The Lena Goldfields Massacre and the Crisis of the Late Tsarist State

Chapter 2. Modern Lena Gold Mining, Lenzoto, and the Workers, 1861–1912

Chapter 2 Modern Lena Gold Mining, Lenzoto, and the Workers, 1861–1912 T he history of Lena (Olekminsk) gold mining during the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century constitutes the long-term context of the  Lena strike and massacre. This was an era of rapid transformation in the global and Russian economy. As a striking example, regional gold mining evolved into a monopoly of one industrial giant. Beginning during the s, imperial labor legislation underwent extraordinary alterations , including the introduction of a factory inspectorate, restrictions on work hours, and limitations on women’s and children’s labor. Overall these legislative reforms lay surprisingly lightly on the lives and work of Lena gold miners. The following account bears upon life and economic modernization in Siberia. It also sheds a piercing light on the interactions between the Russian state, Russian legislation, entrepreneurs , and, of course, workers. lena gold mining, laws, and labor after the emancipation, 1861–1900 Beginning in the early s, gold mining in the Olekma-Vitim systems underwent significant alterations precisely when serf emancipation wrought changes for labor. Symbolic of these alterations was the founding in  of a new type of enterprise in the region, the Lena Shares Company (Lenskoe Paevoe Tovarishchestvo), the parent company of Lenzoto, against which workers struck during . The exhaustion by the late s of the easily found and exploited surface gold along the Olekma River created the need for new endeavors. The early merchant investors had reaped rich rewards, but to continue doing so would require heavy new financial outlays. Older merchant firms such as the Trapeznikov and Sibiriakov concerns, as well as the new Lena Shares Company, offered shares or became joint stock companies. Their goal was to raise the capital needed to exploit the more expensive , but much more profitable, veins of gold just beneath the surface of the various Lena river systems. The new capital-intensive gold mining made its debut in the Olekma river system, primarily on the Nygra River, where the Lena Shares Company began operations during the early s, and very shortly thereafter expanded to the Vitim River. The  discovery of deep, extraordinarily rich veins of gold on the Nagatami River, an upper branch of the Bodaibo River in the Vitim system, spurred a gradual but permanent transfer of new capital from the Olekma to the Vitim. This occurred while the Olekma River holdings were still being exploited. With mines along both river systems in fullproduction,theannualgoldyieldreachedunheardofquantitiesfor Siberia, although gold discoveries in other parts of the world reduced Russia’s share of global production. Steamship lines, with networks of stations,wentintooperationalongthecrucialrivercoursesand,where possible, new roads connected mining sites.1 Enormous distances were involved in transporting people, supplies, and equipment in one direction and the same people, gold, and other valuables in the other. Even so,regularizedtransportsignificantlyloweredthecostofsupplyingthe gold-mining region. During the s and s, the richest mines yielded astounding quantities of gold-bearing sand and, after processing , gold. Investors quickly recouped their investments. The last of the old-fashioned Irkutsk merchants, having made fortunes beyond their imagining, left the business, leaving gold mining entirely in the hands of the new shares companies. Many companies avoided costly new explorations in favor of exploiting existing sites to the end of their profitability . The process of capital concentration continued and by the s large investment-oriented companies, such as the Pribrezhno-Vitimsk Company, the Bodaibo Company, and the Industrial Company (Kompaniia Promyshlennosti), supplanted most of the partnerships and joint stock companies. This represented the third generation of the Lena gold-mining industry in its transformation from individually owned firms, to partnerships and small shares companies, and finally into the realm of big investment capital. In size and income, the newest firms also left in their wake Lenzoto’s parent company, the Lena Shares Company , which had inopportunely settled on the Olekma River just as the Vitim system began its surge to predominance.2 By the s an entrepreneurial equilibrium had been reached, which led to a distinct stagnation in the Lena gold industry. Modern Lena Gold Mining  Tsarist mining legislation mirrored these changes. The  mining codes, the first after emancipation, largely reflected the  laws, plus subsequent alterations. New statutes of the  codes aimed at strengthening oversight of an already highly controlled industry. One article created “special mining police (gornye ispravniki) . . . to preserve social order and safety” at important mining sites, an expansion over the existing...