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Proletarians by Fiat: The Compulsory Ural Metallurgical Work Force, 1630–1861

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Hugh D. Hudson Jr
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
Bruce J. DeHart
Affiliation:
Pembroke State Univeristy
David M. Griffiths
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Extract

Buried within the bowels of Russia's Ural Mountains, some sixteen hundred kilometers east of Moscow, lay huge deposits of the invaluable raw material iron. If exploitedon a large scale, they would provide the Russian state with one of the chief ingredients of an early industrial economy. A prospering iron industry, in its turn, would expand immeasurably Russia's hitherto-limited war-making capacity—no small consideration in the early eighteenth century, an age in which war-making was still deemed the major function of the ambitious ruler. Appropriately, no Russian was more alert to the potential of Ural iron than Peter I, whose reign of some thirty-five years (1689–1725) would be distinguished by only one year completely free of war.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1995

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References

NOTES

1. For a statement of the contrast between the West and East European rural experience and its implications for capitalist development, See Anderson, Perry, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, 1974), esp. 195235.Google Scholar

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3. In addition to these obvious tasks, unskilled labor was needed to build and repair dams and factors, to defend the enterprises against outraged, and to guard caravans on route to market. For a discussion of the obligations of the ascribed peasants, see Semevskii, V. I., Krest'iane v tsaratvovanie Imperatritsy Ekateriny II vol. II (St. Petersburg, 1903), 306.Google Scholar

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7. “Gramota ob otbache”, in Spaasskii, Zhizneopisanie, 71.Google ScholarKafengauz, B. B., Istroiia khoziaistva Demidovykh v XVIII–XIX vv.: Opyt issledovaniia po istorii ural'skoi metallurgii vol. i (Moscow–Leningrad, 1949), 95, erroneusly assers that Demidov did not at this time receive the right to purchase peasants.Google Scholar

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11. PSZ, vol. VI, no. 4.055, 746.Google Scholar

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14. Rates for asscribed labor were set by edict of Jaunary 20, 1724, during summer at tenkopeks per day peasants with horses and five kopeks for those without: during winter, six kopeks per day for those with horses and four kopeks for those without, PSZ, VII, no. 4425.Google Scholar

15. Report to the Mining and Manufatcturing College, quoted in Krivonogov, V. la., Naemnyi trud v gornozavodskoi promyshlennosti Urala v XVIII veke (Sverdlovsk, 1959), 126–26.Google Scholar

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17. Decree of March 23. 1734. in PSZ. vol. IX, no. 6.559, 290–96.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., 293.

19. Bak, I. S., “Ekonomicheskie vozzreniia V. N. Tatishcheva,” Isioricheskie zapiski 55 (1955): 376.Google Scholar

20. The record of the meeting has survived. See Gorlovskii, M. A. and Pavlenko, N. I., eds., “Materialy soveshchaniia ural's skihproyshlennikov, 1734–36 gg.”, in Istoricheskii arkhiv 9 (1953): 5155.Google Scholar

21. Pavlenko, N. I., ed., “ ‘Nakaz shikhtmesteru’ V. N. Tatishcheva”, Istricheskii arkhiv VI (1951): 5155.Google Scholar

22. PSZ, vol. IX, nos. 6.849 (December 23, 1735), 659–60; and 6.939 (April 15, 1736), 799–800.Google Scholar

23. Popov, Nil, V. N. Tatishchev i ego vremia (Moscow, 1861), 181–92.Google Scholar

24. PSZ, vol. IX, no. 6559, pt. 9, 290–96.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., vol. IX, no. 6858, 707–12. To satisfy landlords' complaints against factory owners holding their peasants, the state ordered industrialists to pay compensation for skilled fugitives and to return runaway common laborers to their lawful owners.

26. See Pavlenko, N. I., “K voprosu o rynke rabochei sily dlia metallurgicheskikh manufaktur v 20–40-kh godakh XVIII veka,” Voprosy istorii 3 (1952):99123;Google Scholaridem, “Zum Problem der Struktur der russischen Manufaktur im 17.–19. Jh..” in Jahrbuch für Geschichie der sozialistischen Länder Europas, Band XIII, no. 2 (1969), 109–120.Google Scholar

27. This parallel is suggested by Zelnik, Reginald, “The Peasant and the Factory,” in The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia, ed. Wayne, Vucinich (Stanford, 1968), 165–66.Google Scholar

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29. For a discussion of the disturbances in the Urals during the 1750s and 1760s, see Orlov, A. S., Volneniia na Urale v seredine XVIII veka (Moscow, 1979);Google Scholar and Mavrodin, V. V., Klassovaia bor'ba i obshchestvenno-politicheskaia mysl' v Rossii v XVIII v. (1 725–1773), vol. I (Leningrad, 1964), 4764.Google Scholar

30. Pavlenko, N. I., “Naemnyi trud v metallurgicheskoi promyshlennosti Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XVIII v.,” Voprosy istorii 9 (1958):43Google Scholar, argues that this pronouncement signified the end of all ascription to mines and manufactories. The legislation is unfortunately not included in PSZ.

