V. I.   Lenin

Strikes in Russia[1]


Written: Written in 1913
Published: 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.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 19, pages 534-538.
Translated: The Late George Hanna
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2004). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
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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
Total Percentage
of all
enterprises
Total Percentage
of all
workers
1895 68 0.4 31,195 2.0
1896 118 0.6 29,527 1.9
1897 145 0.7 59,870 4.0
1898 215 1.1 43,150 2.9
1899 189 1.0 57,498 3.8
1900 125 0.7 29,389 1.7
1901 164 1.0 32,218 1.9
1902 123 0.7 36,671 2.2
1903 550 3.2 86,832 5.1
1904 68 0.4 24,904 1.5
1905 13,995 93.2 2,863,173 163.8
1906 6,114 42.2 1,108,406 65.8
1907 3,573 23.8 740,074 41.9
1908 892 5.9 176,101 9.7
1909 340 2.3 64,166 3.5
1910 222 1.4 46,623 2.4
1911 466 2.8 105,110 5.1
1912 1,918 ? 683,361 ?

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., 1,468,000 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 4,388 1,051,209 1909 290 55,803
1906 2,545 457,721 1910 214 42,846
1907 973 200,004 1911 442 96,730
1908 428 83,407 1912 702 172,052

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[2], noted even by the reactionary publicist Katkov as the emergence of the “labour question” in Russia):

    Average
number of
strikers per
annum
1st period (1895–1904), pre-revolutionary . . 43,000
2nd period (1903–07), revolutionary . . . 1,570,000
3rd period (1908–10), counter-revolutionary 96,000
4th period (1911–12), present, beginning of
revival . . . . . .
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):

 
Years . . . . . . 1905 1906
Quarters . . . . . I II III IV I II III IV
Number of strikers
(thousands) per
quarter
Beginning
of revolu-
tion
{BOX}
Revo-
lution
{BOX}
First
Duma
{BOX}
Total . . . . . . 810 481 294 1,277 269 479 296 63
Economic . . . . 411 190 143 275 73 222 125 37
Political . . . . 399 291 151 1,002 196 257 171 26
Year . . . . . . . . . . . . 1907
Quarters . . . . . . . . . . I II III IV
Number of strikers (thousands)
per quarter
Second
Duma
{BOX}
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 323 77 193
Economic . . . . . . . . . . 52 52 66 30
Political . . . . . . . . . . 94 271 11 163

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)
Total for
10 years
(1895–1904)
Number
in 1905
St. Petersburg . . 299 137 1,033
Moscow . . . . . . . 567 123 540
Warsaw . . . . . . 252 69 887
3 Southern regions 543 102 403
  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:

 
Groups of industries Total
number of
factory
workers
(thousands)
in 1904
Number of strikers
(thousands)
Total for
10 years
(1895–1904)
Number
in 1905
Metalworking . . . 252 117 811
Textile . . . . . . . 708 237 1,296
Printing, woodwork-
ing, leather, chem-
icals . . . . . . .
277 38 471
Ceramics, food . . . 454 39 285
  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 year
(1895
–1904)
% 1905 % 1906 % 1907 % 1911 % 1912 %
Won 159 37.5 705 48.9 233 50.9 59 29.5 49 51 55 42
Lost 265 62.5 734 51.1 225 49.1 141 70.5 47 49 77 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:

 
Number of strikers per 100 in each category:
Category of enterprise Total for
10 years—
1895–1904
In 1905
20 workers or less . . . . 2.7 47
21 to 50 workers . . . 7.5 89.4
51 to 100 ” . . . 9.4 108.9
101 to 500 ” . . . 21.5 160.2
501 to 1,000 ” . . . 49.9 163.8
Over 1,000 ” . . . 89.7 231.9
Percentage of strikes
  in towns outside towns
1895–1904 . . 75.1 24.9
1905 . . . . . 85 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.


Notes

[1] 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.

[2] 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.


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