Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories, 1917–1918

Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies

by S.A. Smith

This book explores the impact of the 1917 Revolution on factory life in the Russian capital. It traces the attempts of workers to take control of their working lives from the February Revolution through to June 1918, when the Bolsheviks nationalised industry. Although not primarily concerned with the political developments of the Revolution, the book demonstrates that the sphere of industrial production was a crucial arena of political as well as economic conflict. Having discussed the structure and composition of the factory workforce in Petrograd prior to 1917 and the wages and conditions of workers under the old regime, Dr Smith shows how workers saw the overthrow of the autocracy as a signal to democratise factory life and to improve their lot. After examining the creation and activities of the factory committees, he analyses the relationship of different groups of workers to the new labour movement, and assesses the extent to which it functioned democratically.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Russian Revolution, Soviet Union, Soviet History

367 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 1983

About the author

Steve (S. A.) Smith is a Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and a Professor in the History Faculty of Oxford University. He was formerly Professor of Comparative History at the European University Institute, Florence, and Professor of History at the University of Essex. He is a historian of modern Russia and China, who works on the interface of social and political history and, more recently, of comparative Communism. He has published books on Russian history – including the prize-winning Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis (Oxford, 2017) – and two books on Chinese history, plus Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History (Cambridge, 2008). He edited the Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism (Oxford, 2014) and was a co-editor of the Cambridge History of Communism (Cambridge, 2017). He is currently working on a comparative study of the efforts of the Soviet state in the 1920s and 1930s and the Chinese state in the 1950s and 1960s to eliminate popular religion. He is a former editor of Past and Present and a Vice-President of the Past and Present Society. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Red Petrograd Steve Smith examines the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 by stepping outside of high politics and focusing on the experiences of the working class in the book’s eponymous city. Arguing that the factories were an important realm in which the ambiguities of the new socialist rule were negotiated, Smith chronicles the workers’ attempts to run production by means of factory committees, which were intended to provide direct control of operations. In this aim they came into conflict with traditional managerial forms, as well as trade unions of skilled workers, who believed that a certain level of expert oversight was required for the smooth functioning of industry. The author argues that, rather than following an unambiguous directive from above, the factory employees were required to discern the true “meaning” of the revolution themselves, and discrepancies in interpretation arose as they attempted to reorganize the system to conform to a new political reality.

Smith’s work is based heavily on statistical analysis and his first two chapters outline the conditions and nature of the factory shortly before the February Revolution. Even prior to the deposition of the Tsar, the workers were politically aware, but their activism grew as the year progressed, usually with little or no direction from political factions. In the turmoil of the civil war, the authorities had neither the time nor the interest in micromanaging the factories, and left the employees to organize themselves. As mentioned above, this split the working class into two major factions: the skilled men who were organized around trade unions and believed in centralized authority and the “new” and unskilled laborers who, consisting primarily of women, children, and recent rural immigrants, favored a system of direct control through factory committees. This latter group was more politically militant, prone to aggressive and sometimes violent tactics when seeking to have their demands met, and generally possessed a larger spectrum of grievances. The Bolsheviks’ initial support of the workers’ control movement was acknowledged by these unskilled groups, who appropriated it to organize quickly and acquire early victories in their struggle to win wage increases and new rights from management.

By 1918, however, several factors, most of which related to the collapse of the economy during the war, had permitted the trade unions to gain the upper hand. As inflation skyrocketed, the factory committees grew even more vociferous in their quest to extract concessions from their employers. The harsh conditions left many managers unable to meet worker demands and remain profitable, and thus they opted (or at least threatened) to shut down their factories. This was unacceptable to the Bolsheviks who, now in power and fighting to stay there, were reliant on the operation of the factories to both supply the war effort and restore the economy. They quickly coopted and bureaucratized the trade unions, which had begun as genuinely independent grassroots movements, and made agreements with the management that ensured the future of the factories. This brought greater conflict between the trade unions and the workers’ committees, the latter of whom were later absorbed forcibly into the former.

Although Smith’s work was groundbreaking for the time, and remains important today, non-specialists may find this book somewhat of a difficult read, due to the rarity of signposting and recapitulation (although the conclusion is an excellent summary), as well as the significant amount of “assumed” background knowledge for important figures, events, and locations. The expected level of familiarity with the topic likely stems from the fact that this is not a political history, and is therefore geared towards a specialist audience seeking a more in-depth study, as well as a fresh perspective that reevaluates and rejects previous narratives. Modern readers of any ilk, however, may find this work to be relatively dry, partially due to its highly statistical foundations, but also as a consequence of the author’s overall style. This book takes a long time to get through and cannot be skimmed or perused half-heartedly. Those who do make it through, however, will be well-rewarded. The author’s attempt to tell the story of the 1917 Revolution through the eyes of those most directly affected is a rare treasure and provides a unique perspective on the early days of Bolshevik rule, one that should not be missed by any scholar of the Soviet Union.

