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Lessons from the Periphery: Saratov, January 1905

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Jonathan Sanders
Jonathan Sanders*
Affiliation:
Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University
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Extract

A general strike spearheaded by those controlling the railroads forced tsarist autocracy to its knees in 1905. This tactic, unprecedented in Russian history, was born in Saratov early that year. Saratov's pioneering role derived from an operative principle of solidarity across class, caste, professional, and political lines. However much the crowds filling Saratov's streets resembled those elsewhere, protesters in the middle Volga city came away from the strike after Bloody Sunday with something unique—they had wrung major concessions from local administrators. The economic victory belonged to the men and women of the Riazan'-Urals Railroad who, significantly, had acted together. Their mutually reinforcing interactions, their wedding of economic and political demands framed an effective mechanism for conducting a general strike.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , Summer 1987 , pp. 229 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1987

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References

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4. Typical were Mark Natanson, the great veteran of the populist movement who settled there in1890 and Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaia, the “Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution,” whoarrived in 1900. RO GBL (Rukopisnyi otdel Gosudarstvennoi biblioteki SSSR im. V.I. Lenina) f.634karton 1 ed. khr. 14 1.69; G. Ul'ianov, “Vospominaniia o M.A. Natansone,” Katorga i ssylka, no. 4/89 (1932), pp. 62–63; Andrei Argunov, “Iz proshlogo partii Sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov,” Byloe, no. 10/22, (October 1907) p. 103; Ovid V. Aptekman, “Partiia‘Narodnogo Prava’ (po lichnym vospominaniiam),” Byloe, no. 7/19 (1907), p. 187. Breshkovskaia, “Pis'ma starago druga; pis'mo piatoe,” Revoliutsionnaia Rossiia, no. 67 (mai 1905), p. 5; Alice S. Blackwell, ed., The Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1919); Fallows's dissertation, “Forging the Zemstvo Movement,” and that ofDonald Raleigh, “The Russian Revolution of 1917 in Saratov” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1979)provide the best introduction to Saratov and its revolutionary tradition. On the city itself, see B. P.Semenov, Rossiia: polnoe geograficheskoe opisanie nashego otechestva: Srednee i nizhnee Povolzh'e i Zavolzh'e, 11 vols. (St. Petersburg: A.F. Devrien, 1901), pp. 478–480, and Raleigh's book, Revolution on the Volga; 1917 in Saratov (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 17–29. [The usualRussian abbreviations for archival units are used in these citations: f.=fond (collection); op.=opis’ (inventory subdivision of a fond); d.=delo (item); 1., li.=list, listy (leaf, leaves); ob.=obratnaia (verse).Also ch.=chast’ (part of an archival unit); ed. khr.=edinitsa khraneniia (storage unit).]

5. See Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis1 naseleniia Rossiiskoi imperii 1897, 89 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1899–1905), vol. 38. Saratovskaia guberniia (St. Petersburg: MVD, 1904), pp. 1, 8–11.

6. Semenov, Rossiia, p. 478; Sokolov, I. S., 1905 na Riazansko-Ural'skoi zheleznoi doroge po vospominaniiam uchastnikov i materialam Saratovskogo gubernskogo arkhiva (Saratov: ProftranLeninskoi (R.-U.) zh.d., 1925), p. 9–14 Google Scholar.

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8. This urban center of some 202, 849 people in 1904 in a city of about nine square miles was notlarge enough to produce atomized neighborhoods, although there were some distinctive areas. Solidobservations about Saratov's social character are scattered throughout Viktor Chernov, “Zapiskisotsialista-revoliutsionera,” Letopis1 revoliutsii, no. 5 (Berlin, St. Petersburg, Moscow: Z. I. Grzhebin, 1922). Similarly, V. N. Pereverzev's unpublished memoirs, “Iz dalekogo proshlogo” RO GBL f.634k.l ed. khr.14. Also see Spravochnik-putevoditeV po gorodu.

9. The railwaymen had gained much experience from their 1901 strike, for which there is littleevidence of Social Democrat involvement. TsGAOR f. 6865 op. 1 d.7b 11.3–3 (ob.); L. M. Ivanov, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii v 1901–1904 gg.: Sbornik dokumenlov (Leningrad: Nauka, 1975) nos.14–16, pp. 48–51Google Scholar. Sokolov reported that Social Democrat arid Socialist Revolutionary circles aroseamong these workers and among some telegraphists starting in 1903 (1905 na Riazansko-Ural'skoi zheleznoi doroge, p. 14).

10. See Fruit, Elie, Les Syndicats dans les chemins defer en France (1890–1910) (Paris; Les EditionsOuvrieres, 1976), pp. 32–44Google Scholar; F. Caron, “Essai d'analyse historique d'une psychologie du travail: LesMecaniciens et chauffeurs de locomotives du reseau du Nord, 1850 a 1910,” he Mouvement social, no.50 (January 1965), pp. 3–38.

