The well-known publications of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, "Statistics of Workers' Strikes at Factories and Plants" for the decade 1895–1904 and for 1905–1908, have already been repeatedly noted by our literature. The material collected in these publications is so rich and so valuable that its complete study and all-sided elaboration will still require very much time. The elaboration done in the named publication is only the first attempt at the work, far and far from sufficient. In the present article we intend to acquaint readers with the preliminary results of one attempt at more detailed elaboration, reserving the complete exposition for another place.

It has been firmly established, first and foremost, that strikes in Russia in 1905–1907 represent a phenomenon unprecedented in the world. Here are the data on the number of strikers in thousands by years and countries:

The three-year period 1905–1907 stands out from the row. The minimum number of strikers in Russia for this three-year period exceeds the maximum ever achieved in the most capitalist countries of the world. This does not mean, of course, that Russian workers are more developed or stronger than in the West. But it does mean that mankind has not yet known what energy the industrial proletariat is capable of developing in this area. The peculiarity of the historical course of events expressed itself in the fact that the approximate scale of this capacity first revealed itself in one backward country, still experiencing a bourgeois revolution.

To understand how, in Russia, with a small number of factory and plant workers compared to Western Europe, the number of strikers could be so great, one must take into account repeated strikes. Here are the data on the number of repeated strikes by year in connection with the ratio of the number of strikers to the number of workers:

We see from this that the three-year period 1905–1907, outstanding in terms of the total number of strikers, also stands out by the frequency of repeated strikes and by the height of the percentage ratio of the number of strikers to the total number of workers.

Statistics also give us the actual number of establishments covered by strikes and workers who participated in strikes; here are these data by year:

This table, like the previous one, shows that the decline in the number of strikers from 1906 to 1907 is much weaker, in general, than the decline from 1905 to 1906. We shall see in the further exposition that in some industries and in some regions from 1906 to 1907 there is observed not a decline but a strengthening of the strike movement. For now, let us note that the provincial data on the number of workers who actually participated in strikes show the following interesting phenomenon. From 1905 to 1906 the percentage of workers who participated in strikes decreased in the vast majority of provinces with developed industry; but there is a number of provinces in which this percentage increased from 1905 to 1906. These are the least industrial, most remote, so to speak, provinces. These include, for example, the far northern provinces: Arkhangelsk (11 thousand factory and plant workers; 1905 – 0.4 percent of workers participating in strikes; 1906 – 78.6 percent), Vologda (6 thousand factory and plant workers; 26.8 percent – 40.2 percent for the same years), Olonets (1 thousand factory and plant workers; 0–2.6 percent); then the Black Sea province (1 thousand factory and plant workers; 42.4 percent – 93.5 percent); from the Volga region – Simbirsk (14 thousand factory and plant workers; 10.0 percent – 33.9 percent); from the central agricultural regions – Kursk (18 thousand factory and plant workers; 14.4 percent – 16.9 percent); from the eastern borderlands – Orenburg (3 thousand factory and plant workers; 3.4 percent – 29.4 percent).

It is clear what significance the increase in the percentage of strike participants in these provinces from 1905 to 1906 has: the wave had not yet reached them in 1905, they began to be drawn into the movement only after a year of struggle, unprecedented in the world, by the more advanced workers. With this phenomenon, very important for understanding the historical course of events, we shall meet repeatedly in the further exposition.

On the other hand, from 1906 to 1907 the percentage of strike participants increases in some very industrial provinces, for example, in St. Petersburg (68.0 percent in 1906; 85.7 percent in 1907 – almost the same as in 1905, 85.9 percent), in Vladimir (37.1 percent – 49.6 percent), Baku (32.9 percent – 85.5 percent), Kiev (10.9 percent – 11.4 percent), and in a number of others. Thus, if in the increase of the percentage of strikers in a number of provinces from 1905 to 1906 we observe the rearguard of the working class, which lagged at the moment of greatest development of the struggle, then the increase of this percentage in a number of other provinces from 1906 to 1907 shows us the vanguard in its striving to raise the struggle anew, to halt the retreat that had begun.

To make this correct conclusion more precise, here are the absolute figures of the number of workers and the number of actual participants in strikes by provinces of the first and second kind:

On average, there were 6 thousand factory and plant workers per province. The increase in the number of workers actually participating in strikes amounts to only 15 thousand.