31. PSZ, vol. XV, no. 11.490, 966.Google Scholar

32. Four months after Peter's edict, his successor Catherine II confirmed the decision in an edict of her own on August 8, 1762. See PSZ, vol. XVI, no. 1.638, 47–48. An exception was made for certain foreign-born entrepreneurs. In 1798 Paul I reinstituted the right of non- nobles to purchase villages of serfs for industrial work, but relatively few entrepreneurs seem to have taken advantage of the right.Google Scholar

33. This is the figure given by Catherine herself nine years later. See Sbornik imperatorskago Russkago istoricheskago obshchestva, 148 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1867–1916) (hereafter SIRIO), vol. 10, 380. If Catherine's figures are correct, then some 35 percent of the ascribed peasant population was in revolt at the time of her accession.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., vol.7, 188–99.

35. Ibid., point 7, 192 (errnrously paginated as 182).

36. Many of the Petitions may be found in Orlov, Volneniia na Urale, 192–263.Google Scholar

37. PSZ, vol. XVI, no. 11. 790, 214–19. Although the edit made specific reference to the Kamsk peasants, the empress intended its regulations to apply throughout the metallurgical industry as a whole.Google Scholar

38. For a discussion of Viazemskii's final report, see Orlov, Volneniia na Urale, 158–60. the tax increase to which the price referred was decreed on October 12, 1761. The specific law, however, was not included in PSZ.Google Scholar

39. Eventually (1767), thegoverment adopted the edit of April 9, 1763, for all state enterprises. It also applied them in cases of disturbances at private olants.Google ScholarPortal, Roger, L'Ouralau XVIII siècle: étude d'histoire éconmique et sociale (Paris, 1950), 319;Google ScholarSemevskii, , Krest'iane v tsarstvovanie Ekateriny II, vol. II, 405–08;Google Scholar and de Madariaga, Isabel, Russia in the Age of catherine the Great (New Haven, 1981), 124–25.Google ScholarAlso noteworthy is the fact that on May 27, 1769, Catherine issued an edict that granted ascribed peasants both a pay raise and travel money. PSZ vol. XVIII, no. 13.303, 895–96.Google Scholar Although the increase and the introduction of travel money appeared to be attempts to improve conditions for the ascribed peasants, in reality they accounted for little because of a tax increase effected the previous year (1768). Ibid., no. 13.194, 767–68.

40. Contributions of indivisual enterprise to Pugache's rebellion are discussion in Prussak, A. V., “Zavody, rabotavshie na Pugacheva”, Istoricheskie zapiski 8 (1940): 174207.Google Scholar

41. Dokumenty stavki E. I. Pugacheva povstancheskikh vlastei i uchrezhgenii (Moscow, 1975), 30–31.Google Scholar

42. Andrushchenko, A. I., Krest'ianskaia voina 1773–1775 gg.: na laike, v Priural'e, na urale, i v Sibire (Moscow, 1969), 237–38.Google Scholar

43. Pavlenko, N. I., Istoriia metallurgii v Rosii XVIII veka (Moscow, 1962), 475 ff.Google Scholar

44. Alexander, John T., Autocratic Politics in a National Crisis: the Imperial Russian Government and Pugache's Revolt, 1773–1775 (Bloomington, Ind., 1969), 145.Google Scholar

45. Catherine to G. A. Potemkin, undated note, cited in ibid.

46. PSZ, XX, no. 14.878, 822–24.Google Scholar

47. See SIRIO, vol. XXVII, 174.Google Scholar

48. Krivongov, Naemnyi trud, 110–11.Google ScholarGol'denberg, L. A., Mikhail Fedorovich Soimonov (1730–1804) (Moscow, 1973), 140.Google Scholar This, in fact, was the number set in 1807 for private factories; each state factory would have its number determined individually. PSZ, vol. XXIX, no. 22.498, 1052. According to the decree of March 15, 1807, the indispensable workers were placed in a legal and social position analogous to that of the vechno-otdannye. “Polozhenie dlia nepremennykh robotnikov pri gornykh zavodakh”, in ibid., 1071.

49. PSZ, vol. XXVI, no. 19.641, 379–82.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., vol. XXIX, no. 22. 498, 1052–157.

51 For a discussion of the disturbances of the early nineteenth century, Tal'skii, O. S., ‘Polozhenie i klassovaia bor'ba uglepostovshchikov metallurgicheskoi promyshlennosti Rossii v feodal'nom periode”, in Voprosy istorii SSSR i metodiki prepodavaniia istorii v srednei shkole (Barnaul, 1972).Google Scholar On thefate of the ascribed of Olonets and the state's decision to exclude them from the legislation of 1807, see PSZ, III, no. 1916, 350–57. The general emancipation is “Manifesto of 19 February 1861”, in ibid., vol. XXVI, no. 36.650, 128ff. On the freeing of the remainning ascribed peasants at private works, see “Dopolnitel'nye pravila o pripisannykh k chastnym gornym zavodam liudiakh vedomsva Ministerstva Finansov”, in ibid., 36.667, 376–82. the liberation of unfree labor by state works followed on may 1. 1861. (The ligislation is not contained in PSZ)

52 See in particular,Reiber, A. J., ed., The Politics of Autocracy: Letters of Alexander II to Prince A. I.BARatinskii, 1857–1864 (Paris, 1966), 2130.Google Scholar

53 Quoted in Sidney Mintz, W., Caribbean Transformation (Chincago, 1974), 150–51.Google Scholar