Social Democracy and St. Petersburg Labor Movement, 1885-1897

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SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND THE

ST. PETERSBURG LABOR MOVEMENT 1885-1897 RICHARD PIPES

RUSSIAN RESEARCH CENTER STUDIES,

46

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND THE ST .

PETERSBURG

LABOR MOVEMENT,

1885-1897

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND THE ST. PETERSBURG LABOR MOVEMENT, 1885-1897

RICHARD PIPES

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS • 1 9 6 3

© Copyright 1963 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London The Russian Research Center of Harvard University is supported by grants from the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The Center carries out interdisciplinary study of Russian institutions and behavior and related subjects. This volume was prepared in part under a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. That Corporation is not, however, the author, owner, publisher, or pro­ prietor of the publication and is not to be understood as approving by virtue of its grant any of the statements made or views expressed therein. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-9561 Printed in the United States of America

TO MARCELL AND MARIA ROTH

PREFACE

THis STUDY deals with two problems each of which has historical as well as historiographic implications: the broad problem of the relation between Russian labor and Russian Social Democracy and the narrower one of Lenin's early experience with the labor movement. That both problems are of great importance in modem Russian history requires little demonstration. It is generally recognized that Bolshevism came into existence in 1902, when in What Is To Be Done? Lenin decided that "the workers were unable to develop a Social Democratic consciousness," that this "consciousness could be brought to them only from the outside," and that ieft to their own devices they could produce merely a trade union consciousness." From these premises Lenin deduced the necessity of forming a centralized party, controlled by professional revolutionaries, and from this deduc­ tion, in turn, he evolved the main tenets of Bolshevik theory and practice. What experience led Lenin to make these asser­ tions, so contrary to the whole tradition not only of Westem but also of Russian Social Democracy? At the beginning of What Is To Be Done? Lenin himself provides an important clue when he recalls the experiences of his St. Petersburg period and, in particular, the strike movement connected with the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. Indeed, it is here that one must seek the sources of some of Lenin's fundamental ideas. A study of his relations with labor during his three-and-a-half-year stay in St. Petersburg ( 1893-18g7) thus provides something in the nature of an his-

PREFACE

torical introduction to What Is To Be Done? and the origins of Bolshevism. Such a study presents peculiar historiographic difficulties. Immediately after Lenin's death, the Communist Party under­ took a systematic effort to magnify retrospectively all of Lenin's achievements, especially those of the St. Petersburg period since it coincided with the birth of the Russian Social Demo­ cratic Party. By minimizing or altogether ignoring the achieve­ ments of his colleagues and competitors, by eliminating or suppressing evidence that might diminish his own attainments, by taking events out of their historical context, the party­ controlled historical profession in the Soviet Union has suc­ ceeded in distorting virtually beyond resemblance facts bear­ ing on the young Lenin. He appears in the end as no less than the originator of Social Democracy in Russia, the principal inspirer of the St. Petersburg labor movement, and the founder and leader of an organization from which later emerged the Russian Social Democratic Party. That every one of these asser­ tions is wrong will be shown, I hope, in the pages which follow. One of the purposes of this book is to restore to the record of individual achievement something of its true balance and, to Lenin, the human proportions of which four decades of organ­ ized adulation have left almost nothing. Behind the problem of Lenin's personal role and attainment there lurks a broad social topic, the emergence of Russian labor in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. The more spectacular actions of revolutionaries from the intelli­ gentsia, and the more destructive ones of the peasantry, have tended to obscure a fact of great significance for the history of modem Russia: that following the emancipation of seds, and particularly after 1885, Russian industrial labor developed rapidly into a distinct social class and that this class soon produced a small but vigorous and highly independent body viii

PREFACE of leaders. The more attentively one studies the record of the relations·between Social Democratic intellectuals and the labor elite, the more impressed one is with labor's dynamism and seH-reliance. This topic also has its historiographic implications. For, in line with Lenin's views and its own political requirements, Soviet historical scholarship has been soft-pedaling the evolu­ tion of Russian labor under the old regime, while at the same time greatly exaggerating the role of the intelligentsia in organizing the workers and stimulating strike activity. Soviet historians ( and who else would be concerned with such matters?) depict Russian labor of the 1880s and 1890s invari­ ably as fused with and led by the Social Democratic intelli­ gentsia. An impartial analysis of the data, however, reveals quite a different picture. It shows that the two movements developed independently of one another; that the Social Demo­ crats shared whatever influence they enjoyed over labor with the adherents of the People's Will; and that, far from directing labor, they were as often as not directed by it. To prove these assertions, one must present an extraordinary quantity of factual detail. The distortion of the relation to the labor movement of Social Democracy in general and of Lenin in particular rests in large measure on a tampering with his­ torical evidence. Before any conclusions can be drawn, it is necessary to present, as fully as the sources allow, the whole picture. This requires a close study of the biographies of the leading personalities, chronological accounts of certain crucial events, sometimes day by day, careful collation of various editions of works by the same authors as well as of descriptions of the same happenings by different writers. Only by this laborious and often tedious procedure is it possible to recon­ struct the general outline of the events with which this book deals. Such a presentation, unfortunately, demands of the ix

PREFACE

reader a more than ordinary degree of attention at every stage of the narrative. In writing this account I have relied most heavily on memoir literature, attaching particular value to works published before 1924, the year of Lenin's death. I have endeavored to avoid overcompensating for the misconceptions I am trying to cor­ rect. In particular, I did not wish, in my effort to do justice to labor and the Narodovoltsy, to underestimate the Social Democratic intelligentsia. If, perhaps, I did not always succeed in this, at least part of the blame must rest on those Soviet authorities who, by refusing foreign scholars access to the pertinent archives, make it hazardous to determine when their claims are just and when they are not. The choice of St. Petersburg as the subject of inquiry has two justifications. First, St. Petersburg was both the educa­ tional capital of the country and the locale of its most advanced industries ( metallurgical, shipbuilding, textile). As such it attracted the cream of Social Democratic youth and, by the mid-189os, had become the most active center of Social Demo­ cratic and labor movements in Russia. In the second place, the future leaders of Menshevism ( Martov, Dan, Potresov, and several others), as well as Lenin, received their first training in labor organization in St. Petersburg. The dates 1885-18g7 which delineate the chronological limits of this book are in one sense arbitrary and unsatisfactory. The roots of the labor movement reach back at least to the 1870s, while the Social Democratic activity among St. Peters­ burg labor derives directly from the Populist movement. On the other hand, by ending the narrative with 1897, one ex­ cludes all those developments of labor and Social Democracy which logically ensued from the events of 1885-1897, par­ ticularly the crystallization of Economism and Bolshevism. Yet, apart from the fact that to have treated the whole story from X

PREFACE the 1870s to 1917 would have called for a book of different dimensions, there are some valid reasons for restricting the narrative to the one decade. The year 1885 is the first one for which we have concrete information on independent labor circles as well as on the circle of Tochisky, the first organization of intellectuals in St. Petersburg dedicated exclusively to propaganda among workers. The terminal date, 18g7, is the year when the labor movement achieved its first great success, the introduction of an eleven-and-a-half-hour working day, and when the Social Democratic movement began to split into "economic" and "political" currents. The period 1885-1897 thus holds the key to some of the most important influences on the history of Russian Social Democracy and its relation to labor. I am especially indebted to Mr. Boris Nikolaevsky for help­ ing me locate some rare source materials and for placing generously at my disposal his incomparable knowledge of the events and bibliography of the subject with which this book deals. Professors Leonard Schapiro and Leopold Haimson have also given me the benefit of their valuable critical comments. It must be emphasized, however, that on a number of impor­ tant issues raised in this book their views differ substantially from mine. Thus, while they deserve much credit for whatever virtues the book possesses, they are responsible for none of its shortcomings. I am also much obliged to the Russian Research Center and its director, Professor Merle Fainsod, for their magnanimous support. Mrs. Alan Lebowitz deserves thanks for superb editorial work. The present book is a byproduct of my study of Peter Struve, whose early relations with Lenin led me to investigate the entire story of the St. Petersburg Social Democratic and labor movements of that time. Chesham, New Hampshire Summer 19 61

Richard Pipes xi

CONTENTS

1

LABOR AND INTELLIGENTSIA:

1885-1889

THE EARLY PHASE,

2

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS,

1889-189.z

s

THE CIRCLE OF RADCHENKO

4

THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS

AND THE ARRIVAL OF LENIN,

1894-95

CONVERT TO AGITATION,

5

THE FOUNDING OF THE UNION OF STRUGGLE,

6

THE GREAT STRIKE OF

189.z-1894

1895

22 40 57 76

1896

AND THE EMERGENCE OF ECONOMISM

7

1

117

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX 1: Editorial from

99

Rabochaia mysf

129

APPENDIX 11: Biographical Sketches

133

BIBLIOGRAPHY

143

INDEX

151

ILLUSTRATIONS FOLLOWING P. 64

Vassily Shelgunov. From R. A. Kazakevich, Sotsial-demokraticheskie organizatsii Peterburga (Leningrad, 1960). Paul Tochisky. From Kazakevich, Sotsial-demokraticheskie organi­ zatsii.

Fedor Afanasev. From Kazakevich, zatsii.

Sotsial-demokraticheskie organi­

Konstantin Takhtarev. From Al,'bom po istorii VK.P(b) (Moscow, 1928). St. Petersburg labor leaders (photographed in 1917 or 1918). From V. Nevsky, Ocherki po istorii Rossiiskoi kommunisticheskoi partii, I (2nd ed., Moscow, 1925). Michael Brusnev. From Al'bom po istorii VKP(b). Stepan Radchenko. From D. G. Kutsentov, Deiateli Peterburgskogo "Soiuza bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa" (Leningrad, 1962). Leonid Krasin. From M. N. Liadov and S. M. Pozner, eds., Leonid Borisovich Krasin ("Nikitich"): Cody podpol'ia (Moscow-Lenin­ grad, 1928). Michael Silvio. From Kutsentov, Deiateli. Several members of the St. Petersburg Social Democratic stariki (1897). From Tsentral'nyi Muzei V. I. Lenina, Lenin (Moscow, 1961).

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND THE ST. PETERSBURG LABOR MOVEMENT, 1885-1897

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

BK -Bor'ba klassoo IA -Istoricheskii arkhio IP -Istoriia proletariata SSSR IZh-Istoricheskii zhumal KA -Krasnyi arkhio KL -Krasnaia letopis'

KN -Krasnaia noo'

KS -Katorga i ssylka LM-Letopisi · Marksizma MG-Minuvshie gody PR -Proletarskaia reooliutsiia RR -Russian Review SB -Staryi Bol'sheoik SR -Slavonic Review VI -Voprosy istoril

CHAPTER

ONE

L AB O R A N D I N T E L L IG E N T S I A THE EARLY PHASE (1 8 8 5-1 8 8 9 )

THE EMERGENCE of labor as a social force occurred in Russia with great rapidity after 1861, as a result of the emancipation of serfs and the subsequent industrial expansion. Until that time the working force of the industrial establishments and mines consisted mostly of seds, employed directly by their owners, or of semifree peasants paying the quit-rent ( obrok), who hired themselves out to factories and fulfilled their obli­ gations to their owners or the state by the payment of a part of the wages. Both groups were in every respect intrinsically connected with the large and heterogeneous peasant popula­ tion from which they had come. Even their sporadic outbursts of protest resembled less industrial strikes than rebellions, similar in their motives and manifestations to the peasant bunty of the same time. It was a relatively undifferentiated mass of frightfully exploited, illiterate laborers, cut off from the world, and to a large extent still rooted in the village. This situation began to change after 1861, and especially after 1885. First, the Emancipation Edict freed all the workers from bondage and made it possible ( though not immediately) for a mobile, professional labor force to come into being. In the second place, the growth of industry in the final decades

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

of the century brought about a significant increase in the number of workers. Between the middle of the nineteenth century and its close, the number of industrial workers in Russia grew from half a million to nearly two million. This growth assumes added significance if one bears in mind that, owing to the heavy concentration of Russian industry, most of these workers were employed in large and medium-sized es­ tablishments whose very size stimulated social cohesion. 1 Third, the emancipation of the workers from serfdom and their numerical increase coincided with the activity of Populist propagandists and agitators who subjected the industrial pro­ letariat, ahnost from the moment of its formation, to intense ideological pressure. All three of these factors contributed to the sense of social identity among the industrial workers. By the mid-188os they came to constitute a distinct social group insofar as a large number of them were neither rooted in the village from which they had come nor assimilated into the older urban groups among which they were now living. The emergence of labor must not be treated, however, as a homogeneous process. It was accompanied from the begin­ ning by a social and cultural differentiation within the working population between the main body of unskilled and semi­ skilled laborers ( including many women and children) and a small elite which separated itself from it. The vast majority of industrial workers seem to have evolved very slowly from their pre-Emancipation level of life and culture. Virtually all the sources agree that they lagged far behind not only Western workers of the time, but those of Poland and the areas of Jewish concentration in Western Russia as well. They were 1 According to A. Elnitsky, Istoriia rabochego dvizheniia v Rossii (4th ed., Moscow, 1925), p. 80, in 1879, that is, before the real spurt of industrial growth, large factories, which comprised less than 5 percent of all the industrial establishments in Russia, employed approximately 67 percent of the country's workers. This concentration increased after 1890

.2

THE EAIILY PHASE unbelievably backward, superstitious, and hostile to the out­ side world. From the village they carried to the factory many peasant attitudes, including great respect for the proprietors and an instinctive suspicion of intellectuals, especially those anxious to establish contact with them. They had no interest in politics, for their outlook was devoutly monarchist, and they were pedectly willing to leave the conduct of politics to those in authority.2 The mass of industrial workers did not, therefore, offer a fertile field for the radical intelligentsia, and remained outside the main currents of Russian life until at least the very end of the nineteenth century. Their occasional work stoppages focused on specific local economic grievances and often involved senseless violence and smashing of equip­ ment, as well as loyal petitions to the proprietors or the gov­ ernment authorities. Their social consciousness, in other words, lagged behind their social development-a phenomenon com­ monly observed in the history of social movements. The worker elite which emerged from this body of industrial workers consisted mainly of employees of large specialized enterprises: machine works, steel mills, railroad shops and shipyards, paper manufactures, and the like. Such enterprises required skilled personnel with an elementary education and technical training, and for that reason they often established factory schools which enrolled the more intelligent children • See for example, the recollections of S. Kanatchikov published in SB, no. z (5), 1933, p. 114: "The most difficult aspect of conducting propaganda among the unenlightened masses of laborers was convincing them that the capitalist was not their father-benefactor (otets-blagodetel') but the most ordinary exploiter and robber. The outlook of the workers, molded by the centuries and carried from the landlord's village, was as follows: the proprietor, the landlord, the industrialist, were all father­ benefactors who provided work for thousands and tens of thousands of workers, and gave them food and drink. Consequently, if there were no manufacturers and proprietors the workers would die of starvation. Such patriarchal notions prevailed among the laboring masses almost until 1905." See also Elnitsky, Istoriia, p. 114, and V. V. Sviatlovsky, "Na zare Rossilskoi sotsial-demokratii," Byloe, no. 19, 1922, pp. 150-151.

3

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

of peasants and workers. Graduates of such schools were as­ signed to more responsible positions with better pay and shorter working hours. Some of these workers did not content themselves with an elementary education and in their spare time also attended evening and Sunday schools founded by private associations or philanthropic industrialists. In St. Peters­ burg, the school of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (lmperatorskoe Russkoe Tekhnicheskoe Obshchestvo) and the schools founded by the philanthropist V. P. Vargunin were particularly important training grounds for workers in this category. The worker elite thus distinguished itself in two ways: socially, by constituting a body of trained and better­ paid workers and, culturally, by being at least literate and often surprisingly well educated. One must not, of course, exaggerate the number of persons belonging to this elite. In St. Petersburg around 18go it num­ bered in the hundreds-a small proportion of the city's one hundred thousand industrial workers. But if one thinks of this elite as constituting a cadre of potential labor leaders, and if one considers the rapidity with which this cadre grew, the number assumes a different significance altogether. It marks the emergence in Russia of a "worker intelligentsia," one of the most interesting yet least known phenomena of Russian social history of the late nineteenth century, one which parallels in many ways the somewhat earlier and much better known rise of the so-called raznochinets intelligentsia. K. M. Takhtarev, a radical student who worked closely with the workers in St. Petersburg in the early 1890s, compares the sudden growth of interest in learning and concern for social problems which he found among them with that which had gripped the student youth of the 186os. 8 • K. M. Takhtarev, Rabochee (Leningrad, 1924), pp. 26-27. 4

dvizhenie v Peterburge,

1893-1901 gg.

THE EAJILY PHASE

The principal institutional expression of the emergence of the labor intelligentsia was the "worker circle" ( rabochii kruzhok ) . Such circles usually came into existence on the initiative of an enterprising student at an evening or Sunday school who would approach several of his fellow students, sometimes friends from school days, with the suggestion that they meet from time to time privately to read and discuss serious books. The groups thus formed would usually pool its resources to purchase old copies of "fat journals" and books, particularly those dealing with the natural sciences, social problems, and the life of the common people. The workers especially enjoyed reading "progressive" belletristic literature, such as the works of Nekrasov, Saltykov, Gleb Uspensky, and Edward Bellamy. Some of the circles also studied difficult advanced works of a scholarly nature. Especially popular in this category were the writings of Spencer and Darwin. The passion for learning seized these workers so strongly that some of them spent all their spare money on the purchase of books. The machinist I. I. Timofeev, to cite but one example, col­ lected over the years a library of one thousand volumes. 4 Such workers appeared in the 1870s and 1880s in all the industrial centers of Russia, but they were particularly numerous in St. Petersburg which had the greatest ( save Poland) concentra­ tion of advanced industry in the Empire. 11 ' K. Norinsky, "Moi vospominaniia," in Ot gruppy Blagoeva k "Soiuzu 1886-1894 gg. ( [Rostov on Don], 1921 ) , p. 10. • Since the industrial development of St. Petersburg occurred largely in the second half of the century, it skipped the early, manufacturing, phase. Its principal industry was metalworking and machine construction, which employed 36,000 workers ( in 1894-95 ) , many of them highly qualified. The textile industry ( predominantly cotton ) occupied second place in terms of productivity and workers ( 27,000 in 1894-95 ) . In 1894-95 the industries of St. Petersburg employed 6.4 percent of all Russian factory workers and produced 11.5 percent of the total indus­ trial output of the Russian Empire. E. E. Kruze, "Promyshlennoe razvitie Peterburga v 1890-kh-1914 gg.," Ocherki po lstorii Lenlngrada, III ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1956 ) , g-60.

bor'by,"

5

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

As soon as a worker acquired the rudiments of a general or technical education, he tended to separate himseH from his uneducated, unskilled colleagues ( the serye, or "grays," as they were commonly known at the time) . Unlike them, he dis­ played an enormous interest in the outside world, especially in Westem labor movements and labor legislation. He also responded to certain social and political appeals and proved willing ( though, as we shall see, with reservations) to associate with the intelligentsia. Sometimes these workers made efforts to pass on their newly acquired knowledge to the rank and file, but with little success. There must have been many ex­ amples of the hapless lathe operator, I. V. Krutov:

[Krutov] was well read and endowed with a good memory; at the same time he disposed of not inconsiderable agitational talents. One could meet him almost every day in the "workers' club" [the men's room] conducting debates on subjects of all kinds. Sometimes, before an unappreciative audience, he would unravel the theory of Darwin, causing consternation among his listeners: how could man descend from ape? Usually the public frequenting the "club" would not hear to the end Krutov's argument: after attacking some weak point in it, they would scatter without waiting for the reply . . . While imbuing his audience with knowledge, Krutov was a changed man: he underwent a rejuvenation; he was ready to embrace and kiss anyone who shared his ideas or altogether anyone who under­ stood him. 6 The worker intelligentsia felt such passion for knowledge and had so little in common with the "grays" that they stayed away from industrial violence, which normally broke out only among the most backward elements of the working population. 7 • Norinsky, in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 12. Krutov was an adherent of the Narodovoltsy; N. D. Bogdanov, "Na zare sotsial-demokratii," Osvo­ bozhdenie truda ( Voronezh ) , no. 4, May 1, 1918, p. 8. • Undoubtedly the conditions under which industrial workers lived and labored in nineteenth-century Russia had something to do with this intellectual ferment, but it would be a mistake to see in these conditions its main cause. Modem studies of attitudes of workers in so advanced

6

THE EARLY PHASE

The radical intelligentsia always took a keen interest in this worker elite and did much to promote its development. The Populists by no means neglected the industrial proletariat, despite their primary concern for the peasant and their general hostility to the "capitalism" with which industrial growth at that time was associated. Beginning with their first circle, that of Chaikovsky, the Populists made their way to the workers and spread socialist propaganda. To gain a foothold, some Populists disguised themselves as common laborers and shared the workers' jobs and way of life. While one Populist group that was active among the workers followed Bakunin's tactic of inciting them to rebellion and violence, another ( the major­ ity) followed Lavrov and his theory of peaceful "propaganda." The Lavrovites collaborated with the workers who sought enlightenment in accord with a fundamental tenet of Populism that the emancipation of labor must be accomplished by labor itself. They looked upon such workers as the vanguard of the great armies of propagandists from the people who would help popularize socialist ideas. In line with these ideas, Populist propagandists attended worker circles and sometimes started circles of their own. Nearly all the leaders of the St. Petersburg labor movement during the decade with which this study deals were at one time or another under the direct influence of Populist prop­ agandists and received their initial political training under Populist guidance. Indeed, whereas the emergence of the labor movement in Russia was essentially a spontaneous phenome­ non, its ideological impetus, its "conscious" quality, came from the Populist intelligentsia. In this respect, the Russian a country as France suggest that a large majority of workers do not like factory employment in any circumstances and seek to escape it in a variety of ways, of which education is one of the most common. See, for example, the fascinating book by A. Andrieux and Lignon, L'Ouvrier d'au;ourd'hul ( Paris, 1960 ) .

J.

7

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

Social Democrats merely cultivated soil which had been turned and seeded by their Populist predecessors. Almost all of the activities engaged in by the St. Petersburg Social Demo­ crats and discussed below-formation of labor circles, prop­ aganda, strike agitation, the printing of leaflets and pam­ phlets for workers-had been first devised and practiced by the Populists. The continuity between Populist and Social Democratic activities among workers was so intimate that, in the opinion of some Russian historians, all the Social Demo­ cratic circles of St. Petersburg owed their origin to the North­ ern Union of Russian Workers founded by the Populist workers, S. Khalturin and V. Obnorsky, in 1878. 8 The People's Will organization ( Narodnaia volia ) was so impressed by the surge of the industrial proletariat and by its response to social­ ist propaganda that, in its party program of 1879, it expressed the belief that the proletariat would constitute the vanguard of the Russian revolutionary movement. 9 Many of the representatives of this first generation of the worker intelligentsia disappeared in the early 1880s in the • An account of Populist activity among workers would require (and deserves) a whole monograph. For the labor movement of St. Peters­ burg, the Northern Union is of particular importance because it served as a model for all subsequent labor organizations. The Northern Union allowed by statute only laborers to become members and set up a central treasury to finance its activities and support strikes. In its program the Union explicitly acknowledged an affinity with the Western Social Demo­ cratic movement. This program is reprinted in V. Nevsky, Ocherki po istorii Rossiiskoi kommunisticheskoi partii I (2nd ed.• Moscow, 1925), 628-630. See also F. Venturi, Roots of Revolution (London, 1g60 ) , pp. 507-557. Interesting information about labor circles and strike activ­ ities of the 1870s and 1880s connected with the Narodovoltsy-closely resembling those carried out by the Social Democrats later on-can be found in an anonymous report, lz rabochego dvizheniia za Nevskoi zastavoi v 70-kh i 80-kh godakh (Geneva, Izd. Soiuza Rossiiskikh Sotsial­ demokratov, 1900). • V. Burtsev, ed., Za sto let, 1800-1896, I (London, 1897 ) , 159-160, 168-172. Narodovoltsy activity among industrial workers is discussed by V. I. Nevsky, " 'Narodnaia volia' i rabochie," IP, no. 1, 1930, pp. 3g-89, and V. Levitsky, " 'Narodnaia volia' i rabochii klass," KS, no. 1 ( 62 ) , 193o, PP· 48-66.

8

THE EARLY PHASE wave of arrests which followed early industrial disturbances and the assassination of Alexander II. But some escaped the eye of the police, and a few years later, this time without assistance from the intelligentsia, opened new circles and re­ vived the labor movement on a larger scale and in a more lasting form. This second generation of the worker intelligentsia emerged in the mid-188os. Little is known of the numerous study circles which came into existence at that time, for they operated in secret, and their members, except for a handful who survived the 1917 Revolution, rarely left memoirs. It is certain that some worker circles functioned in the early 188os. But the real surge of circle activity began only after 1885. From then on, despite repeated police raids, arrests, and deportations, circle activity, and the labor movement which emerged from it, never entirely ceased. In 1887 there were in St. Petersburg more than six such circles founded by workers and with mem­ bers in all of the city's industrial establishments. 1 0 Toward the end of that year, a group of workers active in the circles held at a cemetery a meeting to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Nekrasov; they also dispatched to another favorite writer of theirs, Gleb Uspensky, an address celebrating the twentieth anniversary of his literary activity. The Nekrasov meeting was inspired by one of the most energetic of circle leaders, Egor Afanasev, who subsequently played a prominent role in the St. Petersburg labor movement. From the first, the worker circles displayed an ambivalent attitude toward the radical intelligentsia. On the one hand, their own resources, intellectual as well as technical, were so meager that the workers eagerly welcomed the few students or other dedicated persons willing to help them with the pro­ gram of self-education. From such friends they obtained 10 E. Korolchuk and E. Sokolova, eds., Khronika revoliutsionnogo rabochego dvizheniia v Peterburge, I ( Leningrad, 1940 ) , 140.

9

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

literature, help in mastering difficult subjects, contacts, and, later on, assistance in editing and publishing proclamations and pamphlets. The intellectuals were a link with the great outside world which they were so eager to reach and enter. For this reason most of the circles welcomed all bona fide intellectuals willing to "visit" them, without regard to their political orientation. But this welcome was not unqualified. Ahnost all the circles had some objections to close collaboration with the intellec­ tuals, jealously guarding their organizational independence. These objections appeared to some circles so important that they would not allow any intellectuals to come near. 1 1 Mem­ bers of such worker circles, known as dikie ( wild ones) , constituted a minority, but the considerations which deter­ mined their attitude affected also the relations between in­ tellectuals and friendly workers. At bottom of this mistrust lay a divergence of interests. The workers wanted to learn in order to escape the monotonous and hopeless condition of the factory worker and to win a place in society. Education was to them the key which opened doors to seemingly un­ limited opportunities. In this sense, it was an end in itself, and they never had enough of it. The intellectuals, on the other hand, treated education largely as a means of bringing socialist ideas to the working class. It was the first step in launching the worker on the road to seditious, antigovernment activity; to them it represented essentially a political device. This attitude the workers sensed and mistrusted. One of the most active members of the worker circles of that time recalled many years later how concerned the workers were that "the intelligent not insist too much on revolution, that is, that he communicate more knowledge and agitate less." 1 2 11 12

10

Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, pp. 45-46. V. A. Shelgunov in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 55.

THE EARLY PHASE

The workers' suspicion of the intellectuals was intensified by the realization that collaboration with intellectuals almost always led to police surveillance and, sooner or later, to arrests. As long as they carried on their program of self-study by themselves, the workers were fairly safe. The intellectuals, however, injected a subversive element and involved the circles in serious antigovernment activity. Finally, psychological factors also played a part in the rela­ tions between the two groups. Though the members of the circles and their friends from the intelligentsia were of a similar age ( usually in their twenties), they differed con­ siderably in experience and maturity. Nearly all the workers began earning a living when still in their early teens and sometime before they had reached the age of ten; they were tough, experienced, and mature beyond their years. They eagerly learned sociology or biology from their contempo­ raries from the intelligentsia, but they resented practical advice tendered them by bookish, naive students. The fact that, come June, the students abandoned the worker circles and left for the summer for their parental homes and country houses, while the workers had to keep on working, also did not make for good feelings. Every summer, when, as the work­ ers sarcastically used to say, "the revolution scattered to the dachas," there occurred a crisis in the circle movement. 1 3 Factors such as these affected all along the relations between the radical student intelligentsia and the nascent worker in­ telligentsia or, to put it more abstractively, between socialism and labor. Russian labor owed much of its independence and com­ parative self-reliance to the fact that its surge came when the revolutionary movement was at its lowest ebb. Following the assassination of Alexander II, disillusionment and apathy set 11

Ibid., p. 57; Bogdanov, "Na zare," p. 8. 11

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

in among the intelligentsia, and the revolutionary fervor of the preceding two decades gave way to the policy of "small deeds." In the mid-188os, when the worker-circle movement was seriously under way, there were almost no intellectuals available to come to the workers' assistance except for a hand­ ful of foreign, usually Polish, students, most of them sym­ pathetic to Social Democracy. After 1890 Russian students, Social Democrats as well as adherents of the People's Will, began to pay increasing attention to the labor movement, but by and large during the entire period from 1885 to 1897 the forces of the labor movement were more numerous and more vigorous than the forces of the radical intelligentsia associated with it. It is extremely difficult for the historian to define with any degree of precision the diHerence between the radical intel­ lectuals who during this period called themselves Social Democrats and those who called themselves Narodovoltsy ( that is, adherents of the People's Will) . Until 1893-94, when a group of Marxist theoreticians ( later known as Legal Marx­ ists) challenged the basic tenets of Populist doctrine, Marxism and Populism in Russia developed side by side harmoniously. The Populists translated and popularized the works of leading European Social Democrats and maintained very warm per­ sonal relations with Marx and Engels. While abroad, in Switzerland, a group of emigres headed by Plekhanov engaged in polemics with Populism, inside Russia Populists and Social Democrats worked hand in glove; and it is known, moreover, that Engels himseH took a critical view of Plekhanov's quarrel with the Populists and counseled cooperation with them. 1 4 Certainly there was no qualitative diHerence in the character u See R. Pipes, "Russian Marxism and Its Populist Background: The Late Nineteenth Century," RR, October 1960, pp. 3 16---337. Engels' views are stated in the memoirs of A. Voden in LM, no. 4, 1927, pp. 87-96. 12

THE EARLY PHASE and activity of the illegal Populist and Social Democratic groups operating inside Russia. Adherents of both movements engaged in "propaganda" as well as "agitation" among indus­ trial workers, employed the same techniques of penetrating factories and confounding the police ( methods pedected by the Populists in the 1870s), and appealed to the workers with slogans couched in identical language. The Narodovoltsy readily distributed the works of Lassalle, Marx, and Behel, while the so-called Social Democrats Blagoev and Brusnev approved of the peasant commune and the use of terror re­ spectively. 1 6 Intellectuals . adhering to the two socialist cur­ rents operated in so similar a fashion that even the Russian police, generally well informed in such matters, failed to dis­ tinguish clearly between them and, as late as 189 6, considered them identical groups operating under different names. 1 6 In practice, the difference between the Social Democrats and Narodovoltsy active in St. Petersburg before 1894 can best be characterized as a quantitative one, as a difference in de­ gree of militancy. The Narodovoltsy continued the bellicose tactics of their predecessors, whose terroristic activities in­ cluded the assassination of Alexander II. They were politically minded and sought to incite the workers against the author­ ities. The Social Democrats, on the other hand, were at this 10 The program of Blagoev's group was first published by B. Nikolaev­ sky in Byloe, no. 13, 1918, pp. 38-52. Brusnev made the following un­ Marxist statement in a program he drafted ( Article 8 ) : "We are pro­ foundly convinced that under the existing relationship of social forces in Russia, political freedom can be attained in the immediate future only by the application of systematic political terror against the central gov­ ernment by a strictly centralized and disciplined party enjoying the friendly support of all the vital forces of society." The text of the entire program, from which this quotation is taken, can be found in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 87-88. It took Russian Social Democrats a long time to disown terror as a weapon against autocracy; they finally did so probably only around 1894. •• Pipes, "The Populist Background," p. 334.

13

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

time unpolitical and sometimes decidedly antipolitical. They laid the principal stress on educating the working class, on preparing cadres of labor leaders ( "Russian Bebels"), and in general on peaceful educational activity. Essentially, the Narodovoltsy emphasized the tactic known among Populists as agitation, while the Social Democrats pursued the more cau­ tious, long-term tactic of propaganda. 1 7 The workers did not at first show preference for either group because their main interest lay in education. They regarded the political and socialist element which the intellectuals injected into the teaching as the price for their educational assistance. 1 8 But, given the mood and general outlook of the worker elite, it is not surprising that with time it tended to veer toward a Social Democratic position. When in 1894 the Narodovoltsy and the Social Democrats finally came in con­ flict and sought to win the workers to their respective sides, the workers, as we shall see, chose Social Democracy. This preference cannot be explained by their alleged realization of the superiority of Marxist doctrines, since in the circles doctrinal differences were rarely emphasized. It was due rather to the innate conservatism of the group. The worker elite preferred the kind of propagandistic ( that is, educa.. See the recollections of M. S. Ohninsky, who was active in St. Petersburg both as a Narodovolets and a Social Democrat : "In practice, the disagreements [between Narodovoltsy and Social Democrats] were exacerbated by the question of political agitation. The Social Democrats had not yet outlived the pedagogic-propagandistic, preparatory phase; we [the Narodovoltsy] , on the other hand, promoted agitation.» Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 74; see also his statements in M. S. Aleksandrov [Ohninsky], "Gruppa narodovol'tsev ( 1891-1894 g g. ) ," Byloe, no. 11, 1906, 19. V. Bartenev ( MG, no. 10, 1908, p. 183 ) says that the term "Socia Democrats" was not in current use during the period 1885-1890 and that the movement later known as such was at that time often called the "preparatory orientation" ( podgotovitel'noe napravlenie ) . 1 • Peterburzhets [K. M. Takhtarev] , Ocherk petersburgskogo rabochego dvtzheniia 90-kh godov ( London, 1902 ) p. 6; and V. V. Sviatlovsky, "Na zare Rossiiskoi sotsial-demokratii," Byloe, no. 19, 1922, p. 150.

r·

14

THE EARLY PHASE tional) work which the Social Democrats practiced exclusively until 1894 to the more activist, political agitation pursued by the Narodovoltsy. A prominent labor leader recalled years later how resentful circle workers were when Narodovoltsy agitators tried to incite them against the government: "I listen to you," one such worker remarked, "and all the time I have the feeling that somehow you want to get us mad. We want you to give us the facts, and when we know everything and the time comes to get mad we will get mad ourselves." 1 9 The police report, prepared in 189 6 on the basis of extensive in­ terrogation of intellectuals and workers arrested in connection with the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipa­ tion of the Working Class, pointed out that the reason for the growth of Social Democratic influence among the workers lay in the fact that the workers found it "less dangerous" than the People's Will. 2 0 This consideration also induced the authorities to mete out much milder punishments to arrested Social Democrats than to Narodovoltsy for crimes which, from the legal point of view, were identical. Rivalry between the two groups, however, lay only in the future and did not mar their relations in the early phases of the St. Petersburg labor movement. Until the winter of 18g394, they collaborated closely in every respect. The first to conduct Social Democratic propaganda among St. Petersburg workers was the Bulgarian student, Dimitry Blagoev, who was active with a group of friends during the period 1883-1886. His arrest coincided with the surge of the worker-circle movement and, therefore, had little impact on 1 9 V. A. Shel gunov, "Rabochie na puti k Marksizmu," SB, no. 2 (S), 1933, p. 100. •• Glavnoe upravlenie arkhivnym delom, "Doklad po delu o voznik­ shikh v S.-Peterburge v 1894 i 1895 godakh �restupnykh kruzhkakh lits, imenuiushchikh sebia 'sotsial-demokratami, " Sbomik materialov I statei, I ([Moscow], 19:21), 137-138.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

it. Far greater was the effect of two contemporary but uncon­ nected circles of Social Democratic students established be­ tween 1885 and 1887, those of Tochisky and Rodziewicz, which originated the practice of organizing workers for the purpose of self-education. P. V. Tochisky ( Toczyski) was the son of a Polish colonel, who served as commandant of the Ekaterinburg prison, and of a French mother. Born in 1864 or 1865, he broke with his family while still in his teens and in 1884 moved to St. Peters­ burg. There, in traditional Populist fashion, he settled "among the people." Assuming the vocation and appearance of a machinist, he established contact with fellow workers con­ nected with the nascent circle movement. Although there is some controversy among historians of the Russian revolution­ ary movement whether or not Tochisky was a genuine Social Democrat, there is no doubt that he considered the industrial proletariat to be the class best qualified to carry out a revolu­ tion in Russia. His admiration for the worker was counter­ balanced by his mistrust of the intelligentsia. Tochisky con­ sidered the intelligentsia incurably bourgeois in its values and commitments and potentially disloyal to the working class. For this reason he tried to keep intellectuals away from work­ ers. To him, the intelligentsia could at best qualify for a role of "fortuitous guests" in the labor movement. 2 1 For over a year, Tochisky succeeded in keeping his friends from the intelligentsia away from his worker friends. Realizing, however, the great need for educational guidance, in 1885 he formed a society whose cumbersome name well reflects its purpose: Society to Assist in the Raising of the Material, 11 A. Breitfus, "Tochiskii i ego kruzhok," KL, no. 7, 1923, p. 326. Tochisky's views of the intelligentsia clearly anticipate those of the better-known Machajski. The best account of his views and activities will be found in R. A. Kazakevich, Sotsial-demokraticheskie organizatstl Peterburga (Leningrad, 1g60), pp. 31-74.