On average, there were 30 thousand factory and plant workers per province. The increase in the number of workers who actually participated in strikes amounts to up to 100 thousand, and if we subtract the oil workers of Baku province, not counted in 1906 (probably no more than 20–30 thousand), then about 70 thousand.

The role of the rearguard in 1906 and the vanguard in 1907 stands out clearly in these data.

For a more precise judgment on these dimensions, one should take data by regions of Russia and compare the number of strikers with the number of factory and plant workers. Here is a summary of these data:

*These figures are not entirely comparable with data for previous years, inasmuch as in 1907 oil workers were included for the first time. The exaggeration is probably no more than 20–30 thousand.

Workers in different regions participated unevenly in the movement. In general, 1,660 thousand workers produced 2,863 thousand strikers, i.e., 164 strikers per hundred workers, or, in other words, somewhat more than half of the workers struck on average twice in 1905. But these averages obscure the fundamental difference between the St. Petersburg and Warsaw districts, on the one hand, and all the others, on the other. In the St. Petersburg and Warsaw districts together there is 1/3 of the total number of factory and plant workers (550 thousand out of 1,660), yet they produced 2/3 of the total number of strikers (1,920 thousand out of 2,863). In these districts each worker struck on average almost four times in 1905. In the remaining districts, 1,110 thousand workers produced 943 thousand strikers, i.e., proportionally four times fewer than in the two aforementioned districts. Already from this it is evident how false are the claims of the liberals, repeated by our liquidators, that workers overestimated their forces. On the contrary, the facts prove that they underestimated their forces, inasmuch as they failed to use them. If the energy and persistence of strike struggle (we speak here only of this one form of struggle) throughout Russia had been such as in the St. Petersburg and Warsaw districts, then the total number of strikers would have been twice as large. This conclusion can be expressed differently thus: workers were able to estimate only half their forces in this area of the movement, inasmuch as they have not yet used the other half. Speaking geographically: the west and northwest have already awakened, but the center, east, and south were half asleep. The development of capitalism with each day does something toward awakening the laggards.

The next important conclusion from the regional data consists in this: from 1905 to 1906 the decline of the movement was universal, although uneven; from 1906 to 1907, however, with a tremendous decline in the Warsaw district, with very slight decreases in the Moscow, Kiev, and Volga districts, we see an increase in the St. Petersburg and Kharkov districts. This means that given the level of consciousness and preparation of the population under study, the form of movement examined during 1905 exhausted itself; it had, inasmuch as objective contradictions of socio-political life had not disappeared, to pass into a higher form of movement. But after a one-year, so to speak, rest or period of gathering forces during 1906, a new upsurge was outlined and began in part of the country. If liberals, and following them liquidators, in assessing this period, speak contemptuously of "the expectations of romantics," then a Marxist must say that, turning away from support of this partial upsurge, the liberals were undermining the last possibility of defending democratic gains.

On the question of the territorial distribution of strikers, it should further be noted that the vast majority of them falls on six provinces with highly developed industry and with large cities in five of them. Here are these six provinces: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Livonia, Vladimir, Warsaw, and Piotrków. In these provinces there were in 1905 827 thousand factory and plant workers out of the total of 1,661 thousand, i.e., almost half the total number. Yet strikers in them for the decade 1895–1904 amounted in sum to 246 thousand out of 431 thousand, i.e., about 60 percent of the total number of strikers; in 1905 – 2,072 thousand out of 2,863 thousand, i.e., about 70 percent; in 1906 – 852 thousand out of 1,108 thousand, i.e., about 75 percent; in 1907 – 517 thousand out of 740 thousand, i.e., about 70 percent; in 1908 – 85 thousand out of 176 thousand, i.e., less than half[63].

Thus, the role of these six provinces in the three-year period 1905–1907 was higher than in the preceding and subsequent periods. It is clear, therefore, that the major urban and including capital centers developed during this three-year period much higher energy than all other localities. Workers, scattered through villages and in relatively small urban and industrial centers, constituting half the total number of workers, produced in 1895–1904 40 percent of the total number of strikers, but in 1905–1907 only 25–30 percent. Supplementing the conclusion made above, we can say that large cities have awakened, but small cities and villages were still largely asleep.

