Workers and Intelligentsia in Late Imperial Russia: Realities, Representations, Reflections

Workers and Intelligentsia in Late Imperial Russia: Realities, Representations, Reflections Edited by Reginald E. Zelnik Description: The collapse of the Soviet Union opened previously unimagined possibilities for insight into Russian social, intellectual, and political history. This volume, a collaboration of American, Russian, and West European scholars, illuminates the creation and complex dynamics of the Russian industrial working class from its peasant origins in the mid-nineteenth century to the collapse of the imperial system in 1917. The authors focus on the shifting attitudes, cultural norms, self-representations, and increasing self-consciousness of workers as they interacted with the new social movements, student groups, the Church, and most dramatically, the political (mainly radical and liberal) intelligentsia. But the authors also examine the obverse: the contending representations of workers by the intelligentsia as they interacted with each other ever more intensely during this turbulent period leading up to the Russian Revolution. The result is a fascinating and detailed account of social and cultural transformation in a key period of Russian — and world — history. RESEARCH SERIES / NUMBER 101 WORKERS AND INTELLIGENTSIA IN LATE IMPERIAL RUSSIA: REALITIES, REPRESENTATIONS, REFLECTIONS REGINALD E. ZELNIK, EDITOR UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY Three of the essays in this book have been published in somewhat different forms as journal articles. The essay by S. A. Smith first appeared (as part of a larger study of St. Petersburg and Shanghai) in International Review of Social History 41 (1996). The essay by William G. Rosenberg first appeared in Slavic Review 55 (1997). The essay by E. Anthony Swift first appeared in Russian History/Histoire Russe 23 (1996). I am grateful to the publishers of each of these journals for permission to use a version of each essay here. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Workers and intelligentsia in late Imperial Russia : realities, representations, reflections / Reginald E. Zelnik, Editor. p. cm. — (Research Series ; 101) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-87725-001-4 1. Working class—Russia—History. 2. Labor movement—Russia— History. 3. Intellectuals—Russia—History. 4. Populism—Russia— History. 5. Russia—Social conditions—1801–1917. 6. Russia—Intel- lectual life—1801–1917. I. Zelnik, Reginald E. II. Series: Research series (University of California, Berkeley. International and Area Studies) ; no. 101. HD8526.W59 1998 305.5’62’0947—dc21 98-51074 CIP ©1998 by The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America Dedicated to the memory of Allan K. Wildman, who taught us all so much about workers and intelligentsia CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Frequently Used Abbreviations and Russian Terms xi Introduction Reginald E. Zelnik 1 Workers and Intelligentsia in the 1870s: The Politics of Sociability Reginald E. Zelnik 16 Narodnaia Volia and the Worker Deborah L. Pearl 55 The Mentality of the Workers of Russia at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Iurii I. Kir’ianov 76 Petersburg Workers and the Intelligentsia on the Eve of the Revolution of 1905–7: The Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers of the City of St. Petersburg Sergei I. Potolov 102 The Petersburg Workers’ Organization and the Politics of “Economism,” 1900–1903 Gerald D. Surh 116 Russian Workers’ Political and Social Identities: The Role of Social Representations in the Interaction between Members of the Labor Movement and the Social Democratic Intelligentsia Leopold H. Haimson 145 vii viii Contents The Relationship between the Intelligentsia and Workers: 172 The Case of the Party Schools in Capri and Bologna Jutta Scherrer Workers, the Intelligentsia, and Social Democracy in St. Petersburg, 1895–1917 S. A. Smith 186 The Socialist Revolutionary Party of Russia and the Workers, 1900–1914 Manfred Hildermeier 206 Representing Workers and the Liberal Narrative of Modernity William G. Rosenberg 228 Workers’ Theater and “Proletarian Culture” in Prerevolutionary Russia, 1905–17 E. Anthony Swift 260 When the Word Was the Deed: Workers vs. Employers before the Justices of the Peace Joan Neuberger 292 The Injured and Insurgent Self: The Moral Imagination of Russia’s Lower-Class Writers Mark Steinberg 309 Patriots or Proletarians? Russian Workers and the First World War Hubertus F. Jahn 330 Notes on Contributors 349 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the many friends and colleagues who helped bring this volume to fruition. It should go without saying that I am particularly grateful to the authors of the various papers presented here. No less important to the success of the conference on which this book is based, however, were the presenters of the many fine papers