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The Formative Tears of the Russian Factory Inspectorate, 1882-1885

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Frederick C. Giffin
Frederick C. Giffin*
Affiliation:
Southern Methodist University
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Extract

The origins of Russian factory legislation date essentially from the decade of the 1880s, when the Industrial Revolution began to affect the economy and society of the Russian Empire. During the reign of Alexander II there had been a growing dissatisfaction with the poor working conditions in Russian factories. Desire on the part of certain officials to eliminate some of the worst abuses of the factory system led to the formation, beginning in 1859, of a number of commissions to study conditions in the factories and to make recommendations for their improvement. But, with the exception of a decree issued by the government in 1866 which sought the enforcement of more stringent sanitary measures, attempts to introduce legislation of the character recommended by these commissions were for a long time unsuccessful.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , December 1966 , pp. 641 - 650
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1966

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References

1 According to the Council's official report for 1882, it was motivated by humanitarian concern over the plight of Russia's juvenile workers and a desire to make useful citizens of them, as well as by the belief that if the conditions of factory labor were not soon improved a revolution might occur ﹛Otchet po Gosudarstvennomu Sovetu za 1882 god [St. Petersburg, 1884], p. 168).

2 For the factory laws of 1882-85, see Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, 3d series (St. Petersburg, 1882-86), II, 265-66; IV, 366-68; V, 261.

3 The inspectorate was placed under the direction of the Department of Trade and Manufacture within the Ministry of Finance. Although it was entrusted with supervision of all commercial and industrial affairs of the Empire, the Department apparently was still able to exercise rather tight control over the conduct of factory inspection. According to Ivan Ianzhul, during his five years as district inspector for Moscow the Department summoned him to special conferences in St. Petersburg “on special occasions every year“ (/z vospominanii i perepiski fabrichnago inspektora [St. Petersburg, 1907], p. 16).

4 The remarkable career of this talented man is summarized in D'iakonov, M. A., “Ivan Ivanovich Ianzhul 1846-1914,” Izvestiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk (December 1914), pp. 1295–1302Google Scholar.

5 Following October 1, 1885, the inspectorate also undertook supervision of the observance of the law prohibiting night work by women and youths under seventeen. The results of this supervision were, however, too incomplete to be included in the inspectors' reports for 1885, because most of the district inspectors terminated their regular duties in November in order to prepare reports for presentation to the Department of Trade and Manufacture. Since no more inspectors’ reports were printed during the remainder of Alexander Ill's reign, material is lacking on the extent to which the law of June 3, 1885, was enforced.

6 A. A. Mikulin, Fabrich7iaia inspektsiia v Rossii, 1882-1906 (Kiev, 1906), p. 29.

7 1 . I. Ianzhul, “Vospominaniia o perezhitom i vidennom (1864-1909 gg.),” Russkaia starina, CXLII (1910), 89.

8 Ibid.

9 Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ (St. Petersburg, 1890-1907), XIX, Part 2, 493-94.

10 la. T. Mikhailovskii, O deiatel'nosti fabrichnoi inspektsii: Otchet za 1885 god glavnago fabrichnago inspektora (St. Petersburg, 1886), p. 5.

11 V. P. Litvinov-Falinskii, Fabrichnoe zakonodatel'stvo i fabrichnaia inspektsiia v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1900), pp. 310-11.

12 Mikhailovskii, p. 5. For an example of the government's efforts to enlist qualified persons, see Ianzhul, “Vospominaniia o perezhitom,” pp. 83-84.

13 I. Ianzhul, Moskovskii fabrichnyi okrug: Otchet za 1885 g. fabrichnago inspektora Moskovskago okruga (St. Petersburg, 1886), p. 14.

14 Mikhailovskii, pp. 12-14.

15 Ibid., Appendix, Table I.

16 Theodore H. Von Laue, “Factory Inspection under the ‘Witte System’ 1892-1903,“ American Slavic and East European Review, XIX (Oct. i960), 356.

17 Before his appointment as Minister of Finance in 1881, Bunge had enjoyed an unusually successful academic career as a professor of economics and finance, and subsequently rector, at the University in Kiev. An industrious and realistic man of progressive views, he was influenced, in his approach to government finance, by a paternalistic concern for the welfare of the Russian people. Even before his association with the Ministry of Finance he had become well known for his sympathetic attitude toward the workers and for his advocacy of governmental regulation of the conditions of factory labor. His efforts to improve the lot of the workers during the six years he served as Minister of Finance (1881-86), which have earned him a reputation as one of the prime movers in the enactment of factory legislation and the inauguration of a system of factory inspection in Russia, were thus the result of a long and sincere interest in such matters. See Entsiklopedichesk.it slovar”, IV, 927-28; and Bunge, N. Kh., Esquisses de littirature politico-e'conomique (Geneva, 1900), pp. vii–xxxivGoogle Scholar.

18 Aleksandr, Bykov, Fabrichnoe zakonodatel'stvo i razvitie ego v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1909), p. 249 Google Scholar. Marxist scholars have traditionally emphasized the “police basis” of factory inspection. M. G. Lunts, for example, asserted that “the organization and rights of the factory inspectorate were determined first of all by the political and police interests of the state.” He believed that the factory laws of the 1880s “were only a means toward the political pacification of the workers, toward the prevention and, if necessary, the suppression of any real or imaginary antigovernment movements” (Sbornik statei iz istorii fabrichnago zakonodatel'stva, fabrichnoi inspektsii i rabochago dvizheniia v Rossii [Moscow, 1909], pp. 45, 78). For a similar interpretation by a contemporary Soviet scholar, see I. I. Shelymagin, Fabrichno-trudovoe zakonodatel'stvo v Rossii (2-ia polovina XlX-ogo veka) (Moscow, 1947).