16

THE EABLY PHASE Intellectual, and Moral Level of the Working Class in Russia. ( In the following year it was renamed Society of St. Petersburg Mechanics, Tovarishchestvo Sankt-Petersburgskikh Mastero­ vykh, by which it is better known.) The society functioned on two separate levels, and this dichotomy was to charac­ terize the St. Petersburg Social Democratic and labor move­ ments throughout the decade under discussion. One level consisted of intellectuals gathered under Tochisky's guidance and occupied with part-time assistance to the worker circles. The other consisted of the workers who had organized and guided some of the most energetic worker circles in the city : E. Afanasev, K. M. Norinsky, G. Mefodiev, and V. A. Shel­ gunov. Direction of the society was vested in the hands of the worker members. Tochisky's suspicion of intellectuals went so deeply, however, that he feared they would obtain hege­ mony over the workers even under this arrangement, and in February 1888 he proposed to revise the statutes so as to ex­ clude intellectuals altogether and transform the society into an exclusive worker organization. This proposal was rejected. 22 Tochisky carried out the separation of workers from intellec­ tuals most successfully. When, later in the year, the police arrested him and his companions from the intelligentsia, the worker circles with which he had been connected were not molested and continued their work undisturbed. 2 8 After Tochisky's arrest, some of his worker circles passed over to a predominantly Polish student group active in St. Petersburg at the same time. These Polish students were in many respects the real founders of the Social Democratic organizations in St. Petersburg. Beginning in 1887, and possi­ bly even in 188 6, they undertook to carry out Social Demo­ cratic propaganda in worker circles, and in 188g they founded .. Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 135; Breitfus, ''Tochiskii," pp. 336-339. Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 144.

11

17

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

organizations from which, in direct line, were to descend the so-called organizations of Brusnev and of Radchenko, as well as the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. That Social Democracy should have been planted in St. Petersburg by Poles is hardly surprising if one recalls that the revolutionary movement, not to mention the industrial revolution, originated in Russian-held Poland a good genera­ tion before they started in Russia proper. In the 1880s, when the Russian labor movement was only beginning to try its wings, Poland already possessed a numerous and cohesive working class, which on occasion could organize mass strikes involving thousands of workers. After 1879, when Ludwik Warynski founded in Warsaw the revolutionary organization, Proletar;at, there existed continuous contact between Polish socialist intellectuals and Polish workers. 2 4 If in the 1870s the Poles had learned revolutionary techniques from their Russian colleagues, in the 1880s and 1890s they in turn taught tech­ niques of Social Democratic propaganda and agitation to the Russians. Throughout the period under consideration, the Poles exerted a powerful and direct influence on the Russian Social Democratic and labor movements. The transplantation of Polish techniques to Russia was facilitated by the presence .. On Polish Social Democracy, see F. Perl, Dziefe ruchu socfalis­ tycznego w zaborze rosyfskim. Do powstania PPS ( Warsaw, 1958; re­ print of first edition of 1910 ) , and A. L. Pogodin, Glavnye techeniia pol'skoi politicheskoi mysli, 1836-1907 gg. ( St. Petersburg, n.d. ) . On

the Proletarjat, see a book under the same name by H. Biez published in Polish in Moscow in 1934, and an article by L. Wasilewski, "Pol'skaia s.-r. partiia 'Proletariat,' 1882-1886," Byloe, no. 4, 1906, pp. 193-207. The whole influence of Polish socialism and Polish labor on their Russian counterparts awaits further study. On contact between Russians and the Proletarjat group, see Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 7g-80, and M. N. Liadov [M. N. Mandelshtam] and S. M. Pozner, eds., Leonid Borisovich Krasin (''Nikitich") : Gody pod­ pol'ia ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1928 ), passim ( henceforth referred to as

Krasin ) . 18

'lllE EARLY PHASE of many Polish students and industrial workers in the principal cities of the Empire, particularly in St. Petersburg. Very little is lmown about these early Polish Social Demo­ cratic circles in St. Petersburg, at least in part because the Communist authorities in control of the pertinent archives are understandably reluctant to publish evidence likely to demon­ strate that the founders of Social Democracy in the capital of tsarist Russia were natives of Poland. What is lmown is that in 1887 there functioned in St. Petersburg a Marxist circle composed largely of students at the Technological Institute, founded by a Polish student at the Military Medical School, Gabriel Rodziewicz (Gavril Mikhailovich Rodzevich). It in­ cluded his wife, Julja ( luliia Ignatevna), the Polish students at the Technological Institute, B. F. Lelewel ( Lelevel), Waclaw Cywinski ( V. F. Tsivinsky), and G. Pietrowski ( Pe­ trovsky), as well as two Russian students, P. A. Golubev and V. N. lvanov. 2 5 It may be assumed that, in the typical fashion .. Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 143; V. Golubev, "Stranichka iz istorii rabochego dvizheniia (Pamiati N. V. Shelgunova)," Byloe, no. iz, 19o6, p. 108. Pietrowski's nationality is not certain. The St. Petersburg Technological Institute was founded in 1828 specifically to provide instruction to sons of commoners, and in the 1880s it was still the only school in the empire offering training in general engineering. Unlike the university, whose students came largely from families of landowners, professional people, high officials, and the middle classes, the institute drew its student body from the lower middle class, the petty gentry, lower officialdom, and the Cossacks. Many of its students came from the borderlands, especially Poland and the Ukraine. This difference in social as well as cultural background clearly affected the whole character of political activity at the two institutions. Whereas the university youths showed far better grounding in Social Democratic theory and supplied many of the early Marxist theoreticians (Struve, Vodovozov, Tugan-Baranovsky, and others), their social background on the whole estranged them from the working class. The students of the Technological Institute, on the other hand ( and to a lesser extent those enrolled at the Theological Academy, the Institute of Forestry, the Medical Military School, and other professional institutions), had little trouble associating with workers, the more so as their academic and professional obligations brought many of them in constant contact with 19

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

of the day, these students met privately to study and discuss socialist literature; but it is known that they also established contact with enlightened factory workers. Their first contacts seem to have been made with Polish workers in St. Petersburg, among whom they distributed propaganda materials printed in Poland by the Proletarjat. 2 6 By 1888, the Rodziewicz group also came in contact with Russian workers and worker circles, some of which it had inherited from Tochisky. 2 7 In 188g, members of this group frequented meetings of at least six worker circles. 28 By this time the circle movement had made such great strides that the more energetic labor leaders began to con­ sider the feasibility of establishing a central worker organiza­ tion to connect the scattered groups. The first effort in this direction was undertaken in the second half of 1889 when three workers, E. Afanasev, G. A. Mefodiev, and N. D. Bogindustrial establishments. Thus, whereas the university Marxists led the struggle against the Populist theoreticians, the Technologists carried on throughout the 1880s and 1890s the less spectacular but in the long run more effective work of propaganda and agitation among the industrial workers. See a brief historical sketch of revolutionary organizations at the St. Petersburg Technological Institute by M. L. Rappeport in Tekhnologicheskii Institut Imeni Leningradskogo Soveta, I ( Leningrad, 19z8 ) , z6g-309; also Krasin, p. 63. •• M. Mitelman, B. Glebov, and A. Ulianslcy, Istoriia Putilovskogo zavoda ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1941 ) , p. 66. 1 1 Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 144. 18 They are listed in ibid., p. 145. The most active propagandists in this group were Lelewel, Rodziewicz, and another Polish student, Jozef Buraczewski ( Buracbevslcy ) . also from the Technological Institute. Buraczewski formed in the spring of 1889 a circle of five Polish and Russian workers at the Putilov Works. According to police reports, he told workers of strikes which took place abroad, read and explained illegal literature ( the writings of Lassalle, Marx, and Lavrov ) , and nelped them create a strike fund. After Buraczewski had been suspended from the institute in the spring of 1890 for participating in student disorders, his place as circle tutor was taken by a student at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, P. A. Golubev. This group was broken up later in the year. See Obzor vazhneishikh doznanU, proizvodivshikhsia v zhandarm­ skikh upravleniiakh Imperil po gosudarstvennym prestupleniiam, XV, 1890, 57�0. 148-149. 20

1llE EAJILY PHASE danov, each of whom directed a circle of his own, established a headquarters to hold regular meetings of circle representa­ tives. 2 9 Six months later, a second, more fully represented, conference of circle leaders formally established a central committee of worker circles. At this meeting ( at which no intellectuals were present) the workers drew up a set of rules and appointed a Central Worker Circle ( Tsentrarnyi rabochii kruzhok) which initially included seven or eight workers: Egor Afanasev, his brother Fedor Afanasev, Bogdanov, Mefo­ diev, P. N. Evgrafov, V. V. Buianov, Ia. Fomin, and possibly also V. Proshin. Each of these committee members represented the combined circles of a major city region. The Central Circle was to function collectively, without an individual leader. According to Brusnev, it was conceived as a full-Hedged Cen­ tral Committee whose purpose it was to control existing circles and organize new ones and to select intellectuals for propa­ ganda work. The rules called for weekly meetings, rotating in the homes of the members. Contact with the intellectuals was maintained through one representative of the student intelli­ gentsia invited to attend the sessions of the Circle. The first such representative was the university student, V. S. Golubev, who had recently joined the Polish propaganda group in St. Petersburg. The Circle also established a treasury whose in­ come was to be derived from dues of Circle members ( fifty kopecks a month for full members, twenty-five for "sympa­ thizers") and appointed Egor Afanasev its treasurer and Bog­ danov its secretary. s o •• Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 147; information based on unpublished sources from Leningrad archives. •• The list of members of the Central Worker Circle is based on data provided by Bogdanov in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, · 41, data which are / also accepted by Nevsky in Ocherkl, p. 301, an Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 149. On the formation of the Circle, see also Golubev, "Stranichka," pp. 114-116 and Kazakevich, Sotslal-demokratlcheskie organizatsil, p. 84. Brusnev's view is expressed in his unpublished memoirs deposited at the Leningrad Party Archive ( F.I-1, sv. 1, ed. khr. 1 ) , cited in Kazakevich, p. 86.

C H A P T E R

T W O

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO M O V E M E N T S ( 18 8 9 - 1 8 9 2 )

THE HISTORY of the Social Democratic and worker circles in the period from 188g to 1892 is very confused. Because of the highly conspiratorial nature of their work, none of the participants, not even the leading figures, ever enjoyed a com­ prehensive view of the entire movement, and in their memoirs they often mistook peripheral occurrences known through personal experience for those which the historian sees as cen­ tral. Police records, at least the small segment that has been published, sometimes provide valuable clues; but as often as not they mislead the reader, for the police often could not distinguish facts from the fiction by which the revolutionaries concealed their activities. Nor are secondary sources adequate. Apart from early studies, especially those of V. I. Nevsky, Soviet histories have been strikingly reluctant to divulge archi­ val materials dealing with this topic, no doubt from an appre­ hension that scholarly studies of the Social Democrats and labor leaders would paint a picture quite different from that officially promulgated. 1 1 The most important memoir literature pertaining to this period is the following. Workers' recollections: N. D. Bogdanov, "Na zare sotsial­ demokratii (Vospominaniia o petersburgskoi organizatsii, 1885-1892)," Osvobozhdenie truda (Voronezh), nos. 2, 4, and 7, 1918, summarized by M. Olminsky in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 39-46; V. A. Shelgunov, "Vospominaniia," Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 52-59, and "Rabochie na puti k Marksizmu"; and V. Karelina. "Na zare rabochego dvizheniia v S-Peter-

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS

What the mass of fragmentary and sometimes contradictory evidence does reveal is that, beginning with the autumn of 1889, the Social Democratic and Narodovoltsy intellectuals began to organize, and that between 18go and 1892 there functioned in St. Petersburg three groups, two consisting of intellectuals and one of labor leaders. These groups collabo­ rated closely but all along retained their separate identities. During this period there was general acceptance of the prin­ ciple of labor hegemony; the intellectuals were viewed by labor and viewed themselves as performing auxiliary functions, that is, helping labor in its process of autoemancipation. Of the organizations of the intelligentsia, that of the Social Demo­ crats survived until 1892, that of the Narodovoltsy until 1894. The labor organization, the Central Worker Circle, suffered heavy losses at the time of the repression of the Social Demo­ crats in 1892, but continued to carry on until 1894 when the arrest of the Narodovoltsy caused its virtual collapse. Together, burge," KL, no. 4, 1922, pp. 12-20. Recollections of intellectuals: M. Ohninsky, "Davnie sviazi," Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 60-78, and " 'Grup­ pa narodovol'tsev' ( 1891-1894 gg.)," Byloe, no. 11, 1906, pp. 1-27; V. B. [Bartenev], "Vospominaniia peterburzhtsa o vtoroi polovine 80-kh godov," MG, no. 10, 1908, pp. 169-197, and no. 11, pp. 168-188; M. I. Brusnev, "Vozniknovenie pervykh sotsial-demokraticheskikh organ­ izatsii," PR, no. 2 ( 14), 1923, pp. 17-32, and "Pervye revoliutsionnye shagi L. Krasina," in Krasin, pp. 59-81; Golubev, "Stranichka"; L. B. Krasin, "Dela davno minuvshikh dnei," in Krasin, pp. 93-118; and V. Sviatlovsky, "Na zare." The best secondary accounts are without question those written by V. I. Nevsky, who studied thoroughly the archives of this period. See especially the pertinent chapters in his Ocherki and his article, "Na pereput' e ( Brusnevskaia organizatsiia)," in IP, no. 4 ( 20 ) , 1934, pp. 48-58. Important new information is also printed in the monograph of Kazakevich, Sotsial-demokraticheskie organizatsii. The organizations with which this chapter deals are usually referred to in the literature as the "Brusnev organization" or "circle.' This de­ scription is incorrect on two counts. In the first place, the intelligentsia circle to which Brusnev belonged never merged with the worker circles with which it collaborated, so that there never existed one organization of Social Democratic intellectuals and workers. In the second place, 23

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

these organizations helped make the period 18go-18gz one of intense activity, the high mark in the early history of Russian labor, and a prelude to the great surge of labor which occur­ red in the closing years of the century. During the first years of the independent worker-circle movement-1886, 1887, and 1888-the intellectuals who col­ laborated with labor had not been organized, doing their work on an individual basis. Usually, they were introduced to the circles by friends who had contact with workers; but in carrying out their activities they were not guided by any central group, nor did they pursue any systematic program though Brusnev was indeed an outstanding personality in the movement of Social Democratic intellectuals, he did not found a Social Democratic organization but joined an organization which had been established by Polish students. Of the three years during which the Social Democratic organization functioned in St. Petersburg ( 1889-1892 ) , Brusnev was actively associated with it for only slightly over a year. He filled the position of the intelligentsia's representative in the Central Worker Circle for only two months : from April 1891, when Golubev was arrested, to June 1891, when he himself departed for Moscow. All these facts suggest that it is misleading to apply the name "Brusnev organization" to the Social Democratic circle operating in St. Petersburg between 1889-1892, and that it is somewhat more correct ( but not entirely at that ) to use the cumbersome names "Social Democratic" groups or organizations and "labor" organizations. ( Bartenev states that at the time the Social Democratic organization had no name at all : "Our group had no definite party name. We were probably closest to the Social Democrats, but we did not call ourselves such, although we knew very well that such a movement existed." "Vospominaniia," no. 10, p. 197. ) Sviatlovsky suggests that the name "Brusnev organization" was coined by Akimov [V. Makhnovets] in his Ocherk razvitiia sotsial-demokratii v Rossii published in 1906 ( "Na zare," p. 139; see Akimov's book, znd ed., St. Petersburg, 1906, p, 38 ) , and adds quite rightly that the organization could with even better right be named after Golubev ( ibid., p. 149 ) . In fact, Bogdanov, in his recollections, does call Golubev "the leader of our organization" ( "Na zare," Osvobozhdenie truda, no. 4, 1918, p. 7 ) . Golubev, however, later became a Constitutional Democrat and thereby forfeited his place in Soviet historiography. Brusnev himself, it may be noted, never claimed to be the founder or leader of the St. Petersburg Social Democratic circle and in his published writings did not refer to it by his own name.

z4

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS of education. Rodziewicz's circle of Social Democratic propa­ gandists seems to have been a loose association without any formal structure. The same was true of the Narodovoltsy. The initiative in organizing the propagandists in St. Peters­ burg seems to have come from an old Narodovolets, S. Karelin, who visited the city in 1889. Karelin met with politically minded students and proposed the establishment of a central organization to be called the Russian Labor Party ( Russkaia rabochaia partiia ) , uniting the Narodovoltsy and the Social Democrats. This organization was to seek contact with liberal public opinion, on the one hand, and with the industrial pro­ letariat, on the other. Though Karelin himself soon vanished from the scene, his suggestion made a deep impression on the young students whose interest in politics was just beginning to revive. 2 The first to organize were the Social Democrats. In the fall of 1889, the active circles of Marxist students, mostly from the Technological Institute, united into an unnamed organization with a twofold aim : to conduct propaganda among industrial workers and to train cadres of propagandists from the ranks of the working class. The group met regularly to discuss lead­ ing problems and experiences, and formed something in the nature of a pedagogical council. Its membership consisted largely of Polish students who had been active in worker prop­ aganda for the preceding two or three years : the Rodzie­ wiczes, Lelewel, Cywinski, I. K. Buraczewski ( Burachevsky) , Czeslaw Bankowski, as well as several Russians : Ivanov, P. A. Golubev, and V. S. Golubev. The organization gradually grew through cooptation. Among the new members who joined during the academic year 188Ho were two Russian students • Brusnev, "Pervye revoliutsionnye shagi," pp. 62-63; Bartenev, "Vos­ pominaniia," no. 10, pp. 178--179. Brusnev recalls that at the time it was thought Karelin was put up by the Rodziewicz group.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

from the Technological Institute, M. I. Brusnev and Leonid B. Krasin. 3 The group established contact with the most vigor­ ous worker circles in the city, especially of textile workers, and developed considerable propagandistic activity. As we have seen, a representative of this group, V. S. Golubev, entered the Central Worker Circle as liaison man between workers and intellectuals. Everything pointed to the unprecedented suc­ cess of the Social Democrats. However, the new organization was soon severely hurt by police repression. In April 1890, many of its members from the Technological Institute were involved in student disturb­ ances of a nonpolitical character, as a consequence of which they were arrested and permanently or temporarily excluded from the institute. There were only four survivors: V. S. Golubev, Cywinski, Leonid Krasin, and Brusnev, and the task of reviving the shattered organization now fell on them. 4 With the beginning of the new academic year ( 189o--g1 ) , these men re-established contact with the Central Worker Circle and, at the suggestion of the workers, helped them carry out a series of reorganizations whose aim it was to make the Circle more effective and self-reliant. 5 The arrests of the preceding spring demonstrated that the assistance which the intellectuals could lend was inadequate because they were few in number and subject to constant police surveillance. It was clear to the intellectuals as well as to the circles that the future of the labor movement depended on the ability of the • Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 147; V. I. Nevsky, ed., Deiateli revoliutsion­ nogo dvizheniia v Rossii, V (Moscow, 1931-1933), 510; Kazakevich, Sotsial-demokraticheskie organizatsii, p. 87. G. Pietrowski, who had early

joined the Rodziewicz group and had conducted vigorous propagandistic activity, was arrested in July 1889 and shortly afterwards committed suicide (Korolchuk, p. 146). • Rappeport in Tekhnologicheskii lnstitut, I, 279; Bartenev, "Vospo­ minaniia," no. 10, p. 195. • Golubev, "Stranichka," p. 115 .

z6

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS workers to produce skilled and reliable propagandists from their own midst. According to Brusnev, the Social Democrats with whom he was connected wanted to free the labor movement from the tutelage of the intelligentsia, which was so often alien to the ideology of the working class, and whose leadership was casual and unreliable. The idea that the liberation of the working class was the task of the workers was inculcated by us in all the worker circles, and by that time was thoroughly assimilated by our workers, including the rank and file. 6

Labor circles were now divided in two categories, lower and upper. Those on the lower level freely enrolled promising workers spotted by circle members in the factories or in tl).e evening and Sunday schools. They were taught by workers and served essentially as recruiting grounds for upper-level circles, which consisted of charter members of the circle move­ ment. Propaganda in the lower-level circles was unsophisti­ cated and designed to attract the interest of workers; it often involved "agitation," incitement against the employers. The upper-level circles were now organized in a more formal fash­ ion. Each upper-level circle elected its leader, and each region established a treasury ( kassa ) which contributed to the Cen­ tral Worker Circle. In these circles, propaganda was con­ ducted on a much higher level and followed a systematic program of general education for the purpose of training cadres of independent propagandists. Though the exact num­ ber of labor circles active in 189o-g1 cannot be established, most sources agree that at this time there functioned in St. Petersburg at least twenty. 7 The upper-level circles sent their leaders as representatives to the Central Worker Circle, which as a result of exp ansion • Brusnev, "Pervye revoliutsionnye shagi," p. 69. ' Golubev, p. 115; Korolchuk, Khronilia, pp. 150-153.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

came to number in the winter of 18go-g1 between ten and twelve persons ( added were A. S. Filimonov, P. A. Morozov, A. E. Karelin, and his wife V. M. Karelina ) . 8 An important innovation, which substantially strengthened the Circle and was destined to have a stormy history, was the establishment of a united strike fund called the Central Labor Fund ( Tsen­ trafnaia rabochaia kassa). The idea of a fund to help striking and exiled workers and their families undoubtedly came from Poland, where it had been introduced earlier that year by the Union of Polish Workers ( Zwiazek polskich robotnikow). In Poland it had proved a highly successful method of organizing labor by means of strikes, the first great outburst of which took place in Warsaw in May 18go. 9 The Central Labor Fund had as its immediate and ostensible purpose to aid needy workers and to subsidize the purchase of books and the print­ ing of pamphlets and leaflets. But its long-term implications were clearly political. It cemented relations among the indi­ vidual circles and endowed the Central Worker Circle with a certain amount of authority. In effect, the Fund helped transform the Circle from a more or less informal association of leaders of individual circles into an incipient trade-union organization. For this reason the workers attached much im­ portance to it and later strenuously resisted efforts of some Social Democratic intellectuals to assume control over it. The Central Circle, which at that time had full command of the • Nevsky, "Na pereput'e," p. ss; Sviatlovsky, "Na zare," pp. 1 49-150. • On the Zwiazek polskich robotnikow, see Chapter 4, pp. 58-59. The first local strike fund in St. Petersburg seems to have been estab­ lished at a worker circle of the Putilov Works by Buraczewski in Novem­ ber 1889; see Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. 148, 150. The principal difference between the strike funds of the new, Polish type and the older funds such as had existed at the time of the Northern Union of Russian Work­ ers ( 1878-79 ) lay in their purpose. The older funds were general self­ help treasuries which also assisted strikers; the new ones were specifically established to make strike activity possible.

zB

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS Fund, reappointed Egor Afanasev its treasurer and, after his arrest in 18g2, entrusted this post to V. A. Shelgunov. 1 0 Brusnev, Cywinski, Krasin, and Golubev also helped the workers introduce some system into their hitherto haphazard program of education. What they proposed to accomplish may be gathered from the draft of a schedule found by the police on Brusnev at the time of his arrest: 1. Reading, writing, counting. 2. Chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, physiology, anatomy, hygiene; briefly: geology, cosmography, and astronomy. Various theories of the origin of the earth and the universe. 3. Darwin's theory. The theory of the origin and evolution of organisms and the origin of man. 4. The history of culture. The period of savagery and of bar­ barism. The life of man in each of these periods (his food, occupations, family, customs, laws, beliefs, property, the full communism of that time and social life-and the evolution of all this ) . The development and evolution of authority, religion, morality, family, and property. The dependence of all aspects of human life on economic conditions. The period of civilization. The same but more detailed study of this period with the addition of the political history of ancient and modern peoples-and this includes the entire evolu­ tion of all aspects of the life of the Russian people, and especially of Russian history. The history of science, philosophy, discoveries and inventions. 5. Political economy. The history of the evolution of forms of organization of labor ( slavery, feudalism, capitalism, the in­ evitable evolution of the latter to collectivism ) . The history of political economy. 6. The condition and history of peasants in Russia and the West. The peasant commune, artels, allotments, food supply, and taxes. Banks-peasant ( and landlord ) . Resettlement, the Old Believers and sectarians.

•• Sviatlovsky, "Na zare," p. 149. According to Kazakevich ( Sotsfal­ pp. 153-154), the Fund had 1,400 rubles

demokraticheskie organizatsii,

in 1891.

29

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

7. The condition of the working class in Russia and the West. The history of the labor movement in connection with the theories of various reformers. Palliatives for the labor problem (con­ sumer and construction societies, etc. ) , factory legislation. 8. The history of social movements in Europe, and its fullest, most detailed history in Russia (N.V. [Narodnaia volia?] ) . The present-day condition and importance of all the classes in Russia (gentry, clergy, bourgeoisie, peasantry, and workers; bureaucracy, army, government ) . 9. Economic policy and its history in the West and in Russia. The essence of socialism. 10. The full and detailed program-minimum of demands for the present time, precisely and explicitly grounded. 1 1

Although one may well doubt whether any of the circles com­ pleted even a part of this ambitious program, it does suggest both the breadth of the education envisaged and the gradual manner in which the intellectuals hoped to introduce the workers to socialism. By providing them with a general back­ ground in the natural and social sciences ( slanted, to be sure, in a specific direction) , they wished to instill in the workers a deep conviction of the rightness and inevitability of social­ ism. This program, and others like it, was not seditious in the sense that was much of the agitation of the contemporary Narodovoltsy or that of the Social Democrats after 1894; but the police, worried about terror and strikes, closely watched each contact between intellectuals and workers, and circle work had to be conducted in strict secrecy. Customarily, in­ tellectuals visiting worker circles disguised themselves as workers-a practice that came easier to some than to others. The new structure of the worker-circle organizations, and the loose relationship established between them and the Social Democratic intellectuals in the fall of 1890, proved eminently successful and gave the St. Petersburg labor movement a great 11 Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 85-86. Additional information on circle programs may be found in the recollections of Norinsky, p. 10, and Krasin in Krasin, pp. 102-105.

30

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS boost. The workers eagerly took to the program prepared by the students and cooperated willingly with the Central Worker Circle. In the winter of 18go-g1, when spontaneous strikes broke out in St. Petersburg at the Thornton textile factory and at the Port, the Central Circle even ventured to issue proclama­ tions to the strikers. On the basis of evidence gathered in the struck plants by members of the Circle and their friends, Golubev wrote a proclamation to the Thornton workers and Krasin to those at the Port. Both proclamations were issued in the name of the workers, stating that strike activity without organization was fruitless. In addition, the Circle at this time, also with the assistance of the intellectuals, issued for distri­ bution in factories a handwritten newssheet on matters of in­ terest to workers. 12 In all of these activities the initiative seems to have come from the workers, and the intellectuals merely carried out their sell-imposed function of acting as assistants. Emboldened by these experiences, the Central Worker Circle ventured on public appearances. In April 1891, without consulting the intellectuals, it decided to participate in the funeral procession of the Populist writer Shelgunov. Nearly one hundred workers marched in the procession, carrying a wreath inscribed with the words "To him who has pointed the way to freedom and brotherhood." According to Brusnev, this action "represented essentially the first appearance of Russian labor on the stage of the political conflict." 18 Police 1 1 Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. 154, 156-157; Krasin, pp. 71-72; Bogda­ nov in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 41. (Bogdanov erroneously dates the Port strike as having occurred in early 1890. ) According to Iu Z. Polevoi, Zarozhdenie Marksizma v Rossii, 1883-1894 gg. (Moscow, 1959 ) , pp. 387-388, only two numbers of the newssheet were issued and none has been preserved. At the time, plans were made to publish a regular bimonthly newspaper to be called Proletarii: it was to have been put out in Germany with Plekhanov's assistance; Kazakevich, Sotsial-demo­ kraticheskie or� anizatsii, pp. 159, 182. 1 • Brusnev, ' Pervye revoliutsionnye shagi," p. 74; Korolchuk, Khron­ ika, p. 158. The previous February, at Cywinski's suggestion, the workers submitted to the ailing Shelgunov, through a deputation consisting of

31

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

agents followed the procession with cameras and on the basis of evidence thus obtained arrested many participants. Among them were Leonid Krasin and the worker Mefodiev. V. S. Golubev, the representative of the intelligentsia in the Circle, had been arrested a few weeks before the Shelgunov funeral; his place in the Circle was taken by Brusnev. 1 4 In the winter of 189o-g1, the Narodovoltsy also began to gather their forces. Very little is known of either the personnel or the activity of their organization at this time. They had good contacts with the workers, in some cases going back to the propagandistic activities of their predecessors in the early 1880s. They called their organization the Group of Narodo­ voltsy ( Gruppa Narodovoftsev ) . The Narodovoltsy disposed of a clandestine printing press, the only one in St. Petersburg, which, until its discovery in 189 6, proved immensely useful in spreading People's Will as well as Social Democratic propa­ ganda in the city. The Narodovoltsy and the Social Democrats in this period maintained the best of relations, and two leading members of the Group, Aleksandrov ( real name, Olminsky ) and Sushchinsky, frequented worker circles together with Golubev, Krasin, Brusnev, and Cywinski and joined their propagandistic organization. 111 Mefodiev and the brothers Afanasev, an appeal written by them, edited by Golubev, and signed by sixty-six workers; Korolchuk, p. 157; Karelina, "Na zare," p. 14. It is reproduced by S. Valk in KA, no. 6, 1924, pp. 260-261. Brusnev's own words indicate that there is no justification for a Soviet historian's characterization of this public appearance as a "Social Demo­ cratic" labor demonstration (Korolchuk, p. 158). The workers partici­ pating in it had no political affiliation and actually came to honor a Populist writer. In calling this the first public demonstration of labor in Russia one must, however, note the labor demonstration held in front of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg in 1876 at which Plekhanov spoke. " Krasin, pp. 35, 74; Bogdanov, "Na zare," p. 7; Kazakevich, Sotsial­ demokraticheskie organizatsii, p. 163. 1 5 Karelina, "Na zare," p. 13; Nevsky, '_'Na pereput'e," pp. 5 1-54. 32

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS

The most important overt act of the Central Worker Circle was its celebration in 1891 of Labor Day on May 1, the first such celebration ever held in Russia proper. The holiday was, of course, an American institution, having been formally adopted at the conference of the American Federation of Labor in St. Louis in December 188&. The following year, the congress of the Socialist International held in Paris recom­ mended that labor everywhere follow this practice, and begin­ ning in 18go Labor Day celebrations were held annually in all countries with significant labor and socialist movements. In 18go there were mass demonstrations in Poland, leading to a strike of upwards of eight thousand workers. Plekhanov in April 18g1 published in Geneva a pamphlet, Ezhegodnyi vsemirnyi prazdnik rabochikh ( The Annual World-Wide Labor Holiday ) , in which he said that it would be a good idea if Russian workers followed suit, and at about this time, whether under his influence or, more likely, that of the Polish movement, the Central Circle resolved to hold a similar cele­ bration. It was agreed beforehand that all the speeches de­ livered on this occasion would be made by workers and that the intellectuals would attend only as guests. 1 6 The Labor Day celebration took place in the guise of a picnic on the river behind the Putilov Works. Some seventy or eighty workers showed up, as well as three or four intel­ lectuals ( Cywinski, Brusnev, Sviatlovsky, and possibly Korobko -the whole Social Democratic organization in St. Peters­ burg). 1 7 The celebration proceeded without untoward inci1• V. Sviatlovsky, "K istorii pervogo maia ( 1890-1893 g ) ," Byloe, no. 16, 1921, pp. 167-173; S. Valk, "Materialy k istorii pervogo maia v Rossii," KL, no. 4, 1922, pp. 250-288; Brusnev in Krasin, p. 70. Kaza­ kevich, Sotsial-demokraticheskie 01'gani�tsii, pp. 166-167. According to the police, the May Day celebration of 1891 was organized as a demon­ stration of sympathy for the workers of Poland. Obzor vazhneishikh doznanii, XVII, 1892-93, 13. 17 Brusnev mentions only Wmself and Cywinski as present, but Sviat-

33

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

dents and in the evening reassembled in private quarters. Both outdoors and indoors, leaders of worker circles delivered speeches, four of which were later published. 1 8 The workers sounded a surprisingly clear note of social and political con­ sciousness, indicative of the rapid progress which the labor elite had undergone in the preceding five or six years. All four of the speakers whose talks have come down to us sought to encourage their audiences by pointing to the remarkable suc­ cesses of labor in the West, especially in Germany, as evidence that the triumph of Russian labor was inevitable, despite its seeming weakness. Perhaps the most interesting speech was that delivered by the weaver and member of the Central Worker Circle, Fedor Afanasev. It suggests incidentally how intimate was the connection between the labor movement and the tradition of Populism : Let us take even a cursory glance at the historic evolution of the Social Democratic party in Germany, this strongest and best­ organized body in the West. It too emerged from a small group of men concentrated in one productive area like our St. Petersburg. These workers were the first to realize their human rights; they then conveyed their convictions to their fellow workers. For this the government began to persecute them and exile them to the prov­ inces. But even this measure turned to the advantage of the workers. These [exiled] workers found themselves comrades and, banding all together, they formed one indivisible union. Why should we Russian workers despair and run away from these fight­ ing comrades who undertake so great a task as the people's liberalovsky, "K istorii," pp. 170-171, states that he was also there. According to I. I. Vlasov, Tkach Fed01' Afanas'ev, 1859-1905 ( Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 1925 ) , p. 23, Cywinski, dressed as a worker, opened the meeting. 1 9 They were first brought out by hectograph in St. Petersburg and then reprinted in Geneva in 1892 under the title, Pervoe maia 1891 goda: Chetyre rechi rabochikh. They were later reprinted in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 121-127, and Valk, "Materialy," pp. 264-274. According to Valk, p. 263, the version published in Ot gruppy Blagoeva is in­ accurate.

