  in  the  towns,  paying  ohrok  to  their  owners.  In  addition 
to  such  workers,  who  offered  themselves  for  hire,  there  were  freed 
peasants  and  proletarian  or  impecunious  gentry,  and  other  free  or 
quasi-free  people.  There  was  thus  the  nucleus  of  a  free  hirable 
class  of  artisans,  although  the  existence  of  such  a  class  was  not  yet 
recognized. 

But  development  in  any  serious  sense  of  industrial  enterprise 
was  not  compatible  with  bondage.     Capitalistic  enterprise  could  I 
not  grow,  at  least  until  the  concurrent  growth  of  a  free  and  mobile  I 
class  of  artisans.     This  class  begins  to  appear  in  considerable  num- 
bers only  ^f tf^^  V.rw^ nripa tioyi      Even  then,  however,  there  were 
limitations  of  the  supply.     The  mobilitx..Q£-tb£L4)easant  was  still 
imperfect,  ier  the  system  of  mutual  guarantee  prevented  the  peas- 1\ 
ants  from  leaving  their  villages  without  permission  of  the  volo^t ' « 
court,  and  this  permission  was  not  always  granted.     When  it  was 
granted,  tjie^  condition  was  attached  that  the  payments  of  taxes 
and  other  customary  pa5niients  by  the  absentees  were  to  be  main- 
tainec^    One  class  of  peasant  was,  however,  gitj2nce  set  free  for 
ixidttStti,al  employment.     This  was  the  class  of  dmrovie  lyude,  or 
^omestic^seBs,  who  were.not  allotted. aa^JaJld  and  for  whom  there 
was  no  provision,  restrictive  or  otherwise,  under  the  Emancipation 
Act.     Unless  they  desired  to  remain  as  domestic  servants,  and 
unless  their  former  owners  desired  them  to  remain,  they  were 

J)r^ rtiVqIly  nhligf^^ Jv^ j^c;nrfjv^  They 

were  noi„accu&tonied,  to  l6^3^5aliojjj:,  and  employment  otherwise 

in  the  country  was  not  to  be  obtained.     They  had  as  a  rule  no 

361  ^^ 


\ 

362     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Qap|tjljOTjlie..culti\:a1;iQ^  of  rented J,^,  nor  had  they  any  allot- 
ment even  had  they  desired  to  become  cultivators.  Many  of 
them  were  skilled  artisans,  and  these  thus  provided  immediately 
upon  their  emancipation  a  large  landless  class  ready  for  industrial 
employment.    jA^ddltipn  t^Jth^se,^*^^^^ 

)land:Mding_fami]ies  who  were.O^ea iP-^emplsj^ 
ifiajdequacy  of  the  allotments  and  owing  to  the  diminution  of  the 
^rea  of  land  available  for  cultivation  by  the  peasants  without  the 
payment  of  rent,  when  compared  with  the  area  formerly  cultivated 
by  them  as  serfs.  Such  peasants  were,  however,  obliged  by  the 
system  of  mutual  guarantee  to  send  to  their  families  the  balance  of 
their  earnings  in  the  same  manner  as  in  such  cases  the  balance  had 
formerly  to  be  sent  to  the  serf-owner.  The  result  of  this  practice 
was  that  the  rent  of  agricultural  land  was  frequently  paid  out  of 
these  industrial  earnings,  so  that  non-economical  agriculture  cam§ 
to_.be.  fixtea^iyely  practised  from  the  moment  of  Emancipation,  y 
High  rents  were  exacted,  and  paid  not  out  of  the  earnings  of  cul-_i  ' 
tivation  proper,  but  largely  out  of  industrial  earnings  by  absentee 
members  of  peasant  families.  At  the  same  time  the  mutual  guar- 
S^^Fmspired  the  communities  with  a  certain  reluctance  to  allow 
their  mei3ibers..:to  leave..  Permission  was  not  always  grantedTahd 
even  when  it  was  granted  for  a  limited  period,  it  was  not  always 
renewed.  From  time  to  time  migration  from  the  rural  districts 
to  the  towns  was  further  impeded  by  the  action  of  the  Government, 
which  attempted  to  prevent  the  breaking  up  of  joint-families  and 
to  prevent  the  too  liberal  granting  of  passports  to  peasants.  The 
maintenance  of  connection  with  his  village  by  the  urban  artisan 
lias  thus  been  a  very  definite  factor  in  his  life.  He  was  jialf  a 
fcownsmaiiand  half^axoimtryinai^  Until  very  recently  it  has  been 
the  practice  for  the  peasant  artisan  to  work  for  a  few  months  in  an 
industrial  centre  and  then  to  return  to  his  village,  where  he  assisted 
the  other  members  of  his  family  in  cultivation — ^in  ploughing  or  in 
harvesting — returning  to  his  emplo5mient  in  the  town  when  these 
operations  were  over.  As  a  rule,  he  left  his  wife  and  family  in 
the  village,  and  lived  in  the  town  in  a  factory  barracks  or  in  a 
workmen's  lodging-house. 

These  practices  have  within  the  past  four  or  five  years  been 
greatly  modified  for  reasons  which  have  been  alluded  to  above,  in 
connection  with  the  agrarian  question.     So  long  as  they  endured 


INTRODUCTION  363 

they  practically  prevented  the  growth  of  an  urban  proletariat,  and! 
this  circumstance  has  had  a  very  important  effect  upon  the  indus- 
trial and  political  situation. 

The  close  connection  between  the  country  villages  and  the 
industrial  centres  has,  moreover,  had  an  influence  upon  the  dis- 
semination of  revolutionary  ideas.  These  ideas  have  in  particular 
been  disseminated  by  "  banished "  workmen,  who  have  carried 
from  the  towns  to  their  villages,  though  indefinitely  and  crudely, 
the  propaganda  of  the  Social  Democratic  and  Social  Revolutionary 
Parties,  with  which  they  had  become  acquainted  in  their  workshops. 

Apart  from  the  question  of  the  supply  of  labour,  the  general 
economical  conditions  in  Russia  prior  to  the  Emancipation  were 
not  favourable  to  the  growth  of  industry  on  any  extensive  scale. 
The  economic  Ufe  of  the  country  was  highly  self-contained.  Each 
estate,  and  sometimes  each  village,  was  a  little  world  practically 
complete  within  itself.  Even  the  noble  landowners,  who  spent 
a  portion  of  the  year  in  the  capitals,  transported  to  their  town 
houses  from  their  estates  almost  the  whole  of  the  produce  neces- 
sary for  their  support  and  for  the  support  of  their  numerous  retinue 
of  servants.^  With  the  exception  of  iron,  tea,  cotton,  and  a  few 
other  staple  commodities  not  at  that  time  produced  in  Russia  in 
sufiicient  quantities  to  satisfy  the  existing  demand,  only  articles  of 
luxury  were  imported,  or  even  transferred  from  place  to  place. 
The  great  commerce  which  had  been  characteristic  of  early  Russia, 
and  which  had  been  the  basis  of  its  economical  and  political  strength, . 
had  disappeared.  The  "  immobilization  "  of  labour  had  as  inevi- 1 
table  concomitant  the  "  immobilization  "  of  goods.  There  were,  ! 
moreover,  almost  no  railways.  There  was  no  banking  system, 
and  as  yet  there  was  but  a  trifling  circulation  of  money  in  the 
country.     Yet  there  are  those  who  look  back  upon  the  age  of 

*  C/.  the  lively  sketch  in  Prince  Kropotkin's  Memoirs  of  a  Revolutionist 
(Boston,  1899),  p.  28.  While  undoubtedly  the  conditions  stated  in  the  text 
applied  fully  (and  to  a  large  extent  still  apply)  to  the  peasantry,  the  wealthier 
nobility  did  not  always  realize  the  ambition  of  having  everything  made  by 
their  own  servants.  The  serf-domestic-artisan  was  often  ill-trained  and 
inefficient.  "  I  must  own,"  says  Prince  Kropotkin  {op.  cit.,  p.  29),  "  that 
few  of  them  became  masters  in  their  respective  arts.  The  tailors  and  shoe- 
makers were  found  only  skilful  enough  to  make  clothes  or  shoes  for  the 
servants,  and  when  a  really  good  pastry  was  required  for  a  dinner  party,  it 
was  ordered  at  Tremble's  (the  fashionable  pastry-cook),  while  our  own 
confectioner  was  beating  his  drum  in  the  band. ' 


364     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

serfdom  as  an  age  of  relative  abundance — an  age  in  which 
there  was  no  freedom,  but  in  which  there  was  in  general  plenty  to 
eat.  All  the  conditions  which  have  been  described  had  to  be 
greatly  modified  before  extensive  industry  was  possible.  The 
changes  began  immediately  after  Emancipation.  The  creation 
of  Land  Redemption  Banks  and  the  negotiation  of  foreign  loans 
provided  a  financial  basis  ;  railways  were  built  rapidly  in  European 
Russia,  and  numbers  of  foreign  capitalists — principally  English, 
German,  Belgian,  and  French — established  factories  for  the  manu- 
facture of  cottons,  woollens,  &c.,  in  the  late  sixties  and  in  the 
seventies.  Some  of  the  ancient  towns  developed  into  industrial 
centres.  The  regions  specially  affected  by  the  industrial  movement 
at  this  time  were  the  Moskovskaya  gub.,  St.  Petersburg  and  its 
neighbourhood,  the  Baltic  Provinces,  and  parts  of  Poland. 

The  growth  of  the  railway  system  in  the  seventies  and 
the  protective  tariff,  which  reached  its  fullest  development 
in  1891,  stimulated  industry  enormously.  From  this  time  on- 
ward the  urban  proletariat,  which,  owing  to  the  various  causes 
indicated  above,  had  previously  no  considerable  existence  in 
Russia,  began  to  become  nunierous  and  influential.  Movement 
from  the  villages  ceased  to  be  impeded  by  the  Government, 
and  artisans  began  to  crowd  into  the  towns.  The  excess  of 
labour  at  once  rendered  labour  cheap,  and  rendered  the  employers 
indifferent  to  the  comfort  of  the  labourers.  The  beginning  of  the 
iprocess  of  industrial  development  on  an  extensive  scale  was  not 
accompanied  by  the  ameliorative  legislation  which,  initiated  in 
England,  had  been  carried  far  in  Germany  and  France — ^in  all 
countries,  in  fact,  in  which  the  concentration  of  workmen  in  in- 
dustrial towns  had  been  taking  place.  Ere  long  the  rigorous 
exploitation  of  labour  brought  the  grievances  of  the  workmen  under 
the  notice  of  the  Government.  Long  hours,  inadequate  wages, 
and  still  more  importantly,  the  knowledge  that  workmen  in  other 
countries  were  reputed  to  be  better  off  than  those  in  Russia,  led  to 
demands  upon  the  Government  to  intervene.  In  countries  where 
a  measure  of  laisser  faire  existed,  the  natural  and  obvious  method 
of  labour  association  was  productive,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  improved 
conditions.  Even  in  such  countries  the  power  of  the  State  was 
invoked  in  restricting  the  hours  of  labour,  in  regulating  the  system 
of  "  truck,"  and  in  providing  for  the  protection  of  the  working  men 


INTRODUCTION  365 

against  exposed  machinery  and  in  inevitably  dangerous  occupa- 
tions.    But  in  Russia  such  steps  were  taken  slowly,  and  they  were 
regarded  by  the  workmen  as  inadequate,  while  labour  association   ' 
was  practically  prohibited. 

Side  by  side  with  private  enterprises,  there  were  estabhshed 
Government  factories  for  the  manufacture  of  cloth,  paper,  tinned 
provisions,  &c.,  together  with  metal  refineries,  foundries,  porcelain 
works,  &c.  &c.  These  activities  of  the  Government  were  supple- 
mented by  the  factories  belonging  to  the  Udeh,^  in  which  large 
numbers  of  men  are  employed. 

The  circumstances  that  many  of  the  private  enterprises  were 
brought  into  existence  by  the  high  protective  duties,  and  that  these 
enterprises  were  encouraged  by  the  Government,  as  well  as  the 
circumstance  that  the  Government  in  its  own  factories,  and  in 
those  of  the  Udeli,  pursued  methods  similar  to  those  of  the  private 
firms,  made  it  inevitable  that  the  responsibiUty  for  the  situation 
should  rest  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  Government.  The  labour'/ 
question  thus  from  the  middle  of  the  seventies  assumed  a  definite 
poHtical  aspect. 

In  Russia,  labour  combination,  in  the  West  European  sense, 
was  prohibited.  "  Protection  "  appeared  to  exist  solely  for  the 
manufacturer,  whose  enterprises  received  governmental  assistance 
and  encoiiragement.  The  Government  not  only  facilitated  the  u 
development  of  industries  by  high  tariffs,  but  through  the  State  \ 
Bank  it  financed  industrial  enterprises,  and  through  the  State 
domain  it  gave  land,  mining,  and  timber  concessions  to  persons 
who  were  wilUng  to  undertake  the  task  of  industrial  organization. 
Many  of  these  persons  were  foreigners,  or  the  agents  of  foreigners, 
who  were  specially  protected  by  the  Russian  Government.*  In 
brief,  the  hand  of  the  Government  was  everywhere. 

The  effect  of  this  situation  was  to  direct  against  the  Government 
a  large  part  of  the  irritation  engendered  in  the  minds  of  the  work- 
ing men  against  their  employers.  If,  for  example,  a  foreman  in  a 
factory  lost  his  temper  and  beat  a  workman,  the  latter  might  com- 

^  The  imperial  appanage. 

2  In  case  of  strikes  in  factories  owned  by  foreign  firms  or  organized  by 
means  of  foreign  capital,  representations  through  the  ambassadors  at  St. 
Petersburg  of  the  countries  concerned  were  usually  met  by  prompt  action 
on  the  part  of  the  authorities,  in  the  interests  of  Russian  credit  abroad.  C/. 
the  case  of  Goujon  of  Moscow,  supra,  p.  196. 


366     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

plain  to  the  Government  factory  inspector,  but  if  the  latter  did  not 
take  the  workman's  view  of  the  case,  he  came  to  be  looked  upon  as 
a  partner  in  the  oifence  committed  by  the  foreman.  The  chinvo- 
nike,  or  official  class,  came  to  bear  the  burden  of  the  faults  of  its 
members,  and  the  whole  governmental  system  came  to  be  called 
in  question.  Meanwhile  the  Government  neglected  to  apply  the 
ameliorating  legislation  which  had  been  applied  under  similar 
conditions  of  protection  and  encouragement  of  industry  by  Ger- 
many, and  the  factory  system,  inspection  notwithstanding,  con- 
tinued to  be  conducted  in  what  the  workmen  now  recognized  fully 
to  be  an  archaic  manner. 

The  comparatively  small  numbers  of  working  men  in  the  cities, 
which  prior  to  the  Emancipation  were  rather  poUtical  and  trading 
than  manufacturing  centres,  sufficiently  accounts  for  the  compara- 
tively late  appearance  of  labour  organizations,  excepting  some  of 
a  rudimentary  character.  An  account  is  given  in  the  following 
pages  of  the  gradual  growth  of  the  trade  imion  idea  and  of  its  rapid 
development  during  the  recent  revolutionary  period.  An  account 
is  also  given  of  the  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  Government  to 
control  the  movement,  and  of  the  influence  upon  labour  organiza- 
tion of  the  revolutionary  propagandas. 

While  the  development  of  industry  on  the  large  scale  in  Russia 
has  lagged  behind  that  of  Western  Europe  in  point  of  time,  the  late 
development,  in  the  technical  and  commercial  senses,  has  been 
accompanied  by  a  late  development  in  a  social  sense.  The  ex- 
ploitation of  the  working  men  and  women  has  been  more  severe 
than  for  many  years  it  has  been  in  any  Western  European  country. 
The  practice  of  **  search,"  ^  universal  in  Russia,  the  practice  of 
beating  workmen,  and  other  similar  practices,  are  incidents  in  a 
system  of  oppression  which  survived  the  Emancipation,  but  which 
recent  events  have  done  much  to  mitigate.  Low  wages  and  un- 
favourable conditions  of  work  have,  as  will  be  seen,  played  a  con- 
spicuous part  in  producing  the  "  state  of  mind  "  which  made  the 
revolution. 

While  the  factory  system  has  been  developing  in  Russia  with 
great  rapidity,  partly  under  the  influence  of  a  high  protective  tariff, 
there  has  been  a  spontaneous  and  very  widespread  development 

^  Searching  the  workers  on  leaving  the  factory  for  concealed  tools  or 
other  small  articles  which  they  might  have  purloined. 


INTRODUCTION  367 

of  the  so-called  kustarny  or  household  industry  in  villages.  In 
some  guberni,  notably  in  Moskovskaya  gub.,  the  Zemstvos  have 
encouraged  the  kustari  or  household  artisans  by  organizing  for 
them  the  direct  supply  of  raw  materials  and  by  facilitating  the  for- 
mation of  artels,  or  co-operative  groups.  It  seems  that  in  some 
industries,  small  iron  ware,  cardboard,  leather,  woodwork,  &c., 
not  only  do  the  kustari  compete  with  the  large  manufacturers,  but 
they  have  in  some  cases  succeeded  in  directing  the  trade  wholly 
into  their  own  hands.^ 

The  foregoing  and  the  following  analysis  of  the  situation  bring 
these  points  into  reUef  : 

1.  The  changes  in  social  structure  due  to  increase  in  population, 
the  pressure  of  the  "  need  for  land,"  and  the  aboHtion  of  the  mutual 
guarantee. 

2.  The  forced  development  of  industry  through  the  protective   y 
tariff.  / 

3.  The  rapid  growth  of  a  proletariat  class  in  the  towns,  with 
consequent  inferior  wages  and  conditions  of  labour. 

4.  The  fixation  by  peasant  and  artisan  alike  of  responsibility 
upon  the  Government  for  the  evils  they  experience. 

5.  The  passing  of  the  labour  movement  from  a  purely  economical 
movement  into  a  political  rebellion,  the  nature  of  the  demands 
being  largely  of  an  economical  character. 

1  The  centre  of  kustarny  activity  in  the  Moscow  region  is  at  Sergei  Passad, 
about  forty  miles  from  Moscow,  where  is  situated  the  great  monastic  fortress 
of  Troitsky, 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM   SINCE   EMANCIPATION 

The  fall  of  bondage  right  on  the  Emancipation  of  the  peasants 
in  February  1861  immediately  and  profoundly  affected  factory 
industry.  It  is  true  that  the  system  of  forced  labour  in  the  fac- 
tories had  fallen  into  decay,  and  that  tree^worlcm^n^ere  em 
to  the  extent  probably  of  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  working 
force  of  the  days  immediately  before  Emancipation,  but  neverthe- 
less industry  received  a  great  shock  through  the  sudden  desertion 
of  the  factories  by  great  numbers  of  labourers  who  had  been  forced 
to  work  in  them. 

The  votchinal  and  possessional  factory  managements  had  been 
fully  responsible  for  the  peasants  ascribed  to  the  factories.  They 
were  obliged  to  maintain  them  whether  there  was  work  to  do  or 
not ;  but  if  there  was  work  to  do,  the  peasants  were  obUged  to  do 
it.  If  they  objected  they  might  be — and,  as  we  have  seen,  often 
were — compelled^by  force  to  fulfil  their  obligations.  The  system, 
apart  from  its  moral  and  social  aspects,  was  ineconomical,  and  was 
gradually  undergoing  liquidation  from  interior  causes.  Probably 
there  still  remained  in  the  ranks  of  the  bonded  factory  workmen, 
the  less  vigorous  and  intelligent,  those  who  were  otherwise  having 
largely  succeeded,  by  one  means  or  another,  in  joining  the  ranks 
of  hired  labour,  even  although  they  still  remained  nominally 
subject  to  bondage  right.  Yet,  especially  on  the  outskirts,  there 
were  large  establishments  in  which  forced  labour  was  chiefly  or 
altogether  employed.  There  thus  remained,  for  example,  in  the 
Ural  Mountains  large  numbers  of  peasants  by  whose  bonded  labour 
mining,  iron-smelting,  and  other  mechanical  industries  were  carried 
on  in  large  establishments.  In  the  Bogoslovsky  district  of  Perm- 
skaya  guh.  about  three  thousand  previously  bonded  adult  male 
peasants,  or  three-fourths  of  the  total  male  working  force  of  the 

district,  left  the  works  to  which  they  had  been  ascribed.    These 

368 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  369" 

men,  representing  a  population  of  from  12,000  to  15,000,  sold  or 
even  gave  away  their  houses  and  left  the  region.  From  the  Bere- 
zovsky works  there  went  away  800  of  the  best  workmen,  and  from 
the  Meassky  gold  mines  there  went  2000  famiHes.^  Thus  from  the 
outlying  to  the  central  regions  of  Russia  there  began  a  considerable 
migration.  Isolated  works  in  the  mountains  and  in  Eastern  Euro- 
pean Russia  were  suddenly  deprived  of  a  part  or  of  the  whole 
of  their  working  force.  Thewages  of  jjibour  rose  rapidly— indeed, 
the^.jimljtJ4jEed..a±^.onQ£..t\^^ 

Qould^  not  be  obtained,  in  scantily  papulate^.. regions  and  in  the 
^eart  of  dense  forests.  Industries,  had.  been  built  up  in  these 
remote  places  by  means  of  forced  labour,  and  when  force  was  with- 
drawn  labour  stopped.  The  general  result  of  this  state  of  matters 
was  a  diminution  of  production. 

The  industry  wiiick..suffered  most_f rom^gheJEmancipation  was 
the  iron_industry.  Above  all  it  had  retained  forcedTaBourT^and 
it  had  not  been  adapting  itself  to  the  employment  of  free  hired 
labour  to  the  same  extent  as  had  most  of  the  other  industries. 
Textile  industries  suffered  much  less,  because  the  power  factory 
was  not  yet  fully  developed,  and  compulsory  labour  in  factories, 
for  the  reasons  explained  in  previous  chapters,  had  fallen  into  decay. 
**  The  transformed  technique  of  production  required  a  free  working 
man,  and  the  factories  which  retained  compulsory  labour  could 
not  compete  with  the  new  capitahstic  factories."  ^  The  new 
capitalist  factories  were  concentrated  chiefly  in  the  Moscow  dis- 
trict and  in  the  Baltic  provinces — at  Narva,  largely,  for  example — 
while  the  old  votchinal  and  possessional  factories  had  been  distri- 
buted in  many  guberni  of  Central  Russia.  The  former  had  been 
increasing  both  in  size  and  in  numbers,  although  the  great  increase 
of  them  occurred  in  the  subsequent  two  decades,  while  the  latter 
had  been  diminishing.  Thus,  in  Kalujskaya  gtib.  there  had  been 
fifteen  factories,  eleven  of  which  were  on  the  estates  of  nobles  and 
belonged  to  them.  In  1861  there  were  no  nobles'  factories,  and 
there  were  only  a  few  belonging  to  merchants.  In  Simbirskaya 
gub.  there  were,  up  till  i860,  thirty  cloth  factories,  only  two  of 
which  belonged  to  merchants,  the  remainder  being  votchinal,  with 
a  few  possessional  factories.  Ten  years  after  Emancipation,  only 
eight  of  the  twenty-eight  factories  remained  in  the  hands  of  nobles, 

^  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  308.  '  Ibid.,  p.  310. 

VOL.  II  2  A 


370     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

ten  factories  were  closed,  ten  were  rented  to  and  two  were  acquired 
by  merchants.^  In  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  seat  of  the  woollen  manu- 
facture in  factories  was  Voronej.  Voronej  was  a  factory  city 
and  all  its  suburbs  were  dotted  with  factories ;  ^  in  1856  only  three 
were  left,  and  in  1865  not  one.  Since  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great 
there  had  been  at  Kazan  a  great  possessional  woollen  factory.  In 
1830  this  factory  employed  1000  men ;  in  the  forties  it  began  to 
decline,  in  the  fifties  it  employed  only  450,  and  in  the  sixties 
only  260  men.  This  decline  was  not  due  to  the  introduction  of 
machinery,  for  the  production  declined  proportionately.^  So  also 
the  woollen  factories  of  pomyetscheke  in  Orel  and  in  Smolensk  dis- 
appeared, and  those  in  Penza,  Tambov,  Ryazan,  Samara,  Poltava, 
Kharkov,  and  Podolsk  diminished  considerably.*  Instead  of  them 
there  appeared  new  factories  belonging  to  the  merchants. 

The  cotton  industry  had  established  itself  chiefly  at  Moscow ; 
but  in  the  sixties,  immediately  after  Emancipation,  it  had  to  en- 
counter the  crisis  produced  in  the  cotton  trade  by  the  American 
Civil  War.^  The  manufacture  of  cotton  was  not,  however,  carried 
on  at  this  time  to  any  material  extent  in  possessional  factories. 
It  had  been,  as  we  have  seen,  from  a  comparatively  early  period 
a  capitalistic  industry,  whether  it  was  carried  on  within  the  factory 
or  outside  of  it.  In  the  manufacture  of  silk,  hired  labour  had  been 
almost  exclusively  employed  since  the  disastrous  experiment  at 
Akhtuba.« 

It  is  always  hard  to  differentiate  the  effects  of  different  economic 
causes  acting  simultaneously  and  giving  rise  to  complicated  reac- 
tions. For  this  reason  it  is  not  safe  to  assume  too  readily  that 
the  most  obvious  is  the  most  important  cause.  In  addition  tor 
the  causes  of  disturbance  interior  to  Russian  industry,  some  of 
which  have  been  suggested  in  preceding  chapters,  there  were  two 
important  causes  external  to  Russia,  one  of  which  occurred  before 
and  the  other  after  the  Emancipation.  These  were  the  general 
commercial  crisis  of  1857  and  the  cotton  famine  due  to  the  Civil 
War  in  America.     The  latter  has  already  been  alluded  to.     Begin- 

1  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  310.  2  75^^^ 

^  Ibid.,  p.  311.  *  Ibid. 

^  Garelin,  J.,  Ivanovo-Voznesensk,  ii.  pp.  25,  27,  contains  interesting  data 
iox  the  cotton  crisis  of  the  sixties  ;  cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  31:2. 
•  See  supra,  vol.  i.  pp.  484-88. 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  371' 

ning  in  the  United  States  in  August  1857,^  the  commercial  crisis 
affected  England  in  November  of  the  same  year.^  Russia  was  not 
affected  so  immediately  as  England  was,  but  within  a  year  Russia 
was  in  the  throes  of  a  commercial  crisis  not  to  be  dissociated  from 
the  restriction  of  credit  due  to  the  crisis  of  the  preceding  year. 
Russian  banks  and  joint-stock  companies,  industrial  and  commercial 
houses,  suspended  payment  in  large  numbers.  The  immediate 
result  of  this  financial  crash  was  the  diminution  of  production 
with  consequent  stagnation  in  industry .^  The  effects  upon  Russian 
factory  industry  of  the  cotton  famine,  and  of  the  subsequent  crisis 
of  1866,  originating  in  England,  had  hardly  disappeared  when 
Russian  commerce  was  again  struck  by  an  external  blow.  This 
blow  came  from  the  Austro-German  crisis  of  1873.  This  crisis 
began  with  a  panic  on  the  Vienna  Bourse  early  in  May  of  that 
year.*  The  effects  of  the  crisis  did  not  make  their  appearance 
imtil  August,  when  there  is  held  the  great  annual  fair  of  Nijni- 
Novgorod.  Three  large  merchants  and  a  great  number  of  small 
merchants  became  bankrupt  there  in  the  end  of  August.  Im- 
mediately afterwards  a  crisis  manifested  itself  at  Odessa.  Many 
merchants  failed,  and  "  money  disappeared  completely."  ^ 

There  were,  however,  influences  interior  to  Russia  making  also 
in  the  direction  of  financial  and  industrial  disturbance.  One  of 
many  concurrent  causes  of  the  European  crisis  of  1873  was  the  \ 
heavy  drafts  upon  European  credit  caused  by  the  building  of  rail- 
ways in  the  United  States ;  and  this  cause  produced  reactions  in 
the  United  States  from  the  financial  disturbances  on  the  European 
bourses.  Simultaneously  with  the  railway  movement  in  the  United 
States  there  went  on,  especially  between  1868  and  1871,  a  vigorous 
construction  of  railways  in  Russia.  Upwards  of  a  milliard  of  rubles 
was  spent  in  about  four  years.  The  transformation  of  so  large 
a  capital  into  so  highly  permanent  and  inconvertible  a  form  could  \ 
not  be  so   rapidly   accompUshed  without   disturbance,  especially    J 

^  It  may  be  held  to  liave  arisen  out  "of  inflation  of  credit  due  to  the  rapid 
opening  up  of  the  middle  west  and  the  hopes  to  which  that  gave  rise,  hopes 
which  were  too  extravagant  for  immediate  fulfilment. 

*  The  Bank  Act  was  suspended  on  12th  November  1857. 

*  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  327. 

*  The  panic  began  in  the  last  days  of  April  and  reached  its  height  on 
loth  May. 

'  Wirth,  Max.  History  of  Commercial  Crises,  1877,  p.  475  ;  cited  by 
Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  328. 


372     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

in  a  country  like  Russia,  where  there  is  Httle  fluid  financial  capital, 
and  where  the  commercial  and  industrial  capital  is  so  widely  dif- 
fused, and  is  therefore  not  readily  susceptible  of  concentration  for 
purposes  of  credit.  During  the  four  years  of  railway  construction 
there  was  a  temporary  inflation  due  to  the  pouring  into  the  country 
of  masses  of  Belgian  and  French  capital.  In  1870-1871  it  was 
inevitable  that  the  French  source  of  supply  should  dry  up  during 
the  war,  and  for  some  time  afterwards.  Railway  construction 
was  resumed  in  1873  and  1874,  but  the  sudden  stoppage  in 
I    1870    aflected   seriously  in  the   following   year  the  demand  for 

goods.i 
L-  The  recovery  of  the  Russian  factory  industry  and  of  Russian 
commerce  from  the  effects  of  these  interior  and  exterior  cataclysms 
was  extraordinarily  rapid.  After  the  Russo-Turkish  War  was 
concluded,  an  epoch  of  prosperity  began.  Profits  became  enor- 
mous. Joint-stock  companies,  according  to  their  annual  reports 
published  from  1878  onwards  until  1880,  were  earning  up  to  70 
I  per  cent,  upon  their  capital.^  These  enormous  profits  led  to  great 
I  increase  in  production.  Cotton  manufacture  was  especially 
I  stimulated.  In  1879  upwards  of  1,000,000  spindles  were  installed, 
thus  raising  the  previously- existing  3,500,000  spindles  to  4,500,000.* 
This  sudden  expansion  was  due,  Bezobrazov  *  thinks,  to  the 
issues  of  Government  bank-notes  for  the  purpose  of  financing  the 
expenditure  upon  the  Turkish  War.  Speculative  activity  was 
directed  at  this  period  almost  whoUy  to  the  promotion  of  new 
joint-stock  enterprises.  The  speculation  had  thus  "  a  bourse 
character  "  to  a  greater  extent  than  had  any  pre\dous  speculative 
period.  By  the  beginning  of  the  eighties  of  the  nineteenth  century 
Russia  had  been  well  drawn  into  the  network  of  international  trade 
and  finance,  so  that  the  depression  of  trade  which  began  in  Eng- 
land in  1877-1878,  and  continued  until  1886 — the  "  long  depres- 
sion," as  it  came  to  be  called — affected  Russia  seriously,  as  also 
did  the  various  crises  of  that  period,  wherever  they  originated. 
Paris  and  New  York  both  experienced  financial  crises  in  1882  ; 
and  in  Russia  in  1884  there  came  the  railway  debacle.     The  stimulus 

^  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  329. 

*  Bezobrazov,  V.,  The  Economy  of  the  People  of  Russia,  i.  p.  277  ;    cited 
by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  330. 

'  Ihid.,  p.  330.  *  Bezobrazov,  ihid.  ;  cited,  ibid. 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  373"^ 

of  war  funds  having  come  to  an  end,  the  period  from  1882-1886! 
was  marked  everywhere  by  the  shortening  of  production  and  by 
commercial  stagnation.^    The  meagre  fairs  at  Nijni-Novgorod  be- 
tween 1882  and  1887  afforded  visible  evidence  of  general  depression 
in  Russia.2 

The  effect  of  these  movements  upon  Russian  industry  was  also 
visible  in  St.  Petersburg,  which  had  already,  in  the  winter  of  1880- 
1881,  a  heavy  unemployment  roll.     The  great  factory  of  Bird 
'scharged  about  3000  workmen,  retaining  only  1000  ;  at  the  Alex- 
idrovo  works  350  only  were  left  out  of  800  ;  at  the  St.  Samson 
orks  450  out  of  from  1200  to  1500. 
Industrial  depression  affected  Moscow  so  early  as  the  spring    i 
1880.     There  the  kustarni  industry  suffered  even  more  than 
e  factory.     Throughout  the  winter  of  1880-1881  there  was  much 
lemployment  in  Ivanovo.     At  the  same  time  two  thousand  work- 
en   were   thrown  out  of  employment   by  discharge   from   the 
.forks  of  Khludov,  in  the  district  of  Dukhovtschina.     In  Klentsi 
Pos^d  (faubourg),  in  Chemigovskaya  gub.,  the  number  of  workmen 
was  diminished  by  40  per  cent.,  and  the  wages  were  reduced  by 
from  30  to  40  per  cent,  for  those  who  remained.     In  Poland,  during 
the  summer  of  1882,  there  were  20,000  unemployed  in  Warsaw 
alone.3 

The  long  industrial  depression  thus  began  in  Russia  about  a 
year  and  a  half  later  than  it  began  in  England,  and  the  revival 
took  place  about  one  year  later  than  the  revival  of  trade  in  England,  f 
There  was  a  slight  check  in  Russia  in  1890,  but  in  1895-1896 
Russia  shared  to  the  full  in  the  vigorous  trade  movement  which 
began  at  that  time  to  be  felt  throughout  the  civilised  world.  The  | 
most  significant  part  of  this  movement  is  to  be  found  in  the  rapid 
growth  of  the  iron  industry  in  the  basin  of  the  river  Don.  Pre- 
paration had  been  made  for  this  by  the  opening,  in  1884,  of  a  net- 
work of  railways  in  the  region,  and  especially  by  the  construction  of 
the  Ekaterenensky  Railway,  which  connected  the  iron  mines  at 
Krivoy  Rog  with  the  coal  mines  of  the  Don.  Up  till  1887,  the  iron 
mines  of  the  Urals  had  been  the  principal  sources  of  supply ;  but 
from  that   year  they  lost  ground  steadily.     In  1887   there  were 

^  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  332. 

2  The  agricultural  incidents  of  these  periods  are  considered  elsewhere. 

'  Preklonsky,  S.,  in  Delo,  1883  ;   cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  332. 


374     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

only  two  ironworks  in  the  Don  region— those  of  Hughes  and 
Pastukhov.  Other  ironworks  followed,  until  in  1889  there  were 
seventeen  large  smelting  works  and  twenty-nine  active  blast 
furnaces.  Each  of  these  works  employed  about  10,000  men.  The 
price  of  coal  lands  doubled  in  a  very  few  years.^  "  The  industrial 
mood  has  infected  all  classes  of  the  inhabitants  of  South  Russia.  .  .  . 
In  two  years  the  south  of  Russia  has  changed  its  physiognomy."  * 
The  principal  products  of  South  Russia  at  this  time  were  rails 
and  other  materials  for  railway  construction  and  maintenance. 
Between  1866  and  1899  the  production  of  pig  iron  in  Russia  multi- 
plied five  times ;  at  the  former  date  Russia  produced  less  than 
3  per  cent,  of  the  world's  production ;  at  the  latter  date  nearly 
7  per  cent.  In  1899  Russia  came  third  in  the  list  of  producers  of 
pig  iron,  England  and  Germany  leading.^ 

Between  1887  and  1893  the  number  of  workmen  in  the  Russian 
factories  increased  by  264,856,  and  the  value  of  the  production 
by  400  milUon  rubles ;  between  the  years  1893  and  1897  the 
number  of  workmen  increased  by  515,358,  and  the  value  of  the 
production  by  1104  million  rubles.*  This  tremendous  growth  was 
too  rapid.  The  arrest  came  in  1899-1900.^  The  movement  was 
a  complicated  one.  The  rush  of  working  men  from  the  small 
towns  to  the  great  industrial  centres,  which  began  from  positive 
causes  in  the  early  part  of  the  period  of  inflation,  proceeded  in  the 
later  part  of  it  from  negative  causes.  The  small  towns  in  the 
Dnieper  valley,  for  example,  were  drawn  upon  heavily  by  Warsaw, 
Lodz,  Minsk,  and  other  large  industrial  towns.  The  small  river 
towns  had  slender  manufacture  for  export.  They  were  dependent 
mainly  upon  the  local  trade.  Thus  the  drawing-off  of  large  numbers 
of  their  working  population  disturbed  the  local  conditions,  reduced 
demand,  and  induced  flight  to  the  industrial  centres.  Meanwhile 
the  villages  which  relied  upon  the  towns  in  their  locaUty  for  the 
marketing  of  their  produce  found  their  market  diminishing,  except- 
ing for  wheat,  which  was,  in  any  case,  sold  chiefly  for  export.  The 
diminished  purchasing  power  of  the  villages  reacted  upon  the 

1  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  339. 

2  Vyestnik  Fenansov,  No.  33,  1897,  p.  474  ;   cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky, 

p.  339. 

3  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  340.  *  Ibid.,  p.  340. 

*  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky  in  March  1898  foretold  the  approaching 
crisis.     See  op.  cit.,  ist  ed.  (St.  Petersburg,  1898),  p.  325. 


I 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  3777 

towns  and  intensified  the  depression  there.^  Diminution  of  pur- 
chasing power  throughout  the  country  was  also  caused  by  the 
inferior  harvests  of  1898  and  1899.  The  two  causes  acting  together 
produced  the  depression  in  so  far  as  it  was  due  to  domestic  causes. 
In  so  far  as  the  large  manufacturing  cities  were  dependent  upon 
the  domestic  market,  they  were  thus  encountered  by  collapse  of 
the  previously  increasing  demand,  and  those  industries  which  were 
created  to  meet  this  demand  were  inevitably  the  first  to  feel  the 
depression. 

Stagnation  in  the  cotton  industry  began  to  manifest  itself  in 
Ivanovo  in  the  autumn  of  1899  ;  in  the  spring  of  1900,  the  same 
condition  affected  Moscow,  and  also  Tula,  which  is  a  centre  for  the 
manufacture  of  samovars  and  other  household  articles  in  universal 
use.  So  also  at  Belostok,  the  cotton  industry  suffered  heavily, 
and  at  Lodz,  the  iron  industry.  These  economic  disturbances 
affected  credit  all  over  Russia,  and  at  Baku  there  was  a  financial 
crisis  in  November  1899.  ^^  ^^^  region  of  the  Don,  eighteen 
Belgian  enterprises  stopped  payment,  with  liabilities  of  4 J  miUion 
rubles.  In  Kiev  in  December  1899,  there  was  a  crisis  in  the  sugar 
industry.  2  At  the  same  time  an  advance  in  the  price  of  coal  in- 
creased the  cost  of  metallurgical  processes  ^  and  contributed  to  the 
diminution  of  the  production  of  metallurgical  works.  The  crisis 
in  credit  occurred  in  the  spring  of  1900,  when  there  were  many 
failures  of  industrial,  commercial,  and  financial  houses  with  large 
liabiUties.     Following  upon  these  there  came  a  sharp  fall  of  prices. 

While  the  influence  of   deficient  harvests  upon  the  general  ^ 
situation  must  not  be  ignored,  the  details  which  have  been  given  I 
seem  to  prove  decisively  that  Russia  is  no  longer  a  purely  agri-  I 
cultural  country,  and  that  she  has  entered  upon  the  capitalistic  \ 
field  to  a  very  large  extent  and  with  very  great  rapidity.     This 
rapidity  has  been  indeed  so  great  that  she  has  not  only  been  drawn 
into  the  network  of  international  commercial  relations,  and  has 
thus  become  subject  to  the  fluctuations  of  these,  but  her  own 

*  These  conclusions  are  from  observations  made  by  the  writer  in  Poland 
in  the  late  summer  of  1 899. 

*  Arising  probably  from  over-production. 

*  This  advance  in  the  price  of  coal  in  the  teeth  of  the  fall  of  other  prices, 
seems  to  have  been  due  to  the  increase  in  the  customs  duties  on  foreign  coal, 
and  to  the  fact  that  the  Russian  mines  could  not  immediately  replace  with 
their  own  production  the  quantity  which  would  have  been  imported. 


h 


^ 


^,o     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

industry  and  commerce  have  their  own  important  domestic  fluctua- 
tions. While,  no  doubt,  like  America,  Russia  is  still  predominantly 
agricultural,  her  industries  now  constitute  a  formidable  factor  ; 
and  in  the  present  phase  of  her  development,  the  economic  equili- 
brium, which  was  formerly  dependent  almost  exclusively  upon 
agriculture,  is  now  largely  dependent  as  well  upon  industry. 

What  have  been  the  causes  of  this  transformation,  so  rapid  and 

on  so  vast  a  scale  ?    There  can  be  no  single  answer  to  this  com- 

Q  plicated  question.     Many  causes  have  co-operated  to  produce  the 

result.     f^Vsp  there  may  be  put  the  Emancipation  of  the  peasant^ 

in  1861.     Pnor  to  Emancipation,  peasant  labour  may  be  regarded 

'  as  having  been  relatively  inef&cient,  and  as  having  become  rather 
/more  than  less  so  as  the  period  of  emancipation  approached.     It  is 

;  possible  that  in  the  eighteenth  century,  under  the  pressure  of  the 
whip,  the  produce  of  a  bonded  peasant  was  not  less  than  that  of  a 
free  man  ;  but  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  it  was  as  great  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  when,  'after  all  is  said  that  may  be  said  on  the 
subject,  the  lot  of  the  peasant  was,  on  the  whole,  better,  and  his 
treatment  by  his  pomyelschek  milder,  than  it  had  been  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  For  this  reason  the  number  of  peasants  upon 
a  given  area  of  land  was  greater  than  was  necessary  to  cultivate, 
the  land  under  skilful  administration.  When  Emancipation  took 
place,  and  when,  as  they  did,  the  landowners  proceeded  to  cultivate 
large  areas  by  means  of  hired  labourers  under  the  control  of  skilled 
persons,  the  number  of  peasants  necessary  for  the  operations  was 
necessarily  smaller  than  formerly.  So  also  when  the  peasants  were 
hberated  from  compulsory  labour  in  the  votchinal  and  possessional 
factories,  a  smaller  number  of  hired  labourers  sufficed  to  take  their 
places  and  to  do  the  work  which  they  formerly  did.  Emancipation 
thussgt^free  for  employment  a  vast  surplus  of  labourers  accustomed 
to  a  low  standard  of  comfort.  The  majority  of  these,  as  we  knoW, 
had  land,  but  they  had  nd~agricultural  capital,  and  although  the 
large  majority  of  the  peasants  who  had  formerly  been  engaged  in 
agriculture  remained  in  that  occupation,  considerable  nunijirs^f 
them  offered  themselves  for  employment  in  the  towns,  ^ec 
interior  changes  in  peasant  hfe  have  contributed  to  increase 
supply  of  labour  since  Emancipation.  Among  these  may  be 
observed  the  abolition  of  the  method  of  taxation  by  "  mutual 
guarantee  "  which  had  contributed  to  hold  the  village  population 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  377 

in  the  villages,  and  to  prevent  them  from  going  into  the  industrial 
centres.  The  aboUtion  of  the  "  mutual  guarantee  *'  rendered 
"  separations  "  more  easy  by  increasing  the  mobiUty  of  the  peasant, 
and  enabled  him  readily  to  become  a  workman.  The  same  change 
tended  to  obviate  the  previous  necessity  for  the  working  man  to 
go  back  to  his  village  from  the  factory  where  he  was  employed,  in 
order  to  take  his  share  in  field  labour  in  his  village.  As  this 
practice  diminished,  which  it  was  doing  in  the  nineties,  the  factories 
found  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  employ  quite  so  many  hands  in 
order  to  obtain  the  same  amount  of  work.  Counting  upon  a  month 
as  a  minimum  period  of  absence  from  the  factory  of  each  workman, 
the  factory,  in  order  to  maintain  a  full  working  force  would  require 
to  employ  on  the  average  about  8  per  cent,  more  men  than  they 
would  have  had  to  employ  had  all  their  workmen  worked  all  of  the 
time.  As  the  practice  diminished,  so  would  this  percentage,  and 
thus  a  certain  surplus  of  labour  would  be  gi-adually  created,  directly 
andindirectly  through  the  abohtion  of  the  **  mutual  guarantee." 
4>kS^D  the  promotion  of  education  by  the  Zemstvo  authorities, 
especially  prior  to  the  so-called  "  righting  of  the  Zemstvos/'  had 
an  important  influence  in  diverting  peasant  lads  from  agriculture 
to  industry.  The  same  cause  also  probably  rendered  them  less 
obedient  to  parental  discipline,  especially  when  it  was  exercised 
tactlessly  by  uneducated  parents,  and  thus  the,,4iQu^s  became 
less  inclined  to  adopt  the  parental  occupation.  (Fourtj^heve  were  s^j^ 
the  attractions  which  Russia  offered  to  foreign  capital  through  her 
vast  resources,  coupled  with  a  supply  of  labour,  ample  and  low  in 
price  for  the  reasons  which  have  been  explained.  This  capital  was 
largely  suppUed  by  French  and  Belgian  investors.  Some  of  these 
had  been  previously  investing  heavily  in  the  United  States,  but 
they  had  suffered  in  the  crisis  in  that  country  in  1873,  and  they 
suffered  again  heavily  in  the  crisis  of  1893,  and  they  were,  there- 
fore, disposed  to  look  for  other  fields  for  investment.  On  the 
whole,  Russia  offered  the  most  favourable  field  at  that  time. 

These  causes,  the  first  two  relating  to  the  supply  of  labour, 
the  third  to  the  education  of  the  labourer,  and  the  fourth  to  the 
equally  necessary  supply  of  capital,  seem  to  account  for  the  possi- 
bihty  of  an  industrial  movement  of  magnitude  in  Russia,  although 
they  do  not  account  for  the  oscillations  of  that  movement.  TJ 
causes  might  not,  however,  have  been  operative  but  for  ^Cfi/th, 


378     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

which  gave  all  of  them  opportunity  for  action.    This  cause  was  the 
development  of  the  Russian  railway  system.^ 

The  conditions  out  of  which  the  first  three  causes  mentioned 
arose  are  considered  elsewhere ;  the  fourth  cause  of  the  expansion 
of  Russian  industry  may  be  illustrated  briefly.  Foreign  capital 
and  foreign  management  had  played  a  considerable  r61e  in  Russian 
industry  since  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great,  but  they  became  highly 
important  in  the  forties  of  the  nineteenth  century .^ 

The  estabUshment  of  the  cotton-spinning  and  weaving  factory 
industry  in  Russia  owes  its  beginning  to  a  German  immigrant, 
Ludwig  Knoop,  who  was  a  clerk  in  a  Manchester  house.  He 
persuaded  his  employers  to  give  him  an  agency  for  the  sale  of 
cotton-manufacturing  machinery  in  Russia.  By  dexterous  financial 
and  diplomatic  management,  he  succeeded  in  establishing  a  large 
number  of  cotton-spinning  and  weaving  mills  and  factories ;  in 
fact,  nearly  all  of  the  cotton  mills  in  Central  Russia  were  founded 
by  Knoop.3  The  great  mill  of  Krengolmsk  (Kranholm),  near  Narva, 
which  he  estabUshed,  has  more  than  400,000  spindles,  and  it  was 
regarded  as  the  largest  cotton-spinning  mill  in  the  world.*  Knoop 
took  many  English  managers  from  Lancashire,  who  reproduced  "  a 
comer  of  England  on  Russian  soil."  ^  The  firm  of  Knoop  became 
enormously  influential,  not  only  with  the  Government,  but  also 

■  >  with  the  banking  and  financial  houses.     For  a  time  it  practically 

'controlled  the  cotton-factory  industry  of  Russia. 

"  No  church  without  a  pop 
No  mill  without  a  Knop."* 

Knoop's  method  of  procedure  was  as  follows  :  When  a  manufac- 

*  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky  {op.  cit,  p.  365)  regards  this  as  the  main 
cause.  Unless,  however,  the  other  causes  mentioned  above,  or  causes  making 
in  a  similar  direction,  had  been  previously  in  action,  the  building  of  railways 
could  not  of  itself  have  created  any  but  temporary  expansion. 

*  There  are  at  present  living  in  Russia,  several  English  and  Scotch  families 
whose  ancestors  went  to  Russia  to  engage  in  industrial  enterprises  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  many  whose  grandfathers  or  fathers 
went  at  subsequent  periods.  For  early  English  settlers  in  Russia,  see 
Gamela,  I.,  English  in  Russia  in  the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centuries, 
(St.  Petersburg,  1865). 

'  For  accounts  of  Knoop,  see  The  Firm  of  Knoop  and  its  Meaning  (St.  Peters- 
burg, 1895),  and  Schulze-Gavemitz,  G.  von,  Volkswirtschaftliche  Studien  aus 
Russland  (Leipzig,  1899),  pp.  91  et  seq.     Knoop  died  in  1894. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  97.  5  Ibid. 

«  A  popular  couplet  of  the  "  forties."     Ibid.,  p.  92. 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  379 

turer  desired  to  build  a  factory,  he  was  obliged  to  call  reverentially 
at  Knoop's  office  and  inquire  whether  the  officials  would  receive 
his  name  and  would  consider  the  expediency  of  permitting  him 
to  engage  in  his  proposed  enterprise.  The  officials  thereupon  made 
independent  inquiries  as  to  the  standing  of  the  applicant,  whether 
he  or  his  wife  had  any  capital,  and  in  what  form  it  existed.  If  he 
were  already  in  business,  it  was  necessary  to  know  if  he  had  been 
successful,  whether  or  not  he  was  indebted  to  the  firm,  or  other- 
wise, and  the  Uke.  Should  these  inquiries  result  in  a  satisfactory 
report,  the  manufacturer  was  required  to  repeat  his  visit.  He 
then  met,  probably  after  several  preUminary  calls,  the  mighty 
Baron  Romanovich,  the  superintendent  of  the  office,  by  whom  he 
was  informed  loftily,  "  Well !  We  shall  build  a  factory  for  thee.' 
Sometimes  a  manufacturer  ventured  to  remark  that  he  had  heard 
of  some  improvement  which  he  would  Uke  to  have  adopted  in  the 
factory  which  was  to  be  built  for  him,  and  for  which,  of  course,  he 
was  to  be  responsible ;  but  he  was  always  told  severely,  "  That 
is  not  your  affair ;  in  England  they  know  better  than  you.'* 

The  manufacturer  was  entered  by  a  number  on  the  office  Hsts, 
and  the  firm  (of  Jersey)  in  Manchester  was  ordered  to  supply  a 
factory  for  this  number.  Detailed  drawings  for  the  factory  build- 
ings were  then  sent  out  from  England,  and  these  were  sent  down 
to  the  factory  site,  provided  EngHsh  managers  were  in  charge  ;  if 
such  were  not  the  case,  the  office  of  Knoop  appointed  an  Enghsh 
manager  to  look  after  the  erection  of  the  factory.  When  the 
buildings  were  completed,  a  full  installation  of  machinery  came 
out  from  England,  together  with  EngUsh  workmen  to  erect  it.  The 
workmen  so  sent  out  were  independent  both  of  the  office  of  Knoop, 
and  of  the  owner  of  the  factory.  They  were  in  correspondence 
with  the  firm  in  England  by  whom  they  had  been  sent  out  (the 
firm  of  Jersey  acting  only  as  agents).^ 

In  addition  to  the  factories  which  it  financed  and  in  which  it 
retained  shares,  sometimes  to  a  large  extent,  the  firm  of  Knoop 
had  also  mills  and  weaving  factories  in  its  own  exclusive  possession, 
the  largest  of  which,  near  Narva  on  the  Baltic,  has  already  been 
mentioned. 

During  recent  years  a  very  large  number  of  French,  Belgian, 

*  The  Firm  of  Knoop  and  its  Meaning  (St.  Petersburg,  1895),  pp.  35,  36, 
and  39  ;  cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  371. 


380     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

and  some  American  enterprises  have  been  established.  Probably 
the  largest  individual  establishments  in  Russia  are  in  the  hands  of 
English  and  French  capitahsts.  Examples  of  the  former  are  the 
woollen  mills  of  the  Thorntons  on  the  Neva,  and  of  the  latter  are 
the  Nobel  works  at  Baku,  now  largely  financed  by  English  and 
French  capital.  The  Krivoy  Rog  iron  ores  on  the  Dnieper,  and 
the  coal  of  the  Don  basin,  have  both  been  exploited  by  foreign 
capital  and  by  foreign  (the  latter  by  EngHsh)  ^  management. 

Schulze-Gavernitz  concludes  his  very  interesting  account  of 
Knoop  by  what  Tugan-Baranovsky  calls  facetiously  "  a  dithyramb," 
in  which  he  says  that  the  emergence  in  these  days  of  men  like  "Rocke- 
feller and  Knoop,  Stumm  and  John  Burns,"  proves  conclusively 
the  fallacy  of  the  pessimistic  philosophy  of  Nietzsche  and  of  the 
doctrine  that  the  human  race  is  degenerating.^  Even  from  the 
less  enthusiastic  point  of  view  of  Tugan-Baranovsky,  the  role  of 
Knoop  in  "  Europeanizing  "  the  crude  capitalism  of  the  Russia  of 
his  time  was  extremely  important.     He  thinks,  moreover,  that  the 

;  same  process  may  with  advantage  be  carried  yet  farther.  "  The 
more  energetically  international  capital  flows  to  Russia,  the  sooner 

I  will  cease  the  present  condition  of  excess  of  demand  over  supply 
of  the  products  of  capitalistic  industry.  The  Russian  market  is 
not  yet  suf&ciently  used  by  capitahsm,  and  therefore  there  is  no 
reason  to  fear  that  chronic  over-production  which  at  one  time 
appeared  as  a  threatening  monster  upon  the  Western  European 
horizon."  ^ 

The  growth  of  Russian  capital  sufficient  to  check  the  flow  of 
foreign  investments  can  only  begin  when  Russia  recovers  from  the 
disease  which  Rosa  Luxembourg  called  "  hypertrophy  of  profit."  * 

It  might  also  be  held  that  in  Russia  the  market  is  more  compact 
than  it  is  in  the  West.  The  small  area  and  the  isolation  of  England 
compels  her  to  seek  for  her  markets  in  Asia,  in  Africa,  in  America, 
and  elsewhere  at  a  great  distance  from  her  shores.  In  Russia  there 
is  an  immense  population  within  a  strictly  continuous  land  area ; 
and,  given  means  of  communication,  there  ought  to  be  an  immense 
interior  market.     In  England  the  opening  of  a  new  line  of  railway 

1  The  pioneer  in  the  iron  industry  in  Southern  Russia  was  Mr.  J.  Hughes, 
an  EngHshman.  See  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  372,  and  Schulze-Gavernitz, 
op.  cit.,  p.  298. 

2  Schulze-Gavernitz,  op.  cit.,  pp.  1 00-101. 

3  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  373.  *  Quoted  by  ihid. 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  381 

brings  into  the  mercantile  circle  a  comparatively  small  number  of 
additional  persons.  In  Russia  the  opening  of  a  new  Une  of  com- 
munication brings  into  relation  an  enormous  number  of  persons, 
and  opens  up  at  once  new  markets.  In  America  the  railway  is 
usually  in  advance  of  population  ;  in  Russia  the  railway  drags 
behind  population,  and  when  it  comes,  it  at  once  gives  a  fresh 
direction  to  previously  latent  productive  powers. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  that  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky  rejects 
the  suggestion  that  the  protective  tariff  was  an  important  general 

.  cause  of  the  growth  of  Russian  industry.     For  this  reason  the  dis- 
C^jcussion  of  it  as  a  doubtful  sixth  cause  of  the  sudden  expansion  of 

^Russian  trade  has  been  relegated  to  this  place.  In  the  first  in- 
stance, those  cases  in  which  its  influence  is  admitted  by  Professor 
Tugan-Baranovsky  may  be  considered.  Chief  among  these  he 
places  the  rapid  growth  of  the  iron  trade  following  upon  the  in- 
crease of  the  customs  duties  upon  iron  in  1887.  Up  till  that  date 
the  development  of  iron  manufacture  was  weak.  Under  the  tariff 
of  1868  iron  was  charged  a  small  duty  of  5  kopeks  per  pud,  but  a 
large  quantity  of  imported  iron  entered  Russia  without  duty,  since 
the  railways  were  permitted  to  import  duty  free  all  iron  required 
for  railway,  and  even  for  some  other  purposes.  From  1881  these 
exemptions  were  abolished,  and  the  duties  upon  iron  gradually 
increased.  In  1887  these  duties  were  25  kopeks,  and  in  1891 
30  kopeks  in  gold  per  pud  at  the  sea  board ;  and  35  kopeks  per 
pM  on  the  western  land  frontier.^  The  sharp  increase  in  iron- 
smelting  in  the  Russian  furnaces  which  began  in  1887  was  un- 
doubtedly connected  with  the  increase  in  customs  duties.  So  also 
in  respect  to  coal.^  The  duties  upon  foreign  coal  were  advanced 
in  1886  and  in  1887,  and  the  production  of  Russian  coal  was  increased 
considerably,  although  the  price  was  advanced^  and  the  state  of 
trade  was  depressed. 

In  reference  to  the  development  of  the  iron  trade  in  Russia, 
Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky  remarks  that  in  such  a  complicated 
question  as  the  connection  between  the  tariff  system  and  the  con- 
dition of  industry,  it  must  first  of  all  be  recognized  that  post  hoc 
is  not  propter  hoc.  He  points  out  that  iron-smelting  was  practised 
in  Russia  on  a  large  scale  in  early  times,*  and  that  from  the  begin- 

^  Cf.  Tugan-Baranovsky,  pp.  363-4.  ^  Jbid.,  p.  364. 

3  Cf.  supra,  p.  375-  *  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  434  et  seq. 


382     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

ning  it  was  above  all  other  industries  supported  and  encouraged  by 
the  Government.  Prior  to  Emancipation,  the  importation  of  iron 
was  prohibited,  and  the  Government  expended  enormous  sums  in 
maintaining  ironworks  in  private  hands.  Nevertheless  this  in- 
dustry was  in  a  state  of  complete  stagnation  until  the  Emancipa- 
tion of  the  peasants.  The  protective  poHcy,  he  argues,  not  only 
did  not  develop,  but  rather  killed,  the  Russian  iron  industry.  It 
led  to  the  increase  of  the  price  of  iron  and  to  the  complete  stagna- 
tion of  technical  effort  .^  During  the  period  between  the  liberation 
of  the  peasants  and  the  imposition  of  a  protective  tariff,  while 
there  was  no  material  impediment  to  importation,  the  production 
of  iron  developed,  although  very  slowly.  In  this  slow  development 
the  Russian  protectionists  thought  they  recognized  the  influence 
of  the  absence  of  protection  through  the  customs.  They  thought 
that  if  Russia  had  not  yielded  to  the  representations  of  liberal 
free-traders,  she  should  have  become  a  second  America.  Professor 
Tugan-Baranovsky  argues,  however,  that  the  free  importation  of 
iron  for  railways  had  enabled  the  network  of  hues  to  be  constructed 
which  was,  he  thinks,  by  far  the  most  important  cause  of  the 
development  of  Russian  industry .2  Moreover,  he  beUeves  that 
further  growth  in  Russian  manufactures  in  general  must  depend 
upon  the  relatively  low  price  of  iron.  Only  by  cheap  iron  and  by 
cheap  coal  can  capitalistic  industry  be  stimulated.  The  price  of 
iron  fell  somewhat  in  the  nineties,  and  the  southern  iron  manu- 
facturers began  to  speak  of  over-production  and  the  necessity  of 
some  action  by  the  Government  in  the  direction  of  standardizing 
iron  after  the  manner  of  the  sugar  industry,  and  of  giving  premiums 
upon  exports.  He  considers  that  either  of  these  measures  must 
be  injurious  to  industry  in  general,  and  that  an  essential  condition 
of  prosperous  manufacturing  is  competition  in  raw  materials,  so 
that  they  may  be  obtained  at  a  price  so  low  that  demand  is  stimu- 
lated. Moreover,  the  Government  is  the  largest  user  of  iron,  and 
the  general  interests  of  the  State  thus  demand  that  it  should  be 
suppUed  without  adventitious  additions  to  the  price.^ 

1  It  may  be  observed  in  this  connection  that,  in  spite  of  the  magnitude 
of  the  steel  trade  in  the  United  States,  the  important  improvements  in  the 
manufacture  have  not  been  American,  but  have  been  English,  German,  or 
French.  Witness,  e.g.,  the  Thomzis,  Siemens-Martin,  and  Bessemer  processes. 
This  is  due,  no  doubt,  to  a  series  of  comphcated  causes  other  than  protection. 

^  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  365. 

»  Cf.  ibid.,  p.  373. 


S 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  383 

In  regard  to  cotton  manufacture,  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky 
points  out  that  while  the  increase  of  the  customs  duty  upon  raw 
cotton  increased  the  cultivation  of  cotton  in  Russian  Middle  Asia 
it  could  only  impede  the  development  of  cotton-spinning  and 
weaving.  Similarly  the  increase  of  the  duty  upon  cotton  yam 
constricted  the  weaving  industry. 

The  special  interest  in  the  study  of  the  effect  of  customs  duties 
in  Russia  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  reactions  of  these  may  be 
observed  in  relation  to  a  lower  scale  of  general  prices  than  in  any 
other  country  with  so  high  a  customs  tariff.  It  may  be  observed 
also  that,  owing  to  historical  causes,  an  account  of  which  has  been 
attempted  in  preceding  chapters,  the  effective  demand  of  the 
Russian  people  is  so  slender,  notwithstanding  the  enormous  popula- 
tion, that  the  productive  powers  of  a  comparatively  small  pro- 
portion of  that  population,  when  efficiently  directed,  easily  outruns 
this  demand.  Thus  on  the  principle  of  domestic  commercial  ex- 
change of  product  for  product,  there  must  be  inevitably  great 
over-production  on  one  hand,  and  great  want  on  the  other,  at 
frequent  intervals.  That  the  idea  of  communism  as  a  final  solution 
of  the  impasse  should  so  frequently  arise  in  Russian  speculation  is, 
therefore,  not  surprising.  On  the  other  hand,  Marxism  and  all 
that  it  implies  has  taken  so  formidable  a  hold  of  so  many  Russian 
economists  that  it  seems  necessary  at  this  stage  to  notice  the  view 
of  the  capitaUstic  process  which  was  held  by  Professor  Tugan- 
Baranovsky  while  he  was  still  a  convinced  Marxist.  This  view  is 
expressed  in  his  interesting  book  on  industrial  crises.  Here  he 
develops  fully  his  theory  of  markets,  and  it  seems  necessary  to 
allude  to  it  in  this  place  because  of  the  influence  of  his  and  of 
analogous  ideas  upon  Russian  poHcy  and  upon  Russian  opinion. 
According  to  the  theory  promulgated  in  Industrial  Crises,  capi- 
taUstic production  creates  for  itself  a  market.  The  sole  condition 
which  is  necessary  for  the  creation  of  a  new  market  is  the  justly 
proportional  division  of  products.  It  is  true,  he  says,  that  this 
condition  constitutes  an  important  obstacle  to  the  growth  of  capi- 
talistic production,  because  complete  equihbrium  of  production  is 
impossible  within  the  Umits  of  capitaUstic  production ;  and  the 
attainment  of  that  approximate  equilibrium  which  is  required  in 
order  to  avoid  the  complete  arrest  of  capitaUstic  production  in- 
volves many  hardships.     In  one  case,  however,  these  hardships 


384     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

are  much  diminished.  This  case  occurs  when  the  capitaHstic 
growth  takes  place  in  an  atmosphere  of  natural  economy.  Let  us 
imagine,  for  example,  he  says,  that  the  whole  social  production 
consists  of  two  branches  only — the  production  of  cloth,  and  the 
production  of  bread.  If  the  products  of  each  are  designed  ex- 
clusively for  exchange,  in  that  case  the  equality  of  demand  and 
supply — that  is  to  say,  the  stability  of  their  prices — is  possible  only 
if  the  quantities  of  the  products  are  strictly  proportional.  In  other 
words,  the  prices  do  not  vary,  if  the  exact  quantity  of  cloth  is  pro- 
duced which  is  wanted  by  the  persons  who  produce  a  specific  and 
unvarying  quantity  of  bread.  If  the  amount  of  cloth  which  is 
produced  is  doubled,  in  order  to  maintain  the  equilibrium  of  prices, 
the  quantity  of  bread  must  be  doubled  also.  If,  however,  there  is 
no  correspondent  increase  in  the  quantity  of  bread,  the  phenomenon 
of  over-production  of  cloth  would  at  once  make  its  appearance, 
and  the  price  of  cloth  in  terms  of  bread  would  be  diminished. 
Since  under  existing  conditions  there  is  no  necessary  accordance 
between  those  who  produce  cloth  and  those  who  produce  bread, 
and  since  neither  can  control  the  production  of  their  respective 
goods,  there  is  no  foundation  for  the  belief  that  the  increase  of 
the  production  of  cloth  would  lead  to  the  increase  in  the  production 
of  bread.  It  is  true  that  price  regulates  capitaUstic  production, 
and  establishes  eventually  a  certain  rough  proportion  in  capitalistic 
economics ;  but  price  is  an  imperfect  regulator,  and  equilibrium 
is  often  reached  only  through  the  limitation  of  production.  The 
disorganization  of  production  which  thus  results  is  a  direct  drag 
upon  its  growth.  If  we  suppose  that  cloth  is  subject  to  capitaUstic 
production  and  bread  to  production  under  "  natural  economy,"  in 
such  a  case  the  growth  of  the  production  of  cloth  does  not  require 
a  corresponding  growth  in  the  preparation  of  agricultural  products. 
In  order  that,  under  these  circumstances,  the  sale  or  exchange  of 
cloth  should  be  increased,  it  is  necessary  that  agriculture  should 
exchange  a  greater  proportion  than  formerly  of  its  bread  for  cloth. 
This  necessity,  continues  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky,  may  arise 
from  various  reasons.  For  example,  the  industry  of  the  home, 
which  usually  furnishes  dress  or  the  materials  for  dress,  may  decline. 
Yet  the  quantity  of  cloth  may  increase  even  although  the  total 
sum  of  agricultural  production  may  diminish.  The  two  forces,  the 
possibility  of  the  increase  of  the  exchange  of  goods,  notwithstanding 


THE   FACTORY   SYSTEM  385 

there  being  on  one  side  a  stationary  or  even  declining  production, 
and  the  facility  of  the  enlargement  of  production  by  the  force  of 
purely  natural  conditions,  constitute  the  fundamental  factors  of 
capitaUstic  industry  in  young  countries,  where  natural  economy 
predominates.  In  old  countries,  on  the  other  hand,  capitalistic 
industry  already  predominates,  and  for  that  reason  the  conditions 
of  the  market  are  incomparably  more  favourable  for  the  growth  of 
capitaUstic  industry  in  Russia  than  in  the  old  capitalistic  countries 
of  the  West.i 

In  brief.  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky's  argument  seems  to  be 
susceptible  of  expression  in  the  following  terms :  Interior  trade  is 
subject  to  the  law  of  comparative  costs  in  approximately  the  same 
degree  as  international  trade  is  subject  to  this  law.  ~An  impedi- 
ment introduced  into  the  system  will,  therefore,  produce  effects 
similar  to  those  produced  by  similar  impediments  introduced  into 
international  exchange.  The  equilibrium  of  prices  will  be  dis- 
turbed by  an  alteration  in  the  tariff,  and  the  proportions  between 
the  supply  of  domestic  and  the  supply  of  foreign  products  may  be 
altered  ;  but  the  eventual  equilibrium  will  be  the  result  of  reactions 
supervening  upon  the  original  cause  of  disturbance.  The  process 
of  readjustment  of  the  equiUbrium  of  prices  is  too  complicated  to 
justify  the  statement  that  the  tariff  by  itself  determines  prices. 
If  the  tariff  does  not  exercise  an  exclusive  influence  over  prices, 
it  cannot  do  so  over  either  demand  or  supply,  therefore  it  cannot 
do  so  over  trade.  In  proportion,  however,  as  its  influence  pre- 
dominates, and  it  may,  sometimes,  over  prices,  it  exercises  an 
influence  over  trade  in  general,  acting  through  those  forces  which 
determine  prices  and  trade  at  all  times.^ 

From  the  details  which  have  been  given  above,  it  is  evident 
that  the  great  growth  of  Russian  industry  is  very  recent  and  that 
it  is  very  fluctuating.  It  is  also  observable  that  it  is  to  a 
large  extent  exotic.  The  explanations  of  these  important  facts 
imply  previous  examination  of  the  Russian  character  as  it  has 
emerged  from  the  past  history  of  the  Russian  people.  Attachment 
to  the  land  and  reluctance  to  engage  in  mechanical  occupations 
seem  to  be  still  deeply  rooted,  although  the  aboUtion  of  bondage 
right  has  modified  both  to  a  great  extent. 

*  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  368. 

*  Cf.  ibid,,  pp.  366  and  367. 
VOL.  II  2  B 


386     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

In  the  early  nineties,  critics  of  factory  enterprise  who  leaned  to 
what  they  regarded  as  the  characteristic  form  of  Russian  industry — 
e.g.  "V.V."  (VasiH  Vorontsev) ;  iNikdlai-On  (Nicholas  Danielson), 
Nicholas  Karisheff,  and  N.  Khablukov  ^  developed  the  thesis  that, 
as  industrial  development  in  Russia  increased,  the  numbers  of 
persons  engaged  in  it,  in  proportion  to  the  total  number  of  the 
population,  must  diminish.  Khablukov  even  asserted  that  this 
number  must  diminish  absolutely  as  well  as  relatively .2  The  theory 
upon  which  this  thesis  was  based  was  simply  that  machinery  re- 
placed human  labour  and  that  the  universal  adoption  of  machinery 
would  enable  labour  to  be  wholly  dispensed  with.  "  If  shuttles 
could  throw  themselves,  there  would  be  no  use  for  slaves." 

The  polemics  of  these  writers  were,  however,  supported  by 
statistics  which  did  not  bear  the  test  of  examination.  In  his 
counter-blast.  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky  was  easily  able  to  show 
that  both  relatively  and  absolutely  there  was  a  great  increase. 
The  following  are  his  statistics,  supplemented  by  the  corresponding 
figures  for  1900,  and  by  the  numbers  of  factories,  &c. 


No.  of 
Establish- 
ments. 

Total  Number 
of  Miners    . 
and  Factory 
Workers. 

Total  Number 

of  Persons 
Employed  on 
the  Railways. 

Total. 

1887. 
1897. 

1900. 

39,029 
38,141 

1,318,048 
2,098,262  * 
2,373,419' 

218,077 
414,152 
450,000  « 

1,536,125' 

2,512,414 

2,823,419 

These  figures  represent  an  increase  of  64  per  cent,  between  1887 
and  1897,  while  the  increase  of  population  was  not  greater  during 
the  decennial  period  than  15  per  cent.  But  these  few  categories, 
although  the  numbers  are  large,  do  not  exhaust  the  numbers  of 
workmen  engaged  in  or  connected  with  mechanical  industry.     Pro- 

^  All  of  the  Narodnek  group.  ^  Cf.  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  374. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  375. 

*  Statistical  Return  of  Factories  and  Works,  &'C.,  Ministry  of  Finance, 
Dept.  of  Industry,  for  1900.  Compiled  by  V.  E.  Varzar  (St.  Petersburg,  1903), 
p.  ix. 

^  Ihid.,  p.  xi.  *  Estimated. 


THE    FACTORY    SYSTEM  387 

fessor  Tugan-Baranovsky  considers  that  it  would  be  legitimate  to 
add  one  million  to  the  totals  for  1897  on  this  account,  and  a  some- 
what smaller  figure  to  the  total  for  1887.  Not  less  significant  is 
the  concentration  of  factories  which  has  been  going  on  in  Russia. 
What  are  known  in  America  as  "  mergers  "  were  formed  vigorously 
immediately  after  Emancipation  in  1861  ;  and  the  same  process  has 
gone  on  with  varying  vigour  ever  since. 

The  relative  statistics  of  1897  and  1900  would  seem  to  indicate 
a  considerable  amount  of  concentration,  since  the  number  of  work- 
men employed  increased  while  the  number  of  factories  diminished  ; 
but  whether  or  not  there  was  any  concentration  during  this  period 
cannot  be  ascertained  from  the  figures  in  the  table,  because  they 
are  not  strictly  comparable.  In  the  collection  of  the  statistics  for 
1897,  all  factories  which  had  an  annual  output  of  the  value  of 
lOoo  rubles  were  included.  There  were  in  this  number  many  very 
small  shops,  even  kustarni  workshops,  while  in  the  figures  for  1900, 
these  were  all  excluded,  and  only  those  factories  which  were  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  factory  inspectors  were  taken  into  account. 
Such  factories  are  not  segregated  upon  any  definite  principle,  but 
in  general  have  ten  as  a  minimum  number  of  employees,  and 
5000  rubles  as  a  minimum  value  of  their  annual  production.^ 

It  is  thus  necessary  to  examine  the  categories  of  which  the 
gross  figures  are  composed,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  extent  to  which 
concentration  has  been  going  on.  This  need  not  be  attempted  for 
recent  years,  in  this  place,  but  a  few  particulars  regarding  certain 
trades  and  for  certain  periods  may  usefully  be  given.  In  the 
cotton  factories,  the  number  of  workmen  employed  in  the  large 
establishments  increased  by  300  per  cent,  between  1866  and  1894, 
while  the  number  of  such  factories  increased  by  only  50  per  cent. 
At  the  same  time  the  number  of  working  men  in  small  factories 
increased  by  about  16  per  cent.,  and  the  number  of  factories 
diminished  about  6  per  cent.,  while  the  number  of  working  men  in 
factories  of  intermediate  size  increased  more  than  250  per  cent., 
and  the  mmiber  of  factories  by  200  per  cent.  The  tendency  to- 
wards intermediate  and  large  factories  is  immistakable. 

The  concentration  of  commercial  capital  had,  as  we  have  seen, 
antedated  in  Russia  the  concentration  of  industrial  capital.     This 

*  Cf.  Statistical  Return,  &c.,  p.  ix. 

*  Cf.  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  ^77- 


388     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

process  of  concentration  in  commerce  has  been  proceeding  rapidly. 
The  circulation  of  great  commercial  firms  formed,  in  1886,  47  per 
cent,  of  the  total  circulation  of  the  firms  enrolled  in  the  merchants' 
guilds  ;  in  1888,  this  figure  was  55  per  cent.  The  firms  which  did 
more  than  one-half  of  the  business  carried  on  by  the  members  of 
the  guilds  as  a  whole  did  not  form  more  than  one-half  per  cent, 
of  the  membership. 


f 


CHAPTER   II 

WAGES 

During  the  first  year  after  Emancipation,  1861-1862,  in  spite  of 
the  great  increase  in  the  supply  of  labour  which  that  event  pro- 
duced, wages  rose.  The  reason  for  this  appears  to  have  been  that 
there  was  a  tendency  for  the  workmen  who  had  been  bonded  to  a 
factory  to  leave  it  in  order  to  return  to  their  villages.  Some  of 
these  workmen  had  saved  money  during  their  employment  in  the 
factories,  and  returned  to  their  villages  to  engage  in  light  agri- 
cultural labour  ;  others  returned  to  the  villages  with  a  knowledge 
of  a  craft  and  with  the  intention  of  exercising  it  in  kustarni 
industry.^  The  peasants  of  the  industrial  regions  had  smaller  land 
allotments  than  those  of  the  regions  where  there  was  no  industry, 
consequently,  returning  peasant  workmen  had  to  take  into  account 
the  necessity  of  making  their  living  otherwise  than  by  cultivation 
exclusively.  The  cities  and  industrial  towns  were  thus  temporarily 
partially  denuded  of  their  industrial  population.  Within  a  few 
years  the  stream  turned  back  towards  the  factories,  and  wages 
fell.2  Meanwhile,  however,  the  urban  prices  of  food  and  clothing 
had  advanced,  so  that  when  the  stream  of  workmen  set  in  for  the 
factory  again,  real  wages  had  fallen,  and,  moreover,  the  machine  had, 
to  a  large  extent,  taken  their  places.  The  situation  is  well  de- 
scribed by  Garden,  who  was  a  large  manufacturer  in  the  village  of 
Ivanovo. 

"  The  beautiful  times  of  high  wages  for  the  Ivanovo  working 
men  were  concluded  by  the  introduction  of  machinery.  So  long  as 
there  was  no  machinery,  or  only  a  few  rare  and  new  machines,  it 
can  be  said  that  the  working  men  ruled  the  factory.  It  depended 
upon  himself — if  he  worked  well  he  could  receive  large  wages  and  he 
could,  at  the  same  time,  yield  the  owner  large  profits.     If  he  were 

*  Golubev,  A.,  Histofico-Statistical  Review  of  Industry   in   Russia  :    The 
Weaving  and  Spinning  of  Cotton,  p.  98  ;  cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  143. 
»  Ibid, 

389 


390     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

offended  at  the  owner  he  might  spoil  his  goods,  and,  without  any 
disadvantage  to  himself,  he  could  go  over  to  a  competitor  and 
perhaps  contribute  to  give  an  advantage  to  the  latter  over  his 
previous  employer.  ...  In  a  word,  the  owner  was  dependent  upon 
the  workman.  But  the  machine  made  its  appearance,  and  gradually 
took  possession  of  the  whole  affair.    The  workman  could  rule  no 

.more,  but  became  dependent  upon  the  soulless  machine.    A  new 

J  epoch  in  the  Ufe  of  the  workman  then  began."  ^ 

According  to  Garden,  wages  in  all  branches  of  labour  were 
higher  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighties  than  in  the  fifties  by  from 
15  to  50  per  cent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  price  of  rye  flour  in 
Ivanovo  advanced  during  the  same  period  100  per  cent.,  butter 
83  per  cent.,  and  beef  220  per  cent.  In  1858  the  weavers  made 
from  10  to  16  rubles  per  month ;  in  1882-1883  the  same  weaver 
made  from  12  to  18  rubles  per  month.  That  is  to  say,  while  wages 
increased  about  20  per  cent.,  bread  doubled  in  price. ^  The  period 
of  the  early  eighties  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  period  of  industrial 
stagnation.  In  the  Moscow  district  the  industrial  crisis  resulted 
in  a  return  of  many  peasant  workmen  to  the  land.  In  the  later 
half  of  the  eighties  the  stream  poured  back  to  the  factory. 

The  existence  of  a  great  labour  reservoir  in  the  land  undoubtedly 
gave  the  workman  a  great  advantage,  but  the  extent  to  which  he 
could  make  real  use  of  it  depended  upon  the  extent  to  which  he 
kept  in  touch  with  agricultural  labour,  and  at  the  same  time  kept 
in  touch  with  his  craft,  whatever  it  was.  It  was  possible  for  him  to 
do  this  when  he  could  go  annually  in  the  summer  to  his  village 
and  return  annually  to  the  factory  in  the  winter.  So  long  as  the 
operations  of  the  factory  were  conducted  exclusively  by  hand 
labour,  and  so  long  as  there  was  an  insignificant  amount  of  capital 
employed  in  the  enterprise,  it  was  not  inconvenient  for  the  factory 
to  arrange  its  management  in  accordance  with  these  conditions. 
It  was  possible,  and  even  advantageous,  to  work  in  winter,  when 
wages  were  relatively  low,  and  to  close  down  in  summer,  when, 
owing  to  the  demand  for  outdoor  labour,  wages  were  relatively 
high.  But  when  expensive  machinery  was  installed,  the  case  was 
altogether  different.     In  order  to  justify  its  installation,  the  machine 

/"-'  ^  Golubev,  A.,  Historico-Statistical  Review  of  Industry  in  Russia :  The 
Weaving  and  Spinning  of  Cotton,  p.  432. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  433- 


WAGES  391 

had  to  be  kept  at  work  continuously,  and  in  order  to  obtain  the 
best  results,  the  workman  had  to  work  continuously.  The  machine 
thus  acted  as  a  separator  between  the  workman  and  his  land. 
The  change  came  about  gradually,  but  in  the  cotton- weaving  trade 
especially  it  came  about  effectively.^ 

From  inquiries  made  in  1884-1885  by  Dementiev,  at  the 
instance  of  the  Zemstvo  of  Moskovskaya  gub.,  it  appears  that  in 
the  three  districts  of  Serpukhov,  Kolomna,  and  Bronnits,  only 
14. 1  per  cent,  of  all  workmen  at  that  time  left  the  factory  periodi- 
cally for  field  work.  The  proportion  varied  in  different  forms  and 
kinds  of  factory  industry.  For  example,  among  the  hand-loom 
cotton-weavers,  only  18  per  cent,  worked  in  the  factory  all  the  year 
round,  the  smaller  factories  ceasing  work  altogether  in  the  summer  ; 
while  in  the  steam-power  spinning  and  weaving  factories  from 
93  to  96  per  cent,  of  the  workers  worked  all  the  year  round,  and  so 
did  the  factories.  The  silk-weavers  who  worked  altogether  by 
hand  customarily  went  to  their  villages  in  the  summer.  The 
leather  and  sheep-skin  furriers  left  the  factories  for  the  villages  to 
the  extent  of  53.7  per  cent,  of  the  workers  ;  and  in  the  crockery 
factories  about  one-half.  In  the  woollen  cloth  factories,  the  hand- 
loom  weavers  left  the  factory  for  the  field  to  the  extent  of  37  per 
cent.,  while  of  the  weavers  who  work  self-acting  looms,  "  no  one 
went  away  "  for  field  work.  In  dyeing  and  chintz-printing  factories, 
the  hand  workers  went  away-  to  the  extent  of  36  per  cent.,  while 
the  machine  workers  went  away  to  the  extent  of  only  8  per  cent. 
Among  factory  artisans,  moulders,  painters,  roofers,  plumbers,  &c., 
only  3.3  per  cent,  went  away  for  field  work  in  the  summer.  The 
conclusions  which  Dementiev  draws  from  these  data  and  others  of 
a  similar  character  are  that  in  those  factories  where  mechanical 
power  is  employed,  there  is  found  the  alienation  of  the  workman 
from  the  land,  and  that  this  alienation  varies  with  the  speciahzation 
of  industry.2 

While  there  were  natural  economic  causes  for  this  phenomenon 
of  aUenation  from  the  land,  these  were  sometimes  reinforced  by 

^  Yet  up  till  1899  the  workmen  of  even  the  largest  cotton  mills  went 
to  the  villages  in  the  summer,  and  sometimes  even  at  other  times  when  they 
had  fits  of  nostalgia.  (From  information  from  mill  managers  received  by 
the  writer  in  Russia  in  1899.) 

*  Dementiev,  The  Factory,  What  it  gives  the  Inhabitants  and  what  it  takes 
away  from  them  (Moscow,  1897),  pp.  i-ii  and  p.  26. 


392     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

interior  factory  regulations.  It  was  clearly  in  the  interests  of 
factory  management  to  have  workmen  who  could  be  relied  upon 
for  constant  labour  or,  at  all  events,  for  labour  when  the  exigencies 
of  the  factory,  and  not  the  exigencies  of  the  field,  were  in  question. 
It  was  also  to  the  interests  of  the  factory  industry  that  there  should 
be  created  a  group  of  factory  operatives  who  would  be  economically 
dependent  upon  the  factory  alone  for  their  employment,  and  who 
would  not  be  able  to  withdraw  themselves  from  it  whenever  they 
chose  to  do  so.  Thus  at  many  factories  the  working  man  who 
left  the  factory  during  summer-time  was  subjected  to  a  heavy 
fine,  sometimes  reaching  a  month's  wages  or  more. 

Prior  to  the  issue  of  the  law  respecting  the  hiring  of  working 
men  of  3rd  June  1886,  the  customary  contract  between  the  work- 
men and  their  employers  divided  the  year  into  two  periods — usually 
1st  October  till  Easter,  and  Easter  till  ist  October.  During  the 
former  period,  the  workman  might,  on  giving  proper  notice,  leave 
the  factory  at  any  time  before  Easter  ;  but  during  the  latter  period 
the  right  of  the  workman  to  leave  the  factory  is  not  recognized 
anywhere.  If  he  leaves  he  is  liable  to  reduction  in  his  wages.  For 
example,  in  the  cotton  factory  of  Konshin  at  Serpukhov,  a  workman 
who  desired  to  leave  in  the  winter-time  was  obliged  to  give  ten 
days'  notice,  otherwise  he  was  fined  twelve  days'  pay.  Those  who 
went  away  after  Easter  were  fined  twelve  days'  pay  whether  they 
gave  notice  or  not.  In  the  print  works  of  the  same  company  the 
fine  for  leaving  in  the  summer  was  one  month's  wages.^ 

As  for  those  peasant  workmen  who  oscillated  between  the 
factory  and  the  field,  it  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  they  were 
looked  upon  by  their  fellow-workmen  in  the  factory  as  peasants, 
and  by  their  fellow-peasants  in  the  village  as  factory  workers. 
They  thus  occupied  an  anomalous  social  position.  It  is  true  that 
they  had  the  legal  right  to  possess  land,  but  frequently  they  had 
allowed  the  right  to  possess  particular  pieces  of  land  to  pass  from 
them  ;  they  had  often  no  economical  relations  with  the  village,  for 
in  those  cases  in  which  they  had  transferred  their  famihes  to  the 
town,  they  had  sold  their  houses,  and  in  those  cases  in  which  they 
were  imencumbered  they  had  had  no  houses  to  sell.  In  either 
case  they  were  looked  upon  as  strangers  by  the  village_.population. 

*  Dementiev,  p.  38. 


WAGES  393 

Such  peasant  workmen  had,  therefore,  a  tendency  to  abandon  the 
village  altogether,  even  although  they  might  continue  to  be  re- 
sponsible for,  and  even  to  pay,  their  taxes  as  nominal  village  inhabi- 
tants, and  even  although  they  held  passports  from  the  village 
authorities  and  changed  that  passport  periodically.  But,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  great  majority  of  the  factory  hands  had  in  the  last 
two  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century  formed  a  class  quite  separate 
from  the  peasantry  in  all  essential  relations — a  real  proletariat 
already  even  beginning  to  appear  in  its  third  generation.^ 

Out  of  18,576  working  men  catechized  by  Dementiev,  55  per 
cent,  were  the  sons  of  factory  workers — that  is  to  say,  of  workers 
who  habitually  worked  in  the  factory,  and  who  did  not  supplement 
their  factory  wages  by  kustarni  industry  or  by  any  other  occupation. 
The  greater  proportion  of  these,  or  70  per  cent.,  were  employed 
in  the  textile  trades,  and  the  smaller  proportion,  15  per  cent.,  were  1 
general  labourers — that  is  to  say,  JJiP  m^ffh animal  employments  U 
exhibited  a  twidencjLJLii, recruit  from  a  hereditarjTclas^JaLiactory  [I 

^'^rkPfgg^^jjfi^^  hpTifj  f^(^rnpafmfjp1rpw^^gg2]g^|^]j^g^  j 

So  also  from  an  examination  of  the  factory  workers  of  "Moskov- 
skaya  guh.,  Professor  Erisman  found  that  only  9  per  cent,  of  the 
workers  entered  the  factory  after  they  reached  twenty-five  years  I 
of  age,  while  63  per  cent.,  or  nearly  two-thirds,  entered  under  the  ^ 
age  of  sixteen  years. 

The  investigations  of  Dementiev  were  made  in  1884-1885,  and  ; 
it  is  clear  that  even  at  that  peripd  Russia  had  already  gone  far  ; 
in  adopting  the  capitaUstic  factory  system,  in  detaching  her  people 
from  the  land,  and  in  creating  a  proletariat  class  similar  in  its 
constitution,  if  dissimilar  in  respect  to  education  to  the  proletariat 
of  Western  Europe.  Since  then  Russia  has  gone  farther  in  the 
same  direction.  If  twenty-six  years  ago  only  about  one-fifth  of 
the  factory  workers  retained  even  a  nominal  connection  with  the 
land,  it  is  certain  that  now  those  who  do  so  form  an  insignificant 
fraction  of  the  total  of  factory  workers. 

It  has  been  remarked,  however,  that  even  after  the  factory 
workers  ceased  to  go  to  their  villages  for  the  purpose  of  engaging , 
in  periodical  field  labour,  they  continued  to  pay  their  taxes  as 
village  inhabitants,  and  thus  it  may  now  be  observed  they  retained 
a  certain  relation  to  the  economy  of  the  village.     This  relation 

^  Cf.  Dementiev,  p.  46.  *  Ibid, 


394     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

was,  no  doubt,  amplified  by  the  subsidies  of  money  which  they 
sent  to  their  relatives,  and  sometimes  also  by  retiral  to  the  village 
in  declining  years  with  their  small  savings.  Living  in  the  village 
was  cheaper,  and  for  them  also,  no  doubt,  more  pleasant  than 
Uving  in  the  town.  In  this  connection,  an  investigator  remarks  that 
"  the  return  for  field  work  is  not  a  suiB&cient  criterion  of  the  degree 
of  the  solidity  of  the  connection  between  the  factory  workman  and 
the  land.  This  connection  might  be  expressed,  and  is  really  ex- 
pressed, in  different  ways,  by  sending  money  to  the  village,  by 
maintaining  families  there,  and  finally  by  returning  to  the  village 
during  temporary  unemployment,  or  during  sickness  or  old  age."  ^ 
Thus  although  owing  to  the  development  of  machinery  and  the 
effect  of  this  development  upon  factory  conditions,  the  connection 
of  the  workman  with  the  land  has  become  feeble,  it  is  nevertheless 

!even  now  greater  in  Russia  than  it  is  in  any  other  country .^    The 
reason  why  this  connection  has  survived  lies  in  the  low  wages  of. 
the  Russian  workman.     If  the  agriculture  of  the  peasant  was  in-j 
J;^conomical  because  he  was  obliged  to  supplement  it  with  industry,! 
yT  the  industry  of  the  factory  worker  was  ineconomical  because  hef 
was  able  to  supplement  it  with  agriculture.     Yet  the  very  facts 
that  the  peasant  was  able  to  do  the  one  and  the  workman  the  other, 
contributed  to  the  depression  of  the  earnings  of  each  from  his 
appropriate   occupation,   and   probably  contributed    also   to   the 
^    diminution  of  his  total  efficiency.     Thus  the  connection  with  the! 
I  I    land  is  at  once  the  cause  and  the  consequence  of  inferior  wages,! 
\  f    and  is  also  one  of  the  causes  of  the  inferior  productivity  of  Russian 
\  *    labour.     The  maintenance  of  two  economies,  one  in  the  village  for 
his  family,  and  one,  however  meagre,  in  the  town  for  himself,  in- 
volves inevitably  some  waste.     Moreover,  the  moral  effects  of  this 
separation  are  not  to  be  ignored.     Apart  from  its  injurious  influence 
upon  sexual  morals,  the  weakening  of  the  family  tie,  and  its  reduc- 
tion to  a  merely  economical  bond  contribute  to  retard  the  develop- 
ment of  the  working  man  and  to  depress  his  moral  dignity.     From 
the  side  of  the  factory  and  from  the  side  of  the  village,  he  finds 

^  Collection  of  Statistical  Reports  (Moscow),  Sanitary  Partiv.,  part  i.  p.  289  ; 
cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  447. 

2  It  is,  however,  very  great  in  Japan,  and  for  the  same  reason,  viz.  that 
it  is  not  practicable  withm  any  short  period  to  convert  farmers  into  skilled 
artisans. 


WAGES  395 

himself  looked  upon  as  a  working  animal  from  whom,  on 
the  one  hand,  as  much  work  and,  on  the  other  hand,  as 
much  money  as  may  be,  must  be  procured.^  Professor  Tugan- 
Baranovsky  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "Complete  rupture  between 
the  factory  and  the  village  is  inevitable,  and  the  sooner  it  occiurs 
the  better."  2 

Schulze-Gavemitz  has  thrown  the  process  of  the  separation  of 
the  proletarian  factory  worker  from  the  land  into  the  following 
schematic  form.  In  the  first  phase  of  the  process,  the  connection 
between  the  factory  and  the  land  is  intimate.  The  factory  work- 
men, especially  those  belonging  to  small  factories,  have  no  separate 
sleeping-places ;  they  sleep  anywhere  in  or  near  the  places  where 
they  work,  and  food  is  brought  to  them  from  home.  This  contin- 
gent of  workmen  is  composed  of  the  peasants  of  factories  near  the 
village.  Such  are  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word  mujiki,  cultivators 
who  go  to  the  factory  because  to  go  is  an  economical  necessity, 
although  the  factory  is  repugnant  to  them,  and  who  leave  it  when- 
ever they  can.  In  the  ^^ond  phase,  the  connection  with  the 
factory  is  more  intimate,  and  that  with  the  land  weaker.  The 
working  men  Uve  in  factory  barracks,  they  eat  in  messes,  and  it 
often  happens  that  they  go  away  for  field  work.  Their  famiUes 
remain  in  the  village.  In  the  third  phase,  family  Ufe  makes  its 
appearance  at  the  factory,  the  working  men  become  segregated 
from  the  peasants,  they  organize  messes  at  which  they  may  feed 
together  along  with  their  wives  and  families,  bedrooms  make  their 
appearance.  Yet  the  connection  with  the  land  is  not  dropped 
completely — the  workmen  send  money  to  the  village,  and  they 
have  there  their  economical  interests;  sometimes  they  go  to  the 
village,  or  sometimes  they  send  their  children.  Finally,  in  the  fourth 
phase,  the  working  man  is  a  full  proletarian  who  Hves  continuously 
at  the  factory,  in  a  hired  house,  or  in  a  factory  chamber  with  his 
family.  All  these  fom:  phases  exist  simultaneously  in  various 
factories  and  branches  of  industry,  and  the  larger  the  factory  and 

1  On  the  above  points,  compare  the  instructive  observations  of  Tugan- 
Baranovsky,  p.  449. 

2  Ibid.  It  is  to  be  remarked,  however,  that  when  Professor  Tugan- 
Baranovsky  wrote  the  first  edition  of  his  book  on  the  Russian  factory  system, 
he  was  an  ardent  Marxist.  His  views  on  general  questions  have  altered 
since  1 897  ;  but  his  view  of  the  factory- village  question,  so  far  as  the  writer  is 
aware,  has  not  altered. 

V 


396     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

the  greater  the  r61e  of  the  machine,  the  nearer  it  comes  to  the 
fourth  phase.^ 

According  to  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky,  until  very  recent 
times  Russia  has  been  passing  through  the  third  phase ;  and 
although  the  past  decade  has  seen  great  changes  in  industrial  hfe, 
it  is  possible  that  Russian  industry  is  not  yet  wholly  in  the  fourth 
phase.  The  affair,  he  remarks,  is  in  a  vicious  circle.  The  connec- 
tion of  the  factory  with  the  land  cannot  be  broken,  and  the  work- 
man and  his  family  cannot  be  brought  together  without  an  advance 
of  wages,  and  an  advance  of  wages  cannot  be  brought  about  with- 
out the  rupture  of  connection  with  the  land.  The  contradiction 
can  alone  be  solved  by  further  industrial  development.^ 

^  Schulze-Gavemitz,   G.   von,    Volkswirtschaftliche  Studien  aus  Russland 
(Leipzig,  1899)  pp.  146-164  ;  cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  447. 
2  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  449. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   HOUSING   OF  THE  WORKING   PEOPLE 

The  first  general  census  of  the  Russian  Empire,  which  was  taken 
on  28th  January  1897,  showed  that  the  city  population,  especially 
in  the  capitals,  had  increased  greatly  during  the  preceding  thirty- 
three  years.  The  population  of  St.  Petersburg  in  1864  was  about 
540,000  ;  in  1897  it  was  1,330,000.  In  the  suburbs  there  were,  in 
addition,  in  1889,  80,000,  and  in  1897, 134,000.  The  greater  part  of 
this  increase  appeared  to  have  been  in  the  later  years.  In  1890, 
out  of  142,523  lodgings  (that  is,  apartements)  in  St.  Petersburg, 
7374  were  underground.  This  condition  is  still  more  unfavour- 
ably revealed  in  Moscow,  where,  in  1882,  there  were  7253  under- 
ground lodgings  out  of  89,765  lodgings  altogether,  or  about  5 
per  cent,  and  8  per  cent,  respectively.  In  these  vaults  or  under- 
ground lodgings  in  St.  Petersburg  there  lived  in  1890,  49,669 
persons  ;  while  in  Moscow  there  Uved  in  1882,  under  the  same 
conditions,  58,850  persons,  or  nearly  seven  and  more  than  eight 
per  lodging  respectively.  The  predominant  type  of  house  in  St. 
Petersburg  is  a  two-storey  dwelling.  Such  dwellings  form  42  per 
cent,  of  the  total ;  one  storey  19  per  cent. ;  three  store5rs  21  per 
cent. ;  four  storeys  14  per  cent.,  and  five  storeys  or  more  4  per  cent.* 
The  buildings  are  frequently  arranged  in  courts.  In  each  court 
there  are,  on  the  average,  sixteen  lodgings,  with  107  inhabitants. 
Where  the  dwellings  are  isolated,  in  each  dwelUng  or  tenement 
there  are  on  the  average  eight  lodgings,  and  in  each  lodging  five 
inhabitants. 

