Worker reaction to Bloody Sunday in Voronezh
p. 165-179
Texte intégral
1According to contemporary observera and later scholars, the events of January 9, 1905,Bloody Sunday, provoked a swift and far-reaching reaction from the Russian working class. In the words of Leon Trotsky :
« The most profound and significant effect of the January massacre was upon the Russian prolétariat. A tremendous wave of strikes swept the country from end to end, convulsing the entire body of the nation. According to approximate calculations, the strike spread to 122 towns and localities, several mines in the Donets basin and 10 railways. The proletarian masses were stirred to the very core of their being.1 »
Trotsky and other students of the First Russian Revolution have regarded Bloody Sunday as the spark that ignited the upheaval of 1905. In their view, that tragic day removed the scales from the eyes of the Russian proletariat, revealed the tsar as a hateful tyrant, and precipitated a storm of unrest throughout the empire that culminated in the general strikes of October and December.
2In a provincial town such as Voronezh, however, the reaction of workers to Bloody Sunday was so muted that one can only guess at their attitude. After the massacre in Saint-Petersburg, thousands of laborers in large industrial centers went on strike to protest the government’s action ; the Voronezh working class eventually followed suit but for much different reasons.
3Given the smallness and industrial backwardness of Voronezh compared to Saint-Petersburg and Moscow, one might expect of its citizens a different response to the events of the day from that found in large cities. The 1897 census counted 80,500 inhabitants of Voronezh, a provincial capital of the black-earth region ; and the number had grown to 86,000 by early 19052. In 1897, this homogeneous population contained 59,000 natives of Voronezh Province, 77,000 native speakers of Russian, and almost 77,000 members of the Orthodox church. Census figures do not permit an exact count of the working class ; approximately 66,500 inhabitants were either meshchane or peasants, but how many of that number actually belonged to what one might terni the working class is unknown. Only 5600 Voronezh citizens worked in induatrial enterprises3.
4Most workers toiled in isolation to a great extent, because few enterprises in Voronezh employed a large work force. As one would expect in a farming region, the refinement of agricultural products dominated the city’s industry, and most plants of this type were quite small with a few exceptions. For example, in 1904 two steam-powered flour mills employed 210 workers and two oil presses employed 2504. More significant for the First Russian Révolution in Voronezh was the metallurgy industry, which gained a foothold in the city during the second half of the nineteenth century. The Gausman à Bukhonov, Ivanov-Veretennikov, and Stoll’ factories initially manufactured and repaired farm implements and agricultural machinery but gradually expanded into the production of equipment for agricultural refineries. Gausman à Bukhonov employed 133 at the turn of the century while Ivanov-Veretennikov had a work force of 1645. The most successful metallurgical enterprise in Voronezh, the V.G. Stoll’ factory, employed four to five hundred Voronezh workers in 1905, the number depending on the economie conditions of the moment6.
5Only one industry in Vonorezh had a larger number of workers than the Stoll’ plant – the Aktsionemoe Obshchestvo lugo-Vostochnykh zheleznykh dorog, or the South-Eastern Railroad –. In addition to a railroad yard, the company built its headquarters and chief repair yard in Voronezh. Over 2400 town citizens worked for the South-Eastern Railroad in some capacity, 1400 of them in the repair yards7. This large group of workers, concentrated in one industry, contained many white-collar employées as well as skilled workers. Because news and rumors often traveled along railroad lines or the company telegraph, the South-Eastern Railroadmen had better communications with the outside world than any other group of workers in Voronezh. Their size, relative sophistication, and access to information enabled them to dominate the city’s working class in 1905. The vast majority of the city’s working population, however, toiled in small artisan’s shops, factories, and stores, or were servants (8500 in 1897)8. As a resuit, they had little contact with other workers and none with political activists or their ideas.
6The city’s size and relative économie backwardness did not make it immune from the economie and political turmoil that already plagued the Russian Empire in late 1904. Although labor peace had reigned in Voronezh since March, 1901, a short-lived strike occurred on September 22, 1904, when workers of the South-Eastern Railroad’s car-repair section, angered over improperly imposed fines, demanded an end to fines altogether. A gendarme colonel appeared at the railroad yards, warned the workers against a strike, and urged them instead to join with their friend the tsar against the bosses, students, and socialists. Because the workers remained adamant about the abolition of fines, the colonel finally promised to do everything he could to help them, while insisting that he had little authority in that area. Trusting him, they agreed to retum to their jobs the next day9. This small work stoppage apparently had no ties to events in the rest of the country, but it indicates that economic pressures causing unrest elsewhere in Russia were also afflicting Voronezh.