34

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS tion? . . . Our worker must also become aware that labor is the mover of all progress, the creator of all science, art, and invention. As soon as the people shall realize this, then no army will be able to prevent its self-emancipation, and to carry this realization to the people is the immediate, inalienable right of all mature workers. This was shown to us by the struggle of our intelligentsia of the 1870s and 1880s. Look at this struggle, comrades, from the his­ torical point of view, notice how these friends and fighters of the people carried to the people all their knowledge, and, often at the price of their lives, justified themselves before history and repaid their debt to the people. They responded everywhere to the people's cry and offered a helping hand, but the people did not acknowledge friends in them and viewed them with suspicion. Let us then, comrades, carry out our own modest learning to the people; won't we succeed in passing it on to the people, and will not the people understand us because we are closer to it than the intelligentsia? It is only a pity, comrades, that no one gives us any help as had been given the workers of earlier times, except for a small group of people to whom we shall always owe a debt of gratitude. Present­ day youth does not hear the people's cry and does not see its suffer­ ing; it does not even bother to think about the people. This youth is nothing but a parasitic element in society: it is only capable of consuming the product of social labor, and does not consider re­ paying the people for this labor. 1 9 The Social Democrats considered the speeches too inflam­ matory to reproduce, and they appeared in hectographed form under the auspices of the Narodovoltsy. 20 These public appearances were merely outward manifesta­ tions of the uninterrupted growth of the labor movement. The 10 Valk, "Materialy," P,P · 266-267. I have followed Valk's text except for the word "parasitic ' in the final sentence, which I took from the reading in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 122. Valk's version speaks here of a "striking" ( porazitel'nyi ) element in society, which clearly makes no sense. Fedor Afanasev is identified as the author of this speech in Nevsky, Deiateli, V, 163; Sviatlovsky ascribes it to N. D. Bogdanov ("Na zare," pp. 154-156). According to Nevsky, V, 385, Bogdanov delivered the second and third speeches. B. Proshin was the fourth speaker. •• SB, no. 2 ( 10), 1934, p. 104; Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 159.

35

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

circles grew so rapidly that, when Brusnev and his colleagues graduated from the Technological Institute and left St. Peters­ burg in June 1891, the Central Worker Circle functioned entirely on its resources, furnishing circles with instructors. The Narodovolets Olminsky ( Aleksandrov), who took Brus­ nev's place as the intelligentsia's representative in the Central Circle, by his own admission did nothing and tended to regard his post as a formal one. 2 1 In order to widen its sphere of activity, the Circle sent its representatives to several other industrial centers ( Tula, Kostroma, Moscow) to contact for­ mer members of St. Petersburg circles residing there. Fedor Afanasev moved to Moscow in May or June 1891 to prepare a base for Brusnev, who wanted to lay the foundations from there for a country-wide Social Democratic labor organiza­ tion. 22 The Central Labor Fund in the course of the year accu­ mulated to twelve hundred rubles-a sizable sum if one considers the low pay even of skilled workers. The intellectuals not only did not contribute to the fund but sometimes took money from it; on one occasion they borrowed six hundred rubles to publish the proceedings of the Paris Congress of the Socialist International ( a loan which they apparently never repaid). 23 The Circle also disposed of a central library of eight hundred books.24 The public appearances of the workers in the spring of 1891, first at the Shelgunov funeral and then at the May Day celebrations, set ofI a chain of police repressions which lasted 01

p.

Olminsky, "Gruppa narodovol'tsev," p. 8, and "Davnie sviazi,"

73. In the fall of 1891 he was replaced by Cywinski. •• Bogdanov in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 44; Nevsky, DeiateU, V, 511;

Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 160. •• Sviatlovsky, "Na zare," p. 149; Ohninsky in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 74 . According to materials seized by the police in the following year, between January and April 1892 the Central Labor Fund showed assets of 822 rubles. Obzor vazhneishikh doznanii, XVII, 1892-93, 13-14. " Bogdanov in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 44.

36

CENTRALIZATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENI'S for a whole year, ending finally in the destruction of the organization of Social Democrats and the decimation of the Central Worker Circle. At the end of November 18g1, Bog­ danov and Filimonov, both members of the Circle, were ar­ rested. In their quarters the police found a quantity of social­ ist literature and proclamations to workers, one of them written by Bogdanov himself. 211 On April 26, 1892, Brusnev was seized in Moscow. In May 1892, the workers tried to hold a Labor Day meeting, but police surveillance persuaded them to postpone it to the end of June. On this occasion, the worker P. N. Evgrafov wrote a speech which he failed to deliver but whose text was discovered in the police archives after the revolution. In it, he bitterly accused Russian society of living from the toil of the working class, and he emphasized how important it was for labor to rely on its own forces:

Let us throw over and crush these parasites! There are hundreds of them and millions of us, but we are weak because we are unedu­ cated and unorganized. Let us then, brothers, learn and develop, so that sooner or later we shall be able to unite in closed ranks, like the Western workers! Let us study so that we can everywhere instruct and organize to the last drop of blood our uneducated brothers, so that we ourselves can teach circles instead of the intel­ lectuals who are fewer and fewer all the time, so that the liberation of labor will be achieved by labor itself. Thus, in this manner alone can labor free itself. 2 6 The worker circles of St. Peterburg were tremendously im­ pressed by the great wave of industrial strikes which shook Poland in May 18gz. These strikes had their center in Lodz, where they soon degenerated into a vicious anti-Jewish po­ grom. What impressed the Russians was the number of work.. Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 162; Bogdanov in Ot groppy Blagoeva, pp. 44-45. The police report on their arrest can be found in Istoriko­ revoliutsionnyi sbomik, II, 1924, 204-214. 11 Valle, "Materialy," p. 286.

37

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

ers involved : at least thirty thousand and perhaps as many as twice that figure. They expressed their admiration in an "Open Letter to Polish Workers" in which they congratulated them on the strikes and said in conclusion : "You are terribly persecuted, but you are more fortunate than we : you have already entered upon an open struggle, while we are only getting ready for it. But soon we shall follow in the footsteps of our brothers from other countries and wage war against the common enemy: the tsar, the lords, the manufacturers, the priests!" 27 Following the abortive 1892 May Day celebrations in St. Petersburg, the police continued to make arrests. In July it seized Evgrafov and Egor Afanasev, and in September Fedor Manasev was taken. 28 Only two or three members of the Central Worker Circle ( Morozov and the Karelins ) and a few Social Democratic propagandists escaped the clutches of the police. Thus, the organization built up in St. Petersburg by the intellectuals and workers over the preceding three years lay shattered, and most of the leaders of the second-generation labor elite disappeared from the scene, jailed, deported, or exiled. The social and even political importance of the circles of workers and intellectuals which functioned during the period 188g-18g2 can hardly be exaggerated. Just as the Central Worker Circle constituted the first labor organization in Rus­ sia, so did the association of intellectuals initiated by Polish students, and continued by Golubev, Krasin, Brusnev, and Cywinski, constitute Russia's first Social Democratic organiza­ tion, the source of all future Marxist organizations in St. Peters., Ibid., pp. 282-283. •• Sviatlovsky, "Na zare," p. 160; Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 45; Nevsky, Deiateli, V, 159, 163, 511. According to Karelina, "Na zare," p. 17, and Sviatlovsky, "Na zare," p. 160, Sviatlovsky and Cywinski escaped arrest and left St. Petersburg. 38

CENTRALIZATION OF TIIE TWO MOVEMENTS burg. 29 The claims usually made on behalf of the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class ( founded in 1895) in reality apply to its predecessors of 188g-18g2. •• Nevsky traced the connections between these organizations and subsequent Social Democratic groups and parties in Russia in "Na pere­ put'e," pp. 52, 55-57. In this article, pp. 51-54, and in Ocherki, p. 300, Nevsky gives the following list of persons engaged in propaganda among workers between 1889 and 1892. Technological Institute : Czeslaw Bankowski, Kosinski, Waclaw Cywinski, Jozef Buraczewski, Bronislaw Lelewel, V. N. Ivanov, I. Epifanov, M. Brusnev, L. Krasin, and G. Krasin. The university : V. S. Golubev, V. V. Sviatlovsky, D. V. Stranden, and G. M. Rodziewicz ( in other sources Rodziewicz is listed as a student at the Military Medical School ) . Institute of Forestry : Sivokhin, Ivanov. Theological Academy : I. S. Koltypin, Bogoiavlensky, A. A. Voskresensky, A. A. Favorsky, I. I. Preobrazhensky. Connected, without any institutional affiliation, were the Bartenevs. Struve also was in touch with labor circles through Bartenev and Golubev. Cf. P. Struve, "My Contacts and Conflicts with Lenin," SR, XII, no. 36 ( 1934 ) , 583. Nevsky also lists the Narodovoltsy Olminsky and Sushchinsky as members of this group. Polevoi, in Zaro­ zhdenie Marksizma, pointedly omits mention of the priest-propagandists ( pp. 375-391 ) , although, according to contemporaries, for a while they outnumbered all the other students active in worker circles. Bar­ tenev ( "Vospominaniia," no. 10, p. 195 ) says that in the fall of 1890 he and three other Social Democrats ( Golubev, Krasin, and Cywinski ) learned of the existence of a circle of some five Marxist propagandists at the Theological Academy and established contact with them. The priests did not participate long in the movement because a Polish con­ vert enrolled at the academy betrayed them to the police and, early in 1891, they were expelled. See Obzor vazhneishikh doznanii, XVI, 1891, 7g--80; also Brusnev in Krasin, pp. 6�9, and Nevsky, Deiateli, V, 401, 1052-1053.

39

C H A P T E R

T H R E E

THE CIRCLE OF RADCHENKO AND TH E ARRIVAL OF LENIN

THE T w o YEARS ( 1892-1894) which elapsed between the arrests of the Social Democrats and the shift of their successors from propaganda to agitation were a period of relative qui­ escence. Before long, both labor and the Social Democratic intelligentsia had re-established their shattered organizations and resumed activity, but they no longer displayed either the zeal or the confidence of their forerunners. Nor did they pro­ duce new ideas or techniques. Altogether, during this period the Narodovoltsy seem to have been more active in the labor movement than the Social Democrats, although as the period drew to its close their influence on labor clearly began to wane. If this period nevertheless deserves a certain amount of close attention, it is because the Social Democratic organizations then in operation supplied the principal cadres for the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, and thus provided the background for Lenin's first contacts with the labor movement. The police raids of 1891-92, as we have seen, removed most of the leaders of the St. Petersburg worker-circle move­ ment, including eight or nine of the ten members of the Cen­ tral Worker Circle. These men were soon replaced by their

RADCHENXo's cmCLE AND LENIN associates, of whom the most prominent was the mechanic Vassily A. Shelgunov. Born in 1867 of peasant parents near Pskov, Shelgunov went to work in St. Petersburg at the age of nine, first in an iron foundry and then in a bookbinding shop. At the bindery he acquired an interest in literature and politics, and began to collect newspaper clippings and offprints. In 1885 he enrolled in a technical school, where he became acquainted with Egor Afanasev, at the time the most active member of the circle movement. Together they attended circles instructed by Tochisky and the Polish Social Demo­ crats. After Afanasev's arrest in the spring of 18gz, Shelgunov replaced him as the treasurer of the Central Labor Fund. Takhtarev, who knew him well, described Shelgunov as "definitely the most outstanding worker" he had ever met: He decided to devote all his powers to support, develop, and lead in the proper direction the cause of labor. He gave himself whole­ heartedly to the common cause of the labor movement and did not miss the smallest detail of factory life. The unification of the labor representatives of the various regions of St. Petersburg, which began in the fall of 1895 [see below, Chapter 5) , was in very large measure his achievement and that of his comrades. At the same time one could see him at the university at the defense of some interesting dissertation and in the auditorium of the Higher Institute for Women at public lectures. 1

Shelgunov escaped arrest in 18gz because at the time he happened to have been serving a brief stint in the army. As soon as he was released from the service ( apparently in the fall of 1892 ) , he contacted his colleagues from the circle movement and took it upon himself to revive the destroyed 1 Takhtarev, Ocherk, p. 11. In the 1924 edition of Takhtarev's memoirs, all references to Shelgunov's responsibility for uniting the labor move­ ment are omitted ( Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 37 ) . Brief autobiographical data on Shelgunov may be found in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 52-59. A biography by M. D. Rozanov, Vasilii Andreevich Shelgunov ( Leningrad, 1948 ) , was not available to me.

41

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

labor organization. With the assistance of three veteran members of the circle movement, K. M. Norinsky, G. M. Fisher, and I. I. Kaizer, Shelgunov re-established in the winter of 1892 the Central Worker Circle. The strike fund proved more difficult to revive. It was set up only the following year, probably in the winter of 1893, under a slightly changed name: the United Fund of Petersburg Workers ( Ob"edinennaia kassa petersburgskikh rabochikh). 2 The United Fund seems to have maintained close relations with theGroup of Narodovoltsy, for, as we shall see, it collapsed completely when the police in April 1894 arrested the leaders of that group. Thanks to his personal prestige and wide contacts in labor circles ( he frequently changed jobs in order to meet new workers), Shelgunov succeeded in gathering around him a body of energetic workers, some of whom ( N. E. Merkulov, B. I. Zinovev, and I. V. Babushkin) were still in their teens, and thus represented a new, third, generation of labor leaders, bolder and more action-minded than their predecessors. If the organizations started by Shelgunov did not recapture all the authority and prestige of the ones they replaced, they were at least entirely independent of the intelligentsia. Where­ as in 1890-1892 the intelligentsia had one permanent repre­ sentative in the Central Worker Circle, now it had none. The worker Fisher thus characterizes the attitude of this group, of which he was a member: We realized in general that we were separated from the intelli­ gentsia by many conditions, the way of life, education, and so on. We conceded that we could work together but not under their direction. We could in no way conceive that the intelligentsia should tell us at every given instant to do this and that. We would not have tolerated this sort of thing. We also felt that we were incapable of telling the intelligentsia what not to do.3 • Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 33. • A. Fisher, V Rossii i v Anglii ( Moscow, 1922 ) , p. 23. 42

RADCHENKO's CIRCLE AND LENIN Under the new arrangement, the intelligentsia had to channel all communication with labor through the Central Worker Circle and, in large measure, came to depend on its good will. At the beginning of the academic year 1892-93, the Social Democratic intellectuals began to reorganize as well. The founder of the new organization was a student at the Techno­ logical Institute, Stepan I. Radchenko. Of Cossack origin, he was born in 186g in the Chemigov province, the son of a lumber dealer. He obtained his early education in Rostov on Don and Kiev and in 1887 enrolled at the institute, where he joined socialist circles. There is no evidence of Radchenko's ever having instructed worker circles, but it is known that he participated in the Social Democratic study circle founded by the engineer R. E. Klasson, an associate of the Marxist theoreticians active at the University of St. Petersburg. 4 Rad­ chenko was by temperament and conviction a conspirator who had an uncanny knack for staying out of the hands of the police; although in the entire decade of the 1890s he operated in the very center of illegal Social Democratic activity in the city, he was jailed only once and even then for a mere three months ( November 1893). Radchenko rejected the principle of labor hegemony which had determined all previous relations between workers and intellectuals. He felt that the workers did not know how to protect themselves from police agents, squandered their en­ ergies on trivialities, and altogether lacked the capacity to wage a proper war on the autocratic regime. From the experi­ ence of the earlier circles, he deduced that the direction of socialist propaganda should be removed from the hands of • On Radchenko, see I. I. Radchenko, "Stepan lvanovich Radchenko,"

SB, no. 2 (5), 1933, �P · 177-186, and G. B. [Herman] Krasin, "Stepan

lvanovich Radchenko, ' ibid., pp. 186-189. The Klasson circle started at the beginning of 1890; see Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 150. One of its members was Krupskaia.

43

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

the workers and vested in a small, highly conspiratorial body of revolutionaries recruited exclusively from the intelligentsia. His plan was to form a number of isolated worker circles, each under the leadership of a different intellectual who would be delegated by a clandestine center. The workers were not to be admitted to this center. Radchenko thereby hoped to mini­ mize the harm inflicted by the police discovery of an illegal worker circle and to prevent the kind of disastrous chain reaction which had followed the first arrests in 1891. In addi­ tion, further to protect the proposed organization from ex­ posure, he planned to appoint from the center one member to full-time conspiratorial work, freeing him from all responsibil­ ities to worker circles; thus, even if worse came to worst and the police uncovered all the circles, someone would still remain to carry on. 11 The whole emphasis of the Social Democratic organization which Radchenko proposed to establish lay on secrecy and on the pre-eminence of the intelligentsia. It was in all essential respects a reversion to the organizational methods of the People's Will. Thus Radchenko injected a new principle into the relationship between the Social Democratic intelligentsia and the worker elite, a principle of revolutionary elitism and conspiracy. Radchenko communicated his plan first of all to a fellow student at the institute who was an experienced Social Demo­ cratic propagandist, Herman Krasin. Krasin had been expelled from the institute in the spring of 1891 for participation in the funeral of Shelgunov and exiled with his brother Leonid to Nizhni Novgorod, but in the following autumn he received permission to resume his studies. ( Leonid eventually moved to the Crimea and did not return to St. Petersburg. 6 ) Krasin agreed to Radchenko's proposal and with him became the • Krasin, "Radchenko," p. 187. • Ibid., pp. 186-189; Krasln, passim.

44

RADCHENKOS CIRCLE AND LENIN founder of a new Social Democratic circle, most of whose members were drawn from the institute. In this circle Rad­ chenko functioned as the chief organizer and Krasin as the chief theoretician. They also recruited three more students at the institute, V. V. Starkov, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, and P. K. Zaporozhets. Later in the academic year they were joined by D. N. Kudriavsky ( who soon dropped out), M. K. Nazvanov, and A. L. Malchenko. Associated with the circle were four young women teachers at the evening and Sunday schools for workers founded by the industrialist Vargunin, all of whom with time married members of the circle: L. N. Baranskaia ( Radchenko), A. A. Iakubova ( Takhtarev, who joined in 1896 ) , Z. P. Nevzorova ( Krzhizhanovsky), and N. K. Krup­ skaia. Their main function was to recruit from among students in their classes potential members of worker circles. In accord with Radchenko's scheme, each member of his group was to contact a worker circle and visit it with a certain amount of regularity for purposes of instruction. But whether because the members of his group displayed little initiative or because Radchenko's penchant for secrecy and his cool relations with the Central Worker Circle made work difficult, the new Social Democratic organization seems to have been very slow in establishing contact with the workers. Sometime in the winter of 1892, Krasin and Krzhizhanovsky held tutorials with Shelgunov. But beyond this nothing certain is known of the activity of Radcbenko's circle in the first year of its existence. Even if one allows that some of their activity re­ mains unrecorded, it is fairly clear that Radchenko and his group displayed none of the boldness and energy of their predecessors. 7 • Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 167. Fisher in his memoirs ( V Rossfl, p. 19 ) describes his lessons with Starkov and other members of the Radchenko group as very unsatisfactory and recalls that Kaizer stopped attending them because he felt they were a waste of time.

45

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

Radchenko's circle was entering its second year when Lenin, a young and unknown lawyer from Samara, arrived in St. Petersburg, ostensibly in search of a job, in fact in quest of contact with revolutionary groups. During his student days Lenin had come under the influence of Social Democratjc ideas which he combined, ideologically as well as tempera­ mentally, with traditions derived from the People's Will, to which his older brother Alexander had belonged. In particular, as was the case with most revolutionaries of his generation, he had not yet broken free of faith in terrorism as a weapon of political struggle against the autocracy. He arrived in St. Petersburg a passionate advocate of terror. His zeal amazed some of the young Social Democrats in St. Petersburg who were beginning to lose enthusiasm for that method of combat in favor of the more "scientific" belief in the "objective forces of history," that is, the forces of economic development. 8 He reached St. Petersburg at the end of August 1893 by way of Nizhni Novgorod, where he had stopped over for two weeks to get in touch with the local Marxist circle headed by P. N. Skvortsov. Shortly before his arrival there, two local students with Social Democratic leanings, M. A. Silvin and A. A. Va­ neev, had left for St. Petersburg, and Lenin was given letters of recommendation to them. 9 In St. Petersburg, having found a room and a position as a barrister, Lenin sought out Silvin, who in the meantime had established contact with Radchenko's group through Krasin, a friend of the Nizhni Marxists from the time of his exile there. With Silvin's help Lenin hoped to join the Marxist circle at • V. V. Starkov, "Vospominaniia o V. I. Lenine (Ul'ianove)," KN, no. 8, 1925, p. 111. L. Krasin also favored terror; see his "Dela davno minuvshikh dnei" in Krasin, p. 99, and so, as we have seen, did Brusnev. On Lenin's attitude to terror, see also below, note 12. • M. A. Silvin, "K biografii V. I. Lenina (Iz vospominanii)," PR, no. 7, 1924, p. 66; M. Nazvanov, "Kakim ia pomniu Vladimira Il'icha," ibid., no. 2/3 (109/110), 1931, p. 96.

46

RADCHENKo's CIRCLE AND LENIN the Technological Institute. This, however, proved difficult. Radchenko was secretive, Lenin was unknown; were it not that Lenin's older brother enjoyed great fame for his terrorist efforts, Lenin might not have succeeded in penetrating the wall of conspiracy with which Radchenko had surrounded his small band. But his brother's reputation opened doors to him. Silvin contacted Radchenko, who in turn notified Krasin. It was decided to look over the new arrival, "the brother of the well-known revolutionary A. I. Ulianov," 1 0 and a meeting was arranged in the quarters occupied jointly by Starkov and Krzhizhanovsky. Present, in addition to the hosts and Lenin, were Radchenko and Silvin, and possibly Krasin. In view of the contradictory evidence available, it is not possible to determine what impression Lenin first made on the group. Silvin recorded in the original version of his memoirs, published in 1924, that it was not good: "The impression he made on me, and probably not on me alone, was at first quite ambiguous. His homely, at first sight common, appearance did not impress us very much . . ." 1 1 In the second version, pub­ lished ten years later, when the cult of Lenin was already formalized, Silvin not only omitted these original impressions, but added a most incredible account of how Radchenko and his friends, on this, their first, meeting with an outsider and complete stranger, described to Lenin all the difficulties which they encountered in their work and their lack of contacts with the working class. 12 Everything known of Radchenko's meth10 Krasin, "Radchenko," p. 188. Silvin in the book version of his memoirs ( Lenin v period zarozhdeniia partii, Leningrad, 1958, p. 4 1 ) also states that Lenin's letters of recommendation referred to his brother Alexander. 11 Silvin, "K biografil," p. 68. 11 M. A. Silvin, "V. I. Lenin v epokhu zarozhdeniia partii ( Vospo­ minaniia ) ," KS, no. 1 ( 1 10 ) , 1934, p. 77. In the book version of his memoirs ( p. 44 ) , Silvin attributes this account to Radchenko and im­ plies that he heard it from him only after December 1895.

47

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

ods of operation causes one to doubt whether such confessions ever took place. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that Lenin not only was not welcomed with open arms but did not even become a full­ Hedged member of the group until the spring of 1894-that is, more than half a year after being introduced to it. The evidence for this stems from his failure to participate at the important negotiations between workers and intellectuals undertaken on the initiative of the Central Worker Circle early in 18g4. The immediate cause of these negotiations was an outbreak of rivalry between Social Democratic and Narodovoltsy propHerman Krasin, writing forty years after the events during the Stalin­ ist period, asserted that Lenin made a splendid first impression ( "Rad­ chenko," p. 188 ) . Such accounts, however, must be classified among efforts of official hagiographers. Radchenko and his group operated in so secretive a fashion and were so afraid of police agents that, one may say with certainty, they would not have revealed the group's operations to a total stranger. Martov, though he had known Radchenko since 1892, had trouble establishing contact with the group when he moved to St. Petersburg in 1895. See Martov's Zap iskl sotsial-demokrata ( Berlin, 1922 ) , pp. zzi-zzz, .z57. Krzhizhanovsky's account of the first appear­ ance of Lenin in St. Petersbur�, on the other hand, must be relegated to the realm of sheer poetry : 'The appearance of Lenin among us in the fall of 1893 may be compared in its effects to a life-giving storm . . ," G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, Vospominaniia o Lenine ( Moscow, 1938 ) , pp. 30-31, quoted in I. Nikitin, Petersburgskil "Soiuz bor'by az osvobozh­ denie rabochego klassa" ( Moscow, 1950 ) , p . .z4. Krzhizhanovsky alone of the members of the Radchenko circle and the Union of Struggle later rose to high position in Lenin's Soviet government. In an earlier version of his recollections, written immediately after Lenin's death, Krzhi­ zhanovsky stated quite explicitly that Lenin met with certain hostility from the members of Radchenko's circle, and he ascribed it to Lenin s enthusiasm for terror. According to Krzhizhanovsky, all the members of Radchenko's group without exception "were passionate admirers of the heroic figures of the People's Will, the more so that our teacher, Karl Marx, had quite explicitly recognized their achievements. This, however, did not prevent us from examining Vladimir Ilich [Lenin] with particular thoroughness about his views on terror. I recall that certain experts in our group, while conceding the orthodoxy of his Marxist views on this method of combat, noted all the same that our new friend was tempera­ mentally too 'red' and insufficiently reliable in this respect • . ." 0 Vladl­ mire Il'iche ( Moscow, 19.24 ) , pp. 13-14.

48

RADCHENK:o's CIRCLE AND LENIN agandists. Until the winter of 1893--94, the relations between these two groups had been friendly, as we have seen, and they did not engage in competition for influence over worker circles. That winter, however, relations deteriorated. This was the period of mounting controversy between the Marxist theo­ reticians, led by Struve, and the Populist theoreticians, led by Vorontsov ( "V. V.") and Danielson ( "Nikolai-on") , over the causes of the recent famine and the future of the Russian economy. These debates, carried on in private meetings and in the pages of the Russian and foreign press, became in­ creasingly bitter. The young Marxists, confident of riding the crest of the historical wave, challenged their opponents with all the vigor and recklessness of young converts. The Populists, accustomed to enjoying virtual monopoly over the Russian radical intelligentsia, felt endangered and replied in kind. The Marxist-Populist debates could not fail to affect the rela­ tions of Social Democratic and Narodovoltsy propagandists. This rivalry greatly perturbed the workers, for it tended to intensify the political element in circle work at the expense of the educational. According to Vassily Shelgunov, "the workers felt like 'wildlife' hunted from two sides, the Narodovoltsy on one, the Marxists on the other." 1 8 To settle their relations with the intellectuals in general, and to choose between the pro­ grams of circle work advanced by the two groups, Shelgunov and his three colleagues of the Central Worker Circle invited their representatives to a conference. The first of what turned out to be two meetings took place in February 1894 in the quarters of Shelgunov. Since Rad­ chenko happened to be under arrest at the time, the Social Democratic propagandists were represented by Starkov and Krasin, while A. A. Fedulov and M. Ia. Sushchinsky spoke for the Narodovoltsy. The intellectuals confronted the workers 18

Ot gruppy Blagoeva,

p.

56.

49

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

with a choice of two tactics. The Narodovoltsy urged bolder activity and a program of education centered on politics­ that is, "agitation." The Marxists, on the other hand, according to Shelgunov, "maintained that it was too early yet to go over to agitation, that it was necessary to conduct propaganda, and at that propaganda based on problems close to factory life." 1 4 Norinsky recalls: The first to speak was a Narodovolets whom we did not know [it was A. A. Fedulov]. He spoke no less than two hours in the course of which he traced the history of revolutionary struggles of all types from their beginning to the present. He emphasized that the movement took the form of a struggle the foundations of which had been laid by the Narodovoltsy, and that only their method would produce results. The theses which he expounded carried power and conviction not only for us but also for persons better trained in such subjects . . . The Social Democratic position was presented by the representatives mentioned above [Krasin and Starkov]. They at­ tacked the arguments of the first speaker. One felt less force, less passion. 1 1; Once more, the Narodovoltsy emerged as the exponents of a more aggressive revolutionary tactic, the Social Democrats as the exponents of a more cautious, long-range policy. The meeting produced no decision and it was resolved to convoke another conference, with a broader representation. 1 6 The second meeting between labor and the socialist intelli­ gentsia took place in early April in the room lived in by Fisher and Kaizer. The Social Democrats were represented by five men ( Radchenko, Starkov, Krasin, Takhtarev, and the dentist N. N. Mikhailov) , while the Narodovoltsy sent three ( Olminsky, Sushchinsky, and B. L. Zotov) . 1 7 There were also gruppy Blagoeva, p. 56. '" Ibid., p. 17. See also, ibid., p. 56; Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie,

" Ot

p. 35; and Shelgunov, "Rabochie na puti k Marksizmu," Pf · 102-103. 18 Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 17. In his "Vospominaniia, Tvorchestvo, pp. 7--S, Shelgunov erroneously dates this conference December 1893. 1 7 Shelgunov, Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 56.

50

RADCHENKo's CIRCLE AND LENIN present between twelve and fifteen workers. Once more the intellectuals unfolded their respective programs. On this occasion the majority of workers opted for the Social Demo­ crats. The workers did not want to engage in political action, to run the risk of turning into political criminals, and preferred the Social Democratic tactic because it offered them precisely what they desired: peaceful pursuit of education in circles. They also preferred the intensive educational program of the Social Democrats, aimed at creating small cadres of well­ educated workers, to that of the Narodovoltsy, designed to create large numbers of superficially educated ( essentially "agitated") workers. 1 8 At the second meeting it was resolved that the four-man Central Worker Circle would exercise con­ trol over all the worker circles and that henceforth the Naro­ dovoltsy would be allowed to offer instruction only under the supervision of representatives of the Circle. 1 9 In this manner, the Circle hoped to minimize the danger of seditious activity and arrests which were certain to result from the Narodovoltsy program. It was the first time that the St. Petersburg worker elite expressed a preference for Social Democracy. But that this preference did not entail subservience or abdication of worker autonomy is clear from the words of Shelgunov that among themselves the workers decided to exercise close con­ trol over all the intellectuals: "to tighten the reins on the Narodovoltsy and to give the whip to the Social Democrats." 20 Shortly after the second meeting, on April 21, 1894, police 1 • Norinsky, Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 17: "Among the worker masses there prevailed at the time the following tendency: the development ought to proceed first in depth and only afterwards broaden out. The demands were quite definite : general education with simultaneous study of the social sciences. By contrast the other tendency insisted on teach­ ing mainly history, the history of politics and of political struggles." 1 0 "We decided that the intelligentsia should say in circles only what the labor organization regarded as desirable." Shelgunov, "Vospomi­ naniia," Tvorchestvo, p. 8. •• Shelgunov in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 57. Fisher ( V Rossil, p. 115 ) uses the same words.

51

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

raids virtually destroyed the Group of Narodovoltsy and the Central Worker Circle. Two agents provocateurs who attended the meeting ( the worker Kuzma Kuziutkin, connected with the Narodovoltsy, and the dentist Mikhailov) betrayed many of the participants to the authorities. Three of the four mem­ bers of the Circle ( Fisher, Kaizer, and Norinsky) were seized, as were twenty-six other workers attending circles, mostly those connected with the Narodovoltsy. The Narodovoltsy intellectuals also were hard hit, although for the time being they managed to conceal their clandestine presses from the police. 2 1 These arrests offered the Social Democrats excellent oppor­ tunities for expanding their activities among the workers, but they do not seem to have taken advantage of them. In addi­ tion to Krasin, who had a circle of his own since the beginning of the preceding year, only Starkov seems to have conducted more or less regular sessions with circles. Some of the circles previously connected with the Narodovoltsy passed into the hands of a newly formed Social Democratic circle ( popularly known as obeziany, the monkeys) founded by Konstantin Takhtarev, a student at the Military Medical School. 22 The general picture of Social Democratic propaganda work at this time is by no means impressive. Martov, who briefly visited St. Petersburg at the beginning of 1894, found the main Social Democratic circle, that of Radchenko, much more primitive and out of touch with workers than he had expected. 23 After the Narodovoltsy had been arrested, propaganda among workers was conducted largely by the workers themselves. Takhtarev asserts that, in the summer of 1894, there were virtually no Social Democratic intellectuals active in the in01

Olminsky, "Gruppa narodovol'tsev," pp. 24-26. On Takhtarev and his group, see Chapter 4. 11 Martov, Zapiski, pp. 221-222. 11

5z

RADCHENKOS CIRCLE AND LENIN dustrial districts and circle work was largely in the hands of labor propagandists. When Shelgunov ( who fortuitously escaped arrest) turned to Radchenko with a request for prop­ agandists, Radchenko refused, saying that the workers could manage with their own resources. 24 Thus, for all practical purposes, Social Democratic propaganda had come to a stand­ still, and the circle movement found itself in a situation similar to that which had prevailed before 1889. What was Lenin doing during this time? Although con­ nected with a Social Democratic propaganda group, he had little liking for this kind of work. "Like all of us," writes Silvio, "Lenin also had a circle of workers with whom he busied him­ self, but he always treated this kind of work somewhat skep­ tically." 211 All that Soviet historians have been able to discover about Lenin's relations with the circle movement of this time, and for that matter with the labor movement as a whole, are one meeting with Shelgunov at Herman Krasin's, one visit to Lenin by Shelgunov and Fisher in February 18g4, and one meeting with some workers at Shelgunov's in the spring. Since it is known that Shelgunov was a tutee of Krasin's and Fisher of Starkov's, Lenin's contacts with them do not indicate that he held any regular circle meetings during the first year of his stay in St. Petersburg. Indeed, on the basis of the available evidence, it is possible to state that Lenin had virtually no direct contact with labor and conducted no circle work in this first year. 2 6

P·

11; Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 57. "' Takhtarev, Ocherk, .. Silvin, "K biografii,' p. 74 ( omitted from his memoirs in the edi­ tions of 1934 and 1958 ) . Silvin refers here to the winter of 1894-95 when Lenin first began to conduct circle propaganda. The worker Fisher, who met Lenin while member of a circle, describes him as follows : "No one who saw him at that time would have ever suspected that he was a revolutionary; he rather resembled an intelligent" ( V Rossii, pp. 2021 ) . • • Korolchuk, Khronlka, pp. 171-173 and "V. I . Lenin i petersburgskii

53

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

Lenin's interests at this time centered not on worker propa­ ganda but on literary activity. Shortly after he had joined Radchenko's circle, he proposed that it hold periodic meetings to read and discuss papers on current problems. The circle accepted Lenin's suggestion, and Silvin offered to prepare the first report, a review of a new book by the Populist Vorontsov, Nashi napravleniia ( Our Directions). 2 7 This meeting was followed by another at which Krasin reported on the problem of "markets." 2 8 On this occasion Lenin seems to have made his first semipublic appearance in the city. According to Silvio, who has left us the only published record of this meeting, when Krasin finished Lenin got up and delivered a scathing attack on his report. Lenin accused Krasin of bothering with problems of no real concern to socialists: The problem of markets will be solved by our bourgeoisie. Our task is to stimulate in Russia a mass movement among the workers, and this is something we neglect entirely or almost so. 2 9 Further, Silvio says, Lenin stated that the workers to whom 'Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa,' " IZh, no. 12, 1938, p. 17. Korolchuk says that there is no information on Lenin's connections with labor circles during the winter of 1893-94; all such information concerns the following autwnn. Krupskaia in a note dated January 1, 1931 (cited by V. Sorin, "Lenin nakanune vozniknoveniia massovogo rabochego dvizheniia," BK, no. 7, 1933, p. 39), confirms that Lenin undertook circle work only in the autwnn of 1894. •• Silvin, "V. I. Lenin,' p. 78. 18 The problem of markets was one of the central issues in the Populist­ Marxist controversy of the time. The Populists, especially Nikolai-on, argued that capitalism could not develop in Russia for lack of internal as well as external markets, the former because they were being destroyed by the onslaught of capitalism on the peasant economy, the latter because they had been pre-empted by other, more advanced, industrial powers. The Marxists retorted that capitalism would create its own markets. The best statement of the Russian Marxist position of that time on this ques­ tion is to be found in P. B. Struve's Kriticheskie zametki k voprosu ob ekonomicheskom razvitii Rossii, I [only vol.] (St. Petersburg, 1894), 245-270. •• Silvin, "K biografil," p. 70.