*  Jaxotsky,  V.,   "  The  Housing    Question."  in    Brockhaus  and  Ephron's 
Encyclopedia,  ed.  completed  1904,  vol.  xiv.  p.  853. 

397 


398     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

The  inferior  lodgings  in  St.  Petersburg  may  be  enumerated 
follows,  according  to  the  St.  Petersburg  census  of  1890  : 


as 


1.  Underground  lodgings  ....  7>374 
Number  of  rooms  in  these  .  .  .  .  12,217 
Number  of  inhabitants 49j569 

2.  Lodgings  in  garrets 3>499 

Number  of  rooms  in  these  .         .         .         5,813 

Number  of  inhabitants       .         .         ...         .       21,804 

3.  Percentage   of    total    number  of  lodgings    in    St. 

Petersburg  with  windows  in  the  courtyard     .         .       55.3  per  cent. 
Percentage  of  houses  of  1  room  having  windows  in 

the  courtyard 70.8 

Percentage  of  houses  of  2  rooms  having  windows  in 

the  courtyard 68.7 

Percentage  of  houses  of  3-5  rooms  having  windows 

in  the  courtyard      .         .         .         .        .         .        .       50 

Percentage  of  houses  of  7-10  rooms  having  windows 

in  the  courtyard .14.8 

Percentage  of  houses  of  1 1  rooms  and  over  having 

windows  in  the  courtyard 6.3 

Only  48  per  cent,  of  the  lodgings  in  St.  Petersburg  have 
separate  kitchens,  and  14  per  cent,  are  kitchens  only.  The  average 
lodging  in  St.  Petersburg  accommodated  in  1890  seven  persons  ; 
but  in  the  vaults  the  people  were  crowded  together  in  the  proportion 
of  four  to  one  room.  Sanitary  conveniences  exist  in  less  than  one- 
half  of  the  St.  Petersburg  lodgings,  and  baths  in  only  10  per  cent. 
The  average  rents  in  1890  were,  for  underground  lodgings,  125  rubles 
per  year ;  for  first  floor,  263  rubles ;  second  floor,  375  rubles  ; 
third  floor,  463  rubles  ;  fourth,  450  rubles  ;  fifth  and  sixth  floors, 
380  rubles  ;  garrets,  112  rubles. 

The  poorest  people  at  this  time  paid,  on  the  average,  112  rubles 
a  year.^  The  official  sanitary  reports  of  1897  reveal  a  seriously 
insanitary  condition.  Dr.  Pokrovsky,  who  described  the  housing 
conditions  of  St.  Petersburg  at  this  time,  says  that  in  many  work- 
ing men's  lodgings  there  are  less  than  86  cubic  feet  of  air  space  per 
person.  The  police  reports  are  to  a  similar  effect.  The  under- 
ground rooms  are  sometimes  divided  by  small  cages  for  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  comers,  there  being  a  stove  in  the  middle  of  the  room. 
It  must  be  reahzed  that  St.  Petersburg  is  built  upon  a  swamp — it 
is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  city  where  underground  dwelUngs  are 

^  That  is  to  say,  about  4s.  ^d.  per  week  per  lodging. 


HOUSING    OF    WORKING    PEOPLE     399 

less  desirable.  The  building  regulations  of  the  city  forbid  the 
erection  of  such  buildings  in  places  hable  to  inundation  ;  but  these 
regulations  are  habitually  disregarded.  The  overflowing  of  the 
waters  of  the  Neva  in  1895,  resulted  in  the  flooding  of  great 
numbers  of  St.  Petersburg  workmen's  cellars.  In  the  construction 
of  houses  Uttle  care  is  taken  to  avoid  sewers  and  cesspools  whose 
contents  during  inundations  flow  into  Uving  cellars,  and  as  well 
into  those  in  which  food  products  are  stored.  These,  when  dried 
out,  are  sold.  Thus  on  all  sides  there  are  more  or  less  ample 
facihties  for  the  spreading  of  epidemics.  The  overcrowding  of 
these  cellars,  which  is  at  once  a  cause  and  a  consequence  of  high 
rents,  and  the  scarcity  of  house  accommodation,  produced  between 
1899  and  1901  a  lodging  crisis  in  St.  Petersburg. 

In  Moscow  the  situation  was,  in  some  respects,  worse.  There 
the  practice  of  migration  from  village  to  town,  and  from  town  to 
village,  Ungered  much  longer  than  in  St.  Petersburg.  The  peasant 
is  accustomed  to  overcrowding  in  his  ezba.  Round  the  single 
apartment  of  the  ezba  there  is  usually  a  wide  bench,  and  on  this 
the  peasant  reclines.^  In  Russia,  as  everywhere  else,  when  peasants 
migrate  to  the  town,  they  continue  their  practice  of  huddling 
together,  partly  from  absence  of  means  to  do  anything  else,  and 
partly  from  habit,  faiUng  to  reahze  that  in  their  native  villages 
there  were  compensations  for  the  interior  unhygienic  conditions  of 
the  ezba  in  the  fresh  and  wholesome  air  which  surrounded  it,  and 
in  which  they  customarily  spent,  at  all  events  in  the  summer,  the 
greater  part  of  the  day.  The  poorer  lodgings  of  Moscow  are 
more  overcrowded  than  those  of  St.  Petersburg.  When  the  revival 
of  trade  of  1894  had  been  in  progress  for  about  a  year,  the  demand 
for  labour  in  Moscow  had  brought  an  influx  from  the  villages,  amd 
housing  conditions  became  rapidly  worse.  An  inquiry  was  insti- 
tuted in  1895  by  the  Moscow  City  Council,  and  was  conducted 
by  Professor  M.  Duchovskoy.  A  very  detailed  investigation  was 
undertaken  into  the  conditions  of  life  in  Prechestensky,  one  of  the 
quarters  of  Moscow.  The  general  conclusion  of  the  report  is  that 
*'  the  condition  of  the  poorest  class  of  inhabitants  in  vaults  and  in 
comers  of  rooms  in  Moscow  is  most  unsatisfactory.  These  people 
live  in  more  or  less  unsupportable  hygienic  conditions,  and  often 
in  outrageous  moral  surroundings."     The  details  are  almost  in- 

*  Sometimes  these  axe  expanded  into  what  are  really  box  beds. 


400     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

credible.  The  stairs  which  lead  down  to  the  dens  which  the  people 
inhabit  are  covered  with  all  kinds  of  filth ;  the  dens  themselves 
are  almost  filled  with  dirty  boards,  upon  which  there  is  equally 
foul  bedding,  and  in  the  corners  there  is  only  dirt.  The  smell  is 
close  and  heavy.  There  is  hardly  any  Ught,  because  the  dens  are 
half  underground  and  little  Ught  obtains  entrance  through  the 
dirty  windows.  Beneath  the  windows  it  is  absolutely  dark  ;  the 
walls  are  damp  and  covered  with  mould.^  Yet  these  loathsome 
habitations  reaHzed  a  handsome  profit  to  their  owners. 

The  case  was  even  worse  in  those  places  where  the  people  not 
only  slept,  but  also  worked.  The  total  number  of  lodgings  which 
formed  the  subject  of  investigation  was  16,478.  In  these  there 
lived  180,919  persons,  or  17  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  Moscow. 
Of  these  49  per  cent,  were  men,  33.2  per  cent,  women,  and  17.8  per 
cent,  children  under  fourteen  years  of  age  ;  or  141,215  adults,  and 
39,704  children.  The  investigators  add  that  these  children  con- 
stitute the  future  candidates  for  admission  to  the  prisons,  and  the 
future  applicants  for  social  charity.  The  poorer  among  these 
people  cannot  afford  more  than  a  share  of  a  bed,  the  richer  have  a 
single  room  in  which  they  sleep  along  with  their  family. 

In  Nijni-Novgorod  the  conditions  are  similar,  although  on  a 
smaller  scale. ^  So  also  in  the  Little  Russian  towns,  like  Chernigov, 
whose  underground  dwellings  have  often  been  made  the  subject 
of  investigation.  Such  dwellings  are  occupied  largely  by  Jews. 
Some  of  these  dens  were  even  under  buildings  belonging  to  the 
Government  and  to  ecclesiastical  foundations. 

It  is  thus  evident  from  numerous  statistical  inquiries  that  up 
till  the  year  1900  the  conditions  of  large  numbers  of  the  working 
population  of  the  cities  was  almost  incredibly  bad.  At  the  mining 
villages  and  at  those  occupied  by  ironworkers  in  the  Ural  Moun- 
tains, the  case  was  no  better.  The  condition  of  these  people  was 
first  investigated  in  1870  by  Dr.  Portugalov.  Speaking  of  the 
gold  mines  on  the  river  Salda,  near  Kuvshensky,  in  an  article  on 

^  "  Some  Data  about  Moscow  Bedroom  Lodgings,"  in  Collection  of  Articles 
on  Questions  relating  to  the  Life  of  Russian  and  Foreign  Cities  (Moscx>w,  1899) 
(reprinted  from  the  Reports  of  the  Moscow  City  Council,  February-September 
1899) ;  cited  by  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky.  Housing  Question  (St.  Petersburg,  1902), 
p.  52. 

2  See  Materials  for  Valuation  of  Immovable  Property  in  Nijigorodskaya 
Gub.  (Nijni  Novgorod,  1901),  i.  p.  15  ;  cited  by  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit., 
pp.  81-2. 


HOUSING    OF    WORKING    PEOPLE     401 

"  Work  in  the  Mines,"  he  says :  **  The  work  is  carried  on  in  a  wooded 
marshy  locaUty.  .  .  .  Many  of  the  workmen  are  casual  labourers, 
who  are  housed  in  temporary  erections.  These  barracks  are,  in 
most  cases,  low,  close,  and  dirty.  .  .  .  The  men  he  in  them  Uke 
herrings  in  a  barrel."  ^  Another  investigation  was  made  in  the 
same  regions  in  1892,  and  very  similar  conditions  were  found  to 
exist.  "  In  almost  all  the  mines,  the  dwelUng-places  for  workmen 
are  clearly  the  nurseries  for  all  kinds  of  diseases."  .  .  .  "In 
summer  the  workmen  do  not  use  the  covered  places,  which  are 
infested  by  vermin  ;  they  sleep  out  of  doors.  In  winter  the 
barracks  are  overcrowded  to  an  incredible  extent.  At  nightfall 
these  barracks  rapidly  fiU  up  with  wet  and  cold  men,  the  fire  is  re- 
inforced in  the  stove,  and  round  it  are  hung  wet  clothing,  boots, 
and  leg  wrappers.  The  upper  strata  of  air  are  filled  with  vapour 
from  the  wet  garments  and  from  the  perspiration  of  the  men.  The 
air  is  further  penetrated  with  thick  tobacco  smoke  and  the  heavy 
odour  of  petroleum  from  the  lamps.  When  to  all  these  is  added 
the  specific  aroma  of  the  Tartar,  there  is  produced  an  atmosphere 
so  impossible  that  even  a  healthy  but  unaccustomed  man  can  with 
great  difficulty  support  it  for  more  than  a  few  minutes."  2 

In  1895  another  inquiry  in  the  metallurgical  works  of  the 
Moscow  and  Middle  Volga  regions  disclosed  a  state  of  affairs  as 
insanitary  but  varying  in  detail.  In  these  regions  separate  dwell- 
ings for  workmen  were  unusual.  In  most  cases  the  workmen  either 
find  very  insanitary  accommodation  in  the  villages  or  they  hve  in 
so-called  halagani?  A  halagan  is  a  hole,  usually  square  in  shape, 
and  several  feet  deep,  roofed  over  with  a  frame  of  wood  covered 
with  turf.  A  window  is  occasionally  made  in  the  angle  of  the 
roof.  Even  then  the  window  is  not  glazed.  There  is  a  stove  in 
the  middle  of  the  hole.  Such  dwellings  are,  of  course,  dark,  damp, 
smoky,  and  narrow.^ 

In  1892  the  district  engineer,  Jordan,  inspected  the  engineering 
and  rail-roUing  mills  of  Briansk,  and  reported  :    "  These  places 

*  Cited  by  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  179. 

2  Bertenson,  L.,  Sanitary-medical  Affairs  at  the  Mountain  Works  and 
Trades  of  the  Ural  (St.  Petersburg,  1892);  cited  by  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit., 
p.  180. 

^  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  183. 

*  Galician  immigrants  frequently  house  themselves  in  halagani  in  the 
north-west  of  Canada  until  they  earn  sufficient  money  to  obtain  the  materials 
to  build  a  house. 

VOL.  II  .  2  C 


402     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

(where  the  workmen  lived)  can  only  be  compared,  without  exaggera- 
tion, to  places  where  cattle  are  kept ;  they  do  not  suggest  human 
dwellings.  Even  in  summer,  when  the  doors  and  windows  are 
open,  the  air  is  stifling  ;  along  the  walls  and  on  the  sleeping  benches 
traces  of  mould  are  to  be  seen.  The  floor  is  invisible  because  it 
is  covered  with  dirt."  ^ 

In  Poland  the  conditions  about  this  period  varied.  At  the 
Treasury  works  the  conditions  were  good.  Some  families  Uve  in 
separate  brick  houses,  others  share  a  house  between  two  families. 
Some  have  separate  houses  built  upon  their  own  lots,  and  in 
addition  to  their  work  at  the  factory,  they  cultivate  their  land. 
The  Strakhovitsky  Company  give  lots  without  pa5m[ient  to  those 
who  have  not  land  of  their  own.  In  the  Polish  towns  the  over- 
crowding was  excessive,  both  among  the  workmen  and  among  the 
Jewish  shopkeepers.^  Yet  the  superiority  of  the  intelHgence, 
manners,  and  habits  of  the  PoUsh  workmen,  when  compared  with 
those  of  the  Russian  workmen,  is  undoubted.  The  Pohsh  work- 
man would  not  tolerate  the  conditions  under  which  the  Russian 
workmen  very  customarily  live. 

The  fishermen  of  Russia  form  a  large  group.  They  are,  for  the 
most  part,  to  be  found  in  regions  otherwise  unpopulated,  and 
although  their  calling  offers  certain  invigorating  compensations, 
their  domestic  conditions  are,  in  general,  very  unhygienic.  The 
bulk  of  the  fishing  population  inhabit  the  estuaries  of  the  great 
rivers.  An  interesting  study  of  the  fishermen  of  the  Volga  was 
made  in  1895  by  Dr.  N.  Schmidt.^  According  to  him,  the  form  of 
dwelling  used  by  the  greater  part  of  the  fishermen  is  the  reed  hut. 
The  reed  hut  is  really  a  portable  house,  exceedingly  cheap,  because 
the  material  of  which  it  is  built  can  always  be  obtained  on  the 
spot.  Each  hut  serves  for  the  gang  of  a  "  draw-net,"  which  con- 
sists of  from  twelve  to  eighteen  persons.  The  hut  is  convenient 
though  primitive.  It  is  usually  round ;  in  the  centre  hangs  the 
kettle,  in  which  all  food  is  prepared,  the  fire  being  fed  by  reeds. 

^  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  pp.  184-5. 

*  The  writer  found  in  Minsk,  in  1 899,  large  numbers  of  Jewish  shops  which 
were  only  3  ft.  wide  extending  to  the  rear  for  about  40  ft.  In  the  front  of 
these  shops  the  business  was  done  largely  in  the  middle  of  the  narrow  street, 
while  the  family  lived  in  the  narrow  interior. 

«  Schmidt,  Dr.  N.,  The  Hygiene  of  the  Fishing  Trade  at  the  Mouth  of  the 
Volga  (Moscow,  1895) ;  cited  by  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  pp.  204-5. 


HOUSING   OF   WORKING    PEOPLE     403 

The  earthen  floor  is  covered  with  reeds.  At  night  the  men  sleep 
with  their  heads  towards  the  circle,  and  their  feet  towards  the 
fire  in  the  centre.  Another  form  of  dwelling  affected  by  the  Volga 
fishermen  is  the  "  cold-earth  hut."  A  square  hole,  from  two  to 
three  feet  deep  and  of  an  area  of  from  750  to  1000  square  feet,  is 
dug  at  a  distance  of  about  40  feet  from  the  edge  of  the  water, 
and  in  this  depression,  a  turf  house  is  built.  Wooden  barracks  are 
very  rare.  The  fishermen  of  the  Volga  are,  in  general,  well  off, 
but  they  appear  to  prefer  to  Uve  as  they  do.  Those  of  the  Caspian 
shore  and  of  the  Dnieper,  the  Dniester,  and  the  Murman  coast  of 
the  White  Sea  Uve  in  a  similar  manner. 

The  immense  migration  of  Russian  harvesters  has  already  been 
noticed.  Every  year  upwards  of  a  milUon  peasants  move  south- 
wards for  the  early  harvests  and  northwards  for  the  later.  They 
tramp  along  the  roads  and  sleep  where  they  can.  No  provision  of 
any  kind  is  made  for  them.  The  few  who  travel  by  rail,  of  course, 
escape  the  hardships  of  travelling  himdreds  of  miles  imder  such  con- 
ditions. Only  iron  types  can  survive  the  exposure  to  which,  especi- 
ally late  in  the  season,  they  must  be  subjected.  In  the  height  of  the 
summer  the  peasants  think  no  more  of  these  industrial  pilgrimages 
than  they  do  of  the  pilgrimages  which  in  large  numbers  they  cus- 
tomarily undertake  to  the  holy  places  at  Solovietsky,  Sergei  Passad, 
or  Kiev.  The  tramping  harvesters  are  to  be  found  sleeping  in  the 
market  squares,  on  the  unoccupied  banks  of  rivers,  or  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  grain  elevators  or  warehouses,  where  they  may  hope  to 
find  employment.  Some  sleep  anywhere  in  the  open,  others  carry 
with  them  small  tents.  ^  When  the  harvesters  arrive  at  the  place 
where  they  are  to  be  employed,  their  condition  is  not  improved. 
According  to  the  results  of  the  investigations  of  the  Sanitary  Bureau 
of  the  2^mstvo  of  Samara,  "  there  are  no  dweUings  for  temporary 
labourers  anywhere."  The  labourers  are  always  kept  in  the  field, 
and  even  in  bad  weather  they  are  not  allowed  to  find  shelter  in  the 
farm  buildings.^  The  harvesters  customarily  hire  themselves  imtil 
ist  October  in  the  south,  and  towards  the  north,  where  the  harvests 

*  Varb,  E.,  The  Village  of  Rovnoe  :  Hired  Agricttltural  Labourers  in  Life 
and  Legislation  (Moscow,  1899),  p.  156  ;  cited  by  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  p.  211. 
See  al»3  Prince  N.  Shakhovskoy,  Agricultural  Work  far  away  from  Home 
(Moscow.  1896).  e.g.  p.  75. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  ibtd.,  p.  214. 


404     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

are  later,  until  15th  November.  The  conditions  which  have  been 
described  are  barely  endurable  at  any  time ;  but  when  the  cold 
weather  sets  in,  which  it  does,  even  in  the  south,  early  in  the  autumn, 
they  become  intolerable.  Even  the  agricultural  labourers  perman- 
ently employed  are  inadequately  housed.  In  some  places  in  the 
Samara  region,  for  example,  the  men  were  expected  to  sleep  in  **  the 
cattle  huts  in  the  backyards,  while  the  women  live  in  cleaner  houses, 
together  with  the  clerks  of  the  estate."  ^ 

In  the  cities  the  cost  of  shelter  for  the  workmen  has  led  in  Russia, 
as  elsewhere,  to  the  provision,  by  charitable  means,  and  sometimes 
by  commercial  enterprise,  of  night  refuges,  where  homeless  persons 
may  find  lodging  at  a  minimum  price.  In  Russia  the  formation  of 
Societies  for  Night  Refuges  dates  from  the  period  immediately  suc- 
ceeding Emancipation,  when,  as  has  been  narrated  in  another  chap- 
ter, there  was  a  stream  of  peasants  from  the  country  to  the  towns. 
The  movement  began  in  Moscow  in  1864.  It  was  initiated  by  the 
Governor-General  of  Moscow,  who  suggested  to  the  City  Council 
that  night  refuges  should  be  established  under  proper  hygienic  con- 
ditions, so  that  honest  and  poor  working  men  should  have  **  a  clean, 
warm,  and  harmless  shelter."  The  city  government  was  very 
apathetic  on  the  subject.  It  proposed  to  erect  four  night  refuges, 
but  made  no  steps  to  do  so.  Fifteen  years  later,  when  the  plague 
was  at  hand,  steps  were  taken,  and  a  house  was  adapted  for  the  pur- 
pose of  providing  a  night  refuge  for  about  500  persons.  From  the 
beginning  this  house  was  excessively  overcrowded ;  it  was  sometimes 
occupied  by  700  persons.  This  refuge  was  enlarged  in  the  eighties, 
but  it  was  still  always  overcrowded,  sometimes  to  the  extent  of 
having  in  it  from  10  per  cent,  to  25  per  cent,  more  than  it  should 
have  had.  There  were  in  addition  many  night  refuges  founded  by 
private  charity  or  by  private  enterprise.  These  were  even  more 
seriously  overcrowded.  The  atmosphere  is  described  as  having 
been  so  stifling  that  only  persons  in  a  drunken  stupor  could  pass  the 
entire  night  in  these  places.  Their  moral  condition  is  represented 
as  being  correspondent  to  their  physical  loathsomeness.  The  Mos- 
cow branch  of  the  Russian  Technical  Society  appointed  a  Com- 
mission of  Inquiry  into  the  condition  of  the  night  refuges.     This 

1  Collection  of  the  Sanitary  Bureau  of  the  Zemstov  of  Samara  :  cited  by 
Svyatlovsky,  p.  212. 


HOUSING   OF  WORKING    PEOPLE     405 

eommission  fotind  that  the  city  refuges  were  quite  unsuitable  for 
the  purpose  to  which  they  were  applied,  and  that  the  private  refuges 
were  worse,  the  regulations  which  had  been  imposed  upon  them 
being  persistently  violated. 

In  1881  Dr.  N.  Dvoryashen  brought  before  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior  a  project  of  a  "  Society  of  Brotherly  Help."  The  project 
was  not  sanctioned,  and  the  author  changed  it  into  a  project  of  a 
"  Society  of  Night  Refuge  Homes  in  St.  Petersburg."  This  project 
was  sanctioned  on  20th  February  1883.^  In  1884  three  night  refuges 
were  opened  ;  one  more  was  added  in  1886,  and  one  was  closed  in 
1899.  About  500  or  600  people  were  accommodated  in  them  nightly. 
The  night  shelters  provided  by  the  city  were  of  about  the  same 
dimensions.  In  St.  Petersburg,  as  elsewhere,  the  greater  number 
of  homeless  persons  were  received  in  shelters  provided  by  private 
enterprise.  From  an  examination  of  all  night  shelters,  &c.,  made 
by  the  St.  Petersburg  police  on  the  night  of  i6th  November  1900,  it 
appears  that  there  were  at  that  time  in  St.  Petersburg  10,000  home- 
less people.  The  places  of  shelter  were  all  overcrowded ;  those 
which  were  organized  by  private  enterprise  were,  as  a  rule,  of 
better  t5^e  than  the  customary  lodging  of  the  poorer  working  men, 
although  they  left  much  to  be  desired.^ 

In  Russia,  as  in  Western  Europe,  some  enUghtened  employers 
have  grappled  with  the  difficult  question  of  housing,  and  have  pro- 
vided accommodation  for  their  workmen.  For  example,  in  Moscow, 
the  chintz-printing  factory  of  Emil  Zundel  has  erected  spacious 
dweUings  of  barrack-room  type  for  their  bachelor  workmen,  with 
separate  rooms  for  workmen  with  famihes.^  On  these  measures 
the  factory  has  invested  a  capital  of  nearly  one  milhon  rubles.  So 
also  the  paper  factory  on  the  foundation  of  the  Empress  Maria 
organized  for  its  working  men  suitable  houses,  with  gardens  and 
orchards,  at  a  rent  of  from  2  to  6^  rubles  per  month.  The  Kolomen- 
sky  Car-building  Company  have  built  a  workmen's  settlement.  The 
town  is  well  planned  and  organized.     The  Ramenskaya  manufac- 

'  Report  of  the  Society  of  Night  Refuges  in  St.  Petersburg  for  1901  (St. 
Petersburg,  1902) ;  cited  by  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  pp.  234-5. 

2  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  245. 

'  Shestakov.  P.  M.,  Working  Men  at  the  Factory  of  Emil  Zundel  in  Moscow. 
Statistical  Inquiry  (1900),  p.  7  ;  cited  by  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  p.  245.  See  also 
Manufacturing  Company  of  Emile  Zundel,  1874-1908  (Moscow,  1908). 


4o6    ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF   RUSSIA 

tory  of  P.  Malyoten,  the  Mareensky  Sugar  Refinery  at  Balasheva,  in 
Kievskaya  gub.,  the  Nikolskoe  Factories  of  Morozov,  Son,  &  Co., 
and  the  cotton- weaving  factory  of  Morgunov  &  Co.,  are  a  few  of  the 
numerous  examples  of  intelligent  administration,  serious  desire  to 
improve  the  conditions  of  working  men,  and  of  ability  to  organize 
an  effective  plan.^ 

*  For  these  and  other  examples,  see  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  pp.  245-75. 


CHAPTER   IV 

FACTORY   LEGISLATION 

Prior  to  Emancipation  the  question  of  child  labour  in  factories 
began  to  occupy  the  attention  of  the  "  higher  spheres."  A  special 
commission  appointed  by  the  Governor-General  of  St.  Petersburg 
in  1859  collected  information  about  child  labour  in  the  workshops 
and  factories  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  elaborated  **  A  Project  of  Rules 
for  Factories  and  Workshops  in  St.  Petersburg  and  in  the  Districts 
surrounding  the  City."  The  rules  set  forth  in  this  project  forbade 
the  employment  of  children  under  twelve  years  of  age,  and  limited 
the  working  day  for  persons  under  the  age  of  fourteen  to  ten  hours. 
No  person  under  sixteen  was  permitted  to  work  at  night.  Three 
of  the  large  St.  Petersburg  manufacturers  were  members  of  this 
commission,  and  they  are  understood  to  have  supported  the  pro- 
ject. The  Moscow  and  the  provincial  manufacturers  were,  however, 
very  hostile.  The  commission  discovered  in  the  course  of  its 
inquiries  that  the  St.  Petersburg  cotton  mills,  employing  8200 
workmen,  had  in  them  616  children  of  from  four  to  eight  years  of 
age.  At  six  of  the  mills  work  was  continued  night  and  day,  at 
other  six  work  was  carried  on  by  day  only  for  fourteen  hours, 
children  as  well  as  adults  working  for  this  period.  The  project 
was  submitted  to  the  cotton  manufacturers  and,  as  a  rule,  was 
approved  by  them.  There  were,  however,  some  exceptions.  For 
example,  the  Khludov  Brothers,  owners  of  one  of  the  largest  cotton 
mills  in  Russia,^  objected  to  dispense  with  child  labour  because  it 
would  be  necessary  to  replace  it  with  the  labour  of  adults.  When 
the  same  commission  issued  a  protocol  recommending  a  system  of 
factory  inspection,  the  opposition  of  the  manufacturers  was  much 
more  active.  The  labours  of  this  commission  were  followed  by 
those  of  another  appointed  by  the  Ministry  of  Finance.  This 
commission  accepted  the  principle  of  excluding  children  under 

^  In  Egoryevsky  district  of  Ryazanskaya  gub. 
407 


4o8     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

twelve  years  of  age  from  the  factory  wholly,  and  extended  the 
age  Umit  from  sixteen  to  eighteen  in  the  limitation  of  working 
hours>  A  Government  inspectorate  of  factories  was  also  recom- 
mended, as  well  as  the  establishment  of  courts  for  the  settlement 
of  industrial  disputes.^  The  commission  did  not  recommend  any 
alteration  in  the  law  respecting  strikes,  which  provided  a  penalty 
of  imprisonment  for  from  three  weeks  to  three  months  for  the  leaders 
and  for  from  one  week  to  three  weeks  for  others ;  but  it  recom- 
mended that  in  case  of  strikes,  the  employers  should  reduce  the 
wages  of  striking  workmen  on  their  return  to  the  factory.^  The 
industrial  court  which  was  to  be  established  was  recommended 
to  be  composed  of  an  equal  number  of  working  men  and  of  em- 
ployers,* and  suggested  that  it  should  be  entirely  independent  of 
the  administration.  All  factories  in  which  hired  labour  was  employed 
were  to  be  placed  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  inspectors.  This, 
on  the  whole,  enlightened  project  of  factory  legislation  was  not 
carried  into  effect.  In  1866  an  epidemic  of  cholera  aroused  the 
Government  to  take  steps  to  enforce  the  adoption  of  sanitary 
measures  in  the  factories  by  issuing  an  ukase  on  26th  August  of 
that  year.  This  ukase  was  intended  as  a  temporary  measure,  but 
as  it  has  not  yet  been  superseded,  this  ukase  remains  in  force. 
Under  it  all  factories  in  which  one  thousand  workmen  and  upwards 
are  employed  are  required  to  build  a  hospital  with  ten  beds  for  the 
first  thousand  workmen,  and  five  beds  each  additional  thousand. 
Factories  employing  less  than  one  thousand  were  to  provide  hospital 
accommodation  at  the  rate  of  one  bed  per  hundred  workpeople. 
The  factories  are  forbidden  to  take  payment  from  the  workmen 
for  medical  assistance,  drugs,  nursing,  or  food  during  sickness. 
This  law  has  not,  however,  been  rigidly  carried  out.  At  many  of 
the  factories  hospital  accommodation  is  merely  fictitious.  In  the 
absence  of  proper  governmental  inspection  and  organization  the 
law  remains  in  practical  abeyance  excepting  in  the  case  of  some  of 
the  larger  factories.  In  Moskovskaya  gub.  between  1880  and  1890, 
of  150,000  working  men,  only  67,000  enjoyed  real,  and  not  fictitious, 

1  Sections  1 12-14  of  the  revised  project;  cited  by  Tugan-Baxanovsky, 
p.  392. 

2  Sections  1 16-21.     Ibid.  '  Section  269.     Ibid.,  p.  393. 

*  Imitating  the  French  Conseils  des  Prudhommes,  but  providing  that  the 
chairman  of  the  court  should  be  elected  by  the  members,  not  appointed  by 
the  Emperor,  as  in  France.     Cf.  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  393. 


FACTORY   LEGISLATION  409 

medical  assistance.^  In  the  Kharkov  factory  region  at  the  same 
time,  out  of  658  workshops,  employing  30,000  men,  only  four  pro- 
vided medical  attendance  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the 
Act  of  1866.  The  factory  inspectors  have  frequently  reported 
deficiencies  and  violations  of  the  law  in  this  connection.  Many  of 
the  large  factories  in  Warsaw,  for  example,  have  no  hospitals,  no 
medical  men,  and  no  nurses.^  Even  at  works  in  the  Ural  Mountains 
belonging  to  the  Treasury,  the  organization  of  medical  assistance 
is  very  defective.  It  is  little  wonder  that  this  neglect  also  affects 
the  private  works  in  the  same  region.  So  also  in  the  region  of  the 
Vistula  and  in  the  Caucasus,  where  medical  attendance  in  the 
petroleum  enterprises  is  badly  organized.^  The  same  is  generally 
true  of  all  outlying  regions.  Even  at  large  factories  and  mines 
there  is  no  hospital,  no  resident  physician,  and  medical  assistance 
is  in  general  woefully  deficient. 

Several  times  during  the  period  from  1866  to  1880,  the  Govern- 
ment attempted  to  introduce  factory  legislation  more  or  less  of 
the  character  of  the  projects  of  1859,  but  always  without  success. 
The  manufacturers  were  always  able  to  bring  their  united  forces 
against  every  project  which  was  advanced  by  commission  after 
commission.  In  1867  Kolbe,  director  of  the  great  cotton  mills  at 
Kranholm,  proposed  to  the  Government  to  Hmit  the  working  day. 
In  spite  of  his  influence,  the  project  came  to  nothing.  In  1870 
General  Ignatiev  was  appointed  chairman  of  a  commission  to 
investigate  and  report  upon  the  subject ;  in  1872  the  Minister  of 
the  Interior  recommended  legislation ;  in  1874  another  commission 
was  appointed  under  the  presidency  of  Valnev.  All  of  these 
measures  were  without  avail.  In  1875  a  congress  of  mechanical 
engineers  was  held  in  St.  Petersburg.  One  of  the  members,  a 
large  manufacturer  called  Golubev,  drew  attention  to  the  exces- 
sive number  of  hours  which  were  habitually  worked,  and  urged 
that,  in  the  interest  of  the  manufacturers  themselves,  an  eight- 
hour  working  day  should  be  established,  and  that  the  total 
number  of  working  days  in  the  year  should  be  limited  to  300. 
The  congress  eventually  passed  an  unanimous  resolution  in  favour 
of  a  ten-hour  working  day.     In  1874  the  Imperial  Russian  Technical 

1  Professor  F.  F.  Erisman,  quoted  in  Russia  in  the  Past  and  in  the  Present, 
Brockhaus  and  Ephron  (St.  Petersburg,  1900),  p.  216. 

*  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky ;  cited  ibid.  '  L.  Bertenson,  ibid. 


4IO     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Society  of  St.  Petersburg  began  to  take  a  deep  interest  in  the 
question.  The  president  of  the  society,  E.  Andreyev,  drew  the 
attention  of  the  commission  of  1874  to  the  fact  that  the  two  funda- 
mental obstacles  to  the  promotion  of  technical  education  were  the 
great  length  of  the  worldng  day  and  the  employment  of  children.^ 

The  Imperial  Technical  Society  undertook  an  inquiry  into  the 
question.     Interrogatories  were  sent  to  manufacturers,  and  135  re- 
pUes  were  received.     These  repHes  showed  that  at  a  majority  of 
the  factories,  children  under  ten  years  of  age  were  frequently 
employed.     Their  hours  of  labour  were  the  same  as  those  of  adults, 
usually  fifteen  hours  per  day  ;  and  in  one  factory,  seventeen  hours 
per  day.     In  consequence  of  this  investigation  a  committee,  com- 
posed partly  of  members  of  the  society,  partly  of  manufacturers, 
and  partly  of  Government  officials,  was  appointed  to  draft  a  project 
of  a  law.     This  committee  agreed  on  the  following  principles :  The 
employment  of  children  under  twelve  years  of  age  was  to  be  for- 
bidden.    Between  the  ages  of  twelve  and  fifteen  children  might  be 
employed  for  five  hours  per  day,  excepting  in  dangerous  or  harmful 
employments,  where  seventeen  years  was  the  age  limit.^    Still  there 
was  no  result, 
f        Finally,  on  ist  June  1882,  during  the  reaction  which  ensued 
J  after  the  assassination  of  Alexander  II,  and  after  a  long  series  of 
'  commissions  and  projects  for  nearly  twenty-five  years,  a  law  was 
issued  under  the  Ministry  of  Bunge.     The  age  hmit  was  fixed  at 
twelve  years.     Between  twelve  and  fifteen  young  persons  might 
work  eight  hours  per  day ;  night  work  being  prohibited  for  them, 
^  as  also  work  on  Sundays  and  holidays.     Opportunity  was  to  be 
{I  given  them  by  their  employers  to  continue  their  education,  and  a 
system  of  Government  inspection  of  factories  was  instituted.     Thus 
I  at  last,  after  a  long  interval  of  laisser  /aire  between  the  rigorous 
)  control  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  modem  factory  legislation, 
'  the  first  Russian  factory  law  came  into  being. 

The  usual  division  of  interests  and  opinions  was  immediately 
manifested.  The  St.  Petersburg  manufacturers  were  in  favour  of 
the  law ;  the  Moscow  manufacturers  were,  as  formerly,  opposed  to 
any  factory  legislation.     The  latter  protested  against  the  measure, 

^  E.  Andreyev,  The  Work  of  Children  in  Russia  and  Western  Europe,  p.  43  ; 
cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  400. 

*  Andreyev,  op.  cit.,  pp.  51  and  54  ;   cited  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  p.  4cx). 


FACTORY   LEGISLATION  411 

.and  clamoured  for  the  "  liberty  of  labour."  When  factory  inspec- 
tion was  instituted,  there  were  many  conflicts  with  the  manufac- 
turers, who  were  very  reluctant  to  obey  the  law.  The  law  of  1882 
was  only  the  beginning.  Amendments  followed  quickly.  On  12th 
June  1884  a  law  was  issued  relating  to  the  education  of  persons 
under  age  who  were  working  in  factories,  and  deaUng  with  hours  of 
labour  and  the  regulation  of  factory  inspection.  On  19th  Decem- 
ber 1884  another  law  dealing  with  the  last-mentioned  subject  was 
issued.  On  3rd  June  1885  night  work  at  textile  factories  was  for- 
bidden to  persons  of  either  sex  under  seventeen  years  of  age.  On 
3rd  June  1886  an  act  generally  regulating  work  in  factories  was  also 
issued.  It  is  clear  that  the  depression  in  industry  which  was  ex- 
perienced during  this  period  had  not  only  diminished  the  spirit  of 
resistance  on  the  part  of  the  manufacturers,  but  the  factories  were 
generally,  in  any  case,  working  on  short  time,  and  many  workmen 
had  been  discharged.  The  St.  Petersburg  manufacturers  even  took 
the  initiative  in  making  proposals,  which  were  negatived  by  the 
Moscow  manufacturers ;  but  disturbances  in  some  of  the  large 
Moscow  factories  in  1884  and  1885,  and  the  St.  Petersburg  proposi- 
tion about  prohibiting  night  work  for  women  and  young  persons 
was  embodied  in  the  law  of  3rd  June  1885.  The  law  of  3rd  June 
1886,  which  was  passed  on  the  initiative  of  Count  D.  Tolstoy,  went 
further  than  any  of  its  predecessors.  Wages  were  required  to  be 
paid  at  least  once  a  month.  What  is  known  in  England  as  truck, 
or  payment  in  kind,  was  prohibited.  Payments  for  medical  attend- 
ance and  for  Hghting  of  workshops,  &c.,  were  forbidden  to  be  exacted 
from  workmen.^  At  the  same  time,  owing  to  the  disturbances  of  the 
two  previous  years,  the  punishment  of  strikers  was  made  more  severe, 
and  the  duties  of  the  factory  inspectors  were  made  more  ample.  ^ 
The  Government  had  now  fully  stepped  back  upon  the  path  of  * 
control  and  regulation  which,  under  the  influence  of  the  Uberalism 
of  the  thirties  and  forties  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  had  largely  ; 
abandoned. 

As  trade  began  to  improve,  the  factory-owners  became  restive. 
They  struggled  against  factory  inspection.  They  accused  the  Gov- 
ernment of  legislating  in  a  spirit  of  antipathy  to  the  capitalist  class 

^  For  explanation  of  this  provision,  see  extract  from  official  commen- 
taries upon  Act  of  1 886  in  Bulletin  of  the  International  Labour  Office  (London. 
1908).  vol.  iii.  No.  2,  p.  219. 


412     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

and  in  a  spirit  of  partial  protection  to  the  employed  "  low  class." 
The  agitation  became  more  vigorous  as  the  improvement  of  trade 
continued.  Upon  the  great  factories,  conducted  on  a  high  technical 
plane,  the  law  pressed  Ughtly.^  Those  who  felt  it  most  severely 
were  struggUng  in  deep  financial  waters  resulting  from  the  prolonged 
depression.  The  manufacturing  interests  turned  upon  the  Minister, 
Bunge,*who  had  been  responsible  for  the  legislation,  and  accused 
him  of  faiUng  to  understand  Russian  conditions,  and  of  being  carried 
away  by  the  theories  of  Western  European  doctrinaires.  Bunge 
resigned,  and  the  Moscow  manufacturers  approached  his  successor, 
Vyshnegradsky,  with  some  hope  of  inducing  him  to  alter  or  modify 
the  factory  poHcy  of  the  Government.  They  were  not  immediately 
successful ;  but  in  1890  the  Government  capitulated.  Glass  fac- 
tories were  permitted  to  employ  young  persons  of  twelve  to  fifteen 
years  at  night,  and  the  factory  inspectors  were  allowed  to  permit 
the  emplo5mient  of  children  on  Sundays  and  hoUdays,  and  also  in 
some  cases  to  allow  night  work  by  young  persons  of  fifteen  to  seven- 
teen years.  The  Minister  of  Finance,  with  the  consent  of  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior,  might  sanction  the  employment  of  children  of  ten  to 
twelve  years  of  age.^ 

Seven  years  later,  on  3rd  June  1897,  the  Government  once  more 
made  a  step  in  the  direction  of  further  regulation.  By  this  Act  the 
working  day  for  all  factories  and  workshops  was  limited  to  11 J  hours 
for  adults  as  well  as  for  persons  under  age.  If  night  work  was  adopted, 
the  period  must  not  be  more  than  10  hours.  Work  on  Sundays 
and  hoUdays  was  forbidden.  Naval  and  military  establishments 
were  exempted  from  the  operations  of  the  law.  But  the  law  of 
14th  March  1898  altered  the  regulations  about  overtime  to  such  an 
extent  as  almost  to  nullify  the  Act  of  1897  so  far  as  concerned  this 
matter. 

Apart  from  factory  legislation,  a  large  number  of  the  factories 
in  Central  Russia  have,  of  their  own  motion,  reduced  their  working 
hours.  In  1896  the  St.  Petersburg  factory-owners  proposed  that 
the  working  day  should  be  compulsorily  reduced  to  11  hours,  or 
half  an  hour  shorter  than  was  provided  by  the  Act  of  1897.* 

1  Repeating  the  provision  of  the  law  of  26th  August  1866  (cf.  supra, 
p.  408). 

2  F.C.L.,  coll.  iii.  vol.  x.  6743. 

*  The  above  account  has  been  drawn  chiefly  from  Tugan-Baranovsky, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  385-429. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE   LABOUR   MOVEMENT   SINCE   EMANCIPATION 

Emancipation  of  th^  <;prf<^,  tm^^^^^^^^dJLIzrj^ritldr'gTDen  andwomen 
Sii_t^Q_jpQSS&SLsions-fabriken  from  serfs  owned  or  hired  by-tlie  .proj- 
priy^Qft^  nf  th^^p,  into  wage -paid  artisans.  The  Emancipation,,  .the 
teiidency_iowards^eparations,  the  system  of  recruiting  and  short 
service  in  the  army,  and  the  highly  ptotective  fiscal  policy,  combined 
to  promote  the  migration  from  the  country  to  the  town  which, 
commencing  in  the  pre-Emancipation  period,  proceeded  at  an  accel- 
erated rate  in  the  epoch  immediately  succeeding  Emancipation, 
increase  in  the  numbers  of  urban  workmen  due  to  these  causes,  and 
due  importantly  to  the  migration  from  the  rural  districts  of  dvorovie 
lyude,  now  hberated  without  land,  brought  about  greatly  increased 
competition  for  employment,  together  with  low  wages.  Scarcity  of 
agricultural  capital  in  the  country  had  its  counterpart  in  scarcity  of 
industrial  and  of  commercial  capital  in  the  town,  and  thus,  in  spite 
of  the  superabundance  of  labour,  there  was  for  a  time  a  slender 
amount  of  industrial  enterprise,  ^^he  traditions  of  serfdom  still 
remained  to  keep  wage  employment  in  inferior  conditions.  The 
factories,  which  were  frequently  in  buildings  not  specially  designed 
or  adapted  for  factory  purposes,  were  often  exceedingly  msanitary  ; 
the  practice  of  search.^  was  universally  carried  on,  and  b^tiiig;^  of 
workmen  by  foremen  was  very  frequent — in  flagrant  violation  of 
the  feehngs  of  human  dignity  which  had  been  aroused  by  the  mere 
act  of  Emancipation,  y 

These  incidents  lea  to  great .  strike,  activity^  notjm m edi ately ,-bt!t 
\8Citlunjten^ears  after  the  date  of  Emancipation.  In  1870  there  was 
a  strike  in  the  tailors'  shops  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  in  the  same  year 
the  workers  in  the  Nevsky  Cotton-spinning  Mills  struck.    While  the 

^  Up  till  1905  each  workman  was  searched  on  leaving  the  factory  for 
tools  or  goods  which  he  was  presumed  to  be  desirous  of  stealing.  The  writer 
witnessed  the  process  in  St.  Petersburg  in  1 899. 

413 


414     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

latter  strike  was  in  progress,  the  strikers  elected  from  among  them- 
selves, deputies  for  the  purpose  of  conducting  negotiations  with  the 
factory-owners.  These  deputies  were  afterwards  accused  of  leading 
the  strikers,  and,  after  trial,  were  sent  to  prison  for  a  week.  In  1870 
also  there  were  a  strike  at  Warsaw  and  labour  difficulties  at  Kron- 
stadt.  In  1871  the  cabmen  at  Odessa  struck,  and  in  1872  the  work- 
men in  the  building  trades  at  Kronstadt  and  those  in  the  Kranholm 
Factory  at  Narva  struck.  In  the  latter  case  the  strikers  followed 
the  example  of  those  at  the  Nevsky  Mills  in  the  previous  year,  and 
elected  deputies.  The  deputies  were  arrested  by  the  officer  of  gens 
d'armerie,  to  whom  they  had  gone  to  ask  for  protection  for  the 
strikers.  These  proceedings  irritated  the  factory  workers,  discon- 
tent and  disaffection  grew  rapidly,  and  troops  were  called  out  to 
*'  pacify  "  the  industrial  centres.^ 

The  workers  in  the  Lazarev  Clothing  Factory  in  Moscow  struck 
lin  1874  ;  in  1875  there  were  strikes  at  Usovka  (Hughesville)  among 
[  workers  in  railway  construction  and  among  weavers  at  Serpukhov 
(70  miles  south  of  Moscow).  In  1876  there  began  the  period  of 
industrial  stagnation  during  which  there  was  a  long  series  of  strikes. 
Among  these  were  the  strikes  of  the  cotton-spinners  in  the  factory 
of  Morozov  (Vladimirsk.  gub.)  in  1876.  In  1878  there  took  place  the 
strike  in  the  New  Cotton-spinning  Mills  on  Obvodni  Canal,  St. 
Petersburg,  in  which  about  2000  workers  participated.  This  strike 
was  occasioned  by  the  reduction  of  wages.  The  strikers  appealed 
to  the  Crown  Prince  (afterwards  Alexander  III),  and  invited  his 
interference.  The  petition  was  expressed  in  naive  terms :  "  We 
apply  to  you  as  children  to  a  father ;  if  our  just  requirements  are 
not  satisfied,  we  shall  then  know  that  we  have  no  one  to  whom 
to  appeal,  that  nobody  will  defend  us,  and  that  we  must  rely  upon 
ourselves  and  upon  our  own  hands."  * 

No  answer  was  given  to  this  petition,  but  the  strike  was  shortly 
afterwards  settled.  In  November  1878  the  cotton-spinners  in  the 
Konig  Cotton-spinning  Mills,  St.  Petersburg,  struck.    These  also 

1  Svyatlovsky,  V.  V.,  The  Labour  Movement  in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg, 
1907).  p.  7. 

2  For  the  details  of  this  strike,  see  Naichalo  (The  Beginning),  No.  i  (under- 
ground newspaper) ;  also  The  Revolutionary  Journalism  of  the  Seventies, 
2nd  Appendix  to  the  magazine,  State  Crimes  in  Russia,  ed.  by  V.  Bachilevsky 
(V.  Bugocharsky),  published  by  Donskaya  Retch  (1906),  pp.  19-23  ;  G.  V. 
Plekhanov,  in  Russian  Workers  in  the  Revolutionary  Movement  (St.  Petersburg, 
1906),  pp.  39-53  ;  and  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  8. 


THE   LABOUR    MOVEMENT         415 

appealed  to  the  Crown  Prince,  and  with  similar  results.^    In  January  | 
1879  the  strike  at  the  New  Cotton-spinning  Mills  began    again.  I 
This  renewed  strike  marks  an  important  development  of  the  Russian 
labour  movement,   for  it  induced  sympathetic  strikes  in   allied 
industries,  and  thus  initiated  a  general  instead  of  an  individual 
factory  movement ;  although  as  yet  the  scattered  groups  were  not 
formally  united  into  a  definite  organization.     Moreover,  collections 
to  aid  the  strikers  were  made  in  nearly  all  St.  Petersburg  industrial 
establishments.     The  first  to  formulate  demands  sympathetically/ 
with  the  cotton-spinners  at  the  New  Cotton  Mills  were  the  weavers/ 
of  the  Schau  Factory  at  St.  Petersburg.     Both  bodies  of  workmen! 
demanded  that  persons  elected  by  them  respectively  should  bei 
present  when  material  was  given  out  to  the  workers  and  finished! 
goods  received  from  them.     The  spirit  of  resistance  soon  became 
infectious,  and  the  workmen  of  numerous  diversified  trades  joined 
in  making  similar  demands  upon  their  employers. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  rising  spirit  of  determination  to 
alter  the  conditions  of  labour  by  spontaneous  organization  aiK 
collective  action  of  the  working  groups,  there  came  the  idea  o: 
forming  a  general  organization  which  should  include  all  the  trad 
and  all  the  factories.  This  idea  had  its  rise  in  one  of  the  Soci; 
groups.  The  intention  of  the  General  Russian  Workers*  Union  w: 
to  unite  the  forces  of  the  rural  and  the  urban  working  popula 
tion.  The  first  step  which  was  taken  was  the  organization,  in  1878,^ 
of  the  North  Russian  Working  Union.  Although  primarily 
organized  as  a  political  association — it  was,  indeed,  intended  to  be 
the  purely  working-class  wing  of  the  "  Social  Democratic  Party  of 
the  West " — this  union  was  also  organized  for  the  purpose  of 
reinforcing  the  economical  demands  of  striking  workmen.  Its 
formation  constituted  the  first  effort  of  the  Social  Democratic 
Party  to  assume  the  leadership  and  to  direct  the  poUcy  of  the 
Russian  working  class.  While  the  name  of  the  union  apparently 
confined  its  activities  to  North  Russia,  it  was  intended  to  fonii| 

^  These  appeals  to  the  Crown  Prince  (afterwards  the  Tsar  Alexander  III) 
are  susceptible  of  two  explanations.  Either  the  strikers  and  their  revolu- 
tionary allies  (who  were  cognizant  of  the  appeals,  and  perhaps  even  some- 
times instigated  them)  desired  to  distinguish  sharply  between  the  reactionary 
tendencies  under  whose  influence  the  Tsar  Alexander  II  was  understood  to 
have  fallen  and  the  supposititious  zeal  for  reform  of  the  Crown  Prince  ;  or 
they  knew  that  their  appeals  would  receive  no  answer,  and  that  this  fact  would 
contribute  to  the  discredit  of  the  autocracy  in  the  eyes  of  the  people. 


4i6     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

the  nucleus  of  an  ultimate  Pan- Russian  working-class  organi- 
zation.^ 

There  were  even  international  ideals  in  the  minds  of  the  leading 
spirits  of  the  new  union.  For  example,  in  reply  to  the  greetings  of 
Warsaw  working  men  who  urged  the  avoidance  of  national  hostiUty 
and  the  pursuit  of  the  general  interests  of  humanity,  the  union 
declared  that  it  did  not  regard  its  interests  as  separate  from  those 
■*'  of  the  workers  of  the  whole  world."  ^  The  union  was,  however, 
permitted  to  pursue  its  aims  for  a  very  short  time.  Its  newspaper, 
i^atchalo,  achieved  only  one  number,  when  it  was  suppressed,  and  the 
iknion  came  to  an  end. 

I  In  1875  there  had  been  formed  the  "  South  Russian  Workers' 
Union."  This  union  was  founded,  not  by  working  men,  but  by 
dntelligenti  under  the  leadership  of  one  Zaslavsky.  The  leader  and 
^some  of  his  followers  were  arrested,  and  the  union  collapsed.^  In 
1880  another  organization  bearing  the  same  name  made  its  appear- 
ance, founded  also  by  intelligenti — E.  Kovalskaya  and  Schedrin, 
both  of  anarchist  leanings.  They  entered  into  relations  with  the 
working  men  in  the  arsenal  at  Kiev  where  an  agitation  for  increased 
wages  was  then  going  on.  The  union  issued  a  manifesto  embod3dng 
the  demands  of  the  working  men,  and  threatening  the  chief  of  the 
arsenal  with  death  in  case  of  non-compliance.     The  authorities  of 

I  the  arsenal  capitulated.*  The  terroristic  activities  of  this  union 
were  brought  to  a  conclusion  by  the  arrest  in  1881  of  nearly  all 
of  its  members.  Among  those  who  were  arrested,  there  were  no 
working  men.^ 

Meanwhile  the  conditions  of  the  factory  system  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  members  of  the  Council  of  State.  This  body 
resolved,  in  1880,  to  request  the  Ministers  to  bring  before  it  such 
measures  ®  "  as  experience  might  suggest  to  alter  the  laws  respecting       1 

1  Plekhanov,  G.  V.,  Russian  Workers  in  the  Revolutionary  Movement, 
p.  71  ;  and  Svyatlovsky,  V.  V.,  op.  cit.,  p.  10. 

2  Plekhanov,  G.  V.,  loc.  cit. 
^  See  Martov,  L.,  Proletarian  Struggle  in  Russia,  p.  42. 

*  See  Memoirs  of  E.  Kovalskaya  in  Biloye,  No.  2,  p.  152  ;  quoted  by 
Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  11. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  loc.  cit. 
«  Under  the  then  existing  constitution  of  the  State  Council,  the  Ministers 

were  permitted  to  submit  to  it  projets  de  loi ;  if  they  were  approved  they 
passed  to  the  Tsar  with  the  recommendation  of  the  Council.  The  Council 
could  not  initiate  legislation,  but,  as  in  the  above  case,  it  might  suggest  that 
legislation  was  expedient. 


THE   LABOUR   MOVEMENT 


417 


labour."  Following  upon  this  step,  there  came  several  legislative 
Acts  which  took  effect  between  1880  and  1882.  Under  these  Acts, 
the  labour  of  children  under  twelve  years  of  age  was  prohibited 
in  metal  and  leather  and  clothing  factories.  The  hours  of  labour 
of  persons  from  twelve  to  fifteen  years  of  age  were  limited  to  eight 
hours  per  day  ;  young  persons  were  prohibited  from  working  in 
the  night  and  on  Sunda)^  and  holidays  ;  and  a  system  of  factory 
inspectorship  was  instituted. 

/During  the  period  of  reaction  after  the  assassination  of  the  Tsar 
Alexander  II,  all  open  labour  organization  disappeared  under  the 
pressure  of  the  coercive  measures  applied  by  the  police.  By  these 
means  the  Government  succeeded  in  crushing  labour  unions,  whether 
they  were  being  utilized  for  political  or  for  purely  economical  pur- 
poses ;  but  two  consequences  followed. '  Labour  organization  was 
driven  underground,  and  hostility  to  employers  on  account  of  low 
wages  and  long  hours  of  labour  was  transferred  to  the  Government, 
which  was  held  to  be  responsible,  because  it  prevented  the  working 
men  from  improving  their  position  by  means  of  combination,  a 
method  which  was  permitted  in  Great  Britain  and  tolerated  else- 
where in  Western  Europe  ^Although  the  Government  either  pre- 
vented trade  unions  from  being  formed  or  crushed  them  when  they 
were  formed,  strikes  in  individual  estabhshments  could  not  be 
prevented.  In  1882  strikes  took  place  in  the  railway  workshops 
at  Brest  against  reduction  in  the  number  of  men  employed,  and 
in  Borisoglebsk  against  reduction  of  wages.  A  small  strike  which 
occurred  in  December  1882  in  Bielostok  against  reduction  of  wages 
is  remarkable,  because  it  revealed  the  existence,  in  spite  of  laws 
and  poHce  action,  of  a  purely  working-class  trade  union.^  In 
1882,  also,  the  workers  of  Kranholm  Factory,  at  Narva,  struck 
against  reduction  in  wages  ;  in  1883,  3000  workers  in  Voznesenskya 
Factory,  near  Moscow,  struck  against  a  simultaneous  reduction  of 
working  hours  and  of  wages.  In  the  same  year  10,000  workers 
employed  in  Girardovsky  Factory  struck  ;  and  in  1884  strikes 
took  place  in  railway  workshops  at  Moscow.  The  most  notable  strike 
of  this  period  occurred  in  1885  at  Nikolsky  Factory,  in  Orekhovo- 
Zyevo  (Vladimirsk.  gub.).     The  significance  of  the  strike  lay  in 

1  The  first  trade  union  properly  so  called  in  Russia,  according  to  S.  Proko- 
povich  in  Toward  the  Labour  Question  in  Russia,  p.  62  ;  quoted  by  Svyatlovsky, 
op.  cit.,  p.  12. 

VOL.  II  2D 


41 8     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  demand  for  freedom  of  election  of  a  "  headman,*'  whose  func- 
tions were  to  comprise  negotiations  with  the  employers,  attention 
to  the  interests  of  the  workers,  &c.  The  leaders  appear  to  have 
endeavoured  to  deter  the  strikers  from  damaging  property  and  to 
give  the  strike  a  regular  and  orderly  character.^  This  strike  was 
brought  to  a  conclusion  by  the  arrival  of  troops ;  over  thirty 
working  men  were  arrested  and  imprisoned  and  800  persons  were 
banished.  In  the  autumn  of  1885  simultaneous  strikes  occurred  in 
five  cotton  dye  works  in  Ivanovo- Voznesensk,  involving  6000  persons. 

Fresh  legislation  was  devised  to  meet  these  conditions.  In 
1884  the  system  of  factory  inspectorship  was  extended,  and  the 
instruction  of  young  persons  in  industrial  employments  was  pro- 
vided for.  In  18852  night  work  in  cotton,  woollen,  and  linen 
factories  by  young  persons  under  seventeen  and  by  women  was 
prohibited.  In  1886  contracts  between  employers  and  their  work- 
people were  subjected  to  regulation  ;  ^  and  their  mutual  relations 
during  the  currency  of  these  contracts  were  placed  under  the 
supervision  of  the  factory  inspectors.*  In  1888  the  workers  in  all 
the  factories  in  the  Schuysko-Ivanovsky  region  struck  against  night 
work,  with  the  result  that  night  work  was  aboUshed. 

Thus  throughout  the  early  eighties,  while  trade  was  stagnant 
and  profits  were  low,  the  beginnings  of  the  labour  movement 
properly  so  called  took  place  in  Russia.  The  strikes  were  almost 
altogether  of  a  defensive  character — against  reduction  in  wages, 
or  against  deductions  or  alleged  ill-treatment  by  foremen  and 
others.  The  movement  had  not  as  yet  assumed  an  aggressive 
character.  The  wave  of  trade  revival  after  the  **  long  depres- 
sion "  made  its  appearance  in  Russia  in  1888  or  1889,  and  for  a 
short  interval  there  were  few  labour  difficulties. 

Up  till  this  period  the  labour  movement,  so  far  as  is  indicated 
by  the  causes  of  individual  strikes,  wears  a  purely  economical 
complexion.  From  about  this  time  political  forces  begin  defini- 
tively to  act  upon  the  labour  movement  and  to  give  it  an  aggres- 
sive character.  The  history  of  the  poUtical  parties  which  have 
from  time  to  time  influenced  the  labour  movement  is  sketched 
elsewhere.  ^    It  is  necessary,  however,  in  this  place  to  notice  the 

1  Svyatlovsky,  loc.  cit.  2  l^w  of  3rd  June  1885. 

3  Law  of  3rd  June  1886.  *  Law  of  ist  October  1886. 

'  See  Books  V,  VI,  and  VII. 


I 


THE   LABOUR    MOVEMENT         419 

effects  of  the  propagandas  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  labour 
movement  itself. 

Probably  the  first  attempt  on  the  part  of  political  agitators  to 
influence  labour  organization  since  1880,  was  the  formation  in  the 
winter  of  1886-1887  of  "  The  Union  of  St.  Petersburg  Workers." 
This  imion  was  formed  in  the  Franco-Russian  Metal  Works  by 
workmen,  assisted  by  a  simplified  intelligent — that  is,  an  educated 
person  who  had  joined  the  ranks  of  the  working  class  for  the  pur- 
pose of  arousing  the  working  men  to  assert  themselves  in  the 
interests  of  their  class.     This  union  was  crushed  in  1887.^    In 

1889  St.  Petersburg  working  men  who  had  belonged  to  isolated 
Social  Democratic  circles  or  clubs  united  themselves  into  a  com- 
mittee, which  called  itself  "  The  Group  Assembly  of  Factory  Repre- 
sentatives." During  its  Ufe  of  about  three  years,  this  small 
organization,  which  consisted  of  about  eight  working  men  and 
one  "  inteUigent,"  aided  several  strikes  by  making  assessments 
upon  its  adherents  and  contributing  the  amounts  so  collected  to 
strike  funds,  and  by  issuing  manifestoes.^ 

Organization  of  the  labour  movement  on  the  part  of  the  Social 
Democrats  had  its  effective  beginning  in  the  late  eighties.     By 

1890  working  men's  "  circles  "  had  been  formed  not  alone  in  St. 
Petersburg,  but  also  in  Vladimir,  Tula,  Kazan,  Kharkov,  Kiev, 
Rostov-on-Don,  Vilna,  and  Minsk.^  Within  another  year  there 
were  circles  also  in  Moscow,  Warsaw,  Lodz,  Odessa,  Samara,  Saratov, 
and  other  cities.*  The  characteristic  of  these  "  circles "  at  this 
time  seems  to  have  been  increased  reliance  on  the  part  of  the  work- 
ing men  upon  their  Social  Democratic  allies.  "  Their  theoretical 
studies  fell  more  and  more  into  the  background."  ^  The  reason 
for  this  is  obvious  :  the  workmen  had  neither  sufficient  education, 
nor  had  they  sufficient  leisure  of  mind  to  pursue  recondite  studies 
in  sociaHst  dogma.  It  was  inevitable  that  they  should  refrain 
from  working  out  the  economico-philosophical  basis  of  their  move- 
ment for  themselves,  and  should  lean  more  and  more  upon  those 

*  "This  organization  initiated  the  observance  of  Labour  Day  (ist  May) 
in  Russia."  "  Memoirs  on  the  Dawn  of  Russian  Social  Democracy,"  in 
Biloye  (Paris,  1907),  quoted  by  Svyatlovsky,  V.  V.,  op.  cit.,  p.  15. 

»  Ihid.  3  Martov,  L.,  The  Proletarian  Struggle,  p.  82. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  16. 

*  Lyadov,  M.,  History  of  the  Rttssian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's 
Party  (St.  Petersburg,  1906),  part  i.  p.  68. 


420     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

whose  equipment  rendered  the  process  of  study  easier,  or  whose 
pretensions  made  it  appear  that  this  was  the  case.  The  Social 
Democratic  intelligentsia  were  thus  able  to  secure  a  great  hold  upon 
the  working  men,  and  they  were  constituted  their  leaders  by  a 
natural  process. 

Up  till  this  period  the  Social  Democratic  Party  had  existed  in 
scattered  small  groups.  The  strikes  of  January  1895  in  St.  Peters- 
burg,i  which  were  the  first  really  large  strikes  in  that  region,  pre- 
pared the  way  for  definite  organization  of  the  working  men  of  Social 
Democratic  leanings.  The  result  was  the  formation  of  the  *'  St. 
Petersburg  Union  for  the  Struggle  for  the  Emancipation  of  the 
Working  Class."  This  union  formed  the  nucleus  of  what  afterwards 
became  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's  Party.  The 
union  was  formed  out  of  several  Social  Democratic  circles  in  St. 
Petersburg.  It  began  at  once  a  policy  of  agitation,  attacking  one 
factory  after  another  by  means  of  leaflets  specially  prepared  for 
each  factory.  These  leaflets  encouraged  the  working  men  to  strike, 
and  many  strikes  occurred  at  the  instigation  of  the  union.  In 
many  cases  the  strikers  secured  concessions,  and  the  result  of  these 
was  a  great  stimulus  to  the  labour  movement.  The  working  men 
awoke  to  the  advantages  of  concerted  action.  The  St.  Petersburg 
union  began  also  to  feel  its  power,  and  openly  announced  its  ex- 
istence in  a  leaflet  in  which  it  put  the  question  to  which  its  existence 
was  the  answer  :  *'  Does  the  economical  struggle  of  the  St.  Peters- 
burg proletariat  receive  leadership  in  ideas  and  in  the  formulation 
of  its  necessities  ?  "  ^ 

On  27th  May  1896  there  began  a  series  of  strikes  of  an  aggressive 
character,  in  which  the  working  men  demanded  improvement  of 
their  condition.  This  series  of  strikes  was  partly  promoted  and 
partly  assisted  by  the  "  Union  for  Struggle."  In  the  end  of  May  the 
workmen  in  the  largest  factories  in  the  St.  Petersburg  district  were 
on  strike.  It  was  the  first  simultaneous  mass  movement  of  the 
Russian  working  class.  At  this  time  a  hundred  strikers  met,  for- 
mulated their  demands,  and  handed  them  to  the  union.  These 
demands  were  forthwith  printed  and  circulated.  In  the  beginning 
of  June  the  strike  became  a  general  strike  of  St.  Petersbuj^g  workers 

1  For  an  account  of  these  strikes,  see  Tarr,  K.  M.,  Outline  of  the  St.  Peters- 
burg Labour  Movement  of  the  Nineties  (St.  Petersburg,  1906),  pp.  14-17. 

2  Svyatlovsky,  op,  cit.,  p.  17. 


THE   LABOUR   MOVEMENT        421 

employed  in  the  textile  industry.  The  interference  of  the  poUce 
and  the  refusal  of  the  factory-owners  to  yield  caused  the  collapse  of 
the  strike,  and  the  working  men  resumed  work  under  the  former 
conditions  ;  but  the  strike  was  an  important  incident  in  the  labour 
movement,  because  it  gave  an  object-lesson  in  organization.  The 
fighting  union  with  its  strike  treasury  from  that  moment  became  an 
object  of  interest  to  the  St.  Petersburg  working  men.  "  The  Union 
for  Struggle  "  now  printed  model  constitutions,  and  also  constitu- 
tions prepared  by  the  members  of  individual  unions  ;  and  the 
Russian  trade-union  movement  properly  so  called  may  be  said  to 
have  begun. 

Although  no  important  material  successes  had  been  achieved  by 
the  Social  Democrats  in  their  guidance  of  the  labour  movement  up 
till  1896,  the  advantage  of  organization  had  been  deeply  impressed 
upon  the  working  men  by  them,  and  the  methods  of  accompUshing 
this  organization,  the  hostihty  of  the  Government  and  the  action  of 
the  police  notwithstanding,  had  been  demonstrated.  Moreover, 
the  ideas  of  Social  Democracy  had  so  penetrated  the  "  Union  for 
Struggle,"  and  the  latter  had  so  much  increased,  that  it  was  now 
possible  to  develop  it  into  a  definite  poUtical  party.  This  was 
carried  into  effect  in  1897,  when  the  Russian  Social  Democratic 
Working  Men's  Party  was  formed.  From  that  period  until  the 
present  the  history  of  this  party  is  the  history  of  the  working-class 
movement  in  Russia.  The  questions  which  have  been  raised  by 
the  party  in  the  course  of  its  history  and  the  causes  of  the  strikes 
which  it  has  promoted  or  aided,  have  been  sometimes  predominantly 
political  and  sometimes  predominantly  economical.  Sometimes 
also  the  methods  which  have  been  employed  have  been  revolu- 
tionary— that  is,  existing  authority,  whether  of  the  factory,  of  the 
poUce,  or  of  the  Government,  has  been  simply  disregarded  ;  and 
sometimes  the  methods  have  been  diplomatic.  The  economical 
grievances  formed  the  ostensible  basis  of  union,  and  the  union  was 
then  used  for  political  agitation. 

While  the  labour  movement  was  thus  practically  absorbed  into 
the  Social  Democratic  movement  and  became  insusceptible  of  dis- 
crimination from  it,  there  nevertheless  remained  unabsorbed  certain 
groups  of  working  men  whose  leanings  were  not  towards  sociaHsm. 
These  groups  formed  societies  of  mutual  assistance,  with  treasuries 
for  the  receipt  of  contributions  and  for  the  payment  of  benefits  of 


422     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

various  kinds.  In  so  far  as  the  labour  movement  was  absorbed 
into  the  Social  Democratic  movement,  it  falls  to  be  considered  in 
relation  to  the  contemporary  political  and  social  revolutionary 
movements ;  ^  the  mutual  assistance  or  friendly  societies  of  work- 
ing men  alone  fall  properly  to  be  considered  in  this  place. 

The  friendly  society  movement,  though  of  ancient  date  in  Western 
Europe,  is  quite  recent  in  Russia.  Probably  owing  to  the  absence 
in  Russia  of  the  guild  organization,^  which  played  so  large  a  part  in 
the  history  of  the  towns  in  Germany  and  in  Italy  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  to  the  formal  character  of  the  structure  of  society  in  the  Russian 
towns,  the  growth  of  spontaneous  social  groups  for  mutual  assist- 
ance was  retarded.  It  is  not  surprising  that  when  such  spontan- 
eously organized  groups  make  their  appearance  they  do  so,  in  the 
first  instance,  in  those  regions  of  European  Russia  which  came  more 
immediately  under  the  influence  of  Western  Europe.  So  far  back 
as  the  sixteenth  century  there  were  friendly  societies  in  Poland  and 
in  the  Baltic  Provinces.^  These  appear  to  have  been  copied  from 
the  societies  of  journeymen  which  sprang  up  during  the  guild  ages. 
They  furnished  benefits  for  sickness,  unemployment,  traveUing  to 
obtain  work,  and  the  like.  In  addition  to  strictly  class  organiza- 
tions, there  were  societies  for  funeral  benefits,  to  which  members 
were  admitted  irrespective  of  class. 

These  and  similar  societies  remain  until  the  present  time,  their 
Umited  aims  having  enabled  them  to  acquire  a  legal  status,  which 
was  denied  to  societies  whose  objects  were  more  aggressive.  Their 
importance  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  habituated  large  groups  of  the 
working  class  to  act  together  for  mutual  advantage,  and  prepared 
the  way  for  the  trade  union  properly  so  called,  which  was  to  follow. 

In  the  friendly  society  movement  of  the  north-western  pro- 
vinces of  European  Russia,  an  important  place  must  be  assigned  to 
the  Jewish  societies.^  Friendly  societies  known  as  Hevra  have 
existed  in  every  trade  and  in  many  cities.  The  Hevra  seem  to  have 
had  their  origin  in  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.     In  their  early 

^  See  Books  IV  and  VII. 

^  For  other  social  effects  of  the  absence  of  guild  organization,  see  p.  588. 

^  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  22. 

*  An  account  of  these  societies  is  given  by  S.  Prokopovich  in  his  Towards 
the  Labour  Question  in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg,  1900),  by  Sara  Rabinovitch 
in  her  Organization  der  Judischen  Proletariats  in  Russland  (Carlsruhe,  1903), 
and  by  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky  in  op.  cit.,  pp.  22  et  seq. 


THE    LABOUR    MOVEMENT         423 

stages  the  Hevra  had  a  religious  character,  but  latterly  the  religious 
features  have  become  less  important,  and  even  the  purely  friendly 
society  features  have  in  many  cases  been  subordinated  to  the  prose- 
cution of  the  interests  of  the  trade  by  trade  union  methods.^  While 
some  of  the  Hevra  thus  underwent  development  towards  trade 
imionism,  others  became  the  nucleus  of  enployers'  organizations. 

In  their  internal  structure  the  Hevras  were  similar  to  the  old 
PoUsh  Jewish  craft  guilds.  Each  Hevra  had  its  constitution  in- 
scribed upon  a  parchment  roll.  The  executive  committee  of  the 
Hevra  was  elected  by  a  double  ballot.  Electors  were  in  the  first 
instance  selected  by  lot,  and  these  again,  by  direct  ballot,  elected 
the  committee.  In  their  earlier  phases,  some  examples  of  which 
still  survive,  the  Hevra  contained  in  its  membership  both  employers 
and  employed.  In  the  later  phases  the  working  members  leave 
the  old  Hevra  and  organize  a  purely  working-class  Hevra  on  a 
similar  plan.  The  occasion  of  the  secession  was  usually  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  employers  who  were  members  of  the  Hevra  to 
utiUze  their  power  in  the  Hevra  to  deny  benefits  to  the  working 
members  unless  they  submitted  to  the  labour  contracts  proposed 
by  the  employers.  The  result  of  the  schism  was,  in  some  cases, 
improvement  in  the  terms  of  the  wage  contract,  reduction  of  the 
number  of  working  hours,  and  the  hke.^  The  old  Hevra  usually 
continues  to  exist  as  an  employers'  association  ;  "in  rare  cases 
does  it  become  a  fighting  employers*  union."  ^  About  1890  there 
began  to  appear  among  the  Hevras  some  whose  structure  and  poUcy 
were  very  similar  to  those  of  the  English  trade  union.* 

As  the  trade  union  movement  developed,  the  Hevras,  in  spite 
of  the  services  they  had  rendered  in  early  organization  for  trade 
interests,  lost  their  influence  until  in  the  revolutionary  years  they 
practically  disappeared. 

In  addition  to  the  Hevra  there  began  also  to  appear  at  this 
time,  numerous  strike  treasuries.  The  first  of  these,  the  strike 
treasury  of  the  stocking-knitters  of  Vilna,  was  estabhshed  in  1888. 
By  1894  there  were  very  numerous  organizations  of  this  character 

*  E.g.  in  Mohilev  there  are  such  Hevra  among  shoemakers,  watchmakers, 
and  tinsmiths. 

*  As  in  the  case  of  the  cabinetmakers  of  Mohilev,  narrated  by  Sara 
Rabinovitch,  op.  cit.,  pp.  63,  64. 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  66-7.  *  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  25. 


424     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

all  over  Poland  and  the  north-west  guherni}  In  Vilna  alone 
there  were  in  1895  about  850  organized  workers  in  twenty- 
seven  trades.2 

In  this  year,  1895,  there  was  formed  what  is  said  to  have  been 
the  first  trade  union  in  Russia  which  was  not  limited  to  one  locahty. 
This  was  "  The  Universal  Union  of  Bristle  Workers  in  Russian 
Poland."  The  union  was  wholly  composed  of  Jews,  who  have  a 
practical  monopoly  of  the  bristle  trade  of  the  world.  This  new 
type  of  union  seems  to  have  been  looked  upon  with  some  hostility 
by  the  Hevra. 

The  most  extensive  group  of  friendly  societies  in  Russia  is 
the  group  of  such  societies  formed  by  merchants'  salesmen  or 
commercial  travellers  and  salesmen.  The  first  of  these  societies 
was  established  in  Riga  in  1859.  Later,  in  1863,  a  similar  society 
was  founded  in  Moscow,  and  in  1865  one  was  formed  in  St.  Peters- 
burg. In  1898  in  European  Russia  alone,  exclusive  of  Poland, 
the  Baltic  Provinces,  and  Finland,  there  were  seventy-four  such 
societies.^  In  1896,  at  the  first  assembly  of  these  societies  held  in 
Nijni  Novgorod,  the  number  of  members  was  stated  as  5000  ;  in 
the  second  assembly  held  at  Moscow  in  1898,  the  number  was 
20,000.  Many  of  these  societies  were  patronized  by  the  employers, 
and  they  included  in  their  membership  higher  administrative 
officers — managers  and  the  like.*  This  condition  was  quite  inevit- 
able for  two  reasons.  The  retail  and  even  the  wholesale  business 
of  Russia,  excepting  in  the  great  commercial  and  industrial  centres, 
is  carried  on  by  small  firms,  the  salesmen  of  which  frequently  live 
with  the  famiUes  of  their  employers,  and  do  not  form  a  social 
class  separate  from  them,  and  thus  the  solidarity  of  the  sales- 
men as  a  group  is  impeded.  The  second  reason  is  that  the  sales- 
men belong  to  the  layer  of  intelligentsia  or  semi-intelligentsia 
which  is  necessarily  in  more  immediate  personal  contact  with  the 
employing  class  and  therefore  trade-union  methods  of  organiza- 
tion are  not  readily  adopted  by  them.     Moreover,  the  restrictions 

1  Materials  toward  the  History  oj  the  Jewish  Labour  Movement  (St.  Peters- 
burg, 1906),  p.  44. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  50.  '  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  28. 

*  According  to  V.  I.  Grachov,  quoted  by  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky  {ibid.), 
benefactor  members — employers  and  others — numbered  13  per  cent,  of  the 
total  membership  in  1895.  Jews  were  expressly  excluded  from  some  of 
these  societies,  e.g.  that  of  Yaroslav.     (Ibid.,  p.  30.) 


THE   LABOUR    MOVEMENT         425 

which  were  imposed  by  the  police  rendered  activity  in  trade-union 
organization  impracticable.  The  salesmen's  societies  were  thus 
limited  to  the  exercise  of  benevolent  and  social  functions,  alike  by 
internal  disposition  and  by  external  control.  Towards  the  year 
1900,  however,  the  character  of  these  societies  began  to  change. 
The  Odessa  Society  of  Salesmen  appealed  in  1902  to  M.  Witte, 
then  Minister  of  Finance,  to  make  an  inquiry  into  the  question  of 
working  hours.  In  the  course  of  this  inquiry  the  salesmen's  societies 
everywhere  began  to  formulate  demands,  some  of  which  previously 
had  not  been  publicly  expressed.  These  demands  included  hmita- 
tion  of  the  working  day  to  ten  hours,  full  holiday  rest,  and  the 
right  to  organize  trade  unions.  In  1903  the  salesmen  of  Kutais 
(Caucasus)  went  out  on  strike,  demanding  hohday  and  Sunday 
rest.  The  newer  salesmen's  societies,  in  which  young  men  pre- 
dominated, became  practically  trade  unions,  while  the  older 
societies  adhered  to  their  traditional  attitude.  The  change  in  the 
character  of  the  salesmen's  societies  became  manifest  in  the  third 
assembly,  which  took  place  in  Moscow  in  the  end  of  June  1906. 
In  addition  to  the  old  type  of  salesmen's  friendly  society,  there  was 
present  also  the  new  type  of  salesmen's  trade  union.  Societies  of 
the  latter  type  were  sufficiently  influential  to  secure  the  passing 
of  a  resolution  recommending  the  transformation  of  the  mutual 
assistance  societies  into  fighting  organizations,  or  the  subordination 
of  the  friendly  society  to  the  trade-union  element.^ 

The  next  most  important  group  of  societies  which  underwent  a 
similar  gradual  transformation  from  mutual  assistance  to  trade 
unionism,  were  the  societies  of  the  metal  workers.  The  first 
friendly  societies  composed  of  workers  in  the  group  of  metal  trades, 
were  formed  in  Poland  under  the  title  of  "  Brotherhood  Offices  " 
in  the  year  182 1.  Membership  in  these  "  Offices  "  was  made  com- 
pulsory for  all  workers  employed  in  working  in  metal  in  estabUsh- 
ments  belonging  to  the  Government,  the  contributions  being 
compulsorily  deducted  from  their  wages.  The  funds  provided  by 
the  deductions  having  been  found  to  be  insufficient  after  the  scheme 
had  been  in  existence  for  some  years,  the  State  was  obliged  to 

*  Cf.  Bellin,  A.,  Professional  Movement  of  Trade  Selling  Employees  in 
Russia  (St.  Petersburg,  1906);  Goodvon,  A.,  Salesman  Question  (Life  and 
Labour  of  Salesmen)  (Odessa,  1905) ;  Prokopovich,  op.  cit.,  and  Svyatlovsky, 
op.  cit.     The  latter  contains  brief  bibliography  (p.  32 ). 


426     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

give  supplementary  funds  which,  up  till  1894,  amounted  to  an 
annual  average  of  about  20,000  rubles.^ 

Similar  funds  were  estabhshed  for  the  miners  in  Poland.  They 
were  definitively  subjected  to  governmental  control  in  1900. 
Originally  established  spontaneously,  they  fell  into  financial  dis- 
order. 

Similar  societies  were  formed  in  private  concerns  engaged  in 
metal  industries  in  Poland.^  The  growth  of  such  schemes  in  Poland 
is  attributed  by  Professor  Svyatlovsky^  to  the  circumstance  that 
the  operation  of  the  Code  Napoleon,  which  was  the  law  in  effect 
in  Poland,  imposed  UabiUty  for  accidents  upon  employers.*  In 
order  to  diminish  this  liabiUty,  the  employers  encouraged  the 
formation  of  mutual  assistance  societies  among  their  workmen. 
Since  most  of  the  mineral  and  metal  enterprises  in  Poland  were 
working  on  leases  from  the  State,  and  since  they  took  over  the 
State  establishments  during  the  currency  of  their  leases,  they  con- 
tinued the  mutual  assistance  funds  which  were  already  in  existence, 
and  sometimes  contributed  to  them,  sometimes  managing  them 
wholly,  and  sometimes  permitting  the  employees  to  participate 
in  the  management. 

In  1892  (9th  March)  the  law  compelled  the  employers  to  defray 
the  cost  of  medical  attendance  for  their  employees,  and  thereupon 
the  employers  who  had  previously  made  contributions  to  the  funds 
ceased  to  do  so.  In  1900  a  further  change  took  place,  when  the 
management  of  the  mutual  assistance  funds  was  taken  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  employers  and  entrusted  to  the  factory  inspectors. 

The  organization  of  mutual  assistance  societies  in  connection 
with  mining  and  metallurgical  industries  in  the  Ural  Mountains 
began  in  1861  (8th  March),  immediately  after  the  State  peasants 
who  had  been  employed  in  these  undertakings  were  emancipated 
from  bondage.  The  avowed  object  of  the  new  law  was  to  bind 
by  a  tie,  other  than  that  of  bondage,  the  workers  to  the  undertakings 

1  Tigranov,  I.,  The  Cash  Offices  of  Metallurgical  Workers;  quoted  by 
V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  34. 

'  According  to  Prokopovich.  59  per  cent,  of  the  total  number  of  workers 
in  these  enterprises  were  organized  in  benefit  societies. 

3  op.  cit.,  p.  35. 

*  By  articles  1382  and  following.  For  discussion  of  these,  see,  e.g., 
M.  Bellom,  De  la  responsabilit^  en  matiere  d' accidents  du  travail  (Paris,  1899), 
p.  8. 


THE   LABOUR    MOVEMENT         427 

to  which  they  had  been  assigned  as  serfs.^  Under  this  law  deduc- 
tions, unretumable,  of  from  two  to  three  per  cent,  were  made 
from  wages,  and  benefits  for  sickness  and  for  old  age,  &c.,  were 
granted.  The  funds  derived  from  the  contributions  of  the  workers 
were  supplemented  by  equivalent  contributions  from  the  adminis- 
tration and  by  fines  which  might  be  exacted.  In  addition  to  the 
funds  of  individual  State  estabUshments,  there  was  also  a  general 
fund  of  "  metallurgical  partnerships,"  which  might  be  drawn  upon 
in  case  of  necessity.  Pensions  were  granted  after  thirty-five  years' 
service,  varying  according  to  the  character  of  the  work  which  the 
pensioner  had  performed.  In  injurious  occupations,  the  pensions 
were  greater  proportionately  than  in  others.  The  metallurgical 
partnership  funds  also  accepted  savings  on  deposit  at  3  per  cent, 
interest.  The  savings  plan  did  not,  however,  work  out  satisfactorily, 
because  the  workers  feared  that  if  they  deposited  their  savings 
the  amount  of  these  would  be  known  to  the  administration,  and 
might  have  the  effect  of  reducing  the  benefits  which  would  other- 
wise be  payable  to  them.^ 

In  the  privately-owned  establishments,  the  factory-owners 
sometimes  receive  financial  assistance  from  the  "  partnership " 
funds,  i.e.  from  the  funds  of  the  benefit  societies.  In  addition 
to  the  friendly  society  functions  of  these  metallurgical  partnerships, 
they  were  charged  by  law  with  the  settlement  of  disputes  between 
the  workers  and  the  employers.  This  function  was  rarely  exer- 
cised, and  was  practically  aboHshed  by  the  law  of  loth  March  1898, 

The  general  effect  of  the  institution  of  metallurgical  partner- 
ships has  been  to  intensify  administrative  control  over  the  workers 
in  the  Ural  Mountains,  to  diminish  their  mobiUty,  and  to  prevent 
them  from  engaging  in  spontaneous  organizations  of  a  trade-union 
type. 

The  organization  of  societies  of  railway  servants  in  Russia  began 
in  1858  in  the  workshops  of  the  Nikolaiskaya,  the  Warsaw- Vienna, 
and  the  Warsaw-Bromberg  Railways  ;  but  up  till  1885  there  were 
few  societies  of  importance.  The  real  beginning  of  such  organiza- 
tion was  in  1888,  when,  under  the  law  of  30th  May  of  that  year, 

*  See  Tigranov,  Review  of  the  Activity  of  Metallurgical  Partnerships  in 
State  Industrial  Undertakings  and  Mines  during  the  Period  1 881-1893,  p.  i  ; 
quoted  by  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p,  7,7. 

2  In  1904,  e.g.  the  amount  of  loans  to  members  was  over  half  a  million 
rubles,  and  the  amount  of  deposits  by  members  was  only  2000  rubles. 


428     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

the  Council  of  State  required  all  railways  in  private  hands  to  estab- 
lish mutual  assistance  societies,  the  constitutions  of  these  being 
approved,  according  to  certain  general  principles,  by  the  Minister 
of  Ways  of  Communication.  The  law  relating  to  this  matter  in 
the  railways  of  the  State  is  contained  in  the  law  of  3rd  June  1894, 
and  in  that  of  2nd  June  1903.  Under  all  these  laws  employers 
are  obliged  to  contribute  to  the  funds  ;  deductions  are  made  of 
6  per  cent,  from  wages  and  of  10  per  cent,  from  bonuses.  The 
State  contributes  an  amount  equal  to  one-half  of  the  amount  of 
the  deductions.  The  funds  also  benefit  by  the  sales  of  unclaimed 
baggage,  &c.,  and  from  fines.  At  the  age  of  fifty-five  the  interest 
of  a  contributory  ceases,  because  at  that  age  he  becomes  eligible 
for  a  State  pension,  and  a  double  pension  is  not  permitted. 

The  details  which  have  been  given  above  illustrate  sufficiently 
the  methods  by  which  the  Government  attempted  systematically 
to  control  the  relations  between  the  workers  in  public  employment 
and  the  individual  administrations,  as  well  as  to  control  the  relations 
between  the  workers  in  private  employment  and  their  employers. 
Steps  were  taken  to  provide,  through  deduction  from  wages  for  the 
most  part,  for  medical  attendance,  for  sick  allowances,  for  pen- 
sions, &c.,  and  the  workers  were  so  far  as  possible  bound  by  these 
arrangements  to  the  particular  field  in  which  they  were  employed. 
They  could  move  only  with  difficulty.  The  principle  of  binding 
to  the  soil  which  had  been  regarded  as  the  chief  desiderata  in  an 
agrarian  policy  was  applied  also  to  industry.  In  addition,  com- 
bination among  workmen  for  any  other  purpose  than  work  and 
mutual  assistance  in  a  friendly  society  manner,  was  definitively 
discouraged,  and  so  far  as  possible  stringently  forbidden. 


CHAPTER   VI 

EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATIONS 

The  rapid  development  of  the  spontaneous  trade  union  movement 
had  the  inevitable  result  of  alarming  the  employers  of  labour. 
Dismissal  of  men  who  were  known  to  belong  to  the  unions  was  the 
first  measure  adopted  by  individual  employers  ;  but  this  expedient 
had  no  effect  in  retarding  the  growth  of  the  movement.  The  next 
inevitable  step  was  counter-organization.  This  naturally  began 
in  those  industries  in  which  the  employers  were  accustomed  to 
association  for  purposes  other  than  mere  opposition  to  trade  unions.^ 
The  "syndicate"  or  "trust"  movement,  which  began  in  the, 
eighties,  had  already  trained  the  employers  in  certain  trades  in  the 
art  of  combination.  Master  printers,  master  tailors,  as  well  as 
manufacturers  and  millers  who  had  "  syndicate "  experience, 
began,  towards  the  end  of  1905,  to  form  associations  for  the  purpose 
of  fighting  the  trade  unions.  In  many  cases  the  masters*  associa- 
tions came  into  existence  almost  contemporaneously  with  the 
trade  unions.  For  example,  when  the  Union  of  Clerks  began  to 
introduce  the  system  of  "  hoUday  rests  "  in  certain  branches  of 
commerce,  the  traders  who  employed  these  clerks  began  to  discuss 
the  expediency  of  forming  a  Traders*  Association,  with  the  object 
of  resisting  these  "  hohday  rests."  So  also  the  master  tailors  in 
Warsaw,  Dvinsk,  Moscow,  and  St.  Petersburg  associated  them- 
selves together.  The  strike  in  St.  Petersburg  of  the  bakers  caused 
also  a  temporary  organization  of  the  owners  of  bakeries,  and  the 
growth  of  the  tanners'  union  in  Vilna  caused  the  master  tanners 
there  to  form  an  association. 

These  masters*  associations  followed  in  many  ways  the  example 
of  the  trade  unions.     Nor  was  this  movement  on  the  part  of  the 

1  Most  of  the  details  in  this  connection  are  derived  from  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky, 
Trade  Union  Movement  in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg,  1907),  pp.  324  et  seq.  See 
also  Ozerov,  Professor  E.  Kh.,  Politics  of  the  Labour  Question  in  Russia  in 
Recent  Years  (Moscow,  1906). 

429 


430     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

masters  unconnected  with  the  pohtical  situation.  As  the  re- 
actionary movement  of  1906  developed,  the  activity  of  the  masters 
in  checking  the  growth  of  trade  unionism  by  counter-unionism 
{increased.  They  were  now  able  to  adopt  measures  by  the  aid  of 
I  (the  police,  to  which  measures  the  administration  had  formerly 
'  Idenied  support.  Thus  the  counter-labour  movement  came  to  have 
pohtical  significance,  and  to  form  a  part  of  the  general  system  of 
repression.  The  counterpart  of  the  trade  union  strike  is  the  em- 
ployers' "  lock-out."  From  the  period  immediately  succeeding 
the  dissolution  of  the  First  Duma,  this  Enghsh  word  was  incor- 
porated into  the  Russian  language,  and  the  lock-out  became  a 
frequent  expedient.  The  master  printers  of  Kiev  and  the  master 
tanners  and  shoe  manufacturers  of  Warsaw,  the  master  bristle- 
brush  makers  of  Mezievich,  in  Siedletskaya  gub.,  the  flour  millers 
in  Ekaterinoslav,  the  tobacco  and  the  metal  manufacturers  and  the 
shipowners  in  St.  Petersburg,  the  metal  manufacturers  in  Lodz, 
the  naphtha  manufacturers  in  Terek,  and  many  other  employers 
in  different  parts  of  Russia,  decided  in  their  associations  to  resist 
the  demands  of  the  workmen.  In  Lodz  this  attitude  led  to  a  great 
lock-out  involving  40,000  workmen.  The  working  men  of  Lodz 
were  not,  however,  united  upon  the  question.  The  "  nationalist  "  ^ 
workmen  declared  that  the  demands  of  the  unions  were  formulated 
by  a  comparatively  small  group  of  sociahsts  who  were  engaged  in 
politics,  and  that  they  did  not  think  it  proper  that  all  working 
men  should  suffer  on  this  account.  They  therefore  ranged  them- 
selves on  the  side  of  the  manufacturers,  and  threw  themselves  into 
the  struggle  against  the  revolutionary  elements.  The  result  was 
a  series  of  murders  and  disturbances.  Similarly  at  Dvinsk,  in 
January  1906,  the  masters,  aided  by  the  support  of  the  skilled 
workmen,  decided  to  oppose  the  demands  of  the  less  skilled  and  of 
unskilled  labourers.  Within  a  short  time  eighteen  employers' 
associations  were  formed  in  rapid  succession  :  tailors,  ladies*  tailors, 
dressmakers,  shoemakers,  dealers  in  furnishings,  painters,  car- 
penters, printers,  photographers,  barbers,  cab-proprietors,  carting 
contractors,  tanners,  cigarette-filler  manufacturers,  paper-box 
makers,  and  paint  manufacturers. 

At  St.  Petersburg  also  the  masters*  union  of  metal  manufac- 
turers of  the  northern  region  formed  a  special  fund  for  fighting 
1  Polish  "  nationalists." 


EMPLOYERS'   ASSOCIATIONS         431 

the  unions.  Each  member  of  the  association  was  obhged  to  pay 
into  the  fund  3  per  cent,  of  his  annual  profits. 

At  Moscow  there  was  formed  early  in  1906  the  Association  of 
the  Manufacturers  and  Mill-owners  of  the  Central  Industrial  Region. 
This  association  extended  its  operations  over  ten  guberni  round 
Moscow.  Its  programme  was  as  follows  :  first,  to  provide  tempo- 
rary support  to,  and  co-operation  among,  its  members  in  their 
struggle  against  demands  for  increase  of  wages  and  diminution  of 
working  hours  ;  second,  support  of  the  members  in  strikes,  includ- 
ing financial,  judicial,  and  other  assistance  ;  third,  acceptance  of 
universal  compulsory  measures,  applicable  to  the  whole  region, 
alike  in  the  prevention  of  strikes  and  in  combating  them. 

In  Lodz,  in  the  woollen  industry,  the  association  of  masters 
required  a  deposit  of  15,000  to  20,000  rubles,  which  might  be 
forfeited  in  case  of  failure  of  a  member  to  comply  with  the  regula- 
tions of  the  association.  One  of  these  regulations  was  to  the 
effect  that  when  the  committee  decided  to  oppose  a  concession 
to  the  workmen,  the  factory  in  which  the  concession  was  demanded 
must  be  closed.  A  similar  regulation  was  in  force  in  the  Warsaw 
Association  of  Manufacturers. 

In  Vitebsk  a  conference  of  employers  was  held  in  December 
1906.  This  conference  adopted  the  following  resolutions,  which 
were  characteristic  of  such  conferences  :  (i)  To  support  one  another 
in  case  of  a  conflict  between  the  manufacturers  and  the  employees  ; 
(2)  not  to  receive  workmen  from  one  another  except  when  they 
present  letters  from  their  former  employers ;  (3)  bristlers  from 
Poland  who  are  locked  out  are  not  to  be  employed  ;  (4)  when  a 
lock-out  exists,  the  factories  of  members  must  be  closed  until  the 
men  compromise ;  (5)  manufacturers  who  do  not  enter  into  the 
union  are  not  permitted  to  do  business  in  Leipzig ;  (6)  manufac- 
turers who  suffer  from  strikes  are  to  be  supported  by  the  union. 
The  manufacturers  agreed  not  to  maintain  any  relations  with  the 
Bristlers'  Trade  Union,  and  they  also  agreed  to  introduce  piece- 
work wages  where  such  wages  did  not  exist,  and  to  reduce  the  scale 
of  piece-work  where  they  did  exist. 

The  regulations  are  frequently  imitated  from  those  of  similar 
associations  in  Germany,  such  regulations  having  been  translated 
and  circulated  among  the  manufacturers.  In  general  the  associa- 
tions are  ostentatiously  protective  against  the  trade  unions ;    in 


432     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

only  one  case — that  of  the  St.  Petersburg  printers — was  disclaimer 
made  of  special  antagonism  to  the  unions.^ 

The  working  men's  unions,  in  so  far  as  the  repressive  attitude  of 
the  Government  permitted,  sought  to  meet  this  form  of  counter- 
agitation  by  increasing  the  effectiveness  of  their  own  organization. 
For  instance,  the  textile  workers  of  the  Moscow  region  held  a 
conference  and  issued  an  appeal  to  all  those  engaged  in  textile 
manufacture,  urging  them  : 

"  I.  To  organize  energetically,  in  order  to  counteract  the 
organized  strength  of  capital. 

*'  2.  To  secure  harmony  in  poHtical  and  economic  action  among 
the  working  class. 

*'  3.  To  promote  closer  union  for  a  more  successful  political 
struggle  and  a  quicker  introduction  of  socialism. 