7The strike of late September might lead one to expect a response of some sort front Voronezh workers in January when news of the massacre in the capital reached the city. The wave of disgust that washed over the town, however, arose from the intelligentsia and not the working class. Voronezh liberals and radicals felt a sense of outrage at what had happened in the capital and castigated the government for its cruelty. As I.V. Shaurov, a local Bolshevik, noted in his memoirs :
« News of Bloody Sunday made a tremendous impression on us in Voronezh, as everywhere in Russia. Everyone understood that there had occurred a most important event that ought to give a tremendous jolt to the revolutionary movement. Feelings of indignation and anger were accompanied by a most powerful impulse toward action10. »
8But the town’s workers did not react at ail during January, at least according to the avilable evidence. True, Shaurov says that, « the prestige of the tsar fell, even among those dark masses who still believed in him, who had faith in his mercy and good will. » He also asserts that after January 9, « meetings began in the factories and in the railroad yards. At them, workers proposed économie demands, to which they everywhere added demands for political rights, liberties, and the inviolability of person. Strikes began to break out at separate enterprises11. » No other evidence corroborâtes this statement, and it appears that a trick of memory has caused Shaurov to confuse later events with the immédiate aftermath to Bloody Sunday. The attitude of Voronezh workers to Bloody Sunday remained hidden in their silence and inaction.
9Not until February did Voronezh workers break their silence by going on strike. In doing so, they became part of a national phenomenon. Almost every city saw a strike of some type : there were 440,000 strikers in January and February 1905, more than in the years 1895 to 1905 altogether. Historians usually count ail these strikes, including those of February, as part of the angry reaction to Bloody Sunday, and as a sign of working-class antagonism to the political order12. A close look at the strike in Voronezh fails to uncover the expected fury. In fact, the events in Voronezh that month had only indirect ties to the massacre in Saint-Petersburg. Rage prompted the strikes in large industrial centers immediately after Bloody Sunday, and the strike movement then spread out from the big cities like a wave, from one town to another. By the time the wave reached Voronezh, over three weeks had passed and whatever anger local workers might have felt had abated. Yet, it was glaringly apparent that this strike movement had brought économie benefits to many of the workers in other cities who had participated in it. That success rather than anger spurred Voronezh workers on to action.
10A successful strike on the neighboring Riazan’-Urals Railroad in January attracted the attention of the office personnel of Voronezh’s South-Eastem Railroad. Impressed by the gains made by other railroad workers, these Voronezh clerks decided to follow in their footsteps. On February 1, forty of their représentatives met to discuss a strike and to formulate a list of sixteen demands « for the improvement of the office employees’ lives. » Their grievances centered on economie concems, such as the pay scale and the length of the working day, and reflected no interest in solidarity with workers elsewhere or even with other workers in Voronezh. On the evening of February 3, fifty-three représentatives meeting in the accounting office of the South-Eastern Railroad resolved to go on strike at twelve noon the following day. Meanwhile, the unrest had spread to workers of the railroad repair shops, who also decided to présent demands to management13.
11Sensing turmoil among railroad clerks and workers, city authorities and the railroad’s management took steps to defuse dissatisfaction by giving a small number of workers in railroad shops raises of five to ten kopecks a day. They also increased police supervision and closed ail passageways between the various repair shops, so that a walkout in one shop could not spread to another. Finally, railroad managers ordered the foremen to lead discussions with workers in order to dissuade them from participation in strikes14.
12These actions proved fruitless, however ; on February 4 at twelve noon, as agreed the day before, office personnel of the South-Eastern Railroad walked off the job. Workers in the shops and yard followed their example four hours later, beginning in the car-repair section. Workers of that section managed to get past the locked gates between their own shop and the engine shop, where they stirred up other laborers. « Hardly had discussion begun when a gendarme colonel (Deboli) appeared, asking : ”What do you want, boys ?” Then the chief foreman Bezobrazov arrived. The workers shouted : ”Let us have a meeting, we want to talk about our affairs15. » After the workers promised to behave in an orderly manner, the gendarme officer agreed to permit a meeting and withdrew. Meanwhile, the strike spread to other sections. Most of the strikers simply went home, but approximately two hundred remained behind, held a meeting, elected a chairman, and discussed the position of workers in the shops of the South-Eastern Railroad16. At this meeting they must hâve worked out the demands they presented to management the next day.
13The demands of the railroad workers, like those of the office clerks, reflected daily concems of an economie or social nature. They showed no interest in either national or local politics. In common with white-collar workers, they demanded higher wages and shorter hours, but their most interesting grievances involved their treatment at work. They wanted meetings permitted without interference, polite behavior toward workers, and the abolition of body searches when they left the shop. A correspondent to Iskra asserted that they also wanted freedom of assembly, freedom to have a union, and the right to strike, but no other evidence confirms this17. The railroad workers of Voronezh sought improvements in the conditions in their own plant and ignored the larger questions of politics and worker solidarity. In fact, they did not even call what they were doing a strike, referring to their work stoppage as a « meeting » instead.