54

RADCHENKo's cm.CLE AND LENIN the Radchenko group confined its attention constituted a "worker intelligentsia» cut off from the main body of industrial labor and that, all in all, the group would do better to pay more attention to practical problems. Krasin, according to Silvin, was crushed, and Lenin emerged as the undisputed leader of the group. Silvin's description might be acceptable were it not that in 1937 archivists found the manuscript of Lenin's critique of Krasin's paper, called "On the So-Called Problem of Markets" ( the "so-called» expresses Marxist contempt for an alleged Populist straw man) . It turns out to be a strictly technical discussion of the problems facing Russian capitalism in finding an outlet for its product, and it contains no hint of Lenin's impatience or contempt for preoccupation with the market problem. On the contrary, it shows that, like all Russian Marxists at the time, he took it very seriously. 30 It is certain that Lenin did not devise any practical methods of extricating the group from the halfhearted propagandistic activity on which it had been foundering since the spring of 1892. Instead of revamping the organization and breathing new life into it, he began work on a major polemical essay directed against the Populists, Chto takoe "druz'ia naroda" i •• "Po povodu tak nazyvaemogo voprosa o rynkakh," in V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, I (5th ed., Moscow, 1958), 67-123. In the 1934 version of his memoirs, Silvin speaks of Lenin's having caused Herman Krasin to leave the group ("V. I. Lenin," p. So). This assertion is certainly wrong: Krasin remained in the group until the fall of 1894 when he left in a disagreement over the proposal to abandon propaganda in favor of agitation. Nazvanov, who also attended the meeting, says nothing about Lenin's "crushing" of Krasin but, on the contrary, calls Krasin's report "particularly interesting" ("Kakim ia pomniu Vladimira Il'icha," p. 97). Krasin left a manuscript with his memoirs in which he described the events of that time. The fact that they have not been published gives some inkling of the nature of his interpretation. A few phrases from his recollections are quoted by Sorin in "Lenin nakanune vozniknoveniia massovogo rabochego dvizheniia," pp. 33-34.

55

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

kak oni voiuiut protiv sotsial-demokratovP ( What Are the "Friends of the People" and How Do They Wage War on the Social Democrats? ) . In it he took to task the leading theo­ reticians of Populism ( Iuzhakov, Nikolai-on, and others ) and, among other things, vigorously defended Struve from their attacks. 8 1 In the summer of 18g4-the same summer that Shel­ gunov pleaded in vain with Radchenko to provide intellectuals for help in educating workers-Lenin left for the countryside near Moscow to vacation with relatives, and the group pooled its resources to hectograph his essay. 8 2 At this time, with Social Democratic activity in St. Peters­ burg in a hopeless rut, the appearance of a pamphlet written in Vilno by two Jewish socialists produced an important shift and infused new life into the activity of all Russian Social Democrats. V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia I ( 2nd ed., Moscow, 1935 ) , 51-222. On Struve, see especially pp. 171-173, 2 13-216. 81 Ibid., pp. 493-495; Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii ( 5th ed. ) , I, 656. 81

CHAPTER

F OUR

THE S O C IAL DEM O C R A T S C O N V E R T T O AG I T A T I O N

PARADOXICALLY, at the very time when the St. Petersburg workers were turning to the Social Democrats out of prefer­ ence for their propagandistic methods, the Social Democrats themselves were growing impatient with propaganda. Many of them began to feel that circle work did not yield the desired results; that is, it failed to produce a body of enlightened, class-conscious workers capable of spreading socialism among the proletarian masses. During 1894 and 1895 one could hear in Social Democratic groups all over Russia complaints against the circles: they were blamed for creating "intellectual Epi­ cureans," for inculcating in workers some of the worst vices of the Russian intelligentsia ( loquaciousness, paralysis of will) , for isolating the Social Democrats from the main body of industrial workers. 1 There was in the air a mood for action, a mood partly shared by the workers, especially the younger ones whom Shelgunov had recruited into the movement after the debacle of April 1894. This atmosphere explains the accept­ ance by the majority of Russian Social Democratic groups, 1 Takhtarev, Ocherk, p. 16, and Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 44; Katin­ Iartsev, "Teni proshlogo," Byloe, no. 25, 1924, pp. 104-105; Martov, Zapiski, pp. 223-224.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

including those of St. Petersburg, of a new method of work known as agitation. This new method originated in Russian Poland, in a socialist labor organization called the Union of Polish Workers ( Zwia­ zek polskich robotnikow) . Founded in 1889 by workers and intellectuals dissatisfied with the terrorist tactics of the Prole­ tarjat group, the Union concentrated on economic conflicts between employers and workers on the assumption that the best way to create a mass organization and to interest the worker in politics is to promote industrial strife. The exponents of this device maintained that the worker who was indifferent or hostile to socialist and democratic ideas instinctively under­ stood his own needs and would respond favorably to propa­ ganda based on his personal economic interests. A strike for higher wages or shorter working hours would soon drive him also to antigovernment activity because the government would back the employers and punish the strikers, thus revealing the intimate connection between the capitalist system and the country's political regime. The worker would come to under­ stand that he could not improve his lot without fighting autocracy. Thus the goal of political action in the name of democracy and socialism would be reached by way of the economic struggle in the name of the worker's immediate needs. This tactic called for agitation among the mass of industrial laborers, that is, incitement against their employers and the authorities who were expected to support them. The Union of Polish Workers built up a network of strike funds and, beginning in May 1890, incited in the industrial centers of Poland a series of large-scale labor disturbances, which culminated in the great strikes of May 1892. An interest­ ing aspect of the Union's record is the fact that, although its ultimate aim was the involvement of labor in the political struggle, in its day-to-day activities it altogether ignored

58

THE CONVERSION TO AGITATION political issues. Agitation on economic grounds for political purposes tended quite naturally, in the heat of industrial strife, to transform itself into plain economic agitation for economic ends. 2 Russian workers in St. Petersburg watched these develop­ ments closely and throughout this period maintained contact with their Polish colleagues. We have seen that in 1891 they wrote an "Open Letter to the Polish Workers"; it is also known that in the spring of 1892 V. V. Sviatlovsky, a member of the St. Petersburg Social Democratic group connected with the Central Worker Circle, was dispatched to Poland to contact workers and that, a year later, Morozov, a member of the Central Circle, traveled to Lodz for the same purpose. 8 Un­ doubtedly, there were more such efforts. But the St. Petersburg workers seem to have been less interested in the tactic of agitation and strikes than in the institution of workers' funds to which they were first introduced by Polish students. 4 The resources of these funds were used in St. Petersburg not to promote strikes but to build libraries and occasionally to help • Perl, Dziefe, pp. 331-345; Pogodin, Glavnye techeniia, pp. 252-260; M. Mazowiecki, Historia polskiego ruchu socfalistycznego w zaborze rosyfskim (Cracow, 1903 [ 1904) ), pp. 187-234; L. Martov, "Razvitie krupnoi promyshlennosti i rabochee dvizhenie do 1892 g.," Istoriia Rossii v XIX veke ( [St. Petersburg], n.d., Izd. A. i I. Granat), VI, 153155; Elnitsky, Istoriia rabochego dvizheniia, p. 110. The Union of Polish workers was smashed by the police toward the end of 1892, but from its remnants the following year emerged the Polish Socialist Party (PPS)• Its leader was Janusz Tanski, and its members included Wladyslaw Grabski, the future minister of the Polish Republic, and Juljan March­ lewski. • On Sviatlovsky's journey, see Sviatlovsky, "Na zare," p. 152; on Morozov's, Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 168, based on archives. The Russian workers were particularly impressed by the fact that the Polish labor movement was led by workers. "The Socialist movement in Poland," says the Soviet historian Valk, "from the instant of its emergence was a labor movement as well as a mass movement, in sharp contrast to the Russian revolutionary socialist movement in which the tone was set by the intel­ ligentsia and by circles" ("Materialy," p. 253 ) . • See above, Chapter 2 , note 9. 59

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

out a worker who had suffered imprisonment for attending study circles. Until 189 6 strike activity in St. Petersburg was as a rule spontaneous, undertaken by completely unorganized and usually very backward factory workers without assistance from circle workers from the Social Democratic intelligentsia. The agitational technique as such first reached Russia proper by way of Vilno, where it had been borrowed and adapted from the Union of Polish Workers. 11 Modeling themselves on the Poles, the Jewish Social Democrats in Vilno organized strike funds among local artisans and laborers, and in 18g2 and 1893 they instigated a series of strikes whose main purpose was to reduce working hours. In so doing, they made use of a long-forgotten law of Catherine II authorizing employees to quit shop after ten hours of work. 6 This experience demon­ strated the opportunities for widespread strike agitation on the basis of '1egal" demands, that is, to compel employers to obey existing laws and regulations. The most important labor law then on the books in Russia was the factory law of 188 6 ( Zakon o shtrafakh), which had been issued in response to the great strike at the Morozov factory in Orekhovo-Zuevo. This law regulated the penalties and fines imposed by em­ ployers on workers and created the office of a government factory inspector to supervise the execution of the law and to hear complaints. However, since the factory inspectors tended to be lax in carrying out their duties, and many employers continued to impose fines in a completely arbitrary fashion, Social Democratic agitators were in a position to intercede on behalf of the workers and carry out their essentially illegal undertaking under the guise of legality. • That the Jewish Social Democrats in Vilno acted under the influence of the Union of Polish Workers is acknowledged by Martov in Zapiskl, p. zz5, and "Razvitie krupnoi promyshlennosti," p. 157. See also Takh­ tarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 44. • Martov, "Razvitie krupnoi promyshlennosti," pp. 15 7-158.

6o

THE CONVERSION TO AGITATION

Agitation proved so successful that at the beginning of 1894, after lengthy discussion, the Jewish Social Democrats in Vilno determined to concentrate on it their main energies, curtailing or suspending altogether propaganda in worker circles. 7 In order to strengthen the movement, they also de­ cided to establish contact with the numerous small worker funds that they had helped create during the preceding two years. These proposals met with unexpectedly strenuous oppo­ sition from the circle workers on whose assistance the Social Democrats had counted. Since the attitude of the Vilno work­ ers toward agitation closely resembled that revealed a year later by some of the workers of St. Petersburg, it is well worth quoting a firsthand description by Martov: We [the intellectuals] looked upon them [the circle workers] as a lever with which to put in motion a whole class, as a weapon in the hands of the revolutionary organization; they saw themselves as individuals emerging from a backward multitude and creating a new cultural environment. But this was only half the trouble. The [main] trouble was that, given this outlook, they viewed the entire process of the future rise of their class in an oversimplified ration­ alistic manner: they thought it would occur from the spread of that lmowledge and those new moral concepts which they themselves had acquired in the circles and from reading. Arguments with them led us to the astounding discovery that their whole manner of social thinking was idealistic, that their socialism was still thor­ oughly abstract and utopian, and that the idea of employing the class struggle to transform the uncultured environment itself, in protest against which their own social awakening had occurred, was still entirely alien to them. They read with passion biographies of the Narodovoltsy, articles by Dobroliubov and Pisarev, the novels of Pomialovsky, Omulevsky and Sheller-Mikhailov, and this litera­ ture did much more to mold their mentality than Dikshtein's "Who Lives by What?" and the pamphlets of Akselrod or Plekhanov. They considered self-education, in the noblest sense of the word, the alpha and omega of the socialist movement, and they found • Martov, Zapiskl, pp. 224-226.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

unbearable the idea that, instead of devoting all the time to make themselves into "critically thinking personalities," one ought to pick persons with agitational talents and equip them with that minimum of knowledge necessary to influence the masses. 8 The workers who opposed the new tactic found support from some intellectuals, who wrote pamphlets accusing its proponents of being bourgeois and wishing to exploit labor for their own purposes. 9 In an effort to sway the hostile Vilno workers to the new method, one of its main advocates, Alex­ ander Kremer, wrote a pamphlet called Ob agitatsii ( On Agi­ tation ) . Edited by Martov, it was to achieve great fame throughout Russia, and before long it acquired the status of a handbook of Social Democratic action. The main thesis of this pamphlet was stated in the opening paragraphs. After explaining how the progressive concentra­ tion of capital would inevitably lead to an intensification of the class struggle, Kremer and Martov proceeded to discuss the relation between economic and political struggles : Only the power of the state still has the capacity to fight the mass of workers, and so long as the bourgeoisie retains political power, so long, it can be boldly stated, there can be no major improvements in the workers' lot. For that reason, no matter how extensive the labor movement, its successes cannot be assured until labor commits itself firmly to the political struggle. The attainment of political power represents the main task of the struggling proletariat. But this task can confront the worker only when the economic struggle demonstrates to him that it is clearly impossible to improve his lot under existing political conditions. Only when the strivings of the proletariat come to confront directly the given political system, and when the current of the labor movement comes up against political authority, will the movement have arrived at the phase at which the class struggle is transformed into a conscious political struggle. 1 0 • Ibid., pp. 229-230. • Ibid., pp. 227-228. 10 Ob agitatsii, p. 7. I translate from the first printed version published anonymously in Geneva in 1896 with a critical postscript by Akselrod.

6z

THE CONVERSION TO AGITATION The authors proposed for emulation the British labor move­ ment, which in a short time had achieved power and prestige without involving itself in the political life of the country. They summarized their program as follows: "the task of Social Democrats lies in carrying out continuous agitation among factory workers on the basis of their everyday petty needs and demands." 1 1 On the basis of these principles Kremer, Martov, and their followers instigated a series of successful strikes in Vilno in the winter of 1894-95, but they failed to win over the main body of the Jewish labor elite, and in the summer Martov moved to St. Petersburg. 1 2 Their views proved more popular outside Vilno. Ob agitatsii, circulating in handwritten and hecto­ graphed copies, spread far and wide in the principal cities of Russia and stimulated intense discussions in Social Demo­ cratic circles, many of which adopted its doctrines. In practice, the method of conducting agitation was every­ where the same. With the assistance of friendly workers, usually members of study circles, the Social Democrats gathered detailed information on the conditions and griev­ ances of workers in a given industrial establishment. This information was then edited and written up in the form of leaflets or proclamations addressed to the workers. Such publi­ cations dealt with concrete issues which even unlettered and simple-minded laborers could understand: wages, working hours, fines, treatment by foremen, and so on. They explained the pertinent laws and practices prevailing in other factories and formulated the demands with which the workers should confront the management. Because, as a rule, working condi11 Ibid., p. 16. There is an interesting and perceptive summary of this pamphlet in the police report of 1896: Glavnoe upravlenie arkhivnym delom, "Doklad," pp. 9&-g7. The police knew it under the title "Pre­ dislovie." 1 2 Martov, Zapi.ski, pp. 239-254.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

tions were worst in small factories, they proved more vulner­ able to agitational techniques than the large establishments employing skilled laborers. Sometimes the Social Democrats tried to link economic grievances with broader political issues, but on the whole agitation in the 1890s meant pure economic agitation with few if any political overtones. 1 8 The agitational method came at a time when Social Demo­ crats throughout the empire were growing restless, and it was readily adopted in the major industrial centers, beginning with Moscow. It marked the beginning of a new phase in the his­ tory of Russian Social Democracy.14 Ob agitatsii reached St. Petersburg by several routes: one copy was brought in by Martov in October 18g4, another by Silvio, who had obtained it in Moscow; very likely other Social Democrats found copies too. 1 5 The group of Social Democrats with which Lenin was connected studied this document care­ fully, and so did the labor leaders gathered around Shelgunov. Opinions were sharply divided. Radchenko and Krasin were dead set against agitation. They felt that it would deflect Social Democrats from proven methods, lead to concentration on trivialities ( specific conditions in individual industrial estab­ lishments), and expose the movement to police repressions. Some of the labor leaders, including young Babushkin, also opposed agitation and called for a continuation of circle work. 11 The best idea of the nature of agitation can be obtained from reading the text of the agitational publications of the St. Petersburg Social Democrats r,ublished by S. Valk and I. Tovstukha, Listovki peters­ burgskogo • Soiuza bor'by za ostiobozhdenie rabochego klassa," 18951897 gg. (Moscow, 1934); see also V. Akimov, Materialy dlia kharakter­ istiki razvitiia Rossiiskoi sotsialdemokraticheskoi rabochei partii (Geneva, 1904 [ 1905]), p. 41. " The Russian historian of Social Democracy, N. Sergieevsky, wrote a book called Propagandistskii period 1.storii partii (The Propagandistic Period of the Party's History). Finished around 1930, it apparently never appeared in print. It is listed in Nevsky, Deiateli, V, 512. u Martov, Zapiski, pp. 236-237; Silvin, Lenin, p. 85.

64

TIIE CONVERSION TO AGITATION Lenin also seems to have come out against agitation at first. Among the workers, the most enthusiastic advocates of the new tactic were some of the younger circle members like Zinovev and Merkulov ( both under twenty-one) -generally men with­ out long experience in the labor movement. 1 6 To discuss problems raised by Ob agitatsii the Social Demo­ crats held one and possibly two meetings in the fall of 1894. One took place in the quarters of Silvio and Vaneev in the presence of the other members of the Social Democratic group, as well as three labor leaders, Shelgunov, Babushkin, and Merkulov. Arguments for and against were heard, and a com­ promise solution was agreed upon: the group would under­ take agitation but at the same time continue to carry on prop­ aganda within the circles. On the Vilno pattern, Lenin suggested basing agitation on '1egal" demands, stressing the workers' rights as guaranteed by existing legislation. 17 Some workers, dissatisfied even with this mild resolution, disasso­ ciated themselves from the Social Democratic group; and so did Krasin. 1 8 One thing is certain: Lenin's group throughout the academic 10 Silvin, "V. I. Lenin," pp. 97-99; Vospominaniia Ivana Vasil'evicha Babushkina (Moscow, 1955), pp. 63-64. Lenin's opposition to agitation

is explicitly stated by E. Korolchuk ("Leninskii 'Soiuz bor'by za osvobo­ zhdenie rabochego klassa"-Zachatok boevoi revoliutsionnoi rabochei partii," VI, no. 1, 1956, p. 14.) She asserts that at the meeting of Social Democratic intellectuals from St. Petersburg, Vilno, and Kiev, held on February 18-19, 1895, Lenin denounced this method of work and ex­ pressed preference for the older propagandistic tactic. Further evidence to this effect is provided by Lenin's first proclamation addressed to industrial workers written early in January 1895 (see below, note 21). 1 7 Silvin, "V. I. Lenin," p. 97, and Lenin, p. go. Shel gunov, in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 57, speaks of another meeting at Krasin's attended by Lenin, Martov, Potresov, Krzhizhanovsky, Vaneev, and himself. Silvin ( "V. I. Lenin," p. 97) contradicts him and denies that such a meeting took place; nor does Martov mention it in his memoirs. 18 Silvin, Lenin, p. 92. See also S. Avvakumov, "Lenin f petersburgskii 'Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa,' " BK, no. 7/8, 1935, p. 62.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

year 1894-95 continued to function mainly along the old propagandistic lines. Indeed, it is only now that Lenin himself undertook to conduct regular circle work. At the invitation of Shelgunov, Lenin held instructional meetings with a group of circle leaders in his own rooms and in workers' quarters in the Neva region. 1 9 He proved a popular teacher, gifted with the ability to explain difficult materials. His common nickname was Lysyi ( "Baldie") because, as Babushkin records, the workers used to say that "from all his knowledge he had lost his hair." 20 Other members of the Social Democratic group to which Lenin belonged also began to conduct active propa­ ganda. The first occasion to try out the new methods occurred in January and February 1895 when strikes broke out at the Neva Mechanical and Naval Works and the New Admiralty. On the basis of materials collected by friendly workers, the group issued two proclamations written by Lenin. 2 1 These efforts 1 0 Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. 175-176, and "V. I. Lenin," p. 17; Nevsky, Deiateli, V, 182; Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 39; Nikitin, Peters­ burgskii "Soiuz bor'by," p . 27.

According to Sorin ("Lenin nakanune vozniknoveniia massovogo rabochego dvizheniia," p. 40--41), the only circle which Lenin may be said with any degree o assurance to have attended was that organized by I. V. Babushkin. He might also have attended other circles from time to time ( for instance, that of V. A. Kniazev), but this is not certain. In addition, like most Social Democratic propagandists, Lenin also tutored in his home individual members of labor circles, such as Babushkin, Shelgunov, and lakovlev. On the latter's meetings with Lenin, see his recently published memoirs (I. I. lakovlev, "Vospominaniia o V. I. Lenine i petersburgskom 'Soiuze bor'by,' " IA, no. 6, 1959, p. 101). Each of these workers, however, had several tutors, and the).' can in no sense be called (as is the practice of Soviet historians) the 'pupils of Lenin," in the sense of disciples and followers. •• Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 39; Babushkin, Vospominaniia, p. 44. Lenin's other nicknames were Starik ( "the old one," another allu­ sion to his premature baldness) and Literator. •• A fragment of the first two of these proclamations has been dis­ covered and published by B. Nikolaevsky ("K istorii petersburgskoi sotsial-demokraticheskoi gruppy 'starikov,' " LM, no. 3, 1927, pp. 61-66 ) .

f

66

11IE CONVERSION TO AGITATION seem to have exhausted the group's energies, and it went back to less spectacular circle work. According to Silvio, there was no agitation as late as spring 1895. 22 Contact with workers gave Lenin the first opportunity to learn personally about the conditions and problems of Russian labor. He found this so fascinating that he seems to have spent a considerable part of that year studying labor legislation and acquiring, through questionnaires which he had especially prepared for that pur­ pose, excellent knowledge of the labor situation. According to Krupskaia, he became an expert on Russian labor law. In the spring of 1895, a group of Social Democratic students, mostly from the Technological Institute, dissatisfied with the caution and lack of drive of the older men, formed a rival group. Its founder was I. V. Chemyshev, a Technologist, and his following consisted of half a dozen students and sym­ pathizers, including the dentist Mikhailov who outside this Despite denials by Krzhizhanovsky who claimed authorship (LM, no. 4, 1927, p. 140) and the refusal of the editors of Lenin's collected works to include it (see, for example, Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., I, 566), its authorship seems quite certain. Nikolaevsky describes it as a propagandistic rather than agitational proclamation; this quality helps explain the refusal of Soviet historians to acknowledge its authenticity, The second proclamation has been located together with the fragment of the first in the archive of Akselrod but published only in 1937 by G. Tikhomimov ("Pervye agitatsionnye listki Lenina," PR, no. 8, 1937, pp. 124-126). It is characteristic of the Lenin of that time by virtue of its '1egal" appeal. It urges the workers not to rebel but merely to avail themselves of the rights guaranteed them by the existing legislation. Lenin claimed that the appeal he had written on this occasion was the "first" Marxist agitational leaflet (Sochineniia, znd ed., I, 463), which, of course, is quite wrong, but his error was probably not intentional since he probably knew next to nothing of the activities of such of his predecessors as Golubev. What agitation meant in practice at that time may be gathered from the recollections of Krupskaia concerning one of these proclamations: "Lenin wrote this leaflet and reproduced it by hand in capital letters in four copies. Babushkin scattered them in the plant. Janitors picked up two copies, two were picked up by workers and passed around. This was then considered a major achievement." Lenin, Sochineniia, znd ed., I, 463. See also Valk, Listovki, pp. 1-6. 11 Silvin, Lenin, p. g6.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

group was widely ( and rightly ) regarded as a police agent. Chemyshev's group adopted enthusiastically the agitational methods, established contact with worker circles, and began to compete with the older group for hegemony. At first they were known by the nickname petukhi ( roosters ) , but later in the year they came to be referred to as the molodye ( young ones ) in contrast to the group to which Lenin belonged; it is at this time that the latter received the name of the stariki ( elders ) . Although Chemyshev' s group showed more enthu­ siasm and boldness than its rival, it was severely handicapped by Chemyshev's egocentric, "Bonapartist" personality, as well as by the mistrust of both intellectuals and workers for Milc­ hailov, his second in command. 23 11 In addition to Chemyshev and Mikhailov, the group included F. V. Lengnik, E. G. Bogatyrev, N. G. Malishevsky, D. A. Vorontsov, S. Muromov, M. S. Rakitin, and M. M. Shat. Katin-Iartsev, "Pervye shagi," p. 107; Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 45; Nazvanov, "Kakim ia pomniu V. I. Lenina," p. 98; Martov, Zapiski, pp. 255-256; Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie, "Doklad," pp. 144-149. I have not been able to find any secondary literature on this group, and all information about it is highly fragmentary. The history of the terms "stariki" and "molodye" is very confused, largely owing to Lenin's efforts after 19oz to rewrite the history of his St. Petersburg days. In order retroactively to separate himself from the Economists active in 1901, when he was working on What Is To Be Done? Lenin applied the term "molodye" to all those who had joined the group to which he had belonged after his own arrest in December 1895 ( "Chto delat'?" Sochineniia, 2nd ed., IV, 387 ) . In this manner Takhtarev and Iakubova, the main proponents of an "economist" line in the Union of Struggle, which they had joined in 1896 ( see below, Chapter 6 ) , could be separated from the founders of the organization who included Lenin. Such a use of the term "molodye" is incorrect. Contemporary sources, including police records, leave no doubt that the term "stariki," coined in the spring or summer 1895, applied to all the members originally founded by Radchenko, and "molodye" applied only to the followers of Chemyshev and Mikhailov. In 1903 Takhtarev, in a r, ersonal encounter with Lenin, argued against the use of the term 'molodye" in Whal Is To Be Doner But the best he could obtain from Lenin was a grudging and qualified admission on the pages of Iskra that his usage had been "not entirely exact" ( Iskra, no. 40, May 15, 1903, note signed "Peterburzhets," Takhtarev's pen name, with a postscript by Lenin ) . From the historical point of view, Lenin was quite inexact.

68

'I1IE CONVERSION TO AGITATION

Simultaneously there operated a small Social Democratic group headed by Takhtarev, founded in the winter of 18g3. This group opposed the agitational technique and favored assisting workers in the task of self-education and trade-union organization along lines which had been traditional in the St. Petersburg Social Democratic movement before 18g2, when Radchenko had introduced the principles of elitism and con­ spiracy. 24 What accounts for the relative passivity of Lenin and his colleagues during this year? As one studies the record of their activities, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the stariki progressively lost contact with the labor movement so that, as we shall see, in the summer of 1895 they did not even partic­ ipate in the important labor conferences leading to the establishment of the Central Worker Group. Lenin was too able and too ambitious to be content with either propaganda or agitation affecting relatively small groups of workers. His attention was focused on the mounting conflict between the Marxists and the Populists, a conflict that was beginning to break into the open and eventually was to pave the ground for the formation of a national Social Democratic party. This conflict had its center at the university and at the Free Economic Society, where under the aegis of Peter Struve challenge after challenge was flung at Populist theoreticians. Gathered around Struve was a brilliant group of scholars and publicists with wide connections and excellent knowledge of the European socialist movement. By comparison with them, the stariki were intellectually primitive and quite second-rate. Leonid Krasin thus compares the two leading groups of St. Petersburg Social Democrats: We as provincials were of course incomparably less educated, not to say plainly ignorant, compared with such representatives of St. "' Takhtarev's group is described in his own and Katin-Iartsev's writ­ ings. See also Nevsky, Ocherki, p. 401.

6g

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

Petersburg university youth as N. V. Vodovozov, P. B. Struve, N. D. Sokolov, the brothers Gerd, V. V. Bartenev, and many others. Many of them not only have studied more systematically the social sciences and history, but they also knew foreign languages and read in the original books whose Russian translation either did not exist or were forbidden by contemporary censorship. We, on the other hand, came from deep Siberia which knew no literature except for the "fat journals." 211

It is this learned and influential group that Lenin was eager to join. Through it he could secure access to the leaders of Westem and Russian emigre socialist movements, as well as obtain an opportunity to publish in the legal press and thereby acquire a national reputation. The Marxist theoreticians at the university for a long time had been handicapped by the absence of an outlet for their writings. The government censors turned down requests for permission to start a Marxist publication, while the Populists, who controlled the radical journals, exercised an informal but no less strict censorship against their rivals. As a consequence, Struve had to publish all his early Marxist essays in German socialist periodicals. This procedure was clearly unsatisfactory, and Struve's close friend, A. N. Potresov, initiated in 1893 or the early part of 1894 an effort to circumvent the periodical censorship by publishing Marxist works in book form. The test case was Struve's first book, Kriticheskie zametki k voprosu ob ekonomicheskom razvitii Rossii ( Critical Remarks on the Question of the Economic Development of Russia). Directed against the Populist proponents of the theory of Russia's "sepa­ rate path" of economic development, the book boldly asserted that the triumph of capitalism in Russia was a foregone con­ clusion and, in the caustic manner which was then in vogue •• Krasin, pp. 95--96. Although Krasin refers directly to himseH and his brother Herman, his remarks are relevant for the entire group, all of whose members came from the provinces.

70

THE CONVERSION TO AGITATION among the radical intelligentsia, dismissed one by one the hallowed tenets of Russian socialist thought. To everyone's surprise, the censor passed the book. It appeared in September 1894, and in less than a month the entire first printing was sold out. Struve's book marked the emergence in Russia of Marxism from the closed study circle onto the broad public stage; and, incidentally, it indicated how the Marxists could circumvent the Populist monopoly over the journals. Encouraged by this experience, Potresov began to plan other volumes with Plekhanov and Struve, including a symposium of essays by leading Marxists in Russia and in emigration. Clearly, for any Marxist, participation in this venture was highly desirable, and before the year was over Lenin added his name to it. Lenin first met Potresov through Radchenko and Klasson in February 1894, 2 6 but there is no evidence of his having closer dealings with him or his colleagues until the fall of that year. When Struve's book came out, Lenin, with characteristic passion and thoroughness, analyzed it in a long manuscript essay which he called "Otrazhenie Marksizma v burzhuaznoi literature" ( The Reflection of Marxism in the Bourgeois Literature) . Lenin's essay, despite its aggressive title ( itself adopted from Struve's own characterization of the works of the German economist Lujo Brentano) , was by no means an unqualified attack on Struve. He accused Struve mainly of two failures: the failure to indicate the class basis of the Popu.. Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 173. The editors of the fifth edition of Lenin's works ( Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, I, 656 ) , following Krupskaia, state that Lenin at that time also met Struve. But Struve in his recollec­ tions ( "My Contacts and Conflicts with Lenin," SR, XII, no. 36, 1934, 590 ) dates his acquaintance with Lenin from the fall or winter of 1894. The beginning of Lenin's friendship with the university Marxists coin­ cided, it must be remembered, with the conferences held between the Central Worker Circle and the intelligentsia described above ( pp. 48-5 1 ) .

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list ideology ( petty-bourgeois, in Lenin's opinion) and his ( admitted) failure to adhere to Marxist orthodoxy. But Lenin repeatedly indicated that be was less interested in criticizing Struve than in implementing him; and the whole tone of the essay, at least in its final printed version, is by no means hostile. Rather, it seems written in the spirit of friendly advice. Through Potresov, a meeting was arranged with Struve, and in Potresov's as well as Struve's apartment Lenin read to a small group, which included Starkov and Radchenko, the entire text of his manuscript. 27 Afterwards, Lenin had many private meetings with Struve. Potresov then invited him to publish his critique alongside Struve's reply in the symposium which was being readied for the press. Lenin was tom by doubt. First, he was eager to appear in print: the difference between having his writings reproduced in an edition of fifty copies by bectograph and two thousand " Struve, ibid., pp. 590-595. Forty years later Struve thus described the imr,ression which Lenin had made on him at the time (pp. 591593 ) : 'The impression which Lenin at once made on me-and which remained with me all my life-was an unpleasant one. It was not his brusqueness that was unpleasant. There was something more than an ordinary brusqueness, a kind of mockery, partly deliberate and partly irresistibly organic, breaking through from the inmost depths of his being, in Lenin's way of dealing with those on whom he looked as his adversaries. And in myself he sensed at once an adversary, even though then I stood still fairly near to him. In this he was guided not by reason, but by intuition, by what hunting people call 'Hair' . . . Lenin's brusque­ ness and cruelty-this became clear to me almost from the outset, from our first meeting-was psychologically indissolubly bound up, both in­ stinctively and deliberately, with his indomitable love of power . . . The terrible thing in Lenin was that combination in one person of actual self-castigation which is the essence of all real asceticism, with the castigation of other people as expressed in abstract social hatred and cold political cruelty , , . For me these characteristics are not abstract reflections, but a certain sediment of all that I felt and experienced at the time when my intercourse with Lenin was most intensive and when I used to drive away those thoughts and images as mental checks and complications to the intercourse which, for the sake of its potential political utility, I regarded both as morally obligatory for myself and politically indispensab,e for our cause." 72

THE CONVERSION TO AGITATION by a printing press was a difference between remaining a member of a small, unknown group of engineers and becoming a colleague of the leaders of Russian Marxism. At a time when Russia had no political parties and publication offered the only avenue of acquiring prestige, access to a press had an impor­ tance which can hardly be conceived today. For this, Lenin was willing to form an alliance not only with those he con­ sidered "bourgeois," but also with the People's Will. 2 8 How­ ever, he was fearful of being duped and losing his freedom of action. 2 9 There were also the members of his Social Demo­ cratic circle to contend with, some of whom objected to any association with Struve and Potresov. 8 ° Finally, in long dis­ cussions attended by Radchenko and Klasson, an agreement was hammered out: Lenin would submit his essay to Potre­ sov's symposium, but he promised to soften it, partly to mini­ mize the danger of difficulty with the censors, partly to meet Struve's countercriticism. 81 Lenin's relations with Potresov and Struve explain why he showed so little initiative in proceeding with agitation. The fact is that he spent most of the academic year 1894--95 work­ ing on his critique of Struve's book, on drawn-out discussions and negotiations with Potresov and Struve, and, finally, on rewriting his critique for publication. These activities allowed little time for the detailed analyses of labor conditions, meet:: S�e _Ch�£!er _6. . ., Silvm, K b1ografh, pp. 71--7.2; Martov, Zapiskt, p. .258. •• Silvin recalls running once into Struve in Lenin's apartment. "When Struve left, I asked Vladimir Ilich what he wanted of Struve. Vladimir Ilich looked at me with that incomparable irony which so often shone in his eyes and remarked : 'You find that he holds no interest for us, but I find that he does' " ( "K biografil," p. 7.2 ) . This whole passage is omitted from the 1934 edition of Silvin's memoirs. It is partly restored in the 1958 version ( Lenin, p. 5 1, ) , but the words, "that incomr,arable irony which so often shone in his eyes," are replaced by a terse 'drily." 11 Starkov, "Vospominaniia," p. 1 10; Lenin, Sochinenita, znd ed., I, 499; KA, no. 4, 19.23, pp. 308--309.

73

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

ings with workers, and preparation of proclamations and pamphlets required by the agitational tactic. Potresov's symposium was printed at the beginning of May 1895 under the title, Materialy dlia kharakteristiki nashego ekonomicheskogo razvitiia ( Materials for a Characterization of Our Economic Development). It included Lenin's first printed work, his critique of Struve under a changed title ( "The Economic Content of Populism and Its Critique in the Book of Mr. Struve"), as well as Struve's reply to some of his reviewers, M oim kritikam ( To My Critics). 32 Largely because of Lenin's article, the censors turned the book down and ordered it committed to the flames, but perhaps as many as a hundred copies were saved and one was delivered by Lenin to Plekhanov that summer. 33 The venture, though unsuccess­ ful, has considerable historical importance, for it marked Lenin's debut as a Legal Marxist. 34 •• K. Tulin [V. I. Lenin], "Ekonomicheskoe soderzhanie narodnichestva i kritika ego v knige g. Struve," Materialy dlia kharakteristiki nashego ekonomicheskogo razvitiia (St. Petersburg, 1895), Part II, 1-144 (re­ printed in Lenin, Sochineniia, I, 223-362), and Struve, "Moim kritikam," pp. 145-196 (reprinted in P. Struve, Na raznye temy (1893-1901 ) : Sbornik statei, St. Petersburg, 1902, pp. 1-59). Struve s rebuttal does not deal with Lenin's critique. •• "Doklad tsenzora Matveeva o sozhzhennom marksistskom sbornike," KA, no. 4, 1923, pp. 308--316. A microfilm of this volume is available at the Harvard University Library. " "Legal Marxism" (a term coined only later) does not, of course, mean Marxism which favored the exclusive use of legal means of action. The men known as Legal Marxists also engaged in illegal activities, such as smuggling from abroad revolutionary literature and frequenting worker circles, and they were closely watched by the police. Potresov, to mention but one prominent Legal Marxist, was one of the most active members of the illegal Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in 1896, and he suffered arrest and exile for this activity. The term is meaningfully applied only to Marxists who also used avail­ able legal means to spread their influence. Anyone who submitted his writings to the censors and published them in legally authorized publi­ cations was a Legal Marxist. Insofar as Lenin, until the founding of Iskra in 1901, published virtually all of his works in this fashion (mostly, one may add, in journals and series edited by Struve ) , he qualifies fully

74

THE CONVERSION TO AGITATION

as a Legal Marxist. As in the case of the terms "stariki" and "molodye," the incorrect use of "Legal Marxist" in Soviet and much non-Soviet historiography goes back to Lenin's efforts after his break with Struve in 1900 to revise embarrassing chapters in his past. Although the origin of the term is obscure ( see the discussion in R. Kindersley, The First Russian Revisionists, Oxford, 1962, pp. 231-233 ) , it seems to have come into being in 1900, at the time when the negotiations between the future editors of Iskra and Struve over the proposed joint editorship of Iskra were breaking down. Lenin began then to apply this term to the Marxist "revisionists" who continued to publish their critical essays in the legal press ( see, for example, Lenin, Sochineniia, IV, 38 ) . By 1902, Lenin also applied it retrospectively to the 1890s. Afterwards it became obliga­ tory in Bolshevik histories to employ "Legal Marxism" in this anachro­ nistic sense. But even in What Is To Be Done? Lenin had no clear notion of what he meant by Legal Marxism, for (n one place he referred to it as a remarkable outlet for the "theory of revolutionary Marxism" ( ibid., IV, 373 ) . N. Baturin, the author of one of the earliest histories of Russian Social Democracy ( Ocherk istorii sotsial-demokratii v Rosii, Moscow, 1906, p. 53 ) , says that Legal Marxism originally "was under­ stood to include all who combated Populist theories." See also Struve, "My Contacts and Conflicts," pp. 590-591, and the remarks of Potresov, in KL, no. 2 ( 13 ) , 1925, pp. 146-147.