11. TsGAOR f.6865 op.l d.120 11.104–105.

12. O.L.—ii, [Liakhovskii], “Banketnaia kampaniia v Saratove,” Minuvshie gody, no. 12 (1908), p. 29.

13. For refreshingly new insights see Michael S. Melancon, “The Socialist Revolutionaries from1902 to February 1917: A Party of the Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1984).

14. Revoliutsionaia Rossiia, nos. 9, 10 (1902) pp. 9–10, 23–24; G. Saar, “Saratovskaia organizatsiiaRSDRP v nachale 90kh gg., Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, 11/12 (82/83) (1928): 129–130; Petr Lebedev, “K istorii Saratovskoi organizatsii RSDRP (1901–1903 gg.)” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia 3 (15) 1923: 245–248; Aleksandr Studentov, Saratovskoe krest'ianskoe vosstanie 1905 goda (Penza: Penzpechat', 1926), p. 1; “Forging the Zemstvo Movement,” pp. 600–601.

15. Samuel A. Oppenheim, “The Making of a Right Communist—A.I. Rykov to 1917,” Slavic Review 36 (September 1977): 423.

16. See Druzhinin, “V Saratove v 1905 goda,” pp. 100–102.

17. TsGAOR f.102 ed.khr. 1250 1904 ch.III 11.50–50 (ob); also Vladimir Nevsii, Rabochee dvizhenie v ianvarskie dni 1905 (Moscow: Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo polikaturzhan i ssyl'no-poselentsev, 1930), pp. 476–488.

18. Emmons, Terrence, “The Banquet Campiagn,” California Slavic Studies 10 (1977): 45–86.Google Scholar

19. In Nizhnii Novgorod, for instance, at the 27 November banquet some young intelligent wasreported to have given an “SD speech” in which he denounced the govenrment and liberals. Thisspeech provoked noisy cheers, forcing the chair to close the session. In Rostov, Social Democratstried to counter the banquet by staging a demonstration across the street. TsGAOR f. 102 ed. khr.1250 1904 11.134, 182.

20. TsGAOR f.102 ed.khr. 1250 1904 ch.I 1904 1. 218. Trudoviki included First Duma leaders, Stepan V. Anikin and Aleksei S. Chumaevskii. Okhrana agents sigled out Chumaevskii, an originalmember of the Party of People's Right, along with A. M. Maslenko, a member of the Union ofZemstvo Constitutionalists, and F. A. Berezevov, a founder of the Union of Veterinarians, as theknown banquet organizers. Se Pirogumova, N. M., Zemskoe liberal'noe dvizhenie (Moscow: Nauka, 1977, pp. 206–211 Google Scholar; Veterinarnoe obozrenie, no. 7 (1905), p. 312; Seregny, Scott J., “Politics and theRural Intelligentsia in Russia: A Biographical Sketch of Stepan Anikin,” Russian History, 7 pts., 1–2 (1980): 169–180 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kolesnichenko, D. A., Trudoviki v period pervoi Rossiiskoi revoliutsii (Moscow: Nauka, 1985) pp. 28, 34Google Scholar.

21. See Jonathan Sanders, “The Union of Unions: Political, Economic, Civil, and Human RightsOrganizations in the 1905 Russian Revolution” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1985), pp. 204–243, 272–275.

22. TsGAOR f.102 ed. khr.1250 ch.l: 11.281–283; ch. 3: 11.50–50 (ob); Emmons, Terence, The Formation of Political Parties and the First National Elections in Russia (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1983) pp. 3–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. TsGAOR f.102 ed.khr. 1250 1904 ch.3: 11.50–50 (ob); also see Nevskii, Rabochee dvizhenie, pp. 476–488.

24. TsGAOR f.102 ed.khr. 1250 1904 ch.3: 1.5 (ob).

25. TsGAOR f.102 ed.khr. 1250 1904 ch.3: 1.50 (ob); I. S. Sokolov, 1905 na Riazansko-Vral'skoi zheleznoi doroge (Saratov, 1925) pp. 26–27.