14On February 5, the strike spread to other factories in the city. That morning ail 180 workers then employed at the Ivanov-Veretennikov plant walked off the job. How or why this happened remains obscure, as is the rôle of the Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, and SRs who had followers among a small number of the factory’s employees. An unsigned government report attributed the strike to a show of « solidarity with the workers in the capitals, » but that was the formula used for all strikes in January and February, and the author of the report contradicted himself when he also classified the workers’ demands under the usual headings of wages, hours, and working conditions18. Whatever the origins of the strike at the Ivanov-Veretennikov plant, it spread to other companies openly as striking workers marched from one factory to another shouting for everyone to walk off the job. A Stoll’ worker named I. Korolev described this process :
« At eleven o’clock in the morning we hear a knock at the gate and shouts : ”Come out.” Most of us in our shop immediately began running around the shop and work stopped everywhere. The gates were opened, and we went out into the Street ; in the Street were over 200 Ivanov workers. Uniting together, we headed for Gausman’s. It was astonishing that on the whole way from Stoll’s to Gausman’s not one policeman blocked our path. With a knock at the gate and shouts of °come out,” we forced the workers at Gausman s to corne out into the Street19 . »
A police observer reported that strikers broke into these factories and forced workers to disperse20. By noon on February 5, several hundred workers from the city factories had stopped work and were milling about in front of the Gausman à Bukhonov factory, where they decided to hâve a meeting.
15The meeting began with someone standing on a stool and making a speech, but the police agent présent could not quite make out the words. Then the senior factory inspector Veretennikov arrived and told the crowd to go back to work. But someone shouted : « No, we won’t give up our demands and we’ll get what we want. No one’s going to disperse us, not the gendarmes and not the army ! We’d sooner die here than give up our demands. » Aleksandr Grigorevich Antonov, a Bolshevik and former student, attacked Veretennikov with the words : « Brother-workers, he’s lying to you. Don’t believe him, remember what happened in Petersburg after the strike at the Putilov Works. » Antonov went on to deride the government for the Russo-Japanese War, for Bloody Sunday, and for supporting management against labor. He ended with the words, « We don’t need the government ! Down with it ! We stand for truth and we’d sooner die than give up our demands ! To-morrow morning at ten we’ll meet at Staryi Beg Square, where we’ll discuss our affairs completely and we’ll get our own way21. » Veretennikov warned the strikers that they would ail starve if they refused to work, but they answered, « We’ve starved for a long time, we can stand it a little longer22. » This exchange illustrâtes the anger and restlessness of Voronezh workers by the afternoon of February 5. But no one présent recorded the effects of Antonov’s speech on the crowd. Did it move them ? Did they indicate any willingness to follow Antonov’s lead ? That we cannot know, but apparently no one reacted hostilely to the speech. That may hâve encouraged the Bolsheviks to expect a friendly reception at the meeting the next morning.
16That same evening, fourteen « politically conscious » workers of the Ivanov-Veretennikov factory met with a member of the intelligentsia, presumably a Menshevik, since the meeting was reported in Iskra, a Menshevik organ at the time. The intelligent participated in but did not lead the discussion of the demands desired by Ivanov-Veretennikov employees in keeping with Menshevik policy of support for worker initiative. The Menshevik urged workers to présent demands similar to those presented in Saint-Petersburg, Baku, and elsewhere. The fourteen working-class leaders agreed in principle, but they were also unanimous in the opinion that most workers would refuse to support political demands and perhaps even abandon the strike out of fear of political involvement. They decided to pursue economie goals and to refrain from tying their strike explicitly to events in the capital and other large cities, although the leaflet that contained their grievances also expressed support in a vague way for the workers of Saint-Petersburg23.
17The Ivanov-Veretennikov workers apparently took a more radical stance than had the railroad laborers. But when considering the attitudes of these men, the reader should be aware of two facts. First, the only available source for their demands is a report in Iskra, a Social Democratie newspaper, and it did not report those of the railroad workers entirely accurately. Second, a small minority of the most politically minded was responsible for the formulation of these demands, by what authority we do not know, and their views might not reflect the tinking of the majority of workers. Their acceptance was to be tested at the mass meeting on the following morning.
18One of their seventeen demands called for freedom of assembly, the right to have unions, and the right to strike, which was identical to the point that the Iskra correspondent erroneously added to the railroad workers’ demands. A number of other items dealt with issues common to ail the workers of Voronezh including the eight-hour day, an improvement of conditions in the factory, compulsory State insurance for the unemployed and aged at govemment and company expense, an increase in piece-work wages, well-defined daily wages, the immunity of elected workers’ représentatives, the abolition of searches, and polite behavior toward workers.
