Pravda Nos. 123, 126 127 and 131 |
Published according to |
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968
First printing 1963
Second printing 1968
Translated from the Russian by George Hanna
Edited by Robert Daglish
FACTORY OWNERS ON WORKERS' STRIKES . . .
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P. P. Ryabushinsky's press in Moscow has published an interesting book entitled The Association of Factory Owners in the Moscow Industrial Area in 1912 (Moscow, 1913). The price is not given. The factory owners do not wish their publications to be put on sale.
Yuli Petrovich Guzhon, the president of the association, when opening this year's annual meeting on March 30, congratulated the industrialists "on the beginning of the seventh operative year" of their organisation and declared that the industrialists had "by their unity created for themselves a conception of the might of the industrial corporation that could not be ignored". "The present main task of new members of the association must be the strengthening of the prestige of that might," said Mr. Guzhon.
As you see, the speech was not what one might call literate, it was reminiscent of the speech of some army clerk; nevertheless it was full of arrogance.
Let us look at the sections of the book dealing with facts. More than one-third of it (pp. 19-69) is taken up by the section devoted to strikes. The industrialists give us the following picture of the total number of workers taking part in strikes in 1912.
Category of strike Number of striking 1912 1911
Economic . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
207,720
96,730 Totals . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . 1,062,720 105,110
The number of workers who took part in strikes in 1912 was more than a half of the total number of industrial workers in Russia, to be exact, 51.7 per cent. Economic strikes, furthermore, accounted for only one-tenth of the workers (10.1 per cent) and political strikes for more than four-tenths (41.6 per cent).
"Typical of the past year," write the factory owners, "was the extraordinary growth in the number of political strikes that time and again interrupted the normal course of work and kept the entire industry in a state of tension." This is followed by a list of the most important strikes in the second half of the year -- August, in Riga, against the disenfranchisement of workers; September, in Warsaw, over the events at the Kutomary Penal Colony; October, in St. Petersburg, over the annulment of the elections of representatives, in Revel, in memory of the events of 1905, and in St. Petersburg, over the well-known verdict in the case of naval ratings; November, in St. Petersburg, over the Sevastopol verdict and on the day of the opening of the Duma, and then a strike on the occasion of the second anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's death; December, in St. Petersburg, over the appointment of workers in insurance institutions. From this the factory owners draw the conclusion:
"The frequency of the demonstration strikes, which occur one after another, and the unusual variety and difference in the importance of the motives for which the workers considered it necessary to interrupt work, are evidence, not only of a considerable thickening of the political atmosphere, but also of the decline of factory discipline." Then follow the usual threats of "severe measures" -- fines, stopping of bonuses, lock-outs. "The interests of the country's production," declare the factory owners, "urgently demand the raising of factory discipline to the high level at which it stands in the West European countries."
The factory owners wish to raise "discipline" to the "Western" level but do not think of raising the "political atmosphere" to the same level. . . .
We shall leave for subsequent articles the data concerning strike distribution over various areas, and its various branches of industry and according to the degree of success achieved .
I
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workers
Metal goods industry . . . .
. . . . . .
Textiles " " .
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Other branches . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
Political . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
Over Lena events . . . . .
. . . . . . .
May Day celebrations. . . .
. . . . . . .
Autumn political strikes . .
. . . . . . .
64,200
90,930
52,590
855,000
215,000
300,000
340,000
17,920
51,670
27,140
8,380
It is easy to see that the industrialists' figures are an understatement. But for the time being we shall not deal with that (the Lena strike of 6,000 workers has been omitted because the Lena Goldfields do not come under the Factory Inspectorate), but we shall examine the factory owners' statistics.
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