Strikes in Russia

V. I. Lenin

STRIKES IN RUSSIA

Written in 1913

Published in December 1913
in the pocket calendar
Sputnik Rabochego for 1914
Priboi Publishers, St. Petersburg
Signed: V. I.

Published according to
the calendar text

From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968

First printing 1963
Second printing 1968

Vol. 19, pp. 534-38.

Translated from the Russian by George Hanna
Edited by Robert Daglish

Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@marx2mao.org (December 2001)

page 534

<"p534">

STRIKES IN RUSSIA^[151]

In the majority of West-European countries, strike statistics were placed on a proper footing comparatively recently -- some ten or twenty years ago. In Russia there are strike statistics dating from 1895 only. The chief defect in our official statistics, apart from understatement concerning the number of participants, is that they cover only workers in enterprises subordinated to the Factory Inspectorate. Railwaymen, metallurgical workers, tramway workers, workers in trades subject to excise, etc., miners, building and rural workers are not included in the statistics.

Here are summarised data for the entire period covered by Russian strike statistics.

Year	Number of strikes		Number of strikers
Year	Total	Percentage of all enterprises	Total	Percentage of all enterprises
1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912	68 118 145 215 164 189 125 123 550 68 13,995 6,114 3,573 892 340 222 466 1,918	0.4 0.6 0.7 1.1 1.0 0.7 1.0 0.7 3.2 0.4 93.2 42.2 23.8 5.6 2.3 1.4 2.8 ?	31,195 29,527 59,870 43,150 57,498 29,389 32,218 36,671 86,832 24,904 2,863,173 1,108,406 740,074 176,101 64,166 46,623 105,110 682,361	2.0 1.9 4.0 2.6 3.8 1.7 1.9 2.2 5.1 1.5 163.8 65.8 41.9 9.7 3.5 2.4 5.1 ?

page 535

The extent to which these figures are understated may be judged, for example, from the fact that such a cautious writer as Mr. Prokopovich cites another figure for 1912 -- 683,000 strikers, but "according to another estimate, 1,248,000 in factories, and in addition a further 215,000 in enterprises not under the Factory Inspectorate", i.e., 1,463,000 or almost a million and a half.

The number of economic strikes (from 1905) is as follows:

Year	Number of strikes	Number of workers	Year	Number of strikes	Number of workers
1905 1906 1907 1908	4,388 2,545 973 428	1,051,209 457,721 200,004 83,407	1909 1910 1911 1912	290 214 442 702	55,803 42,846 96,730 172,052

<"p535">
Thus the history of strikes in Russia may be divided into four clear-cut periods (if we omit the eighties with their famous Morozov strikes[152], noted even by the reactionary publicist Katkov as the emergence of the "labour question" in Russia):

		Average number of strikes per annum
1st period (1895-1904), 2nd period (1905-07), 3rd period (1908-10), 4th period (1911-12),	pre-revolutionary . . revolutionary. . . . counter-revolutionary present, beginning of revival . . . . .	43,000 1,570,000 96,000 394,000

In general, the average number of strikers a year in Russia over the eighteen years was 345,400. In Germany the average for fourteen years (1899-1912) was 229,500, and for Britain the average for twenty years (1893-1912) was 344,200. To give a clear picture of the connection between strikes in Russia and the country's political history, we cite the figures for 1905-07 in three-month periods (quarters ):

page 536

Year . . . . . . .

1905

1906

Quarters . . . . . .

III

Number of strikers
(thousands) per
quarter . . . . . .
Total . . . . . . .
Economic . . . . . .
Political . . . . . .

Beginning
of revo-
lution
810
411
399

481
190
291

294
143
151

Revolu-
tion

1,277
275
1,002

269
73
196

First
Duma

479
222
257

296
125
171

63
37
26

Year . . . . . . . . . .

1907

Quarters . . . . . . . . .

III

Number of strikers (thousands)
per quarter. . . . . . . .
Total . . . . . . . . . .
Economic . . . . . . . . .
Political . . . . . . . . .