19Several of the other points on the list, however, went beyond anything heretofore met with among Voronezh workers by demanding worker control in a number of areas of the factory’s operation. One item, for example, called for the publication and explanation of the company’s accounts so that workers could share in the profits The Ivanov-Veretennikov men also wanted the company to consult them about hiring new workers and to fire « harmful workers » at their insistence. They wanted the authority to divide up the work as they wished during slow periods to prevent lay-offs. Finally, looking beyond Voronezh to the situation of laborers throughout the nation, they called for a national congress of workers’ représentatives to discuss the needs of ail Russian workers24. This last point, highly uncharacteristic of Voronezh workingmen at this stage of the revolution, signified that at least some of the town’s laborers, under the tutelage of political activists, could see a connection between themselves and the working class of the entire country. Perhaps these demands could provide the rallying point and the leadership to unité the town’s prolétariat. The formulators of these demands, their Menshevik supporters, and the Bolshevik orators had high hopes for the next day’s meeting at Staryi Beg Square.
20On that day, February 6, an incident occurred that created antipathy between workers and intelligentsia, between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, and among the workers themselves. Witnesses to the event gave different accounts of what happened, depending on their point of view. To understand the significance of the incident for the revolutionary movement requires sifting through the contradictory reports. The accounts of ail witnesses to the events of February 6 agréé on a few basic facts. That moming at 10 : 00 am. at least five hundred workers met on Staryi Beg Square to discuss the purpose of the strike and their demands. The Bolshevik leaflet « Our Demands » was passed out in the crowd. For some reason, the crowd moved to the Gausman à Bukhonov factory to continue the meeting. Some Bolsheviks, including Antonov, arrived at the meeting and made political speeches. At least some of the workers objected to the infusion of politics into the strike, became angry, and left. Someone called the police at about the same time. Suddenly, a shot rang out and Antonov fell wounded. The police then arrested several SDs and the meeting broke up.
21There are at least three different versions of this incident : the official police account, filed in a police report ; the Bolshevik version, found at its fullest in an anonymous letter to Proletarii ; and the Menshevik version, found in an anonymous letter to Iskra. According to the official police acount, submitted by gendarme Colonel Tarkhov in late February 1905, radicals brought the shooting upon themselves by attempting to transform an economie dispute into a political strike. When the crowd of workers arrived at the Gausman yard, they explained to a policeman there that Veretennikov, the factory inspecter, had given the workers of the Gausman, Stoll’, and Ivanov factories permission to meet at Gausman’s to discuss questions related to factory matters such as wages, hiring practices, and fines. When the workers entered the factory, however, fifteen « politically unreliable » persons also sneaked in, including Antonov. Their political speeches caused someone in the company office to call the police. A policeman arrived at the office, surveyed the situation, and quickly telephoned the nearest police station to send help. When the policeman left the office, he saw the crowd leaving the factory and heading for the railroad bridge. He followed and a worker informed him that someone was making illégal speeches. The policeman tried to arrest one of the orators, but Antonov and some others prevented him. At that moment, someone in the crowd of workers fired a revolver twice, Antonov cried out, and fell25.
22The earliest Bolshevik version of the incident, formulated in the heat of anger, daims that the Mensheviks instigated the shooting. On February 7, V.I. Nevskii, an important Voronezh Bolshevik, wrote to the Bolshevik Central Committee :
« In Voronezh there hâve been many agitational meetings, and speeches of a political nature have been given by committee orators but the Rabochedel’ tsy [another name for Voronezh Mensheviks] interfère and insist on the purely économie nature of the movement. Moreover : yesterday an orator of the Bolshevik committee was shot in the stomach and there is information that both spies and the Rabochedel’ tsy are responsible for this26. »
As Nevskii makes plain, the charge against the Mensheviks arose from the tension that already existed between both local factions of the Social Democratie Party concerning the nature of the political movement within Russia. The Mensheviks asserted that the strikes should remain economie and that the working class should lead at their own rate of development, while the Bolsheviks insisted that the workers were ripe for a political struggle and forceful leadership would lead to revolution. The two factions had been coopérating with each other to présent a united front to the workers, but their differences festered undemeatk and came to the surface when they sought to put their philosophies into action. Thus, in the Bolshevik view, the Mensheviks fostered disunity before the incident of February 6 by disagreeing on tactics and holding back their working-class followers who wanted to engage in a political strike. The Mensheviks were underestimating the workers of Voronezh27.