"4.  To  afford  greater  pecuniary  aid  to  the  comrades  in  Lodz 
who  were  suffering  from  a  lock-out." 

So  also  at  the  first  conference  of  the  unions  of  the  working  men 
engaged  in  the  metal  industry,  passed  the  following  resolution  : 

**  Taking  into  consideration  that  the  result  of  the  revolutionary 
struggle  of  the  working  class,  which  brought  about  the  whole  series 
of  political  and  economic  conquests  and  a  mighty  growth  of  labour 
organizations,  there  is  to  be  observed  the  considerable  growth  of  the 
fighting  unions  of  the  employers.  The  object  of  these  unions  is  to 
take  away  the  result  of  the  conquests  and  to  put  an  end  to  the  trade 
unions.  The  principal  means  of  their  struggle  is  the  dismissal  of 
the  working  men  in  masses  (lock-outs).  In  this  struggle  the  em- 
ployers profit  by  the  fullest  co-operation  of  the  authority  of  the 
Government.  The  conference  finds  that  the  fundamental  condi- 
tions of  successful  struggle  against  the  organized  capitalists,  with 
their  tactics  of  lock-outs,  appear  to  be  :  first,  the  creation  of  strong 
craft  organizations  and  their  union  into  provincial  and  AU-Russian 
unions  ;  second,  the  full  accord  of  the  actions  of  the  economic  and 
political  organization  of  the  working  class.     At  the  same  time  the 

^  Cf.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  328,  and  V.  E.,  "  Lock-outs  in  Russia," 
Trade  and  Industry  Gazette,  No.  27,  for  the  year  1907.  "  In  the  same  Gazette 
it  was  reported  that  the  Warsaw  manufacturers  of  beds  and  washstands 
demanded  the  diminution  of  wages,  the  increase  of  working  hours,  and  the 
signing  of  a  special  declaration  of  incontestable  obedience.  The  Union  of 
the  Polish  Sugar  Manufacturers  declared  that  it  would  put  an  end  to  the  new 
order  of  things  introduced  by  the  working  men  in  the  course  of  the  last  year. ' ' 
Svyatlovsky,  loc.  cit. 


EMPLOYERS'   ASSOCIATIONS        433 

conference  proposes  that  the  local  unions  existing  at  the  present 
time  should  undertake  the  following  immediate  measures  :  (a)  To 
secure  the  best  possible  information  about  the  general  state  of  affairs 
in  the  given  branch  of  industry,  about  the  strength,  means,  and 
immediate  plans  of  the  employers'  associations  ;  (b)  to  all  their 
action  against  employers,  and  especially  to  all  their  aggressive  strikes, 
to  give  the  best  prepared  and  organized  character ;  (c)  to  weigh 
carefully  the  demands  which  are  presented,  to  guide  themselves 
thereby,  in  the  interests  of  the  union  as  a  whole,  and  to  secure  for 
the  union  a  decisive  voice  ;  (d)  in  case  of  a  lock-out,  to  carry  out 
the  strictest  boycott  on  all  works  and  orders  from  those  establish- 
ments from  which  working  men  had  been  dismissed,  and  to  try  to 
prevent  the  influx  of  workmen  into  those  establishments  ;  {e)  to 
endeavour  to  utiHze  the  conflict  of  interests  between  different  cliques 
of  capitahsts  who  organize  a  lock-out.  The  conference  reahzes 
that  only  by  means  of  the  solidarity  of  all  classes  of  working  men 
can  a  struggle  against  a  lock-out  be  successful.  .  .  .  The  confer- 
ence at  the  same  time  expresses  itself  decisively  against  response  to 
a  single  lock-out  by  a  wide  strike.  Strikes  of  this  kind,  breaking 
out  under  conditions  more  favourable  to  employers  than  to  working 
men,  are  almost  invariably  doomed  to  inevitable  defeat,  and  those 
unorganized  masses  which  are  involved  in  them  become  afterwards, 
for  a  long  time,  incapable  of  any  kind  of  organization." 

Finally,  some  unions  adopt  special  measures  in  respect  to  a  lock- 
out. Thus  the  Moscow  Union  of  Employees  in  the  Printing  In- 
dustry decided  not  to  respond  to  a  lock-out  by  a  general  strike, 
which  might  cause  an  undesirable  street  movement,  and  it  projected 
a  special  organization,  "  The  Council  of  the  Striking  Printing  Shops." 
**  The  Council  "  was  a  department  of  the  management  of  the  union, 
and  undertook  a  series  of  extraordinary  measures  according  to  a 
specially  worked  out  programme. 


VOL.  II  2  E 


( 


BOOK  VII 


THE   REVOLUTIONARY   MOVEMENT 
IN   RUSSIA,    1 903-1 907 


INTRODUCTION 

So  long  as  the  powers  of  the  central  authority  of  the  Russian  State 
were  preoccupied  in  repelling  invasion,  and,  even  when  the  risk  of 
invasion  was  diminished,  in  keeping  the  Tartars  on  the  south,  the 
Poles  on  the  west,  and  the  Swedes  on  the  north-west,  in  sufficient 
subjection,  or  at  a  sufficient  distance,  it  was  impossible  to  deal 
drastically  with  interior  affairs.  These  affairs  tended,  indeed,  to 
drift  in  directions  imfavourable  to  the  maintenance  of  the  central 
power.  The  appanage  princes  being  enUsted  by  the  Moscow 
Sovereigns,  or  crushed  by  them,  and  the  "  free  towns  "  being  de- 
prived of  their  autonomy,  the  permanent  interest  of  the  central 
authority  could  not  be  served  by  the  growth  of  a  new  and  powerful 
class  of  serf-owners,  who  were  removing  from  the  tax-rolls  large 
bodies  of  men,  and  who  were  by  this  means  compromising  the 
recruiting  S5^tem.  The  serf-owner  was,  moreover,  industrial 
entrepreneur  as  well  as  exploiter  of  agricultural  labour  and  tax- 
collector.  There  were  certain  conveniences,  in  an  age  of  crude 
administrative  methods,  in  thus  farming  out  the  taxes  and  the 
working  force  of  the  country  ;  but  the  tax-farming  nobility  acquired 
a  degree  of  political  power  much  stronger  than  their  predecessors 
of  the  appanage  ages.  This  political  power  was  sufficiently  firmly 
established  in  an  economic  sense  to  thwart  efforts  towards  reform, 
whether  these  were  made  from  above  or  from  beneath.  Indeed, 
the  serf-owning  pomyetschek  was  more  of  an  autocrat  than  the  Tsar, 
because  he  was  less  amenable  to  discipline  and  more  skilful  in  his 
methods  in  dealing  with  his  master  than  the  peasants  could  possibly 
be  in  dealing  with  him.  Yet  the  interests  of  the  serf-owners  were 
best  served  by  supporting  the  throne,  and  by  exacting  from  it  in^ 
return  privileges  and  immunities.  The  land-  and  serf -owners  formed,  ( 
indeed,  the  only  effective  support  of  the  throne ;  and,  as  already  has  ^ 
been  shown,  the  throne  was  at  many  junctures  obliged  to  recognize 
this  fact,  and  to  acknowledge  the  political  importance  of  the  land- 
owners by  safeguarding  their  economical  interests.    The  liberation 

437 


438     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

of  the  serfs  was  thus  delayed  and  the  political  enfranchisement  of 
the  whole  people  prevented  by  the  desire  of  the  Government  to 
liberate  the  serfs  without  curtailing  the  privileges  of  the  landowners. 
While  the  landowning  gentry  had  thus  during  certain  epochs  a 
considerable  degree  of  political  influence,  they  never  enjoyed  during 
the  period  of  the  development  of  the  Moscow  State  any  legal  poli- 
tical status  so  far  as  concerned  the  central  authority  of  the  State. 
They  were  the  serfs  of  the  Tsar,  not  his  advisers.  The  council  of 
the  Sovereign  was  not  necessarily  drawn  from  their  ranks  and, 
moreover,  the  influence  of  its  decisions  upon  legislative  or  execu- 
tive measures  for  long  periods  was  insignificant.  The  will  of  the 
Tsar  was  nominally  supreme.  While,  however,  the  central  autho- 
rity lay  in  the  hands  of  the  Tsar,  the  local  authority  lay  largely 
in  the  hands  of  the  landowners.  They  occupied  the  local 
seats  of  justice,  and  they  administered  in  their  own  favour 
laws  formulated  for  the  purpose  of  safeguarding  their  interests. 
It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  the  peasants  should  have 
identified  the  interests  of  the  landowner  with  the  interests  of  the 
autocracy,  and  that  each  should  suffer  for  the  sins  of  the  other 
as  well  as  for  their  separate  offences.  The  structure  of  Russian 
society  did  not  permit  the  growth  of  a  middle  class,  and  the 
autocratic  system  prevented  the  development  of  open  criticism  of 
public  administration  by  economically  and  socially  independent 
i  and  intelligent  groups.  Criticism  of  the  Government,  therefore, 
j  inevitably  consisted  in  more  or  less  violent  attacks  upon  it.  There 
j  was  no  helpful  and  effective  discussion  of  advisable  changes,  because 
all  initiative  was  presumed  to  come  from  above,  and  because  there 
was  no  political  machinery  for  the  estimation  of  popular  desires 
or  for  the  continuous  study  of  popular  needs.  Commissions  and 
committees  performed  these  functions  spasmodically ;  but  even 
when  their  recommendations  were  ostensibly  adopted,  the  fitting 
machinery  for  carr3dng  them  out  was  wanting. 

Grievances  thus  tended  to  accumulate,  and  pohtical  and  social 
changes  became  long  overdue.  The  autocracy  assumed  the  ex- 
clusive right  to  legislate  and  to  direct  the  administrative  mechanism. 
In  previous  chapters  we  have  seen  these  grievances  converging 
upon  a  catastrophe — a  dramatic  climax — ^in  the  rebellion  known 
by  the  name — ^insignificant  of  itself — of  Pugachev.  This  outburst 
of  the  rage  of  the  sheep,  when  it  turns  upon  its  tormentors  after 


INTRODUCTION  439 

immense  endurance,  was  eventually  crushed.  The  accumulation 
of  grievances  continued,  scarcely  affected  by  the  temporary  ex- 
plosion of  pent-up  ferocity. 

Complications  in  the  order  of  succession  offered  an  opportunity 
at  the  close  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  for  a 
fresh  contract  with  the  throne ;  but  the  force  behind  the  Hberal 
elements  was  inadequate,  and  the  principle  of  autocracy  was  estab- 
lished more  firmly  than  ever  during  the  reaction  which  followed 
the  Dekdbrist  movement.  The  political  and  social  movements, 
which  in  Russia  followed  the  political  and  social  evolution  of 
Western  Europe  during  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, were  submerged  by  the  movement  for  Emancipation. 

Disillusion  supervened  after  the  Great  Reform  ;  the  prosperity 
of  the  peasant  was  compromised  by  the  debt  dependency  which 
had  been  one  of  the  causes  of  his  previous  legal  bondage.  The 
peasant  had  acquired  a  certain  mobility,  but  this  was  qualified  by 
the  mutual  guarantee  for  the  payment  of  taxes  and  by  the  conse- 
quent authority  of  the  mir  over  the  individual  peasant.  Agricul- 
ture was  improving  on  the  large  and  efiiciently  managed  estates, 
and  rents  were  increasing,  while  among  the  peasantry  the  lack  of 
agricultural  capital  prevented  improvement  and  kept  the  peasant 
continuously  at  the  margin  of  subsistence.  Meanwhile  the  in- 
dustrial progress  of  the  towns  was  attracting  the  peasants  to  them. 
A  proletarian  artisan  population  was  gradually  arising,  and  was 
acquiring  ideas  previously  foreign  to  the  peasant  mind. 

The  changes  in  the  form  of  social  structure  which  resulted  from 
the  aboHtion  of  bondage  right  had  brought  into  reUef  the  gulf 
between  the  peasant  and  the  gentleman  ;  and  an  instinctive  desire 
to  cross  this  gulf  began  on  the  side  of  the  more  ardent  and  humane 
among  the  educated  gentry,  especially  in  the  capitals.  The  V  Narod, 
or  "  To  the  People  "  movement  was  the  outcome  of  this  desire.  The 
movement,  innocuous  as  it  certainly  was  in  the  beginning,  awoke 
suspicion  in  the  minds  of  the  Government.  Suppression  of  the 
movement  was  followed  by  the  development  of  a  revolutionary 
spirit  of  a  conspirative  character.  From  1872  till  1881  the  Govern- 
ment found  itself  imder  the  necessity  of  fighting  for  its  Ufe  against 
a  terror  that  was  maintained  by  a  small  but  extraordinarily  active 
group  of  revolutionaries. 

The  instinct  of  self-preservation  impelled  the  Government  to 


440     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

decide  to  grant  a  constitution.  It  delayed  too  long.  A  final 
stroke  came  before  the  intention  was  announced.  The  price  of 
procrastination  was  the  assassination  of  the  Tsar  Emancipator, 
Alexander  II.  The  assassination  was  followed  by  negotiations 
with  the  revolutionary  elements  and  by  a  promise  that  executions 
in  reprisal  should  be  stayed.  The  promise  was  kept  to  a  certain 
extent,  but  the  Government  set  itself  with  renewed  vigour  to 
eliminate  the  revolutionary  groups.  Under  Alexander  III  this 
was  successfully  accomplished  for  the  time.  But  in  1885,  and  up 
till  1896,  the  struggle  was  renewed,  and  the  Government  had  once 
more  to  fight  for  its  life.  Meanwhile  two- forinidable_econoi^^ 
changes  were  in  progress.  Yhe  peasantry  was  becoming  more  and 
more  impoverished,  and  the  city  proletariat  was  becoming  more 
and  more  numerous.  The  incompetence  and  shortsightedness  of 
the  landowners,  the  ignorance  of  the  peasants,  and  the  enormous 
increase  of  the  deteriorated  population,  combined  to  bring  about 
an  insoluble  agrarian  problem,  and  the  protective  policy  of  the 
Government  had  not  merely  encouraged  industry,  but  had  prepared 
and  fertilized  an  appropriate  and  ample  soil  for  the  growth  of 
revolutionary  ideas.  The  social  revolutionary  elements  had  been 
crushed  out  of  existence  by  1885,  but  the  ideas  represented  by  them 
were  not  extinguished.  They  went  at  once  deeper  and  higher. 
As  in  the  twenties  of  the  nineteenth  century,  they  began  to  affect 
the  intelligentsia  and  they  began  to  fructify  amongst  the  impover- 
ished peasantry.  In  the  cities  the  Social  Democratic  movement 
began  at  the  same  time  to  make  itself  felt.  By  1900  both  of  these 
processes  had  made  a  considerable  headway.  The  movement 
among  the  peasants  in  1902  and  1903,  and  the  movement  among 
the  city  proletariat  of  the  latter  year,  were  the  signs  of  the  renewed 
activity  of  the  revolutionary  spirit.  *  ^ 

Before  the  Russo-Japanese  War  these  activities  were  chiefly    ^ 
noticeable  among  the  peasants  and  the  working  men ;  the  profes-    , 
sional  and  merchant  classes  were  scarcely  affected.     But  as  the 
war  proceeded,  and  as  it  became  evident  that  the  Government  was     ' 
unable  to  defend  itself  against  a  minor  Power,  even  the  moderate      ' 
elements  began  to  express  dissatisfaction — the  intelligentsia}  the 
merchants,  and  the  nobility  alike  became  disaffected.     When  the 

^  On  the  constituents  of  this  group  see  infra,  pp.  585  ei  seq^ 


INTRODUCTION  441 

war  closed,  practically  the  whole  of  Russian  society  was  opposed  to 
the  Government.  Three  forces  were,  indeed,  definitely  arrayed 
against  it.  First,  the  city  proletariat,  led  by  the  Social  Democrats  ; 
second,  the  impoverished  peasantry,  led  by  the  Social  Revolutionists  ;^ 
and  third,  the  newly  arising  middle  class,  disaffected  but  not  united, 
and  not  led  by  any  one.  The  Government  met  the  crisis  by  a  dis- 
play of  force.  The  Grand  Ducal  Party  round  the  throne  openly 
urged  violent  repression — the  usual  remedy.  **  Let  us  hang  one  or 
two  hundred  of  these  revolutionists,  and  then  they  will  be  satisfied," 
one  of  the  Grand  Dukes  is  reported  to  have  said.  Whether  or  not 
any  of  them  committed  himself  to  language  so  blunt,  the  temper 
of  the  group  is  not  unfairly  indicated  by  this  expression. 
The  episode  of  Bloody  Sunday  showed  that  some  such  idea 
was  in  their  minds.  Terror  seemed  to  be  the  only  remedy 
for  terror. 

But  an  effective  Governmental  terror  meant  complete  reUance 
upon  the  army,  and  the  army  was  everywhere  exhibiting  signs  of 
disaffection.  An  entirely  new  spirit  was  manifesting  itself  among 
the  people.  Ideas  and  movements  hitherto  confined  to  small 
groups  now  began  to  affect  large  masses.  Liberties  long  withheld, 
through  fear  of  dreadful  things  to  follow,  were  now  seized  by  people 
in  such  numbers  that  it  was  impossible  either  to  punish  those  who 
seized  them  or  to  ignore  their  seizure.  For  a  time  the  Government 
was  powerless.  Autocracy  had  come  to  an  end,  and  only  the 
instinct  of  order,  which  is  very  strong  in  Russia,  intervened  between 
society  and  mere  barbaric  anarchy.  Thus,  a  century  and  a 
quarter  after  Pugachev,  there  came  a  second  catastrophe  or 
anti-climax.  When  the  Government  emerged  from  the  panic 
into  which  it  had  been  thrown,  it  offered  a  long-delayed  con- 
stitution of  a  kind. 

The  association  and  the  conflict  of  economical  and  political 
ideas  has  rendered  an  extended  account  of  the  revolutionary 
movement  necessary.  This  movement  cannot  be  understood 
without  a  knowledge  of  the  economic  background  and  of  the 
economical  struggles  with  which  it  was  accompanied,  and  by  which 
it  was  to  a  large  extent  compromised.  A  political  idea  may  lead , 
to  some  distant  end,  and  may  therefore  unite  masses  of  people  for 
an  indefinite  period  ;  but  an  economical  question  may  be  settled, 
and  the  settlement  of  it  usually  results  in  the  automatic  disbanding 


442     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

of  the  forces  which  accompHshed  the  settlement.  The  crumbling 
of  the  revolution  to  powder  and  the  subsequent  reaction  may  both 
be  debited  against  the  oppositional  forces  which  failed  to  arrive 
at,  or,  having  arrived  at,  to  maintain,  their  unanimity.  The  auto- 
cracy, backed  by  the  inertia  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  was  too 
strong  to  be  overthrown  by  divided,  undiscipUned,  and  even 
mutually  hostile  forces. 


CHAPTER   I 

THE   GENERAL   STRIKE    IN    SOUTH   RUSSIA   IN    1903 

The  first  indications  of  turbulence  in  South  Russia  appeared  among 
the  workmen  of  the  railway  workshops  at  Tekhoryetsk  Station  on 
the  Vladikavkas  Railway.  This  turbulence  was  occasioned  by  a 
minor  though  deplorable  incident  arising  out  of  the  misconduct  of 
an  official  and  the  death  of  a  girl  named  Zolotova,  whom  he  had  dis- 
gracefully maltreated.  The  workmen  of  the  shops  became  infuriated 
with  the  narrative  of  the  sufferings  of  the  girl,  and  wrecked  the 
station  buildings,  beating  the  poUce  and  the  Cossacks  who  had  been 
impUcated  in  the  transactions.^  Although  a  Government  investi- 
gation was  held  into  the  affair,  and  although  the  Cossacks  were  found 
to  have  been  guilty,  the  apparent  intention  on  the  part  of  the  autho- 
rities to  screen  the  major  offender  left  a  disagreeable  impression, 
and  contributed  to  the  state  of  feehng  which  resulted  in  the  strike 
of  2nd  November  1902  in  the  railway  shops  at  Vladikavkas  and  at 
Rostov-on-Don. 

This  strike  was  instigated  by  the  Donskoe  Committee  of  the 
Russian  Social  Democratic  Party,  which  issued  a  manifesto  for- 
mulating the  strikers'  demands.  These  demands  related  exclusively 
to  questions  of  wages  and  conditions  of  employment.  About  4000 
workmen  were  involved  at  the  beginning  of  the  strike ;  but  this 
number  was  soon  increased  by  strikes  in  the  ironworks  of  Pastuhov, 
Tokorov,  and  Dutikov,  and  in  other  factories  in  the  neighbourhood, 
as  well  as  in  bakeries  and  tobacco  shops.  The  Social  Democrats 
began  at  once  to  utilize  the  meetings  which  the  strikers  held  daily  in 
the  outskirts  of  Rostov.  Sometimes  these  meetings  were  attended 
by  upwards  of  30,000  persons,  including  not  only  strikers,  but  also 
nimiberS  of  merchants,  officials,  ladies  with  lorgnettes  in  their  hands 

1  Details  of  this  deplorable  case  are  given  by  F.  Dan,  The  History  of  the 
Labour  Movement  and  Social  Democracy  in  Russia,  2nd  edition  (St.  Peters- 
burg, 1905).  pp.  27  et  seq.  The  official  account  is  contained  in  a  volume  of 
evidence  taken  at  the  investigation  instituted  on  behalf  of  the  Government. 

443 


444     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

in  carriages — in  fact,  the  population  of  Rostov.^  These  meetings 
were  addressed  by  agitators  belonging  to  the  Social  Democratic  Party, 
who  delivered  denunciations  of  the  autocracy  to  the  assembled 
crowds.  During  a  whole  week,  from  4th  November  till  nth  Novem- 
ber, the  meetings  went  on.  To  begin  with,  it  appears  that  there  was 
some  disapprobation  of  the  tone  of  the  addresses,  but  later  the 
crowds  appeared  to  sympathize  fully  with  the  denunciations,  on  the 
one  hand  of  the  Government,  and  on  the  other  of  the  capitahsts. 
During  the  week  the  authorities  seemed  to  have  been  in  a  state  of 
perplexity,  and  for  a  time  took  no  action,  although  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  crowd  each  day  there  was  a  force  of  police  and  Cossacks.  On 
nth  November,  while  the  usual  meeting  was  dispersing,  some  stones 
were  thrown  (by  children,  it  is  alleged),  and  thereupon  the  Cossacks 
fired  a  fusillade,  killing  six  and  wounding  severely  twelve  persons, 
and  then  galloped  off  immediately.  This  action  did  not  put  an  end 
to  the  meetings,  which  continued,  with  the  obvious  sympathy  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Rostov,  until  23rd  November,  when  the  strikers  re- 
turned to  work.  Then  wholesale  arrests  began  to  be  made.  Al- 
though the  strike  was  unsuccessful,  yet  the  facts  that  enormous 
meetings  were  held  in  spite  of  the  authorities,  and  that  revolutionary 
addresses  were  delivered  to  sympathetic  audiences,  were  of  great 
importance  at  this  juncture.  In  the  following  March  (1903)  meet- 
ings were  held,  although  no  strike  was  in  progress,  at  which  again  all 
Rostov  made  its  appearance.  At  one  of  these  meetings  where  shouts 
were  raised,  "  Vive  the  eight-hour  day !  "  "  Vive  political  freedom  !  " 
a  skirmish  with  the  police  took  place,  in  which  a  police  inspector 
was  killed  by  a  blow  from  a  stick.  ^ 

In  Kostroma  also  there  were  demonstrations,  although  these 
appear  to  have  been  organized  by  the  working  men  spontan- 
eously. Troops  were  called  out,  barricades  were  erected  by  the 
working  men,  and  an  unknown  number  of  persons  were  killed  and 
wounded.^ 

These  minor  events  served  as  the  prelude  to  the  general  strike 
of  the  summer  of  1903  which  affected  nearly  the  whole  of  South 
Russia.  From  April  onwards  there  were  numerous  small  strikes  in 
factories  and  many  demonstrations  by  social  democratic  organiza- 
tions.    Throughout  April  and  May  a  general  spirit  of  unrest  was 

^  The  population  of  Rostov  is  about  120,000. 
2  Dan,  op.  cit.,  p.  31.  »  Ibid, 


STRIKE   IN    SOUTH    RUSSIA         445 

manifest.  Discontent  seemed  to  spread  by  an  irresistible  impulse. 
On  ist  July  the  working  men  employed  in  the  mineral  oil  trade 
at  Baku  went  on  strike,  and  in  four  or  five  days  the  whole  city 
was  involved.  On  ist  July  also,  at  Tiflis,  there  was  a  demonstra- 
tion to  protest  against  the  banishment  to  Siberia  of  four  "  poHti- 
cals,"  and  on  14th  July  the  railway  workers  and  the  salesmen  in 
shops  went  on  strike,  and  they  were  shortly  joined  by  practically 
all  the  working  men  in  Tiflis.  In  Batum,  also,  a  sjmipathetic 
strike  broke  out,  and  by  17th  July  the  whole  city  was  involved. 
On  1st  July  the  strike  began  in  Odessa  with  the  working  men  at 
the  docks  and  railway  shops  (numbering  2000)  ;  by  22nd  July 
the  working  men  of  the  city  were  involved.  In  Kiev  the  strike 
was  general  on  24th  July.  In  Ehsavetgrad  the  strike  began  on 
28th  July.  At  Ekaterinoslav  and  Kertch  work  was  suspended  on 
7th  August,  although  by  that  date  the  strike  in  other  places  had 
already  come  to  an  end. 

In  all  of  these  cities  the  strikers  marched  throughout  the  streets 
in  crowds,  went  into  the  factories  where  work  was  still  going  on, 
had  the  whistles  blown  to  cease  work,  and  stopped  the  street  rail- 
way cars.  Every  trade  was  involved  in  the  movement,  even 
porters  (concierges)  and  (in  two  of  the  municipal  districts  of  Kiev) 
policemen.  In  Batum,  Tiflis,  and  Baku,  the  number  of  strikers 
is  stated  to  have  been  upwards  of  100,000  ;  in  Odessa,  50,000  ;  in 
Kiev,  30,000  ;  in  Nikolaiev,  10,000  ;  in  Ekaterinoslav,  between 
20,000  and  30,000  ;  in  EUzavetgrad,  20,000.  The  total  number  is 
placed  at  225,000.^ 

The  aspect  of  the  cities  affected  by  the  strike  was  strange.  All 
shops,  including  bakeries,  were  closed ;  horse  and  electric  cars,  as 
well  as  cabs,  had  disappeared  from  the  streets  ;  trains  were  stand- 
ing in  the  stations  ;  great  quantities  of  goods  littered  the  plat- 
forms ;  steamers  and  sailing  vessels  lay  idle  in  the  harbours  ;  there 
were  no  newspapers.  Provisions  became  scarce  and  more  and 
more  expensive.  There  was  no  bread  and  no  meat.  In  the  streets 
there  were  no  lights,  and  the  cities  were  in  inky  darkness.  In 
the  houses  there  were  only  candles,  and  these  were  not  hghted  in 
rooms  with  windows  on  the  street  in  order  to  avoid  attracting 
attention.  The  streets  were  not  swept.  All  industrial  life  was  in 
a  state  of  complete  stagnation.     Throughout  the  day,  however, 

*  Dan,  op.  cit.,  pp.  31  and  33. 


446     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

crowds  of  men  marched  through  the  streets,  and  the  city  seethed 
with  excitement.  Revolutionary  songs  and  addresses  were  heard 
everywhere,  and  everywhere  also  were  patrols  of  police  and  of 
soldiers.^ 

The  demands  of  the  strikers  were  almost  identical  in  the  different 
cities.  They  were,  as  a  rule,  formulated  by  the  Social  Democratic 
organizations.  The  chief  points  were  :  an  eight-hour  working  day 
(in  some  cases  nine  hours),  increases  of  wages  of  from  20  per  cent. 
to  70  per  cent.,  fixation  of  a  minimum  wage,  the  aboUtion  of  fines, 
and  demands  for  civil  treatment  and  improvement  in  the  con- 
ditions of  labour. 

In  addition  to  the  manifestoes  of  industrial  demands,  there 
were  extensively  circulated  manifestoes  of  a  political  character 
I  demanding  the  convocation  of  an  All-Russia  National  Assembly, 
liberty  of  striking,  of  the  formation  of  trade  unions,  and  of  public 
meetings,  liberty  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  liberty  of  conscience, 
and  inviolabihty  of  the  person. 

In  Odessa,  in  the  early  stages,  a  conspicuous  role  in  the  initia- 
tion of  the  strike  movement  was  played  by  Zubatov's  agents. 
Zubatov's  aUy,  Shaevich,  had  succeeded  in  forming  some  so-called 
*'  Independents  "  into  societies  analogous  to  trade  unions,  but  at 
a  very  early  stage  these  societies  seem  to  have  broken  off  from  the 
leadership  of  Shaevich.  Almost  at  once  the  societies  so  formed 
expelled  the  police  organizers  from  their  meetings.^  For  example, 
when  at  one  meeting  Shaevich,  in  evident  despair,  asked  the  work- 
ing men  "  What  do  you  want  ?  To  run  your  heads  against  a  waU, 
or  to  bore  the  wall  ?  "  he  was  answered  by  shouts,  "  To  run  our 
heads  against  the  wall !  "  Leaflets  were  also  circulated  among 
the  workmen  with  the  phrases  "  Down  with  fraud  !  Down  with 
small  demands  !     We  want  more." 

In  Baku,  also,  meetings  very  numerously  attended  took  place — 
sometimes  3000  persons,  and  sometimes  with  bystanders,  the  meet- 
ings numbered  20,000  to  30,000  persons.^  These  meetings  were 
addressed  by  Social  Democrats,  and  leaflets  in  Russian,  Armenian, 
Georgian,  and  Tartar  were  circulated.  The  demonstrations  reached 
such  dimensions  that  the  Government  was  evidently  reluctant  to 
employ  troops  to  disperse  the  gatherings.  The  difficulty  of  deal- 
ing with  a  population  en  masse  was  obvious.  When  comparatively 
1  Dan,  op.  cit.,  p.  34.  2  j^j^^  3  /^^-^^ 


» 


STRIKE   IN    SOUTH    RUSSIA         447 

small  numbers  were  collected,  these  were  dispersed  by  the 
naga'ikas  of  the  Cossacks.  When  the  excitement  had  somewhat 
subsided,  workmen  were  thus  driven  to  work  by  whips,  and  were 
compelled  to  perform  their  industrial  duties  under  the  guard 
of  soldiers.^ 

In  Tiflis  and  Batum,  where  the  strike  did  not  assume  pro- 
portionately such  dimensions,  the  workmen  who  were  arrested  were 
compelled  to  pass  through  ranks  of  Cossacks  armed  with  nagaikas. 

In  Odessa,  Kiev,  and  Ekaterinoslav,  there  were  meetings  of 
40,000  to  50,000  persons,  with  marches  of  working  men  singing 
revolutionary  songs.  These  processions  were  attacked  by  Cossacks,! 
and  the  working  men  defended  themselves  by  using  sticks  and! 
stones.  Sometimes  arrested  workmen  were  rescued  by  the  crowd, 
yet  hundreds  of  workmen  were  arrested  and  beaten.  Many  of 
these  died  in  the  hospitals. 

In  Kiev,  on  23rd  July,  2000  railway  employees  laid  themselves 
prone  upon  the  rails,  in  order  to  stop  the  movement  of  trains.  After 
a  sanguinary  conflict,  in  which  many  were  woimded  on  both  sides, 
and  in  which  there  were  fired  three  fusillades,  four  working  men 
were  killed  at  once,  and  twenty  wounded,  some  of  the  latter 
mortally.  So  far  from  pacifying  the  strikers,  this  attack  added 
fuel  to  the  flame,  and  the  strike  became  general.  The  workmen 
said  among  themselves  :  "  Yesterday  they  shot  some  of  us  at  the 
station  ;  to-day  we  will  not  work.  In  the  factories  there  is  oppres- 
sion, and  everywhere  rascaUty."  In  Podol  (a  part  of  Kiev)  similar 
scenes  took  place.  Here  also  nagaikas  were  employed,  and  later 
fire-arms.  The  fury  of  the  Cossacks  was  responded  to  by  the 
crowd  with  similar  fury.  On  one  occasion  the  infantry  poured 
four  fusillades  into  the  rear  ranks  of  the  crowd,  kiUing  three  and 
wounding  very  many  more.*  Altogether  in  Kiev  in  these  days  of 
the  general  strike  there  were  fifteen  killed  and  two  hundred 
wounded.     Fifteen  police  and  Cossacks  were  wounded  also. 

In  Ekaterinoslav,  during  one  of  the  skirmishes,  a  woman  struck 
an  officer,  and  thereupon  he  ordered  his  men  to  fire — result,  eleven 
killed  at  once  and  thirteen  mortally  wounded.  At  the  Cher- 
nomorsky  works  the  working  men  met  a  company  of  soldiers  ready 
for  action,  but  a  working  man  succeeded  in  convincing  the  officer 
in  charge  that  the  people  would  disperse  quietly  if  they  were  given 

»  Dan,  0^.  cit.,  p.  35.  ■  Ibid.,  p.  36. 


448     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

an  opportunity  of  doing  so  ;  this  was  agreed  to,  and  the  people 
dispersed. 

Exaggerated  rumours  spread  ever5rwhere.  Reports  were  current 
that  two  hundred  working  men  had  been  killed  at  Kiev.  The  work- 
men at  EHzavetgrad,  for  example,  were  inflamed  by  this  rumour. 
They  made  a  demonstration,  and  succeeded  in  repulsing  infantry 
who  attacked  them. 

In  Kertch  an  attempt  was  made  to  release  prisoners,  and  several 
persons  were  killed  and  wounded. 

This  state  of  tension  could  not  last  indefinitely.  Ever5rthing 
was  at  a  standstill,  and  this  circumstance  of  itself  wore  out  the 
strikers. 

By  the  date  of  the  Feast  of  the  Assumption  (15th  August),  a 
great  festival  in  Russia,  the  general  strike  had  come  to  an  end. 

Of  definite  concrete  aims  it  is  difficult  to  find  much  trace  in  the 
movements  of  the  working  men  which  have  been  described.^  At  all 
costs  they  were  determined  to  make  a  demonstration  of  their  power, 
such  as  it  was.  The  Government  displayed  spasmodic  energy — 
at  one  moment  aiding  them  in  their  strikes,  and  at  another  moment 
abandoning  them  to  the  fury  of  the  Cossacks  or  banishing  them  to 
Arkhangel  or  Siberia.  The  Government  had  power  to  do  much, 
but  the  working  men  also  had  power.  What  would  happen  in  the 
cities  when  they  folded  their  hands  ?  Much  suffering  to  the  working 
men  and  their  families,  no  doubt,  but  also  complete  paralysis  of 
the  governmental  machinery,  as  well  as  of  industrial  and  commercial 
life. 

The  economic  effect  of  a  general  strike  of  workmen  in  Russia 
is  different  from  that  of  a  similar  strike  in  Western  Europe.  The 
absence  in  the  Russian  manufactory  towns,  up  almost  to  the  present 
time,  of  an  urban  proletariat  of  any  considerable  dimensions  means 
also  the  absence  of  that  reserve  of  labour  from  which  necessary 
workmen  may  immediately  be  drawn  even  during  strikes  by  pro- 
mises of  high  pay  and  other  inducements. 

The  days  of  the  general  strike  meant  also  to  the  working  men 
increased  bitterness  over  their  "  rightlessness  "  ;  each  fusillade  and 
each  attack  of  Cossacks  left  dead  and  wounded  upon  the  ground, 
and  bitter  memories  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  The  merely 
industrial  grievances  faded  into  the  background  before  the  deep 
1  C/.  Dan,  op.  cit.,  p.  36. 


STRIKE   IN    SOUTH    RUSSIA         449 

feeling  of  resentment  against  a  Government  that  played  fast  and 
loose  with  the  labour  question,  and  in  the  end  always  shot  down 
the  workers.  The  use  which  the  Social  Democrats  and  Social  Revolu- 
tionists made  of  the  general  strike  for  propagation  of  their  doctrines 
must  not  be  ignored.  The  publication  and  circulation  of  propa- 
gandist literature,  previously  rigidly  prohibited,  came  like  a  flood. 
Liberties  sternly  denied  were  simply  seized,  the  censorship  was 
ignored,  and  the  "  right  "  of  public  meeting  was  vindicated  by 
the  simple  process  of  meeting  in  such  numbers  that  dispersal  was 
impossible.     U action  directe  ^  became  the  order  of  the  day. 

The  strike  also  brought  out  sharply  the  distinction  between 
the  two  parties — the  Social  Democrats  and  the  Social  Revolu-i 
tionists.  The  former  take  credit  to  themselves  for  confining  the 
strike  agitation  within  peaceful  Umits,  and  thus  for  preventing 
"  that  useless  slaughter  of  working  men  which  might  so  easily' 
have  occurred  in  these  days,  and  which  might  have  drowned  in  a 
sea  of  blood  the  proletarian  movement  at  its  very  beginning."  ^ 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Social  Revolutionists  derided  what  they 
regarded  as  the  restricted  aims  of  the  Social  Democrats,  and  advo- 
cated the  adoption  of  violent  measures  of  defence  against  the 
attacks  of  the  authorities.  It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  the 
influence  of  this  latter  party  was  dominant,  or  even  very  influential, 
in  the  South  Russian  movement  of  1903. 

In  so  far  as  the  movement  was  influenced  by  -propaganda,  it 
appears  to  have  been  influenced  chiefly  by  the  Social  Democrats, 
who  provided  a  large  proportion  of  the  speakers  at  the  meetings. 
But  indeed  the  movement  was  mainly  spontaneous.  Industrial 
discontent  due  to  lower  wages  and  more  unfavourable  conditions 
of  employment  than  those  reported  to  be  enjoyed  by  workmen 
elsewhere,  combined  with  aspirations  for  poUtical  action  and 
indignation  aroused  by  the  misconduct  of  local  functionaries  in 
some  cases,  and  in  many  others  by  the  accounts,  sometimes  exag- 
gerated, of  attacks  upon  working  men  and  the  forcible  dispersal 
of  meetings  by  the  authorities,  and  perhaps  also  irritation  at  the 
tactics  of  the  "  Black  Hundred  "  ^  in  different  centres — these  appear 
to  have  been  the  really  influential  causes. 

>  Cf.  supra,  pp.  515-17  and  521. 
*  Dan,  op.  cit.,  p.  37. 

3  For  explanation  of  this  expression,  see  infra,  p.  499. 
VOL.  II  2  F 


450     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

While  the  strike  was  accompanied  by  demands  of  an  industrial 
character,  and  while  the  conditions  of  employment  had  much  to 
do  with  the  state  of  discontent  into  which  working  men  had  fallen, 
yet  the  substantial  reason  for  the  strike  was  a  political  rather  than 
an  economical  one.  The  idea  came  to  be  prevalent  that  the  Govern- 
ment would  suffer  by  the  strike  to  a  greater  extent  than  anyone 
else — the  Government  railways,  post,  telegraphs,  the  Government 
factories,  &c.,  would  yield  no  revenue  during  the  strike,  taxes  would 
not  be  paid,  and  the  financial  credit  of  the  Government  would  be 
shaken. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER   GAPON 

Obscure  as  are  some  of  the  motives  in  the  movement  known  as 
the  "  Zubitovshina/'  they  are  luminous  compared  with  the  as 
yet  unfathomed  mysteries  of  the  "  Gaponovshina  "  with  its  tragic 
sequel  in  the  "  Gaponiade."  Perhaps  one  day  Ught  may  be  shed 
upon  the  dark  places  by  the  memoirs  of  Ministers  of  State,  some 
of  whom  are  alleged  to  have  been  involved  in  the  events  immediately 
preceding  the  end  of  Gapon.  As  yet  the  literature  on  the  subject 
is  scanty.  Gapon's  own  articles  in  the  popular  magazines  tell  us 
practically  nothing  of  the  inner  history  of  his  propaganda.  Father 
Georg  Gapon  ^  was  in  1904,  chaplain  in  one  of  the  gaols  of  St. 

*  Georg  Gapon  was  of  Little  Russian  origin.  He  was  the  son  of  a  peasant 
of  a  village  in  the  district  of  Bielyaki,  in  Poltavskaya  gub.,  where  he  was 
bom  about  1873.  Until  the  age  of  seventeen  he  attended  an  elementary 
school  in  Poltava.  His  teacher  in  this  school  was  Ivan  Tr^gubov,  for  many 
years  well  known  afterwards  among  the  Russian  exiles  in  Paris  as  a  Tolstoyist 
and  writer  upon  Russian  social  subjects.  Trdgubov  (in  L'Ere  Nouvelle, 
Paris,  3me  Series,  2me  vol.,  No.  33,  10  F6vrier  1905,  p.  47)  describes  Gapon 
as  he  was  at  the  age  of  fifteen  to  seventeen  as  "  an  intelligent,  serious,  medi- 
tative, but  very  vivacious  young  man.  His  studious  habits  enabled  him  to 
take  always  his  place  among  the  first  of  his  class.  Extremely  desirous  of 
instructing  himself,  he  read  much.  I  (Tregubov)  gave  him  some  books,  among 
others  the  works  of  Leo  ToLstoy,  which,  interdicted  in  Russia,  circulated 
then  clandestinely  in  manuscript.  I  allowed,  with  much  zeal,  these  manu- 
scripts to  fall  into  the  hands  of  my  pupils  and  of  young  priests.  They  pro- 
duced upon  them  the  same  lively  impression  which  they  did  upon  me. 
Simultaneously  with  my  departure  from  the  elementary  school,  Gapon  went 
to  pursue  his  studies  in  the  High  School  of  Poltava."  [This  is  an  error.  He 
went  to  the  Theological  Seminary  (or  intermediate  school  for  theological 
students).]  "  Afterwards  he  went  to  the  Faculty  of  Theology  at  St.  Peters- 
burg." [This  also  is  an  error.  He  went  to  the  Theological  College.]  "  I 
(Tr6gubov)  know  that  he  maintained  relations  with  the  Tolstoyans  at  Poltava. 
The  strike  and  the  pacific  manifestations  of  the  workers  at  St.  Petersburg 
show  that  he  remains  faithful  to  the  ideas  which  we  had  in  common  these 
fifteen  years,  and  which  find  lodgment  more  and  more  in  the  minds  of  the 
Russian  people.  .  .  .  Sooner  or  later  there  will  occur  the  declaration  of  a 
general  strike  which  will  cause  to  disappear  from  the  face  of  the  earth  this 
survival  of  barbarous  times — the  autocracy."  (Ivan  Tregubov  in  L'Ere 
Nouvelle,  loc.  cit.)    Gapon  is  also  described  by  others  who  knew  him  as 

451 


452     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Petersburg,  where,  on  account  of  his  influence  over  the  prisoners, 
he  was  persona  grata  with  the  authorities. 

It  appears  that  about  1902,  Gapon  conceived  the  idea  of  effect-  j 
ing  an  organization  of  the  working  men  of  St.  Petersburg  upon  a  I 
purely  industrial  basis,  and  of  leading  them  collectively  to  demancU 
improved  conditions  of  work  and  increased  wages.     He  apparently 
thought  that  if  it  were  possible  to  show  that  his  organization  was 
of  a  non-political  character,  and  was  not  intended  in  any  way  to 
engage  in  political  agitation,  it  might  be  possible  to  obtain  official 
sanction.     By  these  means,  meetings  of  working  men  might  be  held 
openly  and  legally  and  the  economical  interests  of  the  working 
men  might  be  freely  discussed.    Gapon  was,  no  doubt,  aware  of 
Zubatov's  activity  in  Moscow,  and  of  that  of  his  agents  in  St.  Peters- 
burg in  1902  and  1903.^    This  knowledge  must,  however,  have 
convinced  him  that  such  plans  as  those  of  Zub^tov  must  be  very 

being  of  an  attractive  personality  and  as  being  a  good  public  speaker.  He 
paid  a  visit  to  America  in  1901. 

After  the  procession  of  Bloody  Sunday,  9th  January  1905  (O.S.),  Gapon 
was  searched  for  by  the  police,  partly  because  they  held  him  responsible  for 
the  procession  at  the  head  of  which  he  was  marching,  and  partly  on  account 
of  his  denunciation  of  the  Tsar  which  followed  the  tragedy  of  9th  January. 
(See  Appendix  to  this  chapter.)  Through  the  assistance  of  Social  Demo- 
crats he  contrived  to  make  his  escape.  Within  a  few  days  he  made  his  appear- 
ance in  Paris,  and  afterwards  in  London.  In  these  cities  he  was  not  only 
lionized  by  sympathizers  with  the  Russian  revolutionary  movement,  but 
he  was  also  surrounded  by  editors  clamouring  for  accounts  of  his  propaganda. 
Suddenly,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  he  found  himself  of  pecuniary  value. 
This  unfortunate  circumstance  seems  to  have  demoralized  him,  overstrained 
as  his  nerves  must  have  been  by  his  St.  Petersburg  experiences  in  December 
and  the  first  days  of  January.  In  this  condition  he  appears  to  have  gone 
to  Monte  Carlo,  probably  to  work  off  his  abnormal  nervous  excitation.  On 
the  granting  of  the  amnesty  of  21st  October  1905  (O.S.),  Gapon  returned 
to  St.  Petersburg  an  altered  man.  From  this  time  until  his  death  his  pro- 
ceedings are  shrouded  in  mystery.  It  is  conjectured  that  he  entered  into 
relations  with  Ministers  of  State  (specifically  with  Count  Witte  and  M.  Dumo  vo ), 
but  to  what  end  he  did  so,  if  he  did  so  at  all,  remains  unexplained.  On 
or  about  28th  March  1906  (O.S.)  he  was  killed  in  a  cottage  at  Ozerky,  a 
summer  resort  on  the  St.  Petersburg- Viborg  Railway.  It  was  alleged  at  the 
time  that  he  was  hanged  by  revolutionists  who  accused  him  of  treachery ; 
and  circumstantial  details  of  his  end  were  given  in  the  newspapers  ;  but  the 
rooted  conviction  remained  in  the  minds  of  the  working  men  of  St.  Peters- 
burg that  he  was  actually  killed  by  agents  of  the  police  (cf.  infra,  pp.  464 
and  578).  His  body  was  found  by  the  police  about  28th  April.  An  in- 
vestigation into  the  circumstances  was  ordered,  but  it  was  mysteriously 
blocked,  and  nothing  came  of  it. 

^  Opinions  differ  about  the  relations  between  Zubitov  and  Gapon.  There 
is  as  yet,  however,  no  definite  proof  that  they  were  either  known  or  not  known 
to  one  another. 


I 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER    GAPON     453 

difficult  to  carry  out  in  St.  Petersburg,  for  the  reasons  that  the 
working  men  of  the  northern  capital  were  more  alert  and  intelligent 
and  more  accustomed  to  political  action  and  to  police  interference 
than  were  the  working  men  of  Moscow.  They  were  therefore  less 
easily  deceived.  If  there  were  in  their  minds  the  faintest  suspicion 
that  the  pohce  had  an5i:hing  to  do  with  Gapon's  movement,  that 
movement  was  doomed  at  the  outset.  Yet  there  seems  little  reason 
to  doubt  that,  since  Gapon's  plans  made  in  the  same  direction  as 
those  of  Zubitov,  namely,  in  the  direction  of  separating  the  indus- 
trial from  the  political  issues^  the  police  from  the  beginning  were 
wilHng  to  facilitate  his  attempt  to  organize  the  working  man  in  a 
peaceful  organization.  Even  if  the  police  of  St.  Petersburg  had 
not  been  influenced  by  the  temporary  success  of  Zub^tov  in  Moscow, 
this  would  have  been  an  obviously  reasonable  pohcy  ;  and  there 
are  grounds  for  believing  that  the  poUce  department  might  be 
able  to  exercise  a  more  stringent  control  over  the  Gapon  movement 
than  experience  had  shown  they  were  able  to  do  in  the  dase  of 
Zub^tov.  The  higher  officials  were,  moreover,  distracted  by  the 
events  in  Manchuria  and  by  the  discontent  among  the  working  men 
nearer  home,  and,  moreover,  before  Gapon's  movement  became 
conspicuous  the  **  Spring  "  of  Prince  Svyatopolk-Mirsky — the  period 
of  amiability — brief  and  illusory  as  it  was,  had  begun.  Towards 
the  end  of  1903,  Gapon  formulated  a  project  for  an  "  Assembly 
of  Russian  Factory  and  Mill  Workers  of  St.  Petersburg."  In  order 
to  obtain  legal  sanction,  it  was  necessary  to  submit  a  draft  con- 
stitution to  the  police,  and  also  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior. 
The  draft  of  the  constitution  of  the  first  police  trade  union  in 
Moscow  was,  as  we  have  seen,  prepared  and  preserved  by  Professor 
Ozerov  ;  ^  but  no  such  preHminary  document  relating  to  Gapon's 
organization  is  at  present  available. 

The  principal  clauses  of  the  constitution  of  the  society,  as  ulti- 
mately adopted,  were  as  follows  : 

I.  The  Assembly  of  Russian  Factory  and  Mill  Workers  of  St. 
Petersburg  is  established :  {a)  for  sober  and  rational  passing  of 
leisure  time  by  the  members  with  actual  benefit  for  them  in  spiritual 
and  moral,  as  well  as  in  material  respects ;  (b)  for  exciting  and 
strengthening  among  the  members  of  Russian  national  self-con- 

1  Cf.  supra,  p.  192. 


454     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

sciousness  ;  (c)  for  forming  and  developing  among  the  members 
prudent  views  upon  the  duties  and  rights  of  workers  ;  (d)  for 
the  exercise  by  members  of  self-activity  making  for  the  legal 
improvement  of  the  conditions  of  labour  and  of  the  Ufe  of 
the  workers. 

2.  The  means  for  attaining  the  above  purposes  are  :  (a)  the 
absolute  prohibition  in  the  premises  of  the  Assembly  of  games  for 
money,  of  the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks,  and  of  persons,  whether 
members  or  guests,  in  a  state  of  intoxication ;  (b)  the  purchasing 
of  useful  publications  of  Russian  newspapers  and  magazines,  the 
foundation  of  a  library,  the  institution  of  a  reading-room,  the 
formation  from  among  the  members  of  a  church  and  secular  choir 
and  of  musical  clubs,  the  institution  in  permanent  premises  of  the 
Assembly,  and  in  hired  premises  of  concerts,  family  and  literary 
vocal  soirees  ;  (c)  weekly  club  and  general  meetings  of  members 
for  prudent  discussion  from  all  points  of  view  of  their  necessities 
and  for  self-education  ;  (d)  the  institution  of  rehgious  and  moral 
discussions  and  also  of  lectures  with  discussions  ;  (e)  the  organiza- 
tion, with  proper  permission,  of  lectures  on  subjects  of  common 
education,  especially  on  knowledge  of  the  Fatherland,  and  parti- 
cularly on  labour  questions  which  would  point  out  and  explain 
to  the  worker  his  judicial  status  and  the  legal  ways  of  emerging  from 
ignorance  and  dirt  into  the  light ;  (/)  the  institution  of  a  mutual 
assistance  fund  for  cases  of  illness,  unemployment,  and  special 
necessity  among  the  members. 

Other  clauses  provided  that  in  case  of  strikes,  benefits  were 
not  to  be  given  from  the  mutual  assistance  funds,  that  a  tea  and 
lunch  room  should  be  provided  for  the  use  of  the  members,  also 
that  meetings  might  be  held  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  questions 
such  as  demands  for  the  increase  of  wages  ;  but  that  special  per-  i 
mission  must  be  obtained  from  the  proper  authorities  on  each  occa- 
sion. The  subordination  of  the  Union  to  the  St.  Petersburg  police' 
is  made  quite  clear.  "  The  chief  leader  and  controller  of  the  whole 
activity  of  the  Assembly  "  and  **  the  chief  person  responsible  to 
the  Government,  must  be  approved  of  by  the  Chief  of  the  St. 
Petersburg  pohce  "  (Par.  i6).^ 

"  The  Assembly  of  Russian  Factory  and  Mill  Workers  "  was 

^  The  police  are  mentioned  nineteen  times  in  fifteen  clauses  of  the  con- 
stitution.    See  V.  V.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  pp.  76-8. 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER   GAPON     455 

solemnly  inaugurated  on  nth  April  1904,^  with  Father  Gapon  as 
patron  and  president  of  the  council.  For  some  time  Gapon  failed 
to  attract  any  considerable  number  of  adherents  to  his  society. 
The  fact  of  his  being  a  priest  was  a  grave  disadvantage.  The 
inteUigent  and  progressive  working  men  were  indifferent  or  hostile 
to  the  Church,  and  the  wave  of  "  class-consciousness,"  though 
rising  slowly,  was  even  then  sufficiently  powerful  to  cause  the  pro- 
gressive working  men  to  look  with  some  suspicion  upon  all  move- 
ments which  did  not  arise  within  their  own  ranks.^  Thus  the 
indifference  of  the  progressive  elements  sufficed  to  prevent  any 
considerable  adhesion  to  the  society  from  the  mass  of  the  working 
men  of  St.  Petersburg. 

By  some  means  Gapon  became  acquainted  with  a  small  group 
of  "  influential  working  men."  ^  He  held  secret  meetings  with 
this  group,  and  the  result  of  these  meetings  was  an  agreement  on 
their  part  to  assist  Gapon,  and  on  his  part  to  endeavour  to  obtain 
through  his  organization  the  satisfaction  of  their  demands.  This 
group  frankly  informed  Gapon  that  they  were  aware  that  he  had 
some  connection  with  the  pohce,  and  that  they  would  only  consent 
to  join  his  organization  upon  his  entering  into  this  agreement. 
The  demands  were  then  formulated,  and  they  formed  the  basis 
of  the  petition  which  some  months  afterwards  was  prepared  for 

1  The  following  passages  are  extracted  from  the  report  of  the  inaugural 
meeting  appearing  in  the  St.  Petersburg  Gazette  (No.  loo,  of  14th  April  1904) ; 
cited  by  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  78 : 

"  .  .  .  It  became  clear  that  the  constitution  of  the  Assembly  granted 
on  isth  February  1904,  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  gave  for  the  first 
time  in  Russia  the  possibility  of  actual  union  without  any  interference  of 
the  administration.  All  is  based  upon  profound  trust,  and  upon  ideahstic, 
unselfish,  and  sound  service  to  the  interests  of  the  workers.  The  first  steps 
of  the  new  society  afford  ample  grounds  for  belief  that  the  working  men  will 
fully  justify  the  hopes  entertained  about  them.  At  the  close  of  the  session, 
by  unanimous  resolution,  a  despatch  was  sent  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
requesting  respectfully  that  he  lay  before  the  feet  of  his  Imperial  Majesty, 
the  adored  monarch,  the  most  humble  feelings  of  the  workers,  animated  as 
they  were  by  zealous  love  towards  the  Throne  and  the  Fatherland."  The 
whole  Assembly  sang  three  times  with  "  enormous  enthusiasm  " — "  God 
Save  the  Tsar  !  "  and  shouted  "  Hurrah  !  "  After  the  close  of  the  session 
Mr.  Litvonov-Falinsky,  factory  inspector,  delivered  an  address  upon  the  rela- 
tion of  the  factory  inspectors  towards  the  workers. 

*  It  was  by  playing  skilfully  upon  this  "  class-conscious  "  feeling  that 
ZubAtov  acquired  his  first  influence  upon  his  selected  working  men.  Cf. 
supra,  p.  190,  and  F.  Dan,  op.  cit.,  p.  41. 

'  Four  in  number.  For  the  details  of  these  proceedings  I  am  indebted 
to  a  correspondent  who  had  exceptional  opportumties  of  knowing  what  took 
place. 


456     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

presentation  to  the  Tsar  on  the  day  which  came  to  be  known  as 
Bloody  Sunday.^ 

There  thus  came  to  be  four  elements  in  Gapon's  movement : 
(i)  the  enthusiastic  Gapon  himself,  apparently  disinterested  in  the 
early  stages,  afterwards  torn  by  conflicting  interests  and  unable 
to  pursue  an  independent  course ;  (2)  the  pohce.  participating 
partly  overtly  through  the  control  provided  by  the  constitution 
of  Gapon's  society,  and  partly  covertly  through  spies,  and  probably 
also,  consciously  or  unconsciously  on  his  part,  through  Gapon  ; 
(3)  the  small  group  of  workinp;  men  whose  influence  Gapon  had 
found  it  necessary  to  enlist  in  order  to  secure  adherents  to  his 
movement,  and  who  afterwards  forced  Gapon  into  a  position  from 
which  he  would  gladly  have  escaped  ;  and  (4)  the  tqq^  of  working 
men  and  working  women  members  and  strikers  joining  the  society 
at  the  last  moment,  who,  on  the  one  hand,  were  depressed  by  low 
wages  and  by  conditions  of  employment  which  they  regarded  as 
oppressive,  and,  on  the  other,  were  inflated  with  the  promises  of 
liberty  and  of  improved  conditions  of  life  which  were  recklessly 
made  to  them  by  the  progressive  parties,  and  whose  views  about 
Gapon,  as  well  as  their  adhesion  to  him,  fluctuated  from  time  to 
time. 

As  soon  as  the  agreement  with  the  influential  group  of  working 
men  was  concluded,  adherents  began  to  pour  into  the  society 
in  great  numbers.  During  the  year  1904  eleven  sections  of  the 
Union  were  formed  in  rapid  succession.^ 

Large  groups  of  workmen,  especially  from  the  large  industrial 
estabhshments,  became  members.  Many  meetings,  debates,  lec- 
tures, dances,  &c.,  took  place.  Such  gatherings  of  the  people 
had  hitherto  been  sternly  suppressed  by  the  pohce,  now  they  were 
held  without  hindrance.     It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  the 

^  See  Appendix  to  this  chapter  for  text  of  petition. 

2  The  number  of  members  who  actually  paid  their  subscriptions  in  the 
early  phases  of  Gapon's  society  was  very  small.  Up  till  ist  May  1904,  there 
were  only  170  members  who  had  done  so.  By  21st  September  the  number 
of  paying  members  had  increased,  under  the  influence  of  the  new  elements, 
to  1200.  From  this  time  onwards  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  the  actual 
members  from  the  enormous  number  of  adherents  who  attended  the  meetings, 
and  who  paid  their  subscriptions  in  small  instalments  of  5  and  10  kopeks 
{i\d.  to  2\d.).  {Cf.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  79.)  By  the  end  of  1904,  the 
number  of  members  may  be  put  down  as  nominally  100,000,  of  which  number 

t about  74,000  belonged  to  the  mechanical  trades,  i.e.  practically  the  whole 
of  the  workmen  engaged  in  these  trades  in  St.  Petersburg  and  its  outskirts. 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER    GAPON     457 

police  were  ignorant  of  the  compromising  position  of  Gapon,  stand- 
ing as  he  did  between  the  revolutionists  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
poHce  on  the  other,  each,  as  he  must  have  reahzed,  most  likely 
to  be  acutely  watching  for  any  slip  on  his  part.  It  is  more  reason- 
able to  believe  that  they  permitted  the  movement  to  go  on,  imder- 
standing  it  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  not  realizing  fully  whither 
it  was  drifting. 

On  19th  September  1904  there  took  place,  in  a  hall  hired  for  the 
purpose,  an  enormous  general  meeting.  Here  it  was  decided  to 
expand  the  organization  by  the  formation  of  numerous  branches  in 
St.  Petersburg  and  its  environs.  Prior  to  the  official  granting  of 
the  constitution  the  work  of  the  society  had  been  carried  on  by 
thirty  "  responsible "  persons.  This  circle  was  now  largely  in- 
creased until  it  comprised  several  hundreds  (in  Vasilyevsky  Ostrov, 
an  island  in  the  Neva,  and  an  important  working-class  district,  100, 
and  in  Narvsky  Ward,  300).  The  important  decisions  regarding 
the  poUcy  of  the  organization  were  taken  at  the  meetings  of  these 
"  responsible  "  persons,  and  the  decisions  were  carried  into  effect  by 
the  executive  committee  elected  by  and  from  these  persons.^  On 
Saturdays  the  "  responsible  "  persons  met,  and  on  Sundays  the 
members  of  the  branches  met,  originally  at  ten  in  the  morning,  but 
later  at  two  in  the  afternoon,  the  meetings  in  each  case  lasting 
throughout  the  remainder  of  the  day,  usually  until  midnight.  The 
time  was  passed  in  listening  to  lectures  and  addresses,  and  in 
dances,  teas,  &c.  From  April  1904  lectures  were  also  delivered  on 
Wednesday  evenings,  by  Mr.  Mahnin  (editor  of  the  Prison  Mes- 
senger) on  Russian  history,  and  by  others  on  geology  and  general 
literature,  and  on  economic  and  other  questions  of  current  moment. 
Discussions  took  place  at  these  lectures.  In  the  earlier  stages  there 
was  much  freedom  of  speech  at  the  meetings — several  of  the  more 
"  class  conscious  "  working  men  speaking  their  minds  very  freely. 
In  the  autumn  of  1904,  however,  it  began  to  be  apparent  that,  al- 
though the  branches  were  numerously  attended,  there  was  an 
absence  of  intelligentsia,  and  an  obvious  presence  of  some  who  came 
for  the  purpose  of  wrecking  the  organization.  This  condition  led 
to  inner  meetings  of  the  more  serious  propagandists.  These  meet- 
ings were  secret,  and  were  held  at  Gapon's  house.  Some  sixty  or 
seventy  enthusiasts  continued  to  meet  there  for  purposes  of  study. 

*  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  80. 


458     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Their  studies  appear  to  have  been  carried  on  with  some  degree  of 
system,  and  to  have  included  not  merely  economical  questions,  but 
even  larger  political  issues.  They  studied,  for  example,  the  political 
constitutions  of  Germany  and  England,  as  well  as  economical  ques- 
tions— wages,  co-operation,  trade  unionism,  &c.  The  history  of  the 
labour  movement  in  Russia  was  expounded  to  them  and  discussed. 
Among  those  propagandists  there  was  a  small  group  of  Social  Demo- 
crats, who  necessarily  gave  a  certain  direction  to  the  debates.^ 

Women  became  members  of  the  branches  in  considerable  num- 
bers. In  the  late  autumn  they  numbered  nearly  a  thousand  in  all 
the  branches.2  At  first  the  presence  of  women  was  resented  by  the 
working  men,  and  even  by  Gapon  himself.  The  women's  meetings 
were  fairly  successful,  although  attempts  to  interest  women  of  the 
intelligentsia  in  the  movement  conspicuously  failed. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  autumn  of  1904,  there  occurred  the  "  Spring  " 
of  Prince  Svyatopolk-Mirsky,  and  the  influence  of  the  mild  regime 
of  this  Minister  began  to  be  felt  in  the  branches.  When,  for  ex- 
ample, someone  shouted  at  a  meeting,^  **  Down  with  the  auto- 
cracy !  "  the  shout  was  received  with  *'  great  indignation."  *  In 
the  phase  through  which  the  working  men's  minds  were  passing  at 
that  time,  much  importance  was  attached  to  the  "  providential  r61e 
of  the  autocracy."  The  autocracy  was  to  put  everything  in  order. 
It  would  be  wiser,  after  all,  to  trust  to  the  autocracy  than  to  a  democ- 
racy of  a  pattern  which  might  give  predominance  to  wealth  and 
capital,  and  in  which  the  working  masses  might  be  no  better  off  than 
before.  The  Tsar,  when  he  knew  the  situation  of  affairs,  would  take 
prompt  measures  to  redress  the  grievances  of  the  working  men  and 
the  peasants.  The  faith  of  the  people  in  the  Tsar  had  not  yet  been 
broken,  although  the  measure  of  their  continued  faith  in  him  would 
be  determined  by  the  extent  to  which  he  accepted  their  views  con- 
cerning what  ought  to  be  done. 

In  November  1904  the  newspapers  published  the  petition  to  the 
Tsar  of  the  Saratovsky  Zemstvo.  Like  the  petitions  of  other 
Zemstvos,  the  Sarotovskaya  petition  asked  for  the  convocation  of 
a  Representative  Assembly.     This  document  was  read  at  the  meet- 

^  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  80. 

2  The  leader  among  the  women  was  an  intelligent  working  woman  known 
as  V.  M.  K.  (Svyatlovsky,  loc.  cit.). 

3  In  the  beginning  of  November  1904.  *  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  83. 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER   GAPON     459 

ings,  and  almost  immediately  there  arose  a  desire  to  present  a 
similar  petition  to  the  Tsar. 

Gapon  now  found  himself  in  a  difficult  position.  His  society i 
had  been  founded  upon  a  non-political  basis,  and  it  had  been  sanc-j 
tioned  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  on  that  explicit  understanding^ 
If  it  came  to  be  transformed  into  a  group  for  poHtical  propaganda, 
Gapon  must  either  leave  the  society  or  run  the  risk  of  involving 
himself  as  well  as  the  society  in  conflicts  with  the  police,  who  must 
soon  come  to  learn  of  the  radical  change  in  pohcy.  While  there 
were,  as  we  have  seen,  socialist  elements  in  Gapon's  society,  the 
pressure  to  introduce  politics  into  its  activity  did  not  come  ex- 
clusively from  them.  The  general  Social  Democratic  and  Social 
Revolutionary  propagandas  among  the  working  men  had  made  so 
far  in  that  direction  before  the  society  was  formed,  that  Gapon 
realized  early  that  without  the  help  of  persons  known  to  be  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  political  propaganda  he  could  not  succeed  in  forming 
a  society  of  any  magnitude.  Thus  the  larger  his  society  became 
the  greater  was  the  risk  of  it  being  converted  into  a  group  for  poli- 
tical propaganda. 

When  the  desire  to  present  a  petition  to  the  Tsar  was  formu- 
lated, Gapon  opposed  it  energetically.^  He  said  that  such  a  peti- 
tion would  be  extremely  untimely,  and  that  those  who  proposed  it 
desired  to  wreck  the  organization.  The  strength  of  the  desire  to 
present  the  petition  was,  however,  overwhelming,  and  Gapon  had 
to  give  way,  the  only  concession  which  he  was  able  to  extort  being 
that  the  general  mass  of  the  members  should  be  consulted. 

This  resolution  was  the  turning-point  of  the  movement'  From 
this  moment  it  is  clear  that  Gapon  ceased  to  lead,  and  that  he  was 
driven  by  his  former  followers.  That  his  influence  did  not  alto- 
gether cease  is,  however,  suggested  by  the  essentially  pacific  char- 
acter of  the  movement  throughout  its  course. 

The  feeling  of  the  branches  was  found  to  be  unanimously  in 
favour  of  the  presentation  of  a  petition,  and  the  central  committee, 
headed,  of  course,  by  Gapon,  was  charged  with  the  composition  of 
the  petition  and  the  arrangements  for  its  presentation.  It  was 
decided  to  write  to  the  representatives  of  other  "  parties  "  to  invite 
their  co-operation.  Thus  the  Social  Democrats  and  the  Social  Re- 
volutionists were  invited  to  consider  the  expediency  of  presenting 

*  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  84. 


46o     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

a  joint  petition.  This  meant,  of  course,  that  Gapon's  society 
regarded  itself  as  having  emerged  on  a  platform  similar  to  that  of 
the  revolutionary  groups. 

The  **  influential  group  "  of  working  men  who  had  made  the 
success  of  Gapon's  movement  possible  were  now  in  a  position  to 
compel  him  to  implement  his  agreement.  The  movement  had 
become  poHtical  in  spite  of  Gapon. 

The  circumstances  of  the  time  seemed,  on  the  whole,  favourable 
to  the  presentation  of  a  petition.  During  the  later  months  of 
1904  the  war  had  resulted  in  a  series  of  disastrous  blows  to  the 
mihtary  prestige  of  Russia,  and  events  were  hastening  towards  the 
fall  of  Port  Arthur .1  The  administration  was  preoccupied  and  Uttle 
incUned  to  force  conclusions  in  internal  affairs,  while  the  flower  of 
the  army,  upon  which  the  autocracy  must  in  the  last  event  rely, 
was  barely  holding  its  own  in  Manchuria. 

Moreover,  the  idea  was  at  this  time  widely  prevalent  among 
the  working  men  that  the  Tsar  was  not  imphcated  in  the  mis- 
government  of  the  country.  They  thought  that  the  blame  of  this 
misgovernment  should  be  laid  entirely  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
bureaucracy,  and  that  they  had  only  to  bring  the  state  of  matters 
to  the  notice  of  the  Tsar  to  have  a  new  system  inaugurated  which 
would  speedily  result  in  a  great  improvement  of  their  economical 
position. 

The  Social  Democrats  and  the  Social  Revolutionists  were  alike 
eager  to  take  advantage  of  the  circumstances  and  of  the  optimistic 
attitude  of  the  working  men  as  it  appeared  in  Gapon's  organiza- 
tion. Still,  working  men  who  were  actively  engaged  in  these  parties 
as  a  rule,  and  intelligentsia  almost  wholly,  held  aloof  from  Gapon. 
During  the  discussions  upon  the  poUcy  of  presenting  a  petition  to 
the  Tsar,  which  were  held  by  Gapon's  adherents,  some  of  the 
private  meetings  were  attended  by  a  "  semi-party  group."  ^  This 
group,  which  possessed  no  definite  poUtical  colour,  was  composed 
of  journalists  who  were  merely  educating  themselves  by  "  looking 
into  "  the  labour  movement.  Five  of  these  joumaUsts  and  five 
working-men  adherents  of  Gapon  met  secretly  in  Gapon's  house. 
Gapon,  who  presided,  declared  that  the  working  men  must  compose 

1  Port  Arthur  fell  on  20tli  December  (O.S.). 

*  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  85.  A  "  semi-party  "  group  is  a  group  whose 
claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  party  is  not  generally  recognized. 


MOVEMENT    OF    FATHER    GAPON     461 

a  protest  in  such  a  form  as  "to  astonish  the  whole  world."  After 
the  constitution  of  the  organization  had  been  shown  to  the 
joumaUsts,  they  urged  Gapon's  adherents  to  unite  with  the  whole 
population  of  St.  Petersburg  in  a  protest  to  the  Government.  At 
the  same  time  they  told  them  that  the  Government  was  always 
deceiving  the  Liberals,  and  that  the  Liberal  current  which  arose 
in  the  "  Spring  "  of  Svyatopolk-Mirsky  would  inevitably  result  in 
"  a  new  fraud."  This  view  was  not  accepted  by  the  working  men, 
and  they  determined  to  compose  their  petition  and  to  present  it 
in  their  own  way,  without  the  assistance  of  anyone.  The  "  club- 
bing of  intelligentsia  "  by  the  police  diuing  a  demonstration  opposite 
the  Kazan  Cathedral  in  the  Nevski  Prospekt^  confirmed  this 
resolution,  and  largely  attended  meetings  ^  were  held  in  December 
on  the  subject  of  the  petition.  In  December  also  there  took  place 
the  strike  of  metal-workers  in  the  PutUovsky  Mills,  and  excited 
meetings  were  held  daily.  Gapon  appears  to  have  pleaded  for 
delay  until  a  larger  number  of  members  could  be  obtained  in  order 
to  make  the  numbers  presenting  the  petition  more  formidable. 
On  the  27th  December  (O.S.)  the  employees  of  all  the  St.  Peters- 
burg factories  went  on  strike  and  decisive  meetings  were  held  on 
the  following  day,  the  28th  December,  in  Vasilyevsky  Ostrov  and 
other  places. 

On  2nd  January  1905  (O.S.)  there  met  in  Gapon's  house  a 
hundred  of  the  most  influential  of  his  adherents.  Gapon  again 
urgently  pleaded  for  delay,  but  the  working  men  "  in  the  most 
categorical  manner "  insisted  "  that  the  fire  of  the  excitement 
might  die  out,"  and  that  the  strike  at  the  Putilovsky  Works  pre- 
sented an  opportunity  such  as  was  not  hkely  soon  to  occur  again. 
They  told  Gapon  also  that  if  he  did  not  lead  them  they  would 
leave  him.  "  We  have  been  branded,"  some  of  them  said,  "  as 
Zub^tov's  men,  and  as  provocators,  and  here  is  the  chance  to  wash 
out  this  detestable  stain."  This  appeal  was  received  sympatheti- 
cally, and  those  present  unanimously  resolved  upon  going  with  the 
largest  possible  crowd  to  the  Winter  Palace  with  a  petition  on  the 
following  Sunday. 

"  So  let  it  be  !  "  Gapon  said  at  last,  worn  out  by  the  opposition 

1  On  the  occasion  of  the  suicide  in  prison  of  Vetrova,  a  girl  student. 
*  Meetings  attended  by  800  persons,  e.g. 


462     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

to  his  appeals  for  delay .^  From  this  time  Gapon  concealed  himself 
from  the  police.  They  had  been  watching  the  proceedings  at  the 
branches,  and  it  was  evident  that  they  had  realized  the  change  in 
the  tendencies  of  the  movement. 

Troops  were  hurried  into  the  city  on  the  night  of  the  Sth,^  and 
preparations  were  made  to  receive  the  petitioners.  The  mode  of 
deaUng  with  the  crisis  which  was  adopted  is  said  to  have  been 
suggested  by  the  late  Grand  Duke  Vladimir,^  while  the  mihtary 
dispositions  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  Prince  Vasilchikov,  Com- 
mander-in-Chief of  the  corps  of  the  Guard.  The  Tsar  and  the 
Imperial  Family  had  gone  to  Tsarskoe  Selo  some  days  earlier. 

At  the  height  of  the  movement  of  Gapon,  the  actual  number 
of  registered  members  of  the  branches  did  not  exceed  9000,  but 
the  number  of  persons  who  attended  the  meetings  of  the  branches 
was  much  greater — "  some  scores  of  thousands."  *  The  number 
of  persons  who  took  part  in  the  procession  of  "  Bloody  Sunday  " 
is  difficult  to  estimate  owing  to  the  fact  that  many  factions  of  the 
procession  were  dispersed  soon  after  they  started.  The  usual 
estimate  of  the  total  number  of  those  who  set  out  upon  the  pro- 
cession is  200,000. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  the  9th  January,  red-cross  arm-bands 
were  distributed  to  the  women  and  to  some  men.  The  object  of 
this  is  rather  difficult  to  explain,  unless  we  realize  that  in  so  great 
a  concourse,  consisting  of  many  widely  separated  groups,  there 
were  many  different  and  even  confficting  ideas.  These  red-cross 
bands  may  have  been  assumed  to  indicate  that  their  wearers  were 
not  mihtant  participants  in  the  procession  or  they  may  have  been 

^  The  subsequent  accusations  of  Petrov  (see  infra)  suggest  that  had 
Gapon  not  acquiesced  in  the  demands  of  the  majority  at  that  time,  he  might 
then  have  been  denounced  as  a  pohce  spy,  or  at  least  as  a  defender  of  the 
autocracy  rather  than  of  the  liberties  of  the  people. 

2  8th  January  1905  (O.S.).  ^  Uncle  of  Nicholas  II. 

*  Cf.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  92.  The  organization  of  Gapon  corresponds 
to  the  general  Labour  Unions  familiar  in  the  early  stages  of  Trade  Unions  in 
England  and  in  the  United  States.  [Cf.  Webb,  History  of  Trade  Unionism 
(London,  1894),  p.  199,  and  Hollander  and  Barnett,  Studies  in  American  Trade 
Unionism  (New  York,  1907),  p.  353.)  Conflict  of  trades  soon  began  to  develop 
in  Gapon's  organization,  and  it  came  to  be  divided  into  three  sections — one 
of  the  mechanical  trades,  another  of  the  weavers,  and  the  third  of  litho- 
graphers. These  met  as  separate  trade  groups.  Yet  these  groups  appear 
to  have  been  rather  social  clubs  than  trade  unions.  The  only  strike  in 
which  they  took  part  was  that  at  the  Putilovsky  Ironworks  on  the  eve  of 
the  demonstration  of  9th  January. 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER   GAPON     463 

assumed  for  the  practical  purpose  of  calling  upon  their  wearers  to 
act  as  nurses  to  the  wounded  in  an  anticipated  sanguinary  struggle. 
While  it  is  not  impossible  that  arms  were  carried  by  some,  it  is 
also  true  that  in  some  of  the  groups,  those  who  came  to  the 
rendezvous  with  arms  were  deprived  of  them  by  their  fellow- 
workers  before  the  procession  started  on  its  way.  The  more  "  class 
conscious  "  working  men  seem  to  have  marched  in  front  of  the 
different  processions  with  their  arms  linked,  thus  forming  chains 
across  the  line  of  the  procession. 

The  early  morning  of  Sunday,  9th  January,  was  **  bitterly  cold, 
with  a  piercing  wind  and  fine  driving  snow."  ^  People  went  to 
church  as  usual.  There  were  no  troops  in  the  great  square  opposite 
the  Winter  Palace.  Traffic  across  the  Neva  by  the  bridges  was 
unimpeded.  At  ten  o'clock  in  the  forenoon  the  movements  of 
troops  began.  It  was  the  evident  intention  of  the  mihtary  authorities 
to  deal  with  the  crowd  in  detachments,  and  to  hold  the  consti- 
tuent elements  of  the  procession  at  or  near  their  respective  start- 
ing-points. At  the  same  time  the  bridges  were  strongly  held,  and 
the  Palace  square  was  occupied  by  troops,  which  early  in  the  fore- 
noon debouched  from  the  courtyards  of  the  Winter  Palace. 

The  attacks  by  the  troops  upon  the  processions  took  place  at 
many  different  points,  and  for  that  reason  a  connected  statement  of 
the  occurrences  is  difficult.  The  procedure  appears,  however,  to 
have  been  generally  the  same  at  all  the  points  where  the  mihtary 
came  into  coUision  with  the  crowd — a  summons  to  disperse — fol- 
lowed speedily  by  a  volley  of  blank  cartridge  and  then  a  volley  of 
bullets.  The  official  account  admits  firing  in  the  Schliisselburg 
Chaussee,  at  the  Narva  Gate,  where  the  crowd  was  led  by  Gapon,  in 
the  Troitsky  Square,  in  Vasilevsky  Ostrov,  in  the  Alexander  Gardens, 
near  the  Winter  Palace,  and  in  the  Nevsky  Prospekt,  especially  at 
the  Kazan  Cathedral.  The  official  account  also  'says  that  three 
barricades  were  erected.^  Accounts  of  the  number  of  killed  and 
wounded  vary  widely.  The  estimate  from  the  side  of  the  working 
men,^  of  500  killed  and  3000  wounded,  is  probably  an  exaggeration, 
while  the  official  figures,  which  are  much  lower,  probably  minimize 

*  Correspondent  of  Daily  Mail,  London,  23rd  January  1905. 

*  These  were  probably  the  first  barricades  erected  in  St.  Petersburg. 
Barricades  had  been  erected  in  South  Russia  in  1903.     Cf.  supra,  p.  444. 

»  See  History  of  the  Council  of  Labour  Deputies,  Section  by  Knrustalov- 
Nosar  (St.  Petersburg,  1910),  p.  46. 


464     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

the  losses.  The  official  account  of  the  events  which  led  up  to 
"  Bloody  Sunday  "  is  not  ingenuous.  Nothing  is  said  of  the  en- 
couragement given  to  the  movement  of  Gapon  in  its  early  stages  by 
the  police,  and  even  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior.  The  allega- 
tion in  the  official  account  that  the  working  men's  association  was 
"  soon  "  reinforced  by  the  "  agitation  of  revolutionary  circles  "  is 
not  consistent  with  the  narrative  given  above,  and  is  probably  in- 
accurate. The  influential  working  men  who  joined  Gapon,  as 
described,  were  not  at  that  time  revolutionists,  although  they  were 
the  originators  of  the  political  side  of  the  propaganda,  while  the 
terms  of  the  protest  were  no  more  revolutionary  than  were  the 
Zemstvo  petitions  upon  which,  indeed,  Gapon's  petition  was  founded. 

The  history  of  the  Gapon  labour  movement,  or  "  Gaponov- 
shina,"  closed  with  9th  January  1905.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the 
branches  lingered  for  some  months,  but  the  movement  had  wholly 
collapsed.  In  the  autumn  of  1905  there  occurred  the  short-lived 
so-called  "  Gaponiade."  This  episode  began  with  a  letter  by  a 
working  man,  Nicolai  Petrov,  which  was  published  in  the  St.  Peters- 
burg newspaper  Russ}  Petrov  accused  Gapon  of  having  been 
bribed  by  the  Government.  Upon  this  accusation  there  began  "  a 
violent  polemic  " — ten  chairmen  of  branches  bringing  a  counter- 
accusation  of  embezzlement  against  Petrov.  Gapon  had  returned 
to  St.  Petersburg  after  the  amnesty  of  21st  October  1905.  He  is 
reported  to  have  entered  into  relations  with  Count  Witte  and  with 
Prince  Androvidov,  with  the  apparent  design  of  rehabilitating  him- 
self in  the  opinion  of  the  authorities.  His  influence  with  the 
working  class  was,  however,  wholly  destroyed,  and  in  a  summer 
house  at  Ozerky,  near  St.  Petersburg,  he  passed  from  the  scene  on 
or  about  28th  March  1906.2  Even  the  '*  Gaponiade  "  has  had  its 
sequel.  Among  the  disclosures  of  the  Lopukhin- Azef  case,  in  January 
1909,  was  the  statement  that  Gapon  had  been  killed  by  the  order  of 
Azef,  a  member  of  the  militant  organization  of  the  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionary Party,  and  at  the  same  time  an  agent  of  the  pohtical  poHce.^ 

It  is  necessary  now  to  examine  the  evidence  which  throws  Hght 

1  Russ.,  No.  32,  8th  February  1906.     Cf.  Svyatlovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  93. 

'  Gapon's  body  was  found  hanged  in  a  summer  cottage.  An  inquhy 
was  ordered  into  the  circumstances  of  his  death,  but  it  was  mysteriously 
blocked. 

^  See  Novoe  Vremya  (St.  Petersburg),  19th  January  1909,  and  cf.  injra, 
p.  578. 


MOVEMENT   OF    FATHER   GAPON     465 

upon  the  frame  of  mind  of  the  working  men  who  engaged  in  the 
demonstration.  As  far  as  those  working  men  are  concerned  who 
were  most  active  in  the  movement,  and  probably  so  far  as  Gapon 
himself  was  concerned,  it  seems  possible,  though  it  is  not  certain, 
that  they  reaUzed  the  imminent  risk  of  a  conflict  with  the  troops. 
As  regards  the  working  men  in  question,  they  may  have  felt  that 
the  situation  was  such  that  bloodshed  must  be  risked.  Yet  there 
is  no  evidence  that  they  intended  to  attack  the  troops  or  to  commit 
any  violence.  The  moral  effect  of  their  demonstration  would  have 
been  lost  if  they  had  so  intended.  Gapon,  reluctant  as  he  was  to  lead 
the  procession,  may  have  reahzed  the  risk  he  was  running,  and  he 
may  have  been  made  aware  of  the  military  and  pohce  measures  which 
were  about  to  be  taken  ;  but  his  actions  suggest  that  he  thought  the 
procession  might  be  permitted  to  carry  out  its  programme.  As 
regards  the  rank  and  file  of  the  procession,  the  mere  fact  that  they 
brought  with  them  their  women  and  children,  and  that  they  sang 
as  they  marched  along,  "  God  Save  the  Tsar,"  is  sufiicient  to  dispose 
of  the  suggestion  that  the  bulk  of  the  procession  either  intended  to 
commit  violence,  or  anticipated  that  violence  would  be  committed 
upon  them. 

Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  were  revolutionary  elements 
in  the  procession,  as  there  were  among  the  members  of  Gapon's 
imion.  When  the  authorities  made  it  plain  that  they  intended  to 
resist  the  passage  of  the  processions,  the  peaceable  elements  naturally 
fell  back,  and  the  revolutionary  elements  then  became  conspicuous. 
These  elements  indeed  gained  in  strength,  and  continued  to  engage 
in  conflicts  with  the  poUce  and  the  miUtary  for  three  days  after 
Bloody  Sunday.  In  the  processions  of  that  day,  however,  there  is 
no  evidence  that  the  turbulent  elements  were  numerically  important, 
and  therefore  the  merciless  severity  of  the  mihtary  operations  seems 
to  have  been  devoid  of  sufficient  reason. 

Even  if  the  procession  had  been  wholly  revolutionary  in  its 
character  (and  there  is  no  evidence  to  that  effect)  there  was  ample 
available  mihtary  force  to  adopt  the  poUcy  of  refraining  from  action 
until  after  the  crowd  had  committed  itself  to  a  revolutionary  act. 
To  attack  a  crowd  which  comes  ostensibly  with  peaceable  intent, 
can  be  justified  only,  even  on  administrative  grounds,  if  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  the  ostensible  aims  are  not  the  real  ones,  and 
that  the  real  aim  is  the  overthrowal  of  the  Government.     There  is 

VOL.  II  2  G 


466     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

no  evidence  to  show  that  this  was  the  aim  of  Gapon's  movement,  or 
that  the  influence  of  the  revolutionary  elements  was  sufficient  to 
make  it  so  at  any  stage  of  the  movement.  To  assume  a  state  of 
revolution  is  an  act  of  wisdom  only  in  a  Government  which  finds 
itself  on  the  edge  of  destruction.  Even  then,  the  disaster  which 
the  Government  wishes  to  avoid  may  be  precipitated.  Prior  toih 
Bloody  Sunday  the  d5masty  was  in  no  peril.  The  traditional  ven- 
eration for  the  Tsar  had  not  been  seriously  impaired  by  the  disasters 
of  the  war,  for  which  he  was  not  held  personally  responsible. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  working  men,  inside  of  and  outside 
of  Gapon's  union,  the  appeal  of  9th  Tamiary  was  an  appeal  to  the 
Tsar  direct.  Whetiier  or  not  his  Ministry,  headed  by  Prince  Svyato- 
polk-Mirsky,  was  chiefly  to  blame  for  the  issue  of  events  must  be 
determined  by  the  historian  of  the  future,  when  the  memoirs  of  the 
principal  actors  make  their  appearance  and  the  archives  of  the 
ininistries  are  available.  In  the  minds  of  the  working  men  of  St. 
Petersburg,  however,  the  blame  was  laid  upon  the  Tsar  himself, 
>Jhey  mshed  to  see  him,  to  sneak  to  him,  and  he  received  fhf^vn  with 

So  far  as  appears  from  the  available  evidence,  and  in  the  light 
of  subsequent  events,  it  would  seem  that  the  wise  course,  even 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  autocracy,  would  have  been  to  admit 
some  of  the  petitioners  into  the  Palace  Square,  and  for  some 
responsible  officer  to  undertake  at  least  to  hand  the  petition 
to  the  Tsar.  Undoubtedly  the  Tsar  had  already  the  petition 
in  his  hands. 

The  issue  could  hardly  have  been  more  unfavourable  for  the] 
dynasty  and  for  the  autocracy  than  the  actual  course  of  events 
proved.  The  volleys  of  the  Tsar's  regiments  swept  away  the  last] 
shred  of  respect  for  the  Tsar,  showed  him  demonstratively  as  panic- 
stricken,  and  definitively  removed  from  the  sphere  of  political 
influence  the  whole  of  the  Grand  Ducal  party.  Thus,  in  a  sense, 
the  victims  of  Bloody  Sunday  did  not  perish  in  vain.  Some  change 
was,  in  any  case,  inevitable  ;  but  the  tragical  incidents  of  that 
day  must  be  regarded  as  having  been  an  important  factor  in  the 
train  of  causes  which  led  to  the  revolutionary  crisis  of  a  few 
months  later.  A  situation  which  demanded  tact  and  delicacy 
rather  than  bullets  was  met  with  an  Asiatic  barbarity  which  shocked 
the  world.    Yet  this  very  barbarity  rendered  inevitable  concessions 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER   GAPON     467 

which  might  otherwise  not  have  been  granted  so  speedily,  or  which 
might  not  have  been  granted  at  all. 

Powerful  as  it  is,  the  autocracy  is  nervously  sensitive  of  Western 
European  opinion,  and  rehabihtation  of  the  Russian  Government 
before  the  eyes  of  the  world  was  a  necessity  of  the  months  suc- 
ceeding the  events  of  9th  January  1905. 

The  first  attempt  to  effect  this  rehabihtation  was  carried  out, 
it  appears,  by  order  of  General  Trepov,  who  had  been  appointed 
Chief  of  Pohce.  He  required  the  factory-owners  to  find  fourteen 
"  loyal  and  decently  dressed  working  men,"  in  order  that  they 
might  be  presented  to  the  Tsar  at  Tsarskoe  Selo.  What  happened 
may  be  gathered  from  the  description  of  one  of  these  men. 

"  They  took  me  to  the  Winter  Palace,  searched  me,  and  when 
we  were  all  collected  there,  we  were  taken  to  Tsarskoe  Selo.  We 
were  told  by  General  Trepov  that  we  must  bow  to  the  Tsar  in  the 
Russian  manner  "  (that  is,  not  merely  with  the  head,  but  with  the 
whole  body).  "We  were  to  bow,  and  then  to  Usten  to  what  the 
Tsar  might  tell  us.  We  were  not  to  enter  into  conversation  with 
him.  If  we  did,  we  should  afterwards  be  banished  from  St.  Peters- 
burg." The  working  men,  according  to  this  narrative,  were  taken 
in  imperial  carriages  to  the  railway  station,  and  thence  by  first- 
class  carriages  to  Tsarskoe  Selo.  When  they  arrived,  "  We  were 
bowing  aU  the  time ;  and  the  Tsar  was  speaking.  We  had  to 
walk  back  to  the  station,  and  to  return  in  third-class  carriages."  ^ 
The  fourteen  loyal  working  men  were  treated  afterwards  with 
hostiUty  by  their  fellows,  and  some  of  them  were  obhged  to  leave 
the  factories  where  they  were  employed.  In  addition  to  organizing 
this  somewhat  farcical  deputation,  the  Government  thought  it 
well  to  bestow  a  sum  of  50,000  rubles  upon  the  famiUes  of  those 
who  were  killed  or  wounded. 

The  significance  of  the  Gapon  movement  must  be  estimated 
altogether  apart  from  the  personaUty  of  Gapon.  Excepting  in  the 
feeble  initiation  of  his  society,  his  influence  was  not  predominant. 
The  importance  of  the  movement  is  to  be  judged  by  three  circum- 
stances: (i)  It  was  the  first  large  legal  trade  union  in  Russia, 
and  it  was  the  means  of  giving  the  St.  Petersburg  working  men 
an  idea  of   combination  on  a  large  scale  and  experience  of  the 

1  History  of  the  Council  oj  Labour  Deputies  (St.  Petersburg,  1910),  p.  47. 


468     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

external  danger  and  internal  difficulties  as  well  as  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  such  combination.  (2)  Its  issue  destroyed  at  a  blow 
the  faith  of  the  common  people  in  the  Tsar.  The  childhke  char- 
acter of  this  faith  had  led  the  great  bulk  of  the  concourse  of  people 
who  formed  the  procession  to  believe  implicitly  in  the  Dear  Father 
whose  paternal  care  would  ultimately  provide  for  everyone. 
(3)  It  marked  the  beginning  of  "  the  year  of  Hberties,"  when,  by  a 
concurrence  of  causes,  the  autocracy,  confused  and  dismayed, 
suffered  many  liberties  to  be  "  grasped  "  that  it  had  previously 
tenaciously  withheld. 

The  movement  may,  for  these  reasons,  be  regarded  as  the 
manifestation  of  a  **  state  of  mind  "  so  widely  diffused  among  the 
people  as  to  be  practically  universal.  While  such  manifestations 
of  themselves  may  be  very  crude,  and  may  be  put  down  with  or 
without  violence,  and  while  those  who  engage  in  them  may  be 
Wholly  exterminated,  the  "  state  of  mind,"  of  which  the  mani- 
festations are  merely  some  of  the  overt  signs,  is  unaffected  or  even 
intensified. 


APPENDIX   TO   CHAPTER   II 


Letter  of  Gapon  to  the  Tsar,  dated  Sth  January  1905, 
the  day  before  the  Demonstration. 

Sire, — Do  not  believe  the  Ministers;  they  are  cheating  Thee  in 
regard  to  the  real  state  of  affairs.  The  people  believe  in  Thee.  They 
have  made  up  their  minds  to  gather  at  the  Winter  Palace  to-morrow, 
at  2  P.M.,  to  lay  their  wants  before  Thee.  If  Thou  wilt  not  stand  before 
them.  Thou  wilt  break  that  spiritual  connection  which  unites  Thee 
with  them.  Their  belief  in  Thee  will  disappear.  The  shed  blood  will 
separate  Thee  from  them.  Do  not  fear  anything.  Stand  to-morrow 
before  the  people  and  accept  our  humblest  petition.  I,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  working  men,  and  my  comrades  guarantee  the  inviolabihty 
of  Thy  person.  Gapon. 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER    GAPON     469 


B 

Letter  of  Gapon  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
dated  Sth  January  1905. 

VouR  Excellency, — ^Working  men  and  St.  Petersburg  inhabitants 
of  various  classes  desire  to  see,  and  they  must  see,  the  Tsar  on  9th  January 
at  2  P.M.  in  the  Place  of  the  Winter  Palace,  in  order  personally  to 
explain  to  him  their  wants  and  the  wants  of  all  the  people.  The  Tsar 
has  nothing  to  apprehend.  I,  as  the  representative  of  the  Union  of 
Russian  Working  Men,  our  co-workers  and  comrades,  and  even  so-called 
revolutionary  groups  of  all  tendencies — we  guarantee  His  inviolability. 
Let  him  as  the  real  Tsax  with  an  open  heart  come  out  to  His  people. 
Let  Him  accept  from  our  hands  the  petition  !  All  this  is  necessary 
for  His  welfare  and  for  that  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  St.  Petersburg 
and  of  the  Fatherland,  otherwise  the  moral  connection  uniting  up 
till  now  the  Russian  Tsar  with  the  Russian  people  may  be  broken. 

Your  great  moral  duty,  both  before  the  Tsar  and  before  all  the 
Russian  people,  is  to  present  immediately  to  the  Tsar  these  lines  as 
well  as  the  Petition  to  which  they  relate. 

Say  to  the  Tsar  that  I,  the  working  men,  and  many  thousands  of 
people  have  made  up  our  minds,  peacefully  and  with  entire  trust, 
but  with  irresistible  firmness,  to  appear  at  the  Palace.  Let  him  in  deeds, 
and  not  in  manifestoes,  prove  his  trust  in  the  people.  Gapon. 

[Revolutionary  Russia,  No.  58,  20th  January  1905.] 


Text  of  Gapon's  Petition  to  the  Tsar,  which  was  intended 
to  be  presented  on  gth  January  1905. 

Sire, — ^We,  working  men  and  inhabitants  of  St,  Petersburg  of 
various  classes,  our  wives  and  our  children  and  our  helpless  old  parents, 
come  to  Thee,  Sire,  to  seek  for  truth  and  defence.  We  have  become 
beggars ;  we  have  been  oppressed  ;  we  are  burdened  by  toil  beyond 
our  powers ;  we  are  scoffed  at ;  we  are  not  recognized  as  human 
beings  ;  we  are  treated  as  slaves  who  must  suffer  their  bitter  fate  and 
who  must  keep  silence.  We  suffered,  but  we  are  pushed  farther  into 
the  den  of  beggary,  lawlessness,  and  ignorance.  We  are  choked  by 
despotism  and  irresponsibility,  and  we  are  breathless.  We  have  no 
more  power.  Sire,  the  limit  of  patience  has  been  reached.  There  has 
arrived  for  us  that  tremendous  moment  when  death  is  better  than 


470     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  continuation  of  intolerable  tortures.  We  have  left  oflE  working, 
and  we  have  declared  to  the  masters  that  we  shall  not  begin  to  work 
until  they  comply  with  our  demands.  We  beg  but  little ;  we  desire 
only  that  without  which  life  is  not  life,  but  hard  labour  and  eternal 
\torture.  The  first  request  which  we  made  was  that  our  masters  should 
discuss  our  needs  with  us  ;  but  this  they  refused,  on  the  ground  that 
no  right  to  make  this  request  is  recognized  by  law.  They  also  declared 
to  be  illegal  our  requests  to  diminish  the  working  hours  to  eight  hours 
daily,  to  agree  with  us  about  the  prices  for  our  work,  to  consider  our 
misunderstandings  with  the  inferior  administration  of  the  mills,  to 
increase  the  wages  for  the  labour  of  women  and  of  general  labourers, 
so  that  the  minimum  daily  wage  should  be  one  ruble  per  day,  to  abolish 
overtime  work,  to  give  us  medical  attention  without  insulting  us,  to 
arrange  the  workshops  so  that  it  might  be  possible  to  work  there,  and 
not  find  in  them  death  from  awful  draughts  and  from  rain  and  snow. 
All  these  requests  appeared  to  be,  in  the  opinion  of  our  masters  and  of 
the  factory  and  mill  administrations,  illegal.  Everyone  of  our  requests 
was  a  crime,  and  the  desire  to  improve  our  condition  was  regarded  by 
them  as  impertinence,  and  as  ofiiensive  to  them. 

