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May Day in Late Imperial Russia: Workers' Voices, 1891-1914
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May Day in Late Imperial Russia: Workers' Voices, 1891-1914 Alice K. Pate In 1890, workers in major cities across Europe organized the first May Day demonstrations to celebrate the unity of international labor against the capitalist order. In London, on May 4, 1890, 250-300,000 workers and their families rallied in Hyde Park1 By the next year, protesters paraded down major thoroughfares in the capitals. As for Russia, St. Petersburg workers later recalled a demonstration as early as 1891, although the secret police documented mass activity only in 18922 In later years, drawing on traditions developed since the French Revolution, Russian workers celebrated May Day by waving red flags, singing protest songs, and repeating slogans that celebrated their solidarity with the international movement. Couched in socialist discourse , their voices reminded participants of past successes in the European labor movement. A symbol of the potential "bright new future" offered by the modernizing world, May Day in late imperial Russia became a celebration of hope, promise, protest, and popular empowerment. Russian May Day demonstrations were hardly spontaneous events. At the end of April each year, socialist and anarchist parties, non-socialist activists , and workers' associations printed and distributed agitationalleaflets that called for united action in the streets of most major cities. May Day leaflets, issued in numbers ranging from 3,000-10,000, appeared in virtually every Russian province, city, and district. In large cities, many organizations issued leaflets. The large numbers and widespread distribution of these documents guaranteed that many people throughout the empire viewed them. Although some local leaflets simply reprinted language from the centers, others focused on local issues. Within a scripted narrative that reflected local and national concerns and issues, Russian working men and women by joining May Day 1 Chris Wrigley, "Widening Horizons? British Labour and the Second International 1893-1905," Labollr History Review 58: 1 (1993): 8-13. 2 Tsentral'nyi arkhiv revoliutsii, Perooe maia v tsarskoi Rossii, 1890- 1916: Sbomik dokumentov (Moscow: Gos. izd-vo politicheskoi literatury, 1939). Sotsial-Demokrat published the speeches of four workers at the Petersburg meeting in Pervoe maia 1891 goda (Geneva, 1892), cover reprinted in The M emory of May Day: An Iconographic History of the Origins and Implanting of a Workers' Holiday, ed. Andrea Panaccione (Venice: Marsilio , 1989), 509-10. The Making of Russian History: Society, Culture, and the Politics of Modern Russia. Essa ys in Honor of Allan K. Wildman. John W. Steinberg and Rex A. Wade, eds. Bloomington, IN: Siavica Publishers, 2009, 75- 90. 76 ALICE K. PATE fit their grievances into a larger international labor movement. These leaflets, through regularized and systematic dissemination of encoded terms in a historical context, represented the formation of a master narrative for workers in Russian society3 Workers participating in May Day protests accepted the narrative of the struggle between capitalists and workers described in the leaflets . The authors, whether or not they were themselves workers, described laborers ' experiences often in an historical and international context and the challenges they would have to overcome in order to win basic rights of citizenship in a democratic society. Readers identified exploitation and rights, slavery and freedom, democracy and autocracy as terms with meaning in their lives. Regardless of party affiliation or non-affiliation, a particular set of general characteristics and features came to predominate in the leaflets. Although many of these elements might change relative to major events, such as the Russo-Japanese or First World wars, a central core of conventions emerged in most May Day leaflets from 1891 to 1917. Examination of a sample of over 300 leaflets published throughout the empire by a variety of groups and parties will offer an interpretative analysis of this master narrative.4 Historians of the Russian labor movement have examined party ideologies and the activities of party leaders and rank and file members with only scant attention to the agitational literature produced by revolutionary activists . Ideological conflicts fought in conferences and congresses tell us little about the revolutionary culture of Russia. Party emigres conducted debates without the advantage of real experience with rank and file workers. Party activists in Russia, interacting with workers on a daily basis, better represented the voices of Russian workers. They comprehended their experiences and in many cases encouraged worker participation in developing agitationalliterature , leaflets, and worker newspapers. An examination of Russian May Day leaflets, their format, discourse, and demands provides evidence for a new interpretation of the Russian labor movement during the revolu tionary era. Regardless of...