75

C H A P T E R

F I V E

T H E F O U N D I NG O F T H E U N I O N O F S T R UGG L E

WHILE the St. Petersburg Marxists pursued literary activities, the labor movement struggled to get back on its feet after the blow of April 1894, when most of its leaders had been arrested. During the fall and winter representatives of the principal industrial districts held a series of meetings to discuss the out­ standing questions facing labor: whether and how to re­ establish a central labor organization for the entire city, how to revive the central labor fund, and whether to undertake active agitation among the "grays." These meetings were con­ tinued in 1895. 1 The first of the questions was solved affirmatively, and by the end of the summer the workers established the Central Worker Group ( Tsentralnaia rabochaia gruppa) . Its member1 Shelgunov, "Vospominaniia," Tvorchestvo, p. 8. Korolchuk lists the following meetings of labor leaders in the spring and summer of 1895: March 5, a meeting of workers to decide on the constitution of a pro­ posed fund of mutual assistance of workers ( Kassa vzaimopomoshchi rabochim ) ; July 16; August 6, a meeting in the woods of twelve labor leaders ( Shelgunov, Babushkin, Kaizer, Kniazev, Zinovev, and others ) to discuss methods of work; August, a meeting held by Shelgunov with representatives of the molodye to discuss circle work. Korolchuk, Khron­ ika, pp. 181, 184, 185. Iakovlev ( "Vospominaniia," pp. 102-103 ) speaks of an important meeting of the Central Worker Group on March 25, 1895, at which officers were elected.

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE ship consisted of representatives of the main industrial regions and establishments. The new Central Group was dominated by workers of the metallurgical industry, and the most active members came from the large machine shops: the Neva ship­ building plant ( Babushkin) , the Putilov Works (Zinovev and Karamyshev) , the Obukhovsky plant ( Shelgunov and Iakov­ lev) , and the Neva region ( Merkulov) . 2 Connected with it was a network of circles in plants and factories. The exact program of this new central organization is not known; but it performed an important function later in the year by provid­ ing the Social Democratic intellectuals a liaison with the textile workers. The problem of the labor fund proved more difficult to solve. All the evidence indicates that the labor leaders of the Central Group very much wanted to revive the fund which had col­ lapsed when the Narodovoltsy were arrested. But they could not do so with their own resources, and much discussion was devoted to the subject. To one of the fund meetings the Cen­ tral Group invited representatives of the stariki, including Lenin. Speaking for his group, Lenin firmly rejected the sug­ gestion that the fund be placed under the control of the labor organization, insisting that the workers transmit the money collected from dues to the Social Democratic intelligentsia and • V. Fedorova, "K istorii petersburgskogo kruzhka 'sotsial-demo­ kratov,' " KL, no. .2 ( 13), 19.25, p. 197; Avvakumov, "Lenin," p. 65. The Central Worker Group also included the Narodovolets, I. Kaizer, once a member of the Central Worker Circle, who had been arrested in April 1894 and released on parole. At the time he resided at Kolpino, a village near St. Petersburg. Kaizer was the most active Narodovolets among the St. Petersburg labor leaders. In 1893 he wrote an impas­ sioned appeal to workers called "Brothers-Comrades," (Brattsy-tovarish­ chi ) . In it he called on Russian labor to emulate its Western counterpart and to unite in order effectively to struggle against the existing political and social system. This appeal was originally printed by the Narodovoltsy and later reproduced in lstoriko-revoliutsionnyi sbornik, I, 19.24, 97-104. It is virtually impossible to find any information on the Central Worker Group in Soviet sources.

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renounce control over it. 3 This proposal was not accepted by the workers. While unfortunately we do not know the argu­ ments advanced by both sides, it is a fair guess that Lenin's opposition to labor control of the proposed fund rested on the fear that the Central Group would use it not so much to develop propaganda activity as to build up a self-centered union treasury of metallurgical workers. Control of the fund by the intelligentsia, on the other hand, would assure its im­ partial use as the need arose in all the industries. In this connection it may be noted that in Vilno the Jewish Social Democrats had not insisted that the local labor funds be centralized under their jurisdiction.4 The workers' motives in rejecting this proposal are easier to explain. The whole tradi­ tion of their movement had been one of independence, and they saw no reason to renounce control of their own money to intellectuals with whom they did not see eye to eye on many subjects. Unable to agree with the stariki, the workers, for the time being, left the matter pending. Agitation also engendered discussions and disagreements. Some of the younger workers, especially those from the Putilov Works, favored it because, as Zinovev told the police after his arrest, "we assumed that it would be directed by us, the most intelligent workers." � The older, more mature workers were skeptical and seem to have favored continuation of the old methods, probably for reasons similar to those which a year earlier had caused the Vilno workers to reject agitation. There were several meetings of workers to discuss this matter, one of which ( in May 1895 ) was attended by Vaneev as repre­ sentative of the stariki. 6 A compromise solution was reached only in the autumn: • Silvin, "V. I. Lenin," pp. 98-g9. • Martov, Zapiskl, p. 226. • Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie, "Doklad," p. 139. Cf. Silvin, "V. I. Lenin," p. 100. • Silvin, ibid.

78

'I1IE UNION OF STRUGGLE The circles may be retained, but tactics ought to be changed to meet the urgent problems of the day. Agitation ought to get under way by gathering workers from neighboring factories and convoking assemblies of representatives of various industrial regions. At these assemblies one ought to discuss the general and the specific situa­ tion of labor. One ought to distribute literature in the largest possible quantities. The circles ought to remain, but their function should change. Henceforth their whole purpose must be to serve as a school for preparing conscious and educated agitators. Apart from this task, the circles have no significance. Agitation requires agitators, and agitators require circles. In other words, circles are to serve purposes of agitation. 7

On September 3, 1895, some fifteen workers connected with the Central Worker Group boarded the ship Toulon and, in the guise of an excursion, held a meeting at which they dis­ cussed agitational tactics. 8 Even this cursory recital of labor attitudes of 1895 suggests areas of potential disagreement between labor and the stariki. On all matters of importance, the labor group revealed a desire to function in its own way and for its own benefit. Not only did it not display that sense of political consciousness to which Social Democrats attached so much importance, but it also seemed to lack a deep sense of class-consciousness and tended to identify itself more and more with a particular trade. But the fall of 1895 also marked the appearance on the labor scene of the textile workers. In the 1890s the textile industry was the second largest in St. Petersburg, following the machine industry. It employed nearly twenty-seven thousand workers ( 1894-95) , that is, approximately one-fifth of the city's total • Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenle, p. 44. • Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 57-58; Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 186. Ac­ cording to Shelgunov ( Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 57-58 ) , there were two such pseudo-excursions. Cf. Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie, "Doklad," passim.

79

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

labor force. 9 In contrast to the relatively educated and well­ paid workers of the machine industry, the textile workers were largely illiterate and very inadequately paid. They worked regularly thirteen and more hours a day; they were subject to indiscriminate fines, often received their pay in the form of company chits, and had to reside in housing blocks attached to the factory. The difference between the workers of the machine plants ( zavody ) and those of the factories ( fabriki ) including the textile mills were so great in every respect that the machinist Fisher in his memoirs speaks of them as repre­ senting two different "races." 10 The textile workers rebelled from time to time, but they were not organized and, except for the late 1880s, did not participate in the city-wide labor movement. Not far from the Obukhovsky machine and armament plant, where Shelgunov was employed in 1895, stood the Thornton textile factory, notorious for its exceptionally bad labor con­ ditions. 11 Work stoppages there were common, and tension was coming to a head again in the autumn of 1895. In view of the decision taken recently by the Central Worker Group to initiate agitation, Shelgunov established contact with the workers from Thornton and began to prepare the ground for his group's participation in an anticipated strike. In late Sep­ tember, the Central Group held a meeting with Thornton representatives in the quarters of Merkulov, one of its active members. 1 2 Implementing another decision of the Central Worker • Ocherki istorii Leningrada ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1956 ) , III, 36. •• Fisher, V. Rossii, p. 17; Bartenev, "Vospominaniia," no. 10, p. 194. In order to convey the contrast between the Russian words zavod and fabrika, I maintain in this book an artificial distinction between the English terms "plant" or "works" for the former and "factory" for the latter. 11 See, for instance, Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 46. u Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 189.

80

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE Group, Shelgunov also took steps to transform the worker circles into training grounds for agitators. Bad relations with the stariki gave him no choice but to turn to the molodye with a request to send propagandists to the circles. They were to offer instruction under close control of the Central Group. 1 3 This turned out to have been a fatal decision, for it allowed the spy Mikhailov to penetrate the labor movement and, through it, the revitalized Social Democratic organization founded at this time by Lenin and Martov. Lenin returned to St. Petersburg from Switzerland in Sep­ tember 1895, determined, after long conversations with Plekhanov and Akselrod, to lay the foundations of a Social Democratic labor party and, by supplying money and ma­ terials, to help Akselrod edit a new emigre periodical, Rabotnik ( The Worker) . To accomplish the latter, he selected an edito­ rial committee, consisting of Krzhizhanovsky, Starkov, and himself. 1 4 Now, as throughout his stay in St. Petersburg, Lenin centered his attention on literary work as distinct from either propaganda or agitation-a tendency that earned him among the workers the nickname Literator, which they sometimes applied also to the whole group with which he was associ­ ated. 1 11 But before Lenin could get his periodical on its feet, an encounter with Martov vastly enlarged the scope of his activity. Iuli Martov was a Social Democratic activist par excellence. He had no patience either with self-contained circle work or with literary pursuits. He believed firmly in agitation, which he had helped formulate and carry out in Vilno. Arriving in 11 Ibid., p. 185; Shelgunov, "Vospominaniia," Tvorchestvo, p. 8; Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 57. " Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 187; Silvin, Lenin, p. 103; V. Sorin, "Pervye

shagi Lenina po sozdaniiu partii," BK, no. 8/9, 1933 , pp. 46-47. '" Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 45; B. I. Gorev [ Goldman] , Iz partitnogo proshlogo; Vospominanita, 1 895-1905 ( Leningrad, 1924 ) , p. 15.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

St. Petersburg in 1895, he viewed with disgust the inactivity of the stariki, their lip service to the principle of agitation, and their conspiratorial airs. Radchenko, who in many ways set the tone for the group, appeared to him a "mastodon" of the Social Democratic movement. Martov actually felt much more affinity for the rivals of the stariki, the molodye, but, convinced that Mikhailov worked for the police, would have nothing to do with them. 1 6 In the course of 1895 Martov ( who had organized a Social Democratic circle at St. Petersburg as early as 18g2) built up his own group of young Social Democrats, some of whom were destined afterwards to become prominent Men­ sheviks: among them were F. I. Gurvich ( Dan), B. I. Goldman (Gorev), and Ia. M. Liakhovsky. Martov could boast of a mimeograph machine, which lent itself better than the hecto­ graph to the reproduction of illegal literature; he also had contacts on the Russian-Prussian border, useful for smuggling literature from the West. 1 7 Martov knew of the stariki from Radchenko, an old acquaint­ ance of his, but he did not establish closer relations with them until October 18g5, at which time he met Lenin. The first meeting of Lenin and Martov-a historic occasion in the full sense of the word-took place on Martov's initiative. Present, as representatives of the stariki, were Lenin, Starkov, and Krzhizhanovsky ( the editorial troika formed after Lenin's re­ turn from Switzerland) and, as representatives of Martov's group, Martov and Liakhovsky. The last two severely criticized the work of the stariki, in particular their continued emphasis on circle propaganda and their indifference to spontaneous Martov, Zapiski, pp. 266-267. Silvin, Lenin, p. 102; Martov, Zapiski, pp. 256-258; Gorev, Iz parti­ lnogo proshlogo, pp. 16-17. The mimeograph had two great advantages over the hecto aph, then customarily in use : it was simpler and quieter f to operate, an it produced ten times as many copies. Gorev, who gave it to Martov, had learnt its use from the Narodovoltsy. 1•

17

82

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE strikes. Martov proposed to avoid unnecessary competition by merging the two groups and initiating a program of achvity based exclusively on agitation broadly conceived and boldly executed. 1 8 Martov and Lenin took an instantaneous liking for each other and formed a friendship that was to exercise an impor­ tant formative influence on the future founder of Bolshevism. 1 9 Lenin at this ti.me was still wholeheartedly dedicated to liter­ ary work, and it was Martov who pushed him toward revolu­ tionary activity. It is characteristic that when Martov offered him the use of the mimeograph, Lenin wanted first to repro­ duce Engels' essay on the housing question. 2 0 At this first meeting, the two groups agreed on a merger and scheduled a second meeting later in the month to formalize their relations and outline a plan of action. In view of the great importance which all events connected with this new organization hold for the entire development of Russian Social Democracy, it is necessary to examine in some detail all the facts known about it. Buried in structural and chronological data lie clues to the solution of many significant problems con­ cerning the immediate antecedents of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, as well as the early activities of the leaders of its future Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. The new organization resulting from the merger received no formal name, but came customarily to be known either as the Martov, Zapiski, pp. 261-264; Silvin, Lenin, p. 103. Martov, Zapiskt, pp. 268--269, gives a very sympathetic portrait of Lenin of that time. Silvin in the first version of his memoirs, published in 1924 ( "K biografii V. I. Lenina," p. 73 ) , speaks of Lenin's enthusiasm and liking for Martov: "During all these years, until the break at the Second Congress [ 1903], Vladimir Ilich treated Martov with extra­ ordinary, one may say tender, sympathy." In the book version, published in 1958, he omits this appraisal ( Lenin, p. 102 ) . Silvin himself, it may be noted in passing, seems to have been in political trouble from the mid-193os until the death of Stalin. •• Martov, Zapiski, p. 265. 1

• 10

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

"Group of Social Democrats" ( in contrast to the Group of Narodovoltsy) or as the "Social Democratic stariki," the term now sometimes embracing both the older circle founded by Radchenko and the newcomers who had come in with Mar­ tov.2 1 It consisted of twenty-two members; of these, seventeen were full-fledged members and five were candidates. The full-fledged members included all eight of the original stariki ( Krzhizhanovsky, Lenin, Malchenko, Radchenko, Silvin, Star­ kov, Vaneev, and Zaporozbets), five from Martov's group (Gofman, Liakhovsky, Martov, Ponomarev, and Treniukhin), and four women teachers (Baranskaia, lakubova, Krupskaia, and Nevzorova). The candidates, who were selected to take over in case the main group was arrested, consisted largely of Martov's friends: Dan, Gorev, A. Lure, V. K. Serezhnikov, and I. G. Smidovich. 22 Contrary to assertions of Soviet historians, who custom­ arily refer to Lenin as the head or leader of this organization, there was no individual in charge. Instead it was directed by an Interregional Bureau of five men: Krzhizhanovsky, Lenin, •• In the secondary sources, this organization is often referred to as the Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa (The Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class). This nomenclature makes it possible to count Lenin as a member (and therefore, ipso facto, leader) of an organization which later acquired much fame. )',[ow, while it is true that the organization which Lenin and Martov founded in October 1895 was the immediate predecessor of the Union of Struggle, the name "Union of Struggle" itself was coined only in the second week of December, when Lenin himself was already in jail. For that reason, no matter how close the relationship and continuity between the two organizations, the Social Democratic group functioning between October and mid-December of 1895 cannot be called the "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class," but must be referred to by the contemporary terms of "Group of Social Democrats" or "Social Democratic stariki." This distinction in nomenclature is fully supported by Krupskaia in an early version of her memoirs, where she states that it is inaccurate to apply the name "Soiuz bor'by" to the �oup for the period prior to the end of December 1895 ( "Soiuz bor'by,' Tvorchestvo, P · 114). Martov, Zapiski, pp. 269-270; Silvin, Lenin, p. 103.

84

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE Martov, Starkov, and Vaneev. This bureau served as an in­ formal executive committee and as an organ centralizing the agitational work of the regional bureaus. For purposes of agitation, the city was divided into three regions each of which was placed in charge of a bureau. The first region embraced all the industrial establishments located across the river from the main part of the city and included the Petersburg Metallurgical Works, the New Arsenal, and the Baltic Shipyards, as well as several textile factories. The bureau in charge of this region consisted of five persons: Gofman, Nevzorova, Silvin, Treniukhin, and Vaneev. The second region covered the Neva region, in which were located the Neva mechanical and shipbuilding plant, the Obukhovsky plant, and some large textile mills. Its four-member bureau was Krzhizhanovsky, Krupskaia, Liakhovsky, and Malchenko ( Krupskaia was placed in charge of the legal library of this region). The third region extended over the so-called Narva and Moscow districts and centered on the Putilov Works, the largest industrial establishment in St. Petersburg. Its five­ member bureau consisted of Iakubova, Martov, Ponomarev, Starkov, and Zaporozhets. 23 On these regional bureaus rested the burden of collecting information on factory conditions and distributing the agitational material prepared from it by the Interregional Bureau. The total membership of the three regional bureaus adds up to fourteen persons, three less than the membership of the entire group. The three members who did not belong to the regional subcommittees were Lenin, Radchenko, and Baran­ skaia, Radchenko's wife. Radchenko was relieved from direct 18 The division into regional subcommittees here given follows that provided by Martov, Zapiski, pp. z7z-z73, and Nevsky, Ocherki, p. 408. Silvin in Lenin, p. 104, gives a slightly cliHerent listing; he alone puts Lenin on one of the regional subcommittees ( Neva region ) . There is no authority for this assertion and Silvin gives none.

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SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

participation in agitational work ( for which, as we have seen, he had no liking) in order to take charge of the group's conspiratorial work: he disposed of the funds and assumed responsibility for the group's "diplomatic relations," that is, the contacts with labor and nonaffiliated socialists. 2 4 His wife assisted him. Lenin's assignment, on the other hand, was literary: he was appointed editor-in-chief of the group's pro­ posed publications, which included a newspaper, Rabochee delo ( The Cause of Labor) , as well as pamphlets and procla­ mations. 2 5 In view of the fact that agitation entailed in large measure the preparation and distribution of printed materials, Lenin's job was one of great responsibility. But it is necessary to stress that it involved him somewhat less than the other members of the organization in the direct agitational activity carried out by the regional bureaus. The success of the new organization depended in large measure on its relations with the existing labor organization, the Central Worker Group, which alone had contacts with workers and access to the plants and factories. The members, it will be noted, came exclusively from the intelligentsia; not one worker was invited to join its seventeen-member body. Martov felt somewhat uneasy about such a onesided social composi­ tion and proposed to invite a few reliable workers, but the majority rejected his suggestion. 2 6 This decision is not surpris­ ing in view of what is known of the background of Radchenko and his colleagues. As a result, the organization of the stariki and its immediate successors remained, virtually throughout their existence ( 1895-18g7) , an association consisting exclu­ sively of Social Democratic intellectuals. It is important to realize that this group of intellectuals and "' Martov, Zapiski, p. 273; Silvin, Lenin, p. 104. •• Martov, ibid.; Silvin, ibid., pp. 106-107. •• Martov, ibid., pp. 270-272.

86

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE the Central Worker Group did not merge, as is so often assert­ ed implicitly and explicitly in secondary sources . Shelgunov, the leading fi gure of the Central Group, is quite unequivocal on this question : "The labor organization existed entirely inde­ pendently and did not enter the Union of Struggle. The intel­ lectuals were looked upon as mere enlighteners." 27 Martov speaks of the arrangement as a "two-chamber system" consist­ ing of a "directing center and a labor center, under which, in practice, the former only consulted the latter." 28 This relation­ ship was an entirely informal one. The Central Worker Group, as we have seen, collaborated simultaneously with the stariki and the molodye, and carried on some of its own activities quite independently of both. For purposes of agitation, the Central Group availed itself of the literary talent and the duplicating facilities at the disposal of the stariki without losing thereby either its identity or its freedom of action. The stariki, on the other hand, heavily relied on the Central Group to get them in touch with workers in disaffected plants and factories and to place in their hands materials prepared by Lenin's literary section. Indeed, the entire '1abor cadre" of the stariki consisted of factory committees ( some fifteen in number ) controlled by the Central Group and reached only through it. 2 9 This structural dichotomy reflects accurately the self-reliant nature of the St. Petersburg labor movement. In this respect, at any rate, the group founded by Martov and Lenin introduced nothing new into the relationship between labor and Social Democracy; it merely perpetuated the organ.. Ot gruppy Blagoeva, p. 58. Shelgunov, of course, uses the name "Union of Struggle" loosely. When the Union of Struggle came into being, he too was in jail. •• Martov, Zapiski, p. 272. " Cf. Sorin, "Pervye shagi," p. 54. Sorin lists almost the entire mem­ bership of the Central Worker Group as providing a link between the stariki and the factory committees without once referring to the existence of the Central Group as such.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

izational division between workers and intellectuals which had prevailed in St. Petersburg since the mid-188os. The main obstacle which the stariki faced at this point was the lack of equipment to reproduce quickly and in large quantities the mass of agitational material which their work required. Martov's mimeograph was hardly adequate for this purpose. At the time, the only illegal press in the city was in the hands of the Narodovoltsy, who had managed to conceal it from the police during the arrests of April 1894 and, in February 1895, had put it again into operation. The revived group of Narodovoltsy consisted of students who, while re­ maining loyal to the basic tenets of Populism, under the influence of Lavrov began to veer toward a Social Democratic position. To raise money, they undertook printing assignments for other illegal organizations-a practice which gave the stariki an opportunity to acquire the badly needed printing facilities. 30 Negotiations between the stariki and the Narodovoltsy were carried out by Lenin ( as the group's editor-in-chief) and A. S. Belevsky-Belorussov, the chief theoretician of the Narodo­ voltsy. They led to an agreement by which the Narodovoltsy agreed to print the Social Democrats' projected newspaper, as well as agitational pamphlets, but retained the right to veto writings with which they disagreed on matters of principle. This arrangement placed the Social Democrats under a certain dependence, but they had no choice. The first publication Lenin submitted under this agreement was his own pamphlet,

Ob"iasnenie zakona o shtrafakh, vzimaemykh s rabochikh na fabrikakh i zavodakh ( The Explanation of the Law of Fines Imposed on Workers in Factories and Plants) , in which he provided a technical explanation of the law of 1886, based to •• P. F. Kudelli, Narodovol'tsy na pereputi ( Leningrad, 1925 ) , pp. g--1O.

88

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE some extent on replies of workers to questionnaires. The Narodovoltsy found certain passages objectionable and re­ turned the manuscript to Lenin, who made the required cor­ rections. The pamphlet went to press on December 3 with instructions for an edition of three thousand. 31 The first occasion to apply agitational methods occurred in connection with labor disturbances at the Thornton textile factory. On November 5, the administration of the factory announced that it was lowering wages, and the following day four hundred out of four hundred and thirty of its weavers went on strike. As we have seen, Shelgunov and his friends had for some time been in touch with the Thornton workers. On November 8 or g, they convened a conference with repre­ sentatives of the stariki. At this meeting Lenin tried to collect detailed information on conditions at the factory in order to prepare a leaflet with the strikers' demands. While some sources published in the Soviet Union asserted that he fulfilled this task brilliantly, the memoirs of the worker Babushkin sug­ gest that the Thornton workers refused to give Lenin any information : the representatives "would not talk to an un­ known man, suspecting some kind of trap, and failed to be dissuaded by all assurances to the contrary. In the end, they asked [us] merely to compose a petition to the governor of the city whom they intended to approach." 82 As a result of this 1 1 Martov, Zapiski, pp. 274-275; Kudelli, Narodovortsy, p. 24. It is reproduced in Lenin, Sochineniia, 2nd ed., I, 363-397. 1 1 The quotation is from Babushkin, Vospominaniia, p. 64; see also KL, no. 3, 1928, pp. 222-226; Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. 191-192; Takhtarev, Rabochee doizhenie, p. 47. How careful one must be in using Soviet sources pertaining to this period is well illustrated by the follow­ ing not untypical example. Takhtarev, who first met Lenin at this meet­ ing, in the - Rrst Soviet edition of his memoirs refers to the encounter as follows: "As soon as I saw him I guessed it was the same 'Baldie' of whom Babushkin had spoken to me a long time ago." ( Rabochee doizhenie, p. 47 ) . In a second version of his memoirs published in the same year but apparently written after Lenin's death, this passage has

89

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

rebuff, the Central WorkerGroup had to collect the data neces­ sary for an agitational proclamation by means of a question­ naire which Lenin wrote and which a trusted Thornton worker filled out from personal interviews at the factory. 3 3 The rest of this meeting centered on two burning issues of the day: agitation and the strike fund. The majority of workers present voted in favor of agitation and offered assistance to the stariki in collecting data and distributing proclamations. But the subject of the workers' fund once more led to bitter disagreements: The representatives of workers of the Neva region insisted on the necessity of reviving the workers' fund, arguing that it would serve as a means of uniting more closely the workers of the circles as well as individuals. [Takhtarev] called for an independent fighting labor fund which would serve the worker movement in the various regions and provide a means of close unification. Vladimir Ilich [Lenin] denied that such a fund could serve as a means of uniting workers of the various regions, and proposed instead to establish a common Social Democratic fund attached to his group, so that all the money which was collected would go to the fund of the group been slightly altered to read : "As soon as I saw him I guessed that it was he about whom I. V. Babushkin had s�oken to me with such en­ thusiasm [voskhishchenie] a long time ago • ( "V. I. Lenin i sotsial­ demokraticheskoe dvizhenie," Byloe, no. 24, 1924, p. 10 ) . Thus, the "Baldie" disappears, and Babushkin-dead for some twenty years-be­ comes posthumously enthusiastic. If the reader, however, were to look for this passage in the original edition of Takhtarev's memoirs, pub­ lished in London in 1902, he would find no reference at all to Lenin but only to an anonymous "representative of the most influential group of Social Democratic intelligentsia" ( Ocherk, p. 19 ) . In this subtle but relentless manner, the myth of Lenin came to be created almost from the day of his death. 81 Although Babushkin does not mention Lenin by name, it is clear that he was the "unknown man," for, according to all the sources, it was he who conducted the questioning of the Thornton workers. See Takh­ tarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 47; Babushkin, Vospominaniia, p. 64; KL, no. 3, 1928, pp. 222-226. Shelgunov ( "Iz dalekogo proshlogo ll'icha," Krasnaia gazeta, no. 24, January 31, 1924 ) confirms that Lenin wrote his pamphlet O shtrafakh from materials collected by means of written questionnaires issued to factory workers.

go

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE of Social Democratic stariki and would be paid out by it to local groups for their regional needs. The discussions on the subject of the consolidated fund produced no decision. Everyone stuck to his opinion, and the group of workers from the Neva region decided to establish its own separate regional labor fund. 3 4

In Lenin's position it is easy to discern elements of both the political sense and the authoritarianism which became so pro­ nounced in his later career. On the basis of materials collected by the Central Worker Group, Lenin wrote an appeal, "To the Workers of the Thorn­ ton Factory." 311 It was the second agitational proclamation issued by the expanded group of stariki ( the first, also ad­ dressed to Thornton, had been written several days earlier by Krzhizhanovsky), 38 but to the Thornton workers, of course, such statements were nothing new : five years earlier, as we have seen, Golubev had written for them one just like it in the name of the Central Worker Circle. In his proclamation Lenin summarized the demands of the workers in very specific terms and in simple language. Three features of this document deserve special notice be­ cause in some measure they apply to all the early proclama­ tions of the group. In the first place, Lenin's leaflet concentrated exclusively on economic issues and made no allusion to politics. It thus actually represented an expression of Economism, as the doctrine of emphasis on the economic struggle at the " Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 48. The meeting at which Lenin argued against the fund was not the first held on this subject. At the end of October or the beginning of November, it had been discussed at another meeting at which Zaporozhets represented the stariki and took an equally negative stand on the issue ( Glavnoe arkhivnoe uprav­ lenie, "Doklad," p. 133 ) . There was a third indecisive meeting on December .2, at which Shel gunov, Babushkin, and Merkulov represented the Central Worker Group, Krzhizhanovsky and Starkov the stariki ( Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 195 ) . .. Lenin, Sochineniia, .2nd ed., I, 449-45.2. .. Ibid., p. 509; Krzhizhanovsky's proclamation, "Chego trebuiut tkachi" ( "What the Weavers Demand" ) , probably writen on November 7, has not been recovered; Valk, Listovki, pp. 134-135.

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expense of the political one later came to be known. In the second place, it was surprisingly conciliatory in tone. Having outlined the demands of the workers, Lenin concluded with the following words : "In defending our interests, comrades, we do not in the least incite to rebellion; we only demand what is granted by law to workers of all other factories, and of what we had been deprived in the expectation that we are incapable of standing up for our rights." This emphasis on legality was a favorite practice of Lenin's at this time and was designed to calm the fear of the rank and file over becoming involved in antigovernment activity. Finally-and this is perhaps its most interesting feature-the pamphlet gave the impression of having been written by the workers themselves. It spoke con­ sistently in the first person plural: "let us remember that we can improve our condition only by our united brotherly efforts," "if all of us should remain indifferent to the fate of our weaving division [of Thornton] , we will dig with our own hands a pit into which the owners will soon throw us too," "the working time should be apportioned in such a way that we will not suffer from enforced idleness," and so on. This device was not only stylistic but also, and above all, political. The stariki pretended to speak for a mysterious, concealed, but ubiquitous labor organization with branches in every factory. In no proclamation did they ever reveal that the group respon­ sible for its issuance consisted exclusively of intellectuals. This was an extremely successful and popular device among the unsuspecting workers. Its use of course was dictated primarily by the mistrust and instinctive hostility of the mass of workers toward the intelligentsia. It may also be noted, however, that this tactic closely resembled that of the so-called Executive Committee of the People's Will which had also carried on its activities between 1879 and 1881 in the name of a nonexistent network of revolutionary organizations. 92

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE

Lenin's proclamation was issued on the group's mimeograph on November 10, but on the same day the weavers went back to work without having gained concessions from manage­ ment. 8 7 The stariki thus failed in their first effort to fan the flames of industrial discontent. While the Thornton strike was still in progress, a spon­ taneous strike also broke out at the Leferm tobacco factory ( November 9) , and four days later another occurred at the shoe factory Skorokhod. In both cases, on the basis of materials supplied by workers from the struck factories through the Central Worker Group, the stariki prepared proclamations defining the demands of the strikers. In neither case did they exert any influence on the course of events, for both strikes were short-lived and ended without any concessions being made to the . workers. 8 8 But the efforts did help to spread word of the illegal organization. The only strike which the stariki succeeded in stimulating before the police closed in on them took place in one section of the Putilov Works. Zinovev, a worker at Putilov and one of its representatives in the Central Group, wrote a proclamation to workers in the steam-engine division, urging them to strike. His proclamation was mimeographed by Martov and led to a one-day work stoppage on December 5. 89 An appeal by Martov to the spinners of the Kenig factory issued at the same time seems to have produced no result. 40 In terms of actual achievement, the result of the appeals 17

Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 193. Ibid., pp. 192-194; Valk, Listovki, pp. 12-13. The appeal to the workers at the shoe factory was not issued and was seized by the police during the January arrests. •• Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. 195-196; Vallc, Listovki, pp. 13-14, 136137. The molodye, who had their own branch at the Putilov Works, also issued an appeal on this occasion; see Vallc, Listovki, p. 137. Cf. Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie, "Doklad," p. 145. •• Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 195; Vallc, Listovki, p. 139. 11

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SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

and proclamations issued by the starild in November and early December was virtually nil. They succeeded neither in insti­ gating a wave of industrial strikes nor in prolonging those which had started spontaneously. Their importance lay en­ tirely in creating the myth of a vast labor organization, a myth which in the following year helped embolden the working rank and file to undertake a really important series of strikes. Lenin spent most of November preparing with Krzhizha­ novsky the first issue of the group's newspaper, Rabochee delo. On December 6, they met at Radchenko's to pass on its con­ tents. According to Silvin, Lenin began smilingly with an announcement: "I interpret my obligations as editor autocratically [samoderzhavno]." In this man­ ner he precluded unnecessary discussions of the content of the articles, which had been previously agreed upon with their authors. 41

The manuscript contained three articles by Lenin, including an editorial on the need of founding a Russian labor party, as well as items by Martov, Krzhizhanovsky, Silvin, and Vaneev. 0 Apparently there were some criticisms because two days later, December 8, the group held one more conference. 4 8 This second editorial meeting turns out to have been the last ever held. Lenin had prepared the manuscript of Rabochee delo in two copies, one for Vaneev for final verification, the other for Krupskaia for safekeeping. In preparing the final version be­ tween December 6 and 8, Lenin had yielded to the entreaties of Zaporozhets, who undertook to recopy Lenin's essays so that, in case the police intercepted the manuscript, they would not be able to identify from Lenin's characteristic handwriting " Silvin, Lenin, p. 106. " Martov, Zapiski, p. 288. The manuscript of this issue has not been '" Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 196. found.

