Labor and Society in Tsarist Russia: The Factory Workers of St. Petersburg, 1855–1870 by Reginald E. Zelnik (review)

REVIEWS 105 ographers attemptto reconstruct the pastlandscapes and answerthe question why:whywasthelandscape what it wasandwhy did it change thewayit did. In the process theydo, of course, cross pathswith historians time and again. Gibson's volumeis indeeda classic exampleof how helpful to the historiana goodstudyin historical geography can be. On the one hand, he paintswith broadstrokes themapof the Russian Far East,andof the movements across it, astheylookedin the eighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries. On the other hand, he fills in innumerabledetails- what the Cossacks ate, or did not eat, andwhy; howmanyhorsecorpses wereleft behindin the course of eachoverland haul to Okhotskand what thismeant to the Yakuts; what were the economics of feedingteamsof sleddogsin the absence of bisonmeatin Siberia; whatit wasto saila boatfromthe Okhotskharbour(hardlya harbourat all) with a crew of 'sailors' who had never seen a sea in their lives - and it is these details,sosparse in mostbookson Russianhistory,which help to transform Gibson's map of the RussianFar East into a vivid and living contemporary pictureof the area. To all thoseinterestedin the historyof Siberia,Gibson's bookwill be an indispensable companion volumeto Fran5ois-XavierCoquin's massive studyLa Sibdrie:Peuplementet immigrationau xIxe sidcle(Paris x969). LADIS K.D. KRISTOF PortlandState University LaborandSociety in TsaristRussia:The FactoryWorkerso[ St. Petersburg, •855-•87o.mmtN•D2. Z•LNm.Stanford, Stanford University Press, x97t.Pp. x, 450. $•5.øø. Reginald Zelnik's bookexemplifies animportantnewemphasis in writingabout the historyof Russia. Restrained andjudicious, thisfirstof two volumes charts in sober detailgrowing publicawareness of the labourquestion in the early yearsof Alexanderit'sreignasa phenomenon not unlikethat of otherindustrializingnations . All toomanyWestern historians of Russia have,in contrast, portrayed movemerits andinstitutions undertheTsarsasbelated andbizarreexaggerations of our historical experience. Suchan approach tendsto typifyRussian peasants as rampantlyrebellious or abjectlyresigned, Russianliberalsas unconscionablyweakorimpractically heroic, andRussian revolutionaries aspathologically nihilisticor childishly idealistic. A majorsurprise in Zelnik's book, then,isthesimilarity between theearly Russian experience of industrialization andtheWestern one.Moreover, asZelnik pointsout, although Russians of almostall persuasions had beenconfident that their societywould better accommodate industrialization than had the West,theysoon recognized thatwhattheyregarded astheWestern patternhad emerged: theproletaxianization andpauperization of theRussian peasant recruit in the new factory. Initialoptimism hadrested onthebelief thatlinks withthecommune coupled withtherestraints ofa patriarchal society wouldameliorate thepeasants' move 106 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW fromthevillageto thefactory.Bythe ,86os,however, officials, publicists, and evenindustrialists had begunto recognize that the factoryworkerin Russia wasnomoreimmunetopoverty, disease, hopelessness, and- finally- discontent than had beenhisWesterncounterpart. Zelnik makesclearthat the government's own commissions, especially those of the •857-64 period,playedan importantrolein focusing on the problems of the industrialworkersand suggesting meansto improvetheir workingand living conditions. The Shtakel'berg Commission (•864) , for example,urged contracts between workers andmanagement, abolition of therigidguildsystem, a factoryinspectorate, courts for adjudicating alleged violations of theindustrial code,andvoluntaryassociations to enableworkers to improvetheir ownlives. Zelnik'sexplanation of why suchconstructive suggestions wereneverimplementedis the leastsatisfactory section of the book.Relyingalmostexclusively onimperial police documents (heexplains thatthese andthereports of doctors weretheonlyprimarysources for hisstudyof thelabouring population in the •86os),Zelnikargues that fear of revolutionary discontent caused officials to favourpolicecontrols rather than socialwelfareprogrammes. A measure of skepticism forsoone-dimensional a cause seems justified, however, at leastuntil suchtimeaswe knowmoreaboutthe decision-making process of the imperial government. To hiscredit,Zelnikchallenges manyof the stockcontentions of Soviethistoriansof the nineteenth-century labourquestion. He shows that economists andpublicists likeF.G. TernerandI.V. Vernadskii arejustlyclassed asliberals and werenot apologists for the largeindustrialists; he makesclearthat the emancipation of theserfs couldnothavebeendesigned to createa labourpool of peasants for growing industry inasmuch asthepeasants wereboundto the commune andtheemancipation occurred duringa periodof economic stagnation ; and, by documenting the disorganization of the St Petersburg working class, he discredits the term 'revolutionary situation'appliedby the Soviets to thisperiod. Zelnik'ssecond volume,whichwill take up the process of cross fertilization between theradicalintelligentsia andtheurbanfactoryworkers, will beawaited with greatinterest. Readers will rightlyexpectthe samehigh standards of scholarship andargument to illuminate a morecrucialandcomplex periodin thepre-revolutionary history of theindustrial workerin St Petersburg. CHARLES A. RUUD University of Western Ontario From Anarchismto Reformism:A Study of the PoliticalActivitiesof Paul Brousse withintheFirstInternational andtheFrenchSocialist Movement •87o9o . DAVID STAVVORD. Toronto,Universityof TorontoPress, •97•. Pp. xiv, 367. $,5.00. DavidStafford haswrittenanimportant butlimitedaccount ofoneof theearly figures in thehistory of nineteenth-century anarchism andof French socialism. He hasjustified hisbookon PaulBrousse on thegrounds that anarchism and ...