By the end of the 19th century there were over 2 million industrial
workers in Russia. At this time the Russian industrial employee worked
on average an 11 hour day (10 hours on Saturday). Conditions in the
factories were extremely harsh and little concern was shown for the
workers' health and safety.
People
who attempted to form trade unions were likely to be imprisoned or
sent to Siberia. Strikes were illegal and the Russian government would
often call out the Russian Army to deal with workers during industrial
disputes.
In
1901 Sergei Zubatov, chief of the Okhrana
in Moscow, used secret agents to set up the Mutual Assistance League
of Workers in the Mechanical Industry. His agents became the leaders
of this union and they attempted to persuade the workers not to make
demands for higher wages and better working conditions. This proved
unsuccessful and by 1903 the union had to be disbanded because its
members had began to take part in strikes.
In
1903 Father George Gapon, a priest from
St. Petersburg, formed the Assembly of Russian Workers. Within a year
it had over 9,000 members.
1904
was a bad year for Russian workers. Prices of essential goods rose
so quickly that real wages declined by 20 per cent. When four members
of the Assembly of Russian Workers were dismissed at the Putilov Iron
Works, Gapon called for industrial action. Over the next few days
over 110,000 workers in St. Petersburg went out on strike.
In
an attempt to settle the dispute, George Gapon
decided to make a personal appeal to Nicholas
II. He drew up a petition outlining the workers' sufferings and
demands. This included calling for a reduction in the working day
to eight hours, an increase in wages and an improvement in working
conditions. Gapon also called for the establishment of universal
suffrage and an end to the Russo-Japanese
War.
Over
150,000 people signed the petition and on 22nd January, 1905, Gapon
led a large procession of workers to the Winter Palace in order to
present the petition to Nicholas II. When
the procession of workers reached the Winter Palace it was attacked
by the police and the Cossacks. Over 100 workers were killed and some
300 wounded.
After
the 1905 Revolution the
Russian government decided to change the laws that prohibited trade
unions. This was followed by the rapid expansion of trade union membership.
Bolsheviks and
Mensheviks were
often the leaders of these new unions.
(1)
Alexander
Shlyapnikov was only sixteen years old when he took part in a
strike at the Semyannikov plant in 1901.
I was very
active for my age in the strike, inciting apprentices from all the
workshops, shipbuilding as well as joinery, to drive out workers who
did not want to join us. We stuffed our pockets with screws and all
sorts of scraps of iron, and made for the docks and workshops. Those
who went against the general strike decision was pelted with iron
fragments, nuts and bolts, and were forced into line. Policemen on
foot and horseback threatened us with their whips, but this only strengthened
our youthful readiness to fight. For such active participation in
the strike, I was dismissed from Semyannikov's and blacklisted.
All my
attempts to find work at another factory ended in failure. With the
help of some workers, I was given a job at the Obukhov works, but
was dismissed as a striker after a couple of weeks. Other attempts
had the same result. The impossibility of finding a job in a large
factory turned me to work in small workshops. The pay was so paltry
that it did not even cover the rent.
(2)
At the age of thirteen Stanislav
Kossior went to work as a metalworker at the Sulin Works in Lugansk.
The Sulin Works were closed following a strike in 1905
and I was forced to move to the Yuriev factory. The strike made such
an impression on me that with the cooperation of my brother who was
a member of the Social Democratic Labour Party, I was received into
membership. Within a short time I was arrested, sent into exile, dismissed
from the factory and blacklisted.
(3)
In 1896 Felix Dzerzhinsky
joining the illegal Social
Democratic Labour Party. Later that year he agreed to try and
organize trade unions in Kovno.
At Kovno I infiltrated myself among the hard core of the
factory workers, coming across appalling poverty and exploitation,
particularly of female labour, and it was here that I learnt by practice
how to organize strikes. During the second half of the year I was
arrested in the street after being betrayed for ten roubles by an
apprentice. I was deported to Vyatka province for three years.
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