Sire,  here  are  many  thousands  of  us,  and  all  are  human  beings 
only  in  appearance.  In  reality  in  us,  as  in  all  Russian  people,  there 
is  not  recognized  any  human  right,  not  even  the  right  of  speaking, 
thinking,  meeting,  discussing  our  needs,  taking  measures  for  the 
improvement  of  our  condition.  We  have  been  enslaved,  and  enslaved 
under  the  auspices  of  Thy  of&cials,  with  their  assistance,  and  with 
their  co-operation.  Everyone  of  us  who  dares  to  raise  a  voice  in 
defence  of  working-class  and  popular  interests  is  thrown  into  jail  or 
is  sent  into  banishment.  For  the  possession  of  good  hearts  and  sensi- 
tive souls  we  are  punished  as  for  crimes.  Even  to  pity  a  beaten  man 
— a.  man  tortured  and  without  rights — means  to  commit  a  heavy  crime. 
All  the  people — ^working  men  as  well  as  peasants — ^are  handed  over  to 
the  discretion  of  the  officials  of  the  Government,  who  are  thieves  of 
the  property  of  the  State — ^robbers  who  not  only  take  no  care  of  the 
interests  of  the  people,  but  who  trample  these  interests  under  their 
feet.  The  Government  officials  have  brought  the  country  to  complete 
destruction,  have  involved  it  in  a  detestable  war,  and  have  further 
and  further  led  it  to  ruin.  We  working  men  have  no  voice  in  the 
expenditure  of  the  enormous  amounts  raised  from  us  in  taxes.  We 
do  not  know  even  where  and  for  what  is  spent  the  money  collected 
from  a  beggared  people.  The  people  are  deprived  of  the  possibility 
of  expressing  their  desires,  and  they  now  demand  that  they  be  allowed 
to  take  part  in  the  introduction  of  taxes  and  in  the  expenditure 
of  them. 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER   GAPON     471 

The  working  men  axe  deprived  of  the  possibility  of  organizing 
themselves  in  unions  for  the  defence  of  their  interests. 

Sire,  is  it  in  accordance  with  divine  law,  by  grace  of  which  Thou^ 
reignest  ?  Is  it  not  better  to  die,  better  for  all  of  us  toiling  people 
of  Russia,  and  to  let  the  capitalist  exploiters  of  the  working  class, 
officials,  "grafters,"  and  robbers  of  the  Russian  people  live  ?  This 
is  before  us,  Sire,  and  this  has  brought  us  to  the  walls  of  Thy  Palace. 
We  are  seeking  here  the  last  salvation.  Do  not  refuse  assistance  to 
Thy  people.  Bring  them  from  the  grave  of  rightlessness,  beggary, 
and  ignorance.  Give  their  destiny  into  their  own  hands.  Cast  away 
from  them  the  intolerable  oppression  of  officials.  Destroy  the  wall 
between  Thyself  and  Thy  people,  and  let  them  rule  the  country  together 
with  Thyself.  Art  Thou  not  placed  there  for  the  happiness  of  Thy 
people  ?  But  this  happiness  the  officials  snatch  from  our  hands.  It 
does  not  come  to  us.  We  get  only  distress  and  humihation.  Look 
without  anger,  attentively  upon  our  requests.  They  are  directed,  not 
to  evil,  but  to  good  for  us  as  well  as  for  Thee.  Sire  !  not  impudence, 
but  consciousness  of  needs,  of  emerging  from  a  situation  intolerable 
for  us  all,  becomes  articulate  in  us. 

Russia  is  too  great.     Its  necessities  are  too  various  and  numerous 
for  officials  alone  to  rule  it.     National  representation  is  indispensable. 
It  is  indispensable  that  people  should  assist  and  should  rule  themselves. 
To  them  only  are  known  their  real  necessities.     Do  not  reject  their 
assistance,  accept  it,  order  immediately  the  convocation  of  representa- 
tives of  the  Russian  land  from  all  ranks,  including  representatives 
from  the  working  men.     Let  there  be  capitalists  as  well  as  working 
men— official  and  priest,  doctor  and  teacher — let  all,  whatever  they 
may  be,  elect  their  representatives.     Let  everyone  be  equal  and  freei 
in  the  right  of  election,  and  for  this  purpose  order  that  the  elections! 
for  the  Constitutional  Assembly  be  carried  on  under  the  condition  of  1 
universal,  equal,  and  secret  voting.     This  is  the  most  capital  of  our/ 
requests.     In  it  and  upon  it  everything  is  based.     This  is  the  principal 
and  only  plaister  for  our  painful  wounds,  without  which  our  wounds 
will  fester  and  will  bring  us  rapidly  near  to  death.     Yet  one  measure 
alone  cannot  heal  our  wounds.     Otiier  measures  are  also  indispensable. 
Directiy  and  openly  as  to  a  Father,  we  speak  to  Thee,  Sire,  about 
them  in  person,  for  all  the  toiling  classes  of  Russia.     The  following 
are  indispensable : 

I.  Measures  against  the  ignorance  and  rightiessness  of  the  Russian 
people: 

I.  The  immediate  release  and  return  of  all  who  have  suffered  for 
f  political  and  reUgious  convictions,  for  strikes,  and  national  peasant 
disorders. 


f 


472     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

2.  The  immediate  declaration  of  freedom  and  of  the  inviolability 
of  the  person— freedom  of  speech  and  press,  freedom  of  meetings,  and 
freedom  of  conscience  in  religion. 

3.  Universal  and  compulsory  elementary  education  of  the  people 
at  the  charge  of  the  State. 

4.  Responsibility  of  the  Ministers  before  the  people  and  guarantee 
that  the  Government  will  be  law-abiding. 

5.  Equality  before  the  law  of  all  without  exception. 

6.  Separation  of  the  Church  from  the  State. 

II.  Measures  against  the  poverty  of  the  people : 

1.  Abolition  of  indirect  taxes  and  the  substitution  of  a  progressive 
income  tax. 

2.  Abolition  of  the  Redemption  Instalments,^  cheap  credit,  and 
gradual  transference  of  the  land  to  the  people. 

3.  The  orders  for  the  military  and  naval  ministries  should  be  ful- 
filled in  Russia,  and  not  abroad. 

4.  The  cessation  of  the  war  by  the  will  of  the  people. 

III.  Measures  against  the  oppression  of  labour : 

1.  Abolition  of  the  factory  inspectorships.^ 

2.  Institution  at  factories  and  mills  of  permanent  committees  of 
elected  workers,  which,  together  with  the  administration  (of  the  fac- 
tories) would  consider  the  complaints  of  individual  workers.  Dis- 
charge of  working  men  should  not  take  place  otherwise  than  by  resolu- 
tion of  this  committee. 

3.  Freedom  of  organization  of  co-operative  societies  of  consumers 
and  of  labour  trade  unions  immediately. 

4.  Eight-hours  working  day  and  regulation  of  overtime  working. 

5.  Freedom  of  the  struggle  of  labour  against  capital  immediately. 
.6.  Normal  wages  immediately. 

7.  Participation  of  working-class  representatives  in  the  working 
out  of  projects  of  law  upon  workmen's  State  insurance  immediately. 

Here,  Sire,  are  our  principal  necessities  with  which  we  come  to 
Thee  !  Only  by  the  satisfaction  of  these  the  release  of  our  native  land 
from  slavery  and  beggary  is  possible ;  only  by  this  means  is  possible 
the  flourishing  of  our  native  land,  and  is  it  possible  for  working  men 
to  organize  themselves  for  the  defence  of  their  interests  against  impudent 
exploitation  of  capitalists  and  of  the  oflScials'  government  which  is 
plundering  and  choking  the  people.  Order  and  take  an  oath  to  comply 
with  these  requests,  and  Thou  wilt  make  Russia  happy  and  famous 
and  Thou  wilt  impress  Thy  name  in  our  hearts  and  in  the  hearts  of  our 

*  The  Redemption  Instalments  were  abolished  3rd  November  1905. 
2  On  the  ground  that  the  factory  inspectors  favoured  the  employers. 


MOVEMENT   OF   FATHER   GAPON     473 

posterity  to  all  eternity.     If  Thou  wilt  not  order  and  wilt  not  answer 
our  prayer — ^we  shall  die  here  on  this  Place  before  Thy  Palace. 

We  have  nowhere  to  go  farther  and  nothing  for  which  to  go.  We 
have  only  two  ways— either  towards  liberty  and  happiness  or  into 
the  grave.  .  .  .  Let  our  life  be  a  sacrifice  for  Russia  which  has  suffered 
to  the  extreme  limit.  We  do  not  regret  this  sacrifice.  We  willingly 
offer  it.^ 


Letter  sent  by  Gapon  to  the  Tsar  after  the  Demonstration  of 
gth  January  1905. 

Letter  to  Nikolas  Romanov,  formerly  Tsar  and  at  present 
soul  destroyer  of  the  Russian  Empire. 

With  j[]ftjvft  |->ft1iftf  in  thee  ^  fa^er  of  thv  people,  I  was  going  peace- 
fully to  thee  with  t'ke  children  of  tnese  very  people.  Thou  must  have 
known,  thou  didst  know,  this.  The  innocent  blood  of  workers,  their 
wives  and  children,  lies  forever  between  thee,  O  soul  destroyer,  and  the 
Russian  people.  Moral  connection  between  thee  and  them  may  never 
be  any  more.  The  mighty  river  during  its  overflowing  thou  art  already 
unable  to  stem  by  any  half  measures,  even  by  a  Zemsky  Sobor  (Popular 
Assembly).  Bombs  and  dynamite,  the  terror  by  individuals  and  by 
masses,  against  thy  breed  and  against  the  robbers  of  rightless  people — 
all  this  must  be  and  shall  absolutely  be.  A  sea  of  blood — ^unexampled — 
will  be  shed.  Because  of  thee,  because  of  thy  whole  family,  Russia 
may  perish.  Once  for  all,  understand  this  and  remember,  better  soon 
with  all  thy  family  abdicate  the  throne  of  Russia  and  give  thyself  up 
to  the  Russian  people  for  trial.  Pity  thy  children  and  the  Russian 
lands,  O  thou  offerer  of  peace  for  other  countries  and  blood  dnmkard 
for  thine  own ! 

Otherwise  let  all  blood  which  has  to  be  shed  fall  upon  thee,  Hang- 
msin,  and  thy  kindred  !  George  Gapon. 

Postscriptum. — Know  that  this  letter  is  the  justifying  document 
of  the  coming  revolutionary  terroristic  occurrences  in  Russia. 

20th  March — 7th  February  1905.  G.  G. 

Supplement  to  Revolutionary  Russia,  No.  59,  loth  February  1905. 
[Printed  in  Geneva.] 

1  Svyatlovsky,  V.  V.,  The  Labour  Movement  in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg, 
1907).  PP-  389-91. 


474     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Open  Letter  to  the  Socialist  Parties  of  Russia, 

The  bloody  January  days  in  St.  Petersburg  and  the  rest  of  Russia 
brought  the  oppressed  working  class  face  to  face  with  the  autocratic 
regime,  the  blood  drunkard  Tsar  at  its  head,  and  the  great  Russian 
Revolution  began.  Everybody  for  whom  national  liberty  is  really 
dear  is  under  the  necessity  of  winning  or  dying.  Conscious  as  I  am 
of  the  importance  of  the  historical  moment  through  which  we  are 
living  under  the  present  situation  of  affairs,  and  being  first  of  all  a 
revolutionist  and  a  man  of  action,  I  summon  all  the  socialist  parties 
of  Russia  to  enter  immediately  into  agreement  among  themselves  and 
to  begin  the  business  of  armed  uprising  against  Tsarism.  All  the 
forces  of  every  party  should  be  mobilized.  The  technical  plan  of 
conflict  should  be  a  common  one  for  all.  Bombs  and  dynamite,  terror 
by  individuals  and  by  masses— everything  which  may  contribute  to 
the  national  uprising.  The  first  purpose  is  the  overwhelming  of  the 
autocracy.  The  provisional  revolutionary  government  immediately 
proclaims  amnesty  for  all  fighters  for  political  and  religious  freedom, 
immediately  arms  the  people,  and  immediately  convokes  a  constituent 
assembly  on  the  basis  of  an  universal,  equal,  secret,  and  direct  electoral 
law.  To  work,  comrades  !  Ahead,  for  the  fight !  Let  us  repeat  the 
cry  of  the  St.  Petersburg  working  men  on  9th  January,  "  Liberty  or 
death  !  "  Every  delay  or  dispute  is  a  crime  against  the  people  whose 
interests  you  are  defending.  Having  given  all  my  powers  for  service 
to  the  people,  from  the  depths  of  whom  I  myself  originated,  having 
irrevocably  connected  my  fate  with  the  struggle  against  the  oppressors 
and  exploiters  of  the  working  class,  I  naturally  with  all  my  heart  and 
all  my  soul  will  be  with  those  who  are  undertaking  the  task  of  the  real 
emancipation  of  the  proletariat  and  of  the  whole  toiling  mass  from 
capitalistic  oppression  and  political  slavery. 

George  Gapon. 

Revolutionary  Russia,  No.  59,  loth  February  1905. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  STRIKE   MOVEMENT   IN   RUSSIA   IN    1905 

General   Sketch 

A  SKETCH  of  the  rise  of  labour  unions  in  Russia  has  already  been 
given,^  and  the  close  connection  between  the  industrial  and  the 
political  movements  has  been  noticed. 

Industrial  strikes  organized  by  temporary  imions  were  by  no 
means  unknown  in  Russia  even  in  the  eighteenth  century ,*  and  when 
continuous  or  permanent  imions  came  to  be  formed,  such  strikes 
increased  in  frequency.  Yet  compared  with  the  industrial  strike 
movement  in  other  coimtries,  the  industrial  strike  movement  in 
Russia  up  till  the  year  1905  was  insignificant.  In  the  decade 
ending  in  the  year  1904,  the  average  number  of  workers  annually 
involved  in  strikes  was  only  43,000,  or  rather  less  than  2.75  per 
cent,  of  the  total  number  of  workers  employed  in  industrial  estab- 
lishments.s  jli^  year  1905  witnessed  not  only  the  greatest  strike 
movement  in  Russia,  but  the  Russian  strike  movement  of  that 
year  was  by  far  the  greatest  in  point  of  numbers  involved,  and  in 
the  proportion  of  these  numbers  to  the  total  number  of  workers 
employed,  of  any  strike  movement  in  modem  times.*  The  motives 
which  induced  these  strikes  were  not  purely  industrial,  as  may  be 
seen  from  the  following  official  analysis : 

1  In  Book  VI,  chap.  v.  »  Cf.  supra,  p.  442  et  sea. 

*  Calculated  from  data  given  by  V.  E.  Varzar  in  Statistics  of  Labour 
Strikes  in  Factories,  6^.,  in  1905  (Report  to  the  Ministry  of  Trade  and  Com- 
merce) (St.  Petersburg,  1908),  diagram  facing  p.  4.  From  this  diagram 
it  appears  that  the  number  given  above  is  about  double  the  similar  average 
for  l^lgium,  about  one-half  that  for  Germany,  and  about  one- third  that  for 
Great  Britain.  See  also  Statistics  of  Labour  Strikes,  S<.,  1 895-1904.  by  same 
author  (St.  Petersburg,  1905).  It  is  to  be  observed  that  these  statistics  do 
not  include  the  numbers  of  strikers  in  the  employment  of  railvrays,  tramwa3rs, 
gasworks,  banks,  wholesale  and  retail  merchants,  or  in  the  emplo3anent  of 
the  Telegraph  Service.     There  were  even  strikes  among  the  police. 

*  Cf.  the  instructive  diagram  in  Varzar,  op.  cit. 

475 


476     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Strikes  in  Russia  in  1905.^ 


Causes  of 
Strikes. 


Disputes  about 
Wages     .    . 
Disputes  about 
hours       of 
labour      .     . 
Grievances 
about  factory 
conditions     . 
Definitive     in- 
dustrial causes 
Political      and 
miscellaneous 
causes  .     .    . 
Unknown 
causes  .    .     . 

Total    .     . 


Numbers  of 

Establishments 

Involved. 


2,679 

1. 317 

193 
4,189 

8,915 
6 


13,110 


Proportion  of 
Establishments  in 

which  Strikes 

Occurred  to  Total 

Number  of 

Establishments. 


Per  Cent. 


93 


Number 
of  Workers 
Involved. 


620,145 

306,269 

92,085 
1,018,499 

1,691,012 
184 


2,709,695 


Proportion  of 
Workers 

Involved  to 
Total  Number 

Employed. 


Per  Cent. 


163.8 


The  following  table  exhibits  the  distribution  of  strikes  through- 
out the  year  1905  : 2 


January    . 

February  . 

March 

April 

May . 

June . 

July  .         .        . 

August 

September 

October    . 

November 

December 

Date  uncertain 


Establishments. 


1,989 

1,034 
225 

454 

1,048 

848 

582 

539 

261 

2,628 

1,327 
2,172 

3 


13,110 


Strikers. 


414,438 
291,210 
72,472 
80,568 
219,990 
142,641 
150,059 

78,343 

36,629 

481,364 

323,549 

418,215 

217 


2,709,695 


1  Compiled  from  data  given  by  Varzar,  op.  cit.,  pp.  44  and  61.    *  Ibid.,  p,  6, 


THE   STRIKE   MOVEMENT  477 

The  diagram  on  page  6oi  exhibits  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  strike 
movement  throughout  the  year.  It  is  clear  that  the  pohtical  fer- 
ment, in  so  far  as  it  was  expressed  by  strikes,  died  down  after  the 
ebulUtion  in  January,  and  that  although,  during  the  summer,  strikes, 
both  from  economical  and  from  political  causes  were  frequent,  not 
until  October  did  the  strike  fever  rise  again  to  boiling-point,  to  abate 
slightly  in  November,  and  to  rise  to  white  heat  during  the  Moscow 
upheaval  in  December. 

The  proportion  of  strikes  induced  by  political  causes  to  those 
induced  by  industrial  causes  was  about  eight  to  five.  The  loss  in, 
working  time  amounted  to  the  enormous  total  of  23,609,387  days.^' 
Practically  every  worker  struck  at  least  once  during  the  year. 

The  strike  epidemic  became  widespread  immediately  after 
"  Bloody  Sunday."  ^  In  January  1905,  throughout  the  Empire, 
more  than  four  hundred  thousand  workers  struck  in  nearly  two 
thousand  estabUshments.  The  regions  principally  and  most 
speedily  affected  were  St.  Petersburg,  the  Baltic  Provinces,  Poland, 
Nijni  Novgorod,  Ekaterinoslav,  and  the  Caucasus.  The  Govern- 
ment became  alarmed,  and  a  committee,  under  Senator  Shidlovsky, 
was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  grievances  of  the  working  men  of 
the  St.  Petersburg  district.  This  committee  began  by  inviting  the 
working  men  to  elect  delegates,  intimating  that  those  who  were 
elected  might  engage  freely  in  "  business  discussions  "  without  fear 
of  punishment.  The  representatives  of  the  working  men  insisted 
upon  further  preUminary  concessions.  These  were  refused,  and  the 
workers  then  declined  to  elect  delegates.  Early  in  March  the  com- 
mittee was  brought  to  an  abrupt  conclusion,  and  some  of  the  work- 
ing-men electors  were  arrested.  At  the  same  moment  the  last 
serious  defeat  sustained  by  the  Russian  arms  took  place  at  Mukden.^ 
The  illusion  of  the  mihtary  impregnability  of  the  autocracy  was 
dispelled  in  Manchuria,  and  the  illusion  of  its  benevolence  was  rudely 
shaken  by  the  recollection  of  "  Bloody  Sunday  "  and  by  the  arrest  of  I 
the  working  men  in  the  early  days  of  March.  The  failure  of  the! 
Government  to  grapple  with  the  industrial  discontent,  together  with 
the  vanishing  of  these  illusions,  acted  as  a  signal  for  the  general  up- 
rising of  the  working  class.*    This  uprising  did  not  take  place  im- 

1  Varzar,  op.  cit.  *  9th  January  1905.  '  loth  March  1905. 

*  These  incidents  are  associated  by  Khrustalov,  the  leader  of  the  working 
men's  Deputies.  See  History  oj  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies, 
(St.  Petersburg,  1910),  p.  47. 


478     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

mediately,  but  it  soon  became  apparent  that  the  revolution  which 
began  in  January  had  entered  upon  a  new  phase. 

The  arrest  of  the  working-men  electors  was  followed  by  a  strike 
by  way  of  protest.  This  strike  was  not  of  long  duration,  and  when 
it  was  over  there  began  a  period  of  external  calm  during  which, 
beneath  the  surface,  there  were  gathered  the  forces  that  in  the 
autumn  of  1905  carried  the  revolution  another  step  forward. 

The  details  which  follow  show  how  inevitable  such  fluctuations 
are.  A  very  prolonged  general  strike  is  an  impossibility.  During 
its  continuance  the  life  of  the  community  affected  by  it  is  arrested, 
and  with  it  even  the  progress  which  has  been  the  design  of  the  strike. 
Apart  from  the  physical  and  mental  strain  which  such  a  condition 
involves,  the  necessities  of  life  must  tend  to  bring  the  strike  to  an 
end,  and  the  more  general  the  strike,  the  sooner  it  must  arrive  at 
this  issue.  Not  long-continued  but  frequently  repeated  strikes 
might  appear  to  be  advisable ;  but  the  frequent  use  of  a  weapon 
blunts  it,  and  for  this  reason  the  industrio-pohtical  strike  became 
too  blunt  for  effective  employment  against  a  still  powerful  Govern- 
ment, and  in  the  presence  of  a  peasantry  whose  self-contained  life 
rendered  it  immune  to  inconveniences  intolerable  to  an  urban 
population.  When  the  supply  of  food,  water,  news,  light,  and 
means  of  communication  are  shut  off  from  dwellers  in  towns,  their 
speedy  capitulation  is  inevitable.  During  the  general  strike  the 
towns,  indeed,  placed  themselves  voluntarily  in  a  state  of  siege.  It 
is  true  that  the  revenue  of  the  Government  was  temporarily  cut  off, 
and  that  it  suffered  a  serious  loss  of  prestige  both  in  Russia  and  out 
of  it ;  but  taken  by  itself,  perhaps  the  major  force  exerted  in  the 
general  strike  spent  itself  in  recoil.^ 

The  significance  of  the  widespread  strike  movement  of  1905, 
spasmodic  as  it  was,  Ues  in  the  fact  which  the  statistics  disclose,  viz. 
that  it  affected  the  mass  of  the  working  people.  "  Up  till  the  9th 
January  there  were  movements  in  the  working  class  ;  from  the 
9th  January  there  began  the  movement  of  the  whole  working  class."  ^ 

One  immediate  result  of  this  general  movement,  by  which  prac- 
tically the  mass  of  the  population  in  the  capitals  and  the  large  in- 

1  Although  the  political  strategy  of  the  Moscow  uprising  in  December 
(cf.  infra,  pp.  563-4)  may  be  viewed  adversely,  it  is  scarcely  open  to  doubt 
that  an  active  revolutionary  movement  may  be  less  injurious  to  the  people, 
whether  it  fails  or  succeeds,  than  a  peaceful  general  strike. 

*  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  48. 


THE   STRIKE    MOVEMENT  479 

dustrial  towns  threw  itself  into  the  revolutionary  struggle,  was  the 
immensely  increased  accessibility  of  the  mass  of  artisans  to  the 
socialist  propaganda.  This  propaganda  had  been  indifferently 
successful.  The  working  men  had  not  embraced  its  doctrines  save 
to  a  slender  extent.  Now  the  whole  situation  was  changed,  and 
the  socialist  parties  found  themselves  called  upon  to  supply  guid- 
ance and  leaders  for  people  who  had  suddenly  experienced  a  kind  of 
Pentecost.  Although  the  parties  as  parties  did  not  sustain  an 
uniform  or  important  r61e  in  the  leadership  of  the  working  class, 
yet  the  working  men's  representatives  were  imdoubtedly  inocu- 
lated with  socialist  ideas,  and  were  in  constant  relations  with  the 
party  leaders.  Probably,  on  account  of  this  fact,  the  working  men's 
deputies  acquired  speedily  after  the  coUapse  of  the  Shidlovsky 
committee  an  extraordinarily  authoritative  influence  over  the  mass 
of  the  working  men.^ 

The  propaganda  of  revolution  thus  became  immensely  more 
active  in  the  spring  of  1905.  Meetings  were  held  in  many  places  in 
St.  Petersburg,  posters  were  displayed  in  the  factories,  socialist 
literature  was  widely  distributed,  reading  and  debating  clubs  were 
formed.  Ideas  wholly  new  to  them  began  to  ferment  in  the  minds 
of  working  men  and  women  of  all  industrial  ranks.  "  Working 
women  from  Hquor  shops  and  from  factories,  women  cloth-pressers, 
working  men  in  very  small  shops,"  ^  of  which  there  are  a  great 
many  in  St.  Petersburg,  as  well  as  the  workmen  in  the  large  indus- 
trial enterprises,  became  saturated  with  the  idea  that  some  kind  of 
popular  government  must  insistently  be  demanded.  At  this  time 
their  chief  watchword  was  "  A  Constituent  Assembly."  ^  "  This 
idea  for  the  first  time  found  its  way  into  the  working  man's  psycho- 
logy." *  "  The  revolution  brings  new  impressions.  In  response  to 
these,  the  social  conscience  boils  as  in  a  kettle,  and  without  delay 
passes  from  one  ideal  to  another ;  yesterday's  unknown  to-day  is 
acknowledged,  and  to-morrow  people  will  be  ready  to  sacrifice  their 
lives  for  it."  ^ 

While  this  fermentation  was  going  on  in  the  minds  of  the  indus- 
trial classes,  the  peasantry  were  in  a  state  of  open  revolt.  Begin- 
ning in  Orlovskaya  gub.,  the  agrarian  movement  passed  rapidly 

»  Cf.  Khnistalov.  History  oj  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies,  p.  48. 
*  Khnistalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  49.  *  Ibid.  *  Ibid. 

'  Vestnik  Evropy,  January  1906,  p.  113. 


48o    ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

through  Kurskaya  and  Chernigovskaya  gub.  Zemlya  e  Vola,  "  Land 
and  freedom,"  proved  to  be  a  more  exciting  watchword  than 
"  Constituent  Assembly."  Everywhere  there  were  destruction  of 
property  and  seizure  of  estates.^ 

Legislation  upon  Strikes. — During  the  reign  of  Alexander  II, 
and  up  till  1905,  when  the  law  was  suspended  by  special  circular, 
strikes  having  for  their  object  the  increase  of  wages  or  the  change  of 
conditions  before  the  expiry  of  contracts  between  workmen  and  their 
employers,  were  forbidden  on  pain  of  imprisonment  for  from  four 
to  eight  months.  Strikers  who  employed  violence  or  threats  to 
force  non-strikers  to  join  them  were  liable  to  double  the  imprison- 
ment mentioned.  On  29th  November  1905  an  ordinance  was  issued 
prohibiting  strikes  of  employees  on  railways,  whether  in  private 
hands  or  in  the  hands  of  the  State,  pubHc  telephone  services,  and 
in  general  on  all  undertakings  the  cessation  of  whose  activities  might 
endanger  the  safety  of  the  State  and  of  the  public,  the  penalty  for 
infringement  of  the  law  being  from  four  to  sixteen  months'  im- 
prisonment. Those  who  incite  others  to  strike  were  liable  to  from 
sixteen  months'  to  four  years'  imprisonment  in  a  fortress,  and  to 
deprivation  of  some  civil  rights. 

On  13th  April  1906  strikes  of  agricultural  labourers  were  pro- 
hibited by  law. 

Up  till  the  present  time  the  operation  of  these  laws  has  been 
confined  to  the  leaders  of  strike  movements,  and  even  in  these 
cases  the  full  penalty  has  not  usually  been  imposed.  In  some  cases 
offenders  have  been  simply  fined  ;  in  others  they  have  been  sent  to 
prison  for  three  months  without  hard  labour.  Owing,  however,  to 
the  courts  being  blocked  with  cases  of  all  kinds,  the  sentences  have 
generally  been  imposed  by  administrative  order.  2 

1  An  account  of  these  movements  is  given  in  Book  III. 

*  At  Lodz  (Poland)  a  singular  instance  of  arbitrary  rule  was  afforded  by 
the  General  Governor  of  Petrokovskaya  gub.,  who  announced  in  1908  that 
manufacturers  in  whose  establishments  strikes  occurred  should  be  fined*,; 
Russ,  May  1908. 


^i 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   GENERAL  STRIKE   OF   OCTOBER    1905 

Towards  the  end  of  September  1905  the  strike  movement  had 
somewhat  abated,  but  labour  struggles  were  still  in  progress  in 
Moscow,  in  Lodz,  and  in  other  industrial  towns.  Early  in  October 
the  period  of  relative  calm  came  to  an  end,  and  the  first  rumblings  of 
the  new  storm  began.  On  the  5th  October  newspaper  despatches 
from  Moscow  reported,  "  The  strike  is  over  ;  complete  quietness 
reigns  in  the  streets."  On  the  7th  October  the  engine-drivers  on 
the  Moscow- Kazan  Railway  struck,  and  the  drivers  of  goods  trains 
followed.  On  the  8th  October  the  movement  of  all  trains  ceased 
on  the  Moscow-Archangel,  on  the  Moscow-Kursk,  on  the  Moscow- 
Nijni-Novgorod,  and  on  the  Moscow-Riazan  lines.  On  the  9th 
October  the  employees  on  the  Moscow- Kiev- Voronej  Railway  struck. 
On  the  loth  the  strike  extended  southward  and  eastward  over  the 
whole  network  of  railways,  and  in  the  north  on  the  12th  St.  Peters- 
burg was  isolated,  excepting  for  the  Finnish  Railway.  On  the 
i6th  St.  Petersburg  was  totally  isolated.  On  the  14th  the  Trans- 
Caucasian  Railways  joined  the  strike,  as  well  as  the  Middle  Asiatic 
and  Siberian  Railways.^  In  ten  days  the  strike  involved  about 
26,000  miles  of  line  and  750,000  employees.^  That  this  series  of 
strikes  was  produced  by  nervous  tension  from  long-continued  ex- 
pectation is  evident  from  the  rapidity  with  which  it  spread  from 
centre  to  centre  ;  but  this  is  also  shown  from  the  circumstances 
which  attended  its  initiation.  On  the  20th  September  the  pension 
committee  of  the  railway  imion  met  in  St.  Petersburg,  having  been 
called  thither  by  the  Minister  of  Railways  in  order  to  discuss  the 
grievances  of  the  railway  employees.     Although  this  committee 

1  Khrustalov,  op.  cit..  p.   57.     Cf.  Mievsky  in  The  Social  Movement  in 
Russia  in  the  Beginning  oj  the  Twentieth  Century  (St.  Petersburg,  1910),  voL  ii. 

P-  79- 

*  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  57. 

VOL.  II  48Z  2  R 


482     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

was  primarily  designed  for  the  discussion  of  the  scale  of  pensions 
for  railway  servants,  it  appeared  that  the  Minister  (Prince  Khilkov) 
thought  that  he  might  use  it  as  a  lightning-conductor  to  draw  off 
the  irritation  of  the  men.^  The  pension  committee  of  the  railway 
union,  under  the  influence  of  a  stream  of  telegrams  from  its  con- 
stituents, formulated  a  series  of  demands,  including  a  Constituent 
Assembly,  political  freedom,  an  eight  hours'  working  day,  complete 
amnesty  for  political  offenders,  autonomy  of  nationalities  and  of 
institutions,  and  the  formation  of  a  militia. 

The  bold  way  in  which  the  pension  committee  advocated  its 
sweeping  programme  induced  among  its  constituents  the  fear  that 
the  members  of  it  might  be  arrested,  and  on  the  7th  October  a 
rumour  obtained  circulation  in  Moscow  that  they  had  actually  been 
put  in  prison.  Although  the  members  of  the  committee  themselves 
telephoned  to  Moscow  that  the  rumour  was  without  foundation, 
"'  the  lower  layers  of  the  employees  of  the  Moscow-Kazan  Railway 
broke  the  dam  of  expectation  "  2  and  declared  a  strike,  in  spite  of 
the  efforts  of  the  committee  to  prevent  them  from  doing  so.  It 
would  appear  that  the  committee  thought  that  the  fear  of  a  railway 
strike  would  be  more  potent  than  the  fact  of  it,  and  that  the  threat 
of  a  strike  should  be  used  as  a  means  of  extorting  concessions.^ 

But  the  strike  began,  and  its  rapid  extension  proved  that  the 
Moscow  engine-drivers  had  seized  the  psychological  moment,  al- 
though, so  far  as  the  promotion  of  a  general  strike  was  concerned, 
they  did  so  rather  by  accident  than  design.  On  technical  grounds 
the  moment  was  not  ill  chosen.  The  movement  of  grain  from  the 
great  grain-growing  regions  of  Eastern  and  Southern  Russia  was 
nearing  its  height.  Vessels  were  waiting  in  the  harbours  of  Odessa, 
Nikolaev,  and  Rostov  for  cargoes  for  England,  Germany,  and 
Holland. 

The  railway  has  entered  so  fully  into  the  structure  of  life  in 

1  After  the  railway  strikes  of  February  and  March  the  Minister  had 
promised  certain  improvements,  which  had  not  been  carried  into  effect. 
Khrustalov,  op.  cit.^  p.  56. 

2  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  57. 

'  The  majority  of  the  committee  consisted  of  higher  officials  of  the  railways 
and  the  minority  of  working  men.  The  committee  was  elected  by  double 
ballot.  For  each  12,000  electors  there  was  one  delegate.  The  delegates 
were  drawn  from  every  part  of  Russia,  and  the  reports  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  committee  were  transmitted  daily  to  each  voting  centre,  as  though  by  an 
■**  enormous  megaphone."     Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  56. 


i 


FIRST   GENERAL   STRIKE  483 

urban  communities  that  the  sudden  cessation  of  its  functions  is 
like  the  sudden  stoppage  of  the  circulation  in  an  organic  body. 
Either  as  inevitable  result,  or  by  way  of  sympathetic  action,  steel- 
works, factories,  and  industrial  estabUshments  everywhere  closed 
their  doors. 

On  the  loth  October  the  electric  railways  in  Moscow,  Kharkov, 
and  Reval  ceased  to  work.  On  the  12th  October,  at  St.  Petersburg, 
work  ceased  in  many  of  the  great  industrial  establishments  along 
the  Schlusselburg  Road — in  the  Aleksandrovsky  Locomotive  Works, 
the  Nevsky  Shipbuilding  Yard,  the  Atlas,  the  Imperial  Card  Factory, 
and  in  the  factories  and  workshops  of  Pah,  Maxwell,  Aristov,  and 
Newmann.  Although  the  Government  had  stopped  the  traffic  by 
the  Neva  ferries,  in  order  to  isolate  the  north  bank  of  the  river,  signals 
were  made  between  the  two  banks,  and  work  was  discontinued  at 
Thornton's  and  at  Vargunin's.  On  the  13th  October  there  were 
further  accessions  to  the  ranks  of  the  strikers  from  the  Putilovsky 
Ironworks,  the  New  Admiralty  Works,  and  many  others.  On  the 
afternoon  of  this  day  movement  on  the  horse-power  railways,  with 
one  exception,  ceased,  as  well  as  on  the  electric  railways,  and  in  the 
electric-lighting  stations.  On  the  13th  also  the  inferior  function- 
aries of  the  railways,  of  the  St.  Petersburg  provincial  Zemstvo  ofi&ces, 
and  of  the  office  of  the  Department  of  Ways  and  Communications, 
and  the  employees  of  banks,  of  the  law  courts,  and  even  the  clerks 
in  the  central  office  of  the  Union  of  Unions,  ceased  to  work ;  and 
scholars  of  gymnasium  and  real  schule  ceased  attendance. 

On  the  nth  October  all  trade  and  industry  ceased  in  Smolensk, 
Kozlov,  Ekaterinoslav,  Minsk,  and  Lodz ;  and  on  the  12th  at 
Kursk,  Belgorod,  Poltava,  Samara,  and  Saratov.  On  the  nth 
October  a  St.  Petersburg  agency  received  the  following  despatch 
from  Ekaterinoslav  :  "  The  city  is  in  darkness,  the  shops  are 
closed,  the  streets  are  empty.  Patrols  of  soldiers  pass  occasionally. 
The  railway  station  is  closed.  Some  of  the  telegraph  wires  are 
injured."  ^  Here  also  six  barricades  were  built,  and  nine  persons 
were  killed  in  the  streets.^  At  Kharkov,  barricades  were  built, 
red  flags  made  their  appearance,  and  fourteen  persons  were  killed.' 
Banks  and  municipal  and  Government  ofi&ces  closed  their  doors. 

^  Nasha  Jizn,  No.  307.  quoted  by  Khmstalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  57. 
»  Mievsky,  op.  cit.,  ii.  p.  81.  *  Ibid.,  p.  82. 


484     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

At  Kharkov,  also,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  telegraph 
service  was  suspended,  because  the  telegraph  clerks  joined  the 
strikers.^  On  the  13th  October  the  telegraph  clerks  struck  at 
Chelyabinsk  and  at  Irkutsk,  on  the  14th  at  Moscow,  and  on  the 
15th  at  St.  Petersburg.  The  whole  telegraph  system  of  the  country, 
as  well  as  the  postal  system,  was  paralyzed;  and  the  telephone 
Service  was  impeded,  although  it  was  not  wholly  suspended.  There 
Jfceased  to  be  any  certain  means  of  communication.  Even  the 
wireless  telegraph  installation  between  the  Imperial  Palace  at 
Tsarskoe  Selo  and  St.  Petersburg  was  inactive.^  On  the  nth 
October  a  part  of  Moscow  was  without  water,  because  the  water- 
works were  damaged  and  repairs  were  impossible.  There  was  no 
milk  throughout  the  city,  and  there  was  no  delivery  of  letters,  be- 
cause no  trains  had  arrived.  The  price  of  beef  advanced  seriously.^ 
I  Immense  meetings  of  strikers  and  of  the  public  took  place  in 
piany  cities,  and  collisions  occurred  between  the  people  and  the 
itroops.  On  the  14th  October  the  strike  began  at  Riga.  The 
employees  at  the  electric-lighting  stations  struck,  and  on  that  night 
the  city  was  in  darkness.  Crowds  of  strikers  filled  the  streets. 
They  broke  into  shops  where  arms  were  sold,  and  into  the  Govern- 
ment liquor  shops.  Encounters  between  the  crowds  and  the 
soldiers  continued  throughout  the  night.  The  demands  of  the 
strikers  at  Riga  were  of  an  exclusively  political  character.  They 
involved  the  liberation  of  political  prisoners  and  the  removal  of 
the  soldiers  from  the  streets.  The  civic  administration  met  and 
decided  to  support  the  demand  that  political  prisoners  be  liberated 
forthwith.  The  Governor  of  Estland  (Lopoukhin)  was  forced  into 
submission,  and  on  the  following  day  (15th  October)  the  pohtical 
prisoners  were  set  free.  The  civic  administration  gave  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  working  men  750  rubles  per  day  for  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  guard  and  the  maintenance  of  order.^  At  Riga  on  the 
1 6th  a  collision  took  place  between  the  crowds  and  the  troops,  and 
sixty  persons  were  killed.^  Even  children  wefe  drawn  into  the 
uprising.  In  Odessa,  for  instance,  on  the  14th  October,  a  demon- 
strative band  of  schoolboys  was  beaten  by  the  police.  Immediately 
afterwards  a  crowd  of  a  thousand  children  held  a  political  meeting 


'  Khnistalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  58. 


2  Ibid.,  op.  cit.,  p.  59. 


3  Ihid.,  op.  cit.,  p.  58.  *  Mievsky,  op.  cit.,  ii.  p.  83.  *  Ibid. 


FIRST   GENERAL   STRIKE  485 

at  which  revolutionary  speeches  were  made  by  boys  of  fourteen 
years  of  age>  Nor  was  the  movement  confined  to  the  working 
class.  The  unions  of  professional  men  everywhere  passed  resolu- 
tions of  a  character  similar  to  those  passed  at  the  working  men's 
meetings,  demanding  a  representative  assembly  and  the  release 
of  pohtical  prisoners.  On  the  14th  October,  at  St.  Petersburg, 
a  meeting  was  held  in  the  University  attended  by  eight  hundred 
civil  servants,  guarded  by  an  organized  group  of  students.  At  this 
meeting  a  resolution  was  passed  demanding  a  representative 
assembly  with  full  powers,  to  be  elected  by  equal,  direct,  and  secret 
vote.  The  financiers  and  manufacturers  whose  business  was  para- 
lyzed by  the  general  strike  joined  in  reproaching  the  Government, 
and  protested  against  the  use  of  troops,  excepting  in  extreme 
cases  in  which  waterworks,  hght,  &c.,  were  interfered  with  violently 
by  strikers.2 

The  arrest  of  the  movement  of  goods  in  the  interior  of  the 
country  reacted  upon  its  foreign  trade.  Grain  for  export  was 
arrested  in  transport ;  imports  intended  for  the  interior  remained 
in  the  ships  or  on  the  wharves  at  the  ports.  The  disorganization 
of  the  postal  service  even  delayed  the  delivery  of  goods  already 
shipped.  Cargoes  of  grain  sent  from  St.  Petersburg,  Libau,  and 
Windawa  remained  imloaded  in  the  ports  of  London,  Hull,  Ham- 
burg, and  Rotterdam,  because  the  shipping  documents  could  not 
be  forwarded  to  the  consignees.  The  expenses  attending  these 
delays  were  enormous.  The  exporters  appealed  to  the  Govern- 
ment ;  but  the  Government  was  powerless.  On  the  nth  October 
the  foreign  exchange  houses  and  the  banks  were  in  a  state  of  panic. 
No  transactions  took  place  in  St.  Petersburg  Bourse  on  that  day 
because  there  were  neither  buyers  nor  sellers.^  The  Committee 
of  the  St.  Petersburg  Bourse  and  the  leading  bankers  appealed 
to  the  Government  to  extend  the  term  of  obligations.  The  Moscow 
factory  owners  sent  a  memorandum  to  the  General  Governor  of 
Moscow  to  the  effect  that  the  movement  was  really  a  social  revolu- 
tion which  they  were  powerless  to  struggle  against.  The  president 
of  the  beef  market  in  St.  Petersburg  declared  before  the  Duma 
of  that  city  on  the  12th  October  :    "  We  are  now  just  the  same 

*  Mievsky,  op.  cit.,  ii.  p.  83. 

*  In  Moscxjw,  e.g.     Mievsky,  op.  cit.,  ii.  p.  84. 
'  Rt4ss.,  No.  246,  1905. 


486     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

as  in  Port  Arthur.  .  .  .  The  working  men  appear  in  the  beef 
markets  and  say  *  sell  us  beef  as  cheaply  as  before,  otherwise 
to-morrow  we  will  take  it  ourselves '  ;  and  they  will  take  it." 
The  answer  of  the  Duma  to  this  appeal  was  a  resolution  caUing 
upon  the  Government  to  make  concessions.^  The  Committee  of 
the  Moscow  Grain  Trade  warned  the  Government  that  the  impossi- 
bility of  moving  grain  meant  famine  in  the  cities  within  a  short 
time.  Perishable  goods  arrested  in  transit  rotted  in  the  railway 
wagons  and  in  the  yards  and  stations  of  the  railways.  Credit 
was  at  an  end.  The  Central  Government  was  cut  off  from  the 
provincial  governments  ;  the  Ministers  even  iound  it  difficult  to 
maintain  communications  with  their  Imperial  master.  Even 
funerals  were  impeded.  The  strike  of  the  engine  drivers  of  the 
Moscow-Kazan  Railway  had  become  a  general  poUtical  strike 
throughout  industrial  Russia.  Although,  as  frequently  has  hap- 
pened in  important  strike  movements,  the  actual  outbreak  of  the 
strike  of  October  was  occasioned  by  an  accidental  and  unfounded 
rumour,  the  materials  for  a  serious  conflagration  were  ready  for 
the  spark  which  was  to  set  them  ablaze.  The  passing  of  the  rail- 
way strike  into  a  general  political  strike  was  no  accident ;  this 
contingency  had  already  been  widely  discussed,  and  the  inevita- 
bihty  of  a  widespread  poUtical  strike  had  been  recognized. 
Nothing  but  a  complete  capitulation  by  the  Government  at  an 
early  stage  could  have  prevented  it.  Yet  it  occurred  without 
immediate  premeditation.  It  was  not  organized  by  any  central 
body  of  working  men  or  of  revolutionists.  It  was  the  product,  as 
it  were,  of  spontaneous  combustion.  It  lasted  for  only  nine  days, 
but  the  political  effect  of  it  was  enormous.  When  the  general 
strike  was  actually  in  being,  as  it  became  between  the  loth  and 
the  13th  October,  all  was  chaos.  The  general  strike  had  been 
brought  about  partly  by  innumerable  large  and  small  striking 
groups  and  partly  by  the  inevitable  cessation  of  work  of  comple- 
mentary industries  and  services.  If  the  general  strike  were  to  have 
any  definite  result,  there  must  be  some  definite  guidance.  The 
working  men  fell  back  after  all  upon  aoithority.  "  Authority  as 
constituted  by  law  "  having  been  reduced  to  inaction  by  the  mere 
cessation  of  the  exercise  of  their  functions  by  its  servants,  a  new 
authority  was  conceived  to  be  necessary.    Thus  out  of  the  chaos 

^  Mievsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  85. 


« 


FIRST   GENERAL   STRIKE  487 

there  rose  a  quaint  species  of  provisional  government,  '*  The  Council 
of  Working  Men's  Deputies."  For  a  short  time  this  singular  body 
was  the  real  government  of  Russia,  issuing  its  decrees,  permitting 
and  prohibiting,  commanding  and  being  obeyed,  performing  the 
functions  of  sovereignty. 

Remarking  upon  all  these  occurrences,  Menshikov,  one  of  the 
writers  of  the  Novoe  Vremya  of  St.  Petersburg,  by  no  means  pre- 
disposed to  such  a  view,  said,  "  If  this  is  not  a  revolution,  I  should 
hke  to  know  by  what  name  to  call  it."  ^ 

With  the  discontinuance  of  work  in  the  factories  and  work- 
shops, there  arose  the  need  of  organization  of  the  striking  masses 
and  of  "  calling  off  "  those  who  had  not  yet  ceased  to  work.  At  a 
meeting  held  in  the  Technological  Institute  on  the  12th  October,  it 
was  decided  to  form  a  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies.  These 
deputies  were  to  be  elected  by  the  working  men,  and  a  number 
were  elected  on  the  13th.  On  the  same  day  the  first  meeting  of 
the  Council  took  place,  also  in  this  institute.  On  this  day,  also, 
"  the  St.  Petersburg  group  of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic 
Working  Men's  Party  instructed  its  agitators  to  obtain  election  to 
the  council  "  *  On  the  night  of  the  13th  the  newly  formed  nucleus 
of  the  Council  issued  a  manifesto :  "  The  Russian  general  strike 
has  begun.  The  working  class  urgently  demands  a  constituent 
assembly  and  universal  suffrage.  These  have  been  denied,  and  it 
now  has  recourse  to  the  last  forcible  means — a  universal  working- 
class  movement  and  a  general  strike.  Before  the  class-conscious 
power  and  soUdarity  of  the  proletariat,  the  blind  strength  of  the 
autocracy  is  shaken.  The  president  of  the  Committee  of  Ministers, 
Count  Witte,  openly  acknowledged  before  the  railway  deputies 
that  the  Government  might  fall.*  .  .  .  One  more  attack,  and  there 
fall  from  the  people  the  chains  of  long-continued  slavery.  But 
for  this  attack  the  working  class  must  unite  strongly  ...  as  one 
organized  power.  It  is  not  permissible  that  strikes  in  separate 
factories  and  workshops  should  begin  and  discontinue,  therefore 
we  have  decided  to  unite  the  leadership  of  the  movement  in  the 

»  Quoted  by  Khrustalov,  op.  cit..  p.  58.  "  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  61. 

'  What  Count  Witte  appears  to  have  said  on  this  occasion  was :  "  Re- 
member under  such  conditions,  the  Government  can  fall  ;  but  you  will  destroy 
all  the  best  forces  of  the  nation.  In  this  way  you  will  play  into  the  hands 
of  the  very  bourgeoisie  against  whom  you  are  struggling."  Quoted  by 
Khrustalov.  op.  cit.,  p.  59. 


488     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

hands  of  a  general  working  men's  committee.  We  invite  every 
workshop  and  every  factory  and  trade  to  elect  deputies,  one  for 
each  500  men.  .  .  .  This  committee  having  united  our  movement, 
will  give  to  it  organization,  unity,  and  strength.  It  will  appear 
as  the  representative  of  the  needs  of  the  St.  Petersburg  working 
men  before  the  rest  of  society.  It  will  define  what  we  should  do 
during  the  strike.  It  will  declare  when  it  should  be  discontinued. 
...  In  the  next  few  days  decisive  events  will  take  place  in  Russia. 
Upon  these  events  will  depend  for  years  the  fate  of  the  working 
class.  We  should  meet  these  events  in  complete  readiness,  and  in 
full  consciousness,  united  by  our  general  working  men's  committee 
under  the  glorious  red  flag  of  the  proletariat  of  all  countries."  ^ 

This  manifesto,  which  is  evidently  inspired  by  social  democratic 
ideas,  and  which  is  couched  in  social  democratic  phraseology,  was 
widely  circulated  on  the  14th  October.^  Khrustalov,  the  president 
of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies,  says  that  the  majority 
of  the  working  men  who  joined  the  strike  up  till  the  13th  October 
"  did  not  realize  its  political  character.  The  development  of  the 
political  demands  was  left  to  the  Council."  ^  Some  of  the  deputies, 
however,  were  sent  to  the  Council  with  explicit  instructions  to 
make  political  as  well  as  economical  demands.  One  group  of 
deputies,  for  example,  was  instructed  to  demand  :  "  (i)  freedom  of 
speech  and  of  the  press,  freedom  of  union  and  of  meeting,  freedom 
to  strike,  safety  of  person  and  home ;  (2)  complete  amnesty  for 
political  offenders  ;  (3)  eight  hours'  working  day."  *  Another  group 
demanded  :  "  (i)  Eight  hours'  working  day ;  (2)  creation  of  city 
militia  ;  and  (3)  a  constituent  assembly  for  the  estabUshment  of 
a  democratic  republic."  ®  The  working  men  of  the  printing  busi- 
ness sent  their  deputies  with  the  resolution  "  That  the  general 
political  strike  announced  by  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Work- 

1  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  62. 

2  Khrustalov  says  that  the  Manifesto  was  composed  by  the  St.  Peters- 
burg group  {i.e.  of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's  Party). 
It  was  published  in  the  first  issue  of  the  Bulletin  of  the  Council  of  the  Working 
Men's  Deputies.  The  first  meeting  of  the  Council  of  the  Working  Men's 
Deputies  was  attended  exclusively  by  "  official  representatives  "  of  the 
Russian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's  Party  (St.  Petersburg  group). 
"  This  group  was  the  nurse  of  the  forthcoming  council."  Khrustalov,  op, 
cit.,  p.  72. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  62. 

*  The  Working  men  of  Gesler's.     Ibid.,  p.  63. 

'  The  General  Assembly  of  the  Council  of  Salesmen.     Ibid. 


FIRST    GENERAL    STRIKE  489 

ing  Men's  Party  appears  to  be  the  first  step  from  which  the  working 
class  will  go  farther  along  the  road  of  the  decisive  struggle  with 
the  autocracy  of  the  Tsar.  Realizing  the  inadequacy  of  a  merely 
pacific  struggle — that  is,  merely  the  discontinuance  of  work — we 
decide  to  form  a  working-class  army — that  is,  to  organize  immedi- 
ately miUtary  drujini}  These  militant  groups  should  proceed  to 
arm  the  rest  of  the  working  masses,  even  by  means  of  pillage  of 
armories,  and  by  taking  arms  from  the  police  and  the  mihtary 
where  this  is  possible.  Viva  the  Constituent  Assembly  !  Viva  the 
Democratic  Repubhc  !  Viva  the  Great  Russian  Revolution  !  "  ^  jhe 
working  men  of  the  electrical  stations  and  water  works  also  de- 
manded a  constituent  assembly  on  the  basis  of  a  universal,  equal, 
direct,  and  secret  vote,  and  a  democratic  republic,  and  concluded, 
**  we  declare  before  the  whole  working  class  our  readiness  with  arms 
in  our  hands  to  struggle  for  complete  popular  emancipation."  ^ 

One  deputy  from  an  engineering  establishment,  whose  owner 
was  not  a  Russian,  put  vividly  what  was,  at  all  events,  in  his  own 
mind.     Khrustalov  remarks  upon  it  as  typical : 

"  We  cannot  continue  to  Uve  longer  in  such  a  way.  Remember- 
ing all  our  struggle  since  1884,  all  the  strikes  of  1885, 1888,  and  1896,* 
and  the  endless  struggle  during  1905,  all  the  working  men  of  our 
factory  felt  in  their  bones  that  our  position  was  deteriorating  day 
by  day.  We  have  no  other  issue  than  to  take  into  our  hands  a 
stick  and  to  crush  all  that  prevents  us  from  living.  Our  struggle 
for  Ufe  has  been  impeded  by  the  autocracy.  The  employers' 
oppression  is  multipUed  ten  times  by  the  double-headed  eagle. 
Having  carried  all  on  our  humps  {sic),  for  the  first  time  we  have 
learned  that  it  is  necessary  to  wipe  out  the  autocracy."  ^ 

These  and  similar  declarations  show  that  the  one  point  which 
imited  the  working  men  who  took  part  in  the  strike  and  who 
elected  the  deputies  to  the  council  was  the  single  negative  point 
that  the  autocracy  should  be  abohshed.  The  positive  demands 
were  varied,  and  for  the  most  part  were  left  wholly  to  the  discretion 
of  the  Council.* 

The  first  act  of  the  Coimcil  was  the  sending  of  a  deputation  to 

»  Cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  20,  and  infra,  p.  503. 

«  Khrustalov.  op.  cit.,  p.  63.  >  Ibid.,  p.  64. 

*  These  dates  apply  to  the  factory  in  question. 

»  Khrustalov,  loc.  cit.,  p.  65.  •  Cf.  Khrustalov,  loc.  cit. 


490     ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

the  St.  Petersburg  City  Duma  (or  Council).  The  deputation  de- 
manded that  the  Duma  take  immediate  measures  to  support  the 
striking  workers,  to  give  the  use  of  city  property  for  meetings  of 
working  men,  to  discontinue  the  use  of  city  property  for  poHce 
purposes,  and  to  give  money  to  the  Council  of  Working  Men's 
Deputies  for  the  purchase  of  arms.  The  deputation  from  the  Council 
was  reinforced  by  elected  representatives  of  the  Social  Democratic 
Party,  by  those  of  the  Union  of  Unions,  by  those  of  the  Council  of 
the  Professors  of  the  Technological  Institute,  and  by  those  of  the 
students  of  the  same  institute.  The  Duma  received  the  deputa- 
tion on  the  i6th.  The  city  buildings  were  occupied  by  poUce  and 
by  infantry,  but  no  arrests  were  made.  The  Duma  deferred  its 
answer,  and  afterwards  decided  to  refuse  all  the  demands. 

The  speech  of  one  of  the  deputies  is  instructive.  "  We  come 
to  you  in  order  to  learn  with  whom  you  are  :  with  the  people 
against  Asiatism  or  with  absolutism  against  freedom.  We  did  not 
come  to  ask  you  to  accept  our  militant  watchwords,  or  to  struggle 
side  by  side  with  us.  We  know  very  well  that  owing  to  your  social 
position  you  will  never  struggle  under  our  watchwords.  .  .  .  The 
change  which  is  taking  place  in  Russia  is  a  bourgeois  change  ;  it 
is  also  in  the  interests  of  the  bourgeoisie.  It  is  to  your  interest 
that  it  should  be  soon  over,  and  if  you  want  to  be  to  any  extent 
far-sighted,  if  you  really  understand  the  interest  of  your  class, 
you  should  with  all  your  power  assist  the  people  in  the  conquest 
of  absolutism.  .  .  .  We  want  places  for  our  meetings — open  our 
city  buildings.  We  want  means  for  the  continuance  of  the  strike — 
assign  the  means  of  the  city  for  this  and  not  for  the  support  of  the 
gens  d'armerie.  We  want  arms  for  taking  and  keeping  freedom-— 
assign  means  for  the  organization  of  a  proletariat  militia."  ^ 

The  Russian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's  Party  had  taken 
the  leading  part  in  the  organization  of  the  Council,  and  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  Menshiviki  or  minority  faction  of  that  party  had 
presided  at  its  earlier  sessions.  At  the  third  session  of  the  Council 
held  on  15th  October,  the  representatives  of  the  Bolshiviki  or 
majority  faction  of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's 
Party  proposed  to  recognise  the  revolutionary  parties  by  admitting 
to  it  specially  elected  deputies — three  from  each  of  the  factions 
of  the  R.S.D.W.P.  and  three  from  the  S.R.P.  or  Socialist  Revolu- 
1  Khnistalov,  op.  cit.,  pp.  70,  71. 


FIRST    GENERAL   STRIKE  491 

tionary  Party.  ^  There  were,  at  this  time,  twenty-six  deputies 
representing  ninety-six  industrial  estabHshments  and  five  trade 
unions.  Of  these,  four  out  of  fifteen  deputies  from  the  union  of 
printing  trades  and  five  out  of  eleven  deputies  from  the  union  of 
salesmen,  two  watch-makers,  and  many  of  the  deputies  from  other 
trades,  the  total  number  being  unstated,  were  members  of  the 
R.S.D.W.P.  ;  while  a  smaller  number  were  members  of  the  S.R.F.^ 
Thus  nearly  all  the  deputies  of  the  Council  on  the  15th  October 
belonged  to  one  or  other  of  the  revolutionary  parties.  On  this 
date  the  Council  decided  to  send  some  of  its  deputies  to  "  call  off  " 
non-strikers,  to  visit  the  employers  of  non-striking  workshops,  and 
to  threaten  both  workmen  and  employers  with  "  violence  "  and 
"  plunder  "  of  workshops  unless  work  was  immediately  suspended.^ 
Khrustalov  says  that  the  mere  appearance  of  bodies  of  strikers 
at  the  gates  of  the  works  was  sufficient,  and  that  there  was  no 
need  for  violence.*  It  was  otherwise  with  the  retail  shops,  especially 
those  in  which  food  was  sold.  On  the  13th  many  were  closed  by 
persuasion.  On  the  14th  it  was  difficult  to  close  them  even  by 
force.  The  Council  had  ordered  provision  shops  to  be  closed  except- 
ing during  the  hours  of  8  and  11  in  the  morning  and  on  holidays 
between  i  and  3  in  the  afternoon.  But  the  number  of  striking 
salesmen  was  not  great,  and  the  proprietors  found  themselves 
between  two  fires.  They  were  threatened  with  pillage  by  the 
Council  if  they  opened  their  shops,  and  they  were  threatened  with 
banishment  by  the  Chief  of  Police  (M.  Trepov)  if  they  closed  them. 
The  Council  issued  a  manifesto  to  the  shopkeepers,  telling  them, 
"  All  Russia  is  on  strike.  The  people  are  emancipating  themselves. 
Masters,  upon  you  the  autocratic  organization  has  laid  its  heavy 
hand.  You  are  pillaged  by  the  poUce,  ruined  by  unjust  law-courts, 
skinned  (sic)  by  the  higher  officials.  Masters  !  if  you  want  a  better 
life,  if  you  want  to  cease  being  slaves  and  to  become  people  and 
citizens,  you  should  join  the  general  Russian  strike.  It  is  better 
to  endure  for  a  short  while  than  to  suffer  oppression  and  humilia- 
tion for  a  Ufetime.  ...  If  you  will  not  fulfil  this  demand,  your 
stores  will  be  broken,  your  machines  will  be  destroyed."  ^ 

1  These  parties  will  be  referred  to  henceforward  as  the  R.S.D.W.P.  and 
the  S.R.P. 

*  Cf.  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  72. 

*  Khrustalov  quoting  text  of  decision  of  Council,  op.  cit.,  p.  72. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  73.  '  ^^*d' 


492     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

This  appeal  was  not  generally  effective,  nor  even  generally- 
circulated  ;  ^  but  in  the  working-class  quarters  the  shops  were  all 
closed.  Cossacks  sent  to  the  Putilovsky  works  on  guard  duty  were 
unable  to  obtain  food  in  the  neighbourhood. 

The  Technological  Institute,  where  the  Council  had  been  holding 
its  sessions,  was  surrounded  by  troops  on  the  i6th  October.  The 
Council  was  unable  to  find  a  suitable  place  of  meeting,  and  no  session 
took  place  on  that  day.  Large  meetings  were  held  in  many  open 
places  by  strikers  because  the  schools  where  they  had  previously 
met  were  converted  into  "  bivouacs  "  by  the  troops.  On  the  i6th 
large  numbers  of  Government  employees  joined  the  strike — officials 
from  the  State  Bank  and  the  Ministry  of  Finance.  So  also  did 
officers  of  insurance  companies.  On  the  17th  there  were  further 
accessions  from  the  same  classes  of  officials.  The  Commercial 
Court  ceased  to  sit  on  the  i6th,  and  on  the  17th  the  courts  of  the 
city  judges  were  discontinued.  On  the  same  night,  the  corps  de 
ballet  of  the  Marinsky  Theatre  struck.  At  the  waterworks  the  men 
were  immured  and  compelled  to  work  under  military  supervision. 
The  only  light  in  the  capital  was  *'  a  blinding  ray  "  from  a  huge 
projector  on  the  tower  of  the  admiralty  buildings  which  swept  the 
Nevsky  Prospekt.  On  the  15th,  i6th,  and  17th  St.  Petersburg 
was  without  neswpapers.^ 

The  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  had  found  on  the  morning 
of  the  17th  a  place  in  which  to  hold  their  meetings.  Their  hosts 
were  the  Imperial  Free  Economical  Society.^  At  this  meeting  an 
Executive  Committee  of  thirty-one  deputies  was  appointed,  the 
representatives  of  the  revolutionary  parties  ^  who  were  placed 
upon  this  committee  had,  however,  only  an  advisory  voice. ^  This 
business  had  just  been  transacted  when  the  Council  was  dispersed 
by  the  police,  to  meet  again,  however,  elsewhere  shortly  afterwards.* 
The  "  material  condition  of  the  striking  working  men  having  be- 
come grave,"  the  Council  recommended  the  suspension  of  payment 
for  rent  and  for  supplies  of  food  by  strikers,  and  recommended  the 

1  The  printers  being  on  strike,  this  appeal  appeared  only  in  the  Bulletin 
of  the  Council.  "  It  did  not  reach  the  hands  of  those  for  whom  it  was 
intended.     It  remained  a  literary  memorial."     Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  74. 

*  There  were  two  exceptions.     Cf.  infra. 

2  For  the  history  of  this  society,  see  supra,  vol.  i.  pp.  312-4. 

*  Nine  in  number.  e  Khrustalov,  p.  76. 

*  They  met  in  a  private  popular  institution  for  higher  education. 


FIRST    GENERAL   STRIKE  493 

shopkeepers  not  to  institute  suits  against  them.^  On  the  17th  the 
central  organ  of  the  strike  came  to  be  known  as  the  Council  of 
Working  Men's  Deputies,  and  its  first  Bulletin,  with  one  excep- 
tion the  only  newspaper  published  in  St.  Petersburg  on  that  day ,2 
was  issued.  Immediately  afterwards  similar  bodies  in  "  Moscow, 
Ekaterinoslav,  Odessa,  Rostov,  Kiev,  Kremenchug,  and  elsewhere  " 
adopted  the  title,  and  peasants'  organizations  came  to  be  known 
as  councils  of  peasants'  deputies.  Similarly  soldiers'  groups  called 
themselves  councils  of  soldiers'  deputies. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  for  three  days  St.  Petersburg  had 
been  without  newspapers.  The  public  knew  nothing  of  what  was 
going  on.  The  mere  absence  of  journals  indicated  that  the  strike 
was  still  in  being,  otherwise  nothing  was  known  excepting  what 
was  to  be  seen  in  the  streets.  Placards  might  have  been  posted, 
but  the  working-men  leaders  were  too  busy  "  calling  off "  non- 
strikers,  compelHng  factory  owners  to  close  their  gates,  appointing 
committees,  and  discussing  programmes,  to  heed  the  public  demand 
for  information.  The  journalists  were  the  first  to  bring  the  question 
to  an  issue.  They  represented  to  the  Council  that  all  newspapers 
should  be  exempt  from  the  general  suspension  of  labour.  But  the 
printers'  union  strongly  objected.  If,  they  said,  newspapers  are 
printed,  the  printing  of  books  cannot  be  prevented ;  bookbinding, 
paper-making,  and  the  supply  of  paper  from  warehouses  must 
follow,  and  the  general  strike  will  gradually  come  to  an  end.  This 
view  was  taken  by  the  Council,  and  it  was  then  decided  that  the 
Council  should  publish  its  own  newspaper.  The  first  number  of 
the  Bulletin  was  printed  by  a  "  legal  "  printing  office  ;  afterwards 
it  was  printed  **  arbitrarily,"  ^  i.e,  in  printing  offices  by  printers 
who  appropriated  from  their  employers  the  necessary  materials. 

The  strike  reached  its  zenith  on  the  night  of  the  17th  October.* 
On  the  same  night  the  Tsar  signed  the  celebrated  manifesto  which 
granted  a  constitution.  It  appeared  to  the  world  as  though,  after 
all,  he  had  capitulated  in  time.  To  the  revolutionists  the  mani- 
festo meant  that  the  autocracy  thought  to  save  itself  by  issuing 

^  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  76.  These  recommendations  were  probably 
quite  unnecessary.  The  payment  of  rent  had  undoubtedly  been  already 
suspended  and  the  courts  of  law  had  been  closed. 

2  The  exception  was  the  Pravetelstvennie  Vestnik  (Government  Gazette). 
No  other  newspapers  were  published  on  the  15  th  and  i6th  October. 

'  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  78.  *  Ibid.,  p.  75, 


494     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

an  irredeemable  obligation — a  note  of  hand  promising  to  pay  that 
which  was  never  meant  to  be  paid. 

The  Manifesto  of  the  Tsar  was  issued  on  the  night  of  the  17th. 
On  the  morning  of  the  following  day  a  crowd  which  had  collected 
round  the  Technological  Institute  was  attacked  with  nagaiki  by 
the  police.^  On  the  night  of  the  i8th  Colonel  Min  attacked  a 
crowd  in  Gorokhovaya,  and  cossacks  fired  volleys  at  a  crowd  at 
Putilovsky  Iron  Works. 

These  proceedings  were  so  contradictory  to  the  letter  and 
apparent  spirit  of  the  manifesto  of  the  Tsar,  that  they  neutraUzed 
its  effect  very  seriously.  They  also  gave  rise  to  suspicions  of  most 
sinister  designs  on  the  part  of  the  Government.^ 

The  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  met  on  the  i8th.^ 
The  resolution  which  was  passed  exhibited  fully  at  least  the  social 
democratic  view  of  the  manifesto : 

"  Pressed  in  the  iron  vice  of  the  general  political  strike  of  the 
Russian  proletariat,  the  Russian  autocratic  government  has  arrived 
at  concessions.  It  has  made  an  announcement  about  liberties, 
about  the  legislative  power  of  the  future  Imperial  Duma,  and 
about  the  intention  to  introduce  into  the  Duma  representatives 
of  the  working  men  and  of  the  intelligent  layers  of  the  people. 
But  the  struggUng  revolutionary  proletariat  cannot  lay  down  its 
arms  until  the  pohtical  rights  of  the  Russian  people  are  established 
upon  soUd  foundations,  until  there  shall  be  estabUshed  a  demo- 

*  In  St.  Petersburg  the  mounted  pyolice  used  nagaiki  (whips)  tipped  with 
lead  at  the  end  of  the  lash  for  the  purpose  of  beating  the  people.  During  the 
later  phases  of  the  revolutionary  movement,  the  people  assailed  the  police 
with  stones  and  other  missiles  and  the  nagaiki  went  almost  altogether  out  of 
use.  They  can  only  be  used  effectively  against  an  unarmed  crowd.  The 
kniit  is  used  exclusively  as  a  horse  whip.  The  handle  of  the  knUt  is  2^  ft. 
to  3  ft.  long  ;  that  of  the  nagaika  is  only  9  to  10  inches  long,  the  lash  of  the 
latter  is  proportionately  to  the  handle  much  longer  than  the  lash  of  the 
knut. 

*  A  suspicion,  for  example,  was  prevalent  among  the  working  men  and 
even  among  certain  groups  of  intelligenti,  that  the  Gk)vemment  had  made 
public  announcement  of  coming  liberties  in  order  that  demonstrations  should 
take  place  in  the  streets  and  that  the  "  political  elements  "  might  be  destroyed 
in  the  pogroms  which  would  occur,  or  in  the  course  of  the  police  and  military 
measures  which  might  be  taken  to  put  them  down.  This  suspicion  affected 
the  reputation  of  the  Government  in  the  minds  of  the  working  men  most 
seriously.  True  or  false,  it  was  plausible  enough  for  credence  at  a  moment 
of  extreme  tension. 

*  There  were  present  248  deputies  from  in  establishments.  Khnis- 
talov,  op.  cit.,  p.  80. 


FIRST   GENERAL   STRIKE  495 

cratic  republic,  the  best  method  for  the  advancement  of  the  struggle 
of  the  proletariat  for  sociahsm.  Therefore  the  working  men's 
council  declares  :  (i)  that  until  freedom  is  substantially  guaranteed, 
there  must  be  complete  ehmination  of  the  powers  by  means  of 
which  the  autocratic  government  has  oppressed  and  kept  down 
the  people,  viz.  the  whole  poUce  system  from  top  to  bottom  .  .  . 
and  in  its  place  a  popular  mihtia  must  be  created,  and  for  this 
purpose  arms  must  be  given  to  the  proletariat ;  (2)  that  in  spite 
of  the  liberties  announced  by  the  government  thousands  of  our 
brother  fighters  for  freedom  continue  up  till  the  present  time  to 
be  kept  in  prisons  and  in  banishment,  therefore  we  demand  com- 
plete amnesty  for  all  persons  convicted  by  the  courts  or  convicted 
administratively  for  political  and  reUgious  convictions,  for  strikes, 
peasant  movements,  &c."  The  third  and  fourth  clauses  in  the 
resolution  demand  the  abolition  of  martial  law  and  the  convening 
of  a  Constituent  Assembly.  In  order  that  the  struggle  might  be 
continued  the  Council  decided  **  to  carry  on  the  strike  until  the 
moment  when  conditions  indicate  the  necessity  of  a  change  in 
tactics."  1 

During  the  day  of  the  i8th  the  question  of  amnesty  for  political 
prisoners  and  exiles  seemed  to  take  the  first  place.  The  meeting 
of  the  Council  was  interrupted  by  a  noisy  crowd  demanding  imme- 
diate Hberation  of  the  prisoners  in  St.  Petersburg.  The  Council 
elected  three  commanders  and  these  went  off  with  the  crowd,  which 
speedily  assumed  formidable  dimensions.  The  crowd  proceeded 
towards  the  Kazan  Cathedral  in  the  Nevsky  Prospekt  singing  the 
Marseillaise,  Varshavenka  (the  song  of  the  PoHsh  Social  Demo- 
crats), Vechnya  Pamat  (Eternal  Memory),  and  V  jertvou  pali  (the 
funeral  march  of  the  proletariat).  The  crowd  was  organized  after 
a  fashion.  A  chain  of  men  with  locked  arms  went  in  front,  behind 
them  a  mass  of  men,  behind  these  another  chain,  and  so  on.  They 
passed  along  the  Nevsky  Prospekt  and  debouched  into  the  square 
of  the  Winter  Palace.  Here  the  crowd  appears  to  have  exhibited 
symptoms  of  nervousness.  They  remembered  the  record  of  the 
place,  and  they  feared  that  troops  might  have  been  secreted  in  the 
palace.  The  mob  passed  through  the  square  and  proceeded  to 
cross  the  river.  When  the  front  ranks  had  reached  the  Academy 
of  Arts,  the  rear  ranks  were  still  on  the  English  Quay,  near  the 
1  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  80. 


496     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Winter  Palace.  At  the  buildings  of  the  University  a  troop  of 
infantry  with  an  officer  made  its  way  through  the  densely-packed 
crowd,  which  opened  its  ranks  to  allow  the  troop  to  pass  with  pale 
faces  through  a  narrow  passage.  The  troop  might  easily  have 
been  disarmed.  The  mob  was  good-natured,  and  moreover  it  had 
no  definite  objective.  The  commanders  appointed  by  the  Working 
Men's  Council  led  the  crowd  to  the  Naval  Barracks  of  the  14th  and 
17th  equipages.  They  hoped  to  enlist  the  sailors  ;  but  the  sailors 
did  not  emerge.  After  some  time  of  fruitless  persuasion  and  expec- 
tation the  crowd,  now  dispirited,  passed  on  through  streets  from 
which  the  traffic  and  almost  all  the  police  had  disappeared.  No 
attempt  was  made  by  the  authorities  to  interfere  with  the  crowd, 
until  at  the  corner  of  Sergievska  Street  the  commanders  were  told 
that  Predvaritelnaya  Prison  was  filled  with  soldiers  whose  instruc- 
tions were  to  fire  at  the  crowd.  The  commanders  were  about  to 
ascertain  whether  or  not  this  was  the  case,  when  at  that  moment 
another  message  was  brought  to  the  effect  that  the  amnesty  had  been 
signed  by  the  Tsar,  that  the  object  of  the  demonstration  had  been 
attained.  The  messengers  who  came  from  the  Union  of  Engineers 
urged  the  commanders  to  disperse  the  crowd  and  thus  to  save  use- 
less bloodshed  in  Predvaritelnaya  Prison.  The  crowd  dissolved, 
and  another  serious  moment  in  the  history  of  Russia  passed.  The 
event  showed  that  the  authorities  were  wise  in  allowing  the  demon- 
stration to  take  place.  No  harm  came  of  it ;  nor  in  the  temper  of 
the  crowd  at  that  moment  was  there  any  element  of  danger.^ 

On  the  17th  October  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies 
had  resolved  to  continue  the  strike  in  St.  Petersburg  until  the 
conditions  should  indicate  the  expediency  of  a  change  in  tactics — 
the  conditions  in  question  including  importantly  the  continuation 
of  the  strike  movement  in  Moscow  and  elsewhere.  On  the  19th 
October  the  conditions  changed.  On  that  day  the  general  strike 
at  Moscow  ceased,  and  the  strike  movement  on  various  sides  was 
suffering  disintegration.  Under  these  circumstances,  to  continue 
the  struggle  in  St.  Petersburg  was,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
strike  as  a  political  movement,  quite  futile.  On  that  day,  therefore, 
the  Council  issued  a  manifesto  declaring  that  the  general  poUtical 

^  Khrustalov  very  properly  says  that  such  a  crowd  would  never  have 
stormed  the  Bastille.  It  was  nervous  and  frightened  almost  from  the 
beginning.     Op.  cit.,  p.  83. 


FIRST    GENERAL   STRIKE  497 

strike  should  come  to  an  end  on  the  21st  October.^  According  to 
Khnistalov,  the  only  strikers  who  disobeyed  the  mandate  of  the 
Council  were  the  druggists,  who  resumed  work  on  the  20th. 

In  discontinuing  the  strike  in  this  way,  the  Council  evidently 
meant  to  demonstrate  its  power  over  the  200,000  people  who  are 
said  to  have  composed  the  ranks  of  the  strikers ;  ^  and  in  discon- 
tinuing the  strike  it  evidently  did  not  mean  to  suggest  either  that 
it  trusted  the  Government  or  that  it  intended  to  discontinue  the 
struggle.  Upon  the  announcement  of  the  close  of  the  strike,  the 
bulletin  of  the  Council  remarks :  **  The  proletariat  knows  what  it 
wants,  and  knows  what  it  does  not  want.  It  wants  neither  Police- 
hooligan  ^-Trepov  nor  Liberal-broker  *-Witte,  neither  a  wolf's 
mouth  nor  a  fox's  tail.  It  does  not  want  a  naga'ika  wrapped 
up  in  a  constitution."  ^ 

In  discontinuing  the  strike,  the  Council  expUcitly  announced 
that  "  leaning  upon  the  victories  already  obtained,  it  was  necessary 
for  the  working  class  to  arm  itself  for  the  final  struggle."  ^ 

Although  the  political  strike  was  at  an  end  for  the  time,  the 
economical  strikes,  which  were  included  in  the  general  strike  move- 
ment, did  not  necessarily  come  to  an  end.  The  strikes  upon  the  St. 
Petersburg  horse-power  tramway,  in  an  ironworks,  and  in  a  telephone 
instrument  factory  continued.  Indeed,  in  order  to  continue  these 
strikes  the  Council  recommended  that  those  strikers  who  joined  the 
movement  on  poUtical  grounds  should  demand  of  their  employers 
payment  of  wages  for  the  nine  days  of  the  strike,  and  that  the  funds 
so  obtained  should  be  paid  into  the  treasury  of  the  Council  as  a  strike 
fund  for  the  support  of  those  still  on  strike  on  economical  grounds. 
It  does  not  appear  that  any  large  sum  was  paid  in  this  connection. 
The  employers  who  had  suffered  from  the  strike  made  no  attempt 
to  lock  out  the  workmen  when  the  political  strike  came  to  a 
conclusion ;  but  the  Government  refused  to  reopen  the  Baltisky 
engineering  works.     A  deputation  from  the  Council  to  the  manage- 

1  Thursday,  21st  October  (O.S.).  The  resolution  to  discontinue  the  strike 
was  carried  with  one  dissentient  voice — that  of  a  railway  delegate. 

2  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  85. 

3  Referring  to  M.  Trepov's  reputed  connection  with  the  Black  Hundred 
bands. 

*  Referring  to  M,  Witte's  reputed  speculations  on  the  Stock  Exchange. 
5  Bulletin  No.  3  ;  quoted  by  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  85. 
«  Khrustalov,  loc.  cit.  , 

VOL.  II  2  1 


.1 


498     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF   RUSSIA 

ment  of  the  works  went  on  its  own  initiative  to  M.  Witte,  who  told 
them,  "  The  works  will  be  open  to-morrow/'  ^ 

It  had  been  arranged  that  the  funerals  of  the  victims  of  i8th 
October  were  to  take  place  on  the  23rd,  and  there  were  rumours 
that  the  occasion  was  to  be  utihzed  by  the  revolutionary  parties  in 
the  promotion  of  a  great  popular  demonstration.  The  St.  Petersburg 
City  Duma  appealed  to  the  people  "  to  forget  pohtical  quarrels," 
and  urged  them  not  to  attempt  "  to  square  pohtical  accounts  in 
the  streets.  The  street  is  not  the  place,  and  the  day  of  the  funerals 
is  not  the  time  when  and  where  such  accounts  can  be  settled.  Citi- 
zens !  Before  every  one  of  you  stands  the  large  problem  of  building 
up  a  free  country.  Let  us  do  all  that  is  possible  for  pacification,  in 
order  that  innocent  blood  may  not  again  be  shed."  On  the  day 
before  the  date  fixed  for  the  funerals,  the  Duma  also  appealed  to 
M.  Trepov  to  the  effect  that  "  he  must  not  impede  the  organization 
of  the  funerals,  and  that  he  should  withdraw  the  troops. ' '  M.  Trepov, 
however,  took  his  own  course.  In  spite  of  this  appeal,  he  issued  a 
notice  intimating  that  "  in  the  present  troublous  times,  when  one 
part  of  the  population  is  ready  with  arms  in  its  hands  to  rise  against 
the  action  of  another  part,  no  political  demonstration  could  be  per- 
mitted." He  advised  those  who  had  intended  to  take  part  in  a 
demonstration  on  the  occasion  of  the  funerals  to  desist,  otherwise 
decisive  measures  would  be  taken. 

The  Council  of  the  Working  Men's  Deputies  arrived  at  the  con- 
clusion that  Trepov' s  intention  was  to  allow  armed  Black  Hundred 
bands  to  attack  the  procession,  and  then,  "  under  the  mask  of  paci- 
fication, to  shoot  down  "  those  who  took  part  in  the  funeral  demon- 
stration. It  therefore  decided  not  to  accept  the  challenge  of 
Trepov  at  that  moment,  but  to  choose  its  own  time  and  method  of 
attack ;  and  by  way  of  preparation  for  that,  to  devote  itself  to 
arming  the  working  men.  With  that  end  in  view  it  advised  the  hold- 
ing of  "  formidable  meetings  "  at  various  centres  rather  than  a 
single  march  with  the  funeral  procession. 

1  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  i6. 


I 


i 


CHAPTER  V 

COUNTER-REVOLUTION    IN    1905-1906 

The  chaos  into  which  the  Russian  administration  fell  in  1905,  and 
the  evident  impotence  of  the  Government  before  the  widespread  spirit 
of  revolt,  led  inevitably  to  attempts  to  promote  a  counter-revolu- 
tion. The  explanation  by  the  members  of  the  Extreme  Right  of 
this  phenomenon  is  that  the  movement  was  due  to  a  spontaneous 
rising  of  the  loyal  Russian  people  against  the  revolutionists.  This 
rising  was  intended  to  assist  the  autocracy  by  taking  advantage  of 
the  existing  lawlessness  to  inflict  damage  upon  the  revolutionaries, 
even  though  this  damage  should  be  committed  without  reference  to 
the  ordinary  observance  of  law,  this  observance  being  by  common 
consent  suspended. 

These  counter-revolutionary  groups  came  to  be  known  as  Black 
Hundreds.  How  far  these  were  organized  by  the  Union  of  Russian 
People,  how  far  they  were  organized  by  the  police,  or  how  far  they 
were  organized  at  all,  has  not  yet  been  fully  disclosed,  for  an  impar- 
tial account  of  the  counter-revolutionary  movement  remains  to  be 
written. 

The  discovery,  however,  in  1906,  in  the  recesses  of  the  Ministry 
of  the  Interior  of  a  secret  printing  office,  in  which  a  newspaper  was 
printed  at  the  instance  of  two  officers  of  gens  d'armerie}  disclosed  a 
certain  connection  between  the  police  and  the  operations  of  the 
Black  Hundred  groups.  The  printing  office  was  suppressed,  the 
two  officers  were  punished  by  the  Government,  and  a  statement  in 
connection  with  the  affair  was  made  in  the  Duma  by  M.  Stolypin. 
The  information  given  by  him  places  in  effect  the  Black  Hundred 
incident  in  the  same  category  as  the  provocative  activities  of  Zub^Ltov 
in  1903,  and  of  Azef  at  a  later  period  ;  although  there  is  also 
evident  the  participation  in  it  of  the  Union  of  Russian  People. 

^  Their  names  were  Komissarov  and  Bugadosky.  See  interpellation  in 
First  Duma.     Stenographic  Reports,  vol.  ii.,  8th  Jmie  1906. 

499 


500     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Prince  Unisov,  previously  Deputy-Minister  of  Interior,  in  the 
debate  in  the  First  Duma  on  the  occasion  of  an  interpellation  to 
M.  Stolypin  Apropos  of  the  "  underground  printing  office,"  described 
the  methods  of  the  Black  Hundred  bands  and  of  the  promoters  of 
the  pogroms,  or  riotous  attacks,  perpetrated  by  them. 

"  The  pogrom  is  always  preceded  by  rumours  about  it,  proclama- 
tions are  spread  widely  to  excite  the  population,  a  kind  of  '  stormy 
petrel '  makes  its  appearance  in  the  form  of  people  belonging  to 
little-known  scum  of  the  inhabitants.  .  .  .  The  actions  of  the  pog- 
romsheke  (or  promoters  of  pogroms)  exhibit  a  kind  of  system.  They 
appear  to  be  conscious  of  some  right  (to  do  what  they  do)  and  of 
some  immunity  (from  official  disfavour),  and  they  continue  to  act 
only  so  long  as  this  consciousness  is  not  shaken  among  them. 
When  they  are  no  longer  confident,  the  pogrom  ceases  with  extra- 
ordinary rapidity  and  ease.  There  is,  on  the  contrary,  no  uniformity 
in  the  actions  of  the  poHce.  While  in  some  pohce  districts,  even 
where  there  is  a  considerable  force  of  poHce,  the  pogroms  result  in 
heavy  disasters,  in  other  districts  individual  officers,  acting  with 
finnness  and  courage,  and  in  conscientious  performance  of  their 
duties,  stop  the  pogroms  at  the  beginning."  Prince  Urusov  went 
on  to  say  that  in  January  1906  there  was  received  by  a  functionary 
of  the  Ministry  of  Interior  (not  himself)  who  was  "  an  opponent  of 
the  pogrom  policy,"  evidence  of  "  preparation  of  pogroms  in  Belostok, 
Kiev,  Wilna,  Nikolaiev,  Aleksandrovsk,  and  other  cities.  This 
revelation  led  to  inquiries,  with  the  following  result :  A  patriotic 
society  ^  had  organized  a  fighting  detachment  ^  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  on  a  struggle  against  the  revolution.  The  society  thought 
that  the  sedition  which  existed  was  to  be  found  chiefly  among  the 
non-Russian  races — among  Poles,  Armenians,  and  Jews.  By  means 
of  manifestoes  the  Russian  population  was  incited  to  l5nich  the 
offenders,  and  thus  to  fight  the  enemies  of  the  Fatherland  with  their 
own  weapons.  These  manifestoes  were  circulated  "  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  "  ;  but  they  were  not  distributed  quite  iniscriminately. 
Many  officials  in  the  service  of  the  Government  received  them,  and 
many  police  officers,  but  not  all.     The  result  of  this  circulation  of  the 

*  The  Union  of  Russian  People  was  hinted  at,  though  it  was  not  mentioned 
by  name. 

'  Corresponding  to  the  drujene,  or  fighting  companies  of  the  revolutionary 
parties. 


COUNTER-REVOLUTION,    1905-1906     501 

manifestoes  was  the  prevalence  of  alarming  rumours.  Fearful  of 
disturbances,  people  left  their  homes  ;  others  complained  to  the 
Governors.  These  sometimes  did  not  know  whether  or  not  it  would 
be  possible  to  maintain  order.  The  rumours  reached  the  Ministry 
of  Interior.  Orders  were  sent  to  the  local  authorities  that  disturb- 
ances were  to  be  suppressed.  Sometimes  the  poKce  did  not  beheve 
that  the  orders  from  headquarters  were  intended  to  be  obeyed. 
They  supposed  that  the  orders  had  been  given  merely  "  for  the  sake 
of  form,"  and  that  the  real  intentions  of  the  Government  were  quite 
otherwise.  The  result  was  complete  disorganization  and  demoraUza- 
tion  of  authority.  These  manifestoes,  according  to  Prince  Urusov, 
were  printed  upon  the  "  underground  press  "  in  the  Ministry  of 
Interior.  The  work  was  done  so  secretly  that  neither  in  the  Min- 
istry nor  even  in  the  Department  of  Pohce  did  any  but  a  small  num- 
ber of  persons  know  an3rthing  about  it.  When  the  existence  of  this 
printing  office  was  discovered,  and  Komissarov  was  asked  by  a 
person  who  was  supposed  by  him  to  be  in  sympathy  with  the  pog- 
rom policy,  whether  or  not  this  policy  was  successful,  he  answered, 
"  A  pogrom  may  be  arranged  as  you  like  ;  if  you  like,  for  ten  persons  ; 
or  if  you  like,  for  ten  thousand."  ^  Sometimes,  however,  the  pogrom 
did  not  take  place  as  arranged.  A  pogrom  was  arranged  for  a  cer- 
tain date  in  Kiev,  for  example,  to  involve  ten  thousand  persons  ;  but 
someone  succeeded  in  rendering  the  attempt  abortive.^  The  ex- 
istence of  this  printing  office  having  been  discovered  by  M.  Goremy- 
kin.  President  of  the  Council  of  Ministers,  Komissarov  was  sum- 
moned, and  within  "  three  hours  "  the  printing  office  and  its  contents 
disappeared.  "  That  is  why  neither  the  Minister  of  the  Interior 
nor  any  one  of  us  will  ever  learn  about  those  persons  who  controlled 
the  actions  of  this  wide  organization,  secured  impunity  for  the  parti- 
cipants in  it,  influenced,  as  if  by  magic,  the  minds  of  the  poUce  and 
other  officers,  and  even  had  such  power  that "  they  controlled  re- 
wards and  promotions.^  Prince  Urusov  said  further,  that  peace  and 
order  could  not  be  restored  until  an  end  was  put  to  these  *'  criminal 
semi-governmental  organizations,"  or  so  long  as  "  dark  forces  stand- 
ing behind  an  untouchable  fence  has  the  power  of  grasping  with 
rough  hands  the  mechanism  of  the  State,  and  of  exercising  their 

^  Quoted  by  Prince  Urusov  in  the  Duma,  8th  June  1906.    Stenographic 
Reports  (1906),  ii.  p.  1131. 

»  Ibtd.  *  Ibid. 


502     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

political  ignorance  in  experiments  upon  living  people,  performing  a 
kind  of  political  vivisection."  He  argued  that  the  Duma  was  en- 
deavouring loyally  to  place  the  Tsar  beyond  the  field  of  poHtical 
conflict,  and  to  relieve  him  of  responsibility  for  pohtical  blunders, 
but  that  these  efforts  were  rendered  nugatory  by  the  "  dark  forces  " 
which  were  depriving  the  Duma  of  the  confidence  of  the  Throne  and 
submerging  national  welfare  in  class  struggles  and  in  the  pursuit  of 
personal  interests.^ 

The  Union  of  the  Russian  People  was  composed  of  high  officials, 
clergy,  large  landowners,  and  merchants. 

The  constituents  of  the  Black  Hundred  bands  are  represented 
as  :  (a)  those  who  did  not  reaUze  what  the  movement  meant,  but 
who  were  drawn  into  it  because  they  were  told  that  the  real  authors 
of  the  state  of  affairs  under  which  they  were  suffering  were  the 
intelligentsia  ;  and  (b)  those  of  doubtful  past  who  were  desirous 
of  rehabilitating  themselves  in  the  eyes  of  the  police  and  of  the 
authorities  by  playing  the  r61e  of  patriots,  the  profits  of  the  pillage, 
in  which  they  were  to  engage  being  an  additional  inducement  .^ 
Some  of  the  first  of  the  two  classes  above  mentioned  were  drawn 
out  of  the  ranks  of  the  Black  Hundreds  by  the  revolutionary  parties, 
while  these  ranks  were  recruited  from  the  landowners,  who  found 
themselves  ruined  by  the  agrarian  disorders,  and  from  the  "  less 
conscious  elements  "  in  the  army. 

The  activities  of  the  Black  Hundred  bands  were  less  in  St. 
Petersburg  than  elsewhere,  yet  on  the  i8th  October  an  attack  was 
made  by  one  of  them  **  in  the  presence  of  the  police,"  upon  a  member 
of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies.  This  member,  whose 
name  was  Khakharov,  defended  himself,  and  found  himself  imme- 
diately placed  under  arrest  by  the  police.^  Assaults  upon  the 
deputies  took  place  every  day.  It  was  proposed  in  the  Council 
that  groups  of  militant  drujene  should  be  formed  under  its  auspices  ; 
but  this  proposal  was  not  carried  into  effect.  There  was,  however, 
available  for  defensive  purposes,  a  small  number  of  "  party  drujene  " 
— that  is,  armed  members  of  the  Social  Democratic  and  Social  Revo- 
lutionary parties. 

The  arming  of  the  St.  Petersburg  working  men  on  a  considerable 
scale   began  on  29th  October  1905.      In  the  factories  workmen 

^  Stenographic  Reports  of  the  Duma  (1906),  ii.  p.  1131. 
2  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  92.  ^  75^-^,^  p,  p^. 


COUNTER-REVOLUTION,    1905-1906     503 

made  stilettos,  bayonets,  and  metallic  whips.^  On  that  day  the 
workmen  of  the  Putilovsky,  Semanykovsky,  Rasteriev,  Lesnya, 
and  other  works  forged  "  cold  arms  "  of  various  descriptions — pikes 
and  castyeti  ^  in  addition  to  those  mentioned.^  Firearms  were  pur- 
chased in  the  gun  shops.  Arms  were  sold  openly,  for  the  population 
generally  was  arming  itself.  In  three  factories  8500  rubles  were 
collected  and  expended  upon  Browning's  and  Smith's  pistols. 
The  working  men  in  some  of  the  printing  offices  demanded  money 
from  their  employers  for  the  purchase  of  arms  ;  and  in  some  cases 
money  was  given  to  them.  The  revolutionary  parties  supplied 
arms  to  workmen,  and  from  the  29th  October  the  Council  of  Work- 
ing Men's  Deputies  did  so  also.  During  the  meetings  of  the  Council 
in  the  rooms  of  the  Free  Economical  Society  the  surrounding  streets 
were  kept  under  observation  and  the  courtyard  was  occupied  by 
armed  working  men,  in  order  to  ward  off  a  threatened  attack  by 
Black  Hundreds.  Armed  drujene  patrolled  the  streets  and  assumed 
the  functions  of  the  poUce.  According  to  one  statement,  there 
was  a  force  of  about  6000  armed  working  men.*  The  immediate 
occasion  for  the  arming  of  the  working  men  is  alleged  to  have  been 
the  rumours  of  Black  Hundred  attacks  ;  but  self-defence  was  not 
the  only  motive.  There  is  no  doubt  that  an  armed  uprising  against 
the  Government  was  contemplated.^  "  Against  force  there  is 
only  one  means — force."  ®  Moreover,  the  drujeneke  meanwhile 
guarded  the  printing  offices  where  the  revolutionary  newspapers 
were  printed,  and  carried  on  a  struggle  with  "  strike-breakers," 
especially  with  those  whom  the  Government  were  employing  in 
the  post-telegraph  service.  In  November  the  process  of  dis- 
arming these  armed  bands  was  seriously  undertaken  by  the  Govern- 
ment, and  they  were  gradually  hunted  down.  It  is  probable  that 
the  comparative  immunity  of  St.  Petersburg  from  pogroms  was 
due  to  the  presence  of  these  drujeneke.  Later  in  Moscow,  when  the 
**  armed  uprising  "  took  place  in  December,  a  formidable  organiza- 
tion of  the  same  kind  appears  to  have  driven  the  Black  Hundred 
bands  from  the  streets.' 

1  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  94. 

2  A  corruption  of  casse  tSte,  tomahawk,  head  splitter.  ^  Ibid. 

*  Some  had  revolvers,  pistols,  and  hunting  nfles,  and  some  had  "  cold 
weapons."  Pravitelstvennsie  Vestnik  (Government  Gazette),  8th  November 
1905  ;  quoted  by  Khrustalov,  p.  96. 

5  Ihid.,  p.  97.  *  Ihid.  ''  See  infra,  p.  562. 


CHAPTER  VI 

DISCONTENT  AND   MUTINY   IN   THE  ARMY  AND 

THE    NAVY 

The  military  discontent  which  had  been  growing  during  the  con- 
fusion of  the  war  broke  out  in  open  revolt  on  23rd  October  1905, 
in  the  form  of  a  riot  of  sailors  in  Kronstadt.^  On  26th  October 
there  was  a  second  riot  there.  On  5th  November  the  sailors  in  the 
port  of  Sevastopol  held  an  open-air  meeting  to  discuss  their  griev- 
ances. On  the  nth  several  thousand  sailors  revolted  in  Sevastopol, 
and  Admiral  Pisarevsky  was  wounded.  On  12th  November  the 
Breski  Regiment  and  part  of  the  Belochtosky  Regiment  joined  the 
mutinous  sailors  at  Sevastopol.  On  the  same  day  the  commandant 
of  the  port  and  his  officers  were  disarmed  by  the  mutineers,  and 
many  of  the  inhabitants  of  Sevastopol  fled  from  the  city.  On 
the  13th  the  mutineers  raised  the  red  flag  on  the  battleship 
Potyemkin,  and  the  sailors  of  the  battleship  Ochakov  joined  the 
mutiny.  On  14th  November  Sevastopol  was  declared  to  be  in  a 
state  of  siege,  and  the  remaining  inhabitants  were  panic-stricken. 
Troops  were  hurried  to  the  city  from  the  neighbouring  miUtary 
districts.  On  the  same  day  at  St.  Petersburg  106  mutinous  soldiers 
of  the  Electro-Technic  company  were  thrown  into  the  fortress  of 
Peter  and  Paul.  On  15th  November  at  Sevastopol  the  mutinous 
sailors  of  the  battleship  Ochakov,  having  acquired  complete  control 
of  the  vessel,  offered  the  command  to  Lieutenant  Schmitt,  who 

'  The  organization  of  the  revolutionary  elements  among  the  sailors  at 
Kronstadt  in  October  1905,  resulting  as  it  did  in  two  riotous  outbreaks,  was 
nevertheless  by  no  means  so  considerable  as  it  became  afterwards.  By  the 
month  of  May  1906  this  organization  had  become  very  formidable.  The 
revolutionary  groups  had  organized,  among  soldiers  and  sailors  alike,  squad 
and  "  equipage  "  committees,  two  Garrison  Assemblies,  and  an  executive 
committee  of  ten  members,  five  from  the  Social  Democratic  and  five  from 
the  Social  Revolutionist  Garrison  Assembly.  The  executive  committee  met 
every  day.  They  occupied  themselves  with  working  out  the  plan  for  a 
general  uprising.  Nikolai  Yegorov's  narrative,  Biloye,  No.  8,  1908,  p.  70 
(Paris,  1908). 