94

TIIE UNION OF STRUGGLE the group's editor-in-chief. Thus, in the manuscript handed to Vaneev, all three of Lenin's articles had been copied in the handwriting of Zaporozhets. 44 This minor event was destined to have grave historic consequences. The police had kept close watch on the group from the moment of its formation. They tended vastly to overrate the activity of the stariki, ascribing to them on the basis of seized proclamations, all the strikes which had occurred in St. Peters­ burg since the winter of 1894. In the middle of October 18g5, orders were issued to establish close surveillance over the group to prevent a revival of strike agitation, and on the night of December 8 the police arrested some forty Social Demo­ crats. 411 Seized were all the old members of Radchenko's group, except Radchenko himself and Silvin, as well as nearly all of the leading figures of the Central Worker Group, including Shelgunov. 4 6 In the quarters of the arrested men, the police seized incriminating materials, including proclamations and the manuscript of Rabochee delo which Vaneev had not had the time to deliver to the press. A few days after most of the stariki had been arrested, four of the survivors-Liakhovsky, Martov, Radchenko, and Silvin­ held a conference to decide the future of their organization. Though severely hurt, the group was not altogether destroyed. In addition, none of the five candidate members or the women had been seized. It was decided to continue agitation without, for the time being, enlarging the group. To impress the author­ ities as well as the workers with the group's power and imper" Silvin, Lenin, p. 106; police report in Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie, "Doklad," pp. 125-126; Martov, Zapiski, pp. 289-290. •• Fedorova, "K istorii," pp. 198--199; I. Shabalin, "K istorii rabochego dvizheniia v 1896 g.," KS, no. 6 (79), 1931, p. 58. •• Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. 196-197. Among those seized were: Krzhizhanovsky, Lenin, Malchenko, Nazvanov, Starkov, Vaneev, and Zaporozhets (the original stariki); Ponomarev, Shat, and Lepeshinsky; and the workers Shelgunov, Zinovev, Merkulov, and Kaizer. 95

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

viousness to repressions, it was resolved to give it a formal name. Someone first suggested "Rabochee delo," the title of the abortive newspaper, but this suggestion was turned down and Martov proposed instead "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" ( Soiuz bor'by za osvo­ bozhdenie rabochego klassa). Though cumbersome, it was accepted. Martov states in his memoirs that the words "social­ ist" and "Social Democrat" were deliberately omitted in order to secure the group's publications the maximum of circulation among labor. 4 7 The immediate task the newly formed Union of Struggle faced was to create the impression that it represented a vast organization which had instigated all the labor disturbances of 1895. To this end it issued on December 15 a proclamation in which, for the first time, it used the new name and stated that "the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class which distributes leaflets remains unharmed and will continue to function." 4 8 This statement was of course a deception, but it did produce the desired effects among the workers as well as the police. The proclamations were followed by others, some of a general nature, others addressed to workers of specific industrial establishments. 49 " Martov, Zapiski, p. 291. Silvin, however, also takes credit for having devised this name ( Lenin, pp. 122-123 ) ; his claim is supported by Takhtarev, whose testimony in this case has little value because he did not belong to the organization at this time ( Rabochee doizhenie, p. 52 ) . Krupskaia, who did attend th e meeting a t which th e name was adopted, says it was coined by Martov; see "Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa," Tvorchestvo, no. 7 ( 10 ) , 1920, p. 6, reprinted in Sh. Levin and I. L. Tatarov, Istoriia RKP ( b ) v dokumentakh, I ( Lenin­ grad, 1926 ) , 56-57. On the decision to make no reference in the organization's name to the word "socialism," see Martov, Zapiski, p. 291, and Silvin, Lenin, p. 123. •• Valk, Listovki, pp. 14-16. '" On December 21, 1895, a sbike broke out at the Lebedev textile factory. The workers submitted materials to the Union, on the basis of

96

THE UNION OF STRUGGLE

A few days after the arrests, Krupskaia received from Babushkin a short proclamation which he had written and wanted reproduced. Called Chto takoe sotsialist i politicheskii prestupnik? ( What Is a Socialist and a Political Criminal?) , it was apparently written under the mistaken impression that the Central Worker Group and the intellectuals associated with it had been betrayed to the police by workers: "Brother com­ rades," it began, how sad it is to see our low level of development. Most of us lack even an idea what is "socialism." We are ready to abuse, ridicule, and even destroy men known as "socialists" and "political criminals" because we consider them our enemies. Babushkin went on to say that socialists and political criminals were really friends of the people and should not be turned over to the authorities. The Union of Struggle was somewhat unhappy about this proclamation because its political tone departed from the purely economic one of their usual agita­ tional materials, but, in view of the fact that its author was a worker, the group decided to proceed with its distribution.G o Alerted by the appearance of new proclamations, the police initiated an intensive search for the remaining Social Demo­ crats. On the night of January 4, they took into custody Martov and Liakhovsky, the molodye Chernyshev and Mi­ khailov, the worker Babushkin, and several other intellectuals and workers.111 which it issued a leaflet to the Lebedev employees. The strike was broken on December z4 without concessions from management. On January 1, 1896, the Union came out with another leaflet in which it explained the failure of the strike. Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. zoo-zoz; Valk, Listovki, pp. 16-z4. •• Valk, Listov1ci, pp. zo-z1, pp. 137-138. There is also a pamphlet, issued anonymously in Geneva in 1899 under the title Chto takoe gosudarstvennyi prestupnik, revoliutsioner i sotsialist. According to Gorev (Iz parttinogo proshlogo, p. zo ) , Babushkin's was the first "political" proclamation issued by the Union of Struggle. 11 Martov, Zapiski, pp. z9z-z98.

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SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

In perspective, the short-lived organization of the stariki which functioned between October 18g5 and January 1896 was but an episode in the long history of the relations between the socialist intelligentsia and labor in St. Petersburg. Its suc­ cess was moderate and in practical terms hardly warranted the heavy price its participants had to pay. The labor leaders had good cause to be dissatisfied with the precipitate action of their colleagues from the intelligentsia, who, for the sake of a handful of proclamations, had incriminated and dragged with them to jail the entire leadership of St. Petersburg labor. Shelgunov, Babushkin, and several other experienced men in the labor movement now saw confirmed all their old skepticism about agitation by the Social Democratic intelligentsia. Babushkin probably expressed the sentiments of many of his friends from the Central Worker Group, when, following the December arrests, he was heard to say: "They took to scatter­ ing proclamations all over, and in two months destroyed the work of years." 62 And, indeed, the intellectuals with their agitation had wrecked for good the central labor organization which for the preceding six years, despite all the hazards and persecutions, had succeeded in providing skilled workers in St. Petersburg with their first embryonic trade union. With it, St. Petersburg labor lost its best leaders. st Ibid. Babushkin ( Vospominanila, p. 63 ) says: "I was partly an opponent of agitational activity. I feared the destruction of circles, believing that agitational activity would drown them completely; as for that [a�itational] activity, neither I nor the others saw it producing any results.

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CHAPTER

S I X

T H E GREAT S T RI K E O F 18 96 A N D T H E E M E RG E N C E OF ECONOMISM

UNTIL THE spring of 189 6, the term '1abor movement" applied everywhere in Russia to a small elite of workers, mostly from the metallurgical industries, whose main concern was for self­ education. The main body of industrial workers did not par­ ticipate in the movement. They made their existence felt only sporadically by means of unorganized, local, and essentially destructive strikes which did not constitute a movement, in the proper sense of the word, since the striking workers lacked any sense of unity and common purpose. The St. Petersburg mass labor movement began only in May 18g 6. The strike of textile workers in that year was not only the largest strike which had ever taken place in Russia; it was also the first to transcend the confines of a single industrial establishment by spreading over an entire branch of industry and the first to be waged for clearly defined goals. The outstanding feature of the strike in the spring of 189 6, as well as of its immediate successor, the textile strike of January 18g7, is the fact that both were initiated and organized by the workers themselves. Leadership came from neither the Central WorkerGroup nor the Social Democratic intelligentsia, but from the rank and file of the textile workers. Thus, many

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

years afterwards, the seeds first sown by the Populist propa­ gandists began to bear fruit. The arrests carried out on December 8 and January 4 had removed ahnost all of the leaders of the two principal Social Democratic groups functioning in the city, the stariki and the molodye, as well as the entire membership of the Central Worker Group. The only Social Democratic intellectuals left were Potresov, Radchenko ( who had been briefly detained and then released) , Silvin, the candidate members appointed for just such a contingency when the "stariki" had first formed ( including Dan and Gorev) , and the small labor-oriented group of Takhtarev. Immediately after the January arrests, the surviving members of the organization began to issue new leaflets and proclamations, signing them "Union of Struggle." These proclamations were directed at individual industrial establishments. A juxtaposition of their proclamations with the record of industrial strife during the first four months of 18g6 indicates, however, that none of these appeals produced immediate results-that is, they did not induce factory workers to go on strike. 1 Only one of the proclamations issued during this period seems to have made any impact at all, and that was the May Day appeal of 1896, the first ever issued in Russia proper. Written by Silvin, it called on all the workers to resist the capitalists and invited them to join a labor organization which the Union claimed to represent: As is known, the workers from many factories and plants here [in St. Petersburg] have formed the Union of Struggle for the Emanci­ pation of the Working Class, in order to expose all the abuses, in order to uproot infamous practices, in order to struggle against 1 They are reproduced in Valk, Listovki, pp. 4-51. That they did not engender strikes is evident from the chronology of the St. Petersburg labor movement for January-April 1896 in Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. 203-206.

100

THE STRIKE OF 1896 AND ECONOMISM impudent persecution and oppression by our unscrupulous bosses­ exploiters and to win full emancipation from their authority . . . We, the St. Petersburg workers, members of the Union, invite our re­ maining comrades to join our Union and to assist in the great task of uniting the workers in the struggle for their interests. 2 Considering that not a single worker belonged to the Union of Struggle, the invitation may seem somewhat presumptuous. No one outside the organization itself knew its composition, however, and the proclamation seems to have made a great impression on the workers. 3 During the first half of 1896, the most active members of the Union of Struggle were two prominent future Mensheviks, Dan and Potresov. Dan pedormed the function of the group's organizer ( in place of Radchenko who for a while withdrew from active participation) , and Potresov replaced Lenin as the principal litterateur.4 But the Union, it seems, did not now have an elaborate structure : memoirs of its members suggest that it represented a loose association of Social Democratic intellectuals without a formal center or a strict division of functions. 11 All during this time the members of the Union of • "Rabochii prazdnik 1-ogo maia ( 19-ego aprelia po nashemu ) ," Lenin,

Sochineniia, .2nd ed., I, 452.-454. This proclamation was originally attrib­

uted to Lenin, and in this manner Lenin, though in prison at the time, could be given credit for inspiring the May strike. Later on Silvin was acknowledged as its author, and its historical significance in Soviet literature has been allowed to decline accordingly. See Lenin, ibid., XXX, viii; Valk, Listovki, p. 142.; Silvin, Lenin, pp. 138--140. • See. for example, Gorev, Iz partiinogo proshlogo, pp. 2.0-.21; and Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 56. • Potresov was associated with the Union before March 3, 1896, for on that day the Union released an appeal to French workers from the workers of St. Petersburg which he had written ( Valk, Listovki, pp. 33-34 ) . But because the group was short of literary talents and expected imminent arrests, it kept Potresov away from day-to-day agitational activity, turning to him for help only as the need arose. Potresov became an active member of the Union only in July 1896 ( see Katin-Iartsev, "Teni proshlogo," p. 108 ). Radchenko, as the most experienced Social Democratic organizer in St. Petersburg, also then stayed in "reserve." • Gorev, Iz partiinogo proshlogo, p. 2.2.. 101

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

Struggle carried on desultory merger negotiations with the surviving molodye and the group of Takhtarev, but without success. 6 The Union had a treasury, which comprised a strike fund. An account issued in April 18g6 showed for the preced­ ing five months an income of 3,254 rubles and an expenditure of 1,686 rubles; some of the expenditures went for the support of strikes, but most was devoted to the purchase of literature. 7 The picture of the leading Social Democratic organization which emerges from primary sources and from memoirs of this period is one of a small, rather ineffective group, carried forward largely by the impetus of its immediate predecessor and certainly incapable of directing any sizable labor move­ ment. The test came early in May. In honor of the forthcoming coronation of Nicholas II, the governor of the city announced that all private factories could close for one day ( May 14 ) , while state-owned factories could close for three days ( May 14-16) ; these were to be paid holidays. He further decreed that workers of private establishments could, if they wished, celebrate the two additional days but without receiving pay. This decree apparently caused certain confusion. The workers of some private factories thought that, like workers of state­ owned factories, they were entitled to three days off with pay, and it is this misunderstanding that triggered the May strikes. The disturbances began at the privately owned Kenig textile factory. Its workers, having returned to the factory briefly on the 15th, walked out after lunch and stayed out all that and the following day, in the belief that they were entitled to a three-day holiday with full pay. The workers of two other privately owned textile factories also stayed away from work • Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. 201, 203; Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 69. • Valk, Listovki, pp. 45-46. 102

THE STRIKE OF 189 6 AND ECONOMISM on May 15 and 1 6. When, after they had reported back to work on May 17, their demands for pay were rejected by manage­ ment as well as the factory inspector, the workers struck. The strike started at Kenig, the Russian Cotton-Spinning Factory, and the Ekaterinhof textile mill, and from here spread to the other mills. Agitators carried the word, and one after another of the great mills closed down. By May 19 virtually the whole labor force of the textile industry-nearly thirty thousand workers-was on strike. 8 The strike was without question spontaneous in the sense that it was neither instigated nor managed by any outside group. But once under way it quickly developed its own dis­ cipline and organization. The striking workers abstained from violence and drunkenness, the usual companions of textile strikes in the past, and thereby forestalled the intervention of the police and Cossacks. Each striking factory elected repre­ sentatives to maintain relations with other factories and to carry on negotiations with management. On May 17, one hundred such representatives assembled a kind of protosoviet at the Ekaterinhof park, a popular place of recreation for workers near the Putilov Works, to formulate their demands. There is no evidence that this assembly was attended by any Social Democratic intellectuals. The principal demand put forth called for a shortening of the working day in the textile mills from the customary thirteen hours to ten-and-a-half hours. This demand, as well as six others, were stated in a brief program, which the strikers gave to a member of the Union of Struggle for duplication on the group's mimeograph. • The story of the sbike is best told in T. I. Sh. [I. Shabalin?], "K istorii petersburgskoi stachki tekstil'shchikov v 1896 g.," KL, no. z, 1931, pp. 94-107. See also V. Perazich, "Vseobshchaia zabastovka tekstilei, 1896-1897 gg.," BK, no. 7/8, 1935, pp. 70--77; Nevsky, Ocherki, pp. 415-420; Korolchuk, Khronika, p. zo9ff; Valk in Ocherki istorii Lenin­ grada, III, 18zff.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

The following day, May 18, the Union put out a proclamation, "The Demands of the Workers of the St. Petersburg Cotton Mills," which reproduced word for word and without comment the program of the Ekaterinhof meeting. 9 The workers held many other meetings throughout the duration of the strike and issued numerous leaflets and appeals. 1 0 Nothing in the past of St. Petersburg labor, and particularly of the textile industry, pointed to a strike of such scope, dis­ cipline, and social consciousness. The Social Democrats rarely reached the textile workers, and when they did they concen­ trated almost exclusively on local economic grievances. In their proclamations issued before May 189 6, the Social Democrats did not advance the slogan of a ten-and-a-half-hour working day. Nor were there any leaders of the defunct Central Worker Group available to guide the strike. All evidence indicates that the textile workers directed it with their own resources and formulated their demands without outside assistance. 1 1 This suggests either that, unknown to everyone else, the textile workers had developed their own organization in the early 1890s or that they had carried into the city certain essentially rural forms of social organization. 1 2

p-

• Valk, Listovki, pp. 51-52; Nevsky, Ocherkl, 417; Korolchuk, Khronika, p. 209; Katin-Iartsev, "Teni proshlogo,' p. 105; Perazich,

"Vseobshchaia zabastovka," p. 74. This leaflet was followed by another issued on May 20 ( Valk, pp. 52-55 ) . There is no authority for Valk's assertion in a recent book ( Ocherki istorii Leningrada, III, 183 ) that the Union of Struggle formulated the workers' demands. 10 Nevsky, Ocherki, p. 417; Perazich, "Vseobshchaia zabastovka," p. 74; Korolchuk, Khronika, p. .:217; Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, pp. 63-64. 11 Katin-Iartsev, "Teni proshlogo," p. 105; Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhente, p. 60. Even Lenin in What Is To Be Done? calls this and the other strikes of the 1890s "spontaneous," though with some quali­ fications ( Sochineniia, 2nd ed., IV, 384 ) . 1 2 Many of the textile workers had come recently from villages, having been driven to the city by the famine of 1891 ( Perazich, "Vseob­ shchaia zabastovka," p. 72 ) . 104

THE STRJXE OF

1896

AND EOONOMISM

The sbike made an enormous impression on St. Petersburg and the country at large. Money was collected to help the strikers. Employees of the mechanical and metal industries contributed generously, but they did not join the strike. Con­ temporaries recall hearing the workers of the great mechanical plants say there was no point in their joining the weavers and spinners since they already enjoyed the benefits for which the strike was waged, including a ten-and-a-half-hour day. 1 8 The strike thus remained confined to a single industry. The role of the Union of Struggle in all these events can best be described as advisory; essentially, the Union performed the function of an editorial and printing center. There is no evidence whatsoever for the assertion frequently made in Soviet histories that the Union directed the 18g 6 textile sbike. 14 Statements by members of the Union at this time, as well as by Social Democrats close to it, leave no doubt that they did not. Gorev, for example, has this to say: It

was a pleasant surprise for us [the Union of Struggle] to find that the workers possessed already at the beginning of the strike, quite independently of our Union, some sort of a self-directing organization as well as a rudimentary combatant strike fund, and that the strike itself spread so rapidly and in so organized a fashion throughout St. Petersburg due to special roving agitators sent in by the workers from factory to factory. We were also delighted by the 18 K-Ia. [Katin-Iartsev], "Pervye shagi," Byloe, no. 9, 1907, pp. 138139, and "Teni proshlogo," pp. 104-105. " See, for example, Nikitin, Petersburgskii "Soiuz," p. 78: "In the summer of 1896, under the leadership of the Union of Struggle, there occurred a grandiose strike of the textile workers of St. Petersburg." Perazich asserts that the strike suffered from utter confusion until the Union took charge ("Vseobshchaia zabastovka," p. 74 ) , while Korolchuk (Khronika, p. .209) even has Lenin directing the strike from jail! These distortions of historical evidence have a particular piquancy: they not only run contrary to Lenin's own estimate (see above, note 10), but they unintentionally give credit for the strike to future Mensheviks, Dan and Potresov, who were the most active members of the Union of Struggle in the first hali of 1896.

105

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

consciousness which the workers displayed : that they put forth as their main demand a reduction of the working day to ten and one­ half hours, and displayed a healthy organizational instinct which kept them from yielding to police provocations and induced them to conduct themselves in an orderly fashion, to keep away from drink, and to spend much time at home. Iii

And Takhtarev: [In the spring of 1896) the Union had few worker circles, and the workers belonging to it served as agents who collected information about conditions and distributed books and printed leaflets, rather than as organizers and propagandists among the masses of workers . . . As a result of these main factors and various acci­ dental causes, the role of the Union in all these strikes may be better described as an executive than as a directing one. 1 6

Katin-Iartsev, another participant, also states that agitation did not induce the strikes and that the Social Democrats lacked the ability to lead them once they got under way. 17 Around May zz, the strike began to show signs of collapse. The principal cause of the return-to-work movement was financial: the workers could not afford another week without pay. Although collections in St. Petersburg and elsewhere ( including Germany and England) helped, they were too small and came too late to support thirty thousand strikers. 1 8 The Union poured out a large number of appeals to the strikers urging them not to yield, and promising all kind of support, but it could not influence the course of events and soon the textile factories resumed operations. 1 9 10

Gorev, Iz partiinogo proshlogo, pp. 24-25. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, pp. 6o-61. Takhtarev is inaccurate in speaking of workers "belonging" to the Union of Struggle. See above, PP · 8 6-87. 1 7 Katin-Iartsev, "Pervye shagi," p. 137, and "Teni proshlogo," p. 107. 1 1 Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 60 : "To direct a sbike an organ­ ization must dispose of material means for its support. The Union, of course, lacked such means: what were a mere 3,000 rubles when it came to supporting the families of 30,000 sbikersl" " Valle, Listovkl, pp. 57-67; Korolchuk, Khronlka, pp. 212-z20. 10

106

THE STRIKE OF 189 6 AND ECONOMISM Strictly speaking, the May 18g 6 strike was a failure because the workers did not obtain what they wanted. But it was generally recognized at the time, and has been acknowledged since, that it was of utmost importance in stimulating the labor movement throughout the country. The seven-point statement of demands formulated by the workers at the Ekaterinhof meeting was distributed in other industrial centers of Russia and served as a model for labor movements active there. The Social Democrats were enthusiastic, perceiving in the strike the harbinger of a great revolutionary movement. 20 Russian Social Democrats abroad used the strike to prove to their skep­ tical Western colleagues that Social Democracy did have a raison d'etre in a predominantly rural country. Information on the strike was spread in England by the emigres Stepniak­ Kravchinsky and the old Populist, Chaikovsky, who also in­ duced the British Trade Union Council to write an open letter to Russian workers and to collect on their behalf the equivalent of six hundred and fifty rubles. 21 Potresov and Struve, who attended the International Socialist Congress in London in August of that year as representatives of the Union of Struggle, also brought news to the West. 22 Struve later wrote an impor­ tant essay in a Russian Social Democratic periodical in Switzer­ land, in which he asserted that in the East the bourgeoisie was too cowardly to struggle for political liberty and that this task now devolved on the working class. 23 The 18g 6 strike marked the entry of Russian labor into the international labor movement and, incidentally, greatly enhanced the interna­ tional status of Russian Social Democracy. •• Gorev, Iz partiinogo proshlogo, pp. 21, 24. •• Valk, Listovki, pp. u2-u6. James MacDonald signed the British workers' appeal, and Potresov the Russian reply. 12 L. Martov, Istoriia Rossiiskoi sotsial-demokratii ( Petrograd, 1918 ) , P · 31. .. Peterburzhets, "Po povodu s-petersburgskoi stachki," Rabotnik ( Geneva ) , no. 3/4, 1897, pp. iii-xvi. In this essay Struve, for probably the only time in his life, came close to an Economist position.

107

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

But the main impact of the strike was on the relationship between labor and the intelligentsia. The scope of the strike, its discipline and organization, and above all its complete freedom from outside influence indicated that the day when a handful of students and intellectuals could presume to speak in the name of labor was over. Labor now began to speak for itself. All during and after the May strike, individual workers and worker committees, spontaneously organized at the fac­ tories, turned out numerous proclamations and programs and formed rudimentary trade-union organizations centered on local strike funds. 24 Many of these writings reached the Union of Struggle and there created a violent conflict between a con­ servative majority, insisting on an intelligentsia-led Social Democratic organization, and a group of innovators, who called for "democratization" of the group. In the first wave of enthusiasm engendered by the May strike, the St. Petersburg Social Democrats had finally carried out their long-sought merger. In July and early August of 18g 6, the Union of Struggle fused with the two other Social Democratic groups operating in St. Petersburg, the remnant of the molodye ( Lengnik) and the group of Takhtarev ( Takhtarev and Katin-Iartsev). 211 However, before the new Union could begin to function, police arrests removed most of its active members, including Dan, Silvin, and Krupskaia. 2 6 Leadership now passed into the hands of Takhtarev and Rad­ chenko, who in the fall recruited new members. Takhtarev was the main organizer; Radchenko was in charge of contact with other organizations inside Russia; Potresov assumed the responsibility for relations with Plekhanov and his circle in Geneva. Radchenko and Potresov were also placed in charge "' Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, pp. 70, 96-gg. "" Ibid., pp. Bo-82; Gorev, Iz partiinogo proshlogo, pp. 26-z7. •• Korolchuk, Khronika, pp. zz6-2z7; Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie,

p. Bo. 108

THE STRIKE OF 189 6 AND ECONOMISM of the proposed newspaper, Petersburgskii rabochii listok ( Petersburg Labor Leaflet) , of which two numbers came out the next year. 2 7 Under their capable leadership, the Union grew rapidly, and soon the need was felt for a formal program. Since Potresov, its main theoretician, was still abroad, as was Struve, the Union entrusted the task to Lenin, the group's former editor-in-chief. Lenin agreed to draft a program. His draft was smuggled out of jail, lost, and rediscovered after the revolution. It is an interesting document because of what it reveals of Lenin's early political thought ( it is the first of his many programmatic projects) and of the general mood pre­ vailing among Russian Social Democrats after the May strike. The two most outstanding qualities of this program are its "auxiliary" view of the function of the party and its "Econo­ mist" conception of Social Democratic strategy. 2 8 Having explained the difficulties under which the Russian labor movement had to develop, Lenin thus defined the func­ tion of the party: The Russian Social Democratic party declares as its task to help this struggle of the Russian working class by developing labor's class-consciousness, assisting its organization, and showing it the real goals of the struggle . . . The task of the party is not to invent in its head some fashionable methods of helping the workers, but to ;oin the labor movement, to illuminate it, to help the workers in the struggle which they have already begun to wage themselves. 2 9

The whole tenor of this definition is quite un-Bolshevik insofar •• Takhtarev, ibid., pp. 82-83; Gorev, Iz partiinogo proshlogo, pp. 36--37; Katin-Iartsev, "Teni proshlogo," p. 115. Both issues of this rare publication, the first hectographed and dated January 1897, the second printed in Geneva and dated September 1897, can be found at the Bibliotheque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine in Paris under the shelfmark, "F. piece 339 Res." •• This program and Lenin's own lengthy commentary to it are repro­ duced in Lenin, Sochineniia, 2nd ed., I, 423-445. •• Ibid., pp. 426, 438-439 ( emphasis added ) . Further on in the pro­ gram, however, Lenin italicizes the word "help" (ibid., p. 441 ) . 109

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

as it places emphasis on assisting, not leading, labor. It sug­ gests to what extent the Social Democrats were carried away by the May 18g 6 strikes. In connection with the first of the three forms of Social Democratic assistance to labor ( the development of class­ consciousness), Lenin explained the importance of the eco­ nomic struggle: This transition of the workers to a steadfast struggle for their daily needs which is now beginning all over Russia, the struggle for concessions, for better living conditions, wages, and working hours, represents for Russian labor a tremendous step forward, and for that reason the Social Democratic party and all conscious workers ought to concentrate on it their main attention.Bo

This economic struggle, Lenin continued, in the first place demonstrated to the worker the nature of economic exploita­ tion, in the second place imbued him with a fighting spirit, and in the third place developed his political consciousness: The mass of workers live in conditions which give them neither the leisure nor the opportunity to think about any political problems. But the struggle of the workers with factory owners for their daily needs confronts them of itself and inevitably [sama soboi i neiz­ bezhno] with problems of state and politics, showing them what Russia's political system is, how laws and ordinances are issued, and whose interests they serve. Every conflict in the factory inevitably brings the workers in conflict with laws and with the representatives of state power.Bl

These statements are, of course, merely a restatement of the thesis that Kremer and Martov outlined in Ob agitatsii, but they •• Ibid., p. 440 (emphasis added ) . Ibid., p. 441 (emphasis added ) . Silvin in "Vladimir Il'ich," pp. 107108, cites this passage and says that it illustrates very well the attitude of Social Democrats of that time. It contrasts neatly with the central thesis of What ls To Be Done?: "Class political consciousness can be brought to the worker only from the outside, that is, outside the economic struggle, outside the realm of relations of workers toward their em­ ployers" (Lenin, Sochineniia, 2nd ed., IV, 422 ) . 11

1 10

THE STRIKE OF 18g 6 AND ECONOMISM do come surprisingly close to views which Lenin himself later was mercilessly to condemn as Economist. The main problem facing the new leadership of the Union was whether or not to admit workers. Takhtarev, supported by Katin-lartsev and Iakubova, insisted that such a measure was inevitable: the Union of Struggle either would become a genuine labor organization in which workers and intellec­ tuals participated on equal footing or labor would establish its own rival organization. The old structure, Takhtarev argued, was perhaps suitable for circle work and partly for that initial phase of agitation which had been conducted until the summer strikes. But it was certainly unsuitable to deal with those organizational, agi­ tational, and even propagandistic tasks which had been first placed before the Union by the summer strikes, and now most persistently called for new forces, new methods, and new means of solution. 32

Takhtarev's arguments acquired added urgency from the fact that there already existed in St. Petersburg a rudimentary mass labor organization, and some workers were talking of starting an independent newspaper. To prevent a conflict between the Union and labor, Takhtarev urged that at least two workers be admitted to membership. Radchenko andGorev led the conservative opposition. Their arguments, according to Takhtarev, boiled down to the assertion that the introduction of workers into the central body of the Union was undesirable from the conspira­ torial point of view . . . One of the principal proponents of the old order once even expressed the fear that the workers would intro­ duce into the Union a new order, and perhaps even deprive us of leadership. 33

The debates between the two wings of the Union lasted all during the winter of 189 6-g7. The prolabor group drafted Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 100. •• Takhtarev, ibid., p. 1oz, and "V. I. Lenin," pp. 14-15. 12

111

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST, PETERSBURG LABOR

several projects for a central workers' fund whose purpose it was to shift the center of activity to a wide network of local and central treasuries, operated by the workers themselves with assistance from the intelligentsia. 3 4 The Union was so preoccupied with these discussions that it was caught unprepared by a second great textile strike, which took place at the beginning of January 1897. Members of the Union who had heard of the intention of the workers tried to dissuade them on the grounds that the winter months were not a propitious time for strikes. 35 But the workers were determined and excellently organized. Their second strike ended in triumph: the government decreed in April the intro­ duction of an eleven-and-a-half-hour working day. Thus the independent strike movement which had begun the previous May attained its goal. Russian labor won its first important concession, and it did so with its own resources and under its own leadership. It is at this time (February 1897) that the authorities finally completed their long investigation of the Social Democrats arrested in 1895 and 1896. The sentences turned out to be unexpectedly mild: whereas the leaders of the Narodovoltsy, seized in 18g4, had received terms of eight years of exile, the Social Democrats were given only three years of exile. The workers received even lighter sentences. One prisoner, however, Zaporozhets, was singled out for exceptional punish­ ment. Police handwriting experts decided that he was the author of the editorial and two other articles in the confiscated " Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 1oz; Gorev, Iz partiinogo prosh­ logo, pp. 34-35; Katin-Iartsev, "Teni proshlogo," p. 117. The draft proposing a central workers' fund ( "Ustav tsentral'noi soiuznoi rabochei kassy" ) prepared by the Union of Struggle in March ( Old Style? ) 1897 is reproduced in Levin and Tatarov, Istoriia RKP (b), pp. 63-71, 11 Korolchuk, Khronika, p�. z3z-z36; Nevsky, Ocherki, pp. 41g--4z1; Katin-Iartsev, "Pervye shagi, ' p. 15 1. 1 12

THE STRIXE OF 189 6 AND ECONOMISM manuscript of Rabochee delo, and he was sentenced to five years of exile. 3 6 Had Zaporozhets not volunteered to transcribe Lenin's manuscript, this sentence would have been imposed on Lenin instead, and Lenin would not have been able to leave Siberia until January 1902-too late to participate in the found­ ing of Iskra and the drawn-out preparations for the Second Congress of the party which split into the Bolshevik and Men­ shevik factions. Even the mind least addicted to conjecture must contemplate with awe the historic implications of this possibility. After the sentences had been announced, the prisoners, in a rather unusual gesture of good will, were permitted to spend three days in freedom "to settle their personal affairs." They took advantage of this unexpected opportunity to mend their political fences. Lenin's principal concern now was to conclude a formal political alliance with the Narodovoltsy with whom he had formed a literary agreement in November 1895. The Narodo­ voltsy were moving ever closer to a Social Democratic position. In the fourth ( and last) number of their Listok they came out with a programmatic statement fully acceptable to the Social Democrats. 8 7 "Lenin," writes Gorev, "worked out the text of the agreement ( it was a whole article!) , and already at •• Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie, "Doklad," pp. 125-126, 159. •• Kudelli, Narodovol'tsy, pp. 19-20. Its author was A. S. Belevsky­ Belorussov, a future Kadet and associate of the Kolchak government. The Bibliotheque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine possesses ( under the shelfmark, "S. piece 167 Res." ) a fifteen-page mimeographed leaflet, called "Otkrytoe pis'mo gruppe Letuchego Listka" ( An Open Letter to the Group of the Flying Leaflet ) , dated "Peterburg, 20 March 1896," and signed "Kruzhok Narodovol'tsev." It is a protest against the tendency of the main body of the St. Petersburg Group of Narodovoltsy to fuse with the Social Democrats. According to Boris Nikolaevsky ( in a letter to me, dated April 26, 1962 ) , its author was V. V. Leonovich ( Angarsky ) . It is described by V. Akimov [Makhnovets] in Ocherk razvitiia sotsial demokratii, p. 57. 1 13

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

that time revealed that businesslike opportunism in the form of respect for the power of others which is so characteristic of him. 'Once they have a press,' he would say, 'they can dictate much to us, and we must consent to much.' " On the basis of this agreement, the two groups moved toward a complete merger. 8 8 The released prisoners also held two meetings with the leaders of the Union of Struggle and discovered to their dismay that, during the preceding winter, the organization had undergone a considerable and highly disturbing evolution. 39 They heard passionate arguments in favor of admitting workers into the Union, of founding a newspaper written by workers, and of supporting a network of worker-directed strike funds­ all issues which the stariki thought they had settled negatively before their arrest. Lenin, supported by Martov and probably most of the other released prisoners, backed Radchenko and Gorev and argued vigorously against Iakubova, who, in Takh­ tarev's absence, defended the view of the labor-oriented faction. This is how Martov describes the meeting : The dispute concerned mainly the intention of the [active] members of the Union to accede to the striving of labor for organizational independence. In our day the Union of Struggle had been regarded by the workers as their mass organization, although in fact it was controlled by some twenty intellectuals who made up its center and based themselves on isolated circles united only by means of that center. This arrangement which had been retained all through 1 896 could no longer satisfy the workers as the number of workers actively engaged in party work increased. They began to clamor for a democratic organization. The Union acceded to this clamor 18 Gorev, Iz partiinogo proshlogo, p. 38; Takhtarev, Ocherk, p. 70. The police later found the proposed plan for merger. It has not been published, but a summary can be found in Obzor vazhneishikh doznanil, XIX-XX, 1895-96, 107-108 . .. The main sources bearing on these meetings are reproduced in Lenin, Sochineniia, znd ed., IV, 607-6u. They consist of memoirs of Takhtarev, Gorev, Martov, Elizarova, and Lenin himself.

1 14

TIIE STRIKE OF 18g6 AND ECONOMISM and we were shown the statues of a labor fund which it had pre­ pared; this fund was to unite all active proletarian elements and function as an autonomous unit of the Union. But since the everyday practice of the Union continued to take the form of leadership of the trade-union struggle of labor, it was certain that to have based the whole party organization on this practice • . • would have pre­ vented this leading center from broadening the channel of its revolutionary work and from surmounting the confines of a purely trade-union struggle. We had always regarded the concentration of the party's forces on the trade-union struggle as a mere strategic device best capable of assuring a direct clash with the autocracy. For this reason we looked skeptically at the project of the statutes of the aforementioned fund, and supported Ulianov who subjected it to a fairly sharp critique. 4 0

These debates marked the end of an era. The cleavage be­ tween labor and the intelligentsia, which in one form or another had characterized the whole evolution of the labor movement and Social Democracy, not only had not healed but, on the contrary, had with time become more pronounced. The result was the first split within the ranks of Social Democracy. One wing, true to the tradition of democratic socialism, be­ lieved that the function of the intelligentsia was to assist labor. This group founded before the end of 1897 a journal, Rabochaia mysr (Labor Thought ) , dedicated to the proposition that labor must achieve its own emancipation and that this could best be accomplished by concentrating its efforts on the struggle for the betterment of living conditions. Another group, '° Martov, Zapiski, pp. 316-317. It may be noted that Plekhanov from the beginning also assumed a hostile attitude to the efforts of the St. Petersburg Social Democrats to "democratize" the movement ( Takh­ tarev, Rabocliee dvizhenie, pp. 106-107 ) . Indeed, at this time the future leaders of Bolshevism and Menshevism were at one on all critical points of party policy, including their hostility to the "democratic," trade­ union orientation of the labor leaders and the nascent Economists. Plekhanov certainly was then much more orthodox, that is, uncompro­ mising, on the matter of economic agitation and rapprochement with the Narodovoltsy than was Lenin. 115

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

to which belonged the majority of active Social Democrats at home as well as abroad, adhered to a political orientation, firmly convinced that it was possible for intellectuals to assume leadership over the labor movement and to direct its growing forces against the tsarist government.