146
52
94

Second
Duma
322
52
271

77
66
11

193
30
163

The extent to which workers from various parts of Russia participated in strikes may be seen from the following figures:

Factory district	Number of factory workers (thousands) in 1905	Number of strikers (thousands)
Factory district	Number of factory workers (thousands) in 1905	Total for ten years (1895-1904)	Number in 1905
St. Petersburg . . . . . Moscow . . . . . . . . Warsaw . . . . . . . . 3 Southern Regions. . . .	299 567 252 543	137 123 69 102	1,033 540 887 403

Totals . . . . . . .	1,661	431	2,863

This table shows the relative backwardness of Moscow, and still more of the South, and the outstanding priority of St. Petersburg and its area (including Riga), and also of Poland.

The strikers in the main branches of industry were distributed as follows;

page 537

Groups of industries	Total number of factory workers (thousands) in 1904	Number of strikers (thousands)
Groups of industries	Total number of factory workers (thousands) in 1904	Total for ten years (1895-1904)	Number in 1905
Metalworking . . . . . Textile. . . . . . . . Printing, woodworking, leather, chemicals . . . Ceramics, food. . . . .	252 708 277 454	117 237 38 39	811 1,296 471 285

Totals . . . . . .	1,691	431	2,863

This shows that the metalworkers are in the lead and the textile workers are backward, the remaining workers being still more backward.

The strikes are grouped in accordance with their causes in the following way (for 14 years, 1895-1908): political, 59.9 per cent of the strikers; on wage issues, 24.3 per cent; on the issue of the working day, 10.9 per cent; labour conditions, 4.8 per cent.

In respect of the results of the strikes we get the following division (if the number of strikers whose strikes ended in a compromise be divided equally between "won" and "lost"):

Number participating in economic strikes (thousands)
	Total for 10 years (1895- 1904)	%	1905	%	1906	%	1907	%	1911	%	1912	%
Won . . . . Lost . . . .	159 265	37.5 62.5	705 734	48.9 51.1	233 225	50.9 49.1	59 141	29.5 70.5	49 47	51 49	55 77	42 58

Totals . .	424	100	1,439	100	458	100	200	100	96	100	132	100

The figures for 1911 and 1912 are incomplete and are not fully comparable with the preceding figures.

In conclusion we give brief data on the distribution of strikes according to the size of the enterprise and according to the location of the enterprise:

page 538

Number of strikers per 100 in each category
Category of enterprise	Total for 10 years -- 1895-1904	In 1905
20 workers or less . . . . . 21 to 50 workers . . . 51 to 100 " . . . 101 to 500 " . . . 501 to 1,000 " . . . Over 1,000 " . . .	2.7 7.5 9.4 21.5 49.9 89.7	47 89.4 108.9 160.2 163.8 231.9

Percentage of strikes
	in towns	outside towns
1895-1904 . . . 1905 . . . . . .	75.1 85	24.9 15

The dominance of the workers of big industrial establishments in the strike movement and the relative backwardness of rural factories are quite clear from these figures.

page 587

<"NOTES">

NOTES

^{<"en151">[151]} Lenin wrote this article for the pocket calendar Sputnik Rabochego (Worker's Handbook ) for 1914, issued by the Priboi Party Publishing House in December 1913. It contained essential information on labour legislation in Russia, the Russian and international working-class movement, political parties, associations and unions, the press, etc. The Worker's Handbook was sequestered but the issue was sold in one day before the police could confiscate it. When Lenin received a copy of the Handbook he wrote in a letter to Inessa Armand that 5,000 copies had already been sold. A second, amended edition was published in February 1914 with deletions and amendments made for purposes of censorship and with a list of books for self-education added. Altogether 20,000 copies of the Handbook were sold. [p. 534]

^{<"en152">[152]} For details of the strike at the Morozov mills see "Explanation of the Law on Fines Imposed on Factory Workers", V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 2, pp. 29-72. [p. 535]