504 


DISCONTENT   AND   MUTINY        505 

accepted  the  dangerous  rdle.  On  i6th  November  five  vessels  of 
the  Black  Sea  Squadron  joined  the  Ochakov,  and  the  gunners  of  some 
of  the  batteries  of  the  port  of  Sevastopol  gave  their  adhesion  to  the 
revolt.  On  17th  November  sedition  broke  out  among  the  troops 
at  Warsaw.  On  i8th  November  the  sailors'  barracks  at  Sevastopol 
was  stormed  by  infantry.  At  Kiev  there  were  simultaneously  a 
military  riot  and  a  Jewish  pogrom.  At  Voronej  there  were  also 
mihtary  disorders.  On  19th  November  the  frontier  guard  at 
Sosnovitsi  and  at  Karovitsi  broke  into  open  revolt.  On  20th 
November  Kiev  was  declared  under  martial  law,  a  portion  of  the 
garrison  being  in  revolt.  On  21st  November  a  meeting  of  16,000 
persons  was  held  in  the  Polytechnic,  guarded  by  the  mutinous 
soldiers.  On  24th  November  a  sailors'  barracks  occupied  by 
mutinous  sailors  was  surrounded  by  troops.  On  28th  November 
all  the  garrison  troops  in  Irkutsk  (Siberia)  held  a  meeting  to  decide 
upon  their  attitude  towards  the  situation.  On  29th  November  the 
1st  BattaHon  of  the  Preobrajensky  Regiment  of  the  Imperial  Body 
Guards,  excited  by  the  repressions  of  mihtary  disorders,  refused 
to  perform  the  service  of  the  guard.^  On  ist  December  meetings 
of  the  troops  in  the  garrison  of  Moscow  were  held.  On  2nd 
December  sedition  broke  out  in  the  Rostovski  2nd  Grenadier 
Regiment  at  Moscow,  and  commotion  among  the  other  troops  of 
the  garrison  increased. 

The  foregoing  details  show  that,  especially  during  the  month  of 
November  1905,  the  commotions  among  the  troops  spread  all  over 
European  and  Asiatic  Russia.  Not  merely  in  the  cities,  but  also 
in  the  rural  districts,  troops  were  being  employed  upon  pohce 
service,  and  they  were  becoming  restive  under  the  pressure  of 
disagreeable  duties.  The  mihtary  authorities  took  care  to  employ 
troops  belonging  to  one  gubernie  for  the  suppression  of  revolts  in 
another,  in  order  to  avoid  the  risk  of  their  fraternizing  with  the 
mobs.^  They  even  used,  where  such  an  arrangement  was  possible, 
troops  of  one  race  to  put  down  disorders  among  people  of  another. 
They  used  also  rural  troops  in  towns  and  urban  troops  in  the 
country.  The  utmost  advantage  was  thus  taken  of  natural 
antagonisms.     Yet,  excited  by  the  mismanagement  of  the  war,  and 

^  They  were  banished  to  Novgorodskaya  gub. 

2  The  policy  of  garrisoning  one  part  of  the  country  with  natives  of  another 
part  was  definitively  adopted  in  1882,  and  it  has  been  pursued  ever  since. 


5o6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

by  the  continual  repressions  and  punitive  expeditions,  and  even 
more  by  their  own  military  grievances  about  incompetent  com- 
missariat arrangements,  inadequacy  of  allowances,  extremely  low 
pay,  and  ill-treatment  by  their  officers,  meetings  of  the  garrison 
troops  were  held  at  many  military  centres.  The  army  and  the 
navy  alike  were  in  a  state  of  dangerous  fermentation. 

In  spite  of  the  difficulties  which  they  encountered,  the  Social 
Democratic  and  Social  Revolutionary  groups  were  carr5dng  on  an 
active  propaganda  among  the  garrison  troops  in  the  towns.  These 
troops,  already  disaffected  on  purely  military  grounds,  readily  lent 
their  ears  to  such  propaganda,  and  for  a  time  hopes  that  the  coming 
revolutionary  attempt  might  be  aided  by  the  troops  ran  high, 
especially  among  the  Social  Democrats.  The  isolated  outbreaks 
which  occurred  were  not,  however,  countenanced  by  them.^  They 
wished  to  postpone  active  measures  until  the  "  state  of  mind  '*  of 
the  troops  was  ripe  for  common  action,  and  until  the  association 
between  the  troops  and  the  organizing  bodies  of  working  men  should 
be  more  decisive.  Reports  ^  from  some  centres  seemed  to  encourage 
the  belief  that  the  troops  were  "  nearing  "  the  working  men,  as 
the  phrase  ran. 

Reports  of  this  kind  engendered  the  belief,  especially  in  Moscow, 
that  the  troops  were  seriously  affected  by  sedition  for  reasons  of 
their  own,  and  that  they  would  not  only  refrain  from  taking  an 
active  part  against  the  working  men  when  they  should  rise,  but 
that  they  would  actively  participate  in  their  favour.  Indeed  the 
agitation  among  the  troops  seemed  likely  to  precipitate  a  general 
conflict  prematurely. 

The  Moscow  committee  of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Party 
seems  even  to  have  been  prepared  to  declare  a  general  strike  if  the 
Government  should  attempt  to  put  down  these  miUtary  disorders 
by  armed  force.^ 

The  soldiers  returning  from  Manchuria  were  also  supposed  to 
be  in  full  sympathy  with  the  working  men,  and  to  be  prepared  to 
give  them  active  assistance.  In  Moscow,  soldiers  and  officers 
appeared  on  the  platform  at  revolutionary  meetings.* 

The  idea  of  a  general  political  strike  thus  gradually  came  to 

^  See  Moscow  in  December  1905,  edited  by  *'  Koklimaiisky  "  (Moscow,  1906), 

p.  3. 

2  For  details,  see  next  chapter. 

^  Moscow  in  December ^  1905,  p.  4.  *  Ibid. 


DISCONTENT  AND    MUTINY        507 

be  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  some  portion  of  the  troops,  of  some 
portion  of  Government  employees,  and  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
working  men.  Their  economical  grievances  appeared  to  be  beyond 
their  power  to  remedy  unless  the  political  situation  was  radically 
altered.  They  seem  to  have  thought  that  the  Cabinet  should  be 
dismissed  and  a  new  group  of  Ministers  appointed.  Probably  had 
this  been  done  in  the  early  days  of  December,  the  armed  uprising, 
with  its  disastrous  national  consequences,  might  not  have  taken 
place.  The  growing  discontent  among  the  troops  in  face  of  the 
highly  disturbed  state  of  the  people  alarmed  the  Government.  On 
6th  December  a  manifesto  by  the  Tsar  announced  a  series  of  con- 
cessions to  the  army.  Increased  pay  and  allowances  and  special 
rewards  for  those  who  were  employed  upon  police  duties  were 
promised  to  private  soldiers.^  These  concessions  were  made  just 
in  time  to  enable  the  authorities  to  use  the  troops,  with  some 
measure  of  confidence  in  their  fidelity,  for  the  suppression  of  the 
still  more  serious  disturbances  which  everyone  recognized  were 
now  imminent. 

The  specific  reasons  for  the  loyalty  of  the  army,  in  spite  of  the 
active  propaganda  of  the  revolutionary  parties,  were  these  : 

I.  The  development  by  the  military  administration  of  the 
policy  of  utiUzing  racial  antipathies.  Thus  in  the  Moscow  garrison 
there  were  no  Great  Russians.  The  garrison  was  composed  largely 
of  Little  Russians,  who  have  a  traditional  disUke  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Moscow.  They  speak  of  them  as  foreigners  and  enemies  of  the 
Tsar.  The  Little  Russians  do  not  wear  beards,  and  do  not  hke 
people  who  do,^  There  were  also  many  Poles,  whose  strong  national 
prejudice  against  the  Great  Russian  can  always  be  relied  upon. 
The  remainder  of  the  garrison  were  Lithuanians,  whose  general 
mental  level  is  not  high,  and  Cossacks  of  the  Don,  whose  mental 
level  is  also  low,  and  whose  interests  are  exclusively  mihtary. 
Antipathies  other  than  racial  were  also  utilized.  Thus  peasant 
troops  were  employed  to  garrison  cities,  and  city-bred  troops  to 
garrison  rural  districts.     The  majority  of  the  non-commissioned 

1  Prior  to  this  date  private  soldiers  were  obliged  to  provide  for  them- 
selves tea,  sugar,  and  soap.  Now  these  articles  were  to  be  given  to  them. 
They  were  also  to  receive  1 5  kopeks  (3f  dl.)  per  day  extra  pay  for  police  service. 
The  officers  were  not  affected. 

^  The  Little  Russians  speak  of  the  Muskali  (Little  Russian  for  Muscovites) 
as  Katzapi  (goats),  because  they  wear  beards. 


5o8     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

officers  and  of  the  private  soldiers  are  peasants,  and  their  attitude 
towards  the  working  men  in  cities  is,  in  general,  antagonistic.^ 

2.  The  grievances  of  the  troops  in  respect  to  insufficient  pay 
and  allowances,  and  in  respect  to  treatment  by  their  officers,  were 
met  in  a  conciUatory  spirit  by  the  authorities  in  the  height  of  the 
crisis.  Increased  pay  and  allowances  were  given  and  conditions 
were  improved. 

3.  The  young  troops  were  drawn  off  to  Manchuria,  and  the  older 
troops  were  left  behind  in  the  garrisons.  These  latter  were  less 
likely  to  be  stampeded  into  a  widely  extended  insurrection  than 
young  troops  might  have  been. 

4.  The  officers,  being  exclusively  drawn  from  the  nobility,  were 
as  a  rule  beyond  suspicion  of  disloyalty,  and  a  miUtary  revolt  would 
for  this  reason  have  been  one  exclusively  of  the  rank  and  file,  and 
would,  therefore,  not  have  been  really  a  revolt  of  the  army  as  a 
whole. 

5.  The  influence  of  the  habit  of  discipline  is  very  strong  among 
the  Russian  troops.  Thus  although  there  were  several  serious 
outbreaks,  these  were  in  no  case  determined  by  political  motives, 
but  were  exclusively  determined  by  the  economical  situation. 
The  troops  wanted  more  pay.  They  were  not  clamouring  for  the 
"  overwhelming  of  the  autocracy." 

6.  The  severity  of  the  authorities  when  propaganda  in  the 
ranks  of  the  army  was  discovered  prevented  any  considerable 
preparation  for  a  revolt  in  so  far  as  a  propaganda  could  have  con- 
tributed to  such  preparation. 

7.  The  bulk  of  the  army  being  drawn  from  the  peasant  class, 
the  troops  shared  the  general  absence  of  preparation  of  their  class. 
They  did  not  know  what  they  wanted.  While  the  soldiers 
were  rioting  they  frequently  shouted,  **  Vive  the  Tsar  !  "  and 
"  Vive  the  Tsar  and  the  Duma."  2 

1  In  the  villages,  especially  in  those  which  are  situated  at  a  distance  from 
industrial  centres,  the  peasants  do  not  drink  tea,  nor  do  they  eat  white  bread, 
excepting  on  holidays.  In  cities  the  working  men  usually  have  tea  and 
white  bread  at  least  twice  a  day.  The  peasant  soldier  thinks  that  the  city 
working  men  engage  in  rioting  because  they  are  fat  and  overfed,  and  because 
they  do  not  work  long  enough  or  hard  enough. 

2  An  exception  might  perhaps  be  made  in  the  case  of  Kronstadt.  Being 
near  St.  Petersburg,  propaganda  had  always  been  going  on  in  that  fortress. 
During  and  after  the  riots,  the  soldiers  there  were  very  resolute.  The  rioters 
who  were  shot  sang  revolutionary  songs  until  within  a  few  minutes  before 
their  execution. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  COUNCIL  OF  WORKING  MEN'S  DEPUTIES  AT  ST. 
PETERSBURG  AND  THE  SECOND  GENERAL  POLITICAL 
STRIKE,  2ND  TILL  7TH   NOVEMBER    1905 

Although  the  first  political  strike  had  come  to  an  end  on  21st 
October,  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  which  had  been 
brought  into  existence  in  the  course  of  the  preparation  for  the 
strike  had  continued  its  meetings  and  had  preserved  its  influence 
over  its  constituents.  The  disappointing  incidents  which  followed 
the  issue  of  the  manifesto  of  17th  October,  the  Black  Htmdred 
pogroms,  the  stem  suppression  of  the  revolutionary  movement  in 
Poland,  and  the  affair  of  Kronstadt,  brought  up  the  question  of 
the  expediency  of  subjecting  the  Government  to  another  general 
political  strike,  the  immediate  object  being  the  **  saving  of  the 
lives  "  of  the  mutinous  Kronstadt  sailors.  The  sound  interpreta- 
tion of  the  pohtical  strike  of  2nd  November  is  with  high  proba- 
bihty  that  it  was  a  strategic  manoeuvre  with  the  purpose  of 
connecting  demonstratively  the  proletarian  revolutionary  movement 
with  the  mutiny  in  the  army.  The  leaders  of  the  strike  had  im- 
doubtedly  in  their  minds  the  idea  that  a  strike  would  at  that 
moment  contribute  importantly  towards  establishing  an  entente 
cordiale  between  the  revolutionary  working  men  and  the  mutinous 
soldiers  and  sailors.  This  entente  might  be  calculated  upon  to 
facilitate  subsequent  revolutionary  propaganda  in  the  army  and 
the  navy,  and  might  also  have  some  effect  in  increasing  the  lack 
of  confidence  entertained  by  the  Government  in  the  fidelity  of  the 
troops,  and  thus  in  diminishing  the  use  of  them  for  poHce  purposes. 
The  revolutionary  circles  even  began  to  dream  of  the  transference 
of  the  army  and  the  navy  from  the  service  of  the  autocracy  to  the 
service  of  the  revolution.^    Nor  was  the  dream  without  a  certain 

*  Cf.  Khnistalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  106. 
509 


5IO     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

basis  of  fact.  Compulsory  military  service  had  really  brought  into 
existence  a  popular  army.  "  The  army  is  but  a  sphnter  of  the 
whole  people,  and  it  cannot  but  experience  the  popular  move- 
ment." ^  The  employment  of  troops  on  guard  duty  at  factories,  &c., 
had  contributed  at  once  to  their  knowledge  of  the  character  of  the 
revolutionary  movement  and  to  their  dissatisfaction.  Guard  duty 
was  arduous  and  unpleasant.  Even  veteran  troops  soon  became 
demoraUzed  by  street  fighting  ;  and  they  began  to  censure  the 
Government  rather  than  the  revolutionaries.  It  was  an  obvious 
opportunity  for  the  revolutionaries  to  declare  that  "  the  affair  of 
the  sailors  was  the  affair  of  the  working  men,"  ^  and  to  endeavour 
to  recruit  for  the  revolution  the  discontented  in  army  and  navy 
ahke. 

These  larger  views  were  not,  of  course,  entertained  by  the  working 
men  generally.  The  decision  on  the  part  of  the  Government  to 
try  the  sailors  by  a  special  tribunal  was  looked  upon  by  the  work- 
ing men  as  presaging  their  certain  condemnation  to  death.  "  This 
tribunal  is  not  a  court ;  it  is  an  abattoir."  ^  Some  of  the  groups 
of  working  men  demanded  a  public  inquiry  into  the  circumstances 
which  led  up  to  the  revolt  at  Kronstadt.  They  alleged,  for  example, 
that  the  men  had  suffered  from  the  "  profanation  of  human  dignity 
and  the  abuse  of  authority."  *  Even  the  question  of  the  eight- 
hours  day  was  relegated  into  the  background.  **  How  can  we 
present  economical  demands  when  so  many  people  are  about  to 
be  shot  ?  We  must  stand  up  for  the  sailors."  ^  Many  of  the  groups 
passed  resolutions  calling  upon  the  Council  of  Working  Men's 
Deputies  to  organize  a  general  political  strike  with  the  demand 
that  at  least  the  sailors  should  be  tried  by  a  civil  rather  than  by  a 
miUtary  court.  In  the  communications  to  the  Council  of  Working 
Men's  Deputies  only  one  voice  appears  to  have  been  raised  against 
the  proposal  to  strike.  "  We  have  not  finished  the  struggle  for  the 
eight-hour  day.  A  new  strike  will  break  our  strength.  .  .  .  Protest 
should  be  made  in  the  form  of  meetings,  demonstrations,  &c."  * 
Yet  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's 

^  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  107.  2  /^j,-^ 

*  The  employees  of  the  steel-tempering  works  of  Tillman  &  Co.  in  the 
pages  of  Nov  ay  a  Jezn,  quoted  by  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  108. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  108. 

^  The  working  men  of  the  Baltic  Foundry,  quoted  ibid.,  p.  109. 
«  Deputy  from  Rasteriev  Metal  Foundry,  ibid.,  p.  iii. 


COUNCIL  OF  WORKMEN'S  DEPUTIES  511 

Deputies  was  unanimously  opposed  to  a  strike  at  that  moment, 
even  the  representatives  of  the  revolutionary  parties  in  the  com- 
mittee acquiescing.  But  when  the  proposal  to  strike  was  brought 
before  the  Council  as  a  whole  by  the  Social  Democratic  and 
Socialist  Revolutionary  delegates,  the  resolution  was  carried  by  a 
large  majority,  and  a  general  pohtical  strike  was  declared  for  the 
following  day,  the  2nd  November,  at  noon. 

The  declaration  of  the  strike  was  accompanied  by  an  appeal  to 
the  army,  narrating  its  cause,  viz.  the  situation  of  the  mutinous 
sailors  at  Kronstadt,  and  demanding  their  liberation.  "  The 
Government  wants  to  torture  them  to  death.  Let  us  give  one 
another  a  hand  and  save  our  sailor  brothers."  ^ 

In  the  early  days  of  the  first  political  strike,  a  large  part  of 
the  time  of  the  members  of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies 
was  occupied  in  "  caUing  off "  reluctant  adherents  from  their 
customary  work.  The  second  strike  was  otherwise  characterized. 
The  worldng  men  struck  spontaneously  even  before  the  hour  fixed 
for  the  commencement  of  the  strike.  During  the  forenoon  of  the 
2nd,  thousands  of  working  men  from  the  foundries  and  factories 
paraded  the  streets.  At  twelve  o'clock  the  working  men  of  the 
factories  of  Keppel,  Semanyekov,  Alexandrov,  Obukhov,  Pal, 
Maxwell,  Pintsch,  Nobel,  Lessner,  Rasteriev,  Putilov,  and  the 
Belgian  Corporation,  the  Baltisky  Works  and  other  large  estab- 
lishments were  on  strike.  The  smaller  industrial  groups  joined 
the  strike  on  the  following  day.  Resolutions  which  indicate  the 
state  of  mind  of  the  working  men  poured  into  the  Council. 

"  We  do  not  beheve  in  the  curtailed  constitution  of  Witte.  We 
do  not  believe  in  the  assurances  of  hberals,  capitalists,  landowners, 
and  fat  intelligentsia.  We  see  up  till  now  only  thousands  of  dead 
bodies,  thousands  of  beaten  and  wounded  people.  We  hear  the 
sorrowful  cries  of  prisoners  in  the  cells,  and  we  continue  our  struggle 
for  immediate  improvement  of  our  condition,  for  transference  of 
all  the  land  into  the  hands  of  the  toilers,  for  freedom  of  personaUty 
and  complete  popular  government.  To  this  struggle  we  invite 
our  brothers,  the  toihng  peasantry.  Give  bread  to  working  men  ! 
Give  land  to  peasants  !  Give  freedom  to  the  people  !  Away  with 
the  autocracy !  To  the  comrades,  sailors  and  soldiers,  who  raised 
the  flag  of  freedom,  we  express  our  sympathy,  and  send  our  hearty 
1  Khnistalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  113. 


512     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

greetings.  Now  for  the  happiness  of  our  Fatherland,  not  a  single 
drop  of  the  blood  of  our  comrades  will  be  left  unavenged."  ^ 

This  resolution  was  forwarded  by  a  group  of  piano-makers. 
Other  resolutions  mentioned  "  black  himdreds  "  and  martial  law 
in  towns,  and  condemned  the  "  treacherous  poHcy  of  the  usurper 
Witte."  While  the  second  political  strike  was  general  among  St. 
Petersburg  workmen,  the  professional  groups,  which  constituted  an 
important  part  of  the  first  strike,  were  absent  in  the  second.  Civil 
servants  were  reluctant  to  join  the  ranks  of  the  strikers.  Some 
groups  naively  suggested  to  the  Council  to  induce  other  groups  to 
strike,  in  order  that  they  might  be  locked  out.^ 

The  post  and  telegraph  employees  did  not  join  the  strikers 
because  they  were  at  that  moment  negotiating  with  the  Govern- 
ment about  an  improvement  in  the  conditions  of  their  employ, 
ment,  and  they  considered  that  their  economical  interests  would 
be  imperilled  if  they  engaged  in  a  political  demonstration.  More- 
over, they  were  guarded  from  any  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
strikers  by  troops  with  machine  guns.  The  latter  course  was 
probably  unnecessary,  since  the  Council  had  apparently  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  any  violence  directed  against  civil  servants 
might  have  the  effect  of  driving  them  into  the  arms  of  the  "  Black 
Hundred."  ^ 

The  horse  tramways  continued  to  run.  A  violent  attempt  to 
prevent  their  operation  was  followed  by  fusillades  from  Cossacks. 
The  majority  of  the  retail  shops  were  open,  as  was  the  case  in  the 
first  strike,  and  for  the  same  reasons. 

The  Council  set  itself  immediately  to  the  promotion  of  an  active 
agitation  among  the  troops.  Thousands  of  copies  of  manifestoes 
were  distributed  in  barracks  and  in  the  marine  "  equipages."  On 
the  3rd  November  the  meeting  of  the  Council  was  attended  by 
417  deputies  ;  at  this  meeting  there  was  read  Count  Witte's  appeal 
to  the  working  men  to  resume  work  on  the  ground  that  the  Govern- 
ment needed  time  to  deal  with  the  labour  question.  "  Give  us 
time,  and  then  all  that  is  possible  will  be  done  for  you.  Pay  heed 
to  a  man  who  is  favourably  disposed  towards  you,  and  who  wishes 

*  Resolution  of  the  employees  of  the  Schroeder  Piano  Factory.  Khrus- 
talov,  op.  cit.,  pp.  1 1 3-14. 

*  The  drivers  of  the  Post  Office  delivery  waggons  suggested  that  the  sorters 
should  be  called  out.     Ibid.,  p.  116. 

*  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  116. 


COUNCIL  OF  WORKMEN'S  DEPUTIES  513 

you  well."  ^  The  Council  answered  this  communication  of  Count 
Witte  by  saying,  "  The  working  class  does  not  need  the  favours  of 
the  usurper.  It  demands  popular  government  on  the  basis  of 
general,  equal,  direct,  and  secret  suffrage." 

Nevertheless,  the  appeal  of  Count  Witte  placed  the  Council  in  a 
quandary.  The  strike  was  practically  universal  so  far  as  the  work- 
ing men  in  the  St.  Petersburg  factories  were  concerned  ;  but  owing 
to  the  absence  of  the  participation  of  the  employees  of  the  Govern- 
ment, the  mechanism  of  life  was  by  no  means  arrested  as  it  had  been 
in  October.  The  successful  continuance  of  it  was  therefore  very 
problematical.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  strike  as  a  demon- 
stration of  the  power  of  the  Council,  and  of  the  sympathy  of  the 
working  people  with  the  mutiny  in  the  army  and  navy,  one  day  was 
as  efficacious  as  a  week.  The  strike  might  therefore  have  been 
declared  at  an  end  on  the  3rd  November  ;  but  if  this  decision  were 
arrived  at  on  that  date,  the  cessation  would  appear  to  have  been 
brought  about  by  Count  Witte's  telegram.  The  question  of  the 
discontinuance  of  the  strike  was  thus  postponed.  On  the  following 
day,  however,  the  executive  of  the  Council  decided  to  discontinue 
the  strike  by  a  majority  of  nine  votes  to  six.  This  decision  was, 
however,  negatived  on  the  same  day  (4th  November)  by  an  over- 
whelming vote  in  the  Council  as  a  whole.^  There  was  a  heated  dis- 
cussion, in  which  the  executive  committee  was  roundly  denounced. 
It  was  reminded  that  it  ordered  a  strike  for  a  definite  object,  and 
that  that  object  had  not  been  attained.  Nevertheless,  either  the 
executive  was  better  informed  than  the  Council,  or  it  was  in  a  posi- 
tion to  make  a  sounder  diagnosis  of  the  situation.  Although  the 
strike  had  been  unprecedentedly  widespread  on  its  first  day,  and  al- 
though it  had  been  in  progress  for  three  days  only,  it  was  already 
abating  ;  and  the  committee  knew  that  the  striking  mass  could  not 
be  held  together.  On  the  5th  November  this  fact  became  evident 
to  everyone,  and  a  resolution  was  passed  to  bring  the  strike  to  an 
end  on  the  7th  November. 

Meanwhile  the  Government  had  conceded  something.  The  case 
of  the  sailors  at  Kronstadt  was  handed  over,  not  to  a  court  martial, 

1  Ibid.,  p.  168.  Count  Wittg's  telegram  began  with  the  familiar  phrase, 
"  Little  brothers ! "  A  group  of  electrical  workmen  reported  upon  it 
laconically:  "  Read  and  struck." 

2  A  hundred  votes  to  four. 

VOL.  II  2  K 


514     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

but  to  the  military  circuit  court,  which,  unlike  a  court  martial,  is  a 
permanent  mihtary- judicial  tribunal. 

The  speech  made  by  the  member  of  the  executive  committee  of 
the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  who  moved  the  resolution 
that  the  strike  should  come  to  an  end,  put  the  whole  position  very 
clearly.  He  pointed  out  that  to  sustain  the  strike  until  the  sailors 
were  handed  over  to  a  civil  tribunal  and  until  martial  law  was  abro- 
gated in  Poland,  meant  that  it  must  be  sustained  until  the  complete 
downfall  of  the  autocracy.  He  did  not  deceive  himself  so  far  as  to 
suppose  that  that  event  was  imminent.  It  was  better  then  to  cease 
the  existing  strike,  and  to  resume  the  attack  later  when  occasion 
seemed  opportune.  A  series  of  assaults  was  necessary.  The  strike 
had  not  been  unsuccessful.  Something  had  been  gained.  The 
sailors  had  been  saved  from  the  summary  jurisdiction  of  a  court 
martial.  The  Government  had  capitulated  so  far.  Besides,  the 
Government  had  been  frightened,  and  its  credit  had  been  injured,  by 
the  collapse  in  the  price  of  Russian  securities  on  the  foreign  ex- 
changes. Again,  the  elections  for  the  Duma  were  soon  to  take  place. 
These  must  be  organized,  and  through  them  a  further  blow  might 
be  struck  against  the  Government.  Beneath  this  optimism,  how- 
ever, there  was  in  the  speech  an  undercurrent  of  despondency.  The 
speaker  avowed,  what  in  the  later  days  of  1905  was  becoming  ob- 
vious, that  the  nation  was  no  longer  united  against  the  autocracy — 
that  the  struggle  was  becoming  more  and  more  a  class  struggle. 
Even  the  intelligentsia,  who  had  joined  heartily  in  the  first  poUtical 
strike,  were  less  sympathetic  in  the  second.  They  were  saying, 
*'  Do  you  hope  to  defeat  the  enemy  with  your  strength  only  ;  your 
strikes  are  setting  society  against  you."  ^ 

The  second  poUtical  strike  in  St.  Petersburg  showed  conclusively 
that  the  general  strike  as  a  political  weapon  had  become  perceptibly 
blunter.  The  effect  upon  the  Government  was  by  no  means  so 
great  as  the  effect  of  the  first  strike,  and  in  the  end  it  was  not  appar- 
ent that  any  impression  had  been  made  upon  the  army  and  the  navy, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  strike  was  an  attempt  to  enhst  both  on 
the  side  of  the  revolution. 

^  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  124. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  AGITATION   FOR  AN   EIGHT-HOURS   WORKING   DAY 

The  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies,  at  its  meeting  on  29th  Octo- 
ber 1905,  "  decreed  "  the  establishment  of  an  eight-hours  working 
day.^  Khrustalov,  who  was  the  president  of  the  Council,  quotes  from 
the  report  of  the  Geneva  Congress  (1866)  of  the  International  Working 
Men's  Association  :  **  The  shortening  of  the  working  time  appears 
to  be  the  necessary  condition  without  which  all  the  aspirations  of 
the  proletariat  towards  its  emancipation  must  fail."  ^  To  secure  a 
universal  eight-hours  working  day,  one  or  other  of  three  methods 
may  obviously  be  employed  :  a  law  may  be  passed  by  the  State,  an 
agreement  may  be  arrived  at  between  workmen  and  their  employers, 
or  the  workmen  may  simply  leave  their  work  on  the  expiry  of  a  daily 
period  of  eight  hours.  Khrustalov  points  out  that  the  Council  of 
Working  Men's  Deputies  was  not  averse  from  availing  itself  of  the 
powers  of  the  State.  The  large  influence  of  the  Social  Democrats 
would  naturally  be  exerted  in  that  direction.  "  If,"  he  says,  "  the 
working  class  did  not  ask  the  old  authority  for  the  shortening  of  the 
working  day,  that  was  because  the  police-autocratic  State,  in  terms 
of  its  own  existence,  was  unable  to  solve  the  working  men's  ques- 
tion." 3  The  intermediate  method  offered  no  prospect  of  immediate 
success.  The  final  method  seemed  to  be  the  only  one.  Historically, 
Khrustalov  says  that  the  idea  belongs  to  French  syndicalism.  At  the 
congress  of  La  Confederation  Generale  du  Travail  held  at  Bourges  in 
March  1905,  a  resolution  was  adopted  calling  upon  working  men  to 
obtain  the  eight-hours  working  day  by  **  encroachment,"  or  by 
"  r action  directe  " — that  is,  by  taking  it.*  The  method  commended 
itself  to  the  "  state  of  mind  "  of  the  Russian  proletariat  at  the  time. 
The  "  right  of  striking,"  the  "  right  of  pubhc  meeting,"  the  "  right  of 
free  speech,"  had  all  been  obtained  by  "  encroachment — by  faction 

1  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  103.  *  Ibid.,  p.  100.  *  Ibid. 

*  Cf.  Mouvemente  Socialiste,  1  $  mars  1905,  and  Pouget,  Emile,  La  Confidira- 
iion  GSnSrale  du  Travail  (Paris,  c.  191 1),  p.  $8. 

515 


5i6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

directe.  If  the  "  right  "  of  an  eight-hours  working  day  were  univer- 
sally vindicated  by  all  working  men  simply  refusing  to  work  for  a 
longer  period  daily  than  eight  hours,  the  battle  was  won.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  bring  sufficient  force  to  bear  upon  the  working  mass 
to  compel  them  to  work  longer  than  they  chose  to  work.  Hundreds 
and  even  thousands  of  people  might  be  sent  to  prison,^  but  millions 
could  not  be  dealt  with  in  this  way. 

The  "  decree"  was  passed  by  the  Council  on  the  night  of  29th 
October,  and  it  was  carried  into  effect  on  the  31st.  The  manifesto 
announcing  this  "  decree  "  required  all  working  men  to  introduce 
the  eight-hour  day  into  their  factories  "  in  the  revolutionary  way  '* 
— that  is,  by  refraining  from  working  longer  than  eight  hours. 
The  Council  also  "  considered  "  that  an  increase  of  hourly  and  piece- 
work wages  must  be  demanded,  so  that  the  wages  should  remain  at 
their  former  level,  the  shortening  of  working  hours  notwithstanding. 
Khrustalov  says  that  the  Council  insisted  upon  this  because,  although 
in  some  industries  a  diminution  of  working  hours  might  enable 
labour  to  be  intensified,  and  thus  to  avoid  net  reduction  in  wages, 
there  were  other  industries  in  which  the  machinery  was  so  automatic 
that  it  was  beyond  the  power  of  the  workman  to  increase  his  output 
per  unit  of  time.^ 

On  Wednesday,  31st  October,  in  a  large  number  of  the  St.  Peters- 
burg foundries  and  factories,^  the  workmen,  having  worked  for  eight 
hours,  marched  out  of  their  respective  places  of  employment,  with 
red  flags,  singing  the  **  Marseillaise,"  and  "  taking  off "  workmen 
in  the  smaller  estabHshments  who  were  still  working.*  In  one 
factory,  the  management  agreed  to  accept  the  eight-hour  day,  and 
agreed  also  to  increase  wages.  In  that  case  it  was  possible  to  in- 
crease the  prices  of  goods  by  from  one-half  to  one  per  cent.  In 
general,  however,  the  employers,  while  powerless  to  prevent  the 
workmen  from  leaving  their  work  at  the  expiry  of  eight  hours 
labour,  did  not  encourage  them  to  do  so  by  agreeing  to  an  advance 
of  wages. 

On  the  2nd  November  the  second  political  strike  began,  and  th€ 
eight-hour  question  was  submerged  for  the  five  days  during  whicl 

*  As  they  might  be  under  the  code,  for  participation  in  strikes. 

*  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  pp.  103-4. 

*  A  long  list  of  them  is  given  by  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  105. 

*  The  printers,  however,  refused  to  be  "taken  off,"  on  the  ground 
they  wished  time  to  consider  the  question. 


EIGHT-HOURS   DAY   AGITATION     517 

that  strike  lasted,  to  come  to  the  surface  again  as  a  cardinal  factor 
in  the  whole  revolutionary  situation.  When  work  was  resumed  on 
the  7th  November,  some  of  the  working  men's  deputies  raised  the 
question  whether  the  "  decree  "  of  the  29th  October  upon  the  eight- 
hours  day  question  ought  to  be  rescinded.  The  employers  had 
meanwhile  met  the  difficult  pass  in  which  they  had  found  them- 
selves, by  organizing  employers'  associations  for  the  purpose  of 
resisting  the  demands  of  the  working  men  by  their  united  strength. 
Some  of  these  associations  had  already  announced  that  their  mem- 
bers would  not  agree  to  the  eight  hour  day,  and  that  a  wholesale 
lock-out  of  working  men  would  follow  any  attempt  to  impose  it  by 
ruction  directe.  The  Government  also  agreed  to  support  such  a 
movement  by  refusing  to  reopen  its  industrial  establishments.  The 
moment  was  not  ill  chosen.  The  working  men  of  St.  Petersburg 
were  exhausted  by  repeated  strikes.  Their  wives  and  children  were 
suffering  want.  If  in  striking  they  desired  to  reUeve  themselves 
of  the  burden  of  labour,  they  should  have  more  relief  in  that  kind 
than  perhaps  they  desired.  The  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies 
had  carried  affairs  with  a  high  hand  for  a  time,  but  during  this 
time  the  Government  had  been  able  to  recover  its  nerve,  and  the 
moment  was  now  opportune  for  inaction.  All  that  was  necessary 
to  break  the  revolutionary  spirit  was  to  keep  the  factory  doors 
closed ;  the  mihtary  situation  was  no  longer  embarrassing,  for  most  of 
the  workmen  had  been  relieved  of  their  arms.  As  for  the  employers, 
they  had  probably  gained  as  much  potential  advantage  out  of  the 
revolutionary  movement  as  they  were  likely  to  gain.  A  certain 
amount  of  freedom  for  them  had  been  secured  at  comparatively 
slight  cost  and  without  compromising  themselves  with  the  Govern- 
ment. It  was  time  now  to  draw  the  line.  Khrustalov  not  inaptly 
compares  the  position  at  this  moment  of  the  St.  Petersburg  manu- 
facturers with  that  of  neutral  states  which  step  in  when  peace  agree- 
ments are  being  made,  to  gain  as  much  advantage  as  they  can  from 
both  the  previously  contending  parties.  While  the  struggle  was 
going  on,  the  employers,  as  fully  admitted  by  the  representatives  of 
the  working  men,  had  sustained  well  the  role  of  neutrals.  In  the 
October  strike  some  of  them  had  even  exhibited  a  certain  sympathy 
with  the  working  men's  movement,  because  they  recognized  its 
predominantly  pohtical  character.  They  did  not  seek  to  prevent 
the  strikers  from  holding  meetings  in  their  works  while  the  strike 


51 8     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

was  in  progress,  and  "  the  majority  of  the  strikers  "  i  received  from 
their  employers  half  wages  during  the  strike ;  some  of  them  even 
received  their  wages  in  full.  No  working  man  was  dismissed  be- 
cause he  went  on  strike.  The  management  of  the  Putilovsky  Iron- 
works, for  example,  paid  in  full  the  wages  of  the  deputies  of  their 
workmen  who  were  members  of  the  Council  of  the  Working  Men's 
Deputies,  and  who  were,  therefore,  absent  from  work  not  only  during 
the  strike,  but  afterwards.  The  administration  of  the  Obukhovsky 
Foundry  offered  the  Council  the  use  of  a  steamboat. 

These  amenities  undoubtedly  tended  to  diminish  the  friction 
between  working  men  and  their  employers,  and  tended  at  the  same 
time  to  give  the  strike  more  and  more  of  a  political  character. 
But  the  insistence  upon  a  universal  eight-hours  day  after  the  two 
political  strikes  were  over  brought  up  again  the  economical  features 
which,  after  all,  lay  at  the  root  of  the  working  men's  movement. 

If  Count  Witte  had  granted  an  eight-hours  day,  he  might  for 
the  time  have  captured  the  working  men,  much  as  they  distrusted 
him ;  but  he  would  have  made  mortal  enemies  of  the  St.  Peters- 
burg manufacturers ;  and  unless  he  had  extended  it  to  aU  the  indus- 
trial centres  of  Russia,  he  would  have  imperilled  the  industrial 
interests  of  the  capital.  He  may  well  be  supposed  to  have  shrunk 
from  this  course,  and  thus  the  employers  and  the  Government 
were  drawn  together,  the  city  proletariat  was  isolated,  and  the 
revolution,  notwithstanding  important  changes  in  the  methods  of 
administration  and  in  the  forms  of  government,  was  rendered 
abortive. 

On  the  7th  November  the  Government  workshops  remained 
closed,  and  numerous  private  establishments  followed  this 
example.2  The  manager  of  the  Semyavikovsky  Foundry  posted 
the  following  notice :  "If  the  work  of  the  foundry  is  not  per- 
formed according  to  the  existing  rules  for  interior  management, 
all  working  men  will  be  dismissed,  and  the  foundry  will  be  closed. 
Owing  to  the  rumours  that  have  reached  me,  working  men,  in  spite 
of  the  decision  of  the  administration  (of  the  foimdry)  have  the 
intention  of  working  only  eight  hours  per  day.  I  regard  it  as  my 
moral  duty  to  convey  to  the  knowledge  of  the  worldng  men  that 
in  seventy  private  foundries  in  St.  Petersburg — and  in  this  number 

^  Khrustalov,  op,  cit.,  p.  127. 

*  A  long  list  is  given  by  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  128. 


EIGHT-HOURS    DAY   AGITATION     519 

are  all  the  large  establishments — the  former  working  day  of  ten 
to  ten  and  a  half  hours  is  re-established."  ^ 

Soldiers  were  despatched  to  the  factories,  and  meetings  were 
forbidden.  In  one  factory  the  employer,  on  being  asked  to  give 
a  room  for  a  meeting,  answered,  "  There  shall  not  be  any  more 
meetings.  You  aim  at  too  high  poUtical  purposes,  thus  forcibly 
to  introduce  an  eight-hour  day."  ^  The  entrance  of  affairs  upon 
this  new  path  became  known  on  6th  November,  the  day  before  the 
period  fixed  for  the  cessation  of  the  strike.  On  that  date  a  meeting 
of  the  Executive  Council  was  held.^  At  this  meeting  the  Council 
found  itself  confronted  by  the  fact  that  there  was  no  unanimity 
upon  the  question  of  the  eight-hour  day.  Some  employers  were 
wiUing  to  agree  to  it  upon  condition  that  others  did  so  also.  Others 
agreed  to  reduce  the  number  of  working  hours  from  ten  to  nine  ; 
others  from  ten  to  nine  and  a  half.  It  became  apparent  that  a 
universal  eight-hour  day  could  not  be  arbitrarily  imposed.  The 
Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  had  not  force  enough  to  do  it. 
The  eight-hours  day  without  increase  of  wages  was  likely  to  im- 
poverish the  working  men,  already  exhausted  by  two  political 
strikes  in  addition  to  a  whole  year  of  frequent  and  prolonged  strikes 
on  economical  grounds.  The  majority  of  the  working  men  were 
threatened  with  dismissal  unless  they  abandoned  their  attempt 
to  force  the  eight-hour  day  upon  the  employers. 

The  Coimcil  then  decided  upon  an  inevitable  but  fatal  step. 
They  left  the  question  to  the  decision  of  the  groups  of  workmen 
in  the  factories  and  foundries  separately.  The  deputy  of  the 
printers  very  pertinently  observed  that  the  whole  meaning  of  the 
Coimcil  was  that  it  united  the  working  men  ;  now  it  was  dissolving 
the  movement  once  more  into  mere  party  skirmishes.  Moreover, 
if  there  must  be  division,  it  should  be  by  industries,  and  not  by 
regions.  The  fact  of  competition  must  not  be  ignored.*  This 
argument  showed,  however,  wherein  the  weakness  of  the  Coimcil 
lay  at  that  moment.  Insensibly  but  rapidly  the  Council  of  the 
Working  Men's  Deputies  of  St.  Petersburg  had  acquired  the  hege- 
mony of  the  Russian  revolutionary  movement.  During  the  first 
pohtical  strike  this  was  very  evident.  The  second  poUtical  strike 
occurred  too  soon  after  the  first,  and  was  too  indecisive.     Repres- 

1  Khnistalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  128.  *  Ibid.,  p.  129. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  130.  *  Ibid.y  p.  133. 


520     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

sions  were  going  on  in  the  provinces,  in  spite  of  the  critical  state 
of  affairs  in  the  capital.  Gradually  the  influence  of  the  Council 
waned,  and  although,  as  will  be  shown  later,  there  were  attempts 
to  mobiUze  the  revolutionary  forces  under  the  leadership  of  the 
St.  Petersburg  Coxincil,  these  attempts  failed.  Thus  the  Council 
was  quite  unable  to  deal  with  the  eight-hour  question  in  any  wide 
way.  The  protest  of  the  printers'  deputy  was  unheeded,  and  the 
resolution,  in  which  the  struggle  for  the  eight-hour  day  was  prac- 
tically abandoned,  was  passed. 

The  Government  factories  were  reopened  under  the  former 
conditions ;  but  19,000  men  were  locked  out  of  thirteen  fac- 
tories, &c.,  on  the  12th  November,  *'  because  they  insisted  on  the 
eight-hour  day  and  because  they  went  '  too  far  in  pohtics.*  "  ^ 

On  the  13th  November  the  Council  discussed  the  expediency 
of  answering  the  lock-out  by  declaring  a  general  strike ;  the  majority 
decided  against  any  such  course,  unless  a  general  Russian  strike 
could  be  proclaimed. 

The  defeat  upon  the  eight-hours  day  was  a  serious  blow  to  the 
labour  movement.  It  showed  the  working  class  the  comparatively 
narrow  Umits  of  their  power,  and  it  reinvigorated  both  the  em- 
ployers and  the  Government. 

^  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  133. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  RELATION  OF  THE  PRESS  TO  THE  REVOLUTION 

The  "  Censure  "  in  Russia  is  a  formidable  institution.  Everyone 
is  familiar  with  the  **  caviare "  which  obhterates  objectionable 
passages  in  otherwise  innocuous  publications,  and  with  the  suspen- 
sion of  newspapers  by  administrative  order.  Under  the  pre- 
revolution  regime  no  issue  could  be  made  from  any  printing-press 
until  after  it  had  passed  the  department  of  the  "  censure,"  and  no 
printed  matter  could  be  delivered  by  the  Post  Office  without  passing 
through  the  ordeal  of  examination.  There  were,  as  there  are  still, 
three  branches  of  this  department  for  foreign  books  and  journals  : 
one  at  St.  Petersburg,  one  at  Moscow,  and  one  at  Kiev.  These, 
as  well  as  the  numerous  offices  for  the  censure  of  domestic  publica- 
tions, are  under  the  control  of  the  committee  of  the  censure  in  the 
Bureau  of  Press  Affairs  at  St.  Petersburg.  For  about  six  weeks, 
from  23rd  October  until  2nd  December  1905,  the  Russian  censure- 
ship  was  paralyzed  by  the  "  seizure  of  Uberty  "  by  the  press.  Prac- 
tically all  the  newspapers  simply  disregarded  the  censor,  and 
began  freely  to  print  criticisms  of  the  Government.  Pohce  visits 
followed,  and  confiscations  in  some  cases;  but  the  revolt  of  the 
press  was  too  widespread  to  deal  with  otherwise  than  in  detail. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  this  "  seizure  of  freedom  "  was  due  to  the 
general  situation  ;  but  it  was  also  due,  undoubtedly,  to  the  action 
of  the  printers.  The  printers  established  a  censureship  of  their 
own.  They  refused  to  print  anti-revolutionary  writings.  For 
example,  when  the  ^o-called  "  righting  of  the  Zemstvos  "  ^  took 
place  the  meeting  of  representatives  of  the  Zemstvos  at  Moscow 
passed  a  manifesto  which  the  compositors  refused  to  set  in  t5rpe. 
M.  Guchkov  (in  1910,  President  of  the  State  Dimia)  in  intimat- 
ing this  circumstance  to  the  meeting,  used  the  following  remarkable 
expressions  : 

"  Apparently  the  new  Bureau  of  Printing  Affairs  has  distri- 
buted circulars  to  this  effect :    '  Here  we  have  freedom  of  the 

^  Cf,  supra,  p.  281. 
521 


522     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

Press !  *  But  this  is  the  old  r^ime,  only  from  another  end.  There 
remains  to  us  to. use  the  methods  of  this  regime,  to  print  abroad 
or  to  start  an  underground  printing  ofi&ce."  ^ 

The  "  righted  Zemstvos  "  and  the  newspapers  were  obhged  to 
surrender  to  the  typesetters.  The  leading  newspapers  in  the 
capitals,  even  the  Novoe  Vremya,  were  obhged  to  send  their  issues 
to  the  revolutionary  censor.  One  newspaper  only,  Slovo,  the  organ 
of  the  Oktabrist  party,  obtained  a  special  exemption.  M.  Guchkov's  | 
reference  to  the  new  Biueau  of  Printing  Affairs  was,  of  course,  meant 
for  the  Gmndl  of  Working  Men's  Deputies.  At  the  meeting  of 
the  Council  on  19th  October  it  *'  decreed  '*  the  freedom  of  the 
press  ;  but  no  newspapers  were  permitted  to  be  pubUshed  except- 
ing the  Bulletin  of  the  Council.  While  the  strike  lasted  this  "  de- 
cree "  was  necessarily  inoperative,  because  no  newspapers  were 
printed.*  At  the  conclusion  of  the  strike  the  question  assumed 
a  new  aspect. 

Simultaneously  with  the  outbreak  of  the  October  strike  and 
the  formation  of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies,  an  union 
was  formed  of  the  pubUshers  of  newspapers  and  periodicals  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  the  freedom  of  the  press  from  the  arbitrary 
pencil  of  the  censor.  The  first  meeting  of  this  new  organization 
took  place  on  13th  October,  in  the  of&ces  of  Nasha  Jezn?  To  this 
meeting  working  men  were  not  invited ;  but  at  the  second  meeting, 
which  was  held  shortiy  after,  there  appeared  together  representa- 
tives of  conservative  journals  hke  Novoe  Vremya,  of  Uberal  journals 
hkejRwss,  of  radical  journals  like  Sen  Otechestva,  and  representatives 
of  the  working  printers.  All  without  doubt  desired  to  secure  the 
same  end,  namely,  the  freedom  of  the  press,  but  in  some  cases 
this  end  was  final,  and  in  others  it  was  only  a  means  to  remoter 
ends.  The  points  of  view  were  irreconcilable,  and  the  working  men 
withdrew,  leaving  the  publishers  and  the  men  of  letters  to  adopt 
their  own  methods.  Strangely  enough,  the  method  upon  which 
they  finally  agreed  was  not  dissimilar  from  that  which  had  been] 
adopted  by  working  men  in  the  cities  and  the  peasants  in  the] 
provinces — they  proposed  to  achieve  the  freedom  of  the  press  hy\ 
taking  it— that  is,  by  V  action  direcie.    The  method  was  modified 

»  Khmstalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  99.  «  Cf.  supra,  p.  493. 

»  A.  Simonovsky  in  The  History  of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies 
(St.  Petersburg,  1 910).  p.  219. 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION    523 

subsequently,  but  in  the  first  instance  it  involved  the  policy  of 
refraining  from  appealing  to  the  Government  for  legislation  and  of 
ignoring  the  department  of  the  censure.  The  resolution  of  the 
union  that  the  censor  be  ignored  was  to  be  printed  in  every  issue, 
and,  in  addition,  news  and  comments  upon  public  affairs,  which 
would  most  probably  have  attracted  the  notice  of  the  censor  under 
the  existing  system,  were  to  be  printed  in  exactly  the  same  form 
by  all  the  newspapers  in  the  union.  This  uniformity  was  adopted 
so  that  if  any  newspaper  was  suspended  by  the  police,  all  would 
have  to  be  dealt  with.  The  newspapers  also  agreed  that,  should 
any  of  them  be  attacked,  all  would  voluntarily  suspend  publica- 
tion— a  form  of  "  peaceful  boycott." 

This  union  of  the  newspapers  was  organized  while  no  news- 
papers were  being  published  during  the  currency  of  the  first  political 
strike.  No  conflict  between  the  Government  and  the  newspapers 
was  thus  possible  at  that  moment.  During  the  strike  the  Council 
of  Working  Men's  Deputies  had  made  the  freedom  of  the  pres*— 
so  far  as  its  liberation  from  the  department  of  the  censure  was 
concerned — an  actual  fact.  Not  only  was  the  BuUeHn  of  the  Council 
issued  and  sold  pubHcly  in  the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg  in  great 
numbers — it  possessed  a  monopoly,  for  no  other  newspaper  except- 
ing the  official  gazette  was  published—but  large  numbers  of  other 
issues  were  made  from  the  revolutionary  press,  now  no  longer  under- 
ground, but  openly  established  in  "  legal "  printing  offices. 

Affairs  were  in  this  posture  when  the  manifesto,  the  authorship 
of  which  is  attributed  to  Count  Witt6,  was  issued  on  17th  October. 
While  freedom  of  speech  was  certainly  mentioned  in  it,  there  was 
no  mention  of  the  freedom  of  the  press.  On  the  night  of  the  17th 
Count  Witts  received  a  deputation  from  the  Union  of  Unions, 
and  gave  an  assurance  that  the  expression  "  freedom  of  speech  " 
included  freedom  of  the  press.^  During  the  night  of  the  Z7th,  the 
printers  being  still  on  strike,  the  question  arose  whether  or  not 
newspapers  containing  the  manifesto  should  be  printed  on  that 
evening  or  on  the  following  morning.  The  staffs  of  various  news- 
papers, notably  that  of  the  Novoi  Vrimya,  pled  with  the  printers 
to  set  up  the  paper,  because  of  the  change  in  the  situation  pro- 

*   SimonoVSky,   0f\   df..    p.    .••.'.       Al    .»   mi1>'.('.|U(MiI    "  pilr.nin.iK''  "   f"  Itim. 

Count  Witts  is  reptuicd  (..  u.wr  .11,1  •  nmini:  in.  {r\\\\  iiu-  |Mu>f.-,i  w.u.i 
will  enjoy  real  freedom  ;  but  wo  wdiil  to  couliuuo  llio  Uwb  iiUiul  Live  ecu- 
sure  "  {Russ,  3oth  October  1905  ;  quoted  by  Simonovsky,  op,  cit.,  p.  222), 


524     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

duced  by  the  promise  of  representative  government  contained  in 
the  manifesto  of  the  Tsar.  The  printers  repUed  that  to  do  so 
would  be  "to  break  "  the  strike  and  to  break  faith  with  their 
union.  The  executive  of  the  union  met,  and  decided  that  the 
promises  of  the  manifesto  could  not  be  reUed  upon,  and  that  the 
strike  should  not  be  discontinued.  The  manifesto  had  already 
been  set  up  in  type,  but  the  type  was  distributed.  On  the  night 
of  the  17th  October  the  text  of  the  manifesto  was  published  by 
one  newspaper  only,  the  Pravitelstvennie  Vestnik  (official  gazette). 
Delegates  from  the  printers  went  to  the  office  of  this  paper  in  order 
to  endeavour  to  dissuade  the  printers  from  setting  up  the  docu- 
ment, but  they  were  too  late — the  manifesto  had  been  set  up  in 
type  and  was  being  printed,  not  by  printers,  but  by  troops.  Novoe 
Vremya  adopted  the  expedient  of  printing  the  manifesto  on  a 
Remington  typewriter  and  exposing  a  copy  in  a  window  lighted  by 
electricity.  On  the  i8th  the  Svyet  newspaper  published  the  mani- 
festo, the  printing  having  been  done  by  deserting  strikers  among 
their  own  workmen.  The  printing  office  was  afterwards  pillaged 
by  "  foundry  workers."  While  the  publication  of  the  manifesto 
of  the  Tsar  was  thus  impeded  by  the  revolutionists,  as  if  to  show 
that  they  were  masters  of  the  situation,  '*  enormous  quantities  "  of 
a  revolutionary  manifesto  issued  by  the  Social  Democratic  and 
SociarRevolutionist  Parties  were  printed  and  distributed  openly  on 
the  i8th  October. 

When,  on  the  20th  October,  the  Council  of  Working  Men's 
Deputies  announced  the  discontinuance  of  the  general  poUtical 
strike,  it  also  announced  that  the  strike  of  newspaper  printers 
should  continue  in  respect  to  those  newspapers  whose  management 
recognized  the  department  of  the  censure  by  submitting  their  issues 
to  it  in  conformity  with  the  existing  law.  Those  printers  who  were 
compelled  to  remain  on  strike  because  their  employers  did  not 
adopt  this  course  were  to  receive  full  wages  from  the  funds  of  the 
Council.  The  resolution  of  the  Council  is  as  follows ;  "  The  ukase 
of  the  Tsar  promulgates  freedom  of  speech,  yet  the  head  office  for 
press  affairs  is  preserved.  The  Council,  starting  from  the  position 
that  the  working  class  carries  on  its  shoulders  all  or  almost  all  of 
the  burden  of  the  struggle,  should  say  its  word  also  about  freedom 
of  the  press.  The  freedom  of  the  press  should  be  conquered  by 
the  workers  themselves.     The  Coimcil  decides  that  only  those  news- 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION    525 

papers  may  be  circulated,  the  editors  of  which  ignore  the  committee 
of  the  censure,  do  not  send  their  issues  to  the  censor,  and  in  general 
conduct  themselves  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Council  does  in  the 
publication  of  its  newspaper  (the  Bulletin).  Therefore  typesetters 
and  other  workers  in  the  printing  business  who  take  part  in  the 
publication  of  newspapers,  begin  their  work  only  when  editors 
announce  and  effect  the  freedom  of  the  press.  .  .  .  Newspapers 
which  do  not  act  in  conformity  with  this  resolution  will  be  confis- 
cated, their  printing  machines  and  printing  offices  will  be  destroyed, 
and  working  men  who  do  not  subject  themselves  to  the  council 
will  be  boycotted."  ^  The  Council  also  passed,  on  the  same  day, 
another  resolution  calling  upon  the  Union  for  the  Defence  of  the 
Press,  in  the  event  of  the  Government  continuing  to  exercise 
repressive  measures,  not  to  adopt  the  means  of  the  pacific  boycott, 
as  had  been  proposed  by  it,  but  to  continue  to  disregard  the 
department  of  the  censure.  In  the  latter  case  the  Council  promised 
to  give  its  assistance  to  the  Union  for  the  Defence  of  the  Press. 

The  newspapers  were  thus  left  still  under  embargo,  the  manifesto 
of  the  Tsar  and  the  cessation  of  the  general  political  strike  notwith- 
standing. Moreover,  they  were  on  the  horns  of  a  double  dilemma. 
If  they  did  not  accept  the  terms  of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's 
Deputies,  their  newspapers  were  not  printed ;  if  they  did  accept  them 
they  ran  the  risk  of  having  the  publication  of  their  newspapers  sus- 
pended by  Government.  If  they  printed  by  means  of  strike-breakers 
their  offices  might  be  pillaged  by  the  Council ;  if  they  printed  by 
means  of  the  strikers,  they  might  be  raided  by  the  police.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  newly  formed  Union  for  the  Defence  of  the  Press 
determined  to  send  a  memorandum  to  the  Government  demanding 
a  new  press  law.  In  this  memorandum  ^  the  publishers  required  the 
abohtion  of  the  system  of  prehminary  censorship — that  is,  the  system 
by  which  they  were  obhged  to  send  to  the  censor  everything  that 
was  intended  to  be  published  before  issue.  They  also  demanded 
that  the  practice  of  dealing  with  alleged  offences  against  the  press 

^  Simonovsky.  op.  cit.,  p.  223.  The  book  printers  urged  the  Council  to 
deal  with  them  in  the  same  manner  as  the  newspaper  printers  had  been 
dealt  with  ;  but  the  Council  refused.  Their  refusal  was  not  quite  consistent 
with  their  previous  position,  viz.  that  the  newspaper  printers  could  not  be 
isolated,  partly  because  books  and  newspapers  were  frequently  printed  in 
the  same  offices.     (See  Simonovsky,  loc.  cit.,  and  c/.  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  77). 

2  Printed  in  full  in  Russ,  22nd  October  ;  quoted  in  Simonovsky,  op.  cit., 
p.  222. 


526     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

law  by  administrative  order  should  be  discontinued,  and  that  a  new 
formal  press  law  should  be  anticipated  by  immediate  assurances  of 
immunity  from  prosecution  under  the  existing  law. 

Meanwhile  the  newspapers  tacitly  accepted  the  agreement  pro- 
posed to  them  by  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies,  the  print- 
ing offices  were  opened,  the  printers  resumed  work,  and  the  censure 
was  ignored.  A  stereot5T)ed  notice  appeared  in  the  newspapers  to 
the  effect  that  the  issue  in  question  had  not  been  submitted  to  the 
censor.  On  the  first  day  of  this  new  order,  the  22nd  October,  Russ, 
the  organ  of  the  Constitutional  Democrats,  announced  **  with  a  cer- 
tain risk  we  call  this  issue  the  first  number  of  a  new  era — the  era  of 
the  freedom  of  the  Russian  press." 

The  newspapers  of  more  radical  tendency — as,  for  example,  the 
Sen  Otechestva — proclaimed  themselves  more  vigorously.  "  We  are 
told  that  in  the  expression,  *  freedom  of  speech,'  there  is  included 
freedom  of  the  press,  but  the  censure  remains  unabolished  ;  and  the 
press  is  obhged  by  its  own  efforts  to  throw  off  the  chains  of  the 
censure."  ^  The  press  may  have  thought  that  its  valorous  action 
was  due  to  its  own  initiative,  but  the  Council  of  Working  Men's 
Deputies  entertained  a  quite  different  view.^  The  distribution  of 
credit,  which  is  difficult  at  any  time,  is  impossible  during  a  revolu- 
tion ;  nor  is  it  important  now  to  assess  precisely  from  which  side 
came  the  initial,  and  from  which  the  effective  impulse.  The  general 
state  of  mind  was  already  making  for  the  disintegration  of  the 
various  elements  of  society  which  had  been  temporarily  fused  to- 
gether in  a  negative  attitude  towards  the  autocracy.  The  morrow 
of  a  revolution  usually  witnesses  the  dissolution  of  the  combination 
by  which  it  was  effected.  The  relations  of  the  Union  for  the  Defence 
of  the  Press  with  the  Council  of  the  Working  Men's  Deputies  had 
never  been  cordial.  Such  an  attitude  on  both  sides  arose  out  of 
deep-seated  prejudices,  and  contributed  with  similarly  discordant 
points  of  view  on  the  part  of  other  revolutionary  elements  "  to  bring 
the  revolution  to  dust." 

*  Sen  Otechestva,  1905,  No.  210. 

*  This  is  very  caustically  put  by  Simonovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  224.  "  The 
silence  of  the  liberal  marionettes  (about  the  initiative  of  the  Council  of  Working 
Men's  Deputies)  w£is  not  due  to  casual  editorial  oversight;  it  arose  out  of 
the  very  substance  of  the  liberal  bourgeoisie  spirit  to  register  for  themselves 
credit  not  only  for  the  victories  of  others,  but  for  the  initiative." 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  ROLE  OF  THE  ST.  PETERSBURG  COUNCIL  OF  WORK- 
ING MEN'S  DEPUTIES  IN  THE  REVOLUTIONARY 
MOVEMENT 

The  signij&cance  of  the  movement  which  began  on  the  13th  October 
1905  seems  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  the  Russian  revolution  passed  from 
the  hands  of  small  isolated  conspirative  groups  into  the  hands  of  an 
avowedly  revolutionary  body,  which  carried  on  its  operations  openly, 
entering  into  the  struggle  with  the  autocracy  without  disguise  and 
without  fear.  This  body  was  the  St.  Petersburg  Council  of  Working 
Men's  Deputies.  The  traditions  of  the  revolution  centre  round  it. 
There  were  similar  councils  of  working  men's  deputies  in  other 
cities  ;  but  the  Russian  working  man  of  revolutionary  sympathies 
who  is  invited  to  give  his  opinion  about  the  driving  force  of  the 
revolution  unhesitatingly  speaks  of  the  St.  Petersburg  Council. 
Although  at  the  height  of  its  influence  there  were  over  four  hundred 
members,  the  dominating  voice  in  the  Council  was  that  of  the  pre- 
sident, G.  Khrustalov-Nosar. 

This  remarkable  man,  under  happier  circumstances,  might  have 
served  his  country  as  the  leader  of  an  important  party,  recognized 
by  the  constitution  and  taking  its  share  in  the  conduct  of  pubUc 
affairs.  His  history  of  the  events  of  October  and  November  is  the 
record  of  a  calm,  clear-headed  man  who  thoroughly  understood  an 
unprecedented  situation,  and  whose  powerful  brain  appccired  to 
grasp  instantly  the  implications  of  the  projects  with  which  the 
Council  was  inundated  and  the  wily  snares  with  which  its  path  was 
beset.  Complete  success  of  the  revolution  at  that  moment  was, 
as  the  event  proved,  impossible ;  but  he  guided  it  with  cool  and 
energetic  hands  at  the  critical  moments,  and  at  least  contributed  to 
prevent  it  from  resulting  in  merely  futile  anarchy. 

The  **  state  of  mind  "  of  the  professional  classes,  of  the  army,  of 
the  navy,  of  no  inconsiderable  proportion  of  the  moneyed  classes, 

527 


528     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

of  the  urban  proletariat,  and  of  the  peasantry  in  the  early  days  of 
October  was  such  as  to  suggest  that  a  general  and  simultaneous 
Russian  revolutionary  movement  was  not  only  possible,  but  was 
inevitable.  Whenever  the  St.  Petersburg  Council  of  Working  Men's 
Deputies  was  formed,  its  executive  committee  was  instructed  to 
enter  into  relations  with  the  Post-Telegraph  Union,  the  Railway 
Union,  the  Peasant  Union,  and  the  working  men  of  the  industrial 
centres.  It  soon  appeared  that  all  these  wide  and  widely  scattered 
organizations  were  at  once  in  need  of  guidance,  and  anxious  to 
entrust  this  guidance  to  the  working  men  deputies  of  St.  Petersburg, 
which  was  at  the  same  time  a  great  industrial  centre  and  the  nearest 
to  the  central  authority.  So  early  as  the  13th  October  the  working 
men  of  Riga  appealed  to  the  St.  Petersburg  working  men  to  send 
delegates  there  in  order  to  be  made  aware  of  the  moment  of  action. 
The  working  men  of  Reval,  Ribinsk,  Schliisselberg,  and  Kharkov 
did  the  same  thing.  On  the  6th  November  the  Polish  Socialist 
Party  appeared  in  the  Council  by  deputies ;  on  the  12th  35,000  work- 
ing men  of  Narva  sent  their  deputies,  and  on  the  same  day  those  of 
Kiev  and  Rostov  telegraphed  their  adhesion.  In  consequence  of 
the  affiliation  of  these  widely  scattered  groups,  it  seemed  advisable 
to  convene  a  conference  by  means  of  which  a  formal  central  body 
might  be  elected  to  manage  the  revolutionary  movement.  But 
time  did  not  permit  of  this.  The  first  political  strike  pressed  on,  as 
described  above  ;  then  came  the  manifesto  with  its  consequences, 
and  later  the  second  political  strike.  These  brought  labours  enough 
to  the  Council,  and  it  was  not  until  after  the  eight-hour  day  struggle 
was  over  that  it  was  possible  to  consider  a  consolidation  of  the  AU- 
Russian  movement.  Towards  the  middle  of  November  the  St. 
Petersburg  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  sent  delegates  to 
Moscow,  to  the  south  of  Russia,  and  to  the  Ad- Volga  region.  In 
Moscow  these  delegates  stimulated  the  working  men  towards  the 
re-estabhshment  of  the  council  of  working  men's  deputies,  which 
had  fallen  into  abeyance  in  that  city.  At  the  same  time  they  organ- 
ized closer  relations  with  the  Jewish  Bund  in  the  north-western 
provinces,  as  well  as  with  the  Post-Telegraph  and  the  Peasants' 
Unions. 

Meanwhile  in  many  towns,  councils  of  working  men's  deputies 
had  been  formed,  especially  during  the  early  days  of  October.  The 
idea  seems  to  have  occurred  to  the  Kharkov  Society  of  Mutual 


R6LE   of   council   of  workmen    529 

Assistance  to  Working  Men^  that  a  conference  of  representatives 
from  these  councils  should  be  held,  and  in  accordance  with  this  sug- 
gestion a  preUminary  conference  had  been  held  in  Moscow.  The 
intention  of  this  conference  was,  to  begin  with,  simply  to  bring  the 
newly  organized  labour  movement  to  a  focus,  and  to  unite  the 
various  societies  of  the  Kharkov  type  with  the  trade  unions.  But 
the  debates  of  the  conference  went  far  beyond  this  comparatively 
narrow  aim.  They  embraced  the  large  questions  of  the  relation 
between  the  trade  union  movement  and  the  political  agitation  for 
constitutional  government,  and  the  relation  of  the  labour  move- 
ment in  general  to  the  prospective  State  Duma.  The  conference 
was  attended  not  merely  by  the  representatives  of  the  councils 
of  working  men's  deputies  and  of  the  mutual  assistance  societies,  but 
also  by  those  of  the  sociahst  parties.  In  the  general  revolutionary 
atmosphere  of  the  time  it  was  impossible  to  restrict  either  the  mem- 
bership of  the  conference  or  the  debates  which  took  place  in  it.  At 
this  preUminary  conference  it  had  been  decided  to  have  another 
conference,  to  which  delegates  were  to  be  specifically  elected,  and  to 
convene  this  conference  for  the  15th  November.  The  preoccupation 
of  the  St.  Petersburg  Council,  first  in  the  October  strike  and  later 
in  the  November  strike  and  in  the  eight-hours  day  struggle,  prevented 
any  elections  from  being  held  under  its  auspices,  nor  had  it  leisure 
during  these  weeks,  full  of  revolutionary  activity,  to  formulate  the 
business  for  a  conference.  Therefore  on  loth  November  the  St. 
Petersburg  Council  telegraphed  to  Moscow,  proposing  to  postpone  the 
conference  until  the  end  of  December.  This  proposal  was,  however, 
not  adopted,  and  the  conference  was  held  as  previously  arranged. 
Nevertheless,  by  means  of  this  conference  and  otherwise,  the  St. 
Petersburg  Council  stimulated  and  organized  the  working  men  all 
over  Russia.  The  machinery  of  organization  was  provided  by  the 
Council.  The  strike  of  the  Post-Telegraph  Union,  which  had  been 
postponed,  as  above  related,  took  place  on  its  urgent  demand.  The 
Council  also  organized  the  union  of  wood- workers,  port  labourers, 
electric  and  gas-lighting  workers,  tobacco  factory  employees,  shoe- 
makers, and  tailors.  They  also  initiated  the  organization  of  weavers 
and  spinners,  workers  in  the  metal  industries,  and  others.     All  these 

1  This  society  had  no  poHtical  affihations,  and  had  confined  itself  to  an 
educational  propaganda  among  workmen  and  to  a  certain  extent  among 
peasants. 

VOL.  II  2  L 


530     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

unions,  thus  formed  and  united  by  the  St.  Petersburg  Council,  were 
fighting  unions  which  threw  themselves  vigorously  into  the  revolu- 
tionary struggle.  Some  of  them  in  their  frequent  resolutions  made 
demands  of  a  character  quite  alien  to  their  own  specific  economical 
interests.  Thus,  the  electric  and  gas-Hghting  union  demanded  a 
Constituent  Assembly  and  the  transference  of  the  ownership  of  land 
into  the  hands  of  the  peasants  without  payment  by  them. 

Towards  the  end  of  November  the  unions  acquired  and  exercised 
a  great  deal  of  power.  The  Government  was  forced  into  conces- 
sions. When,  for  example,  the  engineer  Sokolov,  together  with 
other  employees  upon  the  railways,  were  brought  before  a  court 
martial  and  sentenced  to  death,  the  railway  unions  threatened  to 
strike  again  unless  the  death  sentence  was  commuted  by  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening  of  23rd  November.  This  ultimatum  was  sent 
to  the  Ministry  at  St.  Petersburg.  The  sentence  was  commuted  by 
telegram,  which  was  sent  through  the  railway  unions,  the  Ministry 
declaring  that,  owing  to  the  post-telegraph  strike,  they  knew  nothing 
of  the  circumstances,  and  could  not  get  into  communication  with  the 
local  authorities.^ 

In  the  last  week  of  November  the  psychological  moment  arrived 
when  the  Government  might,  without  risk  to  its  own  safety,  assume 
an  attitude  of  energetic  hostility  against  the  Council.  On  the  26th 
November  Khrustalov,  the  president,  was  arrested.  This  action 
marked  the  end  of  the  effective  activity  of  the  St.  Petersburg  Cotmcil 
of  Working  Men's  Deputies.  When  its  leader  was  arrested  several 
courses  presented  themselves  to  the  executive.  The  expedient  of 
another  general  strike  might  be  resorted  to ;  the  executive  might 
appear  to  dissolve  in  order  to  carry  on  conspirative  activity  **  under- 
ground," or  its  members  might  consult  their  own  safety  by  capitu- 
lation or  flight. 

The  first-mentioned  course,  viz.  the  calUng  of  another  general 
strike,  was  clearly  a  risky  one.  The  conclusion  of  the  strike  which 
had  just  been  brought  to  an  end  had  been  confused,  and  the  advan- 
tage which  had  been  gained  was  very  dubious.  So  far  as  St.  Peters- 
burg was  concerned,  the  general  strike,  considered  as  a  weapon  in 
the  revolutionary  duel,  was  already  blunt.  The  second  course  did 
not  commend  itself.  The  moral  influence,  such  as  it  was,  which  the 
Council  exercised  over  the  working  mass  in  St.  Petersburg  was  due 
*  Khrustalov,  op.  cit.,  p.  141. 


R6LE   of   council   of   workmen    531 

to  the  fact  that  the  proceedings  of  the  Council  were  open.  Its 
hostiUty  to  the  Government  as  a  whole  was  not  disguised,  and  it 
was  not  engaged  in  conspirative  attacks  upon  individuals.  To 
abandon  this  position  was  to  destroy  its  influence  and  in  effect  to 
cease  to  exist.  The  third  course  was  a  last  resort.  There  remained 
the  rather  lame  proceeding  of  continuing  to  carry  on  their  routine 
business  and  to  await  events.^ 

The  arrest  of  Khrustalov  was  thus  not  followed  by  any  reprisals 
in  St.  Petersburg  ;  but  the  working  men  of  Moscow  were  still  unex- 
hausted, and  the  centre  of  interest  was  removed  to  that  city,  where 
the  professional  classes  and  the  working  class  were  alike  in  a  state 
of  fermentation. 

It  should  be  observed  that,  although  the  St.  Petersburg  working 
men  are  generally  reputed  to  be  more  intelligent  than  those  of  Mos- 
cow, the  working  men  of  Moscow  have  been  more  accustomed  to 
discussion.  Even  during  reactionary  phases  the  atmosphere  of 
Moscow  has  always  been  freer  than  that  of  St.  Petersburg.  This 
circumstance  has  been  due  partly  to  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the 
bureaucrats  of  Moscow  of  their  superiors  at  the  centre  of  the  bureau- 
cratic mechanism  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  partly  to  the  civic  rivalry 
of  the  general  population  of  the  two  cities — one  the  seat  of  Slavo- 
phiUsm  and  all  that  that  impUes,  and  the  other  the  seat  of  Western 
European  influence. 

On  the  2nd  December  the  revolutionary  groups  joined  in  issuing 
a  manifesto  which  was  in  effect  an  indictment  of  the  Government. 
This  manifesto  is  not  couched  in  the  rhetorical  terms  customary  in 
such  documents,  but  is  a  forcible  statement  the  general  truth  of 
which  it  was  impossible  to  contest.  Eight  newspapers  pubUshed 
the  manifesto. 2    They  were  all  suspended,  and  the  issues  in  which 

^  These  alternatives  were  recognized  at  the  time  by  the  executive.  See 
Zvesdin,  V.,  in  Hist,  of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  of  St.  Peters- 
burg ;   cited,  pp.  170  et  seq. 

^  The  eight  newspapers  were  Nachalo,  Nasha  Jezn,  Novoya  Jezn,  Russkaya 
Gazetta,  Russ,  Svobodny  Narod,  and  Sen  Otechestva.  The  manifesto  was  issued 
by  the  following  groups  :  The  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies,  the  Main 
Committee  of  the  All-Russian  Peasant  Union,  the  Central  Committee  and 
Organizational  Committee  of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's 
Party,  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Socialist  Revolutionary  Party,  and  the 
Central  Committee  of  the  PoUsh  Socialist  Party. 

The  following  is  the  text  of  the  manifesto  :  "  The  Government  is  on  the 
edge  of  bankruptcy.  It  has  converted  the  country  into  a  ruin  and  strewn 
it  with  corpses.     The  exhausted  and  starving  peasant  is  unable  to  pay  his 


532     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

the  manifesto  appeared  were  confiscated.  Immediately  afterwards 
"  The  Union  for  the  Defence  of  the  Liberty  of  the  Press  "  decided  to 
publish  the  manifesto  as  a  protest  against  what  was  considered  to 
be  an  infringement  upon  the  freedom  of  the  press.    One  hundred 

quit  rents.  The  Government  opened  with  the  money  of  the  people  a  means 
of  credit  for  landowners  ;  now  the  estates  are  encumbered  with  mortgages. 
Factories  and  mills  stand  idle.  There  is  no  work,  and  there  is  general 
stagnation  of  trade.  By  means  of  capital  derived  from  foreign  loans  the 
Government  has  built  railways,  has  built  a  navy  and  fortresses,  and  has 
accumulated  reserves  of  arms  ;  but  the  foreign  loans  are  now  exhausted, 
and  orders  to  the  State  and  private  industrial  establishments  have  ceased. 
Merchants,  purveyors,  contractors,  mill-owners,  who  used  to  get  rich  through 
the  orders  of  the  State  have  closed  their  offices  and  works.  One  bankruptcy 
is  followed  by  another.  The  banks  are  ruined.  All  the  circulation  of  trade 
is  contracted  to  the  last  point.  The  struggle  of  the  Government  against  the 
revolution  creates  continual  agitation.  No  one  is  sure  of  to-morrow. 
Foreign  capital  is  returning  abroad,  and  even  Russian  capital  is  swimming 
away.  The  rich  are  selling  their  property  and  escaping  to  other  countries. 
Plunderers  are  running  away  from  Russia  and  carrying  ofE  the  property  of 
the  people.  For  a  long  time  the  Government  has  been  spending  all  the 
income  of  the  State  on  the  army  and  the  navy.  There  are  no  schools.  The 
roads  are  in  disorder.  Notwithstanding  this,  there  are  not  suf&cient  means 
to  provide  for  the  soldiers.  The  war  was  lost  partly  because  the  military 
ammunition  was  insufl&cient.  All  over  the  country  there  have  been  uprisings 
of  the  distressed  and  starving  army.  The  railway  economy  is  in  disorder. 
The  treasuries  of  the  railways  are  ransacked  by  the  Government.  To  re- 
plenish the  railway  economy,  many  hundreds  of  millions  of  rubles  are  neces- 
sary. The  Government  has  despoiled  the  Savings  Banks  and  has  given  the 
money  deposited  in  them  to  support  the  private  banks  and  industrial  enter- 
prises— the  latter  sometimes  inflated.  Government  is  speculating  on  the 
Exchanges  with  the  capital  of  the  small  depositor,  risking  this  capital  every 
day.  The  gold  fund  of  the  bank  is  insignificant  compared  with  the  demands 
on  account  of  State  loans  and  the  requirements  of  the  trade  balance.  This 
fund  will  be  converted  into  dust  if  for  all  dealings  payments  in  gold  are 
required.  Profiting  by  the  circumstance  that  the  State  finances  are  not 
disclosed,  the  Government  has  long  ago  concluded  loans  far  in  excess  of  the 
means  of  payment  by  the  country.  By  means  of  fresh  loans  it  is  defraying 
the  interest  upon  the  old  ones.  Year  after  year  the  Government  compiles 
fraudulent  estimates  of  income  and  expenditure,  showing  both  in  less  than 
the  actual  amounts  in  order  to  present  a  false  excess  instead  of  a  real  deficit 
each  year.  The  uncontrolled  officials  peculate  the  already  exhausted  fisc. 
Only  a  Constituent  Assembly  folloAving  after  the  overwhelmed  autocracy 
can  put  a  stop  to  this  financial  destruction.  The  Assembly  will  occupy 
itself  with  a  strict  investigation  of  the  State  finances  and  will  procure  de- 
tailed, clear,  and  exact  estimates  of  State  income  and  expenditure.  The 
fear  that  the  contiol  of  the  people  will  reveal  before  the  whole  world  the 
insolvency  of  the  Government  compels  the  latter  to  delay  the  convocation 
of  a  representative  national  assembly.  The  financial  bankruptcy  of  the 
State  hcLS  been  brought  about  by  the  autocracy  as  well  as  its  military  bank- 
ruptcy. Before  the  national  representatives  there  lies,  possibly  quite  soon, 
to  settle  the  debts  (incurred  by  the  autocracy).  In  defence  of  its  rapacity 
the  Government  compels  the  people  to  carry  on  against  it  a  life-and-death 
struggle.     In  this  struggle  hundreds  of  thousands  of  citizens  are  perishmg 


I 


r6le  of  council  of  workmen  533 

newspapers  published  the  manifesto ;  the  Government  refrained 
from  further  prosecutions.  The  immediate  effect  of  the  manifesto 
was  a  run  upon  the  Government  Savings  Banks,  which  resulted  in 
the  withdrawal  of  over  a  hundred  millions  of  rubles  of  deposits. 

and  are  being  ruined  ;  and  the  foundations  of  production,  trade,  and  trans- 
portation are  being  ruined  also.  There  is  only  one  outcome — ^to  overwhelm 
the  Government,  to  take  away  from  it  its  last  remaining  power.  The  ultimate 
source  of  its  existence,  its  financial  income,  must  be  cut  off.  This  is  neces- 
sary not  only  for  the  political  and  economical  emancipation  of  the  country, 
but  also  for  the  reformation  of  the  financial  economy  of  the  State. 

"  Therefore  we  decide  : 

"  To  refuse  payment  of  redemption  instalments  and  all  other  fiscal 
pajnnents. 

"  To  demand  in  all  payments  of  wages  and  salaries  payments  in  gold,  and 
for  amounts  of  less  than  five  rubles  full  weight  of  hard  coin. 

"  To  withdraw  the  deposits  from  the  Savings  Banks  and  from  the  State 
Bank,  demanding  payment  of  all  amounts  in  gold. 

"  The  autocracy  has  never  enjoyed  the  trust  of  the  people  and  derives  none 
of  its  power  from  them.  At  the  present  time  the  Government  is  acting 
within  its  own  frontiers  as  if  it  were  in  a  conquered  country.  Therefore  we 
decide  not  to  acknowledge  the  debts  which,  in  the  form  of  loans,  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Tsar  has  contracted  while  it  has  been  carrying  on  open  war 
against  the  whole  people."     Russkoe  Bogatstvo,  Nos.  ii  and  12,  pp.  193-5. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE  ARMED   UPRISING    IN    MOSCOW   FROM 
DECEMBER  9TH  TILL   19TH,   1905 

The  project  of  a  third  general  political  strike  was  discussed  from  the 
beginning  of  December  not  only  in  the  revolutionary  party  organiza- 
tions, but  in  the  working  men's  unions  and  in  the  councils  of  their 
deputies.  The  "  state  of  mind  "  of  the  party  organizers  and  of  the 
working  men  at  this  time  seems  to  suggest  that  they  were  impelled 
towards  aggressive  action  by  an  irresistible  impulse.  The  disastrous 
events  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  the  obvious  confusion  of  the 
bureaucratic  administration,  evidently  at  its  wits'  end,  and  the 
activity  of  the  revolutionary  parties  had  combined  to  excite  the 
hopes  of  the  city  industrial  population.  They  felt  that  "  events 
were  terribly  nearing  "  ;  they  thought  that  the  time  to  strike  had 
arrived,  and  that  a  few  bold  strokes  would  "  overwhelm  "  the  auto- 
cracy. What  was  to  come  after  ?  First  of  all  a  Constituent  Assem- 
bly, widely  representative ;  and  out  of  that  would  emerge  some 
kind  of  constitution.  This  "  state  of  mind  "  was  certainly  not 
wholly  due  to  the  revolutionary  propaganda  of  the  Social  Democratic 
and  Social  Revolutionary  Parties,  but  it  was  undoubtedly  fomented 
by  this  propaganda.  The  psychology  of  the  revolutionary  party 
leaders  at  tlis  time  is  not  hard  to  understand.  Their  campaign  had 
been  conducted  for  at  least  fifteen  years  with  skill  and  courage. 
They  had  circulated  hundreds  of  thousands  of  pamphlets  and  news- 
papers. They  had  conducted  numerous  demonstrations.  Yet  they 
felt  uncertain  about  the  next  step.  If  the  Tsar  refused  or  delayed 
to  convene  a  Constituent  Assembly,  what  was  to  be  done  ? 

Two  "  peaceful "  general  strikes  had  failed.  The  boycott  had 
cost  the  Government  much,  but  it  had  cost  the  people  more.  Fresh 
tactics  must  be  employed.  The  working  men  who  had  declared 
their  adherence  to  the  revolution  were  impatient.  They  had  lost 
all  faith  in  the  promises  of  the  Government,  and  they  might  be 

calculated  upon  speedily  to  lose  faith  in  the  promises  of  the 

534 


ARMED   UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     535 

revolutionary  leaders  unless  they  led  them  somewhere.  Something 
decisive  must  be  done,  or  the  results  of  the  ardent  propaganda  of 
past  years,  and  especially  of  the  past  months,  would  go  for  nothing. 
There  seemed  no  choice  but  acquiescence  in  the  demand  of  the 
working  men  for  an  armed  movement.  If  it  were  possible  to  get 
the  mihtary  to  **  come  over  to  their  side,"  a  sudden  and  successful 
revolution  might  be  accompUshed,  or,  at  all  events,  a  weakening 
blow  might  be  strack  at  the  tottering  autocracy.  If  the  mihtary 
did  not  join  them,  the  revolutionary  leaders  did  not  disguise  from 
themselves  that  an  "  armed  uprising  "  must  fail.  Their  orators 
and  pamphleteers  were  not  mihtary  leaders.  Many  of  the  intelli- 
gentsia who  were  with  them  in  the  propaganda,  and  who  enjoyed 
evasion  of  the  pohce  and  contempt  of  authority,  could  not  be 
rehed  upon  for  real  revolutionary  business  when  that  business 
meant  fighting  in  the  streets  against  disciplined  troops.  Their  own 
prophets!  had  told  them  indeed  that  in  any  case  revolutionary 
movements  involving  barricades  and  street  fighting  were  hope- 
lessly archaic,  and  that  the  machine  gun  and  the  magazine  rifle 
had  rendered  the  old  type  of  revolution  now  impossible  of  realiza- 
tion. Very  few  of  them  were  armed  with  any  weapons,  and  still 
fewer  knew  how  to  use  arms  even  if  they  had  had  them.  Above 
all,  they  had  no  artillery  and  no  military  leaders.  They  were  well 
aware  of  all  these  facts,  yet  the  working  men,  excited  by  the  various 
influences  of  which  mention  has  been  made,  and  daily  further 
excited  by  reports  of  fresh  repressive  actions  on  the  part  of  the 
Government,  were  urging  the  party  organizations  to  take  some 
decided  action.  Were  they  to  refuse  to  obey  this  sununons  which 
came  from  all  quarters,  the  party  leaders  would  undoubtedly  be 
accused  of  cowardice,  and  the  influence  of  their  propaganda  would 
be  absolutely  at  an  end.  The  leaders  of  the  revolutionary  parties 
thus  found  themselves  in  a  horrible  dilemma.  On  one  side,  the 
blood  of  themselves  and  others,  death  by  shrapnel  shells  or  buUets, 
with  inevitable  failure  to  obtain  any  material  advantage  excepting 
their  doubtful  enrolment  on  the  roll  of  martyrs  for  liberty ;  on  the 
other  side,  ignominious  confession  of  defeat,  not  in  the  field,  which 
they  would  have  refused,  but  in  a  hopeless  impasse  into  which 
they  had  led  their  imfortunate  followers.  Besides,  at  that  moment 
any  faltering  in  attack  might  have  been  even  more  fatal  than  an 
1  Friedrich  Engels,  and  later  August  Bebel,  had  written  in  this  sense. 


536     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

aggressive  advance,  and  might  retard  the  whole  movement  for 
liberty  and  compromise  the  future.  They  might  continue  to  harass 
the  Government  by  repeated  strikes  and  boycotts,  because  these 
were  the  only  weapons  which  they  had  at  their  hands  and  which 
they  knew  how  to  use.  To  cut  off  the  pubhc  revenues  by  stoppage 
of  industry  and  of  transportation,  and  by  consequent  paralysis  of 
commerce — in  short,  to  use  every  means  to  bring  the  machinery 
of  the  country  to  a  standstill — all  these  had  been  tried  and,  to  a 
large  extent,  effected  without  decisive  result.  What  remained  to 
do  was  to  strike  once  more  and,  with  the  army  of  workers  thus 
reUeved  from  industry,  to  take  up  arms  in  open  rebeUion.  In  so 
far  as  there  was  a  plan,  this  seems  to  have  been  the  plan,  but  no 
evidence  has  come  to  light  of  any  definite  conspiracy,  or  of  any 
design  to  seize  upon  any  strategic  position  or  to  attack  any  specified 
person.  The  movement  was  blind,  and,  being  bUnd,  was  all  the 
more  formidable. 

The  people  were  apparently  ripe  for  a  serious  rising,  yet  they 
were  not  ready  for  it.  To  deUver  incendiary  speeches  against  the 
Government  was  one  matter,  to  devise  miUtary  measures  to  attack 
and  overthrow  an  established  mihtary  autocracy  with  discipUned 
troops  at  its  absolute  disposal  was  quite  a  different  affair. 

Clear  as  the  hopelessness  of  the  struggle  must  have  been  to 
some,  it  was  by  no  means  so  to  all.  The  minds  of  most  appear, 
indeed,  to  have  been  in  a  state  of  confusion.  Neither  those  who 
threw  themselves  upon  the  Government  nor  even  the  Government 
itself  seem  to  have  thoroughly  reaUzed  the  situation.  Each  side 
aUke  miscalculated  the  power  of  the  other,  and  each  miscalculated 
its  own  power.  The  fighting  organizations  upon  whom  the  brunt 
of  the  fighting  eventually  fell  found  themselves  in  the  centre  of  a 
noisy,  garrulous,  and  unreliable  mob  instead  of  an  army,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  Government  found  its  troops  more  loyal  than 
it  had  suspected. 

Yet  the  Moscow  "  armed  uprising  "  had  a  certain  influence 
upon  the  poUtical  and  even  more  upon  the  financial  situation.  Its 
influence  upon  the  former  was  not  favourable  to  the  revolution, 
because  it  contributed  to  the  reaction,^  but  its  influence  upon  the 
financial  situation  was  much  more  serious  than  the  influence  of  the 
disasters  of  the  war  in  respect  to  the  injury  which  its  occurrence 
1  Although  reaction  might  have  taken  place  in  any  event. 


ARMED    UPRISING    IN    MOSCOW     537 

inflicted  upon  the  credit  of  the  Russian  Government  both  in  Russia 
and  abroad.^ 

From  the  beginning  the  chief  question,  apart  from  the  question 
of  the  general  strike,  was.  Will  the  army  remain  loyal  to  the  Tsar  ? 
Meeting  after  meeting  was  held  in  the  last  days  of  November  and 
in  the  early  days  of  December  in  the  various  Moscow  districts,  and 
it  was  reported  at  these  meetings  that  there  was  grave  disaffection 
among  the  troops.  It  was  said  that  in  some  places  the  working 
men  and  the  soldiers  had,  in  fact,  already  fraternized.^ 

A  meeting  of  the  council  of  working  men's  deputies  of  Presnya 
and  Hamovniki  districts  of  Moscow,  in  which  there  were  forty- 
three  deputies  from  eleven  factories,  was  held  on  2nd  December. 
At  this  meeting  the  representative  of  the  Moscow  group  of  the 
*'  minority  faction  "  of  the  Social  Democratic  Party  intimated 
that  a  premature  uprising  among  the  troops  was  possible,  in  spite 
of  the  efforts  of  the  "  mihtary  organization  "  of  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic Party  to  prevent  such  uprising  until  "a  closer  connection 
between  regiments  might  be  arranged."  ^  The  meeting  then  dis- 
cussed the  desirabiUty  of  supporting  such  an  outbreak,  even  though 
it  might  be  premature. 

So  also  at  a  meeting  of  workers  in  the  electrical  industry  held  on 
4th  December,  at  which  280  persons  were  present,  similar  state- 
ments were  made.  These  were  followed  by  exclamations,  "  We 
shall  not  give  up  our  fellow-soldiers.  We  shall  pour  for  them  our 
blood."  A  declaration  was  also  made  at  this  meeting  that  the 
Moscow  Committee  of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's 
Party  was  prepared  to  announce  a  general  strike  if  the  Government 
made  up  its  mind  to  check  the  strike  of  the  soldiers  by  armed  force, 
and  also  that  the  railway  men  had  decided  not  to  allow  to  pass  any 
trains  carrying  soldiers  returning  from  Manchuria  unless  the  soldiers 
undertook  ''  to  assist  the  proletariat."    These  declarations  seem  to 

*  See  infra.  Appendix  to  Book  VII,  Prices  of  Russian  4  per  cent.  State 
Debt  on  the  Paris  Bourse  in  1904  and  1905. 

*  At  Kharkov  and  Novorossiesk,  for  instance.  Moscow  in  December  1905 
(Moscow,  1906),  p.  3. 

»  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  4.  Speeches  showing  "  the  state  of  mind  '* 
of  the  soldiers  were  made  at  this  meeting.  The  deputy  from  the  silk  factory 
of  Girot,  e.g.  reported  that  the  dragoons  and  grenadiers  who  were  on  guard 
at  that  factory  were  drilling  the  working  men  in  using  weapons,  saying, 
"  Don't  be  afraid  of  us  !  When  you  will  rise  up,  we  will  too  ;  and  we  wUl 
open  the  arsenals  for  you." 


538     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

represent  fairly  the  views  of  the  Moscow  working  men  at  that  time. 
They  did  not  feel  themselves  prepared  for  an  armed  uprising  on  their 
own  account,  but  they  were  prepared  to  support  a  military  rebellion, 
even  if  it  were  premature. 

At  the  same  meeting  there  were  shouts  to  the  following  effect : 
"  Let  us  overwhelm  the  autocracy.  Let  us  struggle  until  the  end  ! 
We  may  perish,  but  we  will  not  leave  to  our  children  shackles  for 
their  inheritance.  They  must  not  have  to  call  their  fathers  traitors 
to  the  proletariat."  ^ 

Officers  and  private  soldiers  frequently  appeared  on  the  plat- 
forms of  the  meetings.2  There  was  even  on  3rd  December  some 
practical  evidence  of  the  sympathy  of  the  troops  with  the  working 
men.  On  this  date  a  meeting  of  post-telegraph  employees  was  to 
be  held  in  the  Aquarium.  When  the  hour  arrived,  the  entrance  to 
the  building  was  found  to  be  closed  and  to  be  guarded  by  pohce.  A 
crowd  of  about  3000  persons  having  collected,  a  detachment  of 
Cossacks  was  sent  to  disperse  the  crowd.  This,  however,  the  Cos- 
sacks did  not  do  ;  and  after  an  open-air  meeting,  at  which  several 
speeches  were  delivered,  had  gone  on  for  some  time,  the  doors  were 
opened  and  the  crowd  was  admitted  to  the  building. 

On  3rd  December  there  was  held  a  meeting  of  railway  employees 
called  primarily  to  discuss  their  economical  grievances.  On  the 
proposal  that  the  railway  men  should  support  the  post-telegraph 
workers'  strike  then  in  progress,  the  meeting  decided  not  to  arrange 
partial  strikes  in  view  of  the  "  imminence  "  of  a  **  general  strike."  * 

There  appears  thus  to  have  grown  gradually  in  the  minds  of  the 
working  men  the  idea  of  a  general  political  strike,  in  which  the 
military  would  refuse  to  act  against  the  working  men,  and  by  means 
of  which  the  autocracy  might  be  brought  to  terms.  The  Moscow 
Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  had  sent  one  of  its  members  to 
St.  Petersburg  to  report  upon  the  *'  state  of  mind  "  there  after  the 
arrest  on  26th  November  of  the  president  of  the  Council  of  Working 
Men  Deputies  in  that  city  (Khrustalov).  On  Sunday,  4th  Decem- 
ber, a  meeting  was  held  to  receive  the  report  of  this  delegate.  He 
said  that  "  it  was  worth  enormous  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  St. 
Petersburg  Council  to  avert  a  general  strike  as  a  reply  to  the  arrest 

1  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  4. 

2  As,  for  example,  at  a  meeting  at  the  Aquarium  on  4th  December. 
*  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  5. 


ARMED   UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     539 

of  its  president  "  ;  yet  the  "  state  of  mind  '*  of  the  St.  Petersburg 
working  men  might  lead  to  such  a  strike  at  any  moment,  and  that 
"  the  Moscow  proletariat  must  be  ready  for  an  active  outbreak." 
This  meeting  considered  the  manifesto  formulated  in  St.  Petersburg, 
and  adhered  to  by  various  groups,  urging  the  people  to  refrain  from 
paying  taxes,  quit  rents,  &c.,  to  the  Government,  and  agreed  to 
adhere  to  it.  Then  the  meeting  "  ardently  discussed  the  question 
of  a  general  poUtical  strike."  Nearly  all  the  speakers  declared  that 
ever5rwhere — in  factories,  mills,  &c. — ^the  working  men  were  ready 
to  begin  the  strike  immediately.  After  prolonged  and  eager  debate 
between  the  opponents  and  adherents  of  an  immediate  declaration 
of  the  strike,  it  was  decided  to  devote  the  following  day  to  agita- 
tion in  the  factories  and  mills,  and  afterwards  to  meet  for  final 
decision  on  the  question.^  On  the  groimd  that  the  "  Black  Hun- 
dred "  was  preparing  for  a  pogrom,  it  was  also  agreed  that  on 
the  following  day  "  cold  weapons  "  (steel  weapons  of  various  kinds) 
should  be  forged  in  the  factories,  and  that  patrols  of  drujeneke  (or 
fighting  companies)  should  be  organized  in  order  to  oppose  any 
attacks  by  Black  Hundred  groups. 