1 16

C H A P T E R

S E V E N

C ON C LUS I ON

THE HIS TORY of the Social Democratic and labor movements in St. Petersburg during the period from 1885 to 1897 is the history not of one but of two separate and distinct movements. Though they cooperated on many occasions, the two never merged. This separation was not confined to St. Petersburg or, for that matter to Russia, and had many parallels in the West, including England. The failure of the St. Petersburg Social Democratic intelli­ gentsia to merge with labor or to acquire leadership over it must be ascribed above all to a divergence of interests. Labor was mainly concerned with intellectual and economic self­ improvement, the Social Democratic intelligentsia mainly with politics. As long as the Social Democrats gave labor what it wanted and what, under conditions then prevailing in Russia, it could not obtain ( education and assistance in trade-union organization) , they secured labor's cooperation and even sym­ pathy. But the workers never yielded to the socialists' efforts to politicize their movement; nor did they concede leadership to the intelligentsia. As a result, the Social Democrats were compelled all along to adjust their activities to the wants of labor or risk the loss of influence. It would be entirely incorrect to ascribe to the Social Demo­ crats the initiative in getting the labor movement started. The roots of that movement go back to the Populist propagandists ( from the intelligentsia as well as the working class) , especial-

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

ly the Northern Union of Russian Workers founded in 1878. Nearly the entire first generation of St. Petersburg labor leaders came at one time or another under Populist influence. Nor did this influence end with the appearance of Social Democracy. Members of the People's Will continued to play an important role in the St. Petersburg labor movement, side by side with the Social Democrats, all through the period 1885-1897. Indeed, so close were the practices of these groups that it would be difficult to draw a sharp line of demarcation between Social Democratic and Narodovoltsy propagandists until the spring of 1894. The differentiation which began in that year resulted not from any disagreement over practical problems but from the critique of Populist economic theories first formulated by Struve. After this, the labor elite began gradually to veer toward Social Democracy, partly in emula­ tion of Western ( especially German) labor, partly because at that time the Russian Social Democrats advocated a more cautious, pacifist strategy than their rivals from the People's Will. The St. Petersburg labor movement assumed two distinct forms. On the one side was the mass of unskilled and semi­ skilled laborers in the factories, especially the textile mills, most of whom had not yet broken the ties with their native villages and carried into the city peasant attitudes. These laborers distrusted all intellectuals and, for a long time, were completely immune to their propaganda. They expressed their dissatisfaction occasionally in peasantlike destructive rebel­ lions which lacked clear purpose and rarely left the confines of a single industrial establishment. The other side of labor consisted of a small but growing elite, composed mainly ( but not exclusively) of skilled workers from the mechanical shops and plants. Members of this elite often descended from a second or even third generation of urban inhabitants. The 1 18

CONCLUSION outstanding characteristic of the labor elite was an urge for education, an urge which it partly satisfied by attending evening and Sunday schools and by forming study circles. It displayed considerable social and political awareness and followed closely the activities of the labor movement in the West. Between 188g and 1895 the leading members of worker circles maintained a city-wide labor organization ( Central Worker Circle or Central Worker Group) with its own treas­ ury, which in time came to resemble a rudimentary trade union run by workers and for workers. The relations between the two sides of labor were on the whole not friendly. The educated machinists looked with a certain disdain on their colleagues from the other industries and refused to join their strikes. Until the spring of 1896, the St. Petersburg labor movement involved, therefore, only a small group of several hundred members of study circles who in many ways had more in common with their tutors from the intelligentsia than with the weavers or tobacco workers. But in 1896 this situation radically changed. The May strike of that year, involving perhaps as many as thirty thousand textile workers, as well as the strike of January 1897, marked the appearance of labor in Russia of a mass labor movement and the emergence of labor as a social force. It is notable that rank-and-file workers initiated these two strikes: they organ­ ized them, formulated their demands, and ultimately brought them to a successful conclusion. Had the history of Russia after 1917 proceeded in the same fashion as that of the West did, there is every reason to believe that the Russian labor movement would have become as effective a social and political force as its counterpart in other industrial countries of the world. St. Petersburg Social Democracy during the decade under discussion was for all practical purposes a movement of intel1 19

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

lectuals, mostly students from the university and the Techno­ logical Institute. For, although the labor elite inclined toward Social Democracy, the gulf separating it from the intelligentsia was such that it never actually joined Social Democratic organ­ izations. The Social Democratic movement emerged very slowly from its Populist matrix and for a long time lacked even a proper name: until approximately 1894 it existed more as a tendency or an orientation ( napravlenie is the term commonly found in contemporary sources) than as a distinct political force. As late as 1893, some of the leading St. Petersburg Social Democrats accepted terror and assassination as legitimate weapons of political combat. Organizationally, the history of St. Petersburg Social Democracy consists of a succession of short-lived groups, beginning with that of the Bulgarian Blagoev, the Russified Pole Tochisky, and the Polish students at the Technological Institute, and ending with the abortive Social Democratic Labor Party founded in Minsk in 1898. The Union of Struggle was merely one of the many episodes in this organizational chain. The St. Petersburg Social Democrats confined their activity to two main functions, both of them adaptations of methods first devised by the Populists in the 1870s. Until 1894 they occupied themselves exclusively with propaganda, i.e., tutoring advanced workers in study circles. Such circles were founded and run by the workers themselves, and the intellectuals entered them only as invited guests. In 1894--95, under the influence of Polish and Jewish Social Democratic organiza­ tions, the majority of St. Petersburg Social Democrats went over to a technique called agitation, i.e., stimulation of strike activity among factory workers. They adopted this strategy in an effort to reach beyond the small circle of labor leaders to start a mass movement, and they learned about it first from Martov. The agitational method led to a certain worsening of 120

OONCLUSION relations with the labor elite, which did want to give up its educational program and was loath to become involved in subversive activity together with the closely watched intel­ lectuals. On the basis of the agitational platform and on the initiative of Martov, two of the four Social Democratic circles then functioning in St. Petersburg, Martov's and the stariki, combined to form an organization which later came to be known as the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. A close study of the activities of the Union of Struggle and its immediate predecessor, the organization of the stariki, reveals that they did not succeed in their assigned task-that is, they neither instigated nor prolonged industrial strikes. In particular, the historic strikes of May 18g 6 and January 18g7, which led to the introduction of the eleven-and-a-half-hour working day, occurred largely outside their influence; the January strike took place even against the advice of the Union of Struggle. The main function of the Social Democrats in these strikes was editorial. By means of leaflets they called attention of the workers to existing laws and regulations; they helped formulate demands in precise and literate language; and they published information by and for workers for distribution in the factories. Though these activities certainly influenced the spirit of the strike movement of 1895-1897, they did not affect its essentially spontaneous character. Seen historically, propaganda and agitation, for all their outward differences, had a great deal in common. They were both devices by which the socialist intellectuals hoped to penetrate a politically indifferent working class. In the case of propaganda they provided a substitute for schools, in the case of agitation a substitute for trade unions. In both instances the intelligentsia was more interested in securing a foothold in the ranks of labor than in promoting labor's immediate inter121

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

ests. At first both tactics were successful; but, as soon as the intellectuals tried to transform circles and strikes into political tools, they failed. In the end, propaganda turned into full-time teaching and agitation into full-time union activity. Neither succeeded in politicizing labor. The fame and popularity of the Union of Struggle rested, as we have seen, largely on a decep­ tion by virtue of which an organization composed exclusively of intellectuals presumed, behind the cloak of secrecy, to speak in the name of labor. If one studies the activities of Lenin in St. Petersburg against this general background, one is inevitably drawn to the con­ clusion that his achievement has been grossly exaggerated and distorted. To begin with, Lenin introduced to the St. Peters­ burg Social Democratic movement nothing new whatever in terms of either policy or strategy. The propaganda which he conducted among workers ( not quite wholeheartedly, one might add) had long been a traditional occupation of Populist as well as Social Democratic intellectuals. The agitation in which he became involved ( belatedly and after initial hos­ tility) was modeled directly on the example set by the Polish and Jewish labor movements. In the second place, Lenin was at no point the leader of the Union of Struggle or any other Social Democratic organization, let alone of the labor move­ ment. The whole notion of individual leadership was utterly alien to the socialist movement of that time, partly because of principle, partly because police repression called for a flexible, informal, and collective organizational structure. Without ex­ ception, all statements alleging Lenin's leadership of the St. Petersburg Social Democratic and labor movements were published after Lenin had seized power in Russia; they find no confirmation in sources which appeared before 1917. Lenin's activities during his years in St. Petersburg may best be described as primarily literary in character. During the first 12.Z

OONCLUSION year and a haH, he concentrated his main energy on theoretical discussions and writings directed first against the Populists and then against Struve. In the last haH year, when, on the initiative of Martov, he helped found an organization devoted to agitation, Lenin assumed the responsibility of the organiza­ tion's editor-in-chief. For him, the period of his stay in St. Petersburg was one of hesitation and quest. The rather primi­ tive political notions which he had brought with him on arriving in August 18g3-a melange of ideas derived from the People's Will and Marx-melted away as Lenin made contact with the local labor movement as well as the leading lights of the Marxist movement at St. Petersburg University. By the time he left for his Siberian exile, Lenin had not yet drawn firm conclusions from the experiences of his years in the capital. The great personal drive and ambition, the organiza­ tional talent, the acute ( if narrow) intelligence, were all there; but his political outlook was still unformed. Extreme caution and a desire to work as much as possible within the confines of the law were qualities characteristic of his activity then. To depict Lenin of the years 1893-18g7 in terms of that Lenin who several years later founded and led the Bolshevik Party is to distort the record of history and to miscontrue St. Peters­ burg Social Democracy of that period. Lenin's relations with labor all along were cool and distant. He had certain suspicions of the labor elite in which ( not with­ out justification) he perceived an incipient neo-intelligentsia. Similarly, his "intellectual" appearance and manner precluded closer contact with the intensely distrustful rank and file of labor. Lenin enjoyed far closer relations with the university Marxists and the Narodovoltsy intellectuals than with any labor group. Already at this time, however, he displayed some of the political traits whch were to distinguish him in later years. More than any of his colleagues he was given to tactical 123

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ST. PETERSBURG LABOR

"alliances" with groups and personalities whose ideas he did not share but whose help he needed to realize his ambitions. His rapprochement with Struve and Potresov, as well as his abortive merger with the Narodovoltsy, were manifestations of this political acumen. In these important years in St. Petersburg, one may trace the origins of two major "deviations" in the Russian Social Democratic movement,Economism and Bolshevism. Each was a peculiar response to the apolitical mood of Russian labor. The roots of Economism are best sought in the agitational method of Social Democratic work. The socialists who had devised this method acknowledged the indiHerence of labor to politics and proposed to overcome it by demonstrating the allegedly indissoluble link between economic interests and the country's political order. Whereas in theory agitation was political, in practice it remained confined to economics. From agitation, which pushed politics into the background as a matter of tactical expedience, it was only one step to Econo­ mism proper, which subordinated politics to economics as a matter of principle. Economism thus came into being in Russia in 1896-g7, in the wake of the emerging mass labor move­ ment.1 It represented a continuation of an old tradition in the Russian socialist movement, which held that the emancipation of labor must be accomplished by labor itself. It was the 1 Strictly speaking, of course, Economism came into being only in 1899, under the infiuence of Bernstein, and it may be objected that in applying this term to 18�7 I am guilty of perpetuating a termi­ nological anachronism, one originally committed by Lenin in What Is To Be Done? I do so because I believe that in this case Lenin's analysis and terminology are sound. Whatever the diHerences separating Takh­ tarev, Ialcubova, and Rabochaia mysl' from the Credo of Kuskova, they have in common one assumption which the "political" majority of Russian Social Democracy coufd not, in the long run, accept: that labor's political consciousness would emerge automatically from the economic struggle against the employers and, hence, that there was no need for parallel political organization and propaganda.

124

CONCLUSION theoretical expression of a vigorous nascent labor movement and an attempt to synthesize trade-union activity with social­ ism. The growth of labor in the mid-189os was so dynamic that all Social Democrats active in Russia were in some measure affected by such Economist ideas. Even such politically minded men as Struve and Lenin in 189 6 yielded to them. Lenin, as we have seen, for a while came to believe that the economic struggle of labor would "of itself' lead to political conse­ quences, and that the projected Social Democratic party ought to confine itself to "helping" labor. During this period Lenin was certainly as much Economist as the future leaders of Menshevism, whom, in later years, he tried to charge with his own "sins." Lenin, not to mention Struve, did not long remain in this position. As soon as Bemsteinian revisionism got on its way, he interpreted it as an ideological reflection of the trade­ unionist mentality which he had encountered in St. Peters­ burg. He now veered sharply toward an extreme political position, one which was eventually formulated in What Is To Be Done? From the same experience, Lenin drew a conclusion diametrically opposite to that of the Economists: if labor would not become involved in politics of its own free will, then politics had to be brought to it from the outside by a Social Democratic party elite. The development of Russian Social Democracy after 18g7 was undoubtedly influenced by factional differences and aprioristic theoretical considerations. But even more signiflcant was the solid evidence of a basic discrepancy between labor and intelligentsia, economics and politics, a social movement and a political doctrine, revealed by the experiences of St. Petersburg in the preceding decade.

APPENDICES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

APPEN D IX I E D I T O R I A L F R OM R A B O C H A I A M Y S L '

THE FIRST issue of Rabochaia mysf ( Labor Thought ) came out in October 18g7. The journal was founded by a group of workers and labor-oriented intellectuals who, except for Takhtarev ( who joined later ) , had no connection with the Union of Struggle. In view of its importance and pertinence to the subject of this book, the entire programmatic statement of the first issue's editorial is reproduced below. The text is translated from Lenin, Sochineniia ( 1st ed. ) , I, 5�510.

The Russian labor movement may now regard itself as united with the all-European labor movement. No one will doubt now, of course, that the hand with the blue cuff will fail to impede its gradual, steady advance. Sometimes reduced to a faintly glowing spark, sometimes spread into a sea of fire, it penetrates ever more widely and deeply the working masses, and slowly but surely teaches them discipline in the conJlict with the enemy. The labor movement owes this vitality to the fact that the worker himself is taking over the struggle, having wrested it from the hands of the leaders. This is quite understandable. & long as the movement was merely a means of calming the suffering conscience of the repentant intellectual, it was alien to the worker himself. The main body of workers were cold and indiHerent to the cause; enlightened workers, fighters for their own cause, were few, too few to affect the movement as a whole. The wherewithal came from · the meager student purse. Why fight, with whom, for what? The nonintellectual worker, the rank and file who mean everything to the movement, knew no answer to these questions. And there could have been no answer, since the economic basis of the movement was obscured by the effort always to maintain the political ideal. The question was

APPENDIX I

posed in such a manner that it did not answer itself, and it is not possible to give explanations to everyone because the usual lessons are given only to a relatively very small circle of persons. In other words, one may say that the average worker remained outside the movement. The strikes of 1896 may be regarded as the first and so far only manifestation of independent labor thought expressed in constructive forms, if one excludes previous strikes which had occurred more or less spontaneously like an explosion and not like a struggle waged according to a prearranged plan. Once the ques­ tion "why fight?" is clear, once the enemies stand face to face, the Russian worker knows how to fight, as he has already demonstrated. The struggle for economic interests is the most stubborn struggle; it is comprehensible to the great number and induces in more persons that heroism with which the most ordinary human being defends his right to exist. This is the law of nature. Politics always obediently follows economics, and, in general, political chains are broken in passing. The struggle for economic conditions, the struggle against capital on the field of daily immediate interests, and strikes as an instrument of that struggle-such is the slogan . of the labor move­ ment. This struggle is comprehensible to all; it hardens the workers' strength and unites them. In it, every step forward brings about an improvement of living conditions and serves as an instrument for further victories. Once the whole mass of workers has been at­ tracted, the means of combat are assured. The movement ceases to be poverty-stricken and dependent on handouts. The means ought to come from the fighters themselves, and every penny contributed to the struggle by labor will be worth more than a thousand given by third parties. The striving of the workers to establish funds marks a transition to a fully conscious phase of the movement. These funds ought to provide in the future the resources not so much for lessons and books, but for daily bread in the heat of strife, during strikes. The workers ought to group around these funds, and every such fund is dearer to the movement than a hundred other organ­ izations. Certainly the task of self-education ought also to proceed without letup, providing education for intelligent individuals. Let the workers struggle, knowing they are fighting not for some future generations but for themselves and their children; let them keep in mind that every victory, every inch gained from the enemy, means one less rung on the ladder leading to their own well-being; let the 130

BABOCHAlA MY5L strong appeal to the weak to join the struggle and form them into ranks, relying on no one else's help. Victory lies ahead, but the workers will triumph only when they take as their slogan: Workers

for Workers.

131

A P P E N D I X II BIOGRAPHI CAL SKETCHES

This list provides data on the Social Democratic and labor leaders mentioned prominently in the book. Figures of historical importance on whom biographical information is readily available, such as Lenin or Martov, are omitted. Afanasev [Klimov ], Egor Afanasevich ( 1866-19 18 ) . Labor leader. Of peasant origin, found employment with the St. Petersburg Expedition of State Papers as a blacksmith and attended the school attached to it. Between 1885 and 1888 associated with Tochisky. In 1 887 organized a meeting of circle workers to honor Nekrasov. In 1889-1890 helped found the Central Worker Circle, appointed its treasurer. Arrested in 1892. but released shortly afterwards. Gradually moved away from the labor move­ ment. Died of typhus in February 1918. Afanasev, Fedor Afanasevich ( 1859-1905 ) . Brother of Egor, labor leader. Employed as a weaver, attended factory school. After a period of wandering around the country, settled in St. Petersburg and joined the circle movement. Helped found with his brother the Central Worker Circle in 1890. Spoke at the 1891 May Day meeting. Later that year moved to Moscow to organize labor circles. Arrested in September 1892.. After release from prison, failed to resume steady work. According to some sources, became a Bolshevik. Killed by Cossacks during the 1905 Revolution. Babushkin, Ivan Vasilevich ( 1873-1906) . Labor leader. Of peasant origin, enrolled at the age of fourteen at the Kronstadt Torpedo School, then went to work at the Neva Mechanical and Ship­ building Works. In 1892.-1895 participated in labor organizations founded by Shelgunov, and in summer 1 894 formed own circle. In 1895 active in the Central Worker Group. One of Lenin's tutees. Arrested in 1896. After the founding of Iskra

APPENDIX D

served as its agent, rearrested and exiled to Siberia. Caught during the 1905 Revolution transporting weapons and executed. Bankowski, Czeslaw. Polish student at the St. Petersburg Techno­ logical Institute. Took an active part in propaganda among workers. Graduated in 1891. Baranskaia, Liubov Nikolaevna (d. 1960). Taught evening and Sunday schools in St. Petersburg. Associated with the Radchenko circle of propagandists. Married Radchenko. An active agent of Iskra, joined the Mensheviks and became a member of their Central Committee. After 1917 frequently arrested and com­ mitted to Soviet concentration camps. Died in Moscow. Bartenev, Viktor V. (ca. 1864-1920). Social Democrat, student at the Technological Institute, active in worker propaganda after 1887. After revolution joined Kadets. Executed by Bolsheviks in Archangelsk. Belevsky-Belorussov, Alexander S. (1859-1919). A Narodovolets, principal theoretician of the St. Petersburg Listok Narodovortsev, advocate of fusion with Social Democrats. Negotiated merger agreement with Lenin in 1895. Arrested shortly afterwards, spent eight years in Siberian exile. In 1908 emigrated abroad. Later became Constitutional Democrat, died in Siberia while working as newspaper editor for Kolchak. Bogatyrev, Evgeny Georgevich (ca. 1870-1922). Student at the Technological Institute, active in worker propaganda as a mem­ ber of the molodye. Arrested in 1896, given sentence of three years of Siberian exile. Bogdanov, Nikolai D. (1870-1929). Labor leader, born in the Vitebsk province of a worker family. Brought to St. Petersburg as a child, attended the school operated by the Russian Imperial Technical Society. At the age of twelve, went to work, first in a basket shop and then in the yards of the Warsaw Railroad. Attended circles tutored by members of the Rodziewicz group, but was also in contact with the Narodovoltsy. In 1889-1890 helped found the Central Worker Circle, served as its secretary. Spoke at the 1891 May Day celebration. Arrested in 1891, spent most of the next decade in prison and exile. Upon release, joined the Mensheviks. Arrested by Soviet authorities in 1919 and again in 1924. Died in obscurity in the Soviet Union. 134

BIOGRAPHICAL SEETCHES

Brusnev, Michael Ivanovich ( 1864-1937 ) . Social Democrat, active in worker propaganda while attending the Technological In­ stitute. In 1889 joined a group of Polish propagandists. In the spring of 1891 represented the student intelligentsia in the Cen­ tral Worker Circle. Tried to form network of Russian Social Democratic organizations. Arrested in 1 892, sentenced to six years in prison and ten years in exile. Upon release abandoned revolutionary activity. Died in the Soviet Union. Buianov, Vassily Vladimirovich (b. ca. 1861 ) . Labor leader, born in Kostroma, participated in the early 1880s in worker circles organized by the Narodovoltsy, for which he was arrested and exiled. Upon return to St. Petersburg in 1888, rejoined circles, and studied in one organized by Buraczewski at the Putilov Works. Became a member of the Central Worker Circle. Rear­ rested in 1890, spent the next decade in and out of jail. In 1905 participated in the St. Petersburg Soviet. Buraczewski, Jozef (b. ca. 1868 ) . Polish student at the Techno­ logical Institute. A native of Vilno. Organized in 1889 a worker circle at the Putilov Works. Arrested in 1890, was returned to his home town, two years later migrated to Switzerland. Chernyshev, Illarion Vasilevich. Social Democrat, founder and leader of the molodye group in 1 895. In the early 1890s was active in Marxist propaganda circles in Kursk, then enrolled at the St. Petersburg Technological Institute. Arrested in 1896, returned from exile in 1902 and emigrated to Germany where he joined the staff of Iskra. Served in the Provisional Govern­ ment in 1 91 7. Cywinski, Waclaw Fadeevich (b. ca. 1866 ) . Social Democrat, active in worker propaganda. A Pole from Lithuania, attended the St. Petersburg Technological Institute, 1886-1 892. In 1890 temporarily suspended from the institute for participating in student disorders and sent home to Vilno, but readmitted in the fall of 1 890. One of the inspirers of the May Day celebration of 1 89 1 . Escaped from St. Petersburg to avoid arrest in the sum­ mer of 1892, but apprehended the following year. Later worked as a professional engineer. Dan [Gurvich] , Fedor Ilich ( 1871-1947 ) . Social Democrat, mem­ ber of the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle in 1896-1 897. Ar135

APPENDIX D

rested in 1898. After three years of detention emigrated abroad and joined Iskra. Later became a prominent Menshevik. Died in New York. Evgrafov, Peter Evgrafovich. Labor leader, worked at the New Admiralty. In 1890 helped found the Central Worker Circle. Wrote speech for the abortive May Day of 1892.. Arrested the same year. Fedulov, Alexander Alexandrovich (b. 1867 or 1868). Narodovolets, participated in worker propaganda in the early 1890s, while attending the university. Arrested in 1894, later fled abroad. Filimonov, Alexander Sergeevich. Labor leader, active in the Cen­ tral Worker Circle in 1890-1891. Arrested in November 1891. Fischer, Genrikh Matveevich (1871-1935). Metalworker, partici­ pated in worker circles after 1887. In the fall of 1891 formed own circle. Sympathetic to the Narodovoltsy. In the winter of 1892. helped Shelgunov revive the Central Worker Circle. Ar­ rested in 1894 and exiled. In 1901 emigrated to England, re­ mained until 192.1 and returned to Russia. Fomin, Vladimir Vasilevich. In 1889-1890 belonged to the Central Worker Circle. Worked at the Baltic Plant. Gofman, S. A. (b. 1871). Student at St. Petersburg University, friend of Martov's, worker propagandist. Active in the Union of Struggle. Arrested in 1896. Later joined the Mensheviks. Golubev, Peter Andreevich (b. ca. 1867). Student at the Mining Institute, participated with Buraczewski in worker propaganda in 1889-1890. Golubev, Vassily Semenovich ( ca. 1868--1910). Student at St. Petersburg University, expelled in 1887 for participation in stu­ dent disorders, returned as auditor and became active in circle work led by Polish students. In 1890 served as the representative of the intelligentsia in the Central Worker Circle. One of the initiators of the merger of St. Petersburg worker circles in 1890. Arrested in 1891 and exiled. In exile became Socialist Revolu­ tionary, but upon release joined the Constitutional Democratic Party. Settled in Saratov and edited the local zemstvo publication. Gorev [Goldman], Boris Isaakovich ( 1874-1937?). Student, friend of Martov's, active in the Union of Struggle in 1896. Arrested in the same year, exiled to Siberia. Upon return from exile in 1902., 136

mOGRAPHICAL SXEJ.QIES joined Iskra. In 1905 participated in the St. Petersburg Soviet, joined the Mensheviks and was appointed to their Central Com­ mittee. Disappeared during the Ezhov purges. Iakovlev, Ivan Ivanovich (1873-1927 or 1928). Son of a govern­ ment official. Worker at the Obukhovsky Plant, member of the Central Worker Group in 1895. Arrested in December of that year. Iakubova, Apolinaria Andreevna (1870--1913) . Social Democrat propagandist, wife of Takhtarev. Began to participate in worker circles in 1893. Associated with the circle of Radchenko and the Union of Struggle. Arrested in 1896, fled from exile and settled abroad. Ilin, Alexander P. Worker, member of Fischer's circle in 1890--1892. In 1894-1895 attended a circle tutored by Lenin. Arrested in 1897. Ivanov, V. N. Student at the Technological Institute. Active in worker propaganda in the late 1880s. Kaizer (Keizer), Ivan Ivanovich (1869 or 1871-1920). Labor leader, Narodovolets. Participated in circles in the late 1880s. In the winter of 1892 helped Shelgunov revive the Central Worker Circle. Arrested in 1894, released on parole, joined the Central Worker Group (1895). Rearrested in December 1895, exiled in 1897. Killed near Kharkov during the Civil War. Karamyshev, Peter Ivanovich (b. 1878). Son of government official. Worker at the Putilov Works, member of the Central Worker Group in 1895. Arrested the same year, exiled to Tver. Karelin, Alexei Egorovich. Worker, active in circles. Member in 1890--1891 with his wife of the Central Worker Circle. His wife V. M. Karelina (1869-1956 ) was later associated with Gapon. Katin-Iartsev, V. N. (1875-1928). Student at the Military Medical School. Carried on agitation among workers in 1896 as a member of Takhtarev's group. Arrested in 1897. Upon release active in the Social Democratic movement. Klasson, Robert Edua_rdovich (b. ca. �867). Graduate of the Tech­ nological Institute, engineer. Of German origin, from Kiev. In the mid-189os his apartment in St. Petersburg served as a meeting place for Marxists. Later abandoned politics, worked as electrical engineer. 137

APPENDIX

n

Krasin, German ( Herman) Borisovich ( 1871-1947) . Social Demo­ crat, student at the Technological Institute. Active in the circle movement in the late 1880s. Arrested in 189 1 and expelled from the institute, returned in the fall of 1892. Helped Radchenko found a new group of Social Democratic propagandists in which he served as the main theoretician. Left the group in th!3 fall of 1894 in protest against the agitational technique, and aban­ doned politics. Brother of Leonid. After 1917 active in the Soviet Union as engineer and architect. Krasin, Leonid Borisovich ( 1870-1926) . Social Democrat, student at the Technological Institute. In 1889 cooperated with Polish Social Democratic propagandists in St. Petersburg, and in 18901891 helped Golubev, Brusnev, and Cywinski provide assistance to the labor organizations. Expelled from the institute in 1891, settled in Nizhni Novgorod. Rearrested in 1892, exiled to Siberia. Upon release lived in Kharkov and Baku, joined the Bolsheviks. Later abandoned revolutionary activity, but after the October Revolution returned to the Bolshevik Party. In 1924 became member of its Central Committee and served the Soviet gov­ ernment as a diplomat. Kremer, Alexander ( ca. 1865-1935 ) . Jewish Social Democrat, one of the founders of the Bund. Author of Ob agitatsii. Krzhizhanovsky, Gleb Maksimilianovich ( 1872-1959) . Social Dem­ ocrat, graduate of the St. Petersburg Technological Institute, member of Radchenko's group and the stariki. Arrested in December 1895. Released in 190 1, settled in Samara and Kiev and worked for Iskra. Joined the Bolsheviks. After 1906 aban­ doned political activity, but after the revolution served the Soviet government as chairman of the State Power Commission and of the State Planning Commission ( Gosplan) , 1921-1930. Lelewel, Bronislaw. Polish student at the Technological Institute, participated in the late 1880s in propaganda among workers. Graduated in 1889. Lengnik, Fridrikh Vilgelmovich ( 1873-1936) . Member of the molodye, joined in 1896 the Union of Struggle. Student at the Technological Institute. Arrested in October 1896, spent three years in Siberian exile. Afterwards joined Bolsheviks. After the revolution worked on electrification plans, became member of the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party. 138

BIOGRAPHICAL SKE'ICHES

Lepeshinsky, Panteleimon Nikolaevich ( 1868-1944 ) . Student prop­ agandist, began as Narodovolets, later switched to Social Demo­ crats. Arrested in 1895, exiled to Siberia. After release, worked for Iskra. After the revolution became Director of the Historical Museum in Moscow. Liakhovsky, Iakov Meerovich (b. 1872 ) . Social Democrat, friend of Martov's, joined in 1895 the stariki. By profession a medical doctor. Arrested and exiled. When released, abandoned politics and migrated to the United States where he practiced medicine. Lure, Moisei A. Social Democrat, friend of Martov's, joined the stariki in 1895, arrested in 1896. Released in 1902, rearrested, emigrated. Malchenko, Alexander Leontevich ( 1871-193 1 ) . Social Democrat, student at the Technological Institute, member of Radchenko's circle and the stariki. Employed at the Neva Shipbuilding Works. Arrested in December 1895, exiled in 1897, upon return worked in Social Democratic organizations. Arrested and executed by Soviet authorities. Mefodiev, Gavril Alexandrovich (b. ca. 1862 ) . Labor leader, began as Narodovolets. Worked on the Warsaw Railroad and attended the Narva Technological courses. In 1885-1888 associated with Tochisky, in 1889-1890 one of the founders of the Central Worker Circle. Arrested and expelled in the spring of 1891 for attending Shelgunov's funeral. Settled in Tula where he con­ tinued to organize worker circles. Merkulov, Nikita Egorovich (b. 1874 ) . Labor leader. Organized circles in the early 1890s, in 1893-1895 associated with V. Shel­ gunov, member of the Central Worker Group formed in 1895. Arrested that year and exiled for three years. Mikhailov, Nikolai Nikolaevich ( 1871-1905 ) . Agent provocateur. Son of a priest, attended dental school and while there began to work for the police. Betrayed many Social Democratic and Narodovoltsy propagandists. Connected with the molodye. As­ sassinated by revolutionaries in the Crimea. Morozov, Peter A. Labor leader, member of the Central Worker Circle in 1890-1891 . In 1893 sent to contact Polish workers in Lodz. Nazvanov, Michael Kondratevich (b. 1873 ) . Social Democrat, en­ gineer, graduate of the Technological Institute. For a short time 139

APPENDIX II

participated in Radchenko's circle. Arrested in January 1896, exiled for one year. Nevzorova, Zinaida Pavlovna ( 1869-1948). Social Democrat, wife of Krzhizhanovsky. Joined Social Democratic stariki in 1895, arrested the following year, and exiled to Siberia. Active in Iskra. Joined the Bolsheviks. Her sisters, A. P. ( 1876-19z6), and Sofia Pavlovna (Shesterina), were also active in the Social Democratic movement. Norinsky, Konstantin Maksimovich ( b. 1875). Labor leader, under Narodovoltsy influence. At the age of fifteen enrolled at the school of the Baltic Plant, participated in the funeral of Shel­ gunov. Formed own circle. In 189z-1893 helped revive the Cen­ tral Worker Circle. Arrested in June 1894, the following year settled in Ekaterinoslav. Olminsky [Aleksandrov], Michael Stepanovich ( 1863-1933). Na­ rodovolets, active in the St. Petersburg labor movement as prop­ agandist from 1883 on. Arrested in 1885, returned to St. Petersburg in 1890, helped form the Gruppa Narodovol'tsev and resumed work with circles. Served in the summer of 189z as representative of the intelligentsia in the Central Worker Circle. Rearrested in April 1894, exiled to eastern Siberia. After release in 1903 became a Bolshevik and worked as editor. Served in the Soviet Union as Director of the Central Bureau of the History of the Party. Pietrowski [Petrovsky], Gury (d. 1889 ) . Student at the Techno­ logical Institute, member of Blagoev's group, later carried on propaganda among workers with the Rodziewiczes. Arrested in July 1889, committed suicide in prison. Proshin, Vladimir Illarionovich. Labor leader, worked in a rubber factory. In 1889-1890 served in the Central Worker Circle. Radchenko, Stepan Ivanovich (186g-1911). Social Democratic propagandist. Native of the Chernigov province, enrolled in 1887 at the Technological Institute, soon afterwards joined the Social Democratic circle of Klasson. In 189z-1893 organized own group of propagandists at the institute which Lenin joined in late 1893 or early 1894. Played major part in organizing the first congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1898. Worked for Iskra. Arrested in 19oz, returned in 1905, abandoned revolutionary activity.

BIOGRAPIDCAL SKETCHES

Rodziewicz [Rodzevich], Gabriel [Gavril Mikhailovich] . Polish stu­ dent at St. Petersburg University. With his wife Julja, around 1886-1889 took a very active part in organizing propaganda among industrial workers. Shat, Mark Moiseevich (b. 1872 ) . Social Democrat, student at the Technological Institute, member of the molodye. Arrested in 1896, exiled the following year. Shelgunov, Vassily Andreevich ( 1867-1939 ) . Perhaps the outstand­ ing labor leader in St. Petersburg in the 1890s. Born of a peasant family near Pskov, went to work in St. Petersburg while in his teens. Joined in 1887 a circle associated with Tochisky and Polish propagandists. Member of the Central Worker Circle and its treasurer ( 1892 ) . In 1 895 he organized the Central Worker Group. Arrested in December 1895. In 1905 active in the St. Petersburg Soviet, became in 1910 editor of Zvezda. Blindness forced him to abandon all public activity. Died in the Soviet Union. Silvio, Michael Aleksandrovich ( 1874-195 5 ) . Social Democrat, stu­ dent at St. Petersburg University ( 1893 ff ) , member of the circle of Radchenko ( 1893-1895 ) , the stariki, and the Union of Struggle. Arrested in 1 896. After release, worked for Iskra ( 190 1-1902 ) . In 1904 was a Menshevik. In the 1920s worked as teacher in the Soviet Union and Soviet commercial representa­ tive in England. Starkov, Vassily Vassilevich ( 1869-1925 ) . Social Democrat, student at the Technological Institute, member of Radchenko's circle and the stariki. Arrested in December 1895. Released in 1900, worked as an engineer in Baku. In 1920 traveled to Western Europe with Krasin, served as Soviet commercial representative in Berlin. Stranden, Dimitry Vladimirovich ( b. ca. 1868 ) . Student at St. Petersburg University, Social Democrat. Carried out worker propaganda in the late 1880s with P. A. Golubev. Sushchinsky, Michael Ia. ( or G. ) . Narodovolets, active in worker propaganda in the early 1890s. One of the leaders of the Gruppa Narodovol'tsev. Arrested in Jariuary 1896, exiled to Siberia for eight years. Fled in 1899. Active in the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad. Sviatlovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich ( 1871-1927 ) . Social Demo­ crat. Helped organize the 1891 May Day celebrations. In 1892

APPENDIX ll

traveled to Poland to contact Polish workers. Escaped arrest in summer 1892. Active in the Soviet Union as a scholar. Takhtarev, Konstantin Mikhailovich ( 1872-1925) . Social Demo­ crat, student at the Military Medical School, son of a general. Began as a Narodovolets, then switched to the Social Democrats. In 1894 formed own circle of Social Democratic propagandists known as the "obeziany." Arrested in 1896 and sentenced to three years of exile, obtained a reprieve, and settled abroad, where he became editor of Rabochaia mys(. After 1917 was active in the Soviet Union as a professor. Tochisky, Paul Varfolomeevich ( 1864-1918 or 1919 ) . Organizer of the Society of St. Petersburg Artisans in 1885, a city-wide propaganda group consisting at first only of workers. Arrested in 1888, expelled from St. Petersburg, continued to organize workers, rearrested and exiled. In 1917 joined the Bolsheviks, served as military commissar, was killed in 1918 or 1919. Treniukhin. Social Democrat, student, close to Martov. Joined the stariki in 1895, later abandoned revolutionary activity. Vaneev, Anatoly Aleksandrovich ( 1872-1899 ) . Social Democrat, student at the Technological Institute. Member of Radchenko's circle and the stariki. Arrested in December 1895, died in exile of tuberculosis. Zaporozhets, Peter Kuzmich ( 1872-1905) . Social Democrat, stu­ dent at the Technological Institute. Son of Ukrainian peasant. Member of Radchenko's circle and the stariki. Arrested in De­ cember 1895, received heaviest sentence of the stariki (five years of exile) because vital documents found by the police, actually written by Lenin, were in his handwriting. In exile began to show symptoms of mental disease. Died in an asylum. Zinovev, Boris Ivanovich ( 1874 or 1875-1899 ) . Worker, employed at the Putilov Works. Associated with Shelgunov's Central Worker Circle and Group, its treasurer for a while. Arrested in 1895, released, moved to Tver, where he was rearrested in 1898. Died the following year in prison.

