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Industrialists in Politics Russia in 1905

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Louis Menasha
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Extract

IN A SENSE RUSSIAN INDUSTRIALISTS WERE MUCH CLOSER TO THE vital centre of the Revolution of 1905 than any of the intelligentsia opposition; their workers, after all, were out on strike; and it was their private interests which were most directly and most seriously touched by the disturbances. Traditionally passive on political issues, Russian businessmen were catapulted into the ranks of the liberal opposition by the strike movement which rocked Russian industrial centies in 1905. The labour crisis goaded business men into examining government policy towards labour and capital; business groups then broadened their perspective and considered Russian society and the economy as a whole; finally, they injected political terms into the issues and echoed the pleas for constitutional reform and the extension of civil liberties so long championed by the libecal intelligentsia.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1968 , pp. 352 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1968

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References

1 The memoir and secondary literature on the liberal movement in Russia is sizeable. For a brief, selective citation see note 1 in Galai's, S. The Impact of War on the Russian Liberals in 1904–5’, Government and Opposition, I, 1, 11 1965, p. 85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Among the most valuable collections of documents are: Rabochii Vopros v Komisrii V. N. Kokovtsova v 1905 g, Moscow, 1926; Romanov, B., ed., ‘Peterburgskaya Krupnaya Burzhuaziya v Yanvarskiye Dni 1905 godu’, Krasnaya Letopis, 1 (12), 1925, pp. 47–56;Google Scholar Kats, A. and Milonov, Yu., eds., Professionalnoye Dvizbeniye, Vol. IV of 1905. Materially i Dokumenty, Moscow Google Scholar, 1926; and the materials appended to S. E. Sef, Burzbuaziya v 1905 godu, Moscow‐Leningrad, 1926.

3 Cheremensky, E. D., Burzhuaziya i Tsarizm v Revolyutsii 1905‐1907gg, Moscow‐Leningrad, 1939, pp. 24–5Google Scholar.

4 Kokovtsov, V. N., Out of My Past: The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov, Stanford, 1935, p. 34.Google Scholar

5 ‘Soveshchaniya peterburgskikh fabrikantov i zavodchikov’, Professionalnoye Dvizbeniye, pp. 146–7.

6 ‘Soveshchaniye Ministra finansov Kokovtsova s Peterburgskimi fabrikantami i zavodchikami 24 yanvarya 1905 g’, Krasnaya Letopis, pp. 49–50.

7 ‘Dokladnaya Zapiska S. Peterburgskikh Zavodchikov i Fabrikantov Gospodinu Ministru Finansov’, ibid., pp. 50–3.

8 The statement of the Iron Industrialists is in Krasnaya Letopis', pp. 53–6, that of the Moscow group is in Professionalnoye Dvizbeniye, pp. 147–52.

9 There is of course considerable irony in that this statement to Witte turned many of the elements of his own philosophy of industrialization back on to him. See Von Laue, T. H., Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia, New York, 1963, especially pp. 182–93.Google Scholar

10 See the section ‘Komissiya Shidlovskogo’ in the Introduction to Profsrsionalnoys Dvizbeniye and the Preface by B. A. Romanov in Rabochii Vopros.

11 Rabochii Vopros, pp. 202–3.

12 Ibid., pp. 236, 245; also Slow, St Petersburg, No. 166, 2 June 1905.

13 Profescionalnoye Dvizbeniye, pp. 162–3.

14 Sef, Burzbuaziya, p. 55.

15 Reikhardt, V. V., ‘Partiiniye gruppirovki i “predstavitel'stvo interesov” krupnogo kapitala v 1905–06 godakh,’ Krasnaya Lesopis, 6(39), 1930, p. 19;Google Scholar Sef, Burzbuaziya, p. 56.

16 ‘Resolyutsiya prinyataya Moskovskim syezdom…,’ Sef, Burzbuaziya, 124.

17 The text of the theses is in Zemskii Syezd 6‐go i sl. Noyabrya 1904g., Paris, 1905. The Congress, like the July meeting of business leaders, split on the Dolma issue (Thesis 10); the majority favoured a body with strong legislative powers.

18 On Guchkov, see my article, ‘ A Liberal with Spurs: Alexander Guchkov, A Russian Bourgeois in Politics’, The Russian Review, Vol. 16, No. 1, 01 1967.Google Scholar

19 See the document ‘Otnosheniye Moskovsk. Okhran. Otdel. V. Departament Politsii o soveshchanii Promyshlennikov na Kvartire U I. A. Morozova’, in Sef, Burzbuaziya, pp. 125–6. The proposals were seriously considered and only rejected for the time being; it was agreed to take them up again at a future congress of industrialists.

20 ‘Dokladnaya zapiska Moskovskikh fabrikantov gen.‐gubernatoru ob otnoshenii k vseobshchey politicheskoy zabastovke’, ibid., pp. 126–7.

21 ‘Otnosheniye Ministerstva Torg. i Prom. Grafu S. Yu. Witte o predlozheniyakh promyshlennikov v dni pochtovo‐telegrafnoy zabastovki,’ibid., pp. 127–8.

22 ‘Otkrytoe pis'mo upolnomochennykh Moskovskogo birzhevogo obshchestva po povodu pochtovo‐telegrafnoy zabastovki of 30 N. 1905’, V. V. Simonenko and G. D. Kostomarov, eds., Iz Istorii Revolyutsii 1905 Goda v Moskve i Moskovskoy Gubernii. Materialy i Dokumenty, Moscow, 1931, p. 297.

23 Sef. Burzbuaziya, p. 80.