we were unable to include and the hard-working and perceptive commentators, all of whom are mentioned by name in the Introduction. That conference, in turn, received its principal support from IREX (the International Research and Exchanges Commission), as well as indispensable backing from the University of California at Berkeley (the Center for Slavic and East European Studies and De- partment of History), Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, and the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris). In 1997, the conference proceedings, splendidly edited by Sergei Potolov and his edi- torial board (listed by name in note 2 of my Introduction), were published in Russian by BLITZ (or “BLITs,” the Russian-Baltic Infor- mation Center); the existence of that volume significantly facilitated my task in preparing the present volume for publication. In this connection, I offer my special thanks to BLITZ’s U.S. representative, W. Edward Newt. I am very grateful to the University of California’s International and Area Studies for encouraging this project. More specifically, I wish to thank David Szanton, IAS’s Executive Director, who re- sponded enthusiastically to the idea from the very outset; Senior Editor Bojana Ristich, whose careful, critical reading of the text and high-level professionalism saved me from countless errors; and Stephen Pitcher and Lisa Bryant for their very sound advice on several important matters. My thanks as well to those who assisted so ably with the translations of the Russian and German texts. D’Ann Penner worked very hard and very well on the translations from Russian of the articles by Iurii Kir’ianov, Serge Potolov, and Leopold Haimson and was ably assisted (with the Haimson article) by Lisa Walker; Victoria Frede ix x Acknowledgments prepared a fine translation from the German of the article by Jutta Scherrer. In all cases, however, responsibility for any shortcomings in the final versions of the translations is my own. Finally, I wish to thank Daniel Orlovsky, Alexander and Dorothy Vucinich, and Elaine Zelnik for their sound advice, moral support, and admirable pa- tience throughout my preparation of this volume. FREQUENTLY USED ABBREVIATIONS AND RUSSIAN TERMS DP Departament Politsii (Department of Police [of the MVD]). GARF Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State Ar- chive of the Russian Federation)—in Moscow. Intelligent A member of the intelligentsia (plural: intelligenty). IRTO Imperatorskoe Russkoe Tekhnicheskoe Obshchestvo (Im- perial Russian Technical Society). Kruzhok A circle of ideologically related intelligenty and/or workers (plural: kruzhki). MVD Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (Ministry of Internal Af- fairs). Narod The people, the folk. PSR Partiia Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov (Socialist Revolu- tionary Party). See also “SR.” PSS Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii (Complete Collected Works). RGIA Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv (Russian State Historical Archive)—in St. Petersburg. RGALI Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Literatury i Iskus- stva—in Moscow. RSDRP Rossiiskaia Sotsial-Demokraticheskaia Rabochaia Partiia (Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party). See also “SD.” SD Sotsial Demokrat (Social Democrat), sometimes hyphenated, especially when used as an adjective. SR Sotsialist Revoliutsioner (Socialist Revolutionary), sometimes hyphenated, especially when used as an adjective. Other abbreviations used in archival citations: f. = fond; op. = opis’; d. = delo; dd. = dela; d-vo = deloproizvodstvo; l. = list; ll. = listy; t. = tom; ch. = chast’; OO = Osobyi Otdel; ob. = oborot. xi INTRODUCTION Reginald E. Zelnik This volume is composed of a selection of papers presented at the International Colloquium on Workers and the Intelligentsia in Russia in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. The conference, which was organized by the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Russian History in coop- eration with several other institutions, including the University of California at Berkeley, was held in St. Petersburg, Russia, from 12 to 16 June 1995.1 The basic assumption of the organizers was that the history of the Russian working class, far from disappearing from the radar screen as a result of the collapse of the regime that claimed to represent it, was still a very vital topic, open to creative new ap- proaches and enrichment, thanks in part to the contacts and exchanges between Western and Russian scholars that had become so much easier to pursue. Now that a self-described but largely mythi- cal “workers’ state” no longer existed, a full-scale, open-ended effort to study real workers could finally take place, and it did. The conference, I believe, proved its organizers right. Fresh and creative

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