26. Mints, L. E., “Statistika chislennosti i sostav rabochei sily na zheleznodorozhnom transportev Rossii,” Ocherkipo istorii statistiki SSSR, (Moscow: Gosstatizdat, 1960), p. 120.Google Scholar

27. TsGIA f.273 op.12 d. 318; TsGAOR f.102 ed.khr. 1250 ch.3: 1.50 (ob).

28. TsGAOR f.102 ed.khr. 1250 1904 ch.3: 1.50 (ob).

29. TsGAOR f.102 ed.khr. 1250 1904 1.92.

30. Those working at the locomotive depots of the Nikolaevskaia line and the St. Petersburg-Warsaw railroad had joined Gapon's strike movement on 7 January. Those working at the locomotivedepots of the Baltic, Moscow-Vindavsk-Rybinsk, and the St. Petersburg-Warsaw lines had abandonedtheir posts before the bloodletting. TsGIA f.273 op.12 ed.khr. 358 1.9–10; Pankratova, A. M. et al., eds. Revoliutsiia 1905–1907 v Rossii. Dokumenty i materialy: Nachalo pervoi russkoi revoliutsii. Ianvar'-mart 1905 g. doks. 98, 316, 343, 345 (Moscow: Akademiia nauk, 1955), pp. 180, 499, 537Google Scholar, 541 (hereafter cited as DiM ianvar'-mart); Petrikov, P. T. et al., eds., Istoriia rabochego klassa Belorusskoi SSR v chetyrekh tomakh (Minsk: Nauka i tekhnika, 1984) 1: 216–219 Google Scholar.

31. TsGIA f.273 op.12 d. 354 11.9–9 (ob); Rostov, N., Zheleznodorozhniki v revoliutsionnom dvizhenii 1905 g. (Moscow-Leningrad: Istproftran TsK Zh.D., 1926), pp. 30–32 Google Scholar; DiM ianvar'-mart, dok.153, p. 252.

32. See, for example, DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 164, pp. 264–267; Nevskii, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 31.

33. Rostov, Zheleznodorozhniki, p. 31.

34. RO GBL f.634 k.l ed.khr. 14 1.125; V. Romanov, “Dvizhenie sredi sluzhashchikh i rabochikhrussikh zheleznykh dorog v 1905 godu,” Obrazovanie, no. 10 (1906), p. 35. pp. 33–35; N. Rostov, “Zheleznodorozhniki v pervoi revoliutsii.” Proletariat v revoliutsii 1905–1907 gg (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1930), pp. 124–125; Istoriia rabochego klassa SSSR: Rabochii klass v pervoi Rossiiskoi revoliutsii 1905–1907 gg. (Moscow: Nauka, 1981), pp. 91–92.

35. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 240, p. 386; an account in Revoliutsionnaia Rossii, no. 61, impliesDrugov was a Socialist Revolutionary.

36. Stolypin received news of this plan on 11 January. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 241, p. 387. Thenumber of Bering workers is cited in dok. 240, p. 385.

37. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 239, p. 383, note 164, p. 835; I. S. Sokolov, 1905 na Riazansko-Vral'skoi zheleznoi doroge, p. 19.

38. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 241, pp. 387–388. Local Social Democrats printed and distributed thisdeclaration. Sokolov, 1905 na Riazansko-Uraiskoi zheleznoi doroge, p. 57; an appendix contains acopy of the Saratov Okhrana report, no. 116, a document not included in Listovki bol'shevistskikh organizalsii v pervoi russkoi revoliutsii 1905–1907 (Moscow: Politicheskaia literatura, 1956), 1: 588–589.

39. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 239, pp. 384–385.

40. Ibid., dok. 241, p. 389.

41. Ibid., dok. 239, p. 389.

42. Nevskii, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 483.

43. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 239, p. 384; cf. dok. 15, pp. 252–253, dok. 154, pp. 253–254.

44. Ibid., dok. 241, p. 390.

45. Ibid., dok. 239, p. 385.

46. Kirillov, V. S., Bol'sheviki vo glave massovykh politicheskikh stachek v pervoi russkoi revoliuisii (1905–1907) (Moscow: Politicheskaia literatura, 1976)Google Scholar. This edition was printed in a run of 13, 000.

47. Nevskii, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 481. The Socialist Revolutionaries demanded an immediate50 percent pay increase; the Social Democrats simply called for a pay increase. Joint organizations ofSocialist Revolutionary and Social Democratic workers had existed before in Saratov. They wereresurrected in 1905. One such organization had its own press that issued leaflets in the name ofSocialist Revolutionaries. See G. G. Sushkin, “D.K. Bochkov (pamiati tovarishcha po revoliutsionnoirabote i tiur'me),” Katorga i ssy/ka, no. 1/74 (1931), p. 226.

48. Nevskii is the only source citing all three sets of demands. Interestingly, he does not attributepolitical demands to the masterovye (Rabochee dvizhenie, pp. 484–486).

49. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 237, p. 379.

50. Ibid.

51. Details are cited in ibid., dok. 237, p. 379.

52. See, Sanders, “The Union of Unions,” pp. 1025–1036.

53. Subsequently government officials rejected this demand after it had first been approved inthe form of extending the right to participate in the elections of elders under the 1903 law. PSZ (1903) 23112, pp. 734–735; Shelymagin, I. I., ZakonodateVstvo o fabrichnozavodskom trude v Rossii 1900–1917 (Moscow, 1952), pp. 51ff Google Scholar. The accompanying commentary to DiM ianvar'-mart tries tocorrect the Tambov-Ural gendarme chief Bertogol'd who claimed, “Workers of the Saratov freightdepot met on 13 January and declared directly to their boss purely economic demands” dok. 239, pp.383–385. The annotator refers to another document, no. 237, pp. 379–380, as evidence that politicaldemands were included. This latter document concerns administrative employees not masterovye. Theother sources are Nevskii, Rabochee dvizhenie, pp. 484–486; Sokolov, 1905 na Riazansko-Ural'skoi zheleznoi doroge, pp. 62–63.