23This attitude finds expression in the later and calmer Bolshevik view of the incident that appeared in a letter to Proletarii on June 30, 1905. « A Worker, » the author of the letter, first attacked the local Menshevik committee for holding back in the political struggle, for being unwilling to provide leadership to the workers, and for lagging behind even their own followers. He then claimed that on the moming of February 6, while ail the workers were meeting at the Gausman plant, those from the Stoll’ company arrived late. During their own meeting earlier, they had elected deputies for negotiations with the administration. The author of the letter described two of the deputies, Zizikalov and Svistunov, as « police stooges. » Upon arriving at the meeting, Zizikalov and Svistunov tried to keep out members of the intelligentsia and wanted to throw out those who had already gone in. Other workers came to the aid of the political activists and shouted « Let the inteUigenty speak » and « Out with Zizikalov and Svistunov. » The angry Stoll’ representatives stormed out of the meeting, threatening to call the police and telling the other Stoll’ workers to follow them, but only fifteen did so28.
24The meeting then continued with a speech by a Bolshevik orator who recounted the events of Bloody Sunday, explained the demands of the Petersburg workers, and advised them to present the same ones. « A Worker » said that « the impression from this speech was good ; no protests were heard. » Just before the meeting ended, someone ran in shouting that Zizakalov and Svistunov had arrived with the police :
« The workers began to scatter. The members of the intelligentsia went with a quick step. From out of the crowd, where the policemen and police agents, including Zizikalov and Svistunov were found, came the cries, « Catch the socialists » and several shots rang out (the policeman and the gendarme’s son Malyshev fired). After this there were 29
arrests29 . »
25The Menshevik version of events appeared in an unsigned letter in Iskra on March 3, 1905. A woman wrote the letter, possibly Iiuliia Makhnovets, the most important Menshevik leader in Voronezh. Needless to say, her version absolves her group of blame and accuses the Bolsheviks of disrupting the movement by making untimely political demands that were incompréhensible to the majority of workers. The Bolsheviks’ clumsy handling of the newly activist workers involved in the February strike had fatally wounded the February movement.
26As in the Bolshevik version, the Menshevik account points out that trouble began even before the large public meeting in the Gausman yard. That morning the fourteen « politically conscious » Ivanov workers met again to distribute mimeographed copies of the demands they had formulated the day before. Four Bolsheviks arrived, ridiculed their efforts, and presented their own broadside « Our Demands. » This leaflet urged Voronezh workers to show their solidarity with other Russian workers by going on strike. It also called for the convocation of a constituent assembly, the establishment of a democratic republic with a legislative assembly based on universal suffrage, and political and social equality. The Bolsheviks wanted to distribute « Our Demands » to the crowd and explain it at the meeting. The working-class leaders categorically opposed this move : such demands would frighten other workers and most of the working class objected to any interférence from the intelligentsia. These fourteen, who considered themselves the organizers of the strike, wanted only one intelligent to corne to the meeting in case the police interfered or arrested the organizers. The Mensheviks agreed and sent only one of their number to the large public meeting, with orders to act with great circumspection30.
27The Bolsheviks, however, refused to comply with the organizers’ request and sent at least five, possibly seven, of their comrades to the Gausman meeting. The workers immediately noticed their presence, and those from Stoll’ in parti – cular became upset and demanded that the « outsiders » be thrown out. They also reproached the organizers of the strike for bringing in members of the intelligentsia and letting them distribute leaflets. The crowd reacted to « Our Demands » negatively. Many of them tore up the leaflets, shouting that they did not need this, that the intelligenty were trying to trick them, that the intelligentsia’s plans would get them nowhere, that they had corne to discuss their own affairs and not to riot. As a result, the meeting degenerated into an argument about whether or not the intelligenty could stay. The crowd divided into three groups : those who wanted ail non-workers thrown out ; those who defended the intelligentsia as supporters of the working class and castigated the Stoll’ workers as backward and « bad comrades, » who should leave and stop dragging the other workers down ; and those who took a more conciliatory line, pointing out that the Stoll’ workers, being the most oppressed, should be educated and embraced as brothers. By that time, passions were running high, and fifteen of the Stoll’ men left the meeting, shouting that the others should follow them31.