Regarding the countryside in general, i.e., factory and plant workers living in villages, there are, moreover, statistics on the number of strikes (not on the number of strikers) in cities and outside cities. Here are these data:

The compilers of the official statistics, in presenting these data, point out that, according to known investigations by Mr. Pogozhev, of the total number of factories and plants in Russia, 40 percent are located in cities and 60 percent outside cities[137]. Consequently, if in normal times (1895–1904) the number of strikes in cities exceeds that in the countryside three times, then the percentage ratio of the number of strikes to the number of establishments is 4½ times greater in cities than in the countryside. In 1905 this ratio was approximately 8:1; in 1906 – 9:1; in 1907 – 15:1; in 1908[64] – 6:1. In other words: the role of urban factory and plant workers in the strike movement was much stronger in 1905 than in previous years, compared with the role of factory and plant workers living in the countryside, and in 1906 and 1907 this role became ever greater, i.e., the proportional participation of rural workers in the movement became ever smaller. Factory and plant workers living in the countryside, the least prepared for struggle by the decade of 1895–1904, showed the least stability, most quickly passing into retreat after 1905. The vanguard, i.e., urban factory and plant workers, in 1906 made special efforts, and in 1907 even greater efforts than in 1906, to halt this retreat.

Let us further examine the distribution of strikers by industries. For this purpose we shall distinguish four main groups of industries: A) metalworkers; B) textile workers; C) printers, woodworkers, leather workers, and workers in chemical production; D) workers in the processing of mineral substances and in the production of food products. Here are the data by year[138]:

Metalworkers were best prepared by the decade before 1905. During this decade almost half of them struck (117 out of 252). Being best prepared, they stand in front of all in 1905 as well. The number of strikers among them is more than three times the number of workers (811 against 252). The role of this vanguard emerges even more strikingly in the analysis of monthly data for 1905 (detailed examination of these data is impossible in a brief article, and we reserve it for another place). Of all the months of 1905, the maximum number of metalworker strikers falls not in October, as in all other groups of industries, but in January. The vanguard began the movement with maximum energy, "rocking" the rest of the mass. For the month of January 1905 alone, 155 thousand metalworkers struck, i.e., two-thirds of all metalworkers (252 thousand); in one month the number of strikers was considerably more than in the ten years before this (155 against 117). But this, almost superhuman, energy exhausted the forces of the vanguard by the end of 1905: the metalworkers stand in first place by the scale of the decline of the movement in 1906. The decrease in the number of strikers among them is maximal: from 811 to 213, i.e., almost fourfold. By 1907 the vanguard gathers its forces again: the number of strikers decreases very slightly in general (from 213 to 193), and in three main industries of the metalworking group, namely machine-building, shipbuilding, and iron-casting, the number of strikers increases from 104 thousand in 1906 to 125 thousand in 1907.

Textile workers constitute the main mass of Russian factory and plant workers, somewhat less than 1/2 of the total (708 out of 1,691). By their preparation in the 10 years before 1905, they stand in second place: 1/3 of the total struck (237 out of 708). By the force of the movement in 1905, also in second place: about 180 strikers per 100 workers. They are drawn into the struggle later than the metalworkers: in January they had only slightly more strikers than the metalworkers (164 thousand against 155), in October more than twice as many (256 thousand against 117). Drawn into the movement later, this main mass of all holds out more steadily in 1906: the decline this year is universal, but among textile workers it is smallest; their decrease is twofold (640 against 1,296), among metalworkers almost fourfold (213 and 811), among the rest 2½–3½ times. Only by 1907 do the forces of this main mass also prove exhausted: from 1906 to 1907 the decline is greatest precisely in this group, more than twofold (302 against 640).

Without dwelling on detailed analysis of data for the remaining industries, let us note only that lagging behind all is category D, the least prepared and least participating in the movement. If we take metalworkers as the norm, we can say that category D "remained in debt" for more than a million strikers in 1905 alone.

The relationship between metalworkers and textile workers is characteristic as the relationship of the advanced layer to the broad mass. In the absence in 1895–1904 of free organizations, free press, parliamentary tribune, etc., the masses could not rally in 1905 except spontaneously, in the course of the struggle itself. The mechanism of this rally consisted in waves of strikers rising one after another, and in order to "rock" the broad mass, the vanguard had to expend such enormous energy at the beginning of the movement that it turned out to be relatively weakened by the time of the apogee of the movement. In January 1905 there were 444 thousand strikers, of which metalworkers numbered 155 thousand, i.e., 34 percent, and in October the total number of strikers was 519 thousand, of which metalworkers – 117 thousand, i.e., 22 percent. It is understandable that such unevenness of the movement amounts to a certain wastage of forces owing to their fragmentation, their insufficient concentration. This means, first, that the effect could be increased by better concentration of forces, and second, that according to the objective conditions of the epoch under study, at the beginning of each wave there was inevitable, and for achieving success necessary, a series of tentative actions, so to speak, reconnaissance, trial movements, etc. Therefore, when liberals, and following them liquidators such as Martov, from the standpoint of their theory about the "proletariat's overestimation of its forces," accuse us of "trailing behind the spontaneous class struggle," these gentlemen pass sentence on themselves and present us, against their will, with the greatest compliment.