BIBLIOGRAPHY The most important primary sources are unquestionably the memoirs of Martov and Takhtarev, both of whom were closely connected with the labor and Social Democratic movements of St. Petersburg in the late 1880s and the 1890s: Iu. Martov, Zapiski sotsial-demokrata, I ( Berlin, 1922; there is an identical Moscow edition); and K. M. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie 1' Peterburge, 1893-1 901 gg. ( Leningrad, 1924). Takhtarev's book first appeared under the pen name "Peterburzhets" in London in 1902 as Ocherk peterburgskogo rabochego doizheniia 90-kh godoo; there are con­ siderable differences between the two editions. The collection Ot gruppy Blagoeoa k "Soiuzu Bor'by" 1 886-1894 gg. ( [Rostov on Don] 1921) contains unique memoirs and sources dealing with the labor movement of the period. Brusnev's recollections are far less complete than either Martov's or Takhtarev's, while Silvio's are less candid, but both are indispensable: M. I. Brusnev, "Voznik­ novenie pervykh sotsial-demokraticheskikh organizatsii," PR, no. 2 ( 14) , 1923, pp. 17-32, and "Pervye revoliutsionnye shagi L. Krasina," in M. N. Liadov [Mandelshtam] and S. M. Pozner, eds., Leonid Borisooich Krasin ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1928), pp. 5g-81; M. A. Silvio, "K biografii V. I. Lenina ( Iz vospominanii)," PR, no. 7, 1924, pp. 66-81, "V. I. Lenin v epokhu zarozhdeniia partii ( Vospominaniia)," KS, no. 1 ( 110), 1934, pp. 75-126, and Lenin o period zarozhdeniia partii; Vospominaniia ( Leningrad, 1958). Each edition of Silvio's memoirs is different. A very important source is the full police report erepared after the arrest of the Social Democratic activists in 1896, Doklad po delu o voznikshikh v S.­ Peterburge v 1894 i 1895 godakh prestupnykh kruzhkakh lits, imenuiushchikh sebia 'sotsial-demokratami' "-printed in Glavnoe upravlenie arkhivnym delom, Sbornik materialoo i statei, I ( [Mos­ cow] 1921), 93-178 ( also reprinted in N. [V. I.] Lenin, Sobranie sochinenii, 1st ed., Moscow, n.d., I, 52o-629). Information can also be found in the annual official report, Obzor oazhneishikh doznanii, proizoodivshikhsia o zhandarmskikh upraoleniiakh imperii po gosudarstvennym prestupleniiam. E. Korolchuk and E. Sokolova, eds., Khronika reooliutsionnogo rabochego dvizheniia 1' Peterburge, I ( Leningrad, 1940), is an indispensable detailed chronology of

BJBLIOGRAPHY

the labor and the Social Democratic movements between 1870 and 1904, based in part on unpublished archival materials. V. Nevsky, Ocherki po istorii Rossiiskoi kommunisticheskoi partii, I ( 2nd ed., Moscow, 1925), is probably the best and most reliable history of the antecedents of Russian Marxism prior to the found­ ing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party ( 1898). R. A. Kazakevich, Sotsial-demokraticheskie organizatsii Peterburga kontsa Bo-kh-nachala 90-kh godov (Leningrad, 1960), is an excellent account written on the basis of extensive archival research. "Arkhivnye dokumenty k biografil V. I. Lenina, 1887-1914," KA, vol. 1 ( 62), 1934, pp. 75-117. Avvakumov, S., "Lenin i petersburgskii 'Soiuz bor'by za osvobozh­ denie rabochego klassa,' " BK, no. 7/8, 1935, pp. 58-69. Babushkin, I. V., Vospominaniia Ivana Vasil'evicha Babushkina ( Moscow, 1955). The first edition came out in 1925. Balabanov, M., Ocherki po istorii rabochego klassa v Rossii, z vols. ( Kiev, 1924). [Bartenev, V.] V. B., "Vospominaniia peterburzhtsa o vtoroi polo­ vine 80-kh godov," MG, no. 10, 1908, pp. 169-197, and no. 11, 1908, pp. 168-188. Baturin, N., Ocherk istorii sotsial-demokratii v Rossii ( Moscow, 1906). Bogdanov, N. D., "Na zare sotsial-demokratii ( Vospominaniia o petersburgskoi organizatsii, 1885-1892)," Osvobozhdenie truda, Voronezh, 1918, nos. z, 4, and 7. The middle installment ( no. 4, May 4, 1918, pp. 7-10 )was available to me in the original, the other two only in the precis of M. Ohninsky in Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 39-46. Breitfus, A., "Tochiskii i ego kruzhok," KL, no. 7, 1923, pp. 324339. Dan, F. I., Proiskhozhdenie Borshevizma ( New York, 1946). Un­ fortunately contains little factual material. "Doklad departamenta politsii ministru vnutrennykh del,'' KL, no. 7, 1923, pp. 344-388. On Tochisky and his group. "Doklad tsenzora Matveeva o sozhzhennom Marksistskom sbornike," KA, no. 4, 1923, pp. 308-316. Deals with Materialy dlia kharakteristiki nashego khoziaistvennogo razvitiia, 1895. Elizarova, A. I. ( Ulianova), "Vladimir Il'ich v tiur'me," PR, no. 3 ( 26), 1924, pp. 107-125. Elnitsky, A., Istoriia rabochego dvizheniia v Rossii ( 4th ed., Mos­ cow, 1925). There exists an expanded version, Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii, published in the same year in Kharkov. Fedorova, V., "K istorii petersburgskogo kruzhka 'sotsial-demokra144

BIBLIOGRAPHY tov,' 1894-95 gg.," KL, no. 2 (13), 1925, pp. 186-208. Based on police records. Fisher, A., V Rossii i v Anglii (Moscow, 1922). There exists an expanded but somewhat expurgated version published in Mos­ cow in 1935, under the name G. Fisher and the title Podpol'e, ssylka, emigratsiia.

[Ginzburg, B. A.] Koltsov, D., "Rabochee dvizhenie v 1890-1904 gg.," Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii v nachale XX veka, I (St. Petersburg, 1909), 183-229. [Goldman, B. I.] Gorev, B. I., Iz partiinogo proshlogo; Vospomina­ niia, 1895-1905 (Leningrad, 1924). The first chapter, covering the period 1894-1897, appeared also as "Marksizm i rabochee dvizhenie v Peterburge chetvert' veka nazad (Vospominaniia)," KN, no. 3, 1921, pp. 99-127. Golubev, V., "Stranichka iz istorii rabochego dvizheniia (Pamiati N. V. Shelgunova)," Byloe, no. 12, 1906, pp. 105-121. An important essay. Haimson, L., The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism (Cambridge, Mass., 1955). Iakovlev, I. I., "Vospominaniia o V. I. Leoine i petersburgskom 'Soiuze bor'by,' " IA, no. 6, 1959, pp. 96-107. Ilin, A. P., "Vladimir Il'ich v rabochikh kruzhkakh Peterburga," Bakinskii rabochii, no. 20, January 24, 1926. "Iz istorii rabochego dvizheniia kontsa 90-kh godov i 'Soiuzy bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa,' " KA, no. 93, 1939, pp. 119-189. Karelina, V., "Na zare rabochego dvizheniia v Peterburge," KL, no. 4, 1922, pp. 12-20. -- "Leonid Borisovich [Krasin]-Propagandist i organizator rabochikh kruzhkov," in Liadov and Pozner, eds., Krasin, pp. 86-g2. [Katin-Iartsev, V.] K. Ia., "Pervye shagi," Byloe, no. 9, 1907, pp. 134-152. Katin-Iartsev, V., "Teni proshlogo," Byloe, no. 25, 1924, pp. 101118. A fuller version of the 1907 article. -- "Konstantin Mikhailovich Takhtarev," KS, no. 6 ( 19), 1925, pp. 232-236. An obituary. Korolchuk, E., "V. I. Lenin i petersburgskii 'Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa,' " IZh, no. 12, 1938, pp. 14-25. -- "Leninskii 'Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa,' " VI, no. 1, 1956, pp. 13-30. Kovalensky, M. N., and others, eds., Khrestomatiia po istorii klasso­ voi bor'by v Rossii (2nd ed., Moscow, 1923). 145

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Krasin, G. B., "Stepan Ivanovich Radchenko," SB, no. 2 (5) , 1933, pp. 186-189. Krasin, L. B., "Dela davno minuvshikh dnei," in Liadov and Pozner, eds., Krasin, pp. 93-118. Other editions exist. -- "Iz vospominanii peterburgskogo tekhnologa," in Krasin, pp. 49-59. [Kremer, A., and Iu. Martov] Ob agitatsii (Geneva, 1896) . Krupskaia, N. K., "Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa," Tvorchestvo (Moscow) , no. 7 (10) , 1920, pp. 4-7; reprinted in Sh. Levin and I. L. Tatarov, lstoriia RKP(b) v dokumentakh, I (Leningrad, 1926) , 53-58. -- Iz dalekikh vremen (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930) . Krzhizhanovsky, G. M., "Lenin v 'Soiuze bor'by,' " in Kovalensky, Khrestomatiia (3rd ed. ) , pp. 191-195. Not available to me. -- 0 Vladimire Il'iche (Moscow, 1924 ) . Kudelli, P. F., Narodovoftsy na pereputi (Leningrad, 1925) . A fuller version of an article published under the same title in KL, no. 2 (1 1 ) , 1924, pp. 53-go. Lenin, V. I., Sochineniia, I (1st ed., Moscow, n.d.; 2nd ed., Mos­ cow, 1927ff; 5th ed., Moscow, 1958 ) . -- "Chto delat'?" Sochineniia, IV (2nd ed., Moscow-Leningrad, 1927) , 363-507. Lepeshinskaia, 0., "Iz moikh rannykh vospominanii ob Il'iche," SB, no. 5, 1933, pp. 165-173. Lepeshinsky, P. N., Na povorote (ot kontsa Bo-kh godov k 1905 g. ) (Petrograd, 1922 ) . The edition of 1955 is an expurgated one. Levin, Sh., and I. L. Tatarov, Istoriia RKP ( b ) v dokumentakh, I (Leningrad, 1926) . Levitsky, V. [Tsederbaum], " 'Narodnaia volia' i rabochii klass," KS, no. 1 (62) , 1930, pp. 48-66. [Makhnovets, V. P.] Akimov, V., Materialy dlia kharakteristiki

razvitiia Rossiiskoi sotsialdemokraticheskoi rabochei partii

(Geneva, 1904 [1905] ) . -- Ocherk razvitiia sotsial-demokratii v Rossii (2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1906 ) . [Mandelshtam, M. N.] Liadov, M., Istoriia rossiiskoi sotsialdemo­ kraticheskoi rabochei partii, Part I (St. Petersburg, 1906) . A Bolshevik interpretation. [Martov, lu.J Egorov, A., "Zarozhdenie politicheskikh partii i ikh deiatel'nost'," Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii v nachale XX veka, I ( St. Petersburg, 1909) , 372-421. Martov, L. [Iu.], lstoriia Rossiiskoi Sotsial-Demokratii (Petrograd, 1918) .

BIBUOCRAPHY

-- "Razvitie krupnoi promyshlennosti i rabochee dvizhenie do 1892 g.," lstoriia Rossii v XlX veke ( [St. Petersburg] n.d., lzd. A. I. Granat), VI, 114-162. Expanded in book form, Razvitie krupnoi promyshlennosti i rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii ( Petro­ grad-Moscow, 1923). Matasova, F. G., ed., Stachki 1 881-1895 gg. ( Moscow, 1930). Mitelman, M., B. Glebov, and A. Uliansky, lstoriia Putilovskogo zavoda ( Moscow-Leningrad, 1939). Available to me only in the condensed second edition of 1941. Nazvanov, M., "Kakim ia pomniu Vladimira Il'icha," PR, no. 2/3 ( 109/110), 193 1 , pp. 95-102. Nevsky, V. I., "Na pereput'e ( Brusnevskaia organizatsiia)," IP, no. 4 ( 20), 1934, pp. 48-58. -- Materialy dlia biograficheskogo slovaria sotsial-demokratov, no. 1 ( only issue) ( Moscow-Petrograd, 1923). Stops with the letter D. -- Deiateli revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii, vol. V. Pts. 1 and 2: Sotsial-demokraty, 1880-1904 ( Moscow, 1931-33). The fullest and most accurate biographic dictionary; unfortunately, publication was suspended with the letter G. -- " 'Narodnaia volia' i rabochie," IP, no. 1, 1930, pp. 3g-89. Nikitin, I., Petersburgskii "Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa" ( Moscow, 1950 ) . Nikolaevsky, B. I., "K istorii petersburgskoi sotsial-demokratiches­ koi gruppy 'starikov,' " LM, no. 3, 1927, pp. 61-66. Norinsky, K., "Moi vospominaniia," Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 7-38, 46-51. [Olminsky, M. S.] Aleksandrov, M. S., " 'Gruppa narodovol'tsev' ( 1891-1894 �g.)," Byloe, no. 11, 1906 , pp. 1-27. Olminsky, M. S., • Davnie sviazi," Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 60-78. Paialin, N. P. Zavod imeni Lenina, 1 857-1918 ( Moscow, 1933). A history of the Neva Works. -- "Iz deiatel'nosti petersburgskogo 'Soiuza bor'by za osvobozh­ denie rabochego klassa' za Nevskoi zastavoi za period 189496, godov," KL, no. 3 ( n.s.), 1937, pp. 135-159. Pankratova, A. M., ed., Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii v XIX veke, III, Parts 1 and 2 ( 1st ed., Moscow, 1952). Perazich, V., "Vseobshchaia zabastovka tekstilei, 1896-1897 gg.," BK, no. 7/8, 1935, PP· 70-77. Perl, F., Dzie;e ruchu soc;alistycznego w zaborze rosy;skim. Do powstania PPS (Warsaw, 1958). Reprint of original edition of 1910. "Pervye sotsial-demokraticheskie organizatsii: Petersburgskii Soiuz 147

BIBLIOGRAPHY

bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa," SB, no. 2 ( 5 ) , 1933, pp. 136-189. Memoirs of participants, not always reliable. Pipes, R., "Russian Marxism and Its Populist Background: The Late Nineteenth Century," RR, October 1960, pp. 316-337. Pogodin, A. L., Glavnye techeniia ol'skoi politicheskoi mysli, 1863[ 1907 gg. ( St. Petersburg, n. . ) . Polevoi, Iu. Z., Zarozhdenie Marksizma v Rossii, 1883-1894 gg. ( Moscow, 1959) . A recent effort to replace Nevsky's Ocherki. Nearly always unreliable on matters of interpretation, but often useful on matters of fact. Radchenko, I. I., "Stepan Ivanovich Radchenko," SB, no. 2 ( 5 ) , 1933, pp. 177-186. Written by his brother. Rappeport, M. L., "Revoliutsionnaia istoriia Tekhnologicheskogo Instituta," in Tekhnologicheskii lnstitut Imeni Leningradskogo Soveta, I ( Leningrad, 1928 ) , 269-309. Also came out as separate book. Schapiro, L., The Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( New York, 1960 ) . Sergieevsky, N. L., "O kruzhke Tochiskogo," KL, no. 7, 1923, pp. 340-344. -- "Gruppa O ' svobozhdenie Truda' i marksistskie kruzhki," Istoriko-revoliutsionnyi sbomik, II ( Leningrad, 1924) , 86-266. -- "K voprosu o vozraste Leningradskoi organizatsii VKP (b) ," KL, no. 2 ( 35 ) , 1930, pp. 5-25. [Shabalin, I. ?] T. I. Sh., "K istorii petersburgskoi stachki 1896 g.," KL, no. 2 (xx) , 1931, pp. 94-1 6 7. Shabalin, I., "K istorii rabochego dvizheniia v 1896 g.," KS, no. 6 ( 79 ) , 1931, �p- 58-69. Shelgunov, V. A., 'Vospominaniia," Ot gruppy Blagoeva, pp. 52-59. Brief but full of information that is found nowhere else. -- "Vospominaniia o petersburgskom rabochem dvizhenii pervoi poloviny 90-kh godov," Tvorchestvo, no. 7 ( 10 ) , 1920, pp. 7-g. -- "Iz dalekogo proshlogo Il'icha," Krasnaia gazeta, no. 24, January 3 1, 1924. -- "Rabochie na puti k Marksizmu," SB, no. 2 ( 5 ) , 1933, pp. 98-103. Less candid than the earlier versions. -- "Moi vospominaniia o voskresnykh shkolakh," Shkola vzros­ lykh, no. 7 , 1939, pp. 42-44. Quite inaccurate and misleading. Sorin, V., "Nachalo bor'by Lenina s 'Ekonomizmom,' " BK, no. 5, 1933, PP· 23-41. -- "Lenin nakanune vozniknoveniia massovogo rabochego dvi­ zheniia, 1893-94," BK, no. 7, 1933, pp. 3 1-42. 148

BmLIOGRAPHY -- "Pervye shagi Lenina po sozdaniiu partii," BK, no. 8/9, 1933, f.P· 43-62. Sponti, E., Vstrechi s Leninym," Zapiski instituta Lenina, III, 1928, 71-73. Starkov, V. V., "Vospominaniia o V. I. Leoine ( Ul'ianove ) ," KN, no. 8, 1925, pp. 107-113. [Struve, P. B.] Peterburzhets, "Po povodu s-petersburgskoi stachki," Rabotnik (Geneva ) , no. 3/4, 1897, pp. iii-xvi. Struve, P. B., "My Contacts and Conflicts with Lenin," SR, 1934, no. 36, pp. 573-595; no. 37, pp. 66-84. Sviatlovsky, V. V., "Na zare Rossiiskoi sotsial-demokratii," Byloe, no. 19, 1922, pp. 139-160. Written around 19 12. -- "K istorii pervogo maia ( 1890-1893 g. ) ," Byloe, no. 16, 1921, pp. 167-173. -- "Istoki deviatogo vala," Poslednie novosti ( Leningrad) , no. 18, 1923. Takhtarev, K., "V. I. Lenin i sotsial-demokraticheskoe dvizhenie," Byloe, no. 24, 1924, pp. 3-28. Much inferior to his books. Tikhomirnov, G., "Pervye agitatsionnye listki Lenina," PR, no. 8, 1937, pp. 124-136. Tvorchestvo (Moscow) , no. 7 ( 10 ) , 1920. Devoted in part to the Union of Struggle. Valk, S. N., "Materialy k istorii pervogo maia v Rossii," KL, no. 4, 1922, pp. 250-288. Very important for the history of the early labor movement. -- and I. Tovstukha, Listovki petersburgskogo "Soiuza bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa," 1895-1897 gg. ( Moscow, 1934 ) . An excellent edition. -- "Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Peterburge 90-kh i nachala 900-kh godov. Leninskii 'Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabo­ chego klassa,' " Ocherki istorii Leningrada, III, 1956, 147-222. Vlasov, I. I., Tkach Fedor Afanas'ev, 1859-1905 ( Ivanovo-Vozne­ sensk, 1925 ) . Voden, A., "Na zare 'Legal'nogo Marksizma,' " LM, 1927, no. 3, pp. 67-82; no. 4, pp. 87-96. Wolfe, B. D., Three Who Made a Revolution ( New York, 1948 ) .

149

IN D E X An italicized number indicates a biographical sketch in Append.ix II. Afanasev, E. A., 9, 17, 20-21, 29, 32n, 38, 41, 133 Afanasev, F. A., 21, 32n, 34, 35D, 36, 38, 133 Agitation, 58-64, 78-79, 90, 120122 Akselrod, P. B., 61, 62n, 81 Aleksandrov, M. S. See Olminsky Alexander II, 9, 11, 13 Babushkin, I. V., 42, 64-66, 67n, 76n, 77, 89, 90n, 97-98, 133 Bakunin, M. A., 7 Bankowski, C., 25, 39n, 134 Baranskaia, L. N., 45, 84-85, 134 Bartenev, V. V., 14n, 24n, 39n, 70, 134

Baturin, N., 750 Behel, A., 13 Belevsky-Belorussov, A. S., 88, 113n, 134 Bellamy, E., 5 Bernstein, E., 124-125 Blagoev, D., 13, 15, 120 Bogatyrev, E. G., 68n, 134 Bogdanov, N. D., 20-21, 24n, 35D, 37, 134 Bogoiavlensky, 39n Bofshevism, 124-125 Brentano, L., 71 Brusnev, M. I., 13, 18, 21, 23n, 24n, 25n, 26-27, 29, 31-33, 3638, 39n, 46n, 135 "Brusnev organization," 23n-24n Buianov, V. V., 21, 135 Buraczewski [Burachevsky], J., 20D, 25, 28D, 39D, 135 Catherine II, 6o Central Labor Fund. See Funds, labor

Central Worker Circle ( 18891894), 20-21, 23, 24n, 26-28, 31, 33, 36-43, 48-52, 59, 71n, 77n, 119n Central Worker Group ( 1895 ) , 76-81, 86-88, 91-93, 95, 97-100, 104, l l9 Chaikovsky, N. V., 7, 107 Chemyshev, I. V., 67-68, 97, 135. See also Molodye Cywinski, W. F. [Tsivinsky, V. F.], 19, 25-26, 29, 31n, 32-33, 34n, 36n, 38, 39n, 135 Dan [Gurvich], F. I., 82, 100-101, 1050, 108, 135 Danielson, N. F. [Nikolai-on], 49, 56 Darwin, C., 5 Dikshtein, Sh., 61 Dobroliubov, N. A., 61 Economism, 68n, 91-92, 107n, 109, 111, 1150, 124-125 Elizarova, A. I., 114n Engels, F., 12, 83 Epifanov, I., 39n Evgrafov, P. E., 21, 37-38, 136 Favorsky, A. A., 39n Fedulov, A. A., 4!:r-50, 136 Filimonov, A. S., 28, 37, 136 Fischer, G. M., 42, 45n, 50, 52-53, 136 Fomin, V. V., 21, 136 Funds, labor, 28-29, 36, 42, 7778, 90-91, ll2D, l l4-115 Gerd, brothers, 70 Gofman, S. A., 84-85, 136 Goldman, B. I. See Gorev

INDEX

Golubev, P. A., 19, zon, z5, 136 Golubev, V. S., z1, z4n, z5-z6, z9, 31-32, 38, 39n, 67n, 91, 136 Gorev [Goldman], B. I., 8z, 84, 100, 105, 111, 114, 136 Grabski, W., 59n Gruppa Narodovol'tsev (the Naro­ dovoltsy), 12-15, z3, z5, 3z, 3536, 39n, 4z, 44, 48-sz, 54-56, 69-71, 73, 77, 8zn, 84, 88-89, 9z, 112-114, 1150. See al,so Populists Gurvich, F. I. See Dan Iakovlev, I. I., 66n, 76n, 77, 137 Iakubova, A. A., 45, 68n, 84-85, 111, 1z4n, 137 Ilin, A. P., 137 Iuzhakov, S. N., 56 Ivanov, 39n Ivanov, P. A., ZS Ivanov, V. N., 19, 39n, 137 Kaizer [Keizer], I. I., 4z, 450, 50, 5z, 76n, 77n, 950, 137 Karamyshev, P. I., 77, 137 Karelin, A. E., z8, 137 Karelin, S., z5 Karelina, V. M., z8 Katin-Iartsev, V. N., 106, 108, 111, 137

Khalturin, S., 8 Klasson, R. E., 43, 71, 73, 137 Kniazev, V. A., 66n, 76n Koltypin, I. S., 39n Korobko, 33 Korolchuk, E., 1050 Kosinski, 39n Krasin, G. [Herman] B., 39n, 4447, 48n, 49-50, sz-55, 64-65, 70n, 138 Krasin, L. B., z6, z9, 31-32, 38, 39n, 44, 46n, 69-7°, 1 38 Kremer, A., 62-63, 110, 138. See also Ob agitatsii Krupskaia, N. K . • 43n, 45, 67, 8485, 94, 96n, 97, 108 Krzhizhanovsky, G. M., 45, 47,

48n, 65n, 67n, 8 1, 84-85, 91, 94, 95n, 138 Kudriavsky, D. N., 4 5 Kuskova, E., 1z4n Kuziutkin, K., sz Lassalle, F., 13, zon Lavrov, P. L., 7, zon, 88 Legal Marxism, iz, 74n-75n Lefewel, B., 19, zon, z5, 39n, 138 Lengnik, F. V., 68n, 108, 138 Lenin, V. I., 40, 67n, 68, 75n, 101, 104n, 1050; arrival in St. Peters­ burg, 46-48; activities ( 18931894), 53-56; reaction to Ob agitatsii, 64-65; as propagandist, 65-66; literary activities and re­ lations with Potresov and Struve ( 1894-1895), 6g-74; views on Labor Fund, 77-78; meets Mar­ tov and founds Social Demo­ cratic organization ( 1895), 8188; arrested ( 1895), 95; drafts Social Democratic program ( 1896), 109-111; released prior to exile ( 1897), 113-115; sum­ mary of views and achievements ( 1893-1897), 1zz-1z4; roots of Bolshevism, 125 Leonovich, V. V. [Angarsky], 113n Lepeshinsky, P. N., 95n, 139 Liakhovsky, I. M., 8z, 84-8 5, 9 5, 97, 139 Lure, M. A., 84, 139 MacDonald, J. R., 107n Machajski. K., 16 Malchenko, A. L., 4 5, 84-8 5, 9 50, 139

Malishevskv, N. G., 68n Marchlewski, J., 59n Martov, lu., 48n, 64, 650, 110, izo-iz1, 123; active in agitation in Vilno ( 1893-1895), 61-63; meets Lenin and founds Social Democratic organization ( 1895), 8 1-85, 87-88, 93-96; arrested

( 1896 ) , 97; released prior to exile (1897 ) , 114-115 Marx, K., 12, 20n, 48n, 123 May Day celebrations, 33-35, 3738 Mefodiev, G. A., 17, 20-21, 32, 139 Merkulov, N. E., 42, 65, 77, Bo, 950, 139 Mikhailov, N. N., 50, 52, 67-68, 81-82, 97, 139 Molodye, 67-68, 82, 93n, 97, 102, 108 Morozov, P. A., 28, 139 Muromov, S., 68n Narodovoltsy. See Groppa Narodo­ vol'tsev

Nazvanov, M. K., 45, 5sn, 95n, 139 Nekrasov, N. A., 5, 9 Nevsky, V. I., 22 Nevzorova, Z. P., 45, 84, 140 Nicholas II, 102 Nikitin, I., 105n Nikolaevsky, B. I., 66n-67n, 113n Nikolai-on. See Danielson Norinsky, K. M., 17, 42, 50, SZ, 140

Northern Union of Russian Work­ ers ( 1878-1879 ) , 8, 28n, 118 Ob agitatsii, 62-65, 110. See also

Kremer Obnorsky, V., 8 Olrninsky, M. S. [Aleksandrov], 14n, 32, 36, 39n, 50, 1 4 0 Omulevsky, I., 61 Perazich, V., 105n Pietrowsky [Petrovsky], G., 19, 26n, 140 Pisarev, D. I., 61 Plekhanov, G. V., 12, 31n, 32n, 33, 61, 71, 74, 81, 108, 115n Polish students, 12, 17-20, 25-26, 120 Pomialovsky, N. G., 61

Ponomarev, 84-85, 95n Populists, 7-8, 12, 117-118, 120, 123-124. See also Groppa Naro­ dovol'tsev

Potresov, A. N., 65n, 70-7 4, 75n, 101, 105n, 107-109, 124 Preobrazhensky, I. I., 39n Proshin, V. I., 21, 35n, 140 Rabochaia mysl', 115, 124n, 129-

131

Rabochee delo, 86, 94---96, 112-113

Radchenko, S. I., 18, 47, 48n, 4950, 64, 68n, 6g, 71-73; founds propaganda circle ( 1892-1893 ) , 43-45; activities ( 1893-1894 ) , 52-56; active i n Lenin's and Martov's organization ( 1895 ) , 82, 84, 85-86, 94---95; member of Union of Struggle ( 1896 ) , 100-101, 108; opposes admission of workers to Union of Struggle, 111, 114; 140 Rakitin, M. S., 68n Rodziewicz [Rodzevich], G. M., 16, 19, 20n, 25, 39n, 141 Rodziewicz [Rodzevich], J., 19, 25 Saltykov-Shchedrin, M. E., 5 Serezhnikov, V. K., 84 Shat, M. M., 68n, 95n, 141 Shelgunov, N. V., 21-32, 36, 44 Shelgunov. V. A., 17, 49-51, 65, 98, 1 4 1 ; treasurer of Central Labor Fund ( 1892 ) , 29; revives Central Worker Circle ( 1892 ) , 41-42; and Lenin, 53, 66; helps found Central Worker Group ( 1895 ) , 76--77; organizes con­ tact with the Thornton factory ( 1895 ) , So-81, 89, 90n; arrested (1895), 95 Sheller-Mikhailov, A. K., 61 Silvin, M. A., 46--47, 53-55, 6465, 67, 73n, 83n, 84-85, 94---95, 96n, 100, 101n, 108, 110n, 141 Sivokhin, 39n

1 53

INDEX Skvortsov, P. N., 46 Smidovich, I. G., 84 Sokolov, N. D., 70 Spencer, H., 5 Starkov, V. V., 4 5, 41 , 49-50, 5253, 72, 81, 84� 5. 95D, 141 Stepnialc-Kravchinsky, S . M., 107 Stranden, D. V., 39n, 141 Struve, P. B., 19n, 39n, 49, 54n, 56, 69-74, 75, 107, 109, 1 18, 1 2,3-125 Sushchinsky, M. Ia., 32, 39n, 4950, 141 Sviatlovsky, V. V., 24n, 33, 38n, 39n, 59, 141 Takhtarev, K. M., 4, 4 1, 50, 52, 68n, 6g, 8gn, go, 96n, 100, 102, 106, 1o8, 1 1 1, 1 1 4, 124n, 129, 142 Tanski, J., 59n Technological Institute, 19n--zon, 25-26, 43-45 Thornton textile mill, 31, 80, Sg93 Timofeev, I. I., 5 Tochisky, P. V., 1 6- 17, 20, 120, 142 Treniukhin, 84, 142 Tugan-Baranovsky, M. I., 19n

1 54

Ulianov, A. I., 4 6, 47 Union of Polish Workers ( Zwiazek polskich robotnikow ) ( 18891892 ) . 28, 58-6o Union of Struggle for the Emanci­ pation of tne Working Class ( Soiuz bor'by za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa ) , 15, 18, 39, 40, 68n, 8 4n, 87n, 96, 100-101, 103-106, 108-109, 1 1 1-1 13, 1 1 5, lZ0-122 Uspensky, G., 5, 9 Valk, S. N., 35n, 59n Vaneev, A. A., 46, 65, 78, 84� 5, 94-95, 142 Vargunin, V. P., 4, 4 5 Vilno, Jewish socialist organization of, 6o-63, 78, 8 1 Vodovozov, N. V., 19n, 70 Vorontsov, D. A., 68n Vorontsov, V. ( "V.V." ) , 49, 54 Voskresensky, A. A., 39n Warynski, L., 18 Zaporozhets, P. K., 4 5, 84� 5. 9 495, 1 12-1 13, 142 Zinovev, B. I., 42, 65, 76n, 77-78, 93, 95n, 142 Zotov, B. L., 50

RUSSIA N R E S E A R C H C E NT E R STU D I E S

1 . Public Opinion in Soviet Russia: A Study in Mass Persuasion,

by Alex Inkeles

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8. Soviet Opposition to Stalin: A Case Study in World War II,

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

by George Fischer

Minerals: A Key to Soviet Power, by Demitri B. Shimkin Soviet Law in Action: The Recollected Cases of a Soviet Lawyer, by Harold J. Berman and Boris A. Konstantinovsky How Russia is Ruled, by Merle Fainsod Terror and Progress USSR: Some Sources of Change and Stability in the Soviet Dictatorship, by Barrington Moore, Jr. The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and National­ ism, 191 7-1923, by Richard Pipes Marxism: The Unity of Theory and Practice, by Alfred G. Meyer Soviet Industrial Production, 1928-1951, by Donald R. Hodg­

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Soviet Taxation: The Fiscal and Monetary Problems of a Planned Economy, by Franklyn D. Holzman Soviet Military Law and Administration, by Harold J. Berman

and Miroslav Kerner

edited and translated by Harold J. Berman and Miroslav Kerner 19. The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism, by Leopold H. Haiinson Documents on Soviet Military Law and Administration,

VASSILY SHELGUNOV

FEDOR AFANASEV

PAUL TOCHISKY

KONSTANTIN TAKHTAREV

(c. 1 9 1 7 ) . ( 1 ) M . Kniazev; ( 2 ) N. D. Bogdanov; ( 3 ) V. M . Karelina; ( 4 ) Egor Afanasev; ( 5 ) A. E. Karelin; ( 6 ) I. I. Iakovlev; ( 7 ) A. P. Ilin; ( 8 ) N. Kaizer; ( g ) T. V. Razuvaeva.

S T , PETERSBURG LABOR L E ADERS

GROUP OF S T , PETERSBURG SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC S TARIKI ( 1897 ) . Seated ( left to right) : V. V. Starkov, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, Lenin, Martov. Standing ( left to right) : A. L. Malchenko, P. K. Zaporozhets, A. A. Vaneev.

MICHAEL BRUSNEV

L E ONID KRASIN

STEPAN RADCHENKO

MICHAEL SIL VIN

If the sources of Bolshevik doctrine are to be found in What ls To Be Done? which Lenin wrote in 19011902, the background of that work must be sought in Lenin's experiences with the labor movement between 1893 and 1897. In this period Lenin made the first contact with the urban proletariat, and the lessons learned from it were of utmost importance in molding his thought during the three-year Si­ berian exile and the post-exile years during which he laid down Bolshevik theory. Labor, in effect, proved much more independent and resistant to so­ cialist leadership than Marxist theory had taught. The workers with whom Lenin had dealings in St. Petersburg were interested primarily in educa­ tion, better wages and working con­ ditions. Their attitude toward politics in general, and socialism in particular, ranged from mild sympathy to violent hostility. As a result, while the intelli­ gentsia organized for political action, labor tended toward trade-union ac­ tivity. Through a detailed analysis of the history of St. Petersburg Social Demo­ ( to he continued )

cratic and labor movements immedi­ ately preceding Lenin's stay in St. Petersburg, the author traces the his­ torical background of What ls To Be Done? indicating how Lenin came to state, in 1901, that labor was incap­ able of developing socialism on its own. Mr. Pipes also deals with the origins of the so-called Economist current in Russian Social Democracy - a current which responded to the apolitical mood of Russian labor by urging in­ tellectuals to concentrate on the daily struggle of the workers for economic betterment. Based on research in early sources, many located in Soviet librar­ ies, this study reinterprets in consider­ able measure the picture of the origins of Bolshevism and Economism. Mr. Pipes is Associate Professor of History, Associate Director of the Russian Research Center, Harvard University, and author of The Forma­ tion of the Soviet Union and Karam­

zin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: A Translation and Analysis. Russian Research Studies, 46 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge 38, Massachusetts