28The remaining workers allowed the intelligentsia orators to address the meeting. The Menshevik orator read a mimeographed leaflet containing the workers’ demands formulated by the fourteen leaders the day before, and those present appeared to listen attentively and to support this statement. But the next orator began to speak of political demands, presumably similar to those in the Bolshevik leaflet, drawing protests from the crowd. The progressive workers saw their plans dashed as the other workers reproached them for allowing the meeting to be subverted to political ends. It seemed pointless to continue :
« And although one of the intelligentsia orators even finished with an invitation to meet next day at Kadet Platz, among the workers the decision was made that a general meeting would not take place and that each factory would act on its own – such a decision had an extremely depressing effect on the conscious, organized workers, and they insistently maintained that the intelligenty from Kassa bor’by [the Bolsheviks] had wrecked the movement32. »
That the meeting broke up was bad enough, but events soon took a turn for the worse. According to the Menshevik version of the Antonov shooting, the incident occurred because of the angry crowd of workers milling around outside the Gausman plant after the meeting collapsed. The trouble began as the intelligentsia left the factory and walked through the crowd of Stoll’ workers who had stalked out of the meeting earlier and were standing around in an eugly mood. Also présent were a number of curiosity-seekers and passers-by, most of whom were members of the intelligentsia with no political connections. As the atmosphere grew more angry, this latter group became alarmed and started running through the thinning crowd. Their flight further unsettled the already enraged workers, resulting in fïghts, shouting, and confusion. At that point, someone in the crowd fired shots. The Mensheviks accepted the rumor that the shots came from a policeman or police agent. The pandemonium really broke loose as some of the Stoll’ laborers beat any nonworkers they found until the more progressive workers stepped in and rescued three of them, including the wounded Antonov, who was taken to a hospital. The rest of the Menshevik account discusses the conséquent breakdown of the strike movement and blames it on the Bolsheviks33.
29What does this incident tell us about the State of the workers’ movement in Voronezh in early 1905 ? To answer that question, one must First détermine which of the three versions of the incident provides the most accurate description of what happened. Although the three accounts differ greatly in tone, they corroborate each other to a great extent. They diverge, however, in their descriptions of who called the police, who shot Antonov, and why the meeting broke up. The paucity of sources makes selecting the true version from the three possible accounts quite difficult. Moreover, each version is suspect because each is an exercise in both self-justification and self-delusion. The gendarme colonel wanted to show his superiors that he had the situation well in hand and that the workers of Voronezh had not succumbed to the blandishments of political undesirables. The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks wished to cast blâme on each other for the degeneration of the workers’ movement in February and to show that their political stances vis-à-vis the workers had been correct.
30Despite these problems, other evidence as well as a comparison of the three accounts indicates that the Menshevik version cornes closest to giving a believable rendering of the events surrounding the February strike. The Menshevik version seems especially attractive when compared with that of the Bolsheviks, who leave one with many unanswered questions. The Bolshevik charges against Zizikalov and Svistunov are puzzling in the light of later events. Although Stoll’ workers elected these two as their strike leaders, the Bolshevik account calls them « police stooges » and accuses them of calling the police. But their names reappeared in October and November as Stoll’ representatives in the local soviet, with Svistunov as an SR34. Voronezh workers were somewhat more politically sophisticated later in 1905 : even Stoll’ workers would not have elected representatives who had disrupted the February strike by calling the police.
31The Bolshevik account of worker reaction to their speeches is also less convincing than that of the Mensheviks because it lacks subtlety or any sense of the possible gradations of response. The author of the letter to Proletarii déclarés that fifteen of five hundred workers stormed out of the meeting because of the mere presence of members of the intelligentsia. Those remaining at the meeting, he said, listened attentively to Bolshevik speeches, or at least « no protests were heard, » which damns with faint praise. The gamut of attitudes described by the Mensheviks is more realistic, because the political intelligentsia had had only limited contact with Voronezh workers priorto 1905 ; there is no reason to suppose that most of the city’s working class would hâve suddenly accepted novel political ideas.
32Finally, if the Bolshevik account is accurate in all respects, then why did the February strike movement collapse ? If workers had listened attentively to a Bolshevik orator, only to hâve the police break up the meeting and shoot the orator, one might expect their anger to carry the struggle forward and create solidarity among them, not that the movement would immediately collapse into disunity.
33The gendarme version substantially supports the Menshevik version but suffers from a lack of detail. The main point of discrepancy concerns who shot Antonov. Colonel Tarkhov reports that some unknown person in the crowd did it, while both Mensheviks and Bolshevîks agree that the shot : came from the crowd but were fire by a policeman or police spy. Colonel Tarkhov may had had some reason to conceal the police shooting of a political activist, but the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks would hâve found the idea that a worker had shot a Social Democrat abhorrent. Two circumstances, however, make it impossible to dismiss that notion out of hand. First of ail, the Menshevik account of the riot and attacks on members of the intelligentsia after the meeting describes an atmosphere in which a particulady enraged worker might have fired at an intelligent. Moreover, Voronezh police usually showed great restraint in their use of firearms : they shot no one else during the course of 1905. Obvi0usly, all accounts of who shot Antonov rely on wishful thinking to some extent, and the question remains open. Despite this weakness, the Menshevik version cornes closest to an acceptable analysis of the incident of February 6.