At  the  close  of  the  meeting  the  following  resolutions  were  passed  : 
"  I.  The  Moscow  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  points  out 
to  the  comrades  that  the  Government  is  making  a  new  desperate 
attempt  to  retain  power  in  its  hands.  In  St.  Petersburg  the  GDuncil 
of  Working  Men's  Deputies  is  arrested,  papers  are  suppressed  and 
confiscated,  and  meetings  are  dispersed.  Working  men  comrades 
should  be  ready.  The  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  points  out 
to  the  working  men  deputies  that  many  of  the  Moscow  regiments  are 
ready  to  go  over  to  the  side  of  the  uprisen  people.  Applauding  the 
movement  among  the  soldiers,  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies 
summons  the  soldier  comrades  to  compel  the  chiefs  to  arrange  a 
revolutionary  self-government,  and  by  a  given  signal  to  go  over  to 
the  side  of  the  people.  Taking  into  consideration  all  these  circimi- 
stances,  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  decides  that  the  Mos- 
cow workers  must  he  ready  at  any  given  moment  for  a  general  political 
strike  and  armed  uprising. 

"2.  Taking  into  consideration  the  communication  about  Black 
Hundred  pogroms  under  preparation,  and  about  their  manifesta- 
tions, the  Moscow  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  declares  that 
1  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  6. 


540     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

the  Moscow  proletariat  will  offer  the  most  decisive  resistance  to  the 
Black  Hundred  actions  of  the  Government  and  its  detestable 
agents."  ^ 

On  the  same  day  (4th  December  1905)  a  meeting  was  held  of  the 
General  City  Inter-District  Conference  of  the  Moscow  group  of  the 
Russian  Social  Democratic  Working  Men's  Party,  250  persons  being 
present.  Here  also  reports  were  given  of  "  the  state  of  mind  " 
of  the  working  men  in  St.  Petersburg  and  in  Moscow.  From  St. 
Petersburg  it  was  reported  that  the  working  men  were  eager  for  a 
general  pohtical  strike,  but  that  their  leaders  had  succeeded  in 
preventing  them  from  premature  actions.  Still  the  arrest  of  Khrus- 
talov  and  of  the  executive  committee  of  the  Council  of  Working 
Men's  Deputies,  the  dispersal  of  working  men's  meetings,  and  the 
repression  of  the  organizations  of  the  railway  employees,  had  "  over- 
filled the  cup  of  patience  of  the  St.  Petersburg  proletariat,  and  one 
of  these  days  we  have  to  expect  decisive  actions  on  its  part.  Occur- 
rences are  coming  terribly  near,  and  Moscow  must  he  ready."  ^  Then 
followed  statements  about  the  **  fermentation  "  among  the  soldiers 
of  the  Moscow  garrison.  The  sappers  had  been  the  first  to  advance 
their  demands  for  increase  of  pay  and  for  additional  allowances. 
These  demands  had  been  complied  with,  and  then  other  parts  of  the 
garrison  had  made  similar  demands,  the  Rostovsky  Regiment  **  being 
particularly  prominent."  On  the  4th  December,  after  numerous 
arrests,  this  regiment  surrendered,  and  a  reactionary  meeting  of  the 
regiment  had  been  arranged.  Nevertheless,  among  the  other 
regiments  the  fermentation  was  increasing  ;  and  "  the  organizations 
have  to  take  care  of  the  preparations  of  the  Moscow  proletariat 
for  the  day  of  outbreak  of  the  troops."  There  had  already  been 
formed  among  the  troops  a  '*  Council  of  Soldiers'  Deputies," 
and  delegates  from  that  council  came  to  the  working  men's 
meetings. 

The  reports  from  the  various  districts  of  Moscow  declared  that 
some  of  the  factories  and  mills  were  ready  for  the  outbreak,  and 
that  in  others  **  fermentation  "  was  going  on.  In  order  to  keep  up 
this  "  fermentation,"  there  must  be  "  increased  agitation."  The 
declaration  of  the  representative  of  the  printers'  union  to  the  effect 

^  From  Botha,  No.  8  ;  quoted  in  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  7, 
*  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  7. 


ARMED    UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     541 

that  all  the  printing  offices  would  stop  work  at  an  hour's  notice 
was  loudly  applauded. 

A  resolution  to  the  following  effect  was  passed — preparation 
must  be  made  in  Moscow  for  "a  general  outbreak  '*  according  to 
the  summons  of  the  St.  Petersburg  proletariat.  This  preparation 
was  to  consist  in  spreading  the  manifestoes  of  the  revolutionary 
organizations,  in  the  "  revolutionization  of  the  troops,"  and  in  the 
"  exposure  of  the  provocative  and  reactionary  poUcy  of  the  Gov- 
ernment." One  of  the  participants  in  this  conference  stated  that 
one  of  the  delegates  to  St.  Petersburg  reported  that  the  "  state  of 
mind  "  there  was  not  the  same  in  all  districts,  but  that  he  beheved 
that  the  arrest  of  the  Coimcil  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  would  affect 
an  increasing  number.  It  was  clear  from  the  speeches  at  the  con- 
ference that  although  "  the  proletariat  was  not  ready  for  the  uprising, 
yet,  owing  to  the  action  of  the  Government  in  depriving  them  of 
the  Uberties  which  had  been  seized,  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  by 
the  proletariat  but  to  respond  to  this  provocation  by  a  general 
strike,  which  under  present  conditions,  by  the  objective  current  of 
events,  may  and  must  pass  into  an  armed  uprising.*'  ^ 

On  5th  December,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  there  was  a 
meeting  of  the  Bolsheveke  faction  of  the  Social  Democratic  Party. 
About  400  persons  were  present.  The  two  following  questions  were 
put  to  the  meeting,  working  men  delegates  alone  being  permitted  to 
make  declarations. 

1.  Does  Moscow  agree  to  go  on  strike  in  response  to  the  simimons 
of  St.  Petersburg  ? 

2.  Does  Moscow  agree  to  go  on  strike  independently  if  neces- 
sary ? 

The  repUes  to  these  questions  by  the  representatives  of  different 
districts  were  nearly  uniform — the  working  men  were  ready  "  long 
ago,"  and  were  "  angry  "  with  the  organizers  because  they  had  not 
summoned  the  working  men  to  strike.  The  representative  of  the 
miUtary  organization  said  that  connections  had  been  established 
with  "  nearly  all  the  infantry  regiments,"  and  that  the  "  state  of 
mind  "  among  the  soldiers  was  such  that  "  one  may  hope,  if  not  on 
their  actively  joining,  at  any  rate  on  S5mipathy  upon  their  part." 
As  for  Cossacks  and  dragoons,  the  "  state  of  mind  "  was  indefinite. 
The  speaker  did  not,  however,  touch  the  question  as  to  what  the 
1  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  8. 


542     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

troops  would  join,  although  he  seemed  to  regard  the  strike  and  the 
armed  uprising  as  inseparable.  It  was  announced  that  the  railway 
men  were  ready  for  a  general  strike,  but  that  they  did  not  think  it 
expedient  to  declare  their  intention  publicly. 

At  this  juncture  a  warning  voice  came  from  a  working  girl  be- 
longing to  the  Social  Democratic  Party. 

"  Comrades,"  she  said,  "  think  it  over  !  What  are  you  doing  ? 
We  have  no  weapons,  and  the  troops  will  not  come  over  to  our  side." 
She  was  supported  by  one  railway  worker.  The  chairman  also 
pointed  out  that  the  "  state  of  mind  of  the  troops  was  the  indefinite 
factor,"  and  that  while  some  of  the  soldiers  might  sympathize  with 
the  working  men,  they  were  unlikely  to  turn  out  to  support  them. 
If  the  strike  were  to  be  declared,  "  it  must  not  be  made  dependent 
upon  the  state  of  mind  of  the  troops."  ^ 

Notwithstanding  these  warnings,  the  meeting  decided  nearly 
unanimously  to  begin  **  a  general  political  strike."  By  a  majority 
it  was  decided  to  begin  it  upon  7th  December.  It  was  decided  also 
to  prepare  "  cold  weapons  "  in  case  of  attack  by  the  Black  Hundred  ; 
and  each  communicated  a  statement  of  what  weapons  were  avail- 
able in  the  various  districts.^  The  meeting  dispersed  about  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning. 

Simultaneously  with  the  meeting  of  the  Bolsheveke  on  5th  Decem- 
ber, there  was  held  a  conference  of  representatives  from  twenty- 
nine  railways.  This  meeting  was  convoked  for  the  consideration 
of  professional  demands  connected  with  recognition  of  their  trade 
union,  formalities  of  dismissal  from  employment,  wages  and  allow- 
ances, and  the  like.  These  demands  had  been  formulated  during 
the  previous  month.  At  this  meeting  there  appears  to  have  been  a 
*'  consultation  "  with  a  group  of  members  of  the  executive  com- 
mittee of  the  Moscow  organization  of  the  Russian  Social  Democratic 
Working  Men's  Party.  The  question  of  a  political  strike  was 
broached,  in  the  course  of  the  consultation,  by  the  group  in  question, 
and  the  representative  of  the  group  who  spoke  upon  the  subject 
"  expressed  his  conviction  that  the  political  strike  should  pass  over 
into  an  armed  uprising."  Another  speaker  said  that  **  the  people 
could  not  be  detained  longer,"  that  the  **  unorganized  mass  was 
pressing  from  below  on  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies,"  and 
that  the  latter  "  was  being  compelled  to  take  decisive  measures." 
^  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  9.  2  Jhid.,  p.  10. 


ARMED   UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     543 

Only  one  speaker,  a  railroad  man,  spoke  out  for  declaring  an  econo- 
mical, and  not  a  political  strike. 

"  An  unorganized  mass  is  rushing  into  conflict,"  he  said.  "  Those 
who  are  organized  know  the  uselessness  of  this.  There  is  no  power 
for  such  a  struggle."  He  was  supported  by  only  two  or  three  voices, 
and  his  motion  was  not  put  to  the  vote. 

The  majority  of  the  meeting  seemed  to  entertain  the  view  that 
in  any  case  the  Government  would  break  up  the  Union  of  Railway 
Men,  and  that  nothing  could  be  gained  by  Fabian  tactics.  "  If  so, 
it  is  better  to  make  up  our  minds  to  fight."  ^  One  person  who  was 
present  narrates  that  in  the  early  hours  of  the  meeting  it  was  appar- 
ent that  the  railway  men  were  not  ready  for  a  pohtical  strike,  and 
also  that  the  speeches  disclosed  that  everyone  felt  that  a  pohtical 
strike  at  that  moment  must  inevitably  pass  into  an  armed  uprising. 
Moreover,  the  speeches  also  disclosed  that  those  who  attended  the 
meeting  had  in  their  minds  the  idea  that  the  Government  might  try 
to  provoke  a  premature  uprising,  knowing  that  the  working  men 
were  not  prepared  for  a  trial  of  strength.  Notwithstanding  this 
unanimous  opinion,  the  statement  by  the  representatives  of  the  Social 
Democratic  Party  to  the  effect  that  the  factory  and  mills  working 
men  would  engage  in  a  political  strike  with  or  without  the  support  of 
the  railway  men,  led  the  meeting  to  decide  to  engage  in  the  general 
strike.  While  this  decision  was  being  arrived  at,  "  there  was  no 
animation  among  the  members  of  the  conference.  All  were  in  a 
melancholy  state  of  mind.  All  were  conscious  that  they  were  sub- 
mitting to  bitter  necessity,  and  were  going  to  unavoidable  ruin."  2 

The  conference  decided — (i)  to  begin  a  general  political  strike, 
and  (2)  to  leave  to  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  to 
declare,  by  agreement  with  the  various  parties,  the  day  and  hour 
when  the  strike  should  begin.  The  representatives  of  the  Social 
Democratic  Party  went  from  the  railway  conference,  which  closed 
at  eleven  o'clock,  to  the  meeting  of  the  Bolsheveke,  which  was  still 
sitting,  and  intimated  the  decision  which  had  been  reached. 

On  6th  December,  in  the  daytime,  there  was  held  a  regular 
meeting  of  the  Bolsheveke  faction  of  the  Social  Democratic  Party. 
A  member  of  the  Moscow  Committee  of  the  Russian  Social  Demo- 
cratic Working  Men's  Party,  who  was  present  at  this  meeting, 
communicated  the  resolution  of  that  committee  summoning  the 
^  Moscow  in  December  1905,  pp.  lo-ii.  *  Ibid.,  p.  11. 


544     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

working  men  "  to  a  general  strike  and  uprising  in  such  a  form 
that  the  strike  might  pass  over  into  an  armed  uprising."  A 
member  of  the  Bolsheveke  objected  that  to  summon  to  an  uprising 
at  that  moment  was  impossible,  because  the  opportunity  for  such 
a  movement  had  passed.  The  Rostovsky  Regiment,  upon  which 
reliance  had  been  placed,  had  changed  its  attitude,  and  now  it  could 
not  be  expected  to  be  otherwise  than  hostile.  The  same  speaker 
refused  to  accept  the  formula  "  might  pass  over  into  an  armed 
uprising,"  on  the  ground  that  it  did  not  show  clearly  where  **  we 
are  leading  the  masses."  Although  there  seems  to  have  been  a 
good  deal  of  confusion  at  this  meeting,  and  lack  of  unanimity,  some 
speakers  insisting  that  the  moment  was  not  opportune  for  an 
uprising,^  resolutions  were  passed  to  the  effect  that  "  the  proletariat 
were  ready  for  the  struggle,"  and  that  the  coming  "  political  out- 
break "  should  be  supported.^ 

While  the  party  meetings  were  going  on,  numerous  meetings 
of  working  men  in  various  groups  were  being  held.  On  5th 
December,  at  a  meeting  of  delegates  of  city  working  men,  a  reso- 
lution was  passed,  **  to  join  the  general  political  strike  with  the 
object  of  attaining  the  emancipation  of  the  nation."  ^ 

On  5th  December  the  printers  of  the  printing  office  of  Kush- 
nerov  *  passed  the  following  resolution :  "  We  are  ready  to  respond 
to  the  provocation  of  the  Government  by  a  general  strike,  hoping 
that  it  may  and  must  pass  into  an  armed  uprising."  ^  On  the  same 
day,  5th  December,  the  employees  of  the  Yaroslave  Railway,  after 
discussing  the  circular  of  the  Minister  of  Ways  of  Communication 
about  strikes,  passed  a  resolution,  the  close  of  which  is  as  follows  : 
"  We  summon  our  comrades,  and  also  those  on  all  railroads,  to 
accept  the  fighting  challenge  of  the  Government  and  to  be  ready 
at  the  first  summons  of  the  conference  of  the  Railroad  Union  to 
begin  the  final  and  decisive  fight."  The  Over-Moscow  River  dis- 
trict of  the  Moscow  group  of  the  Social  Democratic  Party  decided 
on  6th  December  that  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies 
should  "  take  upon  itself  the  initiative  in  declaring  the  strike." 
On  6th  December,  at  a  meeting  of  electrical  workers,  it  was  inti- 
mated that  the  building  locksmiths  had  decided  to  obey  the 

1  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  12.  2  75^^,  5  Ihid. 

*  The  second  largest  printing  office  in  Moscow. 
^  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  13. 


ARMED    UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     545 

summons  to  go  on  striked  On  the  evening  of  6th  December  it 
was  reported  in  Moscow  that  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies 
in  St.  Petersburg  was  in  favour  of  the  strike.  On  the  same  evening 
a  "  proclamation  "  ^  was  posted  in  the  streets  of  Moscow,  signed 
by  "  The  Council  of  Deputies  of  the  Working  Men  of  Moscow." 
This  proclamation  contained  the  bold  statement :  "  The  Council 
declares  a  General  PoUtical  Strike,  which  it  will  endeavour  to  trans- 
form into  an  armed  uprising." 

Thus  was  initiated  the  third  general  strike. 

On  7th  December  the  morning  papers  of  Moscow  announced 
that  the  Moscow  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  had  decided 
to  summon  all  working  men  to  a  general  strike  from  noon  of  that 
day.  Throughout  the  morning  the  whole  city  was  in  a  state  of 
feverish  excitement.  The  inhabitants  were  in  the  shops  making 
extensive  purchases  in  order  to  accumulate  provisions,  and  numerous 
meetings  of  working  men  were  held  in  different  parts  of  the  city. 
In  the  forenoon  some  of  the  railways  entering  the  city  and  some 
of  the  tramways  ceased  to  run.  A  huge  meeting  of  railway  men 
was  held,  at  which  one  of  the  speakers  shouted  amid  thunders  of 
applause,  "  It  begins — not  a  strike,  but  a  Great  Russian  Revolu- 
tion." At  noon  almost  all  the  railways  stopped  running  trains 
into  Moscow ;  only  those  trains  carrying  soldiers  returning  from 
the  theatre  of  war  were  allowed  to  enter  the  city.  On  the  Yaroslav 
line,  trains  carrying  the  children  of  employees  to  school  were  also 
permitted  to  pass.^  On  the  Nikolai  Railway  (St.  Petersburg- 
Moscow),  part  of  the  shops  stopped  on  the  7th  and  the  remainder 
on  the  8th.  The  trains  between  the  two  capitals  continued,  how- 
ever, to  run.*  In  the  telegraph  offices  only  the  chief  employees 
were  working.  On  some  railway  lines  ^  conflicts  took  place  between 
the  strikers  and  the  employees  who  refused  to  join  them ;  several 

1  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  12. 

*  6th  December  being  a  holiday  (the  day  of  St.  Nicholas  the  Miracle- 
worker  and  the  name-day  of  the  Tsar),  the  strike  was  announced  to  begin 
at  noon  the  following  day. 

'  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  19. 

*  From  the  date  of  the  first  general  strike  the  administration  had  been 
gradually  concentrating  men  upon  whom  it  could  rely  upon  this  railway, 
the  most  important  from  a  strategic  point  of  view.  It  was  thus  impossible 
for  the  railway  organizations  to  draw  them  from  their  allegiance.  The 
Railroad  Battalion  was  also  employed  on  the  line  when  the  strike  took  place. 

5  Kiev-Voronej,  for  instance. 

VOL.  II  2  M 


546      ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

persons  were  wounded,  and  on  the  Kazan  Railway  two  engine-drivers 
were  killed.  At  the  station  of  this  railway  in  Moscow,  weapons 
were  distributed. 

In  the  factories  and  mills  the  workers  went  on  strike  almost 
quite  unanimously.  By  noon  of  the  7th  the  largest  industrial 
enterprises  were  closed.^  All  the  printers  (the  best-organized  trade 
in  Moscow,  numbering  10,000),  went  on  strike  at  once. 

By  the  afternoon  of  7th  December  there  were  probably  50,000 
men  on  strike  from  the  factories  and  mills,  and  approximately  an 
equal  number  from  railways  and  miscellaneous  employments.^ 

The  morning  of  the  7th  seems  to  have  been  occupied  in  some 
of  the  larger  works,  especially  the  engineering  shops,  in  the  forging 
of  "  cold  weapons  "  for  the  coming  conflict.^  On  this  day  also  a 
meeting  of  the  employees  in  banks  and  other  credit  institutions 
in  Moscow  was  held,  and  a  representative  of  the  Council  of  Working 
Men's  Deputies  who  was  present  suggested  that  the  employees 
should  agree  to  work  until  loth  December,  in  order  that  those  who 
desired  to  do  so  might  withdraw  their  savings.  But  the  employees 
did  not  approve  of  this.  They  pointed  out  that  such  a  measure 
must  lead  to  a  run  upon  the  private  banks  and  consequent  bank- 
ruptcy. Finally  it  was  agreed  that  Savings  Banks  employees 
should  continue  to  work  during  the  strike  on  the  ground  that 
the  "  most  materially  depressed  masses  of  the  population  had 
their  savings  there."  * 

In  the  majority  of  the  State  and  municipal  ofl&ces  work  ceased 
at  noon  on  the  7th.  Although  the  expression  "  armed  uprising  '* 
was  continually  repeated  in  resolutions  and  was  found  later  in 
manifestoes,  there  is  no  evidence  that  at  this  time  the  general 
mass  of  working  men  had  any  clear  idea  of  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase.  The  working  men  seemed  indeed  to  think  that  the  soldiers 
of  the  Moscow  garrison  would  either  refrain  from  firing  upon  them 
or  would  take  their  part  actively  in  sufficient  numbers  to  form  a 
fighting  force  on  the  side  of  the  strike.  Both  of  these  anticipations 
were  wholly  illusory.     Some,  however,  of  the  sympathetic  inteUi- 

1  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  20.  «  Ibid. 

'  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  21.  Weapons  appear  to  have  been  forged 
in  the  following  factories  :  Prokharov's  (where  the  last  stand  of  the  revolu- 
tionists took  place  later) ;  Singel's,  Sion  Factory ;  Block's,  Bromley, 
Michaelov,  Riabov,  Deal  Winter,  &c. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  21. 


ARMED   UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     547 

gentsi  entertained  more  serious  views.  Forced  as  they  felt  them- 
selves to  be  into  a  conflict  which  was  due  to  the  impact  upon  the 
immature  minds  of  the  working  mass  of  ideas  which  they  had  had 
some  share  in  spreading — a  confhct  which  they  regarded  as  pre- 
mature— they  nevertheless  decided  to  organize  a  fighting  force,  and 
to  use  as  a  nucleus  of  this  the  drujinneke  or  fighting  companies. 
These  had  been  organized  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  the  "  Black 
Hundred "  groups,  whose  outrages  had  rendered  the  streets  of 
Moscow  unsafe.  Even  the  drujinneke  appear  to  have  had  some- 
what naive  views  upon  the  conduct  of  so  serious  a  campaign  as  an 
'*  armed  uprising  "  against  the  Russian  Government. 

On  the  morning  of  the  7th,  before  the  actual  commencement 
of  the  strike,  a  small  body  of  drujinneke  seized  the  printing  office 
of  Setin  and  mounted  guard,  while,  in  the  presence  of  the  Chief 
of  the  District  PoUce,  whom  they  had  arrested,  the  first  number 
of  Izvestia  Savetta  Rabotchick  Deputatov  was  printed.  This 
was  the  revolutionary  bulletin  which  was  issued  daily  during 
the  strike. 

The  burthen  of  the  conduct  of  the  strike  fell  upon  the  executive 
committee  of  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies.  This  com- 
mittee mapped  out  for  itself,  on  the  evening  of  7th  December,  the 
following  programme  for  the  succeeding  days :  General  and  special 
meetings  were  to  be  held  daily.  The  newspaper  Izvestia  was  to  be 
issued  daily.  Caretakers  of  factories  and  mills  were  to  remain  at 
their  posts  in  order  to  protect  the  property  of  their  employers. 
Guards  were  to  be  organized  for  the  further  protection  of  property. 
Tea-shops  were  to  be  permitted  to  carry  on  their  business,  but 
without  the  sale  of  liquors,  on  condition  that  the  shops  might  be 
freely  used  for  the  purpose  of  holding  meetings.  Co-operative 
stores  were  to  be  permitted  to  carry  on  business  on  condition  of 
giving  credit.  Payment  of  rent  during  the  strike  was  suspended. 
While  steam-heating  was  stopped  in  factories,  &c.,  where  the  work- 
men were  on  strike,  the  heating  of  residential  premises  must  not 
be  suspended. 

In  all  these  regulations  it  is  tacitly  assumed  that  the  Council 
of  Working  Men's  Deputies  had  succeeded  the  legally  constituted 
authorities  in  the  administration  of  at  least  a  portion  of  Moscow, 
and  this  before  any  blow  had  been  struck. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  7th  December,  Moscow  was 


548     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

declared  by  the  General  Governor  of  the  Moscow  district,  Vice- 
Admiral  Dubassov,  to  be  under  extraordinary  guard. ^ 

The  theatres  did  not  open  their  doors  on  the  evening  of  the 
7th.  "  The  streets  were  quiet  and  deserted."  In  Tverskaya,  one 
of  the  great  avenues  of  trafi&c,  there  was  no  light.  Now  and  again 
one  of  the  mounted  gens  d'armes  passed  by  and  a  frightened  pedes- 
trian ran  for  shelter.  The  police  were  not  at  their  usual  posts  ; 
only  here  and  there  a  group  of  poUcemen  stood  together.  There 
were  no  patrols,  and  troops  were  not  to  be  seen.  Yet  domiciliary 
visits  were  being  made,  and  many  persons  whose  activity  in  the 
movements  in  progress  was  suspected  were  arrested.  Probably  the 
first  actual  conflict  took  place  in  Chisty  Proody,  where  two  drujin- 
neke  were  attacked  by  several  policemen,  and  one  of  them  was 
sUghtly  wounded. 

The  inaction  of  the  authorities  during  the  7th,  in  spite  of  the 
declaration  of  "  extraordinary  guard  "  requires  explanation.  The 
miUtary  commanders  were  not  sure  of  their  men.  The  Moscow 
garrison  had  been  decidedly  disaffected  ;  and  although  on  the  6th 
steps  had  been  taken  to  remove  this  disaffection  by  concessions, 
sufficient  time  had  not  elapsed  for  the  effect  of  these  concessions 
to  become  evident.  It  seemed  wise,  therefore,  to  confine  the  troops 
to  barracks.  While  the  police  do  not  appear  to  have  been  dis- 
affected, there  were  many  resignations  immediately  on  the  eve  of 
the  strike,  and  although  some  of  these  had  not  been  accepted,  the 
feeUng  of  the  authorities  was  evidently  uneasy.  The  police  infor- 
mation seems  to  have  been  defective  and  the  civil  and  military 
administration  confused  and  vacillating. 

It  has  been  alleged  that  the  inaction  of  the  authorities  in  the 
early  days  of  December  was  due  to  MacchiavelUan  design,    and 

1  There  are  three  phases  of  special  or  exceptional  law  :  (a)  Stronger 
guard,  (6)  extraordinary  guard,  and  (c)  martial  law.  Since  1882  Moscow 
has  been  at  all  times  under  "  stronger  guard."  Although  from  a  military 
point  of  view  the  city  is  not  a  position  of  importance,  it  is  always  occupied 
by  about  10,000  troops — consisting  usually  of  eight  regiments  of  grenadiers,  six 
batteries  of  artillery,  one  Cossack  and  one  dragoon  regiment.  Extraordinary 
guard  is  really  equivalent  to  a  minor  state  of  siege,  but  it  is  not  officially 
so  described  on  account  of  the  adverse  effect  which  a  declaration  of  martial 
law  in  one  of  the  imperial  capitals  would  have  upon  Russian  funds  on  the 
foreign  exchanges.  The  laws  regulating  these  combined  military  and  police 
measures  date  from  1881,  when  they  are  believed  to  have  been  suggested  by 
M.  von  Plehve,  who  was  at  that  time  Director  of  the  Department  of  Political 
Police. 


ARMED    UPRISING    IN    MOSCOW     549 

that  Admiral  Dubassov  deliberately  allowed  the  insurrection  to 
attain  a  certain  height  in  order  the  more  effectually  and  thoroughly 
to  crush  it,  and  in  the  crushing  of  it  to  contribute  to  the  reaction 
which  must  follow.  There  is  no  available  evidence  that  any  such 
design  was  in  the  mind  of  the  authorities.  If  it  was,  the  game 
was  a  dangerous  one  to  play,  for  the  capital  remained  practically 
in  the  hands  of  the  revolutionists  for  ten  days,  all  business  was 
suspended,  the  insurrection  was  only  put  down  at  a  great  cost  in 
blood,  and  in  consequence  of  it  there  occurred  a  most  serious  collapse 
in  Russian  credit,  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

On  the  7th  December  numerous  meetings  of  strikers  were  held, 
and  conflicts  between  them  and  the  troops  took  place ;  but  no  firing 
occurred  on  either  side.^ 

On  the  8th  December  a  meeting,  attended  by  about  12,000 
persons,  was  held  in  the  Summer  Theatre  (which  at  that  time  was 
unused  otherwise).  Troops,  gens  d'armes,  poUce,  and  Cossacks 
surrounded  the  building  and  did  not  allow  anyone  to  leave  witbout 
search  for  and  surrender  of  arms.  The  authorities  seemed  at  this 
time  to  be  anxious  rather  to  show  that  they  were  prepared  for 
eventualities  than  to  proceed  to  extremities,  for  it  would  appear 
that  the  search  was  perfunctory,  and  that  many  persons  who  carried 
revolvers  did  not  give  them  up.^  At  three  o'clock  in  the  morning 
of  8th  December  eleven  drujinneke  broke  into  a  gunsmith's  shop 
and  took  a  quantity  of  fire-arms.^ 

On  the  morning  of  the  8th  most  of  the  shops  in  Moscow  remained 
closed,  the  windows  being  freshly  protected  by  wooden  boards. 
Bakers'  and  grocers'  shops  were  to  some  extent  open,  the  pro- 

1  The  Tver  Dragoons  rode  through  the  streets  and  beat  the  people  with 
long  poles. 

2  From  the  date  of  the  manifesto  of  17th  October  1905,  there  developed 
in  Moscow  the  suspicion  that  the  "  privateers  "  of  the  "  reaction,"  the  so-called 
Black  Hundred,  would  engage  in  pogroms  against  intelligentsia  and  non- 
Russians,  e.g.  Poles  and  Jews  (although  there  are  very  few  Jews  in  Moscow). 
Such  pogroms  had  indeed  taken  place  in  very  many  other  cities  immediately 
after  the  publication  of  the  manifesto.  For  this  reason  the  people  of  Moscow, 
irrespective  of  their  political  opinions,  determined  to  carry  weapons  for  self- 
defence,  and  before  the  beginning  of  December  had  done  so  quite  openly, 
purchasing  revolvers  in  large  numbers  in  the  gun  shops  of  Moscow.  Thus 
the  circumstance  that  some  of  the  people  who  attended  this  meeting  were 
armed  did  not  necessarily  mean  that  they  harboured  revolutionary  designs. 

^  The  shop  was  that  of  Bitkov  in  Bolshaya  Lubanka.  The  arms  taken 
were  twenty-five  revolvers,  nine  carbines,  one  rifle,  and  one  Browning  auto- 
matic magazine  gun.     Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  24. 


550     ECONOMIC   HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA 

prietors  having  obtained  permits  from  the  Council  of  Working 
Men's  Deputies.  Here  and  there  Cossacks  swept  through  the 
streets  dispersing  the  mobs.  Many  meetings  were  held  in  pubUc 
halls  ^  and  in  the  open  air.* 

A  characteristic  scene,  vividly  described  by  a  Zemstvo  physician, 
occurred  in  Strastnya  Place.  A  Cossack  patrol  went  into  the 
Place  and  dismounted.  They  were  immediately  surrounded  by 
a  crowd  drawn  there  by  curiosity.  Although  the  crowd  pressed 
upon  the  Cossacks,  these  showed  no  disposition  to  disperse  the 
people.  They  began  indeed  to  argue  with  them,  saying,  "  Please 
go  away  !  "  Excited  persons  in  the  crowd  addressed  the  Cossacks. 
**  Brothers !  Comrades !  you  will  come  over  to  the  side  of  the 
people,"  &c. 

Meanwhile  another  crowd  was  heard  marching  along  the  Tver- 
skaya  Boulevard,  singing  the  Russian  Marseillaise.  The  two  crowds 
mingled  together  and  surrounded  the  Cossacks,  who  ultimately 
mounted  their  horses  and  disappeared  without  any  conflict.^ 

At  Lobanskaya  Place,  about  half-past  two  in  the  afternoon  of 
the  8th,  a  detachment  of  dragoons  had  a  somewhat  similar  experi- 
ence. Here,  however,  the  soldiers  were  upbraided  by  the  crowd 
with  shouts  of  **  Rascals  !  Outcasts  !  "  but  they  stood  silently, 
and  again  no  conflict  took  place.  About  the  same  time  a  body  of 
workers  in  the  metal  trades  were  marching  to  a  meeting  in  the  Poly- 
technic Museum  when  they  found  their  way  blocked  by  poUce. 
The  policemen  were  ordered  to  draw  their  swords  and  to  disperse 
the  crowd  ;  but  some  of  the  workmen  went  to  the  poUce  inspector 
and  told  him  that  they  were  going  to  a  meeting,  whereupon  he  ordered 
that  they  be  allowed  to  pass.  The  ranks  of  the  poUce  opened,  and 
the  workmen  passed  through. 

Meanwhile,  the  strike  spread  from  railway  to  railway.  The 
employees  "  dismissed  the  higher  officials  and  elected  others  to 
take  their  places."  *  Reservists  and  pupils  of  the  railway  school 
were  forwarded  to  their  destinations  by  order  of  the  Council  of  Work- 
ing Men's  Deputies. 

Most  of  the  factories  and  mills  had  either  been  closed  because 

*  In  the  Poljrtechnic  Museum  and  at  the  street  railway  car  depots. 
Ibid.,  p.  25. 

*  On  Taganskaya  Place,  Trubnaya  Place,  <S:c.     Ibid.,  p.  26. 

*  Moscow  in  December  1905,  pp.  26-8.  *  Ibid.,  p.  29. 


ARMED    UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     551 

the  workers  had  gone  on  strike,  or  because  the  owners  thought  well 
to  close  them.  Still  there  were  some  which  held  out.  To  these 
there  went  groups  of  strikers  to  "  take  ofi  "  the  workpeople.  These 
groups  marched  with  red  banners  and  sang  revolutionary  songs. 
Some  of  these  crowds  were  attacked  by  Cossacks  and  dragoons,  and 
beaten  by  nagaiki}  In  one  case  (at  the  Danielovsky  factory)  shots 
were  fired  from  a  house  and  from  the  crowd,  wounding  twelve  per- 
sons. Similarly,  owing  to  a  misunderstanding,  a  permitted  train 
was  received  with  revolver  shots,  and  the  engine-driver  was 
kmed.2 

The  day  passed  with  marches  of  groups  of  working  men  from  the 
factories.  "  The  state  of  mind  everywhere  increased.  Everybody 
asked  what  further  steps  were  to  be  taken.  The  young  men  were 
eager  to  take  up  arms."  ^  in  Presnya,  a  large  industrial  district,  the 
strike  was  complete. 

Yet  the  Council  of  the  Working  Men's  Deputies  seemed  not  to 
know  what  to  do  next.  The  excitement  among  the  mass  of  the 
workmen  was  tremendous,  yet  there  was  apparent  no  plan  of  action 
— ^no  definite  objective — everything  was  vague  and  confused.  Con- 
tradictory speeches  were  everywhere  made — the  very  meaning  of 
the  strike  was  not  clear.  It  was  a  strike  against  the  Moscow  poHce. 
It  was  a  strike  against  the  bureaucracy.  It  was  a  strike  for  a 
republic. 

The  inferior  ofiicials  in  the  Government  offices  held  meetings  on 
the  8th.  Some  declared  themselves  in  sympathy  with  the  strike, 
and  some  declared  that  "  the  army  would  not  direct  its  bayonets 
against  the  struggUng  nation."  *  The  officials  at  the  law  courts 
were  "  taken  off,"  but  the  judges  continued  to  sit.^ 

The  accessions  to  the  ranks  of  the  strikers  on  the  8th  were  about 
50,000,  so  that  the  total  number  on  strike  on  that  date  was  about 
150,000.* 

On  the  8th  there  were  some  conflicts  with  the  members  of  the 
"  Black  Hundred  "  ;  but  when  the  real  conffict  began  this  group 
disappeared.  Letters  continued  to  be  delivered,  although  three- 
fourths  of  the  Post  Office  employees  and  one-half  of  the  telegraph 

^  Cossack  whips.  *  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  29. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  31.  *  Ibid.,  p.  32. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  33-  •  Ibid. 


552     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

employees  were  on  strike.  In  spite  of  the  exertions  of  the  Council  of 
Working  Men's  Deputies  to  isolate  Moscow  from  St.  Petersburg,  com- 
munication by  rail,  post,  and  telegraph  continued. 

Up  till  the  evening  of  the  8th  the  authorities  seemed  to  be  taking 
the  rising  storm  very  coolly.  No  serious  efforts  were  taken  to  pre- 
vent the  strike  from  assuming  grave  political  importance.  The 
demands  of  the  strikers  were  nowhere  specifically  formulated,  and 
no  step  had  been  taken  on  either  side  of  an  expressly  aggressive 
character.  Yet  the  industry  and  commerce  of  Moscow  stood  still. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  Western  European  administration,  there 
is  Uttle  doubt  that  it  would  be  generally  held  that  the  authorities 
should  have  acted  purely  on  the  defensive,  that  the  demonstrations, 
in  so  far  as  they  were  peaceful,  might  well  have  been  permitted,  as, 
indeed,  up  till  this  time  they  were  as  a  rule,  that  the  mere  vagueness 
of  the  demands  of  the  strikers  would  have  caused  their  ranks  to  thin 
in  a  day  or  two,  and  that  the  strike  might  thus  die  a  natural  death. 

However,  this  was  not  the  point  of  view  of  Admiral  Dubassov. 
A  mass  meeting  of  strikers  was  to  be  held  on  the  night  of  the  8th  at 
the  Summer  Theatre,  in  the  grounds  of  the  Aquarium,  and  he  ap- 
pears to  have  conceived  the  idea  of  allowing  this  meeting  to  take 
place,  and  then  of  surrounding  the  building  with  troops,  and  of 
frightening  everybody  who  attended  it.  The  meeting  in  the  Aqua- 
rium took  place  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  at  nine  o'clock 
the  chairman  intimated  that  the  place  was  invested  by  troops.  At 
ten  o'clock  the  meeting  was  closed,  and  the  audience  were  left  to 
deal  with  the  situation  as  best  they  might.  No  concerted  action 
was  suggested  or  taken.  When  the  people  left  the  building  in 
which  the  meeting  had  been  held,  they  found  themselves  to  the  num- 
ber of  about  4000  in  a  courtyard,  of  which  all  the  gates  were  closed, 
and  from  which  there  was  no  apparent  exit.  They  were  caught 
like  rats  in  a  trap. 

Some  who  knew  the  locality  contrived  to  escape  by  climbing 
fences ;  among  these  were  many  who  had  taken  a  prominent  part  in 
the  meeting ;  others  managed  somehow  to  get  into  neighbouring 
houses.  It  became  very  cold  in  the  courtyard,  and  many  returned 
to  the  theatre.  There  all  was  darkness.  A  candle  was  found,  and 
the  remainder  of  the  audience,  now  reduced  to  about  1000,  discussed 
the  situation.  The  upshot  of  the  affair  was  that,  for  some  reason, 
the  authorities  did  not  take  full  advantage  of  their  coup.    The 


ARMED    UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     553 

audience  was  searched  for  weapons,  some  forty  or  fifty  were  arrested, 
many  were  beaten,  and  allowed  to  escape.  It  was  apparent  that 
the  affair  had  not  yet  become  acute  enough  for  decisive  action  on 
the  part  of  the  authorities. 

Although  the  meeting  at  the  Aquarium  had  passed  without 
serious  consequences,  the  display  of  troops  in  force  did  not  have 
a  tranquillizing  effect.  The  general  population  became  nervous. 
The  appearance  of  Cossacks  in  the  streets,  which  on  the  8th  created 
no  excitement,  now  resulted  in  panic.  The  drujinneke  also  began 
to  make  themselves  felt.  Wherever  policemen  were  found  by 
them,  they  were  disarmed.  At  the  meetings  collections  were  made 
for  the  purchase  of  weapons.  Prices  of  provisions  began  to  advance, 
and  demands  came  to  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  that 
trains  conveying  flour  should  be  allowed  to  enter  the  city.  The 
working  men  in  some  groups  called  upon  the  Council  to  act  more 
energetically.  Among  some  of  the  groups  there  were  shouts  for 
a  "  Constituent  Assembly."  Inscriptions  containing  these  words 
were  placed  on  the  flags  carried  by  marching  workmen.  In  one 
factory  the  workmen  demanded  of  their  employers  the  payment 
in  cash  of  the  fine  fund,  in  order  that  the  money  might  be  handed 
to  the  Council.  Meanwhile  the  working  men  and  their  leaders 
seem  to  have  been  hoping  against  hope  that  the  troops  would  at 
least  refuse  to  shoot  at  them.  Nor  were  reasons  altogether  wanting 
for  such  hope.  The  infantry  especially  seem  to  have  been  at  this 
time  a  rather  unstable  factor.  One  detachment  had  left  its  barracks 
with  its  band  playing  marches,  apparently  with  the  intention  of 
joining  the  strikers.  The  detachment  was  surrounded  by  Cossacks 
and  dragoons  and  compelled  to  return.  Afterwards  the  detach- 
ment was  promised  additional  allowances  and  was  confined  to  bar- 
racks. There  appears  even  to  have  been  some  doubt  about  the 
loyalty  of  the  Cossacks.  A  conflict  was  even  said  to  have  taken 
place  between  a  troop  of  dragoons  and  500  Cossacks,  who  refused 
to  fire  on  a  mob.  The  truth  about  these  stories  is  difficult  to  dis- 
cover ;  but  their  mere  circulation  had  an  effect  at  the  time  in 
maintaining  the  beUef  that  the  troops  might  side  with  the  strikers. 

By  the  evening  of  the  9th  the  "  state  of  mind  "  of  the  strikers 
had  become  very  "  intense."  The  situation  was  critical,  and  a 
slight  matter  might  easily  produce  grave  results.  On  this  evening 
a  crowd  of  some  300  or  400  persons  collected  in  Strassnaya  Place. 


554     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

This  Place  has  become  celebrated  in  the  street  disturbances  of 
Moscow.  It  contains  the  statue  of  the  Russian  poet,  Pushkin,^ 
and  round  this  statue  throughout  the  year  1905  many  scenes 
occurred.  On  this  occasion  some  orators  were  addressing  the 
crowd,  when  suddenly  from  two  sides,  dragoons  made  their  appear- 
ance. They  were  greeted  with  shouts :  **  Brothers,  don't  touch 
us  !  come  over  to  us  !  "  The  troop  passed  by  ;  but  "  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  after  "  the  dragoons  reappeared  reinforced,  and  at  once 
attacked  the  mob,  which  dispersed.  In  the  Place  there  was  a 
pavihon  which  served  as  a  waiting-room  for  passengers  by  the 
tramways,  and  in  this  building  some  fifty  persons  took  refuge. 
The  dragoons  demanded  that  they  should  surrender.  On  their 
refusal,  "  several  fusillades  '*  were  fired  into  the  building  and  then 
the  troops  galloped  off.  One  boy  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  of 
age,  a  pupil  in  an  intermediate  technical  school,  was  killed,  and 
several  persons  were  wounded.^  The  mob,  which  was  composed  of 
workmen,  shop  clerks,  and  youths,  now  returned,  and,  infuriated 
at  the  action  of  the  dragoons,  sprinkled  the  pavilion  with  petroleum 
and  set  fire  to  it.  It  was  now  seven  o'clock,  and  the  night  was 
pitch  dark,  only  feeble  lights  appearing  in  the  windows  of  the  houses 
in  Tverskaya  Street.^  The  sudden  blaze  of  the  burning  building 
lit  up  the  surrounding  region,  and  soon  the  bells  of  the  firemen 
were  heard  approaching  the  Place.  The  mob  did  not  seek  to  pre- 
vent the  firemen  from  discharging  their  duty,  and  immediately 
began  to  stream  towards  the  Old  Triumphal  Gates.  Opposite  the 
house  of  Hirschman  (a  wealthy  Jew)  the  movement  was  arrested. 
There  the  mob  dragged  barrels,  boards,  and  odds  and  ends  of 
various  sorts  from  obscure  comers,  and  in  a  short  time  the  first 
barricade  was  built.  When  this  obstacle  was  hastily  constructed, 
the  crowd  surged  on  to  the  Triumphal  Place,  where  they  cut  down 
telegraph  poles,  stretched  wires  across  the  streets,  and  built  a  second 
and  more  formidable  obstacle. 

These  first  barricades  seem  to  have  been  built  spontaneously 
by  this  mob,  on  the  suggestion  of  some  unknown  person  and  without 
any  instructions  from  the  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies.* 

1  The  name  was  changed  from  Strastnaya  to  Pushkin  Ploshet  (Place) 
in  1899,  but  the  new  name  has  never  passed  current. 

2  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  44. 

'  Account  of  an  eye-witness.     Ibid. 
*  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  45. 


ARMED    UPRISING    IN    MOSCOW     555 

A  physician  who  passed  near  this  place  late  on  the  evening  of 
the  9th  describes  the  scene  as  follows  : 

"  The  aspect  of  affairs  was  quite  unusual.  Some  new  atmosphere 
is  felt.  People  are  dragging  fences  and  signs,  pulling  down  posts 
and  cutting  off  wire.  All  over  the  place  groups  of  fifty  to  a  hundred 
persons  are  standing.  One  group  of  thirty  or  forty  men  is  singing — 
the  men  taking  off  their  caps — '  You  fell  as  victims  in  the  fatal 
struggle.'  ^  In  the  centre  of  the  group  a  man  was  standing  upon 
a  chair,  leading  the  singing.  Not  far  away  stood  a  poUceman 
with  his  cap  in  his  hand.  He  either  shared  or  made  pretence  to 
share  the  general  state  of  mind."  ^ 

The  troops  did  not  interfere  with  the  construction  of  these 
barricades,  but  when  they  were  finished  they  opened  fire  upon 
them,  and  for  two  hours  fusillades  were  heard,  and  several  persons 
were  killed  and  wounded.  Rare  revolver  shots  answered  the  fusil- 
lades of  the  troops.  About  eleven  o'clock  in  the  night,  a  mihtary 
wagon  with  an  electric  searchhght  was  driven  up  to  the  barricades. 
Behind  this  carriage  came  dragoons,  who  fired  as  they  went.  Shots 
came  also  from  the  houses  in  the  neighbourhood,  where  it  appeared 
troops  had  been  placed  in  ambush.^ 

There  are  not  wanting  charges  to  the  effect  that  the  first  barri- 
cades were  not  erected  by  insurgents,  but  were  erected  by  agents 
provocateurs,  acting  under  the  orders  of  the  poUce.*  The  stories 
about  previously  arranged  ambuscades,  if  true,  would  appear  to 
lend  some  colour  to  these  charges  ;  but  the  truth  is  probably  now 
quite  impossible  to  ascertain. 

The  first  barricades  were  easily  destroyed  by  the  dragoons, 
who  thereupon  began  to  fire  indiscriminately  along  the  dark  streets. 
This  firing  lasted  until  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  at  last 
all  was  quiet. 

Meanwhile  elsewhere  another  significant  scene  was  happening. 

On  the  night  of  the  gth  a  meeting  not  specifically  connected 
with  the  "  uprising,"  convened  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the 
strike  then  in  progress  on  the  Kazan  Railway,  was  held  at  a  private 
school  belonging  to  one  Fiedler.  Many  young  men  and  some  young 
women  were  present  at  this  meeting,  and  some  of  these  were,  no 

^  "  The  Funeral  March  of  the  Proletariat,"  a  very  popular  air  at  this 
time. 

2  Moscow  in  December  1905,  p.  45.         '  Ibid.,  p.  46.         *  Ibid.,  pp.  47-8. 


556     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

doubt,  carrying  weapons.^  This  meeting  was  raided  by  the  poHce, 
troops  were  summoned,  and  the  building  was  surrounded.  Those 
within  were  called  upon  to  surrender.  They  refused  to  do  so, 
and  the  building  was  at  once  bombarded.^  Two  bombs  were  thrown 
from  the  house ;  but  very  speedily  resistance  ceased,  and  those  who 
remained  within  surrendered.^ 

The  police  reported  that  the  leaders  of  the  "  uprising  "  had  been 
captured ;  but  the  subsequent  course  of  events  showed  that  this 
could  not  have  been  the  case.  The  trial  of  the  persons  who  were 
arrested  in  Fiedler's  also  showed  afterwards  that  they  were  not  of 
importance  in  the  movement. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  loth  (Saturday)  the  first  fusillades  by 
troops  on  the  central  streets  took  place,  and  artillery  fire  swept  the 
main  street  of  Moscow — the  Tverskaya.  On  this  afternoon  and 
evening  barricades  were  erected  in  many  different  parts  of  the  city. 
They  were  constructed  of  overturned  vehicles,  including  street  rail- 
way cars,  gates  of  houses  and  yards,  sign-boards,  telegraph  and 
telephone  poles,  timber,  and  generally  whatever  was  available. 
Snow  and  water  were  thrown  upon  the  mass,  and  in  the  night  the 
materials  were  frozen  together.  Wire  entanglements  were  also 
used  in  front  of  the  barricades.  The  height  of  the  barricades,  and 
the  fact  that  they  were  not  pierced  for  rifle  fire,  rendered  them 
unsuitable  for  use  in  actual  fighting.  Their  principal  object  was  to 
impede  the  movement  of  troops.  Each  barricade  had  at  either 
side  a  passage,  so  that  fugitives  might  pass  in  the  event  of  flight, 
and  so  that  the  people  of  the  district  might  move  about.  These 
openings  permitted  the  passage  of  only  one  person  at  a  time,  so  that 
in  the  mornings  there  was  sometimes  a  long  queue  of  persons  waiting 
to  pass  through  the  barricades  in  important  streets.  During  the 
ten  days  of  "  uprising  "  the  authorities  and  the  people  fell  into  the 
habit  of  regarding  the  forenoon  as  a  period  of  truce.  People  moved 
about  on  necessary  affairs  until  eleven  o'clock  in  all  districts  ;  and 
then  firing  began,  to  last  until  darkness  set  in.     From  eleven  o'clock 

*  For  the  i^eason  explained  above. 

*  Fiedler's  was  bombaxded  by  two  three-inch  field  artillery  Krupp  guns 
(i  866  pattern).  There  was  no  modern  artillery  in  the  Moscow  military  district 
at  the  time. 

3  It  is  reported  by  one  of  those  who  attended  the  meeting  that  those  who 
remained  in  the  school  surrendered  on  condition  that  they  should  be  allowed 
to  leave  without  molestation.  They  gave  up  their  arms,  and  were  then 
beaten  by  the  Cossacks,  some  of  them  being  severely  wounded. 


ARMED   UPRISING    IN    MOSCOW     557 

in  the  forenoon  until  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  shells  shrieked 
through  the  air.  Each  day  the  cannonade  was  directed  against  a 
different  quarter  of  the  city. 

It  is  an  extraordinary  fact  that  of  about  five  hundred  barricades 
erected  altogether,  only  about  twenty  were  destroyed  by  the  troops. 
Some  of  these  were  demoUshed  by  the  fire  of  the  artillery,  and  some 
were  pulled  to  pieces  by  firemen.  The  reason  for  this  meagre  result 
of  ten  days'  fighting  was  that  the  guns  could  not  get  near  to  the  barri- 
cades, partly  owing  to  the  involutions  of  the  streets,  and  partly 
owing  to  the  shooting  of  the  gunners  by  sharp-shooters  from  the 
houses.  When  the  serious  bombardment  began,  the  guns  were 
posted  at  a  distance,  and  the  industrial  quarter  was  shelled  indis- 
criminately at  long  range. 

The  barricades  were  almost  all  erected  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
loth.  They  were  for  the  most  part  erected  by  the  inhabitants  of 
the  immediate  locaUty,  who  acted  partly  from  sympathy  with  the 
"  uprising,"  although  they  may  have  taken  no  further  part  in  it, 
and  partly  from  an  instinct  of  self-preservation.  The  barricades 
formed  a  measure  of  protection  against  the  indiscriminate  firing 
along  the  streets.  Labouring  together  upon  their  construction 
were  frequently  to  be  seen  well-dressed  people  side  by  side  with 
sans-culottes.  It  was  dangerous  to  go  out  into  the  street  at  any  time. 
Very  few  persons  appeared  after  noon,  and  at  night  no  one,  for 
although  the  troops  were  withdrawn  at  dusk,  the  city  was  in  pitch 
darkness.  There  was  no  electric  light  and  there  was  no  gas.  Even 
oil  lamps  were  not  used  in  windows  in  the  fronts  of  houses. 

From  the  afternoon  of  the  loth  the  trade  of  Moscow  was  wholly 
suspended.  Factories  and  shops  aHke  were  closed.  The  bakers 
only  were  ordered  by  the  "  Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies  "  to 
bake  bread  ;  but  they  baked  black  (or  rye)  bread  alone,  so  that  in 
all  parts  of  the  city  the  inhabitants  were  obliged  to  eat  **  the  bread 
of  the  proletariat."  The  public  services,  with  the  exception  of  the 
waterworks,  were  at  a  standstill.  No  newspapers  were  pubHshed. 
The  General  Governor  issued  daily  bulletins,  but  these  circu- 
lated only  in  those  portions  of  the  city  not  in  the  hands  of  the 
insurgents. 

A  "  Provisional  Government  "  was  installed  in  Presnya,  and 
bulletins  containing  "  instructions  "  and  news  were  issued  by  it 
daily,  and  were  circulated  in  the  revolutionary  quarters.     Courts 


558     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

were  held  with  some  formality,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  quarter 
fully  recognized  the  authority  of  the  workmen's  committee. 

On  the  nth  (Sunday)  the  People's  Theatre,  in  which  the  "  Coun- 
cil "  had  its  headquarters  at  that  time,  the  approaches  being  strongly 
barricaded,  was  bombarded  by  artillery  fire. 

In  spite  of  the  free  use  of  shells  upon  their  positions,  the  insur- 
gents held  a  large  part  of  Moscow.^ 

The  system  of  barricades  nearly  encircled  the  heart  of  the  city. 
The  stronghold  of  the  insurrection  was,  however,  the  large  industrial 
quarter  in  the  north-west  of  Moscow,  called  Presnya,  and  this 
quarter  was  subjected  to  daily  firing  from  rifles,  from  a  low  hill  near 
the  police  station,  which  is  situated  on  the  borders  of  the  quarter, 
and  from  a  cemetery  a  short  distance  to  the  north-west. 

Fighting  having  been  going  on  continuously  from  the  loth  to 
the  14th,  and  many  persons  having  been  killed  and  wounded,  private 
ambulances  were  used  to  convey  the  wounded  from  the  streets  to 
the  hospitals  and  to  private  houses.  On  the  14th  General  Governor 
Dubassov  forbade  private  ambulance  corps  to  assist  the  wounded. 
On  this  day  also  the  celebrated  Semenovsky  Regiment  arrived  at 
Moscow  from  St.  Petersburg.  Up  till  this  time,  and  for  three  days 
afterwards,  the  troops  of  the  Moscow  garrison  were  strictly  confined 
to  barracks.  The  authorities  were  still  uncertain  about  the  attitude 
of  the  troops.  They  feared  that  the  troops  might  j  oin  the  insurgents. 
This  fear  corresponded  with  a  hope  which  was  entertained  by  some 
of  the  insurgent  leaders,  that  the  troops  might  join  them.  The 
force  of  mihtary  discipHne  was,  however,  strong  enough  to  prevent 
fear  and  hope  alike  from  being  realized. 

On  the  15th  a  group  of  300  revolutionists  invested  the  house 
of  the  chief  of  the  secret  police  of  Moscow  (Voiloshnikov),  who  lived 
on  the  border  of  Presnenskaya  quarter.  He  was  permitted  to  take 
leave  of  his  family  and  to  arrange  his  affairs,  and  was  then  brought 
into  the  street  and  shot. 

During  the  "  uprising  "  passers-by  were  shot  from  police  stations, 
and  sometimes  from  houses  occupied  by  the  so-called  "  Black 

1  It  appears  that  General  Governor  Dubassov  asked  for  additional  troops 
to  be  sent  from  St.  Petersburg.  The  military  authorities,  apprehensive  of  a 
similar  rising  in  that  city,,  refused.  It  was  only  when  Admiral  Dubassov 
assured  the  Tsar  personally  by  telephone  that  the  city  was  in  absolute  danger 
of  falling  wholly  into  the  hands  of  the  insurgents,  that  the  Semenovsky 
Regiment  was  despatched  to  Moscow. 


ARMED    UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     559 

Hundred."  Sometimes  such  houses  were  entered  by  the  revolu- 
tionists, and  the  occupants  were  dragged  out  and  killed  in  the 
streets.  Large  quantities  of  provisions  were  looted  by  insurgents 
from  the  railway  yards.^  At  an  early  stage  in  the  "  uprising  "  the 
insurgents  discovered  that  "  reservists  "  returning  from  Manchuria 
were  added  to  the  troops  already  in  the  city,  or  were  drafted  into 
the  police  force,  from  which  there  had  been  many  resignations  on 
the  eve  of  the  "  uprising."  The  insurgents  therefore  seized  the 
trains  containing  "  reservists  "  and  forced  them  to  give  up  their 
rifles.2  Two  unsuccessful  attempts  were  made  by  the  insurgents  to 
capture  railway  stations,  one  of  them  being  the  station  of  the  Niko- 
laevskaya  Railway.  There  was  also  a  skirmish  between  the  troops 
and  the  insurgents  in  front  of  the  City  Hall.  Wherever  the  troops 
came  within  the  range  of  the  positions  occupied  by  the  insurgents 
there  was  firing  from  the  windows  and  the  balconies  of  houses.  In 
order  to  check  this  practice,  the  General  Governor  (Admiral  Dubas- 
sov)  ordered  that  all  houses  from  which  firing  proceeded  should  be 
cannonaded. 

On  the  i6th  the  insurgents  reluctantly  realized  that  there  was 
now  no  possibility  of  the  Moscow  garrison  joining  their  ranks,  and 
the  expediency  of  abandoning  the  struggle  was  discussed.  The 
Social  Democratic  groups  proposed  that  hostilities  should  cease  on 
that  day ;  but  the  Social  Revolutionaries  refused  to  submit.  They 
agreed,  however,  to  abandon  the  outljdng  positions,  many  of  which 
were  hardly  tenable,  and  to  concentrate  their  remaining  forces  in 
the  Presnenskaya  quarter. 

On  this  day,  the  i6th,  the  "  Council  of  the  Working  Men's 
Deputies  " — in  other  words,  the  Revolutionary  Committee — issued 
the  following  proclamation  :  "  The  Uprising  should  be  considered 
as  not  successful,  therefore  the  Council  dissolves  the  fighting  de- 

*  Two  gunsmiths'  shops  were  also  looted. 

*  Apart  from  the  few  rifles  thus  and  otherwise  secured,  the  insurgents 
used  about  200  Mauser  ten-shot  automatic  pistols.  This  arm  is  admirably 
adapted  for  street  warfare.  Its  range  is  1000  metres,  calibre  7.6-^  milli- 
metres. The  cartridges  contain  "  dum-dum  "  bullets.  The  weapon  is  fitted 
in  a  wooden  case,  which  is  convertible  into  a  shoulder  piece,  so  that  the  arm 
becomes  a  short  rifle.  There  were  also  a  few  Winchester  44  calibre  ten-charge 
repeating  rifles  and  a  few  "  Browning  "  pistols.  As  a  rule,  however,  the 
insurgents  carried  only  pocket  revolvers.  Bombs  were  used  only  in  attacks 
upon  buildings  and  in  repelling  such  attacks.  They  were  not  used  against 
troops  in  the  streets.  Probably  not  more  than  one-tenth  of  those  who  pos- 
sessed fire-arms  were  accustomed  to  the  use  of  them. 


56o     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

tachments,  adjourns  the  struggle  until  a  more  convenient  moment, 
and  invites  the  people  of  Moscow  to  remove  the  barricades  and 
other  defences  erected  during  the  Uprising."  Though  after  this 
proclamation  the  ranks  of  the  insurgents  were  without  doubt 
considerably  reduced,  the  "  Uprising  *'  was  by  no  means  at  an 
end.  The  barricades  round  the  Presnenskaya  Quarter  were  re- 
tained, and  behind  them  were  concentrated  the  more  desperate 
spirits  of  the  insurrection,  while  the  non-combatants  among  the 
inhabitants  of  the  quarter  withdrew  from  it. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  17th  the  troops  attempted  to  penetrate 
the  quarter  ;  but  they  were  repulsed  by  the  insurgents.  Colonel 
Min,^  commander  of  the  Semenovsky  Regiment,  was  ordered  to 
surround  the  quarter  and  to  shell  its  defenders  into  submission. 
During  the  two  following  days  (the  i8th  and  the  19th)  Presnya 
was  heavily  bombarded,^  especially  the  Prokhorov  Works,^  which 
had  now  become  the  headquarters  of  the  insurgents,  and  Schmitt's 
Factory,  which  was  eventually  levelled  to  the  ground  by  shells. 
During  this  investment  of  the  quarter,  ordinary  siege  tactics  were 
employed  ;  all  arms  of  the  service  were  engaged,  and  artillery, 
cavalry,  and  infantry  attacked  the  positions  from  several  points. 
The  bombardment  began  at  5.30  in  the  morning  (before  sunrise) 
of  the  17th,  and  it  continued  without  intermission  until  one  o'clock 
the  same  day.  The  range  was  about  2000  yards.*  By  the  evening 
of  the  17th  the  quarter  was  on  fire.  The  bombardment  was  renewed 
on  the  1 8th,  and  on  the  afternoon  of  that  day  a  white  flag  was 
hoisted  on  the  Prokhorov  Works,  and  the  "  uprising  "  was  at  last 
at  an  end.  During  the  two  days'  sharp  bombardment  of  Pres- 
nenskaya Quarter  upwards  of  600  grenade  and  shrapnel  shells 
were  fired.  The  numbers  of  killed  and  wounded  in  this  quarter 
are  wholly  unascertainable.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  indis- 
criminate fusillades  from  rifles  and  bombardment  by  shrapnel 
shells  killed  and  wounded  many  non-combatants,  although  on  the 

*  General  Min  was  shot  dead  at  Peterhof  by  a  girl,  Zenaida  Konoplanikova, 
on  13th  August  1906. 

2  By  means  of  shrapnel  from  3 -inch  quick-firing  field  artillery  guns  which 
had  been  brought  from  St,  Petersburg. 

3  CaUco -printing   works,   employing  about   lo.ocx)  persons,   the    largest 
factory  in  Moscow. 

*  The  factory  is  commanded  by  high  ground  immediately  to  the  north  ; 
but  this  position  was  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the  insurgents. 


ARMED   UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW     561 

17th,  before  the  final  sharp  bombardment  took  place,  many  of  the 
inhabitants  had  left  the  district. 

After  the  surrender  and  the  subsequent  entry  of  the  Semenovsky 
Regiment  into  the  Presnenskaya  Quarter,  many  were  executed, 
e.g.  twelve  were  shot  in  the  courtyard  of  the  Prokhorov  Factory. 
Some  girls  who  were  found  attending  to  the  wounded  were  whipped 
by  Cossacks.  After  the  surrender  many  persons  were  searched  for 
weapons,  and  robberies  by  Cossacks  and  troops  were  frequent. 

The  number  of  persons  killed  during  the  **  uprising  "  is  not 
ascertainable  with  any  precision.  The  estimated  number  is  about 
670.  The  wounded  were  very  numerous ;  but  so  many  had  their 
wounds  dressed  secretly  in  private  houses  that  it  is  impossible  to 
ascertain  the  total.  This  number  is,  however,  provisionally  stated 
at  2000.  About  10,000  persons  were  arrested  at  the  close  of  hos- 
tilities ;  many  of  them  were  released  after  a  detention  of  from  two 
weeks  to  four  months.  A  considerable  but  unknown  number 
were  shot  without  trial ;  many  were  banished  from  Moscow  to  their 
native  villages  or  to  Siberia.  The  destruction  of  property  from 
shells  and  from  fires  to  which  the  shells  gave  rise,  was  very  great, 
especially  in  the  Presnenskaya  Quarter. 

Two  series  of  prosecutions  arose  out  of  the  Moscow  "  uprising." 
One  of  these  was  the  prosecution  of  those  who  were  arrested  at 
Fiedler's  school,  and  the  other  was  the  prosecution  of  those  who 
were  arrested  after  the  resistance  in  the  Presnenskaya  Quarter 
was  overcome.  These  prosecutions  were  both  conducted  by  Zolo- 
tarev.  Deputy  Prosecutor  in  Moscow.  It  became  obvious  almost 
from  the  first  that  the  Prosecutor  and  the  police  realized  that  the 
persons  who  had  been  arrested  had  not  been  materially  concerned 
in  the  organization  of  the  ''uprising,"  and  that  the  real  leaders 
had  escaped  or  had  been  killed.  It  became  clear  from  the  evidence 
that  the  police  had  failed  to  secure  not  only  their  persons,  but  even 
their  names.  As  has  been  the  case  in  the  history  of  nearly  all 
similar  movements,  the  leaders  sprang  from  unknown  quarters, 
they  assumed  or  were  given  pseudonyms  by  which  alone  they  were 
known.^    After  the  rising  they  disappeared. 

While  large  numbers  of  persons  assisted  in  building  the  barri- 
cades, the  actual  number  of  combatant  insurgents  was  very  small. 

1  The  pseudonyms  of  the  three  conspicuous  leaders  in  the  Presnenskajra 
Quarter  were  "  The  Bear,"  "  The  Buckled  "  (or  Belted)  man,  and  "  Andrew." 
VOL.  II  2  N 


562     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

Their  great  activity,  by  means  of  which  they  defended  a  position 
until  the  last  moment  and  then,  instead  of  surrendering,  disappeared 
in  the  tortuous  byways  or  through  houses,  to  reappear  at  another 
point  some  distance  away,  contributed  to  the  illusion  that  the 
insurgent  force  was  much  more  numerous  than  it  really  was.  From 
all  the  information  available,  it  seems  unhkely  that  the  "  uprising  '* 
was  conducted  by  more  than  3000  actively  engaged  combatants.^ 

The  relative  shares  of  the  two  revolutionary  parties  principally 
concerned  in  the  **  uprising  "  and  in  the  series  of  movements  which 
led  to  it — the  Social  Democratic  Party  and  the  Social  Revolutionary 
Party — are  not  very  easy  to  discriminate.  There  was  a  good  deal 
of  jealousy  between  them,  and  they  frequently  refused  to  co-operate 
together  or  even  to  support  each  other.  "  When  one  group  went 
out  to  fight,  the  other  refused  to  go."  2  Jhe  Social  Democrats 
were  undoubtedly  largely  in  the  majority,  and  probably  had  a  com- 
manding influence  upon  the  "  uprising."  ^  The  miUtary  leaders, 
whoever  they  were,  came  most  probably  from  other  cities  or  from 
abroad.     It  is  unhkely  that  they  belonged  to  Moscow. 

During  the  early  days  of  the  "  uprising,"  the  troops  of  the 
Moscow  garrison  were  not  employed  owing  to  the  fear  that  they 
might  refuse  to  fire  upon  the  crowd,  or  might  even  fraternize  with 
the  insurgents.  This  fear  proved  to  be  groundless.  The  peasant 
soldier  has  little  feeling  about  suppressing  a  revolt  in  a  city  where 
he  thinks  everyone  earns  high  wages  and  enjoys  an  amusing  and 
agreeable  life  with  which  he  ought  to  be  content.  Only  in  the 
villages  do  people  suffer.  Yet  the  general  commotion  among  the 
troops  which  has  already  been  noticed  caused  the  miUtary  autho- 
rities to  proceed  carefully.  Thus  the  first  days  of  the  *'  uprising  " 
were  characterized  by  comparative  inaction.  Only  in  the  last 
da57S,  when  this  fear  was  no  longer  present,  and  when  the  insurgents 
were  being  worn  out,  did  the  mihtary  operations  assume  a  seriously 
aggressive  character. 

1  The  above  particulars,  excepting  where  published  material  is  quoted, 
have  been  derived  verbally  from  weU-informed  persons  who  were  residing 
in  the  disturbed  districts  at  the  time  of  the  "  uprising."  Varying  accounts 
will,  no  doubt,  be  forthcoming.  The  same  incident  has  different  com- 
plexions from  different  points  of  view. 

*  Writes  a  correspondent. 

•  It  was,  however,  commonly  understood  in  Moscow  that  the  Social 
Revolutionists,  though  relatively  few  in  number,  made  up  for  this  by  extreme 
activity. 


ARMED   UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW    563 

On  the  suppression  of  the  "  uprising,"  the  General  Governor 
of  Moscow,  Vice-Admiral  Dubassov,  received  the  thanks  of  the 
Tsar,  promotion  to  the  rank  of  Admiral,  and  one  miUion  rubles 
for  the  "  pacification  '*  of  Moscow. 

It  is  now  necessary  to  examine  the  affair  critically,  basing  the 
criticism  upon  the  above  statement  of  the  facts. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  revolution,  the  "  uprising " 
was  ineffectively  planned  or  not  planned  at  all.  The  available 
active  force  was  scattered  over  an  area  wide  enough  no  doubt  to 
engage  the  troops  in  many  different  quarters  at  the  same  moment, 
but  so  wide  that  the  insurgents  were  unable  to  co-operate  together 
effectively.  The  troops,  which  outnumbered  the  insurgents  several 
times,^  were  in  a  compact  mass  in  the  central  area  of  the  city,  while 
the  small  number  of  insurgents  was  scattered  round  the  outskirts. 
Until  the  last  two  days  (i8th  and  19th  December)  the  larger  body 
was  really  almost  surrounded  and  invested  by  the  smaller.  Dis- 
agreements among  the  active  participants  miUtated  against  the 
prolongation  of  the  struggle.  It  may  be  observed  that  the  Moscow 
"  uprising  "  is  the  first  revolt  of  magnitude  in  a  city  population 
since  the  rising  of  the  Commune  of  Paris  in  1871.  It  has,  there- 
fore, a  great  interest  because  of  what  it  discloses  with  reference, 
not  to  the  possibility  of  a  successful  revolution,  but  with  reference 
to  the  capacity  of  a  comparatively  small  number  of  intelligent, 
courageous,  and  self-regardless  men  to  hold  authorities  at  bay  for 
so  great  a  length  of  time  as  to  produce  by  this  mere  fact  a  change 
in  the  political  situation. 

The  only  sense  in  which  the  Moscow  "  uprising  "  can  fairly 
be  called  "  non-successful "  within  the  limits  of  the  possibility  of 
such  attempts,  is  in  the  sense  that  the  period  of  ten  days  was,  under 
the  then  political  circumstances,  not  quite  long  enough  to  produce 
of  itself  a  manifest  effect  upon  the  general  situation.  Yet  a  period 
of  ten  days  is  a  long  time  for  a  city  of  over  a  miUion  inhabitants 
to  have  its  normal  course  completely  arrested.  When  it  is  considered 
also  that  this  city  was  a  military  camp  occupied  by  a  formidable 
force,  which  was  equipped  with  ample  material  of  war,  was  ready 
at  aU  times  for  engaging  in  a  civil  if  not  in  a  foreign  campaign, 
and  was  accustomed  to  treat  resistance  with  merciless  severity, 

^  More  than  five  times,  if  the  figures  given  above  are  to  be  accepted,  and 
if  the  Moscow  garrison  is  taken  into  account. 


564     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

it  is  surprising  that  a  small  number  of  men,  inadequately  armed 
and  practically  unled,  should  have  been  able  to  hold  the  troops 
at  bay  even  for  ten  days,  and  should  have  been  able  to  offer  so 
obstinate  a  resistance  that  the  quarter  of  the  city  in  which  they 
entrenched  themselves  should  have  had  to  be  practically  destroyed 
by  shells  and  fire  before  they  were  defeated.  The  explanation 
seems  to  he  in  the  construction  of  the  enormous  number  of  barri- 
cades, and  in  the  fact  that  these  were  constructed  not  wholly  by 
insurgents,  but  even  chiefly  by  the  general  population.  The  people 
who  constructed  the  barricades  were  evidently  more  afraid  of  the 
troops  than  of  the  insurgents,  and  were  especially  afraid  of  stray 
bullets  from  long-range  rifles  and  of  shells. 

The  utilization  of  this  probably  quite  unforeseen  but  effective 
ally — the  natural  instinct  of  the  population  to  defend  itself,  even 
though  its  defence  may  result  in  the  prolongation  of  the  state  of 
insurrection — is  a  new  factor  in  armed  revolutionary  movements. 
The  reasons  apparent  for  the  delay  in  decisive  action  on  the  part 
of  the  miUtary  authorities  were,  no  doubt,  sufficient,  yet  the  spring- 
ing up  of  barricades  in  all  directions  on  the  second  day  of  the 
conflict  made  subsequent  movements  of  cavalry  and  infantry 
impossible,  and  rendered  an  artillery  attack  at  long  range  upon 
established  positions  the  only  means  of  reducing  them.  It  would 
appear  that  in  opening  fire  upon  the  crowds  of  people  in  the  streets 
on  the  loth.  General  Governor  Dubassov  was  acting  either  pre- 
maturely or  too  late.  The  immediate  reply  to  his  attack  was  the 
erection  of  innumerable  barricades,  and  this  he  was  powerless  to 
prevent.  So  also  when,  on  the  17th,  the  resistance  was  prolonged 
by  a  comparatively  small  number  of  insurgents,  the  colonel  in 
command.  Colonel  Min,  failed  to  occupy  the  Presnenskaya  Quarter, 
although  it  was  defended  by  a  force  insignificant  in  numbers  and 
inadequately  armed.^  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  allowed  that 
numerous  barricades  rendered  guerilla  warfare  possible,  and  that 
the  troops  were  confronted  by  wholly  novel  conditions.  The  mili- 
tary authorities  were  obviously  startled  and  perplexed  by  the  new 
problems  in  city  warfare — a  kind  of  campaigning  in  which  hitherto 

^  The  writer  is  informed  that  during  many  of  the  conflicts  in  Moscow, 
the  troops,  supplied  ad  libitum  with  liquor  from  the  Gk>vemment  liquor  shops, 
were  drunk,  and  that  their  firing  was  quite  haphazard.  The  frequent  defeats 
of  troops  by  small  bodies  of  insurgents  may  thus  be  accounted  for. 


ARMED    UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW    565 

they  had  had  everything  their  own  way — in  which  the  nagaika 
was  the  customary  weapon,  and  in  which,  up  till  the  beginning  of 
1905,  the  rifle  had  not  played  an  important  r61e.  In  Moscow 
even  important  streets  are  narrow  and  tortuous,  and  in  the  greater 
part  of  the  city  there  are  winding  lanes,  cuts  de  sac,  and  obscure 
passages.  Few  cities  in  Russia  present  the  opportunities  of  pro- 
longed resistance  upon  an  extensive  scale  which  Moscow  offers, 
least  of  all  St.  Petersburg,  where  the  streets  are  wide  and  straight, 
where  there  are  many  large  open  spaces,  and  where  the  number 
of  troops  in  garrison  is  always  overwhelming. 

The  injury  to  the  prestige  of  the  autocracy  became  increasingly 
serious  with  every  hour  in  which  its  capital  city  of  Moscow  remained 
in  the  hands  of  the  insurgents.  Fatahty  seemed  to  dog  the  arms 
of  Russia,  even  in  civil  war. 

After  the  "  uprising  "  had  begun,  and  still  more  after  it  had  been 
suppressed,  suggestions  were  not  wanting  that,  as  in  the  ZubMov- 
shina  and  the  Gaponovshina,  the  hand  of  the  pohce  might  be  detected, 
and  that  the  "  uprising  "  was  the  result  of  provocative  action. 
Certain  considerations,  no  doubt,  tend  towards  the  justification 
of  such  a  charge,  which  was  made  chiefly  by  the  Social  Democrats.^ 
This  charge  is  based  principally  upon  the  fact  that  the  *'  uprising  " 
was  likely  to  lead,  as  it  did  lead,  to  a  reaction  similar  to  that  which 
followed  the  PoUsh  revolt  in  1863  ^  and  that  which  succeeded  the 
assassination  of  Alexander  II  in  1881.  Although  this  outcome  has 
been  for  the  time  favourable  to  the  autocracy,  as  it  was  in  the  two 
former  historical  cases,  and  although  it  was  wholly  in  the  interest  of 
the  "  old  regime  "  "  to  transfer  the  struggle  to  the  field  of  immediate 
physical  action  before  it  was  too  late  to  do  so,"  ^  it  is  not  clear  that 
it  was  to  the  interest  of  the  autocracy  to  familiarize  the  people  with 
the  idea  and  the  practice  of  revolution.  There  has  always  been  a 
temptation  in  such  cases  to  find  the  subtle  hand  of  the  Russian 
Government  behind  every  movement,  luring  it  on  to  its  destruction. 
In  the  case  of  Zubatov,*  the  poUcy  is  pubhc  and  confessed  ;  in  the 
case  of  Gapon  ^  it  is  less  clear,  although  the  evidence  affords  some 
proof  of  complicity  of  the  Government  in  the  earlier  stages  ;  in  the 

1  As,  for  instance,  by  V.  Gorn  in  his  Peasantry  in  the  Russian  Revolution 
(Moscow,  1907),  p.  153. 

'  For  the  reaction  following  the  Polish  insurrection,  see  the  lively  accoimt 
by  Prince  Kropotkin  in  his  Memoirs  (Boston,  1899),  p.  174. 

^  Gorn,  op.  cit.,  p.  153.  *  Cf.  supra,  p.  188.  *  Cf.  supra,  p.  451. 


566     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

case  of  the  Moscow  "  uprising  "  it  is  not  clear  at  all.  The  presump- 
tions are  almost  altogether  against  the  supposition  that  the  "  up- 
rising "  was  brought  about  by  provocative  measures.  The  risk, 
under  the  conditions  of  general  conflagration,  which  charac- 
terized the  close  of  1905,  was  too  great  for  any  responsible  authority 
to  trifle  with  worn-out  schemes  of  "  provocation."  The  army,  the 
navy,  and  the  fortresses  were  all  in  a  temper  of  highly  uncertain 
loyalty,  the  peasantry  were  in  a  state  bordering  upon  widespread 
insurrection,  the  city  working  men  were,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  highly 
disturbed,  and  in  little  need  of  "  provocation."  Nothing  but  the 
extreme  of  folly  could  have  driven  the  autocracy  upon  a  path  with 
which  it  was  already  familiar,  but  in  which  it  had  already  met  with 
repeated  defeats.  "  Provocation  "  had  had  its  day  in  Odessa,^  and 
had  been  attended  with  unanticipated  results.  Moreover,  the  ex- 
pense of  the  frequent  punitive  expeditions,  of  the  policing  of  the 
towns,  of  strikes,  and  of  other  incidents  of  the  revolution,  was  becom- 
ing enormous,  and  the  credit  of  Russia  was  suffering  on  the  foreign 
exchanges.^  The  country  needed  a  period  of  quiet  rather  than  one 
of  disturbance.  It  is,  moreover,  now  quite  certain  that  the  adminis- 
tration was  better  informed  than  any  of  the  extreme  party  groups  of 
the  state  of  mind  of  the  peasantry,  and  that  it  was  well  aware  of 
the  futiUty  of  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  city  proletariat  alone  to 
force  the  revolution  in  a  direction  determined  by  its  own  interests 
without  the  support  of  the  mass  of  the  peasant  population. 

It  is  more  reasonable  to  regard  the  "  uprising,"  as  well  as  the 
incidents  at  Kronstadt,  at  Sevastopol,  and  those  of  the  agrarian 
disorders,  as  springing  from  causes  which  were  beyond  the  power  of 
the  autocracy,  within  the  terms  of  its  own  existence,  to  prevent, 
rather  than  to  suppose  that  any  one  of  them  sprang  from  deliberate 
playing  with  fire. 

In  March  1906  ^  there  arose  in  official  circles  fears  of  a  repetition 

1  Cf.  supra,  p.  203. 

*  For  the  effect  of  the  Moscow  uprising  upon  Russian  securities,  see 
infra,  Appendix  to  Book  VII. 

*  Between  the  suppression  of  the  "  uprising  "  in  December  1905  and 
March  1906,  many  irregularities  occurred  in  which  soldiers  and  police  were 
aUke  implicated.  For  example,  both  sold  back  to  the  revolutionists,  at  high 
prices,  arms  which  had  been  confiscated  in  the  course  of  their  duty  and  pur- 
chased at  low  prices  inferior  weapons  which  they  reported  and  delivered  to 
their  superior  officers.  In  the  end  of  February  1906,  the  Minister  of  Interior 
issued  a  circular  intended  to  put  a  stop  to  this  practice. 


ARMED   UPRISING   IN    MOSCOW    567 

of  the  "  armed  uprising  "  in  Moscow.  The  rank  and  file  of  the 
poUce  were  to  some  extent  affected  by  panic,  and  they  began  to 
send  in  their  resignations  in  considerable  numbers.  Under  these 
circumstances  a  poUce  circular  was  issued  intimating  that  any 
poUceman  who  sent  in  his  resignation  without  sufficient  reason 
would  be  subjected  to  three  months  imprisonment  and  subsequent 
banishment.  The  moment  passed,  however,  without  any  recur- 
rence of  the  resort  to  arms. 

In  St.  Petersburg  also,  throughout  the  early  months  of  1906, 
the  authorities  feared  an  outbreak  similar  to  that  of  Moscow,  but 
the  presence  of  an  immense  garrison,  and  the  hopelessness  of  relying 
upon  disaffection  among  the  troops  prevented  further  disturbances 
there  also. 

The  Moscow  uprising  of  December  1905,  serious  as  it  was,  lasted 
only  for  a  few  days.  It  ultimately  collapsed,  partly  through  inherent 
weakness  and  partly  through  the  miUtary  measures  which  were  taken 
to  suppress  it.  One  of  its  consequences  was  the  proof  that  risings 
in  cities  under  modem  conditions  are  much  more  easily  suppressed 
than  risings  in  the  rural  districts.  During  the  previous  ten  years  the 
poUcy  of  the  Government  had  been  directed  towards  strengthening 
the  city  garrisons.  The  city  had  become  an  armed  camp.  Although 
Moscow  is  not  an  important  military  centre,  the  garrison  is  never  less 
than  10,000,  while  St.  Petersburg  has  usually  a  garrison  of  30,000. 
A  revolutionary  movement  in  any  of  the  great  cities  may  disturb 
the  Government,  or  may  even  seriously  discredit  it,  but  so  long  as  the 
army  is  loyal,  it  cannot  overthrow  the  Government.  A  peasant 
rising,  on  the  other  hand,  when  it  is  widespread,  may  keep  expedition 
after  expedition  moving  for  an  indefinite  period.  The  rising  may 
be  crushed  in  one  region  only  to  reappear  in  another.  It  is  conceiv- 
able that  guerilla  warfare  of  this  kind  might  go  on  indefinitely.  The 
fear  expressed  by  some  of  the  Social  Democrats,^  that  the  peasantry 
would  betray  the  revolution  by  accepting  concessions  before  the 
city  proletariat  was  prepared  to  lay  down  its  arms,  showed  that 
account  was  not  taken  of  the  actual  conditions.  The  city  prole- 
tariat must  for  the  reasons  stated  lay  down  its  arms  within  a  few 
days ;  the  peasant  revolt,  when  it  exists  widely,  may  not  be  com- 
pelled to  do  so  until  after  repeated  expeditions. 

*  Cf.  Gom,  op.  cit.,  p.  139. 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE   DISTURBANCES    IN   THE   URALS   IN    1907 

Sporadic  disturbances  continued  to  take  place  in  the  year  1907. 
One  of  the  principal  areas  affected  by  these  disturbances  was  the 
region  of  the  Ural  Mountains,  where  the  exploitation  and  manu- 
facture of  iron  are  the  principal  means  of  employment.  This  region 
is  situated  in  Permskaya  gub.  One  of  the  largest  of  the  companies 
which  carry  on  operations  in  the  iron  region  is  the  Bogoslovsky 
Mountain  Foundry  Joint-Stock  Company,  to  which  the  whole  of 
the  Bogoslovsky  Mountain  district  belongs.  In  one  of  the  foundries 
of  the  company — Nadejdinsky — rails  are  manufactured,  and  from 
3000  to  3500  men  are  employed.  Most  of  these  men  belong  to  the 
surrounding  peasant  population,  and  for  the  most  part  they  retain 
their  connection  with  their  former  villages,  although  they  Uve  in 
a  large  village  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  foundry. 
The  population  of  this  village  (12,000  to  15,000)  is  occupied  almost 
exclusively  in  labour  in  the  foundry  proper  or  in  subsidiary  enter- 
prises connected  with  it — charcoal-burning,  saw-milling,  &c.  The 
wages  of  this  considerable  group  of  working  people  are  relatively 
high  (40  to  70  rubles  per  month),  and  the  general  level  of  comfort, 
relatively  to  that  of  the  mass  of  the  Russian  artisans  and  peasants, 
is  also  high.  Situated  as  they  are,  remote  from  centres  of  culti- 
vated life,  and  inevitably  to  some  extent  separated  even  from  their 
own  former  villages,  the  population,  in  spite  of  their  material  com- 
fort, are  seriously  addicted  to  drink,  and  their  level  of  culture  is 
very  low.  The  lowest  of  these  are  said  to  be  the  permanent  workers 
in  the  foundry,  those  having  the  best  wages  and  the  best  positions, 
who  have  to  a  large  extent  severed  their  connection  with  their 
native  villages,  and  who  have  thus  ceased  to  be  affected  even  by 
their  rudimentary  culture.  There  is  not,  moreover,  according  to 
report,  any  intelligentsia  element  either  in  the  foundry  or  in  the 

village.     In  1905  a  small  group  of  Social  Democrats  attempted 

568 


DISTURBANCES    IN   THE   URALS    569 

to  form  an  organization  of  such  elements  as  they  could  find  ;  but 
they  were  speedily  "  frozen  out."  So  also  the  Social  Revolutionary 
Party  attempted  to  form  an  organization.  The  organizers  only 
succeeded  in  attracting  to  themselves  working  men  who  were  not 
influenced  by  revolutionary  doctrines  so  much  as  by  the  prospect 
of  disturbance.  This  group  thus  became  involved  in  a  militant 
organization,  in  small  terror  and  expropriations.  These  actions  led 
to  the  hostility  of  the  authorities  and  eventually  to  the  breaking 
up  of  the  party  group.  Intelligentsia  belonging  to  the  Social  Revo- 
lutionary Party  attempted  to  revive  the  organization.  This  had 
little  direct  effect ;  but  the  existence  of  the  agitation  prepared  the 
way  for  the  events  of  August  1907,  which  culminated  in  the  closing 
of  the  foundry  and  the  dismissal  of  all  the  workmen.  The  most 
effective  factor  in  these  events  was,  however,  the  arrival  at  the 
foundry  of  a  working  man  called  Lvov.  Lvov  had  worked  in 
another  foundry  in  the  same  gubernie,  and  had  served  as  an  artillery 
man  in  the  Russo-Japanese  war.  After  his  return  from  Manchuria 
he  was  decorated  for  gallantry ;  but  during  the  period  of  miUtary 
disaffection  in  1905  he  had  organized  means  for  preventing  the 
dispersal  of  soldiers'  meetings,  and  in  this  way  he  had  been  brought 
into  conflict  with  the  authorities.  He  had  escaped  arrest ;  but 
from  thenceforward  he  was  not  "  a  legal  man."  He  now  threw 
himself  into  the  revolutionary  movement,  and  determined  to 
organize  bands  of  men  with  the  object  of  carrying  on  the  struggle 
against  the  Government.  He  began  by  making  raids  with  a  small 
number  of  spirits  like  himself.  These  raids  resulted  in  '*  expro- 
priations," and  with  the  funds  so  derived,  arms  for  larger  groups 
were  purchased.  These  "  expropriation "  exploits  were  so  fre- 
quently conducted  with  great  skill,  audacity,  and  success,  that 
everywhere  in  the  gubernie  people  began  to  look  upon  Lvov  as  a 
hero  who  possessed  extraordinary  courage  and  ingenious  organizing 
ability.  Legends  about  him  grew  up,  and  the  people  aided  him, 
concealed  him  when  necessary,  and  gave  him  information  about 
the  movements  of  the  police  and  of  troops.  "  Soon  the  name  of 
Lvov  was  thundering  over  the  whole  of  the  Urals,  and  even  the 
metropolitan   newspapers   began   to   give   him   attention."  ^     His 

^  Znatnya  Truda,  No.  8,  December  1907.  Lvov  was  regarded  by  the 
peasants  as  a  worthy  successor  of  Stenka  Razen  and  Pugachev  (cf.  supra, 
p.  21  et  seq.).    He  and  his  companions  were  known  as  the  "  Forest  Brothers.'* 


570     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

activities  gave  rise  to  tales  so  obviously  exaggerated  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  discover  beneath  these  tales  the  truth  about 
his  activities.  The  one  fact  about  which  there  is  no  manner  of 
doubt  is  his  extraordinary  popularity.  Youths  of  all  sorts  crowded 
to  his  standard — some  attracted  by  the  opportunity  he  afforded 
for  revolutionary  activity,  others  by  a  mere  love  of  adventure. 
Nearly  all  were  destitute  of  the  moral  discipUne  necessary  for  a 
sincere  revolutionary  movement. 

The  arrival  of  Lvov  at  Nadejdinsky  Foundry  with  about  twenty 
of  his  comrades  resulted  in  his  obtaining  a  large  number  of  recruits 
of  various  sorts,  and  arms  were  distributed  to  this  heterogeneous 
mob.  Lvov's  plan  was  to  seize  the  office  of  the  mines  and  the  sub- 
post  office,  and  to  get  what  money  was  held  there,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  capture  the  store  of  dynamite  at  the  mines.  This  plan  was 
almost  openly  discussed ;  and  the  people  of  the  village  were  in  a 
general  state  of  sympathetic  expectancy.  In  the  night  of  the  13th 
August  1907  the  village  was  aroused  by  a  series  of  explosions  of 
bombs,  which  were  found  to  have  destroyed  a  newly  built  sawmill. 
At  the  same  time  the  railway  Une  was  cut  and  communication  by 
telephone  was  interrupted.  The  movement  of  troops  into  the  dis- 
trict was  thus  prevented  for  a  time.^  The  administration  of  the 
mine  had,  however,  taken  advantage  of  the  publicity  which  had 
been  given  to  Lvov's  movements  and  had  removed  all  but  a  trifling 
amount  of  money,  so  that  the  "  expropriations  "  amounted  to  very 
little.  A  number  of  arsons  took  place,  however,  and  the  engineer 
of  the  foundry  was  killed,  together  with  another  member  of  the 
administration.  Immediately  after  these  murders  the  foundry  was 
closed  and  all  the  workmen  were  dismissed.  The  local  authorities 
now  concentrated  two  companies  of  soldiers,  eighty  mounted 
Ingushi,  and  thirty  constables,  and  instituted  a  hunt  for  Lvov. 
A  number  of  his  followers  were  arrested,  but  the  leader  escaped. 
Simultaneously  with  his  flight,  and  therefore  his  acknowledgment 
of  defeat,  the  reputation  of  Lvov  among  the  people  collapsed.  They 
had  beheved  him  to  be  invincible,  and  now  he  was  defeated,  and 
the  sole  result  of  his  agitation  for  them  was  the  closing  of  the 
works  and  the  cessation  of  their  means  of  liveHhood.    They  turned, 

*  There  had,  however,  been  brought  into  the  region  a  small  force  of 
Ingushi  (cf.  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  577).  who  had  been  brought  from  the  Caucasus 
to  protect  the  mines  against  attack. 


DISTURBANCES    IN   THE   URALS    571 

indeed,  with  much  fury  upon  one  of  the  followers  of  Lvov,  and  they 
were  with  difficulty  prevented  from  permitting  him  to  be  burned 
alive  in  a  house  from  which  the  police  succeeded  in  rescuing  him. 

Lvov  estabUshed  a  kind  of  "  Seych"^  in  the  mountains,  where 
he  gathered  about  him  a  number  of  adventurous  spirits,  some  of 
them  Social  Revolutionists,  a  few  Social  Democrats,  and  many 
mere  adventurers.  Lvov  and  his  bands  continued  to  appear 
suddenly  in  different  places.  So  many  police  were  killed  by  them 
that  the  poUce  became  victims  of  panic  and  resigned  "  by  scores." 
The  Governor,  Bolatov,  was  ordered  at  all  costs  to  effect  the  capture 
of  Lvov ;  and  reinforcements  of  troops,  Cossacks,  and  Ingushi 
were  sent  into  the  district.  The  region  was  declared  under  Extra- 
ordinary Guard.2  Then  began  a  kind  of  battue  ;  everybody  who 
came  within  the  net  was  punished  by  arrest  or  by  being  shot 
without  trial.  Many  persons  wholly  out  of  sympathy  with  Lvov 
suffered  with  the  guilty.  The  fashion  of  going  into  "  Seych " 
gradually  ceased,  and  the  agitation  subsided.  Eventually  in  the 
winter  of  1907-1908,  Lvov  was  captured. 

The  disturbances  as  a  whole  disclose  the  existence  of  a  crudely 
revolutionary  "  state  of  mind  "  among  the  population  of  the  Urals. 
The  youth  were  evidently  ready  for  any  desperate  enterprise, 
grievance  or  no  grievance,  and  without  any  fixed  aim  either  for 
themselves  or  for  the  country  at  large.  Such  elements  disappeared 
with  the  capture  of  Lvov,  only,  no  doubt,  to  reappear  whenever  a 
similar  personahty  emerges  to  take  the  leadership  of  the  revolu- 
tionists by  instinct.  "  Any  Ataman  will  find  hundreds  or  even 
thousands  of  young  men  of  the  Ural  Ushkuneke  "  ^  ready  to  follow 
them. 

*  The  "  Seych  "  was  an  island  in  the  Dnieper,  the  resort  of  the  Cossacks. 
For  a  lively  description  of  this  singular  republic  of  adventurers,  see  Sienkie- 
wicz,  H.,  With  Fire  and  Sword,  chap.  xi.     See  also  supra,  p.  22. 

2  Cf.  supra,  p.  548. 

3  Znamya  Truda,  Nos.  10  and  11,  February-March  1908.  The  Ush- 
kuneke were  the  pillaging  parties  of  old  Novgorod.     Cf .  supra,  vol.  i.  p.  32 . 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE   POLITICAL   POLICE,  AZEFSHINA,   AND   THE 
COLLAPSE    OF   THE   TERROR 

The  ambiguous  rdle  played  by  the  Russian  police  departments 
in  the  political  and  revolutionary  movements  of  recent  years  has 
already  been  illustrated  in  the  cases  of  Zubatov  and  Gapon,  both 
of  whom  attempted  to  organize  the  city  working  men  upon  a 
non-political  basis.  The  first  of  these  was  a  police  officer,  the 
second  was  under  the  suspicion  of  being,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, a  police  agent.  But  the  role  of  the  police  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  ostensibly  pure  trade  unionism  is  unimportant  beside  their 
alleged  r61e  as  masters  of  the  autocracy  and  of  the  revolution 
alike.  The  disclosures  of  January  1909,  connected  with  the  case 
of  A.  A.  Lopukhin,  formerly  Director  of  the  PoUce  Department, 
and  with  that  of  Yevno  Azei,  formerly  head  of  the  "  Militant 
Organization  of  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Socialist  Revolutionary 
Party,"  and  at  the  same  time  police  spy  and  agent  provocateur, 
suggest  that  the  political  police  spy  system  had  reached,  in  1905. 
and  1906,  '*  perfection  "  in  its  kind.  When  the  spy  acquires  com- 
plete control  of  the  situation,  and  in  his  own  person  unites  the 
functions  of  the  autocrat  and  revolutionist,  no  further  develop- 
ment in  that  kind  is  possible. 

The  statements  of  the  Government  and  of  the  officials  concerned, 
and  similar  statements  made  by  the  Central  Committee  of  the 
Socialist  Revolutionary  Party,  may  all  be  open  to  suspicion.  Con- 
spiracy and  counter-conspiracy  are  indeed  public  and  confessed  ; 
and  both  are  ahke  excused  on  the  ground  of  inevitability.  Only  in 
so  far  as  the  Government  and  the  Revolutionary  Party  can  both  be 
regarded  as  sitting,  under  the  strain  of  these  revelations,  upon  the 
stool  of  repentance,  can  their  statements  carry  conviction. 

It  is  first  of  all  necessary  to  explain  the  official  organization  of 
the  Russian  police.  It  has  been  described  as  "  a  terribly  and  extra- 
ordinarily compUcated  organized  army,  that  possesses  its  general 

572 


AZEF-LOPUKHIN   CASE  573 

staff,  its  soldiers,  its  spies,  and  its  effective  instruments  of  annihila- 
tion." 1  At  the  head  of  this  formidable  institution  there  is  the  Min- 
ister of  the  Interior.  He  is  responsible  to  the  Tsar  for  the  conduct 
of  its  various  departments  :  the  Detective  Department  and  the 
Department  of  PoUtical  Police,  as  well  as  the  department  charged 
with  the  police  administration  in  the  capitals  and  in  the  provinces. 
Alongside  every  general  governor  and  every  governor  there  stands  a 
poUce  functionary  who  is  responsible  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior. 