To conclude the review of annual data on strikes, let us pause on the figures characterizing the scale and duration of strikes and the magnitude of losses from strikes.

The average number of participants per strike was:

The decrease in strike size (by number of participants) in 1905 is explained by the involvement in the struggle of a mass of small establishments, which lowered the average number of participants. Further decrease in 1906 apparently reflects a lowering of the energy of struggle. 1907 gives a certain step forward here as well.

If we take the average number of participants in purely political strikes, we obtain the following figures by year: 1905 – 180; 1906 – 174; 1907 – 203; 1908 – 197. These figures even more clearly indicate the lowering of the energy of struggle in 1906 and a new increase in 1907, or (and perhaps at the same time) the predominant participation in the movement of 1907 by the largest establishments.

The number of strike days per striking worker was:

The persistence of struggle, characterized by these figures, was highest in 1905, – then it fell rapidly until 1907 and increased only in 1908. It should be noted that by persistence of struggle, Western European strikes stand incomparably higher. The number of strike days per striking worker amounted for the five-year period 1894–1898 to 10.3 for Italy, 12.1 for Austria, 14.3 for France, and 34.2 for England.

If we single out purely political strikes, we obtain the following figures: 1905 – 7.0 days per striker; 1906 – 1.5; 1907 – 1.0 day. Strikes for economic reasons are always distinguished by longer duration of struggle.

Taking into account the differing persistence of strike struggle for different years, we obtain the conclusion that data on the number of strikers do not yet sufficiently determine the comparative scales of the movement for different years. The precise determinant is the number of strike man-days, which amounted by year to:

Thus, the precisely determined scale of the movement for 1905 alone is 11 times greater than the movement for all 10 years before it in sum. In other words: the scale of the movement for 1905 exceeds 115 times the average annual scale of movement for the preceding decade.

This relationship shows us how short-sighted are the people, too frequently encountered among official scholars (and not among them alone), who accept the tempo of socio-political development observed in so-called "peaceful," "organic," "evolutionary" epochs as the norm for all cases, as an indicator of the possible speed of development for contemporary mankind. In reality, the tempo of "development" in so-called "organic" epochs is an indicator of maximum stagnation, maximum impediments to development.

According to data on the number of strike man-days, the compiler of official statistics determines the losses incurred by industry. These losses (deficit of product) amounted over 10 years, 1895–1904, in sum to 10.4 million rubles, for 1905 – 127.3 million, for 1906 – 31.2 million, for 1907 – 15.0 million, and for 1908 – 5.8 million rubles. For three years, 1905–1907, the product deficit thus amounted to 173.5 million rubles.

Workers' losses from loss of wages for strike days (determined according to the size of average daily wages in different industries) amounted for the years under consideration in thousands of rubles:

*See this volume, p. 387. Editor.

For three years, 1905–1907, workers' losses amounted to 23.2 million rubles, i.e., more than 14 times greater than for all ten years before them, taken together[65]. The compiler of official statistics calculates that these losses amounted on average per worker employed in factory and plant industry (not per striker) about 10 kopecks per year for the first decade, about 10 rubles in 1905, about 2 rubles in 1906, about 1 ruble in 1907. But this calculation leaves aside the enormous differences in the given relationship among workers of different industries. Here is a more detailed calculation made on the basis of the figures of the table just presented:

From this it is evident that for each metalworker (group A) the size of losses from strikes in 1905 amounted to almost 30 rubles, three times the average, more than ten times greater than the average size of losses for a worker in the processing of mineral substances and food products (group D). The conclusion we made above, that metalworkers exhausted their forces in the given form of movement by the end of 1905, is still more strikingly confirmed by this table: in group A the size of losses decreased from 1905 to 1906 by more than 8 times, in the remaining groups by 3–4 times.

Concluding with this the analysis of annual data in the statistics of strikes, we shall pass in the next article to the study of monthly data.