[Jehiel L · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent study of the realities of 1917-18. The social situation of Russia during that time went from bad to worse. It called for severe action in the face of severe circumstances. The issue of workers' control was not simple to navigate. It involved many difficult decisions and compromises, both with other forces and the situation itself. Revolutionaries must not be flinching or flippant in such circumstances. They must provide strong leadership toward the seizure of state power.

Workers' control arose out of a combination of necessity and traditions informing a response to such necessity. Factory committees were not without precedent. There was a tradition in the Russian workers' movement of election of delegate representatives to face management. This had its origins in the countryside, in the tradition of villages electing headman representatives. In the factories themselves, control was not a pleasant pure democratic affair. At issue was not stopping production but keeping it going. Often, control meant not kicking out the managers but keeping them from running away. Maintaining production was a key issue, determined by the severe economic conditions of wartime. Control also didn't necessarily lead towards revolutionary socialism: workers' control could make workers question the prevailing order, but it could also feed into a feeling of being responsible for productivity as a capitalist prerogative. These concerns were legitimate but contradictory. It posed limitations which could only be responded to by state control. What distinguished the Bolsheviks was a call for state control to be conducted by a soviet state rather than the provisional government.

Workers' control was not libertarian. It involved collective discipline and coercion against individual workers. This is the reality of leadership: working-class consciousness is uneven, and the leading strata must rally behind them and cohere into a force the broader working population. The workers subject to discipline were often more materially deprived than the leaders, the reason for their acting out, but workers' discipline had to be maintained regardless. This is the same principle as in the hard picket line: scabs may be very poor and desperate for work, but they must be stopped regardless. Hegemony involves a dialectic of consent as coercion, legitimacy giving way to power and power giving way to legitimacy. Sometimes the leading section stridently showing the way is precisely the way to achieve broader support, rather than a broad vote on action being a necessary prerequisite for action.

The myriad stratifications of working people had to be responded to strategically. Some sectional strikes were deemed reactionary, for instance by white-collar employees demanding improvement of their sectional privileges. On the other hand there was a consciousness of trying to overcome sectionalism in favour of united organisation for the proletariat. Overcoming such divisions was often a conscious effort. There were differences of political and organisational character between experienced and inexperienced workers, this gap had to be negotiated through leadership. Though what position experienced workers should take towards their inexperienced comrades was up for political debate. It was conservative to react to spontaneous outburst with simple condemnation for lack of organisation and discipline.

In all of this, a confidence in the masses if the right leadership is presented was expressed most consistently by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. An attitude favoured most by Menshevik Internationalists was that the workers did not yet possess sufficient culture for running society themselves. To this Lenin argued, to paraphrase, that one must not have anarchist dreams which in fact wish for people to be different, that one should want the revolution with people as they are now who cannot do without foremen and accountants, but that the foremen and accountants should be subordinated to the armed vanguard of the proletariat.

The principle of leadership had to be applied differently in 1918 when intense economic breakdown began. Again the non-libertarian character of workers' state control has to be understood. There were substantial strikes against the Bolshevik government by workers. These were sometimes met with repression. But it's worth noting that Lenin did not favour a monolithic absorption of all workers' organisations into the state. There had to be a process whereby leadership is achieved through critical response to spontaneous development. This critical response did involve repression, but not repression so as to absolutely stamp out the demands of workers. The key task of the revolution was the hanging on of its state as political leadership, and the spreading of the revolution abroad. The government had to hang on through force conditioned by the dire circumstances, but also a careful navigation of the political situation through carving out a particular arrangement of state and civil society. In this, many workers were won to things like subsuming the factory committees under the trade unions, and the reintroduction of one-man management.

The only weakness of the book would be a lack of proper study of the relations of the proletariat to other classes. A key aspect of the problems facing the revolution and then soviet state was the need to maintain leadership or at least some kind of legitimacy to the broader masses. In Russia 1917 the soviets were not necessary for taking power, but were strategically the best organs to take power. The soviets incorporated peasants, soldiers, and other social strata in a way that allowed for the exercise of proletarian hegemony of the people. Lenin for a time contemplated the factory committees taking power. Such a move would have been dictatorship of the proletariat alone. This would have been not unworkable but strategically disadvantageous, such a situation would have had to be accounted for and responded to in the practice of the dictatorship. Such a consideration is important when thinking about the political preference for soviet over factory committee, beyond issues of economic necessity.