The  ambitions  of  members  of  the  Police  Department  have  fre- 
quently been  commensurate  with  the  extraordinary  powers  which 
they  exercised.  In  1881,  for  example,  Sudeikin^  appears  to  have 
acted  deliberately  in  imposing  upon  the  Tsar  Alexander  a  regime  of 
terror.  He  frightened  him  by  continuous  disclosures  of  conspiracy, 
and  endeavoured  to  induce  him  to  dismiss  Count  Dmitri  Tolstoy  for 
incompetence,  and  to  appoint  himself  (Sudeikin)  as  practical  dicta- 
tor, the  Tsar  being  only  an  ornamental  head  of  the  State.^ 

Apart  from  the  recognized  officials  of  the  Police  Department, 
every  concierge  (dvornik)  is  licensed  by  the  police,  and  may  be  com- 
pelled to  exercise  surveillance  over  every  person  who  resides  in  the 

1  Von  Moskwitsch,  "  Die  Polizei,"  in  Russen  uber  Russland,  Ein  Sammel- 
werk,  ed.  by  Josef  Melnik  (Frankfurt-am-Main,  1906),  p.  420. 

2  Sudeikin  was  Chief  of  the  Detective  Department  in  St.  Petersburg  in 
1 88 1.  In  one  of  his  domiciliary  visits  he  arrested,  along  with  others,  a  sous- 
captain  of  artillery  called  Dugaiev,  who  was  evidently  acquainted  with  some 
of  the  active  members  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya.  Sudeikin  noticed  this  young 
man  in  the  crowd  of  arrested  persons  and  determined  to  make  use  of  him. 
He  visited  him  in  the  prison  in  which  he  was  confined  and  came  to  an  under- 
standing with  him.  He  obtained  for  Dugaiev  a  position  as  draughtsman 
in  one  of  the  Government  offices,  and  began  to  utilize  him  as  a  secret  detective 
agent.  By  means  of  Dugaiev's  acquaintance  with  the  members  of  the  Narod- 
naya Volya  party  many  of  these  were  arrested  and  many  "  underground 
printing  offices  "  were  disclosed  and  suppressed.  The  role  of  Dugaiev  in  these 
transactions  was  discovered,  and  the  Narodnaya  Volya  party  sentenced  him 
to  death.  Feeling  that  so  long  as  he  remained  in  St.  Petersburg  the  life  of 
Dugaiev  was  in  danger,  Sudeikin  sent  him  to  Paris.  There,  however,  Dugaiev 
soon  became  aware  that  his  movements  were  under  observation  by  his  former 
allies.  Convinced  that  his  assassination  was  inevitable,  Dugaiev  entered 
into  negotiation  with  the  members  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya,  and  in  exchange 
for  his  life  undertook  to  commit  any  revolutionary  act  which  they  might 
require.  The  act  prescribed  by  them  was  the  assassination  of  Sudeikin. 
Dugaiev  assisted  in  the  accomplishment  of  this  deed  and  escaped.  The 
Government  offered  a  reward  of  10,000  rubles  for  the  capture  of  Dugaiev, 
but  the  reward  was  never  claimed.  After  the  deed  was  done  the  Narodnaya 
Volya  announced  its  disapproval  on  principle  of  such  a  method  of  carrying 
on  its  war  as  the  deed  involved,  and  declared  its  intention  not  to  repeat  it. 

*  Cf .  supra,  pp.  1 30  and  1 32. 


574     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

premises  of  which  he  is  caretaker.  In  addition  to  these,  there  are 
besides  innumerable  regular  and  occasional  spies,  who  are  paid  by 
the  police  to  keep  them  informed  of  the  personal  activities  of  sus- 
pects and  others. 

The  functions  of  the  Russian  Pohce  Department  are  not  confined 
to  Russia.  In  every  foreign  country  where  there  are  Russian 
emigrants  there  are  police  agents  whose  business  it  is  to  worm 
themselves  into  the  confidence  of  the  emigrants,  and  to  make  reports 
upon  their  activities.  The  operations  of  these  agents  are  directed 
by  the  Superintendent  of  Russian  Political  PoHce  Abroad,  whose 
ofiice  in  St.  Petersburg  is  a  branch  of  the  Department  of  Political 
Police.  The  agents  of  the  Russian  police  abroad  are  no  doubt,  as  a 
rule,  obscure  persons  who  play  the  part  of  common  spies  ;  but 
occasionally  disclosures  have  been  made  which  leave  little  doubt  of 
espionage  having  been  carried  on  by  persons  who  occupied  more  or 
less  conspicuous  positions  in  one  or  other  of  the  Western  European 
capitals. 

The  rationale  of  this  system  is  undoubtedly  the  necessity  under 
which  an  autocratic  government  lies  to  make  itself  aware  of  opposi- 
tional movements  in  time  to  counteract  them,  whether  these  move- 
ments are  intended  to  have  a  violent  issue  or  not.  The  police 
system,  with  its  espionage,  is  thus  an  incident  inseparable  from 
autocracy ;  ^  but  like  autocracy,  its  development  in  Russia  has 
shown  that  it  contains  within  itself  the  seeds  of  its  own  destruction. 
The  spy  system  appears  to  tend  to  develop,  upon  its  fundamentally 
unsound  ethical  basis,  until  it  brings  down  the  system  to  which  it  is 
attached.  In  Russia  the  pecuniary  gains  of  the  first-class  spy  have 
evidently  been  so  considerable  as  to  induce  him  first  to  organize 
and  then  to  betray — the  outcome  of  this  process  being  widespread 
"  provocation,"  the  implication  of  enthusiastic  but  weak  people, 
and  their  subsequent  destruction.^  The  transition  from  espionage 
to  **  provocation  "  is  inevitable  ;  for  the  spy  who  has  gained  admis- 

^  It  may  even  be  argued  that  the  system  of  espionage  is  inseparable  from 
Government  per  se,  the  chronic  condition  of  crisis  through  which  the  Russian 
Government  has  been  passing  for  upwards  of  a  century  merely  accounting 
for  its  special  manifestation  in  Russia.  A  case  analogous  to  the  conspicuous 
Russian  case  of  Azef,  is  that  of  Major  le  Caron,  who  was  instructed  by  the 
British  Government  in  1875  to  join  the  Fenian  United  Brotherhood  for  the 
purpose  of  espionage.  See  Le  Caron's  evidence  before  the  Special  Commis- 
sion, 1888,  5th  February  1889. 

*  This  process  was  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Zub3,tov,  supra,  pp.  i88-9n. 


AZEF-LOPUKHIN    CASE  575 

sion  to  the  centre  of  a  revolutionary  organization  must  act  as  a 
revolutionist,  or  he  would  be  immediately  suspected  of  treachery. 
The  "  perfect  spy  "  must  not  betray  continuously,  therefore,  but 
only  occasionally,  in  order  to  prepare  for  a  magnificent  coup  in 
which  the  revolutionary  movement  should  be  altogether  crushed. 
In  the  process,  however,  many  attempts  must  be  permitted  to 
succeed,  and  must  even  be  instigated  by  the  spy  in  order  to  convince 
the  revolutionists  of  his  loyalty.  This  discloses  to  the  spy  who  is 
not  "  perfect  "  immense  possibilities  for  the  exercise  of  private 
vengeance  and  for  the  removal,  under  cover  of  his  unique  position — 
one  of  immunity  from  the  authorities  and  of  extreme  danger  from 
the  revolutionists — of  a  Minister  who  might  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
promotion  of  his  patron,  of  a  Grand  Duke  who  might  have  exhibited 
hostility  to  his  race,  or  even  of  the  Sovereign,  by  whose  removal  a 
chaos,  in  which  he  might  profit,  would  ensue. 

To  the  spy  as  such,  the  crushing  of  a  revolutionary  movement 
is  the  end  of  his  business  ;  it  is  therefore  to  his  interest  to  keep  the 
state  of  revolutionary  agitation  going,  in  order  that  he  may  continue 
to  profit  by  it.  In  the  same  way  the  party  of  reaction  profits  by 
revolutionary  agitation,  because  it  frightens  the  ordinary  peace- 
loving  citizen,  who  forms  the  bulk  of  all  communities,  and  who  is 
in  general  quite  willing  to  entrust  the  suppression  of  such  agitations 
to  any  strong  and  determined  authority  which  offers  itself. 

It  appears  from  the  extraordinary  case  of  Azef  and  Lopukhin 
that  the  course  of  development  thus  sketched  in  the  abstract  had, 
especially  in  1905  and  1906,  concrete  reality. 

The  perplexing  part  of  the  Russian  situation  in  this  particular 
is  that,  in  presence  of  a  genuine  revolutionary  movement,  produced 
by  deep-seated  causes,  the  Government  should  allow  itself  to  be 
embarrassed  and  compromised  by  remorseless  and  unscrupulous 
agents,  who  were  at  aU  times  evidently  willing  to  sacrifice,  even  in 
the  most  terrible  way,  either  the  Government  or  the  party  to  which 
they  had  attached  themselves.  There  is  no  more  ghastly  episode, 
either  in  the  political  or  in  the  criminal  history  of  modem  times, 
than  the  career  of  the  spy  Azef,  who,  according  to  the  statements 
of  the  Socialist  Revolutionary  Party,  took  a  leading  part  in  organiz- 
ing the  murders  of  M.  Plehve,  M.  Sipiaghin,  and  the  Grand  Duke 
Sergey,  at  the  very  moments  when,  according  to  the  admissions  of 
the  Government,  he  was  acting  as  its  paid  agent.     It  is  not  alleged 


576     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

that  members  of  the  Government  were  aware  of  the  extreme  develop- 
ment of  the  double  r61e  6i  their  employ6e,  but  they  were  undoubtedly 
aware  of  the  double  r61e  itself,  and,  therefore,  their  continued  em- 
ployment of  so  dangerous  an  agent  is  not  creditable  to  their  sagacity. 
The  incident,  with  its  terrible  consequences,  reflects  no  credit  upon 
the  wisdom  either  of  the  Government  or  of  the  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionary Party,  and  indeed  places  them  both  on  the  same  plane  in 
being  both  deceived  by  the  same  unusually  able  criminal. 

In  1892  Yevno  Azef,  a  Jew,  then  about  twenty-four  years  of 
age,  an  engineer,  was  Uving  in  Ekaterinoslav.  He  was  at  that  time 
a  member  of  the  Social  Democratic  organization  there.  Shortly 
after  this  date  he  went  to  Carlsruhe,  where  he  became  a  student  of 
engineering  in  the  Polytechnic.^  ' '  In  the  second  half  of  the  nineties," 
while  he  was  in  Germany,  **  he  joined  the  Russian  revolutionary 
group  abroad,  known  as  '  The  Union  of  Russian  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionaries,' and  pubUshed  a  paper  called  Russki  Rahochi  (Rus- 
sian Worker).  In  July  1899  Azef  returned  to  Russia,  and  through 
the  recommendation  of  the  above-mentioned  union,  entered  in 
Moscow  '  The  Northern  Union  of  Socialist  Revolutionaries '  " 
(founded  by  Argunov,  Pavlov,  Seluk,  and  others).  **  This  organiza- 
tion issued  the  first  two  numbers  of  the  paper,  which  afterwards 
became  the  organ  of  the  Socialist  Revolutionary  Party,  Revolutsion- 
naya  Rossiya.  When  the  printing  office  of  the  union  at  Tomsk  was 
seized  by  the  police,  the  leaders  of  the  union,  apprehensive  of  arrest, 
handed  over  to  Azef  all  connections  and  powers."  ^  That  is  to  say, 
they  gave  him  lists  of  the  members  of  the  group,  correspondence  and 
other  party  documents  ;  and  they  entrusted  him  with  power  to 
negotiate  with  the  southern  groups  of  Socialist  Revolutionaries, 
with  a  view  to  the  union  of  the  north  and  south  groups. 

In  December  1901  ^  Azef,  George  A.  Gershuni,*  and  another 

1  These  details  were  given  by  M.  Stolypin  in  his  speech  to  the  Duma  on 
nth  February  1909. 

2  From  the  Circular  of  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Socialist  Revolu- 
tionary Party  (Paris,  7-2oth  January  1909). 

3  Socialist  Revolutionary  Circular,  7-2oth  January  1909.  M.  Stolypin  said 
that  Azef  became  acquainted  with  Gershuni  in  1902. 

*  Gershuni  played  at  this  time,  and  for  several  years  afterwards,  a  very 
conspicuous  part  in  revolutionary  and  terroristic  organization.  See  Mimoires 
de  G.  Gerchouni  (in  Russian)  (Paris,  1908).  According  to  M.  Stolypin  (speech 
in  Duma,  i  ith  February  1909),  "  the  chief  role  in  the  revolution  "  was  played 
by  Gershuni  and  Gotz.  These  two  men  with  Victor  Chernov  formed  the 
revolutionary  centre.     According  to  the  same  authority,  quoting  the  infer- 


AZEF-LOPUKHIN    CASE  577 

member  of  the  Northern  Union,  succeeded  in  miiting  these  groups 
into  one  Socialist  Revolutionary  Party.  He  took  also  the  closest 
part  in  the  resumption  of  the  publication  of  Revolutsionnaya  Rossiya 
as  the  recognized  organ  of  the  new  party .^  He  also  interested 
himself  in  attempting  to  form  a  Federal  Union  between  the  Socialist 
Revolutionary  Party  and  the  **  Agrarian  Socialist  League."  At 
the  same  time  Azef  took  part  in  the  elaboration  of  the  plan  of 
campaign  of  organized  terror,  the  beginning  of  which  was  signalized 
by  the  assassination  of  Sipiaghin. 

At  this  time  Azef  seems  to  have  exhibited  extraordinary  energy.* 

mation  in  the  hands  of  the  police,  Gershuni  organized  all  the  terroristic 
acts,  while  Gotz  acted  as  instructor.  Gershuni  is  said  by  M.  Stolypin  to 
have  been  present  when  Sipiaghin  was  killed ;  so  also  he  was  in  Ufa  when 
General  Bogdonovich  was  killed  ;  he  was  present  during  the  unsuccessful 
attempt  upon  M.  Pobyedonostsev  in  the  Nevsky  Prospekt  in  St.  Petersburg, 
and  he  sat  in  the  Tivoli  Garden  at  Kharkov  while  the  equally  unsuccessful 
attempt  was  made  upon  Prince  Obolensky.  He  was  found  guilty  of  com- 
plicity in  these  terroristic  acts,  and  was  sentenced  to  death.  His  sentence 
was  commuted  to  banishment  to  Siberia  for  life.  Escaping  from  Siberia, 
he  found  his  way  to  France,  where  he  died  in  1908. 

1  The  first  seven  numbers  of  Revolutsionnaya  Rossiya  were  printed  in 
Russia  ;  Nos.  8-76  were  printed  in  Paris  and  elsewhere.  On  the  publication 
of  the  manifesto  of  17th  October  1905  by  the  Tsar  the  Russian  press  abroad 
was  suspended  and  the  staffs  of  the  various  newspapers  and  magazines 
returned  to  Russia,  Disappointment  upon  the  non-fulfilment  of  their  hopes 
and  the  activity  of  the  police  drove  them  once  more  abroad. 

*  The  prime  authority  for  the  activity  of  Azef  and  for  the  role  which 
he  played  in  the  terroristic  acts  of  the  Militant  Organization  of  the  Central 
Committee  of  the  Socialist  Revolutionary  Party  is  to  be  found  in  the  Cir- 
culars issued  by  the  Central  Committee  at  Paris  on  26th  December  1908, 
7th  January  and  ist  February  1909  (all  O.S.),  The  central  fact  of  Azef's 
employment  by  the  Government  is  admitted  in  the  Official  Communique 
issued  through  the  Information  Bureau  of  the  Russian  Government  and 
published  in  the  semi-official  NovoB  Vremya  (St.  Petersburg),  19th  January 
1909.  Many  of  the  details  are  confirmed  by  well-informed  articles  in  that 
newspaper  on  this  and  on  immediately  succeeding  dates. 

Details,  with  sinister  interpretations,  are  also  given  in  the  formal  "  inter- 
pellations "  in  the  State  Duma  on  20th  January  1909  by  the  Constitutional 
Democratic  Party  and  by  the  Social  Democrats  and  the  Toil  Groups.  These 
"  interpellations  "  are  to  be  found  in  the  Stenographic  Reports  of  the  Duma 
and  in  M.  Milyukov's  newspaper,  Ryech  (St.  Petersburg),  21st  January  1909. 
The  speech  of  the  Deputy  Pokrovsky  repeats  in  effect  the  circular  of  the 
Central  Committee  of  the  Socialist  Revolutionary  Party,  Additional  details 
are  to  be  found  in  the  letter  of  M.  Lopukhin,  formerly  Chief  of  the  De- 
partment of  Police,  addressed  to  M.  Stolypin,  Prime  Minister,  and  to  M. 
Sheglovitov,  Minister  of  Justice,  dated  19th  November  1908,  and  read  in  the 
Duma  on  20th  January  1909  as  part  of  the  "  interpellation  "  of  the  Social 
Democratic  and  Toil  Groups.  Further  details  of  Azef's  career  are  also  given 
in  the  speech  of  the  Prime  Minister,  M.  Stolypin,  in  the  Duma  on  nth  Feb- 
ruary 1909,  and  in  Znamya  Truda  (The  Banner  of  Labour),  the  organ  of  the 
SociaUst  Revolutionary  Party,  published  in  Paris,  No.  15,  28th  February  1909. 

VOL.  II  2  0 


578     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

He  travelled  in  many  different  parts  of  Russia,  as  well  as  abroad, 
and  established  secret  revolutionary  groups  in  several  places.  He 
supervised  the  preparation  of  explosive  chemicals  in  the  revolu- 
tionary workshops,  organized  the  transportation  of  these  explosives 
across  the  frontier,  compiled  and  circulated  revolutionary  leaflets 
and  pamphlets,  and  smuggled  these  into  Russia  by  most  ingenious 
methods.  He  was  the  soul  of  many  conspiracies,  some  of  which 
succeeded  in  their  aim,  and  then  concluded  through  his  agency 
with  the  arrest  of  the  majority  of  the  conspirators.^  "  He  fre- 
quently accused  his  party  comrades  of  treason,  and  endeavoured  to 
get  them  sentenced  to  death  by  the  revolutionary  tribunals.  Among 
these  was  Gapon,  whose  death  (in  1906)  was  the  outcome  of  an 
accusation  by  Azef  that  he  had  sold  himself  to  M.  Witte."  From 
Jime  1902  "  Azef  worked  in  St.  Petersburg,  simultaneously  as  a 
member  of  the  Central  Committee  (whose  headquarters  were  in 
Paris)  and  of  the  St.  Petersburg  Committee.  He  organized  the 
transportation  of  propagandist  literature  through  Finland,  and 
together  with  Gershuni  discussed  the  plans  of  terroristic  enter- 
prises. .  .  .  But  Azef's  principal  efforts  were  directed  towards 
the  solution  of  the  question  how  to  use  explosive  materials  as 
a  new  technical  basis  for  the  terroristic  struggle.  From  1904 
onwards  Azef  was  at  the  head  of  the  enlarged  Militant  Organiza- 
tion, which  was  entered  by  Kalyaev,^  Sozonov,^  Schweitzer,*  and 
others.  He  arranged  the  terroristic  work  against  Plehve.  ...  At 
the  same  time  he  took  part  in  the  general  party  work,  and  organized 
in  Russia  dynamite  laboratories."  In  January  1905  Azef  further 
recruited  the  "  Militant  Organization  "  and  divided  it  into  three 
detachments.  "  The  first  detachment  was  sent  to  Moscow  to  assas- 
sinate the  Grand  Duke  Sergey — the  attempt  succeeded ;  the  second 
to  St.  Petersburg  (against  Trepov)  ;  and  the  third  to  Kiev  (against 
Klegels^).     In  the  summer  of  1905  Azef  took  part  in  the  shipment 

1  Novoe  Vremya,  19th  January  1909. 

2  Kalyaev  killed  the  Grand  Duke  Sergey.  Accounts  of  him,  very  interest- 
ing from  a  psychological  point  of  view,  are  given  in  Biloye  (Paris),  No.  7, 
pp.  20  and  43. 

^  Sozonov  killed  M.  de  Plehvg. 

*  Schweitzer  was  for  a  time  the  technical  expert  of  the  "  Militant 
Organization."  He  took  no  part  in  the  actual  performance  of  terroristic 
acts  ;  but  confined  himself  to  the  manufacture  of  explosives.  He  was  killed 
by  an  accidental  explosion  in  his  own  workshop. 

•  Russianized  form  of  Clayhills,  the  name  of  a  Russo-Scottish  family. 


AZEF-LOPUKHIN    CASE  579 

of  arms  in  quantity  by  steamer  from  England.  In  January  1906 
Azef  organized  an  attempt  upon  M.  Dumovo,  Minister  of  the  In- 
terior, superintending  one  part  personally,  the  other  part  being 
taken  by  his  nearest  comrade.  .  .  .  Azef  then  went  to  Moscow  to 
superintend  further  terroristic  actions.  .  .  .  Shortly  before  the  dis- 
solution of  the  First  Duma,  Azef  organized  an  attempt  upon  the  life 
of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  (M.  Stolypin).  This  attempt  failed  ; 
but  soon  after,  on  the  urgent  demands  of  the  Central  Committee, 
he  worked  out  a  plan  of  activity  which  led  to  the  assassinations  of 
Launitz  (Chief  of  the  Police  of  St.  Petersburg),  Pavlov  (Chief  Military 
Prosecutor),  and  others.''  ^ 

This  startling  catalogue  of  crimes  is  given  in  a  document  sent  by 
the  Central  Committee  of  the  Socialist  Revolutionary  Party  in 
Paris  to  M.  Pokrovsky  II,  and  read  by  him  to  the  State  Duma.  The 
Central  Committee  seem  to  have  made  up  its  mind  to  make  a  general 
confession.  The  fact,  otherwise  unknown,  that  Azef  was  the  head 
of  the  "  Militant  Organization  "  leaves  no  doubt  of  his  compUcity 
in  all  of  the  crimes,  even  if  instigation  is  left  out  of  account.  The 
other  side  of  the  story,  the  detail  of  his  functions  as  spy,  has  not 
yet  been  fully  pubUshed  ;  but  on  the  main  point  the  official  com- 
muniqtce  leaves  no  doubt. 

"  The  engineer,  Yevno  Azef,"  says  the  communique,  "  who  was 
a  member  of  the  Secret  Association,  called  the  party  of  Soci2dist 
Revolutionaries,  and  who  delivered  to  the  detective  organs  of  poHce 
information  about  the  criminal  contemplations  of  the  said  group, 
has  been  convicted  by  the  members  of  it  of  relations  with  the  police ; 
in  this  exposure  of  the  activity  of  Azef,  the  former  Director  of  the 
Department  of  PoUce,  the  retired  Actual  State  Councillor,  A.  A. 
Lopukhin,  took  part.  From  the  investigation  made  into  this 
matter,  it  appears  that  Lopukhin  really  had  delivered  to  the 
said  Revolutionary  Party  the  evidences  against  Azef,  which  evi- 
dences were  known  to  Lopukhin,  exclusively  through  his  previous 
service  in  the  said  position,  the  above-mentioned  action  of  Lopuk- 
hin having  directly  resulted  in  the  exclusion  of  Azef  from  the 
'  Party,'  and  the  cessation  by  Azef  of  the  possibility  of  in- 
forming beforehand  the  police  about  the  criminal  plans  of  the 

1  Speech  in  the  State  Duma  by  Poktrovsky  II,  reported  in  Ryech  (St. 
Petersburg).  21st  January  1909.  See  also  Stenographic  Report  of  the  State 
Duma,  20th  January  1909. 


i« 


58o     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

association,  which  had  as  its  purpose  the  accomplishment  of  terror- 
istic acts  of  first-rate  importance.  The  material  collected  on  the 
subject  served  as  a  basis  for  banning  the  prehminary  investiga- 
tion to  which  Lopukhin,  as  accused,  after  a  domiciliary  search, 
has  been  submitted  and  has  been  taken  into  custody."  ^ 

Some  of  the  details  of  the  activity  of  Azef ,  both  as  revolutionist 
and  as  spy,  were  given  in  the  interpellations  to  the  State  Duma, 
introduced  on  behalf  of  the  Constitutional  Democratic  Party  and  of 
the  Social  Democratic  and  Toil  Groups.  These  interpellations 
bluntly  accused  Azef  of  comphcity  in  practically  all  the  important 
assassinations  and  attempts  at  assassination  during  the  past  six 
years,  and  the  Social  Democratic  and  Toil  Group  interpellation 
further  explicitly  accused  Rachkovsky,  Superintendent  of  the  Rus- 
sian Political  PoUce  Abroad,  of  complicity  with  Azef,  and  of  having 
been  fully  aware  beforehand  of  the  preparations  for  the  various 
terroristic  acts,  and  demanded  his  prosecution.  The  complicity  of 
Rachkovsky  was  further  insisted  upon  by  Pokrovsky  II  in  his  speech 
to  the  Duma,  proofs  and  evidence  of  witnesses  being  offered  by  him 
to  the  Government. 

The  figure  of  Azef  looms  up  through  all  the  documents  as  a 
man  of  extraordinary  activity  and  capacity  for  organization,  as 
well  as  of  a  man  whose  motives  for  the  commission  of  his  colossal 
crimes,  apart  from  merely  pecuniary  motives,  are  very  obscure. 
The  sketch  of  him  given  by  an  evidently  well-informed  writer  in 
Novoe  Vremya,  shows  him  to  be  a  man  tall  and  stout,^  of  swarthy 
complexion,  calm  features  of  Kalmuk  Tartar  t5^e,  broad  nose, 
pendent  lower  lip,  and  shghtly  outstanding  ears.^  His  practice 
was  to  dress  elegantly ;  in  the  summer  he  was  to  be  seen  in  St. 
Petersburg  in  white  lawn-tennis  costume  ;  and  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  frequenting  theatres  and  concert  gardens,  where  he  spent  money 
freely,  and  where  he  is  represented  as  conducting  himself  with  un- 
restrained joviality.  There  is  a  touch  of  the  sensation  novel  in  the 
fact  that  he  appears  to  have  had  a  double,  who  possessed  or  took  his 
name,  and  by  means  of  whom  he  managed  to  concoct  alibi,  which 

*  Issued  by  the  Information  Bureau  (Official).  Printed  in  Ryech, 
20th  January  1909. 

«  He  was  known  as  Azef  the  Great,  one  of  his  soubriquets,  or  as  Tolstyak  = 
Fat  Man. 

'  Azef  was  born  about  1871. 


AZEF-LOPUKHIN    CASE  581 

baffled  for  long  the  ingenuity  of  those  among  his  fellow-conspirators 
who  entertained  suspicions  about  him. 

From  time  to  time  such  suspicions  inevitably  arose.  Move- 
ments of  conspirators,  known  to  him  alone,  led  to  their  arrest. 
Attempts  were  sometimes  frustrated  by  the  arrest  of  all  the  persons 
engaged  in  the  preparations.  Yet  his  skill  in  organizing  the  major 
operations,  which  were  successfully  accomplished — the  assassi- 
nation of  Plehve  and  of  the  Grand  Duke  Sergey,  for  example — con- 
vinced at  least  some  of  the  doubters  of  his  good  faith.  Yet  two 
men  seem  for  long  to  have  entertained  suspicions  and  to  have 
patiently  woven  the  coils  about  him.  These  were  Bakay,  a  former 
police  spy,  who  had  become  a  genuine  revolutionist,  and  Burtsev, 
editor  of  the  SociaUst  Revolutionary  review,  published  in  Paris, 
Biloye  (The  Past).  But  Azef  had  so  carefully  obliterated  his  traces 
that  sufficient  evidence  against  him  was  not  forthcoming.  Mean- 
while the  Central  Committee,  on  their  own  showing,^  were  urging 
Azef  to  fresh  proofs  of  his  loyalty  to  them,  and  the  result  was  a 
fresh  series  of  assassinations  planned  by  him.  His  activity  as  spy 
went  on  concurrently  with  his  activity  as  revolutionist.  By 
slow  degrees  he  was  hunted  down  by  Bakay  and  Burtsev.  When 
called  upon  to  make  explanations  before  the  Central  Committee, 
he  suddenly  made  his  appearance,  "  unannounced,"  in  the  working 
cabinet  of  Lopukhin,  his  former  chief,  and  former  Director  of  the 
Department  of  PoUce,  in  his  house  at  St.  Petersburg.^  He  told 
Lopukhin  that  he  had  been  accused  of  treachery  by  the  Central 
Committee,  which  intended  to  call  as  a  witness  before  its  tribunal 
Lopukhin  himself.  Azef's  life,  therefore,  depended  upon  Lopuk- 
hin's  denial  of  his  employment  by  the  police  during  Lopukhin's 
period  of  office.  Two  days  after  Azef's  interview,  Lopukhin 
received  a  similarly  "  unannounced  "  and  mysterious  visit  from 
General  Gerasimov,  Chief  of  the  Detective  Department,  who  said 
that   any  communication  which  might  be  made  by  Lopukhin  to 

1  "  By  the  persistent  demands  of  the  Central  Committee,  he  (Azef) 
worked  out  a  plan  of  activity  which  soon  led  to  a  series  of  assassinations, 
Launitz,  Pavlov,  &c."  From  the  Document  of  the  Central  Committee,  read 
by  Pokrovsky  II  in  the  State  Duma,  20th  January  1909. 

*  Azef's  visit  to  Lopukhin  is  described  by  the  latter  in  a  letter  to 
M.  Stolypin,  Prime  Minister  and  Minister  of  the  Interior,  dated  21st  November 
1908,  and  published  in  the  (semi-official)  iSTcwoe  Vremya  on  19th  January  1909. 
The  visit  of  Azef  to  Lopukhin  took  place  at  9  p.m.  on  19th  November  1908. 


582    ECONOMIC    HISTORY    OF    RUSSIA     ' 

the  revolutionary  tribunal  would  be  well  known  to  him.  This 
impUed  threat  Lopukhin  on  the  same  day  communicated  to  the 
Prime  Minister,  M.  Stolypin,  and  to  the  Minister  of  Justice,  M. 
Sheglovitov.  In  his  communication,  which  was  pubUshed  later, 
he  does  not  indicate  the  course  which  he  was  going  to  pursue  ;  but 
cleariy  he  met  the  demand  of  the  revolutionary  tribunal  with  proofs 
of  Azef's  treachery.^  On  becoming  aware  of  Lopukhin's  action, 
Azef,  who  was  at  the  time  in  Paris,  disappeared.  The  tribunal, 
no  doubt,  sentenced  him  to  death,  although  nothing  has  been  dis- 
closed on  this  subject.  All  the  indications  point  to  the  extraordi- 
nary r61e  played  by  Azef  on  the  one  hand  and,  on  the  other,  to  the 
as  yet  unexplained  rdle  of  Lopukhin,  Rachkovsky,  and  Gerasimov, 
all  high  officials  of  the  pohce.  The  precise  attitude  of  the  Govern- 
ment is  far  from  clear.  On  the  one  hand,  it  seems  to  be  sincere  in 
declaring  that  it  desires  to  expose  to  full  pubUcity  the  details  of 
this  terrible  embroglio ;  on  the  other,  the  terms  of  the  com- 
munique suggest  that  the  Government  was  disturbed  chiefly  by 
the  cessation  of  Azef's  services  as  spy  through  the  action  of 
Lopukhin. 

The  net  result  of  the  episode  seems  to  be  that,  at  a  terrible  cost 
jpf  life,  liberty,  and  prestige,  the  air  has  been  cleared  somewhat. 
Although  M.  Stol5^in's  statement  on  the  subject  in  the  Duma 
was  very  full  and  apparently  extremely  candid,  it  is  difficult  to 
reconcile  his  insistence  upon  the  position  that  while  Azef  played 
the  rdle  of  spy  he  did  not  play  the  role  of  "  provocator  "  with  the 
transparent  fact  that  in  Azef's  case  the  separation  of  the  rdles 
is  quite  inconceivable.  Azef's  position  in  the  councils  of  the 
SociaHst  Revolutionary  Party,  which  is  fully  admitted  by  the 
Government,  rendered  it  quite  indispensable  that  he  should  take  a 

^  See  the  official  communiqud,  quoted  above  ;  and  see  also  M.  Stolypin's 
speech  in  the  Duma,  nth  February  1909,  where  he  says  that  Lopukhin 
went  to  Germany  and  met  Burtsev,  and  to  London,  where  he  met  Savenkov, 
Argunov,  and  Victor  Chernov,  who  represented  the  revolutionary  tribunal. 
M.  Stolypin  said  that  Lopukhin  told  these  representatives  of  the  revolu- 
tionary party  that  Azef  had  assuredly  acted  as  a  police  spy.  See  Russki 
Viedomosti,  No.  34,  12th  February  1909.  The  role  of  Lopukhin  appears  to 
be  intelligible  only  on  one  or  other  of  two  grounds.  Either  he  suddenly  dis- 
covered the  double  r61e  of  Azef  and  honestly  denounced  him  immediately, 
or,  more  probably,  he  was  fully  aware  of  Azef's  actions,  and  fearing  that^he 
might  himself  become  one  of  Azef's  victims,  was  impelled  to  save  himself 
by  denouncing  Azef,  while  purchasing  immunity  from  revolutionary  attack 
by  the  manner  of  the  denunciation. 


AZEF-LOPUKHIN    CASE  583 

more  or  less  active  part  in  the  organization  of  acts  of  terror.  It 
is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  other  members  of  the  Central 
Committee,  not  to  speak  of  the  other  members  of  the  "  MiUtant 
Organization,"  should  have  allowed  him  to  be  a  mere  spectator  in 
the  tragedies  which  they  were  consummating.  Even  if  due  weight 
is  attached  to  the  supposition  that  the  leaders  of  the  Socialist 
Revolutionaries  find  it  to  be  in  their  interest  now  to  lay  a  large 
share  of  the  blame  of  their  proceedings  upon  the  shoulders  of 
Azef,  it  is  not  credible  that  they  should,  for  at  least  five  years, 
have  allowed  him  to  share  their  councils  without  any  active  service 
whatever.  As  matter  of  fact,  however,  they  have  fully  acknow- 
ledged their  own  compUcity  by  the  course  which  they  have  adopted 
of  accusing  Azef.  It  is  quite  true,  as  M.  Stol5^in  states,  that  the 
source  of  the  attack  upon  Azef  was  the  former  pohce  agent,  Bakay, 
whose  career  does  not  entitle  him  to  credence  ;  but  the  accusations 
against  Azef  do  not  rest  upon  his  evidence  alone.  The  informa- 
tion in  the  hands  of  the  poUce,  as  disclosed  by  M.  Stolypin  in  the 
Duma,  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  show  that  Azef  could  not,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  have  pursued  the  career  of  spy  for  so  many  years 
without  taking  some  share  in  the  acts  of  the  organization  of  which 
he  was  a  member.  The  revelations  by  the  Sociahst  Revolutionary 
Committee  of  Azef's  activity  may  be  fantastic  exaggerations,  but 
the  central  fact  of  his  activity  as  organizer  of  assassinations  is 
most  difficult  to  disprove.  Further,  the  action  of  Lopukhin  in 
betraying  Azef  to  the  revolutionaries  is  uninteUigible  unless  he 
at  least  was  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the  double  r61e  which  Azef 
was  playing. 

M.  Stol3^in  admitted  that  there  had  been  acts  of  "  provoca- 
tion *'  by  police  agents,  although  he  denied  that  "  provocation  ** 
had  been  reduced  to  a  system.  He  cited  several  cases  in  which 
"  provocation  '*  had  been  practised  and  in  which  the  provocators 
had  been  handed  over  to  the  courts  for  punishment ;  ^  and  he 
intimated  that  a  commission  of  inquiry  into  the  poUce  system  had 
been  ordered  with  a  view  to  reform. 

The  system  of  **  provocation,"  if  such  exists,  is  thus  Ukely  to 
be  suspended,  at  least  for  a  time ;  the  whole  pohce  system  may 

1  The  cases  were  an  officer  of  gens  d'armes  arrested  for  "  provoca- 
tion," and  spies  at  Kaluga  and  Penza.  Russki  Viedomosti,  12th  February 
1909. 


584     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

indeed  be  reorganized,  and  it  may  be  hoped  that  the  reorganization 
will  be  a  real  reform.  In  any  case  the  exposure  of  the  fictitious 
and  fraudulent  element  in  the  Terror  must  result  in  the  termination 
of  this  phase  of  terroristic  activity.  Indeed  M.  Stolypin  places 
to  the  credit  of  Azef  the  circumstance  that  since  he  became  head 
of  the  "  Militant  Organization/'  fewer  terroristic  acts  had  been 
cominitted.  Those  which  have  recently  occurred  have  been,  he 
says,  committed  by  sporadic  MaximaUsts,  and  not  by  the  organized 
revolutionary  fighting  force. 

The  Azef  affair  marks  the  close  of  the  terror  which  preceded 
and  accompanied  the  revolutionary  movement  of  1905  and  1906. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE  INTELLIGENTSIA   AND   THE   REVOLUTION » 

The  expression  intelligentsia  ^  is  used  in  current  phraseology  in 
Russian  in  a  double  sense.  It  is  used  to  designate  the  "  general 
intelligentsia  "  or  those  who  in  all  classes  of  society  are  engaged 
in  the  pursuit  of  intellectual  interests,  whether  they  earn  their 
living  by  this  pursuit  or  not ;  and  it  is  also  used  to  designate  those 
who  obtain  their  living  exclusively  by  mental  labour.^  In  the 
former  sense  the  expression  includes  those  who  adopt  a  certain 
critical  attitude  towards  life,*  whatever  their  economical  and  social 
status  may  be ;  in  the  latter  sense,  it  is  possible  to  separate  from 
the  social  mass  a  specific  group  and  to  regard  this  group  as  intelli- 
gentsia. In  this  sense  the  intelligentsia  appears  as  an  integral  social 
layer  intermediate  between  the  exploited  and  the  exploiting  classes, 
to  use  the  phraseology  of  the  Social  Democrats.  In  its  upper 
and  more  specifically  professional  layers  this  class  naturally  alhes 
itself  with  the  class  of  capitalist  employers  or  "  proprietary  bour- 
geoisie," while  the  lower  and  less  secure  layers  naturally  ally  them- 
selves with  the  proletariat  or  labouring  mass.  The  upper  layers 
of  the  intelligentsia  are  composed  of  the  managers  and  the  superior 
technical  experts  of  industrial  and  similar  enterprises,  and  the  lower 
layers  of  the  clerks  and  foremen  of  these.  The  intelligentsia,  con- 
sidered as  a  class,  is  thus  less  uniform  in  its  economical  status  than 
other  classes  of  society,  and  its  different  layers  must  therefore 
gravitate  both  poHtically  and  socially  to  those  different  classes  of 

^  This  chapter  was  published  in  the  University  Magazine  (Canada).  The 
writer  is  indebted  to  the  editor  for  permission  to  print  it  here. 

*  The  introduction  of  this  word  into  the  Russian  language  is  said  to  be 
due  to  P.  D.  Boborekin.  See  Tugan-Baranovsky,  "  Intelligentsia  and 
Socialism,"  in  Intelligentsia  in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg,  1910),  p.  248. 

*  C/.  Cherevanen,  N.,  "  Intelligentsia  Movement  "  in  Social  Movements 
in  Russia  in  the  Beginning  of  the  Twentieth  Century  (St.  Petersburg,  1909), 
vol.  i.  p.  259. 

*  Tugan-Baranovsky,  loc.  cit. 

585 


586     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

society  with  which  they  axe  more  or  less  nearly  allied.  While  the 
absence  of  education  and  culture  among  the  peasants,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  comparatively  slender  development  of  higher  educa- 
tion among  the  gentry  and  the  merchant  classes  on  the  other, 
prevents  in  Russia  so  complete  an  identification  of  the  intelligentsia 
with  one  or  other  of  the  classes  mentioned  as  might  be  shown  to 
exist  in  Germany  and  in  England,  for  instance,  there  was  in  Russia 
prior  to  the  revolution  a  certain  amount  of  this  identification. 
For  example,  in  the  Zemstvos  the  intelligentsia  alHed  themselves 
with  the  more  inteUigent  of  the  Zemstvo  gentry.  For  a  time  dming 
the  last  ten  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  first  five  years 
of  the  twentieth,  the  intelligentsia  succeeded,  by  means  of  this 
alliance,  in  directing  the  activities  of  the  Zemstvos.  During  these 
years  the  intelligentsia  attempted  to  make  the  Zemstvos  the  "  crow- 
bar "  of  the  movement  against  the  Government. ^  Simultaneously 
the  more  revolutionary  of  the  intelligentsia  went  among  the 
peasantry  as  similar  enthusiasts  went  in  the  V  Narod  movement 
of  the  seventies.  They  tried  to  identify  themselves  with  the 
peasant  points  of  view  and  to  stimulate  the  peasants  into  political 
action.  Yet  in  neither  case  did  the  intelligentsia  succeed  in  leaven- 
ing the  masses  on  the  one  hand  of  the  landowning  gentry  or  on  the 
other  of  the  peasantry.  In  the  first  case  the  landowning  gentry 
became  frightened  at  the  prospect  of  the  goal  to  which  the  intelli- 
gentsia were  leading  them,  and  began  to  lose  faith  in  the  efficacy 
of  the  educational  and  other  movements  into  which  they  had 
been  drawn  by  the  intelligentsia.  The  result  of  this  state  of  mind 
made  itself  evident  in  the  so-called  "  righting  of  the  Zepistvos," 
and  in  the  expulsion  from  them  of  the  intelligentsia.  This  pro- 
ceeding had  the  ulterior  effects  of  the  voluntary  exclusion  from 
the^emstvos  .of  numbers  of  intelligent  gentry  who  disapproved 
of  the  return  to  reaction,  and  of  the  definite  aUiance  of  these  with 
certain  of  the  intelligentsia  in  the  formation  of  a  new  political 
party,  viz.  the  party  of  Constitutional  Democrats.  Thus  the  city 
professional  men  and  the  more  liberal  landowners  were  for  the 
first  time  united  in  their  poUtical  aims.  Although  the  numbers 
of  the  gentry  who  united  themselves  in  this  manner  with  the 
intelligentsia  was  not  great  in  proportion  to  the  total  number  of 
landowning  gentry,  it  was  nevertheless  considerable.  The  intelli- 
*  CherevanSn,  loc.  cit.,  p.  260. 


INTELLIGENTSIA  AND  REVOLUTION  587 

gentsia  who  had  been  at  work  among  the  peasants  were  not  able 
to  draw  from  them  any  similar  group,  nor  were  they  able  to  endow 
the  peasant  movement  with  any  such  definite  poUtical  character. 
They  did  not  represent  the  peasant  masses,  and  the  peasant  masses 
did  not  as  a  whole  absorb  their  poU'tical  doctrines.  This  was  true 
of  Social  Democrat,  Social  Revolutionary,  and  non-party  intelli- 
gentsia alike.  Yet  undoubtedly  the  professional  intelligentsia  con- 
stituted the  backbone  of  the  revolutionary  movement.  They 
seized  liberties  when  these  could  be  seized,  and  they  directed 
against  tli^  Government  all  the  forces  they  could  muster.  Yet 
their  influence  over  the  classes  with  which  they  had  allied  them- 
selves was  inadequate  to  effect  a  pohtical  and  social  union  suffi- 
ciently powerful  to  overthrow  the  autocracy. 

The  reason  for  this  failure  may  probably  be  fairly  regarded  as 
twofold.  First,  the  masses  of  the  people  were  not  ready  for  such 
action  as  might  lead  to  the  overthrowal  of  the  autocracy,  and 
second,  the  intelligentsia  were  divided  into  two  main  factions. 
These  factions  were,  on  the  one  hand,  the  groups  who  trusted  in 
revolutionary  methods  pure  and  simple,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
those  who  believed  in  political  action,  properly  so  called.  The 
first  faction  were  not  numerically  powerful,  and  perhaps  were  not 
skilful  enough  in  the  special  kind  of  skill  which  was  necessary  to 
create  a  situation  in  which  the  autocracy  must  collapse,  while  the 
second  faction  were  not  sufficiently  experienced  in  political  methods 
to  turn  to  the  best  advantage  the  universal  discontent.  This 
division  into  two  factions,  while  quite  inevitable  in  certain  phases 
of  all  such  movements,  must  have  been  fatal  to  the  complete  realiza- 
tion of  the  revolution,  even  although  each  faction  had  been  more 
widely  supported  than  was  the  case. 

Much  importance  must  also,  however,  be  attached  to  the  fact 
that  the  overthrowal  of  the  autocracy  was  a  poUtical  measure, 
while  the  advocacy  and  the  struggle  of  both  factions  were  not 
merely  pohtical,  but  were  also  social.  The  aims  of  the  intelligentsia, 
as  a  whole,  were  twofold.  They  desired  a  pohtical  revolution  and 
they  desired  a  drastic  social  change.  The  origins  of  this  double 
aim  must  be  sought  for  in  the  historical  circumstances  which  gave 
the  Russian  intelligentsia  its  special  character. 

Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky  finds  the  chief  mark  of  distinc- 
tion between  the  development  of  Western  Europe  and  the  develop- 


ly 


588     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

ment  of  Russia  to  lie  in  the  presence  in  the  former  and  the  absence 
in  the  latter  of  the  guild  organization  of  industry .^  This  organiza- 
tion, in  Professor  Tugan-Baranovsky's  view,  was  largely  instrumental 
in  the  creation  in  Western  Europe  of  a  class  of  cultivated  ^bour- 
geoisie, which  not  merely  acquired  predominant  political  power, 
but  represented  the  intellectual  force  of  its  time.  The  greater 
bourgeoisie  had  no  monopoly  of  culture,  for  culture  was  also  shared 
by  the  smaller  bourgeoisie,  who  played  a  leading  social  and  political 
rdle  for  several  centuries.  In  Russia  the  greater  bourgeoisie  or 
trading-capitalist  class  was  not  cultivated,  and  the  small  bourgeois 
class  did  not  exist.  In  Western  Europe  the  professions  were 
chiefly  recruited  from  the  small  bourgeoisie.  Sons  of  the  small 
manufacturers  became  statesmen,  lawyers,  clergy,  and  men  of 
letters,  and  gave  to  society  such  intellectual  and  cultivated  tone 
as  it  possessed.  Moreover,  they  acted  as  a  connecting  link  between , 
the  upper  and  lower  layers  of  society.  Out  of  this  condition  there 
arose  in  Western  Europe  the  sense  of  citizenship  which  was  common 
to  all  classes  and  which  served  to  bind  society  together.  Such  a 
state  of  mind  did  not  exist  in  Russia,  because  that  country  did 
not  possess  the  class  in  whose  minds  it  could  take  root. 

Peter  the  Great  was  one  of  the  first  to  recognize  that  Russia 
.  could  never  become  a  powerful  empire  without  the  aid  of  educated 
'men.  He  therefore  encouraged  and  required  the  nobility  to  devote 
themselves  to  education  in  order  to  provide  the  State  with  the 
instruments  necessary  for  administration.  The  duty  thus  laid 
upon  the  nobility  and  the  gentry,  and  the  practical  exclusion  from 
the  higher  service  of  the  State  of  all  but  these,  resulted  in  the  exclu- 
sion from  the  ranks  of  the  intelligentsia  up  till  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  of  all  but  members  of  the  nobility  and  gentry, 
and  among  these  officers  of  the  army  and  civil  officials  predomi- 
nated. The  type  of  educated  men  thus  formed  was  essentially 
different  from  the  t5^e  produced  in  Western  Europe  by  continual 
accessions  to  the  ranks  of  the  educated  classes  from  the  ranks  of  the 
small  bourgeoisie.  The  intelligentsia  of  Western  Europe,  derived 
from  and  sympathizing  with  the  bourgeoisie,  shared  its  interests, 

1  See  Tugan-Baranovsky,  "  Intelligentsia  and  Socialism,"  in  Intelligentsia 
in  Russia  (St.  Petersburg,  1910),  pp.  235  et  seq.  There  were  guilds  in  the 
Free  Towns,  but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  influential  after  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  towns  by  the  Moscow  State.     Cf.  supra,  pp.  28  and  33. 


INTELLIGENTSIA  AND  REVOLUTION  589 

and  therefore  not  only  threw  itself  as  a  class  into  the  political 
struggles  of  the  eighteenth  century  which  early  in  the  nineteenth 
century  resulted  in  the  victory  of  the  bourgeoisie  and  in  their 
capture  of  poUtical  power,  but  when  that  phase  of  poHtical  struggle 
was  over  and  the  proletariat  attempted  to  displace  the  bourgeoisie 
and  to  seize  the  reins  of  power,  the  intelligentsia  in  general  was 
ranged,  not  on  the  side  of  the  proletariat,  but  against  it.  The 
origin  and  history  of  the  intelligentsia  of  Western  Europe  thus 
account  for  the  antagonism  of  the  intelligentsia  to  sociaUsm.  The 
origin  and  history  of  the  intelligentsia  in  Russia,  on  the  other  hand, 
predispose  the  intelligentsia  of  that  country  towards  socialism. 
Their  sympathies  and  interest  do  not  incline  them  towards  the 
bourgeoisie,  and  since  the  smaller  bourgeoisie  does  not  as  a  class 
exist  in  Russia,  the  advent  of  sociaHsm  would  produce  by  no  means 
so  great  an  economic  disturbance  in  Russia  as  must  inevitably  be 
the  case  elsewhere.-  It  must  be  acknowledged,  moreover,  that  the 
intelligentsia  are  perhaps  the  only  socialists  in  Russia.  The  peasant 
masses  cannot  be  transformed  into  Social  Democrats,  and  the 
working  rtien  of  the  industrial  centres  are  not  sufficiently  well 
educated  to  entertain  any  but  crude  ideas  of  socialism,  even  when 
they  are  in  general  well  affected  towards  socialist  ideas  as  presented 
to  them  by  the  Social  Democrats. 

The  Russian  intelligentsia  have,  moreover,  by  origin  and  tradi- 
tion, a  profound  lack  of  faith  in  the  autocratic  State.  Russian 
evolution  has  for  them  meant  the  development  of  absolutism, 
therefore  they  are  opposed  to  the  Russian  State  in  its  present  form. 
Under  the  pre-revolution  conditions,  Russian  men  of  letters  and 
jurists  exercised  no  influence  upon  the  Government.  This  exclu- 
sion from  political  power,  for  the  exercise  of  which  they  conceived 
themselves  to  be  well  fitted,  was  the  chief  cause  of  their  oppositional 
activity.  They  threw  themselves  into  the  struggle  against  the 
autocracy,  and  in  this  struggle  the  intelligentsia  naturally  allied 
themselves  with  the  parties  which  devoted  themselves  to  "  active 
resistance." 

The  attitude  towards  life  and  towards  the  evolution  of  society 
which  is  adopted  by  the  Russian  intelligentsia,  is  thus  quite  different 
from  that  adopted  by  analogous  groups  in  Western  Europe. 
From  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  class  in  Russia 
was  growing  in  numbers,  its  education  was  frequently  of  the  highest 


590     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 

order,  yet  its  influence  upon  the  conduct  of  affairs  was  nil ;  under 
these  circumstances  the  intelligentsia  threw  themselves  with  ardour 
into  the  struggle  for  a  change.  The  Dekabristi  were  among  the 
first  to  be  influenced  by  Western  European  thought ;  and  each 
successive  group  of  intelligentsia  was  more  and  more  influenced  by 
it.  Whether  or  not  Pestdl  was  inspired  by  contemporary  French 
writers  like  Saint  Simon,  for  example,  or  whether  he  arrived  spon- 
taneously at  doctrines  very  similar  to  those  of  that  writer,  may 
not  be  susceptible  of  determination,  but  later  groups  were  un- 
doubtedly influenced  by  their  French  and  German  contemporaries. 
The  current  of  ideas  which  is  vaguely  known  as  Socialism  swept 
the  Russian  intelligentsia  along  in  numbers  proportionately  much 
greater  than  was  the  case  in  any  other  country.  These  doctrines 
won  their  way  very  slowly  in  Western  Europe,  and  they  have  never 
been  accepted  with  any  ardour  by  the  first-rate  minds,  although  in 
one  or  another  form  they  have  been  embraced  by  writers  of  enthusi- 
astic and  impulsive  temperament.^  Probably  the  causes  of  Russian 
enthusiasm  for  SociaMst  doctrines  may  be  found  in  two  charac- 
teristics of  Russian  life  :  (i)  in  the  detachment  of  the  intellectual 
Russian  from  the  sordid  materialism  of  the  peasant  and  the  mer- 
chant ;  and  (2)  in  the  detachment,  in  an  intellectual  and  moral 
sense,  which  arose  out  of  the  existence  of  political  despotism  and 
ecclesiastical  stagnation,  and  the  consequent  diversion  of  his  mind 
from  the  poUtical  and  ecclesiastical  spheres  to  purely  intellectual 
and  moral  spheres.  This  detachment  on  two  important  sides  of 
his  life  has  endowed  the  intellectual  Russian  with  a  sense  of  free- 
dom* and  an  indifference  to  tradition  which  have  marked  him 
off  especially  from  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen  of  the  same  degree 
of  abiUty  and  education,  in  whose  minds  political  interests  have 
assumed  a  large  place,  and  have  served,  as  it  were,  to  adulterate 
their  intellectual  products.  The  Western  European  is  thus  by  no 
means  so  free  from  intellectual  and  moral  prejudgments  as  the 
Russian.  The  purely  intellectual  and  critical  attitude  of  mind  of 
the  Russian  may  be  held  to  have  exposed  him  in  an  especial  manner 
to  socialist  convictions,  because,  prevented  as  the  intellectual 
Russian  was  from  entering  the  political  field,  he  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  regard  that  field  as  enclosing  any  but  a  part  of  the  national 

^  As,  for  example,  by  John  Ruskin  and  William  Morris. 
*  C/.  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  239. 


INTELLIGENTSIA  AND  REVOLUTION  591 

life ;  and,  finding  in  the  national  life  much  to  condemn  and  much 
to  reform,  he  proposed  to  seek  the  direction  of  reform,  not  within 
the  field  of  pohtics,  but  altogether  outside  of  the  contemporary 
political  conventions.  He  was  thus  led  to  consider  a  complete 
social  change  as  the  indispensable  condition  of  progress.  For  these 
reasons  he  was  most  Ukely  to  embrace  sociahsm,  whose  offers  of 
regeneration  were  the  most  generous  in  the  intellectual  market.^ 

The  ideals., offered  by  Liberalism  sufi&ced  to  stimulate  the  intel- 
lectuals of  Western  Europe  ;  but  for  the  Russian  they  paled  before 
more  ample  promises.  A  constitutional  monarchical  State,  firmly  '^^ 
based  upon  the  support  of  the  capitalist  and  landowning  classes, 
had  no  attraction  for  the  Russian  intelligent.  The  historical 
moment  for  embracing  an  ideal  of  that  kind  had  passed  long 
since.  For  him  the  State  did  not  require  to  be  strengthened — it 
was  already  too  strong.  The  development  of  the  Russian  State 
had  brought  its  power  to  the  utmost  limits,  so  far  as  concerned  its 
relations  with  the  Russian  people  ;  nothing  more  could  be  hoped 
from  that  development.  It  was  necessary  to  go  outside  the  field 
of  Russian  poHtical  and  social  thought  to  discover  a  new  ideal. 
The  selection  of  this  ideal  might  be  accompUshed  by  abstract 
methods  and  in  a  disinterested  manner.  The  change  must  be  a 
drastic  one  in  any  case — why  not  at  once  aim  at  the  result  most 
highly  desirable  within  the  range  of  contemporary  human  vision  ? 

Moreover,  in  Russia  the  struggle  between  classes  was  of  an  essen- 
tially different  character  from  that  which  obtained  in  Western 
Europe.  In  the  latter  region  the  classes  were  engaged  for  centuries 
in  a  series  of  contests  for  the  mastery  of  political  power.  In  Russia 
no  such  contests  took  place.  No  class  had  any  political  power; 
there  was  thus  little  class  soHdarity  either  for  defensive  or  for  offen- 
sive purposes.  From  the  beginning  of  the  Moscow  State  the  power 
of  its  princes  had  been  directed  towards  the  organization  of  the 
community  into  officers  and  rankers.  Every  nobleman  had  his 
functions — miUtary  or  civil — to  perform,  and  every  peasant  had 
his  place  and  his  obligations.  There  were  no  others,  excepting  the 
clergy,  and  these  also  had  their  rights  and  duties.  All  were  under 
the  control  of  the  great  "  leveller  "  the  Tsar.  Thus  in  Russia  the 
building  up  of  self-conscious  classes  has  yet  to  begin.  In  no  case 
have  the  classes  of  which  society  is  composed  acted  together  for  any 
1  C/.  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  240. 


592     ECONOMIC   HIS»TORY   OF   RUSSIA 

length  of  time,  nor  have  they  even  acted  separately  with  any  degree 
of  interior  cohesion.  The  mere  existence  in  Russia  of  the  intelli- 
gentsia, belonging  as  it  does  to  various  classes,  is  a  proof  of  the  absence 
in  that  country  of  class  solidarity. 

Up  till  the  period  of  Emancipation  the  Russian  intelligentsia 
comprisedcfiieHy  members  of  aristocratic  famiUes,  with  a  few  sons 
of  the  clergy  and  a  few  sons  of  professional  men,  these  being  con- 
nected directly  or  indirectly 'either  with  the  aristocracy  or  with  the 
Church.  The  wealthier  bourgeoisie  also  contributed  to.  the  intel- 
ligentsia, but  to  a  slender  extent.  After  Emancipation  the  intelli- 
gentsia was  subjected  to  an  invasion,  and  its  character  wa§  altered. 
This  was  the  invasion  by  raznochintsi,  or  plebeians,  who  now,  unde- 
terred by  legal  barriers,  came  out  from  the  people.  The  intelligentsia 
was  thus,  as  it  were,  democratized,  and  the  consequence  is  apparent 
in  the  facile  adoption  by  the  new  elements  of  the  socialist  ideas  of 
that  period.^.  Thus  the  intelligentsia,  recruited  by  new,  active,  and 
highly  articulate  groups,  came  to  be  regarded  by  the  world  at  large 
as  consisting  wholly  of  these  groups,  and  the  forms  of  socialism  which 
they  had  accepted  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  representing  the 
attitude  of  the  intelligentsia  as  a  whole.^  ^The  new  members  of  the 
intelligentsia,  teachers,  physicians,  Zemstvo  clerks,  journalists,  &c.® 
belonged  to  the  people  by  birth  and  early  training,  and  belonged  to 
the  intellectual  group  by  higher  education.  They  had  the  faults  of 
their  qualities,  and  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  class  from  which 
they  sprang.  They  were  full  of  hope  and  enthusiasm,  yet  their 
social  and  mental  equiirbriumr  was  not  secure.  They  felt  themselves 
at  war  with  the  peasant  conditions  which  they  had  abandoned,  and 
they  disliked  the  vulgar  ostentation  of  the  more  conspicuous  of  the 
superior  classes,  whije_  they  had  little  opportunity  of  knowing  the 
charm^  of  the  simplicity  and  refinement  of  mature  social  types. 
Their  view  of  society  thus  lacked  perspective.  Their  criteria  of 
relal:ive  "values  were  imperfect,  and  they  thus  attached  to  certain 
phases  of  life  exaggerated  importance.  The  outcome  of  all  this 
was  a  certain  fanatical  enthusiasm — in  extreme  cases  tending  to 
merely  futile  visions  or  to  violent  action  with  intent  to  produce 
immediate  results. 

This  group  has  been  defined  by  a  recent  writer  as  "  a  number 

*  Largely  the  ideas  of  Marx. 

*  Cf.  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  242.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  243. 


INTELLIGENTSIA  AND  REVOLUTION  593 

of  militant  monks  of  the  nihilist  religion  of  earthly  well-being.  This  * 
group,  so  strange  to  the  monastic  system,  declares  war  against  the 
world  in  order  forcibly  to  benefit  it  and  (as  it  were  in  spite  of  itself) 
to  satisfy^  its  material  needs.  The  whole  energy  of  this  monkish 
army  is  directed  towards  the  material  interests  and  needs,  for  the 
creation  of  a  terrestrial  paradise  of  abundance  and  security.  Every- 
thing that  is  transcendental,  every  faith  in  absolute  values,  is  a 
hateful  enemy."  ^  This  view  of  the  lRxis&\3Xi  intelligentsia,  or  rather 
of  that  large  portion  of  it  which  has  been  recruited  from  the  inferior 
social  layers,  is  contained  in  one  of  the  essays  which  compose  a 
singular  volume  entitled,  Vyekhe.^  These  essays  offer  in  general 
the  same  interpretation  of  the  relation  to  the  revolution  of  the  in- 
telligentsia. According  to  this  interpretation,  the  rdle  of  the  intelli- 
gentsia in  the  revolution  failed  because  of  the  fundamentally  erron- 
eous ideals  of  the  group.  These  ideals,  being  based  exclusively  upon 
material  needs,  lacked  the  spiritual  character  which  alone  can  stimu- 
late people  to  heroic  deeds.  To  accomphsh  the  overthrowal  of  the 
autocracy,  such  deeds  were  indispensable,  but  the  spiritual  force 
being  lacking,  they  were  not  accomplished.  This  criticism  involves 
the  postulate  that  spiritual  life  is  supreme,  both  "  theoretically  and 
practically,  over  the  external  forms  of  social  Ufe."  ^  The  exagger- 
ated importance  which  was  attached  to  these  external  forms  led  the 
intelligentsia  to  neglect  the  interior  Ufe  of  society,  and  thus  to  its 
inability  to  act  as  guide  towards  the  emancipation  of  the  people. 

This  critical  attack  upon  the  intelligentsia  in  the  pages  of  Vyekke 
is  not  conducted  by  reactionaries,  but  by  writers  who  may  fairly  be 
regarded  as  themselves  belonging  to  the  intelligentsia  ;  many  of 
then^  are  Constitutional  Democrats.  ' *  We  do  not , '  *  they  say, ' '  judge 
the  past,  because  its  historical  inevitabihty  is  clear,  but  we  do  point 
out  that  the  path  which  Russian  society  has  trodden  has  brought  it 
to  this  impasse."  * 

The  state  of  mind  which  Vyekhe  and  the  Uterature  which  has        ' 

1  S.  L.  Frank  in  "  The  Ethics  of  Nihilism,"  in  Vyekhe  (Moscow,  19 10). 

2  Moscow  (first  edition),  1909 ;  fifth  edition,  1910.  The  contributors 
are  N.  A.  Berdyayev,  S.  N.  Bulgakov,  M.  O.  Gershenzon,  A.  S.  Izgoyev, 
B.  A.  Kestyakovskie,  P.  B.  Struve,  and  S.  L.  Frank.  The  fifth  edition 
contains  a  bibliography  of  the  very  considerable  mass  of  Uterature  which 
has  sprung  up  round  the  book.  The  word  Vyekhe  means  the  tall  posts  which 
are  set  up  in  the  winter  to  indicate  the  road  while  the  country  is  covered 
with  deep  snow. 

3  Ibid.,  Preface,  p.  ii.  *  Ibid.,  he,  cit. 
VOL.  II  2  P 


594     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

sprung  up  round  it  reveals  is  evidently  due  to  reaction  after  the 
revolution .  That  this  reaction  should  assume  a  semblance  of  pietism 
is  no  novelty.  Outbursts  of  religious  fervour  after  great  emotional 
strain  are  comm6iniIiKe~iir  individual  and  in  national  life.  The 
authors  of  Vyekhe  make  their  position  quite  plain  in  a  casual  phrase 
in  their  preface.  "  This  very  point  **  (the  main  point  'they  urge, 
viz.  the  supremacy  of  the  spiritual  over  the  material  forces)  '*  has 
been  untiringly  repeated  from  Chaadayev  to  Soloviev  and  Tolstoy, 
by  all  our  profound  thinkers.  They  were  not  listened  to.  The 
intelligentsia  went  past  them.  Perhaps  now  awakened,  as  by  an 
earthquake,  they  will  listen  to  weaker  voices."  ^  That  is  to  say, 
that  after  the  turmoil  of  the  revolution  is  over  the  exhausted  spirit 
turns  to  the  seers  or  to  the  confessional,  and  the  stool  of  repentance.* 

In  his  very  able  and  interesting  criticism  of  Vyekhe,  Professor 
Tugan-Baranovsky  observes  that  the  opposition  which  the  authors 
of  that  volume  have  discovered  between  external  social  reforms 
and  the  interior  improvement  of  personality  is  not  at  all  funda- 
mental, but,  on  the  contrary,  the  elements  of  this  alleged  opposition 
are  indissolubly  connected  with  one  Snoth^.  Social  forms,  he 
says,  and  human  personality  do  not  represent  two  distinct  social 
categories.  It  is  equally  right  to  say  that  personahty  creates  social 
forms  as  to  say  that  social  forms  create  personahty.  Each  Hmits 
and  determines  the  other.^ 

The  authors  of  Vyekhe  regard  the  intelligentsia  as  a  separate 
social  group,  and  they  attribute  to  this  social  group  the  principal 
r61e  in  the  revolution.  There' is  much  to  be  said  for  this  view, 
but  their  continuation  is  more  doubtful.  This  group,  they  say,  is 
making  for  the  disintegration  of  the  Russian  Empire;  it  is,  there- 
fore, their  duty  to  dissolve  themselves  and  to  fall  back  into  the 
classes  to  which  they  respectively  belong ;  because,  says  Struve, 
the  foundations  of  pohtics  are  to  be  discovered,  not  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  society,  but  in  the  "  internal  self -development  of  the  mailT^ 
It  is  true  that  a  bad  man  cannot  make  a  good  citizen,  but  it  is  not 
advisable,  even  if  it  were  possible,  to  hold  society  as  dissolved  until 
each  person  in  it  is  improved  to  the  desired  pitch. 

^  Vyekhe,  Preface,  p.  ii. 

*  It  is  to  be  noticed  also  that  at  the  close  of  the  revolutionary  period  there 
were  other  concomitants  of  reaction  after  nervous  .strain,  e.g.  an  outburst 
of  licentiousness  and  greatly  increased  circulation  of  obscene  books. 

'  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  245. 


INTELLIGENTSIA  AND  REVOLUTION  595 

The  intelligentsia,  with  all  its  faults,  is  clearly  a  present  fact  of 
Russian  social  life.  It  has  been  the  inevitable  result  of  the  con- 
ditions of  Russian  society  of  the  past  hundred  years.  Moreover, 
for  the  reasons  explained  above,  the  intelligentsia  is  to  be  regarded 
"  rather  as  a  social-ethical  than  as  a  social-economic  category,"  ^ 
that  it  is  not  a  social  class,  but  a  group  in  a  certain  scheme  of  social 
classification.  Although  a  Targe  number,  perhaps  the  majority, 
of  the  Russian  intelligentsia  have  been  swept  along  by  the  sociahst 
wave,  as  Social  Democrats  or  Socialist  Revolut^ionists,  yet  it  would 
not  be  safe  to  suppose  that  there  was  only  an  insignificant  minority. 
This  minority  may  be  held  to  be  composed  of  those  of  more  placid 
temperament,  who  are,  not  readily  carried  away  by  the  currents 
of  fashion,  and  who  are  disposed  to  look  at  social  progress  as  the 
result  of  the  interaction  of  many  forces. 

In  Germany,  France,  England,  and  in  the  United  States,  there 
has  undoubtedly  appeared  during  recent  years  a  social  pheno- 
menon which  corresponds  more  or  less  to  the  description  of  it 
given  by  Kautsky.^ 

The  development  of  capitalism,  he  says  in  effect,  has  resulted 
ill  the  appearance  of  a  special  class,  hired  by  the  capitalist.  This 
class  is  necessary  to  perform  operations  for  which  high  mental 
ability  and  scientific  education  are  necessary.  One  of  the  frequent, 
though  not  invariable,  concomitants  of  this  high  mental  abihty 
and  specialized  education  is  capacity  to  think  abstractly,  and 
another  is  detachment  from  special  class  interests.  There  is  thus 
a  new  class  within  a  class  which  possesses  a  "  wider  spiritual 
horizon  "  than  any  other.  This  new  class  has,  therefore,  before 
it,  not  class  interests,  but  thQ  wider  interests  of  society  as  a  whole. 
The  aims  of  this  class,  to  begin  with,  are  Ukely  to  be  of  \an  ethical 
character.  They  thus  tend  towards  Katheder  Sozialism,  the 
co-operative  movement,  arbitration,  and  the  like. 

Jaur^s,  the  French  Revisionist,  notices  also  the  rise  of  this  class 
and  predicts  that,  "  insulted  by  a  society  based  on  coarse  mercan- 
tile interests  and  disappointed  with  bourgeois  domination,"  this 
class  will  become  socialist.^    The  consequence  to  sodaUsm  is  not 

1  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  248. 

•  In  a  long  series  of  articles  in  Die  Neue  Zeit.     The  passage  in  the  text 
is  quoted  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  249. 
3  Quoted  by  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  251. 


596     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

regarded  with  equanimity  by  orthodox  Marxists,^  who  consider 
that  the  sociaHst  party  is  in  the  throes  of  a  crisis  owing  to  the 
influx  into  its  ranks  of  large  numbers  of  "  bourgeois  intelligents." 

From  these  and  other  considerations,  Tugan-Baranovsky  arrives 
at  the  conclusion  that  the  intelligentsia  is  drifting  away  from  the 
bourgeoisie  to  which  he  belongs  by  birth  and  training,  and  is  ap- 
proaching the  proletariat.  Assuming  that  this  means  an  approach 
towards  socialism,  he  meets  the  argument,  that  it  means  also  the 
debacle,  of  sociahsm,  by  expressing  the  opinion  that  while  it  may 
involve  the  passing  of  Marxism,  it  need  not  involve  the  parsing  of 
sociahsm,  "  which  existed  before  Marx  and  is  likely  to  exist  after 
him."  2 

In  any  case  he  thinks  that  the  democratization  of  Western 
Europe  is  probably  making  in  this  direction,  and  that  in  this  respect, 
Russia  is  likely  to  follow  the  West.^ 

It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  the  great  change  which  has 
already  occurred  in  Russian  public  hfe,  the  institution  of  the  Duma, 
and  the  greater  freedom  of  the  pres^,  have  altered  materially  the 
conditions  which  promoted  the  influence  of  socialism  upon  the 
minds  of  the  intelligentsia*  There  must  be  a  tendency  to  draw 
at  all  events  the  milder  types  into  the  current  of  political  discussion 
and  to  the  expenditure  of  their  energies  in  that  direction,  rather 
than  in  the  direction  of  discussions  of  social  change  of  a  drastic 
order.  Besides,  socialism  denuded  of  Marxism  may  probably  so 
alter  in  character  and  in  poUtical  and  social  aims  as  to  demand  a 
new  name.  For  Marxism,  after  all,  afforded  a  certain  fixed  credo, 
to  which  appeal  could  be  made  from  the  heretics  ;  and  the  abandon- 
ment of  this  fixity  is  not  unlikely  to  result,  for  a  time,  in  vague  and 
fluctuating  positions,  useless  for  purposes  of  propaganda. 

Necessary  as  "  revision  "  had  come  to  be,  it  meant  the  inclusion 

in  the  socialist  ranks  of  many  who  were  not  in  the  older  sense  fairly 

to  be  regarded  as  sociahsts.    Therefore  the  new  ranks,  useful  and 

progressive  as  they  may  have  been,  are,  strictly  speaking,  other 

than  socialist,  however  convenient  the  retention  of  the  traditional 

name  may  be  and  howeyer  difficult  it  is  for  the  public  to  learn 

any  other.^ 

1  As  e.g.  by  Laf argue.  *  Tugan-Baranovsky,  op.  cit.,  p.  254. 

»  Ibid.,  p.  256. 

*  This  is  recognized  by  Tugan-Baranovsky.     Cf.  op.  cit.,  p.  256. 
«  Cf.  supra,  pp.  77-102. 


\ 


EPILOGUE 

The  account  of  the  economic  history  of  Russia  closes  appropriately 
with  the  close  of  the  revolutionary  movement  of  1905-1907  and  its 
immediately  related  consequences.  Although  reaction  has  fol- 
lowed the  revolution,  the  economic  and  political  history  of  Russia 
has  entered  upon  a  new  phase. 

The  causes  of  the  revolution  have  already  been  indicated. 
These  causes  may  now  be  summarized.  So  far  as  the  peasantry 
were  concerned,  the  causes  may  be  traced  to  the  accumulation  of 
grievances  resulting  chiefly  from  the  conditions  arising  out  of  the 
method  of  Emancipation  in  1861.  The  transference  of  the  votchinal 
power  from  the  pomyetscheke  to  the  mir,  the  retention  by  the  former 
of  a  considerable  degree  of  local  control,  the  absence  of  mobility, 
the  rise  of  rent,  and  the  need  of  land,  together  with  the  absence  of 
agricultural  capital  and  the  recurrence  of  deep  depression  with 
every  deficient  harvest,  were  the  principal  causes  of  the  accumula- 
tion of  grievances.  The  peasants  were  in  general  imskilful  farmers  ; 
but  their  education  was  impeded  by  ecclesiastical  influence,  and  on 
frequent  occasions  by  the  local  authorities,  who  feared  the  effect 
upon  the  peasants  of  education  in  inducing  discontent  with  their 
economic  and  political  conditions.  This  fear  was  undoubtedly 
well  grounded,  but  the  V  Narod  propagandists  were  right  in  be- 
lieving that  discontent  was  the  first  step  towards  improvement  of 
these  conditions.  The  rapid  growth  and  the  diversified  character 
of  the  population  rendered  the  task  of  the  administration  unusually 
difficult.  The  people  had  never  been  permitted  to  act  for  them- 
selves. They  had  been  assiduously  taught  to  look  to  the  classes 
above  them  for  direction,  and  the  task  of  that  direction  became 
more  and  more  arduous.  Meanwhile  the  growth  of  industry  had 
brought  about  an  increase  in  the  urban  proletariat.  In  the  absence 
of  adequate  educational  measures  of  an  official  order,  the  town 

597 


598     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 

artisan  readily  accepted  the  ideas  of  the  educated  or  partially 
educated  sympathizers  in  the  Social  Democratic  groups  of  the 
intelligentsia.  The  prosecution  of  working  men  led  to  their  dis- 
persal and  to  the  diffusion  of  the  doctrines  which  they  had  absorbed. 
The  exclusion  of  the  educated  classes  from  participation  in  govern- 
ment, the  active  measures  against  the  Jews,  which  provoked  re- 
taliation on  their  part,  and  the  dissociation  of  the  comparatively 
small  governing  groups  from  the  general  social  mass,  prepared  the 
ground  for  active  measures  against  the  autocracy.  The  Russo- 
Japanese  War  may  be  held  to  have  delayed  the  outbreak  of  the 
revolution,  but  to  have  contributed  to  the  revolutionary  state  of 
mind  by  the  exposure  of  the  miHtary  incompetence  of  the  autocracy. 
For  a  short  time  the  oppositional  groups  acted  simultaneously, 
although  not  definitely  in  concert.  The  unanimity,  such  as  it  was, 
was  merely  negative.  When  positive  action  came  to  be  necessary, 
the  oppositional  groups  dissolved  into  factions.  The  extreme 
groups  were  irreconcilable.  They  demanded  a  democracy,  but  they 
required  that  the  democracy  should  share  and  act  upon  their  sec- 
tarian doctrines.  It  was  in  effect  this  condition  which  brought 
the  revolution  "  to  dust,"  and  which  gave  time  for  the  autocracy 
to  collect  its  demoralized  forces,  and  to  overcome  the  extreme 
factions.  The  grounds  of  disagreement  among  the  oppositional 
groups  were  partly  racial  and  partly  economical.  The  liberal 
elements  among  the  landowners  came  to  be  afraid  of  peasant  con- 
trol, and  even  of  peasant  vengeance,  the  excessive  demands  of  the 
working  men  frightened  the  rising  manufacturing  and  emplo3dng 
class,  and  the  officials,  among  whom  there  were  many  moderate 
liberals,  saw  in  democratic  control  only  confusion.  In  all  the  groups 
there  seemed  to  arise  a  lust  for  power.  There  is  no  evidence  of  any 
widespread  desire  for  popular  representative  government  with  all 
its  possibihties  and  all  its  risks.  Although  there  was  a  clamour  for 
an  assembly  convened  for  the  purpose  of  formulating  a  constitution, 
few  realized  what  such  an  assembly  meant ;  and  probably  very  few 
would  have  been  disposed  to  accept  the  compromises  which  any  con- 
stitution formulated  by  such  an  assembly  would  have  involved. 

Russia  paid  during  the  revolution  a  high  price  for  the  banish- 
ment, imprisonment,  and  execution  of  many  of  her  best  men.  The 
class  that  should  have  formulated  her  constitution  had  been  dis- 
persed and  reduced  to  impotence.    Some  of  them  returned  from 


EPILOGUE  599 

abroad,  but  even  those  who  did  had  lost  touch  with  the  currents 
of  Russian  Ufe,  and  their  influence  in  many  cases  disappeared. 

The  numerous  strikes  and  riots  produced  in  the  people  a  certain 
neurasthenic  condition.  They  were  wearied,  and  desired  merely 
a  rest.  This  was  the  real  reaction — ^the  reaction  of  the  people ;  and 
this  made  possible  the  reaction  of  the  Government.  In  spite  of 
this  imdoubted  fact,  it  must  be  realized  that  Russia  has  changed 
abruptly  from  a  country  in  which  criticism  was  sternly  suppressed 
to  one  in  which  criticism  abounds.  The  Duma,  with  all  its  defects,  ^/ 
has  become  a  school  in  which  a  new  generation  of  competent  rulers 
may  be  trained.  Without  some  such  school  as  this— outside  of 
the  bureaucratic  field — ^it  would  be  impossible  for  Russia  to  aim 
towards  an  effective  democracy. 


APPENDIX  TO   BOOK   VII 
Prices  of  Russian  4  per  cent  State  Debt  on  the  Paris  Bourse'^ 

18/31  Dec.  1903.2  98  Before  the  outbreak  of  war. 

19  Jan./i  Feb.  1904.  99  Before  the  outbreak  of  war. 

26  Jan./8  Feb.  1904.  98  First  attack  on  Port  Arthur. 
2/15  June  1904.  91-05  Defeat  at  Va-fang-hu. 
12/25  July  1904.  93-40  Defeat  at  Ta-shih-kiao. 

29  July/ 10  Aug.  1904.  93.70    Naval  disaster  at  Port  Arthur. 
23  Aug./5  Sept.  1904.  91.60     Defeat  at  Liao-yang. 

22  Dec.  1904/4  Jan.  1905.  89  Fall  of  Port  Arthur. 

9/22  Jan.  1905.  85  "  Bloody  Sunday." 

25  Feb./io  March  1905.  81  Fall  of  Mukden. 

19  May/ 1  June  1905.  87.25  Battle  of  Tsu-shima. 

8/15  July  1905.  85.80  Mutiny  on  Kniaz-Potyemkin, 

30  Aug./ 1 2  Sept.  1905.  88.85  Peace  of  Portsmouth. 
7/20  Sept.  1905.  94  Before  the  Baku  Strike. 
30  Oct./i2  Nov.  1905.8  "8.50  First  General  Strike. 
5/18  Nov.  1905.  89.80  Mutiny  at  Kronstadt. 

27  Nov./io  Dec.  1905.  86.25  Insurrection  at  Sevastopol. 

8/21  Dec.  1905.  ^^         Third  General  Strike  and  Uprising  in 

Moscow. 
10/23  Dec.  1905.  80.50     Rumours  of  close  of  Strike. 

^  Journal  des  Economistes,  6^  serie,  tome  5  (Paris,  1905),  p.  19,  and  ibid., 
tome  9  (1906),  p.  27. 

*  The  first-mentioned  dates  are  according  to  the  Russian  or  old  style,  the  second 
according  to  the  West  £iiropean  or  new  style. 


Diagram  of  the  Strike  Movement 

{Seepage  ahT) 

Showing  the  proportions  of  the  numbers  officially  recognized  as 
engaged  in  economical  and  political  strikes  in  Russia  during 
the  year  1905.^ 

Jan.     Feb.     Mar.    Apr.     May     June    July     Aug.     Sep.     Oct.    Nov.      Dec. 


380,000 

360.000 

It 

0 

340,000 

1 1 

1 

320,000 

1  » 

1 

300,000 

1  t 

/ 
/ 

280.000 

;     \ 

260.000 

,      ' 

240.000 

\  ; 

220,000 

t 

\  1 

200,000 

u 

180,000 

1 

160,000 

t  1 

140.000 

t  \ 

1 

120,000 

V    1 

100,000 

»  I 

>k 

\ 

r- 

^ 

80,000 

\ 

I 

1 

A 

N 

1 

A 

/ 

\ 

60,000 

\ 

r 

V 

\l 

\ 

40.000 

K, 

V 

V 

1 

S^v 

/ 

\ 

20,000 

V 

vli 

4 

0 

4 

'i 

PoUtkal  Strikes 

Economical  Strikes 

• 

*  Constructed  from  data  in  Varzar,  op.  cit.y  pp.  10 1,  102.  Accordii^  to  the 
same  authority,  the  total  number  of  strikers  on  economical  grounds  during  1905 
was  1,018,620  in  4192  establishments,  and  of  those  on  political  grounds  was 
1,691,075  in  8918  establishments,  the  gross  total  being  2,709,695  in  13,110 
establishments. 


The  maps^in  Bartholomew's  Literary  and  Historical  Atlas  of  Europe 
and  in  the  similar  Atlas  of  Asia,  both  published  in  the  "  Everyman  '* 
series  (Cloth,|is.),  are  convenient  and  for  most  purposes  sufiScient. 
For  this  reason  the  insertion]  of  maps  into  the  present  volumes 
has  been  regarded  as  unnecessary.  Maps  of  the  several  guberni  of 
European  Russia,  on  a  scale  of  about  20  miles  to  i  inch,  are  to  be 
found  inJBrockhaus  and  Ephron's  Encyclopeedia. 


GLOSSARY 


Arshin,  2.33  feet, 

Barin,  master. 

Bartschina,    labour    rendered    by   a 

bondman  for  his  master  without 

wages. 
Bobyeli,  landless  peasants. 
Boyarstvo,  nobility, 

Chetverty  5.77  bushels. 
Chinovniky  civil  functionary,  bureau- 
crat. 

Dessyatttiy  2.70  acres. 
Dvorovie  lyude,  household  serfs. 
DvoryanstvOy  gentry. 

Guberniey  state,  department, 

Ispravnek,  local  chief  of  police. 

JetnetsUy  rye-growing  regions. 

Kabala,   document    binding   to   ser- 
vice. 
Karasea,  serge. 
Kazachikh,  labouring  woman. 
KaxakoVy  labouring  man. 
KholoPy  bondman,  serf. 
Krestyaniey  peasantry. 
Krugoviya  perukUy  mutual  guarantee. 

Meshaniey  small  householding  class. 

Mir,  world,  village  or  group  of  vil- 
lages constituting  a  local  adminis- 
trative unit. 

Mujik,  peasant. 

Ohrbky  payment  in  kind  or  in  money 
in  lieu  of  bartschina. 


Obtschina,  community. 
Obyazannyeya,  obligative  possessional 

factories. 
Osmaky   unit  of  taxation   in   Baltic 

provinces. 

Peryelojnoe,  ten-year  cultivation  sys- 
tem. 

Polonianichnikk,  bond  money. 

Polovneke,  metayer  tenants. 

Pomyestneyey  estates. 

Pomyetscheky  proprietor  of  an  estate. 

PosMy  suburb. 

Pozemelneya  obtschinay  agrarian  com- 
munity. 

Pozredneky  chief  of  the  mir. 

PrekaZy  bureau. 

Piidy  36.11  lbs.  avoirdupois. 

Rabtty  bondwoman. 
Ratushay  town-hall. 
Ruble,  308.5806  grains  gross  900  fine, 

or  277.7221  grains  pure  silver.  Par 

value  38^<i.  English. 

SajeUy  7  feet  English. 

SelOy  village. 

Selskiya  obtschestva,  village  com- 
munity. 

Skhody  village  meeting. 

SoboTy  assembly. 

Sobraniey  assembly  of  the  nobility. 

Sokhay  modern  Russian  plough. 

Sotskyy  chiefs  of  village  groups  of  100 
men. 

St^rostay  village  headman. 

Starshindy  chief  of  the  volost. 

Streltsiy  bowmen. 

Streltskayay  adjectival  form  of  streltsi, 

Tyagh,  unit  of  taxation. 


603 


6o4     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Vdeliy  appanage. 

VdelnyCy  estate  of  Imperial  Family. 
Ukase,  decree,  legislative  act. 
Uyexd,  district. 

Vet  si,  .66  English  mile. 

Volost,  group  of  villages  for  purposes 

of  local  administration. 
Votchina,  heritable  property. 
Votchinek,    owner    of     a    heritable 

estate. 


Voyevoda,  military  governor. 
Vyvodnye,  payment  by  peasant  bride 
for  leave  to  marry. 

Yatnskikh,  carrier  tax. 

Zapadnek,  Westerner. 
Zemsky  Sobor,  popular  assembly. 
Zemstvo,  area  of  local    administra- 
tion. 


INDEX 


ACHANI,  213 

V action  directs,  515-7,  521 
Afanasyev    (one    of    the    agents    of 

Zubitov),  195 
Aggressiveness  of  Russia  in  the  Far 

East,  character  of,  228 
Agrarian      question,      revolutionary 

phases  of,  251-357 

—  situation  since  1906,  347 

—  Socialist  League,  177 
Agreement  between  Japan  and  Russia, 

239 
Agricultural  Associations,  287,  287  n. 

—  economics,  286 

—  implements,  284 

—  statistics,  287 

Agriculture  after  Emancipation,  282 

—  systems  of,  285 

Agronoms  and  Statisticians*  Union, 

298 
Aigun  (Manchuria),  217,  222 
Treaty   of    (May    28,    1858), 

221,  223,  227 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  81  n. 
Akhtuba,  370 
Akimov,  160  n. 

Akselrod,  142,  164,  165,  165  «. 
Alaska,  221,  221  w. 
Albazin  (Manchuria),  214,  215,  217, 

218,  227 
Alcohol,  286 
Aldan  River,  212 
Aleksandrovsk,revolutionary  attempt 

at,  125  w.,  126 
Alexander  I,  12,  12  «.,  13,  14,  16,  64, 

78,  79 

—  II,  16,  174,  415,  573 

—  Ill,  16,  414,  414  n. 
Alexis,  Tsar,  10,  24 

Alienation    of    artisans    from    land, 

392-3 
Allgemeiner  Deutschen  Arbeiterverein, 

96 
L' Alliance  de  la  Democratie  Socialiste, 

93 


60s 


AU-Russian  National  Assembly,  446 

—  Peasant  Union,  297  n.,  298 
Altai  Mountains,  215 

American  Civil  War,   effects  of,  in 
Europe,  94 

—  Congress,  79 
Amoy,  221 

Amur  Company,  The,  222 

—  Province  of  the,  222 

—  River,  212-5,  220,  227 

free  navigation  of,  demanded 

by  Russia,  219 

Anarchism,  93 

Andreyev,  E.,  410 

Androvidov,  Prince,  464 

Aniansky,  67  w. 

Aquarium,  meeting  in  Moscow,  538, 
538  «•,  552 

Arakch6ev,  General,  64 

Argunov,  576,  582  n. 

Argun  River,  217 

Arkhangfeiskaya  gub.,  184,  282 

Armed  uprising  contemplated    (Oct. 
1905),  503 

in  Moscow  (Dec.  1905),  534- 

567 

Armenian    language.    Social    Demo- 
cratic manifestoes  in,  446 

Arms    in    Moscow    armed    uprising, 
549,  549  n. 

—  purchase  of  (Oct.  1905),  578 

—  used     in     suppressing     Moscow 
armed  uprising,  556  n.,  560  n. 

Army,  mutiny  in  (1905),  504 

—  and  the  propaganda,  the,  506 
Art,  80  n. 

Artels,  367 
Askenazy,  S.,  63  n. 
AssembUe  constttuante,  117 
AssemblSe  des  notables,  130 
Assembly    of    Russian    factory    and 
mill    workers    of    St.   Petersburg, 

453 
Astrakhanskaya  gub.,  282 
Atkarsk,  139  n. 


6o6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 


Attitude  of  the  peasants  towards  pur- 
chase of  land  in  1905,  329 
Austria,  13,  92  n. 
Austro-German  commercial  crisis  of 

1873,  371 
Austro-Prussian  War,  95 
Autocracy,  mental  strain  of,  16,  17 
Avzyano-Petrovsk,  49 
Azef,  Yevno,  184,  464,  499>  572-84  ' 

Baikal,  Lake,  227 
Bakay,  381 
Baku, 380 

—  mineral  oil  trade  of,  445 
Bakunin,  69,  73,  88  «.,  92,  92  «.,  93, 

93  «•,  94,  98,  loi,  102  n.,  109 
Bakunists,  loi 
balaganiy  401,  401  n. 
Balkans,  229,  240 
Balmashev,  184 
Baltic  Provinces,  138,  283 

—  Sea,  47 

Baltisky  Engineering  Works,  lockout 

at,  497 
Banishment  of  useful  men,  effects  of, 

599-600 

—  of  workmen,  reasons  for,  159  n. 
Bank  of  Poland,  139 

Banks,  Government  Savings,  run 
upon,  533 

Barley,  land  under,  283 

Barricades,  535, 556,  561,  564;  at  Kos- 
troma, 444 ;  at  St.  Petersburg, 
463  n.,  reasons  for  erecting,  557 

Barshusky  village,  259 

Bashkiria,  54,  55,  57 

Bashkirs,  22,  46,  47,  48,  50,  56,  57,  58 

Basle,  95 

Batiim,  punishment  of  strikers  at,  447 

—  sympathetic  strike  at  (1903),  445 
Bean  trade  of  Manchuria,  227  n. 
Beards,    soldiers    not    permitted    to 

wear,  29 

—  taxation  of,  41 

Bebel,  August,  96,  147,  535  «. 
Becker,  96 

Beesly,  Professor,  87,  87  n. 
Beketov,  A.  N.,  146. 
Belgian  capital  in  Russia,  155 
Belgium,  13,  83 
Belgorodskaya  gub.,  41 
Bellin,  A.,  425  n. 
Bellom,  M.,  426  n. 

"  Beltov,  N."  (Plekhanov),  153, 154  «• 
Benefit  societies  and  the  immobility 
of  workers,  426 


Berda,  55 

Berdyayev,  N.  A.,  593  n. 
Berezovsky,  A.,  340  W.-346  «.,  353 
Berlin,   revolutionary   movement   in 

(1848),  83 
Bernstein,  Edouard,  157  «.,  189  n. 
Bernsteinism,  171 
Bertenson,  L.,  401  n.,  409  n. 
Bessarabits     (Anti-Semitic    journal), 

208 
Bessarabskaya  gub.^  279,  283 
Bessemer  steel  process,  382  n, 
Bezobrazov,  A.  M.,  238  n. 

—  V.  P.,  372,  372  n. 

Bibikov,  General  A.  I.,  51,  52,  54,  56 
Bielostok,  strikes  at  (1882),  417 
Biloye,  416  «.,  419  n,,  581 
Bismarck,  204  n. 

Black    bread    only    baked    in    third 
political  strike,  557 

—  Hundred,   297  «.,   348  «.,   449, 
497  w.,  499,  503,  551 

pogroms,  509,  539,  549 

—  Soil,  agriculture  in,  252,  273 
region  during  1905-6,  330 

Blagoev,  145 

Blagovesh'chensk,  222 

Blanc,  Louis,  4  «.,  82,  82  n. 

"  Bloody  Sunday,"  452  «.,  456,  462- 

464,  466,  477 
"  Board    of    Working    Men    in    the 

Mechanical  Trades  of  Moscow,"  193 
Boborekin,  P.  D.,  585  n. 
Bogdanovich      {Narodnaya     Volya)^ 

132  n. 

—  N.  M.,  Governor  of  Ufa,  186 

—  General,  577  n. 
Bogoduchovsky  district,  139,  139  «. 
Bogomolov,  T.  (fourth  pseudo-Peter 

HI),  37,  39,  42,  43 
Bogorodsky  district,  140,  297 
Bogoraz  {Narodnaya  Volya),  134 
Bogoslovsky  district,  368,  568 
Bogolyubov  case,  107  n. 
Bogucharsky,  V.,  63  «.,  414  n. 
Bolsheveke    faction    of     the     Social 

Democratic  Party,  542-4 
Bombardment    of    Fiedler's    school, 

Moscow,  556 
Bonar,  J.,  83  n. 

Bondage,   benefit  societies    as    sub- 
stitutes for,  426,  427 

—  right,  autocratic  character  of,  17 
Bondmen,  transference  of,  into  free 

artisans,  412 
Bonn,  University  of,  83 


INDEX 


607 


Borisoglebsky    district,    superstition 

in,  327 
Borodin,  Cossack  ataman,  26-9,  35 
Borozdin,  A.  R.,  63  n. 
Bourgeoisie,  rise  of,  in  Russia,  155 

—  slowness  of  development  of,  in 
Russia,  588 

—  Western  European,  588 
Bourse,  St.  Petersburg,  during  strike, 

485 

Bows  and  arrows,  Manchurian,  213, 
213  n. 

Boxer  disturbances  in  China,  235 

Boyarskaya  Duma,  8 

von  Brandt,  Governor  of  Kazan,  54 

Brazil,  Poles  in,  246  n. 

Brentanism,  157,  157  n. 

Brentano,  Lujo,  157,  157  n. 

Breshkovsky,  E.,  105  n. 

Brest,  strikes  at  (1882),  417 

Briansk,  rail  rolling  mills  at,  401 

Bristlers'  Trade  Union,  431 

Brockhaus  and  Ephron,  136  «. 

Bromwell,  W.  J.,  84  «. 

Bronnits,  391 

Brookfield,  Commissioner  to  Cos- 
sacks, 27 

"  Brotherhood  for  the  Defence  of  the 
Rights  of  the  People,"  177 

"Brotherhood  Offices"  in  Poland 
(1821),  425 

Brussels,  87 

Buchez,  82,  82  n. 

Bugadosky,  499 

Bulavin,  24 

Bulgakov,  S.  N.,  593  «. 

"  Bund  of  Public  Weal,  the,"  64 

Bund,  the  Jewish,  160,  162,  210 

Bunge,  Minister  of  Finance,  410,  412 

Bureya  Mountains,  213 

—  River,  215 
Bums,  John,  M.P.,  380 
Burtsev,  581,  582  n. 
Bury,  J.  B.,  8,  II 
Bussye,  219 

Butashevich-Petrashevsky,  66,  66  «. 
Byelinsky,  V.  G.,  69 
Byelozersk,  274 

Byelozersky  district,  303 
Byelyaev,  I.  D.,  67 
Byzantine  Emperors,  11 

Cabet,  82,  82  n. 
Caesarism,  92 
Caesar- worship,  18 
Cainargi,  Treaty  of,  60  n. 


Callao,  220 

Canada,  286  «.,  295  n. 
Canal    navigation,    grievances    con- 
nected with,  310,  311 
Canton,  221 
Capital,  deficiency  of  agricultural,  275 

—  increase  of  loanable,  in  Western 
Europe  (1898),  169 

—  influx  of,  into  Russia,  372 
Capitalistic  development,  361 

—  industry,  7 

le  Caron,  Major,  574  «. 
Caspian  Sea,  22 

fisheries  of  the,  403 

Cassini  Convention,  232 
Castiereagh,  Lord,  81  n. 
castyeti,  503,  503  n. 
Catherine,  Grand  Duchess,  131 
Cattle,  arbitrary  pasturing  of,  317 

—  deficiency  of,  284,  285 

—  raising,    284 ;     in    Western    Si- 
beria, 285 

—  sold  to  buy  food,  291 
Caucasus,  3  «.,  171 

—  migration  to,  forbidden,  138  n. 
Causes  of  vigorous  trade  movement 

(1870-1900),  376 

—  of     workmen's     grievances     in 
Russia,  364 

Censureship,  the,  521,  523  n. 
Central  Asia,  229 

Centralization,  consequences  of  (1898), 
163 

—  in  Social  Democratic  movement, 
162 

—  of  power,  100 

Cessation  of  revolutionary  activity 
in  the  nineties,  causes  of  the,  167 

Chaadayev,  594 

Chain  armour,  57 

Chaotic  condition  of  Russian  Social- 
ism in  1896,  160 

Charitonov,  145 

Chartist  movement  in  England,  81 

Chebyshov,  Captain,  29 

Chef 00,  221,  230  n. 