19 Mikhailovskii, pp. 5-39.

20 Ibid., p. 21.

21 O. Novitskii, Kievskii fabrichnyi okrug: Otchet za 1885 g. fabrichnago inspektora Kievskago okruga (St. Peterburg, 1886), p. 2.

22 V. V. Sviatlovskii, Khar'kovskii fabrichnyi okrug: Otchet za 1885 g. fabrichnago inspektora Khar'kovskago okruga (St. Petersburg, 1886), p . 4.

23 Ianzhul, “Vospominaniia o perezhitom,” pp. 90-91.

24 “Instruktsiia chinam fabrichnoi inspektsii,” Vestnik Evropy (May 1885), pp. 374-76.

25 The St. Petersburg Commission was the first of a series of government-sponsored commissions formed during the reign of Alexander II to encourage some type of government regulation of the hours and conditions of factory labor.

26 Bykov, pp. 151-52.

27 Mikhailovskii, pp. 75-76.

28 Shidlovskii, Kazanskii fabrichnyi okrug: Otchet za 188$ g. fabrichnago inspektora Kazanskago okruga (St. Petersburg, 1886), p. 2.

29 Although a precise comparison is impossible because of the absence of reliable statistics before the appearance of the first factory inspectors’ reports, the dismissal of juveniles apparently reached significant proportions in the period following the introduction of the new factory laws. According to Aleksandr Bykov, the number of juveniles employed in Russia's factories and mills during 1882 accounted for approximately 5 percent of the total number of workers, whereas after the introduction of the laws of 1882 and 1884 juveniles comprised less than 2 percent (a decrease of some thirty to forty thousand juveniles) (Bykov, p. 152). The lot of those juveniles who retained their employment, however, was apparently much improved. Mikhailovskii reported “favorable changes” in their mood during 1885, alleging that they had even become “cheerful” because of improvements in factory existence (Mikhailovskii, pp. 38-39).

30 Bykov, pp. 155-56.

31 Jacob Walkin, “The Attitude of the Tsarist Government toward the Labor Problem,“ American Slavic and East European Review, XIII, No. 2 (1954)1171.

32 Manya Gordon, Workers Before and After Lenin (New York, 1941), p. 18.

33 Litvinov-Falinskii, p. 312.

34 Gordon, p. 20.

35 Clarkson, Jesse D., A History of Russia (New York, 1961), p. 1961 Google Scholar. See also Litvinov- Falinskii, p. 313.

36 Although the reports were based on inspections of only 18.89 percent of the factories and mills under the inspectorate's authority, these relatively few establishments accounted for 55.9 percent of the 869,828 workers employed in industries subject to the laws of 1882 and 1884 (Mikhailovskii, pp. 13-14).

37 Bliumenfel'd, Varshavskii fabrichnyi okrug: Otchet za 1885 g. fabrichnago inspektora Varshavskago okruga (St. Petersburg, 1886), p. 19.

38 Ianzhul, Iz vospominanii i perepiski, p. 73.

39 Peskov, Vladimirskoi fabrichnyi okrug: Otchet za 1885 g. fabrichnago inspektora Vladimirskago okruga (St. Petersburg, 1886), p. 48.

40 Shidlovskii, p. 22.

41 Mikhailovskii, p. 81.

42 Ibid., pp. 33-34.

43 Pazhitnov, K. A., Polozhenie rabochago klassa v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1906), p. 26 Google Scholar. The decrease in the number of juvenile workers under fifteen continued. By 1900 they comprised less than 2 percent of the labor force in inspected factories. In contrast, the number of women employed by Russian industry increased, rising from slightly over 31 percent of the labor force in factories inspected during 1885 to nearly 44 percent in igoo ( Kovalevsky, W. de, ed., La Russie á la fin du iye siècle [Paris, 1900], p. 612 Google Scholar).

44 Mikhailovskii, p. 89.

45 Bliumenfel'd, p. 17. According to the law of June 1, 1882, the owners of factories and mills employing juveniles who had not completed the course of instruction in a public elementary school or its equivalent were required to grant such juveniles the opportunity to attend a public elementary school for not less than three hours a day or eighteen hours a week. The law of June 12, 1884, required juvenile workers who had not received an elementary education to attend either a public school located near their place of work or a special factory school provided by their employer. Moreover, factory owners employing juveniles who had already completed their elementary education were to give these young workers the opportunity to attend a public secondary school, if one was available nearby (Polnoe sobranie zakonov, II, 266; IV, 366).

46 Peskov, p. 48.

47 These figures are confirmed by Mikulin, p. 37.

48 Ibid., pp. 38-39. According to statistics cited by Henri Troyat, the number of factory schools was still inadequate by January 1, 1899: 446 schools were attended by a total of 4307 working juveniles (Daily Life in Russia under the Last Tsar [London, 1961], p. 96).

49 Mikhailovskii, p. 74.

50 Ibid.