54. Sokolov, 1905 na Riazansko-UraVskoi zheleznoi doroge, pp. 17–18.

55. TsGAOR f.6865 op.l d.34a 1.18; I. M. Pushkareva, in Zheleznodorozhniki Rossii v burzhuazno-demokraticheskikh revoliutsiiakh % ( ([A-Za-z]+): ([A-Za-z]+), ([0–9]+)%)%, correctly cited this railroader's name in n. 19, p. 13. On p. 137 and in the index, however, she wrote Brovkin instead of the correctBrovtsyn.

56. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 241, p. 390.

57. Sokolov, 1905 na Riazansko-Ural'skoi zheleznoi doroge, pp. 62–63; Nevskii, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 484, DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 238, pp. 381–382.

58. Nevskii, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 487

59. TsGAOR f.6865 op.l d.7b 1.3.

60. DiM ianvar'-mart, doks. 239–241, pp. 383–391.

61. TsGIAf.273op.12d.325 11.17–17 (ob).

62. DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 238, pp. 381–382.

63. Romanov, “Dvizhenie sredi sluzhashchikh i rabochikh russkikh zheleznykh dorog v 1905godu,” pp. 34–35; DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 439, p. 697.

64. Nevskii, Rabochee dvizhenie, p. 489; Romanov, “Dvizhenie sredi sluzhashchikh i rabochikhrusskikh zheleznykh dorog v 1905 godu,” pp. 35–36.

65. Nettl, J. P., Rosa Luxemburg, 2 vols. (London: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1966) 1: 295 Google Scholar.

66. RO GBL f.634 k.l. d. 14 1.125.

67. Romanov, “Dvizhenie sredi sluzhashchikh i rabochikh russkikh zheleznykh dorog v 1905 godu, “ (1906), p. 35.

68. V. N. Pereverzev, “Vserossiiskii zheleznodorozhnyi soiuz 1905 g.” Byloe, no. 4/32 (1925), pp.38–39.

69. For example, see the demands of the Moscow-Brest shop workers and administrativeemployees, TsGIA f.273 op. 12 d.343 11.15–25, or those of the various shop workers in Ekaterinoslav, DiM ianvar'-mart, dok. 251, pp. 402–405; RO GBL k.l ed.khr.14 1.126; Romanov, “Dvizhenie sredisluzhashchikh russkikh zheleznykh dorog v 1905 g.” (1906), pp. 37–40; Zablinsky, Walter, “The All-Russian Railroad Union and the Beginning of the General Strike in October 1905,” in Rabinowitch, Alexander and Rabinowitch, Janet with Kristof, Ladis K. D., eds., Revolution and Politics in Russia (Bloomington: Indiana Univeristy Press, 1972, p. 115 Google Scholar; I. M. Pushkareva, Zheleznodorozhniki Rossii, pp. 92–98.

70. Romanov, “Dvizhenie sredi sluzhashchikh russkikh zheleznykh dorog v 1905 godu,” pp.17–18; TsGIA f.273 op.21 ed.khr. 358 11.113 (ob.), 397.

71. TsGAORop.l d.120 1.83.

72. D. F. Sverchkov, who observed the railroad union in the Union of Unions and in the St.Petersburg Soviet of Workers Deputies, stated that, while nonparty, their organization was stronglyunder Socialist Revolutionary influences (TsGAOR f.6865 op.l d.120 1.21).

73. I. I. Bednov stressed the special psychology and morals of railroaders. This special mind set, he stated, explained the inability of the Social Democrats to make the subsequently formed railroadunion their own. Significantly, in 1905 Bednov was close to, if not a member of, the Socialist Revolutionaryparty. TsGAOR f.6865 op.l d.120 1.105.

74. Ibid., 1.82; RO GBL f.634 k.l ed.khr.14 1.128.

75. TsGAOR f.6865 op.l d.120 1.109. See the example of Vinogradov in the Menshevik “citadel,” the Moscow-Brest line's shops in Garvi, P. A., Vospominaniia sotsialdemokrata (New York: Fond poizdaniu literaturnogo nasledstva P. A. Garvi, 1946), pp. 546–553 Google Scholar.

76. Romanov, “Dvizhenie sredi sluzhashchikh i rabochikh russkikh zheleznykh dorog 1905 vgodu,” p. 55.