Chelyabinsk,  54,  227 ;  strike  at 
(1905),  484 

Cheremissi,  51 

Cherepov,  Major-General,  39 

Cherevanen,  N.,  585  n.,  586 

Chermak,  L.,  283  «.,  284  «.,  287  n. 

Chernigov,  housing  conditions  in,  400 

Chemigovskaya  gub.,  480 

Chemigovsky,  Nikitov,  214 

Chernomorsky  works,  447 


6o8     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Chernov,  Victor,  67  n.,  567  n.,  582  n. 
Chernyshev    (commander  of    troops 
on  the  Volga),  49 

—  Count    (Vice-President    Military 
Collegium),  29  n.,  31,  39,  43,  5^  «• 

—  Peter  (second  pseudo-Peter  III), 
36 

Chernyshevsky,  N.  G.,  172,  184 

Cherta  Osedlosti  (line  of  Jewish  settle- 
ment), 207 

Chigirinsky  case,  108,  108  n. 

Chihli,  Gulf  of,  226,  234 

Chika,  Cossack  accomplice  of  Puga- 
chev,  43,  44,  54,  55 

Child  labour,  407 

China,  4  n.,  214,  215,  216,  221,  222-3, 
242  n. ;    Great  Wall  of,  226,  241 

Chinese,  214,  215 

—  Eastern  Railway,  233,  234 

—  good   feeling   between   Russians 
and, 242 

—  Turkestan,  215 
Chinkiang,  221 

Chin  or  Golden  Dynasty,  216 
Chita,  227 

Cholera,  epidemic  of  (1866),  408 
Chorno  Peredyeltsi,  iii,  127  w.,  142, 

164  n. 
Christmas,  observances  of,  259-60 
Chuprov,  A.  A.,  347  n.,  349  n.,  350  n. 
Church,  Greek  Orthodox,  242 

—  payments,  revolutionary  scales 
of,  326-7 

Churinovslcaya  volost,  303,  307 
Circassian  escort  of  Tsar,  131 
"  Circles,"  66,  419 

—  working  men's,  419 
City  republics,  64 
Civil  war,  183 

Classification  of  peasants,  258 
Class  struggle  in  Russia,  591 
Clergy  and  imposture,  the,   36,   42, 

55,  61 

—  and  the  rebellion  of  Pugachev, 
55,  61 

—  in  the  Sobor,  8 

Coal,  advance  in  price  of  (1899),  375, 

375  w- 

—  mines  on  the  Don,  373 
Code  Napoleon,  426,  426  n. 
"  Cold  weapons,"  503 
Colonization   of   Amur  region,   diffi- 
culties of  the,  224 

Commercial  crisis  at  Baku  (1899),  375 

at  Paris  (1882),  372 

of  1857,  371 


Commercial  enterprises  in  the  Far 
East,  237,  238  n.  g^ 

—  stagnation  (1882-6),  373     .j 
Common    action    among    peasants, 

difficulties  of,  263 
Communal  interest,  67  •  , 

Communalism,  270 
Commune  of  Paris,  97 
Communist  League,  83 

—  Manifesto  (1848),  83  n.,  89 
Communities  of  Cossacks,  22,  23 
Community  system,  discouragement 

of,  348   ■ 
Comparative  costs,  law  of,  385 
Compensation    by    Government    to 

victims  of  "  Bloody  Sunday,"  467 
Compromise  between  Liberalism  and 

Marxism,  154 
Compulsory  hospital  accommodation, 

408 

—  military  service  and  its  effects, 
510 

Comte,  Auguste,  80  n. 
Concentration  of  commercial  capital, 

387 
Concert  of  Europe,  78 
Concessions   rendered   inevitable   by 

"  Bloody  Sunday,"  466 
Conclusions  from  results  of  inquiries 

into  peasant  conditions,  336 
La  ConfHiration  GSnSrale  du  Travail^ 

Congress  at  Bourges  (1905),  515 
Confederation,  proposed  European,  12 
Conflicts  in  Gapon's  union,  462  w. 
Congresses,  the,  78  n. 
Conscription  by  force,  29 
Conseils  des  PrudhommeSy  408 
Considerant,  V.,  82,  82  «.,  160  w* 
Conspirative    tendencies    in    labour 

movement,  161 
Constable,  John,  R.A.,  80  n. 
Constantine,  Pavlovich,  Grand  Duke, 

64 
Constituent  Assembly,  19,  117,  534, 

599 

—  —  demanded  by  railway  men, 
482 

Marx's  suggestion  of,  185 

watchword  of  (1905),  479 

Constitutional  Democratic  Party, 
245,  586,  593 

—  history  studied  in  Gapon's  so- 
ciety, 458 

Constitution  projected  by  Alexander 
II  and  prepared  by  Loris  Melikov, 
130,135 


II 


INDEX 


609 


Contrast  between  Western  European 
and    Russian    industrial    develop- 
ment, 588 
Co-operation,  112 
Co-operative  associations,  72 
Corruption  among  higher  officials,  107 
Cosmopolitan  attitude  of  mind,  85 
Cossacks,  their  origin,   21  ;     of  the 
Don,  22  ;   of  the  Yaek,  22  ;   rela- 
tions to  the  peasantry,  23  ;  deputa- 
tion to  St.  Petersburg,  30  ;  cruelty, 
34  ;    grievances  in,   1772,   35  ;    of 
the  Volga,  37  ;    of  the  Don,  54  ; 
influence  of  the,  125,  211,  212,  214  ; 
outrages   by,    443 ;     harshness   of 
the,  447  ;    and  strikers,  512  ;    in- 
definite state  of  mind  of  the,  541  ; 
and  the  mobs  (Dec.  1905),  553 
Cost  of  living,  352 

Cotton  crisis  in  consequence  of  the 
American  civil  war,  370 

—  industry  at  Moscow,  370 
large  profits  in,  372 

—  manufacturers,  407 

—  trade,  stagnation  in  (1899),  375 
Council  of  Soldiers'  Deputies,  540 

"  Council  of  Workers  in  Mechanical 
Industries,"  192 

—  of     Working     Men's     Deputies 
(Moscow),  539-^7 

(St.  Petersburg),  487- 

541 
Councils  of  Working  Men's  Deputies, 

spreading  of,  493 
Counter-revolution  (1905-6),  499 
Crawford,  J.  M.,  ed.,  211  «.,  214,  218 
Credit,  free  State,  112 
Credo,  the,  163,  166 
Crimean  peninsula,  22,  276 

—  War,  15,  15  «.,  100,  103,  219,  225 
Crises  owing  to  inferior  crops,  169-70 
Crisis,  general  credit  (1900),  375 

—  industrial  (1899),  175 
Criticisms  of  the  law  of  Nov.  9,  1906, 

348-9 
Customs,  primitive,  259 
"  Cut-off  "  lands,  306 

Daimios  of  Japan,  the,  8  ».,  256  w. 
Dairen,  234  w.     See  also  Dalny 
Dalny,  227  n. 
Dan,  F.,  189  n.,  190  «.,  201  n.,  205  »., 

443  «.-449  «•,  455  w. 
Danton,  4  n. 
Daurians,  the,  212-4 
Dawson,  W.  H.,  96  «, 
VOL.  II 


Debogoriy-MokriSvich,  Vladimir,  4  n., 
100  n.y  loi  «.,  104,  104  n,,  105  »., 
107  «.,  108  w.,  109,  109  n.,  no, 
no  w..  Ill  «.,  120-2,  122  n. 

Deenas  Lapa,  Marxist  journal  in 
Lettish,  154  n. 

Degaigv,  132,  133  n.,  573  «. 

Deitch,  142,  145 

Dejnyev,  Simeon,  218 

Dekabrist  movement,  15,  63  ;  aristo- 
cratic character  of,  64 ;  signifi- 
cance of,  65,  77,  590 

Delacroix,  F.  V.  E.,  80  n. 

Delyinov,  36  n. 

Demands  of  Moscow  working  men 
(1901),  194,  195 

Dementiev,  E.  M,,  391,  391  n.,  392  n., 
393,  393  w. 

Democracy  of  mediaeval  Russia,  de- 
struction of,  in  fifteenth  century,  8 

Demonstrations,  armed,  180 

—  habit  of,  176,  176  «. 

—  policy  of,  173 
Den,  V.  J.,  193 

Depreciation  in  price  of  land  during 
disturbances  (1905-6),  329  n. 

Depression  of  trade,  174,  373 

Deserted  towns,  256 

Desmoulins,  Camille,  4  n. 

Determinism  of  Marx's  doctrines,  154 

Differential  railway  rates  for  grain, 
296 

Dilemma  of  Gapon,  459 

—  of  newspapers  (Oct.  1905),  525 

—  of  the  revolutionaries  in  1899, 
176 

—  of  the  revolutionaries  in   1905, 

534-5 

—  of  shopkeepers  in  St.  Petersburg 
(1905),  491 

Diplomatic  defeat  of  Russia  (i  900-1), 

237 
Disagreements  among  the  peasants 
during     the    revolutionary    years 
1905-6,  324,  325 

—  in  Social  Democratic  circles,  163 
Dishonesty    among    Old    Believers, 

alleged,  41 
Dispersal    of    bonded    workmen    on 
Emancipation,  369 

—  of  revolutionaries,  142 
Disraeli,  Benjamin,  73  n. 
Distilleries,  286  n. 
Disturbances   among    Cossacks    and 

peasants,  21  et  seq. 

—  in  Ural  Mountains,  568-71 

20 


6io     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Dmitriev-Mamonov,  Count,  63  n. 
Dnieper,  River,  22  ;   fisheries  of,  403 
Dniester,  River,  fisheries  of,  403 
Dobrolubov,  172,  172  n.,  184 
Dolgopulov  (betrayer  of  Pugachev), 

61 
Don  Cossacks,  22  ;    grievances  of,  in 

1772,  38,  54.  298,  507 
Donskoye  oblast,  282 
Dostoievsky,  67,  67  n. 
Dovnar-Zapolsky,  M.  V.,  63  n. 
Drenteln,  General,  123 
Dresden,    revolutionary    movements 

in  (1848),  92  n. 
Dreyfus  affair,  236  n. 
Driving  timber,  309 
Drujene,  500  «.,  503,  547,  553 
Drunkenness,  257 

Duality  of  Russian  autocracy,  9,  10 
Dubassov,  Admiral,  552,  558,  558  w., 

563,  564 

Dubrovin,  N.,  26  W.-37  «.,  40  «., 
42  M.-45  n.,  48  M.-60  n. 

Ducheri,  213 

Duchovsky,  M.,  399 

Dukhobortsi  in  Canada,  271,  271  n. 

Duma,  State,  302,  600 ;  dissolution 
of  first,  579  ;  dissolution  of  second, 
347 ;  expectations  from,  338 ; 
first,  strongly  hostile  to  landowners, 
348 ;  stenographic  reports  of, 
499  «•,  501  «.,  502  w.,  579  n. 

Dupin,  82,  82  n.,  84  n. 

Dumovo  (officer  of  the  Volga,  1773), 
33,  33  w.,  34, 

—  (Minister  of  Interior,  1906), 
452  n.,  579 

Dutikov,  443 

Dvinsk,  employers'  associations  at, 

430 
dvorovie  lyude^  361,  363  n. 
Dvoryashen,  Dr.  N.,  405 

ECCARIUS,  87 

Economical  and  political  aims  of 
Social  Democrats,  distinction  be- 
tween, 152 

—  complexion  of  labour  movement 
in  the  eighties  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  418 

—  disputes  tend  to  become  poli- 
tical, 489 

—  effects  of  periodical  return  of 
workmen  to  villages,  390,  391 

of    special    mutual     benefit 

societies,  427 


Economical  policy  since  Emancipa- 
tion, consequences  of,  296 

Economism,  147,  157,  158,  161,  163, 
166,  167,  169,  170,  171 

Educational  restrictions  during  the 
reaction  of  1881,  136 

Education  among  the  smaller  gentry, 
278 

—  and  "  programmes,"  312 
Efemov,  N.  V.,  175  n. 

Efremov,  Daniel,  Don  Cossack  ata- 
man, 38,  39 

Egorov,  A.,  145  «.,  148  «.,  149  M., 
151  w.,  156  w.,  157  w.,  158  M.,  159  n., 
163  w.,  164  n. 

EgreshyUy  260 

Eight-hour  day,  157,  516,  517,  575 

difficulties  of,  517 

obtained  by  l' action  directed 

516 

Eisenach  Congress,  97 

Ekaterenensky  Railway,  373 

Ekaterinburg,  138 

Ekaterinoslav,  447,  576 

—  barricades  in  (Oct.  1905),  483 

—  demonstration  at,  172 

—  Flour  Millers'  Association  of,  430 

—  revolutionary  meeting  at  (1885), 

134 

—  strike  at  (Aug.  7,  1903),  445 
Election  of  officers  by  Cossacks,  28 
Elena  Pavlovna,  Grand  Duchess,  131 
Elisavetgrad,  445 
Emancipation,  225 

—  consequences  of,  389 

—  difficulties  of,  17 
Embassy,  Russian,  at  Peking,  222 
Embulatovka  River,  35 
Emelianov  {Narodnaya  Volya),  131 
Emigration  forbidden,  excepting  by 

special  permission,  138 

—  from  Japan,  239 
Employers'  associations,  429 

"  Encroachment"  as  a  means  of  poli- 
tical action,  515 
Engels,  Friedrich,  83  «.,  185  «.,  535  n. 
England,  13,  15,  79,  138,  222 

—  arms  imported  from  (1905),  579 
English  and  Chinese,  242 

—  capital  in  Russia,  156  w.,  380 

—  fleet  before  Petropavlovsk  (1854), 
220 

—  in  Russia,  378  n. 
Epilogue,  598 

Equality,  peasant  conception  of,  272 
"  Equalization  of  land,"  330 


INDEX 


6ii 


Equerries'  quarter,  Moscow,  66 

L'Ere  Nouvelle,  451  n. 

Erfurt  programme  (Social  Demo- 
cratic), 150 

Erisman,  Professor,  409 

Espionage,  188  w. 

Excess  of  candidates  for  employ- 
ment, 364 

Executive  Committee  (1877-81),  109  ; 
(1879),  117,  125,  131,  133 

Exile  of  notable  men,  consequences 
of,  73,  73  w. 

Expansion  of  Russia  eastwards,  211- 

243 
Explosion   near   Moscow    (Nov.    19, 

1879),  127,  127  n. 
Expropriation  of  land,  301,  301  «. 
"  Expropriations,"  569 
Extraordinary    growth    of    Russian 

industry  (1893-8),  374 
Extraordinary  guard,  548,  548  n. 
Extravagance  of  the  Zemstvos,  281 
Ezymovskoe  province,  36 

Factories  and  mill  administration 
of  Moscow  district,  194 

—  obliged  to  provide  hospital  ac- 
commodation for  their  workers, 
408 

Factory  inspection,  365,  408 

manufacturers'         struggle 

against,  411 
Factory  inspectors'  reports,  195 

—  law  of  Aug.  26,  1866,  412 

of  June  9,  1882,  410 

of  June  3,  1885,  418,  418  n. 

of  June3,i886,  4ii,4i8,4i8«. 

of  Oct.  I,  1886,  418 

of  June  3,  1897,  412 

of  March  14,  1898,  412 

—  legislation,  85,  407 

imperfect  administration  of, 

408 

—  owners  obliged  to  provide  medi- 
cal attendance  to  sick  workmen, 
408 

—  system  after  1861,  368 
False  decrees,  53  n. 

—  tsars,  139 

Family,  the  undivided  or  joint,  264- 

266 
Famine  of  1891,  the,  174 
Famines,  political  utilization  of,  147 
Far  East,  Russia  in  the,  211-43 
Fashoda  affair,  236 
Fatalism  in  Russian  character,  19 


Federation  of  the  Jura,  102 

Feminist  terrorism,  4  n. 

"  Fermentation  "  among  the  troops 

at  Moscow,  540 
Fersov,  N.  N.,  25  «.,  53  «. 
Fertilizers,  284 
Feuerbach,  80  w.,  83 
Fiedler's  school,  meeting  at,  555 
Fighting  organization  of  the  Socialist 

Revolutionaries,  184 
Figuer,  Vera,  132 
Finlanders,  246 
Finland,  Russification  of,  139 
Finlay,  George,  204  n. 
Finnish  literature,  growth  of,  248 

—  Party,  5  n. 

Fishing  population  on  the  Volga,  402 

Fleet  of  Russia  in  Chinese  waters 
(1895),  230 

Flights  of  peasants,  9,  21 

Fluctuations  of  opinion  in  opposi- 
tional groups,  144-7 

Foochow,  221 

Foreign  capital  in  Russia,  156,  156  n. 

Forest  regulations,  277  n. 

Fourier,  65,  66  w.,  82,  82  n.,  88  n. 

France,  15,  47,  53,  53  n. ;  influence 
of,  on  Russia,  63,  83,  221,  222 

Franco-Belgian    syndicate     (China), 

235  «• 
Franco-Prussian  War,  97 
Franco- Russian  entente,  236,  240 
Frank,  S.  L.,  593  «. 
Freedom  of  Cossack  life,  24 

—  of  the  press  restricted  by  the 
C.W.M.D.,  524,  525 

Free  Economical  Society,  503 
Freeman,  Professor,  100  «. 
Freemasonry,  63  n. 
Freiman,  Major-General,  35,  36,  53 
French  Ambassador  and  the  Goujon 
strike  at  Moscow,  196 

—  capital  in  Russia,  155 

—  encyclopedists,  66 

—  fleet  before  Petropavlovsk  (1854), 
220 

—  Revolution,    4    n.,    13,    15,    62, 
62  w.,  77 

(1830),  82 

(1848),  82,  161 

Fresh,  V.  I.,  Chief  of  PoUce  of  St. 

Petersburg,  201 
Friendly  society  movement  in  Russia, 

422,  424 
Frolenko,  123 
Fur  trade,  211,  227 


6i2     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Galician  emigrants  to  Canada,  401  n. 

Gamela,  I.,  378  n. 

Gapon,   Father   Georg,    44,   206   «., 

451-74,  565,  578 
Gaponiade,  the,  451,  464 
Gapon,    letters   to   the   Minister   of 
Interior  (Jan.  8,  1905),  text,  469 

to  the  Tsar  (Jan.  8,   1905), 

text,  468 

to  the  Tsar  (Jan.  9,   1905), 

text,  473 

—  movement,  significance  of  the, 
467 

—  open    letter    to    the    Socialist 
Parties  of  Russia,  474 

Gaponovshina,  451,  565 

Gapon,  petition  to  the  Tsar  (Jan.  9, 

1905),  text,  469-73 
Garelen,  389 

Gauge  of  Manchurian  railways,  234 
Gavrilov,  219  w. 
General    political    strike     (Dec.     7, 

1905),  542 

—  Russian  Workers'  Union,  415 

—  strike    in    South    Russia    (Aug. 
1903),  443-50 

of  October  1905,  481 

—  strikes,  economic  effects  of,  448 
Geneva,  142 

—  Congress  of  International  Work- 
ing Men's  Association,  89,  99,  515 

Genghis  Khan,  211  n. 

Georgian  language,  247  «.,  248,  446 

Georgians,  247 

German  capital  in  Russia,  155 

—  cruisers  in  Chinese  waters  (1895), 
230  M. 

—  Diet  at  Frankfort,  81  n. 

—  language  in  Russia,  247 

—  social  democracy,  181 
Germany,  13,  95  ;    influence   of,  on 

Russia,  63  ;   and  China,  234 
Gershunzon,  M.  O.,  593  n. 
Gershuni,  G.,  576  w.,  577  «.,  672 
"  Gifted  allotments,"  303 
Girardovsky  factory,  strike  at  (1883), 

417 
Girot,   silk  factory  of,   at  Moscow, 

537  «• 
Godunov,  Boris,  51 
Godunovs,  9 
Godwin,  William,  63  n. 
Gogol,  125  n. 
Goldenberg,  123,  126  m. 
Golden  throne,  the,  216 
Goletsin,  Prince,  55 


Golubcheke  (good  fellows),  new  sect., 

139  w. 
Golubev,  A.,  389,  390,  409 
Gonchar6v,  69  n. 
Goremykin,  501 
Gorki,  Maxim,  172 
Gorn,  v.,  565  w.,  566  n. 
Gotz,  67  n.,  576  n. 
Goujon's   factory    at   Moscow,    196, 

365  «• 
Gourko,  Deputy  Minister  of  Interior, 

348,  348  n. 
Governmental    attempts   to    control 

labour  movement,  428 
Government,    attitude    of,    towards 

V  Narod  movement,  106 

—  workshops,  lock-out  at,  518 
Grain  deficiency,  289 

—  reserves,  141  «.,  295,  295  «. 

—  storage,  296 

—  trade  in  Manchuria,  227 
Grajdanin,  202,  202  n. 
gramota,  259 

Grants  of  land  in  the  reign  of  Kath- 

erine  II,  26 
Gratchov,  V.  I.,  424  n. 
Great   Britain   and   France   at   war 

with  China  (1858-9),  221 

and  the  Yiangtse  Valley,  235 

Great  Wall  of  China,  215 

Greece,  79 

Grenevtsky  {Narodnaya  Volya),  131 

Grievances  of  Moscow  workmen,  197 

—  of  peasants  (1905),  304 
Grigorevsky,  194  w.,  195  n. 
Groman,  288  n.,  297  «.-30i  n. 
Group  Assembly  of  Factory  Repre- 
sentatives, 419 

—  for  the  Emancipation  of  Labour, 
161 

Guchkov,  President  of  the  State 
Duma,  521 

Guesde,  147 

Guild  organization  of  industry,  588, 
588  n. ;  absence  of,  in  Russia,  422, 
422  n. 

Gunning,  Sir  Robert,  British  Am- 
bassador, 56 

Guriev,  town  of,  22 

Hague    Congress    of    International 

Working  Men's  Association,  98 
Han  Dynasty  (China),  216  m. 
Hangchow,  215 
Hankow,  221,  224,  227  «.,  241 
Hanover,  ex- King  of,  97 


INDEX 


613 


Han  Wu  Ti  (Chinese  traveller),  224  n. 

Harrison,  Frederic,  77 

Hartmann  (Narodnaya   Volya),  126, 

126  n. 
Harvesters'  migrations,  403 
Harvests  (1900- 1905),  357 
von  Haxthausen,  Baron,  264,  264  «., 

265  n. 
Hearn,  264  n. 
Hei  Lun  Tsian   (province  of  North 

China),  233 
Henley,  W.  E.,  80  n. 
Hermann,  A.,  264 
Hernani,  80  n. 
Herzegovina,  240 
Herzen,  A.,  65,  65  «.,  69,  73 
Hevra  (Jewish  friendly  society),  422- 

424 
Holiday  rests,  429 
Hollander  and  Barnett,  462  n. 
Homeless  people  in  St.  Petersburg, 

405 
Hong-Kong,  221 

—  and  Shanghai  Bank,  235 
Hopelessness   of   armed   struggle   in 

1905  recognized  by  leaders,  535 
Hours  of  labour,  407 

limitation  of,  410 

voluntary  limitation  of,  412 

Houses   deroofed   in   order   to   feed 

cattle,  292 
Housing  of  working  people,  397 
Hubbenet,  226  n. 
Hughes,  J,  (pioneer  in  iron  industry), 

380 
Hugo,  Victor,  80  n. 
L'HumaniU  Nouvelle,  loi  n. 
Humbert,  King  of  Italy,  16  «. 
Hungarian  revolution,  14 
Hutton,  R.  H.,  85  n. 

"  Identic  Note,"  235  n. 

Ideologists,  158 

Ignatiev,  General,  135  «.,  409 

Ignatov,  142 

Ikons  used  in  revolutionary  move- 
ments, 33 

Illegal  literature,  149  w,,  171 

Hi  (Chinese  province),  224,  241 

Ilimsk,  214 

Illiteracy  of  the  Cossacks  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, 22,  23 

Illyria,  36 

Immigration  into  Amur  region  by 
Germans  from  California,  223 


Immobility  of  peasant,  361 
Imperial  Free  Economical  Society  of 

St.  Petersburg,  303,  303  w.,  et  seq.y 

503 

—  Technical  Society,  410 
Impostors,  25,  37,  43,  51 

—  methods  of,  43 

—  reasons  for  their  appearance,  37 
Imposture  and  intrigues  of  the  clergy, 

42 

—  in  Cossack  and  peasant  policies, 
36,  37 

Impoverishment   of   the   land,    286, 

286  w. 
Impulsiveness,  a  Russian  character- 
istic, 3 
India,  Russian  designs  upon,  228  n. 
Individual  ownership  of  land  (ukase, 

Nov.  9,  1906),  341 
Industrial    enterprise    incompatible 

with  bondage,  361 
Industry,     rapid     development     of 

(1892-6),  151 
Ineconomical  agriculture,  289,  337 
Inflation     of     industrial     enterprise 

(1878-80),  372 
Influence    of    French    and    German 

socialist     writers     upon     Russian 

groups,  147 

—  of  St.  Petersburg  working  men 
upon  those  of  other  cities,  528 

"  Influential  group  of  working  men" 
and  Gapon's  movement,  455,  456, 
460,  461 

Ingushi,  570  M. 

Insect  pests,  287  n. 

Insufficiency  of  land,  326 

Insurance  of  cattle,  140 

Intelligentsia,  69  n.,  112,  145,  153, 
169,  173,  174,  180,  569 

—  absence   of,   in   Gapon's   move- 
ment, 457 

—  and  the  Revolution,  585 

—  arrest    of     Social    Democratic, 

150 

—  importance  of,  in  Social  Demo- 
cratic movement,  (1892-6),  149 

Interchange  between  the  villages  and 

the  towns,  295 
Interests  of  proletariat  and  peasantry 

not  identical,  181 
International  labour  movement,  416 
International  Labour  Office,  Bulletin 

of,  411 
International  money  market,  155 

—  relations,  78 


6i4     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


International  Working  Men's  Associa- 
tion, 84  n.,  87,  515  ;  Russian 
interpretation  of  significance  of, 
99  ;   suppression  of,  95 

Inventions  in  iron  and  steel  manu- 
facture, 382 

Irkutsk,  222,  227  ;   strike  at,  484 

Iron  mines  in  the  Urals,  373  n. 

—  trade,  growth  of,  381 

—  works  on  the  River  Don,  374 
Irregularities  by  police,  566  n. 
Irrigation,  287,  287  n. 

Iskra    (Social    Democratic    journal), 

171  n.y  191  n.,  203  n. 
ispravneke,  109 

Italian  question  (1865),  88,  88  w. 
Italy,  4  «.,  79,  88,  88  n. 
Ivan  III,  8 
—  IV,    8,  212 

Ivanov  [Narodnaya  Volya),  134 
Ivanovo-Voznesensk,       139,        389 ; 

strikes  at,  418 
Ivanovsky,  3  n. 
Izgovyev,  A.  S.,  593  «• 
izpolnya  renting,  332 

Japan,  8,  241,  394 

Japanese  policy  with  regard  to  Rus- 
sian advance  in  the  Far  East,  229 

Japan,  increasing  military  import- 
ance of,  226 

Japanese  settlement  of  Liao-tung 
peninsula,  239 

Jarotsky,  V.,  397 

Jaur^s     (French    socialist    deputy), 

595 

de  Jekelfalussy,  I.  (ed.),  264  n. 

Jelyabov,  Andrey  {Narodnaya  Volya), 
124,  124  n.,  126,  127  w.,  128,  131, 
131  «. 

Jersey  (agents  for  mill  machinery  in 
Manchester),  379 

Jew-baiting,  207 

Jewish  classes  exempted  from  resi- 
dence restrictions,  207 
—-  pogroms,  5,  139,  207-10 

—  revolutionaries,  210 
Jews  as  renters  of  estates,  277 

—  excluded   from   certain  friendly 
societies,  424  n. 

—  limits  of  permissible  residence, 
207 

—  Lithuanians,  162  n. 

—  position  of,  in  Russia,  162  n. 
jiu-jitsu,  231,  231  n. 

Jizn  (Marxist  journal),  154  n. 


Joint  family,  disintegration  of,  266 
divided  opinions  on  the  ad- 
vantages of,  270 

Judicature — abrogation  of  irremov- 
ability of  judges,  137 

—  change  of  venue,  137 

—  jury  system  modified,  137 
Justinian,  73  w. 

Kahala,  256 

Kalinsky,  Ya.  O.,  141  w. 

Kalita  dynasty,  9 

Kalmuks,  22,  31,  32,  37,  46,  48 

Kalmuk  Tartar  type,  580 

Kaluga,  583  n. 

Kalujskaya  gub.,  290  w. ;    factories 

in,  369 
Kalyaev,  578,  578  n. 
Kamchatka,  219  «.,  222 
K'anghi  (Manchu  Emperor),  217 
Karaim,  217 
Karakazov,  74,  74  n. 
Karavayev    (Cossack   accomplice    of 

Pugachev),  43 
Kar  (or  Ker),  General  (Scotch  soldier 

of  fortune),  48,  51 
Karishev,  386 
Kashgar,  215,  241 
Katheder  Sozialism,  595 
Katherine,  Grand  Duchess,  131 
Katherine  II,  26-29,   29  n.,  30,  36, 

36  w.,  38,  42,  47,  51,  51  «.,  58,  77 
Kaunitz,  Count,  78  n. 
Kautsky,  Karl,  147,  595 
Kazaki,  or  Cossacks,  meaning  of  the 

expression,  21  «. 
Kazan,  35,  42,  44,  49,  51,  52,  54,  57 

—  Cathedral,  St.  Petersburg,  107  w., 
112  ;   demonstrations  at,  172,  461 

Kazanskaya  gub.,  60 

Kazan,  University  of,  184 

Keane,  A.  H.,  215  n. 

Kebalchech  {Narodnaya  Volya),  131, 
131  w.,  132  n. 

Kent,  P.  H.,  226  n.,  232  W.-235  n. 

Kerel-Methodian  Society,  65,  65  n. 

Kerpechnikov  (Cossack  representa- 
tive), 31,  33,  35 

Kertch,  strike  at  (Aug.  7,  1903),  445 

Kestyakovskie,  B.  A,,  593  n. 

Khabarov,  212,  213 

Khabarovka,  222,  227,  233 

Khablukov,  N.,  386 

Khalthrin,  Stepan  {Narodnaya  Vol- 
ya), 113  w.,  127,  127  M.,  I2§,  128  w., 
132 


.11 


INDEX 


615 


Khanko,  Lake,  225 

Kharbin,  234  ;  outbreak  of  plague 
at,  240  n. 

Kharkov  "  Union  for  Struggle,"  149, 
171  ;  demonstrations  at  (Dec. 
1900),  172  ;  "  Society  of  Crafts- 
men of,"  193  ;  grievances  of  work- 
men at,  197,  257,  409  ;  barricades 
at,  483  ;  strike  of  telegraphers  at, 
484,  537  n. 

Kharkovskaya  gub.,  130  ». 

Khersonskaya  gub.,  282  ;  grain  de- 
ficiency in,  293 

Khilkov,  Prince,  226  n.,  482 

Khingan  Mountains,  241 

Khlisti  or  Lyudi  Boju  (People  of 
God),  324  n. 

Khludov  works  (1880-1),  large  num- 
bers of  workmen  thrown  out  of 
employment  at,  373 

Khodsky,  L.  V.,  146 

Kholopov,  S.  S.,  303,  303  n. 

Khrustalov-Nossar,  G.,  463  «.,  477  n.- 
479  «.,  481  W.-483  w.,  484,  487  «.- 
498  «.,  502  «.,  503  n.,  509  « -516  w., 
518  «.-52o  «.,  522  «.,  525,  526,  530, 
530  «•,  538,  540 

Kiakhta,  220 

Kiaochau,  234 

Kiev,  109,  123 ;  unions  in,  158 ; 
demonstrations  at  (Feb.  1902), 
172,  184,  403,  445,  447,  578; 
grievances  of  workmen  at,  197, 
198  ;  Association  of  Master  Printers 
at,  430  ;  Jewish  pogroms  at,  505  ; 
military  riot  at,  505  ;  movement 
among  the  working  men  in  the 
arsenal  at,  416  ;  V  Narod  groups 
at,  108 

Kiev-Voronej  Railway — conflicts  be- 
tween strikers  and  non-strikers,  545 

Kinder,  Mr.,  226 

Kirghiz,  27,  35,  46,  50 

Kirin  (Manchuria),  218,  226,  233 

Kishenev,  208,  209,  278 

Kitans,  215 

Kiu-Kiang,  221 

Klegels,  578 

Kleinschmidt,  A.,  63  «.,  64  n. 

Kluchevsky,  V.  O.,  6,  11,  21  «.,  139 

Knoop,  Ludwig,  378,  380 

kniit,  494  «. 

"  Kokhmansky,"  506 

kolada,  260 

Kolbe  (director  of  cotton  mills  at 
Kranholm),  409 


Kolomensky  Car-building  Co.,  405 

Kolomna,  391 

Kommissarov,  499,  501 

Kommunistische  Manifest,  83 

Konig  Cotton-spinning  Mills  at  St, 
Petersburg,  strike  at,  414 

Konigshatz  (Jewish  advocate),  210 

Konoplanikova,  Zenaida  (slayer  of 
General  Min),  560  n. 

Korea,  228,  229 

Korean  question,  230 

Koreans,  215,  223 

Korf  (commander  of  troops  on  the 
Volga),  49 

Kostomarov,  65 

Kostroma,  demonstrations  at,  444 

Kotlyarevsky,  A.,  63  n. 
—  (Pubhc  Prosecutor  of  Kiev),  108- 
109,  121 

Kovalevsky,  Maxime,  8,  9  «.,  136, 
264  «.-267  n.,  270  «. 

Kovalskaya,  E.,  416 

Kovno,  140 

Koysukha  River,  41 

Kozlov,  Agricultural  Society  of,  327 

Kozlovsky  district,  agitation  in 
(1905),  318-9 

Kranholm  Mills  at  Narva,  378  ;  strike 
at  (1872),  414  ;   strikes  at,  417 

Krasnoyarsk,  171,  241 

Kravchinsky,  Stepniak,  no  «.,  123 

Kremnov,  Gabriel  (first  pseudo- 
Peter  III),  37 

Krivocheine,  226 

Kxivoy  Rog  Ironworks  on  the  Dnie- 
per, 373,  380 

Kronstadt,  132,  227  n. ;  strike  in 
building  trade  (1872),  414,  508  n. ; 
mutiny  at,  504,  508,  509,  566 

Kropotkin,  Prince  Dmitri  N.,  123, 
126  n. 

Peter  A.,  53  «.,  63,  64  «.- 

67  w.,  73  «.,  74  «.,  76  w.,  86  «.,  92  n., 
100,  100  W.-102  ».,  107  n.,  131, 
131  «•,  135,  228  n.,  363  n.,  565  f». 

Kriidener,  Madame,  64 

Krushevan  (anti-Semitic  agitation), 
208,  209 

Kuban,  140 

kulaki  (fists,  or  grasping  peasants), 
258,  307  »•,  312  «.,  356 

Kupenka,  36 

Kurds,  3  n. 

Kuropatkin,  General,  237 

Kurskaya  gub.,  agrarian  movement 
in  (190S),  480 


6i6     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Kushnerov's  printing  office,  Moscow, 

544 
Kushvensky,  gold  mines  at,  400 
Kustarny  ezba,  367,  373,  387 
Kutler  (Minister  of  Finance),  345  w. 
Kvyatkovsky     {Narodnaya     Volya), 

128 

Labour  Day  meetings,  secret,  151 

—  movement  in  Russia,  beginnings 
of,  148,  149 ;  spontaneous,  174 ; 
attempts  by  the  police  to  control 
the,  188-206  ;  since  Emancipation, 
413,  418  ;  and  the  political  parties, 
419 ;  absorption  of,  in  Social  De- 
mocratic movement,  421  ;  open 
organization  of,  disappears  during 
reaction,  417 

—  unions,  reprisals  against  em- 
ployers' associations  by,  432 

V action  directe,  337 

Laf argue,  147,  596  n. 

La  Harpe,  14,  14  w.,  64 

laisser  faire,  80 

Lamarck,  80  n. 

Lamsdorf,  Count,  235,  236 

Land  law  of  Nov.  9,  1906,  340 

Landless  peasantry,  creation  of,  343 

Land  mortgages,  288 

—  occupation  in  joint- family  sys- 
tem, 265 

—  peasant  adoration  of,  271 

—  peasants  decide  not  to  buy  land, 
302 

—  peasant  views  about,  298-301 

—  question — refusal  to  increase 
peasant  lots  (1880),  129 

—  Redemption  Banks,  364 

—  Reform  Committees,  344,  344  «., 
345>  345  w. ;  ineffectiveness  of, 
345,  345  «• 

Lands  in  peasants'  hands,  yield  from, 
283 

Land  tenure,  peasant  views  upon,  270 

Laplace,  80  n. 

Lassalle,  Ferdinand,  75,  96,  113  n. 

Latin  clergy  in  Poland,  9 

Launitz  (Chief  of  Police  of  St  Peters- 
burg), 579,  581  n. 

Lausanne,  Congress  at  (1867),  90 

de  Laveleye,  E.,  86  m.,  87  w.,  88  n. 

Lavkai  (Daurian  prince),  212,  214 

LavoUee,  84  n. 

Lavrists,  loi,  145 

Lavrov,  P.  Z.,  loi,  loi  «.,  122  «.,  147, 
184 


Lawless  bands  in  Siberia  (seventeenth 
century),  214 

Lazarev  Clothing  Factory,  Moscow, 
strike  at  (1874),  4^4 

Leaders  in  the  Moscow  armed  up- 
rising, 561,  561  n. 

Leagues  of  Peace,  13 

Lease  of  Chinese  territory  for  railway 
purposes,  239 

"  Legal  literature,"  149  n. 

—  Marxism,"  153 
Legations  at  Peking,  relief  of,  235 
Leipzig,  96 

Lenda,  V.  N.,  72  n. 

Lenin,  154  n.,  161  \ 

Leroux,  65,  82,  82  n. 

Leroy-Beaulieu,  Pierre,  230  n. 

Lettish  language,  154  n. 

Letts,  the,  247 

Liao-tung  peninsula,  216,  216  n.,  223, 

239 
Libau,  485 
Liberalism,    159,    461  ;     in   Western 

Europe,  591 
"  Liberties,  seizure  of,"  521 
Liebknecht,  84,  147 
Liflandskaya  gub.,  282 
"  La  Ligue  internationale  de  la  Paix 

et  de  la  Liberte,"  91,  91  n. 
Li  Hung  Chang,  226,  231,  231  «.,  232, 

233 
Lipetsk,  meeting  at,  123 
Lithuania,  247 
Lithuanians,  507 
Little  Russian  party,  5  n. 
Little  Russians,  22,  244,  507  n. 
Little,  R.  W.,  232  n. 
Little     Sadovaya,     St.     Petersburg, 

131 
Litvonov-Falinsky    (factory    inspec- 
tor), 455  n. 
Lock-out  at  Lodz,  430 
Lodz,  arrests  of  workmen  at  (1895- 

1900),     169 ;     lock-out    at,    430 ; 

Metal  Manufacturers'    Association 

of,    430 ;    Woollen  Manufacturers' 

Association  of,  431,  480 
Loginov  (implicated  in  disturbances 

among  the  Yaek  Cossacks,  1760), 

27,  28 
Lopatin,  H.,  133,  133  «.,  134,  185  n. 
Lopukhin-Azef  case,  464 
Lopukhin      (Director     of     Imperial 

Police     Department),     184,     201, 

201  n.,  575,  579-82 

—  (Governor  of  Estland),  484 


INDEX 


617 


Losses  by  the   Government   during 

political  strikes,  450 
Loyalty  of  Gapon's  followers,  455  n., 

465 
Luxembourg,  Rosa,  380 
Lvov,  569-71 
Lyadov,  143  « -147  «.,i5o  «.,  154  n., 

157  n.,  160  «.,  161  «.,  164  n.,  165, 

165  «.,  166,  166  w.,  169  «.,  170  n., 

419  «. 
Lyatschenko,  P.  J.,  146, 291  n.,  293 n., 

296  n. 
Lyons,  102  «. 

Mably,  84  n. 

Macdonald,  Sir  Claude,  234  n. 

Maine,  Sir  Henry,  264  n. 

Maize,  cultivation  of,  283 

Makov  (Minister  of  Interior,  1880), 
129,  138 

Malinin  (editor  of  the  Prison  Mes- 
senger), 457 

Malon,  B.,  84  «.,  88  n.,  89  n.,  90  «.,  95 

Malyoten,  P.,  406 

Manchu  dynasty,  216 

—  Emperor  Shun-chi,  213 
Manchuria,  19,  216 

—  occupation  of,  by  Russia,  235 
Manchus,  origin  of  the,  215 
Manifesto  of  Liberties  (Oct.  17,  1905), 

314  ;  connection  of,  with  peasant 
disorders,  323,  330,  496  ;  difficul- 
ties of  making  public  owing  to 
strike,  523 

—  of  party  groups  (Dec.  2,  1905), 

531,  531  «. 

—  of  Working  Men's  Deputies,  St. 
Petersburg  (Oct.  13,  1905),  487 

Manifestoes,  revolutionary,  openly 
circulated  (Oct.  1905),  488,  524 

—  Socialist-Revolutionary,  177-9 
Manifesto  to  the  nobility,  140 
Marco  Polo,  216 

Mares,  on  production  of  breadstuffs, 

290  n. 
Maria,  Empress,  405 
Mariinsk,  220 
Maritime  Manchuria,  226 

—  Province  of  Eastern  Siberia,  222 
Marketing  of  crops,  289 

Market  in  Russia,   compactness  of, 

380 
Markets,  theory  of,  383 
Markovskaya  volost,  303 
Marriages,  early,  266  n.-267  «. 
"  Marseillaise,  The,"  495,  516 


de  Martens,  15  n. 

Martov,  L.,  419  n. 

Marx,  Karl,  75,  81,  83,  83  «.,  87,  88, 
88  M.,  89,  91,  94,  96,  97,  97  «.,  98, 
98  n.,  99,  100  w.,  147,  165  «.,  167, 
185  n.,  592  w. 

Marxism,  145,  150,  383 ;  Russian 
government  not  hostile  to  theoreti- 
cal drift  of,  152 

Marxist  collectivism,   popularity  of, 

—  credo,  150 

—  groups,  disintegration  of,  153 

—  journals,  154,  154  n. 

Mass     movement    of     the    working 

people,  478 
Matchlocks,  213 
Materialistic  theory  of  history,  154, 

155 
Maximalism,  sporadic,  584 
Mazzini,  87,  88,  88  n. 
Medem,    Count    (Governor    of    Nov- 

gorodskaya  gub.),  315 
Medical    attendance,    deficiency    of, 

especially  in  outlying  regions,  409 
gratuitous,  411 

—  law  of  March  9,  1892,  426 
Megrinskaya  volost,  303 
Mehring,  Franz,  96,  96  «.,  97 
Melikov,  Count  Loris,   130,    130  n., 

131  «.,  135,  135  «. 
Melyukov,  P.,  73  «.,  74  «.,  298  n. 
Mennonites,  223 
"  Men  of  the  Nineties,"  160 
Menshikov  (writer  in  Novo'e  Vremya), 

487 
Meredith,  Townsend,  243  «. 
Mergers,  387 

Messiah,  expectations  of  a,  25 
Metallurgical  partnerships,  427 
Meticulous  administration,  16 
Metschersky,    Prince,    202,    202    w., 

301  n. 
Mettemich,  14 
Meyer,  Rudolf,  83  n.,  87  «.,  89,  91, 

91  n.,  93 
Mezievich,  430 

Mezentsev,  General,  no  n.,  122,  123 
Michelet,  270,  270  n. 
Mievsky,  E.,  481,  484,  485,  486  n. 
Migration,  consequences  of,  255 
Migrations,  annual,  257 

—  of  harvesters,  403 

—  to  industrial  towns,  152,  167 
Mikhaelov,  Alexander,   123,   123   «,, 

126  «. 


6i8     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Mikhaelovsky,  N.  K.,  147 
Mikhaelov,  Timothy,  131 
Mikhail,  Tsar,  9 
Mikhelson  (commander  on  the  Volga, 

1775),  55,  57,  59,  59  «•,  61 
Militant  organization  of  the  Socialist- 
Revolutionary  Party,  582  «.,  584 
MiUtary  Collegium,  26-31,  34,  38,  43 

—  pay,  increase  of  allowances,  507, 
507  n. 

—  service     and     early     marriages, 
266-7 

obligatory,     imposed     upon 

Cossacks,  28 

—  sympathy  with  strikers,  537  n. 
Milk  supply  during  strike,  484 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  100,  270,  270  ». 
Min,  Colonel,  494,  564 

Ming  dynasty,  216 
Min,  General,  560 
Minshkin  (deserted  town),  256  n. 
Minskaya  guh.,  agriculture  in,  283 
Minsk,  Congress  of  Jewish  Bund  at 
(1898),  161 

—  excessive  competition  and  over- 
crowding in,  402  n. 

—  police  trade  unions  at,  201,  202 

—  "  Union  for  Struggle  "  at,  149 
mirna  stachka  e  zabastovka  (peaceful 

agreement  to  strike),  319  w. 
Mirsky  {Narodnaya  Volya),  123 
mir,  the,  179,  315 
"  Mirtov  "  (P.  L.  Lavrov),  10 1  n. 
Mohammedanism,  79 
Mohammedan  revolt  in  China,  224 
Mohammedans,  21 
Mohilev,  423  n. 
Mois  River,  57 
Molodetsky's  attempt  upon  the  life 

of  Loris  Melikov,  130,  130  n. 
Molodych,  160 
Molokani,  139  w. 
Mommsen,  T.,  204  n. 
Money    economy,    consequences    of 

introduction  of,  295 

factors  introduced  by,  294 

Mongolia,  241 

—  protectorate  of  Russia,  242 
Mongolo-Tartars,  211  ». 
Mongols,  217 

Monistic  view  of  history,  153,  153  n. 
Montesquieu,  84 
Mordva,  51 
Morgunov,  406 
Morozov  factory,  406,  414 
Mortgages  upon  land,  288 


Moscow  armed  uprising,  478  n.,  534- 
567  ;  collapse  of,  559  ;  losses  of, 
561 ;  significance  of,  563 

—  arrests    of   workmen    in    (1895- 
1900),  169 

—  Association    of     Manufacturers, 
431 

—  Council     of     Striking     Printing 
Shops,  433 

of  Working  Men's  Deputies, 

539 
on  Factory  Affairs,  196 

—  housing  conditions  in,  397 

—  in  the  hands  of  the  revolution- 
ists, 549,  550 

—  manufacturers    and    the    police 
trade  unions,  198 

— •  State,  the,  21 

—  strikes  at  (1884),  417 
Moscow  Viedomosii,  201 
Moskovskaya  gub.,   grain   deficiency 

in,  293 
von  Moskwitsch,  204  n.,  573  w, 
mupki,  260 
Mukden,  226,  477 
Muraviev-Amursky,    Count    N.    N., 

92  «.,  219,  220,  221,  228 
Muraviov,  Mikhael,  Count,  74 
Murman  coast,  403 
murtsofka,  258 
Mushkin,  107  n. 
Mutual   assistance   societies,   422-8; 

compulsory  membership  of,  425, 426 

—  credit  associations,  72 

—  guarantee,  67,  268,  340,  361 
Myasnikov    (Cossack    accomplice    of 

Pugachev),  44 

Nachalo    (Marxist  journal),    154   «., 

531  «• 

nagaikt,  494,  494  «.,  565 

Nanking,  215 

Napoleon  I,  4  w.,  12,  13,  78,  79 

—  Ill,  12,  15,  15  n.,  86  «.,  204 
Narodnaya  Pravo,  112 

—  Volya,    109,    114    ff.,    142,    184, 

573  w- 
Narodneke,  67,  103  ff.,  142,  317  n., 

386 
Narodnechestvo,  109 
Narodovolsti,  109,  no,  no  «.,  114  ff. 
Narva,  369,  379 
Nasha  Jezn,  531  w. 
"  Natural  "  payments,  321 
Navy,  attempt  to  enlist  the,  in  the 

strike  movement,  496 


INDEX 


619 


Navy,  mutiny  in  (1905),  504 

Necessitarianism,  154 

Nechaiev,  75,  75  «,,  125  w. 

"  Need  of  land,"  129 

Neo-Hegelianism,  79  w.,  83 

Nerchinsk,  39,  214,  217;  treaty  of, 
217,  233 

Nettlau,  92  n. 

Die  Neue  Zeit,  595  w. 

Neurasthenic  condition  after  Revolu- 
tion, 19,  141 

Neutralization  of  China  necessary 
for  Japan,  229 

Neva,  floods  on,  399 

Nevsky  cotton  mills,  412 

—  Prospekt,  St.  Petersburg,  112 
Newchwang,  227  w.,  234  n.,  237  n. 
New  Poland,  246  n. 
Newspapers,    suspension   of,    during 

strike,  523 

New  York,  removal  of  "  Inter- 
national "  to,  99 

Nicholas  I,  12,  14,  15,  64 

—  II,  16,  226,  462,  466 
Nietzsche,  380 

Night  refuges,  404 

Nijigorodskaya  gub.,  60 

Nijni  Novgorod,  arrests  of  workmen 
in  (1895-1900),  169,  371  ;  housing 
conditions  in,  400 ;  union  for 
struggle  at,  149 

Nikolaiev,  strike  at  (1903),  445 

—  unemployment     in     (1897-99), 
170 

Nikolai-On    (N.    Danielson),    67    w., 

386 
Nikolai  Railway,  427,  545 
Nikolsy    factory,    strikes    at   (1885), 

417 

Ningpo,  221 

Nobel  works  at  Baku,  380 

Noble  factory  owners,  369 

Non-Black  Soil,  agriculture  in,  282 

Non-Russian  elements,  244 

Northern  Union  of  Socialist-Revolu- 
tionaries, 576 

North  Russian  Working  Union,  415 

Norway  and  Sweden,  separation  of, 
240 

Novgorodskaya  g«6.,  condition  of 
peasantry  in  (1905),  303,  505 

Novi-Cherkask,  257  n. 

Novoe  Slovo  (Marxist  journal),  154  w. 

Novoe  Vremya,  523,  524,  580 

Novorasisk,  537 

Novo-Slavkin,  140 


Novossilzev,  12  n. 
Novoya  Jezn,  531  n. 
Nurhachu,  216  ». 
Nurkhatzi,  216 

Oats,  land  under  crop  of,  283 

Obi-Yenesei  Canal,  226 

Obnorsky,  Victor,  113  «. 

Obolensky,  Prince,  64 

Obrazovanie  group,  184,  577  n. 

Obrbk,  361 

OchakoVy  mutiny  on  board,  504 

Odessa,  mine  at,  for  attempt  upon 
the  life  of  Alexander  II,  126  ;  un- 
employment in  (1897-99),  170, 
189  w.  ;  police  trade  unions  in,  201, 
203  «.,  227  «. ;  commercial  crisis 
at  (1873),  371,  445,  447  ;  demon- 
stration of  schoolboys  at  (1905), 
484,  566 

Odger,  George,  87 

Odnodvortsi,  36 

Ogilvie,  Wm.,  301  n. 

Okhotsk,  Sea  of,  212,  219,  222 

Oktai,  211  «. 

Old  Believers,  41  ;  alleged  dishonesty 
among,  41  ;  and  symbolism,  41 ; 
Orthodox  peasants'  opinions  about, 
262 

Old  Mohammedan  movement,  139  n, 

Ommaney,  Sir  Erasmus,  220  n. 

Onisk,  227 

Opium  War  (1840-2),  221 

Opportunism,  157 

Optimism  of  the  sixties,  71 

Orenburg,  27,  28,  33,  34,  35,  36; 
investment  of,   by  Pugachev,  46, 

47,  49,  52,  53,  57 
Orenburgskaya  gub.,  agriculture  in, 

283 
Orgich  (Narodnaya  Volya),  134 
Orlov  family,  32,  36  n. 

—  General,  63  n. 

—  Prince,  51 

Orlovskaya  gub.y  agrarian  move- 
ment in  (1905),  479 

Oryekhov,  A.  T.,  175  n. 

Osa,  59 

Osvobojdenie,  188  «.,  207  n.-2og  «., 
210,  237 

Osvobojdenia  Truda,  143 

Osinsky,  Valerian  {Narodnaya  Vol- 
ya),  108  n.,  120-2,  122  n. 

Otrepiev  (pseudo-Demetrius  I),  51 

Overcrowding  in  Polish  towns,  402 

Owen,  Robert,  81  ». 


620     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Ozerky,  452  n.,  464 
Ozerov,  I.  Kh.,  192,  192  «.,  193  «., 
194  M.,  203  ».,  453 

"  Pacification  "   of   Moscow    (Dec. 
^  1905),  563 
Pages,  school  of,  131 
Pahlen,  Count,  106,  no  m.,  130 
Palmerston,  Lord,  15,  87 
Panic  on  St.  Petersburg  Bourse  (Oct. 
II,  1905),  485 

—  on  Vienna  Bourse   (May  1873), 

371 

Panin,  Count  Peter,  60 

Pan-Russian  labour  movement,  416 

Pan-Slavism,  65,  248 

"  Papers,"  suspicion  of  all,  enter- 
tained by  Russian  peasants,  255, 
256,  256  w. 

Parana,  246  n. 

Parfeni,  Right  Rev.,  201 

Paris,  4  n. 

—  Bourse,  537  n.,  596 

—  revolution  in  (1830),  65,  77 ; 
(1848),  83 

Parker,  E.  H.,  211  w.,  221  «.,  224  «. 

Particularism,  5  n.,  244 

Pastuhov  Ironworks,  strikes  at,  443 

Patriarchalism,  67 

Patriarch,  the,  9 

Patriotic  objection  to  Russian  lan- 
guage among  subject  non-Russians, 
247 

Pavlov  (Russian  diplomatist),  234  «., 

—  (Chief  Military  Prosecutor),  576, 
579,  581  n. 

Peasant  assembly,  Moscow  (July  31- 
Aug.  I,  1905),  298 

—  characteristics,  253-63 

—  classes  in  the  movement  of  1905- 
1906,  331 

in  strike  and  pillage  move- 
ment, various  conduct  of,  323 

—  demands,  310 

—  holdings  in  disturbed  districts, 
areas  of,  333,  334 

—  life,  incidents  of,  274,  275 
Peasantry  in  1905,  condition  of,  303 
Peasants'  Bank,  sales  of  land  through, 

304,  343,  345  ;    ineffectiveness  of, 
346,  356 

—  budgets,  353 

—  demands  under  revolutionary 
impulses,  varying  character  of, 
319-21 

—  opinions  of  one  another,  261 


Peasant's  quarrel  about  the  distri- 
bution of  the  results  of  pillage,  324 

—  Union,  177,  297 

—  views  about  the  Tsar  in  1905, 
301 

Peking,  211,  217,  223 
Peking-Nankow  Railway,  235  n. 
Peking,  Russian  clerical  mission   in 

(1692),  222  n. 
Peking-Shanhaikwan  Railway,  235 
Pension   systems   as   substitutes  for 

bondage  relations,  427 
Penza,  583  n. 

Penzinskaya  gub.,  agriculture  in,  282 
Pesarev,  184 
Pestel,  Paul,  63  «.,  64 
Peter  I  (the  Great),  24 ;   outcome  of 

the  policy  of,  61,  77,  588 

—  Ill,  25,  36  «.,  37  ;    and  seculari- 
zation of  Church  lands,  42 

—  and  Paul,  fortress  of,  32 
Petition,  text  of  Cossacks',  32  n. 
Petrashevsky  circle,  67  n. 
Petroleum  industries  in  the  Caucasus, 

409 
Petropavlovsk,  220 
Petrov,  Nicolai,  462,  464 
Pereira,  Major,  241  n. 
Periakhanov,  67  m. 
Perm,  57,  211 
Permskaya  gub.,  368  ;    disturbances 

in  (1907),  568 
Perovskaya,  Sophie,  126,  126  w.,  127, 

131  n. 
Persia,  22 

Phillips,  W.  A.,  12  w.,  78  w.,  79  n. 
Philosophical  materialism,  153 
Physiocrats,  65 
Piccolo,  Stefano  (third  pseudo-Peter 

HI),  36 
Pillage  by  Pugachev,  52 

—  of  estates  in  1905,  317,  318,  330 
Pisarevsky,    Admiral,    wounded    in 

mutiny  of  sailors  at  Sevastopol,  504 

von  Plehve,  Vyacheslav  Constantino- 
vich  (Minister  of  Interior,  1904), 
152  w.,  186,  189  n.,  191  n.,  193,  196, 
199  n.,  201,  204,  204  «.,  208,  209, 
210,  210  «.,  238,  548  «.,  575,  578, 
581 

Plekhanov,  G.  V.,  142,  142  n.,  143, 
144,  145,  145  «.,  153,  163,  414  »., 
416  n. 

Plevna,  135  w. 

Pobyedonostsev,  K.  P.,  10,  11,  11  m., 
135,  135  n,,  184,  202  w.,  577 


INDEX 


621 


Pogroms  against  the  Jews,  5,  207, 
208  ;  rationale  of  the,  209,  210, 
500,  505,  539 

Pokrovsky,  Dr.,  398 

—  II,  speech  in  Duma,  577  «., 
579  w.,  581  n. 

Poland,  22,  40,  87,  87  n.,  139 

—  emigration  of  Russian  nobles  to, 
9 

—  insurrection  in  (1830),  65 

—  sugar  beet  in,  283 
Poles,  10,  245 

Police  encouragement  of  Gapon's 
movement,  457 

—  socialism,  188-206 

—  system  of  Russia,  572 

Policy  of  Russia  in  the  Far  East,  228 

—  of  the  Government  in  regard 
to  peasant  representation  in  the 
Duma,  348 

Polish   insurrection    (1863),    73,    74, 

74  «. 
PoUsh-Lithuanian  kingdom,  9  n. 
PoUsh  Party,  5  n. 

—  Patriotic  Party,  245 

—  population  in  the  United  States, 
245  M. 

—  question,  82 

—  Social  Democrats,  162  n. 

—  Socialist  Party,  245,  531  n. 
PoUticalism,  98,  142  ;   of  the  Narod- 

nechestvo,  109 
Political  mujik,  appearance  of  the,  169 

—  outcome  of  economic  disputes, 
489 

—  police,  114,  572 

abroad,  Russian,  574 

—  strike,  first  (Oct.  7-21,  1905), 
481,  497,  509 

second  (Nov.  2-7,  1905),  509 

third  (Dec.  7-19,  1905),  542, 

545 

Poltava,  Tolstoyans  at,  451  w. 

pomyetscheke,  17,  23  ;  houses  of, 
burned,  48  ;  flight  of,  during  Puga- 
chev's  rebellion,  52  ;  the  contem- 
porary, 276 ;  characteristics  of, 
278-9 

Poor  peasants  and  the  strike  move- 
ment (1905),  323 

Port  Arthur,  fall  of,  460 

Portugalov,  Dr.,  on  condition  of 
mines  in  Urals  (1870),  400 

Possessional  factories,  47,  58,  368 

Postal  delivery  suspended  during 
strike,  484 


Postal-Telegraph  Union  strike,  529 
Potapov,  Major-General,  inquires  into 
Cossack  affairs  (1764),  27,  28 

—  (official   accused   of   peculation, 
1878),  107 

Potyemkin,  mutiny  on  the  battleship, 

504 

Pouget,  Emile,  515  n. 

Poverty,  the  alleged  cause  of  the 
movement  of  1905,  in  Saratov,  333 

"  Practitioners,"  158 

Prague,  revolutionary  movement  in 
(1846),  92  «. 

Pravetelstvennie  Vestnik,  493  «.,  524 

Preklonsky,  S.,  373  n. 

Preobrajensky  regiment,  insubordina- 
tion in,  505 

Preoccupation  of  Russia  in  the  Far 
East,  consequences  of,  240 

Presnya  quarter  in  Moscow,  537 ; 
bombardment  of,  560,  560  n. ;  cap- 
ture of,  561 

Press  and  the  revolution,  the,  521 

Prices  of  Russian  4  per  cents,  on  the 
Paris  Bourse,  537  n.,  597 

Primorskaya  oblast  and  Vladivostok, 
238 

Printers'  censorship,  521 

Private  property,  views  on,  among 
the  peasantry,  261 

Programme  of  the  Narodnaya  Volya, 
118-20 

—  of  the  Osvobojdenia  Truda,  143 

—  of  Zubatov,  199 
Programmes  of  parties,  influence  of, 

312 
Prokopovich,  S.  N.,  317,  317  n.,  417, 

422  n.,  425  «.,  426  n. 
Prokhorov,  N.  J.,  201 

—  works,  bombardment  of,  560 
Proletarian  peasants,  259 

—  risings    in    towns    more    easily 
suppressed   than   peasant   revolts, 

567 

—  struggle,  161 

Proletariat,    absence   of,    in    Russia, 

in  eighteenth  century,  62 
Propaganda,   effect  of,   upon  strike 

movement,  449 
"  Propaganda  of  the  Deed,"  98 
Propaganda,  revolutionary,  19,  174 
Property,    as   applied   to   land,    not 

understood  in  early  Russia,  271 
Protection  and  revolution,  152 
Protective  tariff,  effect  of,  152,  364, 

381 


622     ECONOMIC    HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Protestant  revolution,  the,  6 
Protest,  the,  i66 
Proudhon,  65,  66  w.,  82,  82  n. 
Proverbs,  Russian,  109,  316 
Provisional  Government  at  Moscow 

(Dec.  1905),  557 
Provocation,  186,  188  m.,  189  n.,  565, 

566,  583  n. 
Provocators  among  the  peasants,  316 
Prussia,  13,  79  ;    Russian  campaign 

in,  40 
Pseudo-Demetrius  I,  37  w.,  51 

—  II,  37  ^' 
Pseudo-Peter  III,  36,  37 
Pskovskaya  gM&.,  condition  of  peas- 
antry in,  in  1905,  303 

Psychology  of  revolutionary  parties 
in  1905,  534 

—  of  Russian  youth,  69 
Psychological  Society,  Moscow,  3  «. 
Pugachev,     Emilian     (fifth    pseudo- 
Peter  III,  6  «.,  21-62,  302  n.y  569  n. 

—  rebellion  begins  Sep.  18,  1773,  45 

—  significance  of  the  rebellion  of, 
61 

Purchase  of  peasants  forbidden,  25 
Pushkin,  63  n. 
Putiatin,  Count,  222 
Putilovsky  Ironworks,  462  n. 

Quarterly  Review,  The,  202  «. 
Quixotism  of  some  of  the  Tsars,  16 

VON    Raben    (General-Governor    of 

Kisheniev),  209 
Rabinovitch,  Sara,  422  n.,  423  n. 
Rabochnaya  Gazeta,  145 
Rachkovsky  (Superintendent  of  Rus- 

sian  Police  Abroad),  580 
Racial  antagonisms,  244,  244  n. 

utilization  of,  505,  505  n. 

Rae,  John,  83  n.,  89  n. 

Railway  construction,  effects  of,  364, 

371,  381 

—  crisis  in  Russia  (1884),  372 

—  servants,  organization  of,  427 

—  strikes,  481 
Railways  in  Manchuria,  233 
Railway  strikes   (Oct.   1905),  choice 

of  moment,  482 

—  system,   rapid   development   of, 
377,  378,  378  n. 

raskolneke,  29,  41,  52,  61,  124  «.,  261 
Ravenstein,  E.  G.,  213  «.,  219,  223  «., 

242  rt. 
Razen,  Stenka,  24,  569  n. 


Reaction  after  assassination  of  Alex- 
ander II,  135-41 

—  incidents  of  the,  139-41 

—  of  1906,  economic  effects  of,  430 

—  of  the  peasantry  after  Emancipa- 
tion, 72 

Reactions,  565 

Red  Banner,  The,  180 

Redemption  tax,  abolition  of,  270 

reduction     and     subsequent 

abolition,  302 

Redistribution  of  peasant  lands,  273 

Regional  division  of  Russia  from  the 
point  of  view  of  agricultural  eco- 
nomics, 286 

Religious  exaltation  of  some  of  the 
Tsars,  16 

—  fanaticism,  139 
Rent,  advance  of,  334,  335 

—  boycott,  332 

—  payment  suspended  during  strike, 
492,  547 

Rents,  reduction  of,  during  disturb- 
ances of  1905-6,  329  w.,  335 

Representative  Assembly  asked  for 
by  the  Zemstvos  (1904),  458 

Repression  after  second  political 
strike,  520 

Reprisals  by  the  Government,   328, 

334 
Reserves  of  food-stuffs,  295,  295  «. 
Retrospective    claims    by   workmen, 

195 
Revision,  Marxist,  189  «.,  596 
Revolutionary  elements  in   Gapon's 

movement,  465 

—  impulses,  78 

—  movements  (1860-74),  71 ;  (1903- 
1907),  437-600 

—  Russia,  175  «.,  177,  177  «.,  179- 
182  n.,  185  W.-187  w.,  289,  473,  474, 
576,  577  w. 

—  spirit,  attempts  by  successive 
sovereigns  to  counteract  the,  12,  13 

before    the    Russo-Japanese 

War,  177-8 
causes  of  the,  68,  69,  437-41 

—  "  state  of  mind,"  19 
Revolution,  French,  4  n. 
Revolutionist  organization  of  Social 

Democrats,  164 
Revolutionization  of  the  peasant,  179 
Revolutions,   French   (1789),    (1830), 

(1848),  (1870-1),  4  n. 
Rejmsdorp  (commander  at  Orenburg, 

1773),  35,  46,  49 


INDEX 


623 


Ribinsk,  139;    exchange,  311 
Riga,  strikes  at  (1899),  170,  484 
Righting  of  the  Zemstvos,  281,  522 
Rikachov,  303 


Jews,  alleged, 
the  revolutionary 
as   Russian   resort. 


138,    172, 


296 


Ritual    murder    by 

208 
Rivalry    among 

groups,  173 
Riviera,  Italian, 

276 
Robespierre,  4  n. 
Rockefeller,  J.  D.,  380 
Rocquain,  Felix,  53 
Romanov  dynasty,  9 

—  Philaret,  9 
Romanovick,  Baron,  379 
Rose,  J.  H.,  15  n. 
Rostov-on-Don,    39,    133, 

257  W-,  443 
de  Rousiers,  Paul,  4  n. 
Rovno,  139 

ruble,  rehabilitation  of  the 
de  Rulhiere,  36  n. 
Rumyantsev,  General,  60 
Russ,  531  w. 
Russian    Social    Democratic    Party, 

Committee     of     the     Don,     443  ; 

Working  Men's   Party,   420,   490, 

491,  491  «.,  506,  537 

—  State,  revolutionary  view  of  the, 

115 

—  Timber  Co.,  237 
Russkaya  Gazetta,  531  w. 
Russkiya  Viedomosti,  299  n. 
Russkoe    Bogatstvo,    65    n.,    257    «., 

533  ♦*• 
Russo-American  Co.,  221,  221  «. 
Russo-Chinese  Bank,  232,  233 
Russo-Japanese  War,  15,  177  ;    atti- 
tude  of   soldiers   returning   from, 

331,  534 
Russo-Turkish  War,  225,  372 
Ryazan,  21 
Ryazanskaya  gub.,   grain   deficiency 

in,  291 
Rye,  land  under  crop,  283 
Rysakov  {Narodnaya  Volya),  131 

Safonov,  a.,  175  w. 

Sainte-Beuve,  80  n. 

Saint-Simon,  65,  82,  82  ft.,  88  n. 

Salt-boiling,  211 

Salt  fish  monopoly  held  by  Cossacks, 

26 
Saltikov,  M.  E.,  66  «. 
Samara,  55,  57,  138 


Samara  Gazette  (Marxist  joujrnal), 
154  n. 

—  Sanitary  Bureau  of,  403 
Samarin    (Marshal    of    the    Moscow 

Nobility),  297 

Samarskaya  gub.,  283  ;  grain  defici- 
ency in,  292 

samoderjets  (autocrat),  11 

Saratov,  57,  138,  184;  strikes  at, 
331 

Saratovskaya  gub.,  139  «.-i40 ;  re- 
volutionary propaganda  among  the 
peasants  of  (1899),  177,  275 

Saratovsky  Zemstvo,  petition  to  the 
Tsar  of,  458 

Savenkov,  582  n. 

Schau  factory,  St.  Petersburg,  sym- 
pathetic strike  at  (1879),  415 

Schedrin  (one  of  the  founders  of  the 
South  Russian  Workers'  Union, 
1880),  416 

Schlusselberg,  92  n.,  133  «. 

Schmidt,  Dr.  N.,  402,  402  n. 

Schmitt,  Lieut.,  504 

Schulze-Delitsch,  72 

Schulze-Gavemitz,  378  «.,  380,  380  h., 
395,  396  n. 

Schuysko-Ivanovsky  region,  strikes 
in,  418 

Schweitzer  (in  German  socialist 
movement),  96 

—  (Russian   Social   Revolutionist), 

578 

Sea-going  trade  between  China  and 
Russia,  227  n. 

Search,  practice  of,  366,  412  n. 

Second  political  strike,  significance  of, 
514;  sympathy  of  employers  with, 
up  to  a  certain  point,  517,  518 

Secularization  of  Church  lands,  42 

Seeley,  Sir  John,  13,  14 

Self-contained  economy  of  peasant 
life,  254 

of  pre-Emancipation  period, 

363 
transition     from,     to     com- 
mercial economy,  294 

Seluk  (socialist  revolutionary),  276 

Semenovsky  Regiment,  558,  560 

Semevsky,  V.  E.,  14,  63  w.,  65  «.,  66  «. 

Semyavkovsky  foundry,  threat  to 
close  the  works,  518 

Senkievich,  H.,  22  n. 

Sen  Otechestva,  526,  526  «.,  531  n. 

Sensitiveness  of  autocracy  to  Western 
opinion,  467 


624     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF   RUSSIA 


Separations  from  family  groups,  266  ; 
causes  of,  267 ;  administrative 
discouragement  of,  268 ;  regula- 
tion of  (April  1889  and  April  1894), 
269 ;  vacillation  of  Government 
in  regard  to,  269 ;  impetus  to, 
through  abolition  of  redemption 
tax,  270 ;  Act,  329  ;  attitude  to- 
wards, during  disturbances,  1905- 
1906,  329,  330,  341,  341  n. ;  en- 
couragement by  ukase  of  Nov.  9, 
1906,  342 

Sergei  Passad,  403 

Sergey,  Grand  Duke,  192,  192  «.,  575, 

578,  581 
Serpukhov,  391  ;  strike  (1875),  414 
Servility  of  Cossacks,  32 
Sevastopol,   15  w.,   139  ;    mutiny  of 

sailors  at  (Oct.  1905),  504  ;    flight 

of  inhabitants  (Oct.  1905),  505 
Seven  Years'  War,  40 
Shakhovsky,  Prince  N.,  403 
Shan  Ahn  range,  215 
Shanghai,  221 
Shanhaikwan,  226 
Shantung,  234 
Sheep-raising,  284 
Shegaev  (Cossack  accomplice  of  Puga- 

chev),  33 
Sheglovitov,  582 
Shestakov,  P.  M.,  405  n. 
Shidlovsky  committee,  477 
Shaevich,  "  Dr."  (agent  of  Zubdtov, 

q.v.),  202,  203,  446 
Shilkinsk,  220 
Shimoneseki,  Treaty  of,  231 
Shipping     documents     delayed     by 

strikes  (1905),  485 
Shisinski,  349  w, 
Shobeltsin,  215 
Shoguns  of  Japan,  8,  256 
Shun-chi  (Manchu  Emperor  of  China), 

213 
Shuvalov,  Count  P.  A.,  107 

—  Count  P.  (Governor  of  Moscow, 
June  1905),  186 

Siberia,  28,  54,  172;  escapes  from, 
179 ;  banishments  to,  181,  212, 
223,  577 

—  Eastern,  92 

Siberian  Railway  Commission,  226 

first  project  of  (1850),  225 

foreseen  by  Count  Muraviev- 

Amursky,  225 

Sedelitskaya  gub.,  430 

Siemens-Martin  steel  process,  382  n. 


Significance  of  Moscow  "  armed  up- 
rising," 536-7,  563 

—  of  St.  Petersburg  strike  move- 
ment, 527  et  seq. 

Silk  cocoons,  trade  in  wild,  227  «. 

—  trade,  227 

Simbirskaya  gub.,  factories  in,  369 
sales  of  peasant  land  in,  343 

Simferopol,  257  n. 

Simkhovich,  V.,  83  w.,  94 

Simonovsky,  A.,  522  n.,  523  «.,  525, 
525  w.,  526 

Sinister    rumours    of    governmental 
policy  in  1905,  494  n. 

Sino-Japanese  War   (1895),   inevita- 
bility of,  230 

Sipiaghin  (Minister  of  Interior),  184, 
199  w.,  575 

Skhod,  the,  315 

Skobelov,  General,  135  n. 

Skrine,  F.  H.,  64,  64  n. 

Slag  from  iron  furnaces  for  fertiliza- 
tion, 284 

Slavophilism,  65,  67,  77,  270 

Smith,  A.  H.,  4  n. 

sobori,  8 

Social  cleavage  in  Europe,  86 

—  democracy,  84,  99 

—  democratic  groups,  local  organi- 
zation of,  148 

movement  in  Russia,  142-73 

organization    at    Ekaterino- 

slav,  576 

Party  of  the  West,  415 

political  party,  socialist  ob- 
jections to  the  formation  of,  159 
Working  Men's  Party,  Rus- 
sian, 161,  363,  487,  506,  537,  562, 
568,  595,  599 ;  bolsheveke  (or 
majority  faction),  541-3 ;  men- 
sheveke  (or  minority  faction),  490 

—  democrats,  94,  449 

and   the    labour    movement, 

419-21 
at  Gapon's  meetings,  458-60 

—  disintegration  in  Russia,  103 
Socialism,  influence  of  Western  Euro- 
pean, 77 

—  of  1830  and  of  1848,  82 
Socialist  Congress  in  London  (1896), 

177  n. 

—  conscience,  the,  181 

—  ideas  among  the  working  people, 

479 

in  Russia,  growth  of,   589  ; 

causes  of  growth,  590 


INDEX 


625 


36  n. 


Scxiialist  Revolutionaries,  Congress  of, 
177 

Northern  Union  of,  576 

Union  of  Russian,  576 

—  Revolutionary      Central      Com- 
mittee, 114  w. 

movement,  174-87 

Party,     133    «.,     490,    491, 

491  «.,  506,  562,  562  «.,  569,  575, 
595  ;   Central  Committee  of,  572 

—  Revolutionists   and   the   Gapon 
movement,  459,  460 

Society  of  Brotherly  Help,  405 

—  for  Night  Refuge  Homes  in  St. 
Petersburg,  405 

—  of  Mutual  Assistance  of  Workers 
in  the  Mechanical  Industries,  192 

Sofyevsk  (Lower  Amur),  222 
soldatki,  267  n. 
Soloviev,     attempt     to 
Alexander  II  by,  123 

—  C.  M.,  21  n.,  22,  23  n.,  24  n. 

—  V.  C,  594 
Solovietsky  Monastery,  220,  403 
Sombart,  189  «. 

Sophia  Palaeologus,  8 

Sorel,  Georges,  4  w. 

South  African  War,  58,  169 

Southern  Ussuri  Railway  (Manchuria), 

233 

South  Russian  Workers'  Union,  416 

Sovremennik  ("  The  Contemporary  "), 
172  n. 

Sozonov,  578,  578  n. 

Spasmodic  energy  of  Russian  pro- 
prietors, 277  n. 

Spassky  district,  effect  of  propaganda 
in,  323 

Spence,  W.,  301  n. 

Spontaneous  character  of  peasant 
movement  in  1905,  313-4 

"  Spring"  of  Prince  Svyatopolk-Mir- 
sky,  the,  453,  458,  460,  461 

Spy,  role  of  the  "  perfect,"  575 

—  system,  574 

St.  Petersburg,  28  ;  City  Duma,  485  ; 
arrests  of  workmen  in  (1895- 1900), 
169 

—  Council  of   Working  Men's   De- 
puties, 487,  509,  515,  527 

—  housing  conditions  in,  397 

—  Metal    Manufacturers,    Associa- 
tion of,  430 

—  police  trade  unions  in,  201 

—  Shipowners'  Association  of,  430 

—  strikes  at,  414,  420 
VOL.  II 


St.  Petersburg  Tobacco  Manufac- 
turers' Association,  430 

—  Union  for  the  Struggle  for  the 
Emancipation  of  the  Working 
Class,  420 

stachka  e  zabastovka   (agreement  to 

strike),  319  n. 
Stammhammer,  83  n. 
Stanovoi  Mountains,  212,  217 
Starving  out  the  landowners,  331 
Stasyulevich,  136 
State  and  Church,  Tsar  head  of  both, 

12 

—  attitude  of  the  St.  Petersburg 
Council  of  Working  Men's  Deputies 
towards,  515 

—  Bank  of  Russia,  139 

—  collectivism,  81  n. 

reasons  for  opposition  to,  100 

—  control  of  production,  147 

—  Council  and  factory  system,  416 

—  lands  thrown  open  to  peasants, 

347 
of  the  Treasury,  343 

—  ownership  in  Russia,  152 

—  railways,  mutual  benefit  societies 
in,  428 

—  Savings  Banks,  302 
Statistics  of  persons  employed,  386 
Steam  tugs  on  canals  tried  and  aban- 
doned, 311 

Stein,  13,  14,  63  «. 

Stepankova  village,  example  of  un- 
divided family,  264 

Stepanov  (commander  Manchurian 
expedition,  1660),  214 

Stepniak  (S.  Kravchensky),  71,  106, 
108  «.,  no,  no  «.,  112  «.,  113  n., 
123,  125,  271  w.,  272 

Stolypin,  329,  348,  499,  500.  576  n., 
577  n.,  579,  581  «.,  582,  582  w.,  583 

Strakhovitsky  Co.,  housing  plan  of, 

403 
Strassnaya  Place,  Moscow,  554 
Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  15 
Strauss,  F.,  80  n. 
Street  fighting,  535 
Stretinsk,  227 
Strike  at  Putilovsky  Mills,  461 

—  at  Goujon's  factory,  Moscow, 
organized  by  the  police,  196 

—  bronze- workers  ,  at  Paris  (1864), 
90 

—  law  of  April  15,  1906,  328,  480 

—  legislation,  328,  480 

—  movement  of  May  1896,  420 

2R 


626     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 


Strike  movement  of  1903,  444 
of  1905,  475 

—  of  ballet-girls,  492 

—  of  Government  officials,  492 

—  of    tailors     in     St.     Petersburg 
(1870),  412 

—  of  telegraph  clerks,  484 

—  of  textile  workers,  general,  421 

—  general,  the,  187 

arguments  for  the,  491 

aspect  of  cities  during  the, 

443 
causes  of  the  failure  of  the, 

514 

of  1903  in  South  Russia,  443 

of  October  1905,  481, 497,  509 

of  November  1905,  509 

of  December  1905,  542,  545 

inconsistent     contemporary 

interpretations  of  the,  551 

—  treasuries,  423 

Strikes,  154,  167,  483  ;  among  the 
peasants,  321,  357  ;  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, 420,  489,  511  ;  at  Warsaw, 
414  ;  between  1870  and  1878,  414  ; 
between  1882  and  1885,  417  ;  in 
1884,  1885,  1888,  and  1896,  489  ; 
decline  of  belief  in  {1899),  175-6  ; 
in  foreign  factories,  effects  of, 
365  n. ;  law  of,  408 ;  of  scholars 
in  schools,  483 ;  predominantly 
economical  before  revolutionary 
years,  155  ;  punishment  for,  411  ; 
statistics  of  (1895-7),  ^55  ;  (1895- 
1904),  168  n. ;  two  types  of,  in 
Saratov,  331 

"  Strikism,"  175 

Strogonovs,  211 

"  Stronger  guard,"  548  n. 

Struggle  between  capital  and  labour, 
156 

Socialistic  Revolutionaries  and 

Social  Democrats,  180 

StruvS,  Peter,  153, 153  w.,  156  n.,  162, 
208  n.,  593  n. 

Students  and  the  labour  movement, 
171 

—  and  the  Social  Democratic  move- 
ment, 171 

—  in  the  revolutionary  movements, 

133 

—  movement  for  the  "  guarantee  of 
personality,"  176 

—  Russian,  in  Switzerland,  145 
Stumm,  380 

Stundists,  139  n. 


Sturmer,  349  n. 

"  Subjectivism,"  154 

Succession,  influences  of  changes  in, 

24/25 
Sudeikin  (Chief  of  Police),  132,  132  «., 

133  w.,  573,  573  w. 
Sugar  beet  cultivation,  283 

—  crisis  at  Kiev  (Dec.  1899),  375 
Suicide,  epidemic  of,  136,  139,  175 
Suld,  falls  of,  22 

Sultan  of  Turkey,  21 

Summer  Palace  near  Pekin,  221 

—  Theatre,  Moscow,  549,  552 
Sungari  River,  215,  217,  222 
Sung  dynasties,  215 
Superstition    among    the    peasants 

during  disorders,  mg-nifestations  of, 
327,  328 
Svyatlovsky,  V.  V.,  112  ».,   137  «., 

139  ».,  190  «.,  194  M.,  196  M.-20I  «., 

400  ».-4o6  n.,  409  «.,  414  «.,  41^  n., 

419  n.,  421  M.-428  «.,  454  n.-46o  w., 

462  «.,  464  n.,  473  n. 
Svyatopolk-Mirsky,  Prince,  453,  466 
Svohodny  Narod,  531  «. 
Svyet,  524 
Swatow,  221 
Sweden,  22,  47,  240 
Swedes,  10 

Switzerland,  13,  14,  S3,  142 
Syech  (on  the  Dnieper),  22  ;     in  the 

Ural  Mountains  (1907),  571 
Symbolism,  Old  Believers  and,  41 
Sympathetic  strikes  (1879),  415 
Syndicate  movement  in  Russia,  429 

Table,  fondness  for  the  pleasures  of 

the,  280  M. 
Taiping  rebellion,  224 
Taine,  H.,  53  n. 
Tait-Mackenzie,  R.,  231  n. 
Taku  Forts,  221 
Tallien,  4  n. 
Tally  sticks,  259 
Tambov,    revolutionary   propaganda 

among  the  peasants  (1899),   177  ; 

effect  of  manifesto  of  Oct.  17, 1905, 

323 
Taras  Bulba,  125 
Tariff  and  prices,  385 
Tarr,  K.  M.,  420  «. 
Tartar  language,  446 
Tartars,  10,  21,  47,  140 
Tatishev,  23 
Tatisheva  (fortress  on  the  Volga),  46, 

55 


i 


ii 


INDEX 


627 


Tax  boycott,  308,  308  «.,  309  w. 
Tchaikovsky  circle,  126  n. 

—  Nicholas,  75,  75  «.,  76 
Tea,  brick,  241 

—  caravan,  241 

Teachers,  influence  of,  in  peasant 
movements,  315 

Tea  trade,  227 

Technological  Institute,  St.  Peters- 
burg, 492 

Telegraph  clerks,  strike  of,  484 

Temonov,  219  «. 

Terror,  a  new,  182 

Terroristic  activities  of  labour  union 
at  Kiev  {1881),  416 

Terrorism,  3,  4  n, 

Teurki  group  of  languages,  21  «. 

Theft  among  the  peasantry,  261 

Third  general  political  strike  (Dec.  9- 
19,  1905),  534-67 

Theodora  (wife  of  the  Emperor  Jus- 
tinian), 73  n. 

Thomas  steel  process,  382  n, 

Thompson,  Wm.,  81  w. 

Thornton  mills  on  the  Neva,  380 

Tientsin,  221 

—  disputes  about  railway  material 
at,  237  n. 

—  Russo-Chinese  Treaty  of  (1858), 
222 

Tiflis,  171,  247  n. ;  demonstrations 
at,  445  ;  punishment  of  strikers 
at,  447 

Tigranov,  426  n.,  427  n. 

Tikhomirov,  123,  133  n. 

Timber  cutting,  illegal,  306,  317,  318  ; 
object  of,  308 

Times,  The,  235 

Tin  works,  57 

Tobacco  cultivation,  283,  284 

Tobolsk,  28, 48 ;  founding  of,  212, 224 

de  Tocqueville,  100  n. 

Toil  Group  in  the  Duma,  577  n. 

Tokorov,  443 

Tokyo,  8 

Tolain,  87 

Tolcke,  96 

Tolstoy,  Count  Dmitri,  130,  136  n., 

4",  573 
Ixo  N.,  63  ;    excommunica- 
tion of,  172,  270,  451  n. 

Tomsk,  founding  of,  212,  576 

Tooke,  36,  42 

Tornea,  240 

Torture  of  horse  thieves  by  peasants, 
3«. 


Trade,  depression  of  (1899-1900),  374 

—  unionism  in  Moscow  organised  by 
police,  188-206 

—  unions,  112,  113,  113  n. 
Tramway  strike  in   St.   Petersburg, 

497 
Trans-Baikalia,  228 
Transcaspia,  241 
Trans-Siberian  Railway,  226 
von  Traubenburg,  Major  (commander 

of  troops  on  the  Yaek  River  (1773), 

32,  33,  34 
"  Treasuries "    (funds   for   union   of 

working  men),  149 
Treasury  works  in  Poland,  402 

in  the  Urals,  409 

Treaty,  attempt  to  conclude  a  secret 

Russo-Chinese,  236 

—  Russo-Chinese  (Aigun,  May  28, 
1858),  221,  223 

(Tientsin,  June  13,  1858),  222 

(Nov.  14,  i860),  223 

—  Shimoneseki  (April  17,  1895),  231 
Tregubov,  Ivan,  451  n. 

Trepov  (General  Chief  of  Police,  St. 
Petersburg,  1878),  107,  117,  117  w. 

—  (Chief  of  Police,  St.  Petersburg), 
467,  491,  497,  498,  578 

"  Troglodytes,"  124  «. 
Troops  sent  to  quell  strikers,  447 
Trubetskoy,  Prince,  28 
Truck  prohibited,  411 
Trust  movement  in  Russia,  429 
Tsaritsin,  39,  43 

Tsar,  attitude  of  the  people  towards 
the,  455,  458 

—  origin  of  the  expression,  11 
Tsarship,  conditions  of  the,  9 
Tsarskoe   Selo   and   St.    Petersburg, 

communication  interrupted  during 

strike  (Oct.  1905),  484 
visit  of  loyal  working  men  to, 

467 
Tschegolyev,  P.  E.,  63  ». 
Tscherbatov,  Prince,  57,  59 
Tsitsikar,  218 
Tsyan-chzu,  216 
Tugan-Baranovsky,   153  «.,  369  n- 

374  «•,  378  w-387  >»•,  389  «•,  394  «•, 
395  n.,  408  «.,  410,  412  n.,  585  n., 
587,  595  n. 
Turgueniev,  N.  E.,  63  «. 

—  I.  S.,  69,  69  n.,  74  w.,  271 
Turkey,  29,  40,  42,  47,  56,  60 
Tulskaya   gub.,  grain   deficiency  in, 

291 


628     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 


Tun,  A.,  125  «.,  126  n.,  128  «.,  132  w., 

133  w. 
Tungus,  212,  215,  215  n. 
Tungusic  Emperors  of  China,  215 
Turkestan,  224  ;   irrigation  in,  287  «. 
Tver  Dragoons,  549  n. 
Tverskaya,    Moscow,    during   strike, 

appearance  of,  548 
tyaglo  promishlenneke,  310 
Tyerskaya  oblast,  130  n. 

Udeli,  365 
Udelni  lands,  343 
Ufa,  57,  211 

Uglich  (deserted  town),  256  n. 
ujen,  260 

Ukase  of  Dec.  1765  (Cossack  affairs), 
28 

—  of  Dec.  7,  1770  (Cossack  affairs), 
30  w. 

—  of  Aug.  26,  1866   (sanitation  in 
factories),  408 

—  of  Nov.  9,  1906  (new  land  law), 
340,  346 

Ukases,  false,  25,  25  n. 

—  inaccurate  copies  of,  31 
Ukhtomsky,  Prince,  226 
Ukraine,  245 

Ular,  A.,  242  n. 

Unanimity,  10 ;    peasant  conception 

of,  272-3 
Undivided  family,  see  joint-family. 
Unemployment    in    St.    Petersburg 

(1880-1),  373 
"  Union  for  Struggle  "  (Moscow),  149 

—  for  the  Defence  of  the  Liberty  of 
the  Press,"  532 

—  for  the  Liberation  of  the  Work- 
ing Classes,"  148 

—  of  Clerks,  429 

—  of  Engineers,  496 

—  of    Russian    Social    Democrats 
Abroad,  164 

—  —    Socialist      Revolutionaries, 
177  n.,  576 

—  of  St.  Petersburg  Workers,  419 

—  of  the  Russian  People,  297,  499, 
500  «.,  502  n. 

"  Unions  for  Struggle,"  158,  161 
Unique  will  of  the  Tsar,  1 1 
United  States,  13,  100,  286  «.,  295  n. 
Unity,  principle  of,  10-14 
Universal  German  Workers'  Associa- 
tion, 96 

—  Jewish  Labour  Union  in  Russia 
and  Poland,  202 


Universal  suffrage,  demand  for,  179 
Universities  and  agricultural  statis- 
tics, 287 

—  revolutionary  spirit  in  the,  72 
University  of  Moscow,  demonstration 

at  (Feb.  1902),  172 
Unreadiness  of  masses  for  revolution, 

587 
Ural  Mountains,  54,  211 

—  River,  26,  46 
Urbanization,  encouragement  of,  by 

Russian  Government,  350 

Urban  proletariat  begins  to  manifest 
itself  in  1891,  364 
growth  of,  impeded  by  prac- 
tice of  periodical  return  to  villages, 
362,  363 

Urga,  220 

Urka  River,  212 

Urusov,    Prince    S.    D.,   278-80     «., 
281  w.,  500,  501 

Ushkuneke  in  old  Novgorod,  571  n. 

Usmansky  district,  330 

Usovka  (Hughesville),  strike  at  (1875), 
414 

Uspensky,  270,  271  n. 

Ussuri  River,  222,  227 

Utopism,  142,  154 

Vaisov  (leader  of  Old  Mohammedan 

movement,  1885),  139  n. 
Valnev  (Chairman  of  Commission  on 

factory  legislation),  409 
Varb,  E.,  403  n. 
Varshavenka,  495 
Varzar,  V.  E.,  155  w.,  168  «.,  386  «., 

475  n.,  386  «.,  477  n. 
Vasilchikov,  Prince,  271 «.,  348,  348n. 
(Commander-in-chief   of   the 

Corps  of  the  Guard),  462 
Vasilyev   (Zub^tov's   confederate   at 

Minsk),  202 
Vasilyevsky  Ostrov,  457 
Vechnaya  Pamat,  495 
Veregin,  P.,  271 
Vestnik  Evropy,  479  n. 
Vicarious  strikes,  512,  512  n. 
Vienna,  revolutionary  movement  in 

(1848),  83 
Vilna,  Union  for  Struggle  at,  149 
Vitebsk,  conference  of  employers  at, 

431 
Vitebskaya  gub.,  259,  262 
V  jertvou  pali  (the  funeral  march  of 

the  proletariat),  495,  555 
Vladikavkas  Railway,  443 


INDEX 


629 


227, 


Vladimir,  Grand  Duke,  462 

—  Metropolitan,  201 
Vladivostok,  223,  225,  226  n. 

227  ♦».,  234 
Vladivostok- Khabarovka      Railway, 

227 
Vladislav,  son  of  Sigismund  of  Poland, 

9 
V  Narod  movement,  75,  75  «.,  76, 

102-4,  598 
vodka,  260 

de  Vogue,  Vicomte  E.  M.,  63  n. 
Voiloshnikov,  Chief  of  Moscow  Secret 

Police,  shot  (Dec.  1905),  558 
Volga  River,  47 

disturbances  on  {1773-5),  26 

fisheries  of,  402 

great  bridge  over,  225 

peasant  rising  on,  planned  in 

1863,  73 
Volkonsky,  Prince,  117,  117  n. 
Volynskaya  gub.,  139 
Voronej,  36,  57,  138,  370 

—  meeting  at,  123,  127  n. 
Voronej skaya  gub.,  grain  deficiency 

in,  292 
Vorontsevs,  37 

Votchinal  ownership,  340,  598 
Voznesensk,  factorv  strikes  at  (1883), 

417 
V.    V.    (Vasili    Vorontsev),    67    »., 

386 
Vyazemsky,  Prince,  43,  49 
Vyekhe,  593,  593  w.,  594 
Vyshnegradsky  (Minister  of  Finance), 

412 

Wages  (1907-8),  351,  389-96 

—  advance  of,  during  disturbances 
(1905-6),  329  n. 

—  in  Manchuria,  239 

—  paid  during  political  strike,  518 

—  revolutionary  scale  of,  319,  320 
Waliszewski,  6  n. 

Wallace,  Sir  D.  M.,  348  n.,  350  n. 
Warning    to    Social    Democrats    by 

working  girl,  542 
Warsaw,     arrests    of    workmen     in 

(1895-1900),  169 

—  Association    of    Manufacturers, 
431 

—  grievances  of  workmen  at,  197, 
198,  198  «. 

—  large  factories  in,  409 

—  master  tanners  and  shoemakers 
of,  430 


Warsaw,  sedition  among  troops   in 
(Nov.  1905),  505 

—  strikes  at  (1870),  414 
Warsaw-Bromberg  Railway,  427 
Warsaw-Vienna  Railway,  427 
Water-supply  during  strike,  484 
Weale,  B.  L.  P.,  232  «.,  233  n.,  238  n. 
Weavers,  Union  of  (Moscow),  200,  201 
Webb,  Sidney  and  Beatrice,  462  u. 

"  Welfare  Union,  The,"  64 
Wheat   fields,    consequences   of   de- 
velopment of  American,  85 

—  land  under  crop,  283 
White  Sea,  220 
Windawa,  485 

Wine  duties  collected  by  Cossacks,  26 
Winter  Palace,  461,  495 

explosion  at,  127-9 

Wirth,  Max,  371  n. 

von  Witt§,  Count,  152  «.,  191  «.,  204, 

226  «.,  237,  269,^452  «."464,  487, 

487  ♦»•,  497,  497  »•,  498,  512,  513, 

513  «.,  518 
Wolff,    Major    (Mazzini's   secretary), 

87,88 
Women  in  Gapon's  movement,  460 
Woollen  manufacture,  370 
Working    class,    idealization    of,    in 

1896,  159 
Working  Men's  Association  (1838),  81 

Union  (Moscow),  148 

Workmen's  settlements,  405 

Yaek  Cossacks,  42,  48 

—  River,  disturbances  on  (1762-75), 
26,35 

—  town  of,  28,  42,  45,  55 
Yakutsk,  founding  of,  212,  213 
Yalu  River,  237 
Yangtse-Kiang,  241 
Yaroslav  Railway,  544 

"  Year  of  Liberties,  The,"  468 
Yegorov,  Nikolai,  504  n. 
Yellow  Peril,  230 
Yeniseisk,  founding  of,  212 
Yermak,  212 
Yermolov,  269 

Youthfulness  of  the  leaders  in  1905, 
324,  331 

Zailush  slopes  (Central  Asia),  coloni- 
zation of,  224 
Zapadneke,  67 
Zaporojians,  22,  22  n. 
Zaslavsky,  416 
Zasulich,  Vera,  107,  108,  142 


630     ECONOMIC   HISTORY   OF    RUSSIA 


Zemlya  e  Volya,  73,  74,  112,  127  «., 

177,  184 
Zemskiye  Nachalneke,  258,  297,  300, 

301 
Zemsky  Sohor,  9,  9  «.,  10 
Zemstvo  petitions,  458 
Zemstvos,  586 

—  and  agricultural  education,  287 

—  and  peasant  agitation,  305 
Zemstvo  sentences  in  1905,  296 

—  statistics,  67 
Ziranes,  257  n.,  273  n. 
Zlatopolsky,  132 

Zlatoust,  Siberia,  strikes  at  (1903),  186 


Zlatovratsky,  270 

Znamya  Truda,  577  n. 

Zolotarev,  Deputy  Prosecutor  (Mos- 
cow), 561 

Zolotova,  443 

Zubatov,  S.  v.,  157  n.,  188,  188  «., 
189  «.,  190-206,  446,  452,  452  «., 
453,  455  «•,  461,  499,  565  «•, 
574 

Zubatovshina,  188-206,  451,  565 

Zundel,  Emil,  chintz-printing  factory, 
housing  plan  of,  405,  405  n. 

Zurich,  loi,  142 

Zvesdin,  V.,  531 


Printed  by  Ballantyne,  Hanson  &*  Co. 
at  Paul's  Work,  Edinburgh 


^4 


bind:: 


OCT  5  1970 


HC 
333 
M3 
V.2 


Mavor,  James 

An  economic  history  of 
Russia 


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