34What does the incident tell us about the State of the workers’ movement in Voronezh in early 1905 ? In February the movement was still at a very primitive stage, disorganized and leaderless. Workers in each factory initially acted on their own, but agreed to meet en masse to discuss the situation of the city’s working class. When that first faltering step to unification of the local workers’ movement failed, they all quite willineg reverted to action within each factory. The largest group of workers in the city, the railroadmen, did not even take part in the meeting of February 6, and they themselves were divided into two groups, office workers and factory workers. The réluctance of the Voronezh working class to accept the leadership of any person or group or to unite behind any cause increased their disorganization. Under the circumstances, the group that made the loudest noise would carry the day, and on February 6 the most backward éléments among Voronezh workers, provoked by the inept attempts of Bolshevik activists to stir them to political action, raised the loudest hue and cry. Too many of Voronezh’s laborers were not ready for the type of struggle envisaged by the Bolsheviks, and the latter’s attempts to introduce a political element into the strike brought out the latent hostilities between intelligent and worker, resulting in the shooting of a Bolshevik orator.
35The lack of unity and leadership that provoked the incident of February 6 doomed the February strike. The entire movement abruptly ended in Voronezh by the tenth, with most factories in operation by the eighth. The failure of the workers to unité on February 6 and their obvious weakness made them subject to their employers’ cajolements and threats. For example, the South-Eastern Railroad administration promised to reduce the working day to nine hours and to consider petitions presented by workers in each section. Along with promises, the administration threatened to fire anyone not back at work by February 935. On that day, most railroad workers returned to work, having gained almost nothing. A letter to Proletarii attested to the failure of the strike. The author noted that after their return to work, the foreman Meshcherin came to workers in the railroad’s foundry, asking them to hand in their pétitions about conditions in their section. They presented six grievances to the company. A few weeks later, they asked Meshcherin about the status of their petition, and he replied that the bosses were discussing it. But nothing changed, and the company still treated workers just as it always had36.
36In summary, the Révolution of 1905 can be said to hâve had an inauspicious beginning in Voronezh. The city’s workers remained indifferent to the plight of their fellow workers in the capital after Bloody Sunday. When they finally declared a strike in February, they sought to reap the harvest of economic benefits workers elsewhere had obtained rather than to protest the slaughter of Saint-Petersburg laborers. When political activists urged them to take a political stand against the government, they refused and attacked intelligentsia orators instead. They remained disorganized and leaderless throughout and gained no lasting concessions from their employers.
37This bleak picture depicts a thoroughly backward lot ; and the attitudes and actions of the workers of Voronezh certainly lagged behind those of their fellows in large industrial centers. A more positive picture of the behavior of Voronezh workers emerges, however, when viewed in the light of their past. Never before had a strike in Voronezh been part of a nationwide movement, however tenuously. Never before had workers in all the city’s major industries gone on strike at the same time. Never before had workers from several enterprises held a large mass meeting, nor had large numbers of workers heard the ideas of radical political parties. Their rejection of such ideas at this stage cannot be surprising, but it obscures the progress they had made in mass action during February. Those local authorities who thought they could rest easy, secure in the knowledge that Voronezh workers would never succumb to the séductions of radical politics, received a rude awakening in October.
38 DISCUSSION
39 Robert BYRNES (Indiana University)
40Quel était le système de communications entre les capitales et la province, et en particulier comment les ouvriers des villes secondaires comme Voroneź étaient-ils informés des événements ?
41 Kathleen PREVO
42En ce qui concerne les communications entre Moscou, Saint-Pétersbourg et Voronež, les ouvriers de Voronej avaient en 1905 comme source principale d’information – clandestine si j’ose dire – le télégraphe des chemins de fer. La règle voulait que les employés des chemins de fer n’utilisent ce télégraphe que pour les communications de service mais, bien entendu, ils l’utilisèrent dans bien d’autres cas, et en particulier pour communiquer avec leurs camarades dans les autres gares. En 1905, le télégraphe a donc été une source d’information sur ce qui se passait dans les deux capitales. Je ne sais pas exactement ce qui en était au début de 1905, mais je serais tentée de croire que les nouvelles transmises dans ces conditions devaient être déformées par les relais successifs.
Notes de fin
1 L. Trockij, 1905,transi, by Anya Bostock, New York, 1972, p. 87.
2 Pervaja obščaja perepis’ naselenija Rossiiskoj imperii, 1897g., IX, Bk. I, SPb., Central’– nyj statistiëeskij komitet, Ministerstvo vnutrennih del, 1902, 1 . Ežegodnik Rossii, 1906, SPb., Central’nyj statistiëeskij komitet, Ministerstvo vnutrennih del, 1907, p. 34.
3 Pervaja obščaja perepis’.., , op. cit., IX, Bk. I, pp. 162-163 ; Bk. II, pp. 146-147.
4 Pamjatnaja kniïka Voroneiskoj gubemii na 1906 g., Sec. II : Statističeskij otdel, Voronež, 1906, pp. 84-86.
5 Voronežskie bol’ševiki v revoljucii 1905-1907gg., Voronež, Kommunističeskaja partija Sovetskogo Sojuza, Voronežskij oblastnoj komitet, Partijnyj arhiv, 1955, p. 12.
6 Očerkiistorii Voronežskogo maSinostroitel’nogo zavoda, Voronež, Voronežskij tehnolo-gičeskij institut imeni Lenina, 1968, p. 9.
7 Ežegodnik Rossii, 1905, SPb., Central’nyj statističeskij komitet, Ministerstvo vnutrennih del, 1966, pp. 376-384 ; G.T. Grišin, Ėkonomika Voronežskoj gubemii i ee analiz v trudah V.I. Lenina, Voronez, 1971, pp. 140-141.
8 Pervaja obilaja perepis’..., op. cit., VX., Bk. II, pp. 146-147.
9 N. Kamzolov, Voronežskaja organizacija RSDRP v revoljucii 1905 g., Voronež, 1937, pp. 73-74.
10 I.V. Saurov, Vbspominanija učastnika pervoj russkoj revoljucii, 2nd éd., M., 1974, pp. 16-17.
11 Ibid., pp. 17-18.
12 For example, see Sidney Harcave, First Blood : The Russian Révolution of 1905, New York, 1964, pp. 110-111 ; Howard D. Mehlinger and John M. Thompson, Count Witteand the Tsarist Government ih the 1905 Revolu don, Bloomington, Ind., 1972, p. 17 ; Walter Sablinsky, The Road to Bloody Sunday : Father Gapon and the St. PetersburgMassacre of 1905, Princeton, 1974, p. 274 ; A.V. Pjaskovskij, Revoljucija 1905-1907gg. v Rossii, M., 1966, p. 41. Note that none of these authors studied the February strikes in the provinces in any depth, because that was not the focus of their investigations. They logically assumed that these strikes expressed the same anger as those in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg.
13 E.G. Suljakovskij et al., eds., Revolfucionnoe dviienie v Voroneiskoj gubemii, 1905- 1907 gg. (Sbomik dokumentov i materialov), Voronež, 1955 , p. 119 ; Kamzolov, op. cit., p. 87.
14 Suljakovskij, op. cit., pp. 153-154.
15 Iskra, March 3,1905, p. 5.
16 Ibid. ; Voroneiskie bol’leviki..., op. cit., p. 59.
17 Iskra, March 3,1905, p. 5. For a list of the demands, see Suljakovskij, op. cit., pp. 110- 111 ; « Ocerki po rabočemu dvizeniju v Voroneže v 1904-1905 gg. : Po vospominanijam uèastnikov etogo dviienija, tovariščej Baranov, I.D., Bol’šakov, D.G., Butin, D.L., Gorin, F.V., i Lyzlov, M.I. », Stranički vospominanij, pt. 4 of 1905god v Voroneže (5 pts), Voronez, 1925, IV, pp. 14-15.
18 Suljakovskij, op. cit., p. 109.
19 Kamzolov, op. cit., p. 93 ; and Oüerki istorii Voronežskogo mafinostroitel’nogo zavoda, op. cit., pp. 18-19.
20 Suljako vskij, op. cit., p. 120.
21 Ibid., pp. 120-127.
22 Voroneiskie bol’teviki..., op. cit., p. 61.
23 fsfcra, March 3,1905, p. 5.
24 Ibid. SD influence was apparently strong among Ivanov workers, at least by the end of the year : ail three of the factory’s représentatives in the soviet were SDs ; see I.D. Smirnov, « Istorija pervogo soveta 1905 goda v Voroneie : Oktjabr’skaja zabastovka v Voroneze », Proletarskaja revoljucija, n° 8-9,1927,pp. 197-199.
25 Suljakovskij, op. cit., pp. 121-122.
26 Quoted in Kamzolov, op. cit., p. 97.
27 For examples of this reasoning, see Voronežskie bol’ševiki..., op. cit., p. 62 ; T.M. Sevast’janova, Pervye bol’ševistskie gazety v Voroneže, Voronež, 1959, p. 29.
28 Proletarij, June 30,1905, p. 5.
29 Ibid.
30 Iskra, March 3,1905, p. 5.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Smirnov, art. cit., pp. 197-199.
35 Iskra, March 3,1905, p. 5 ; Kamzolov, op. cit., p. 89 ; « Očerki po rabočemu dvizeniju vo Voroneže », op. cit., p. 15.
36 Proletarij, September 1,1905, p. 8.
Auteur
(Indiana University)
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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