1 Alexander, Gerschenkron, “Problems and Patterns of Russian Economic Development,” in Black, Cyril E., ed., The Transformation of Russian Society (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 60 Google Scholar

2 Leonard, Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York, 1959), pp. 139–40 Google Scholar.

3 In the words of the standard Soviet text of this period : “The revolutionary upsurge in Russia [had] reached such a level that an armed uprising already appeared in the offing… the onset of the revolution was broken off by the World War in which the tsarist government, just like the imperialists of other countries, sought salvation from revolution.“ CCGP, 1907 - Mapm 1917, ed. (Moscow, 1954), pp. 239-40. The new (Moscow, 1959) uses substantially the same language. For far more cautious, and historically more faithful, earlier Soviet analyses of the St. Petersburg general strike of July, 1914, and of the sympathy strikes to which it gave rise, see , No. 7 (30), July, 1924; and No. 8-9 (31-32), Aug.-Sept., 1924.

4 , Chap. 3, passim.

5 The term of opprobrium that the Bolsheviks applied to those whom they accused of advocating the “liquidation” of the revolutionary underground.

6 The most valuable source on the private reactions of Menshevik leaders to developments on the Russian scene for the period 1908-13 is the still unpublished correspondence between A. N. Potresov, who was residing in Petersburg during these years, and Iu. O. Martov, who remained in emigration until after the amnesty of 1913. This correspondence, consisting of some two hundred letters, is now in the Nicolaevsky Archives, Hoover Institution, hereafter referred to as NA.

7 Martov to Potresov, letter 133, Nov. 17, 1909 (NA).

8 The compilations published by the Ministry of Trade and Industry offer the following statistical aggregates about strikes in factories covered by factory inspection for the period 1905-14 : (img) See (img) 1914, passim (St. Petersburg, 1914; Petrograd, 1915). The accuracy of these and other, unofficial estimates of the strike movement, particularly for the period 1912-14, is almost as widely in dispute as is the actual significance of the labor disturbances that these estimates reflect. For example, while the Factory Inspectors' reports estimate 549, 812 political strikers for 1912, the calculation of the Menshevik labor observer, A. Mikhailov, is 1, 065, 000, including over 950, 000 in factories under Factory Inspection (See (img), No. 12, 1912). The contemporary estimates of Pravda are even higher. It is probably safe to assume that while the figures listed in the contemporary Social Democratic press are undoubtedly overblown, official estimates seriously err in the opposite direction (by an order of at least 20 per cent). This at least was the view expressed by more neutral contemporary observers of the labor scene. (See, for example, the articles by Chuzhennikov, A. on the labor movement in the annual reviews of Riech for 1913 and 1914)Google Scholar.

9

10 The Factory Inspectors’ reports estimate the number of political strikers in April and May, 1912, as 231, 459 and 170, 897, respectively; for April and May, 1913, the figures listed are 170, 897 and 116, 276. This discrepancy more than accounts for the difference between the total aggregates for political strikers estimated for these two years (549, 812 for 1912 and 502, 442 for 1913).

11 See, for example, 1914.

12 See 1914, passim.

13 Russian Review, II, No. 3 (1913), 176.

14 This phenomenon is noted in the publitsistika of the day even by some of the Bolsheviks' most severe critics. In an article published in June, 1913, for example, A. S. Izgoev emphasized the great political importance of the current “transformation of the chaotic Russian labor masses into a working class … under the ideological sway of Social Democracy.“ The article cited the evidence of the Petersburg workers’ steadily increasing involvement in elections, political strikes, and demonstrations, the “most impressive sight” of the impact exercised by Pravda on the working class of the capital during its first year of publication, and especially the indications in the daily life of the Petersburg workers of their growing class solidarity : workers’ willingness to make financial sacrifices on behalf of fellow workers in other factories, the “devastating moral effect” of the boycotts enforced on strikebreakers. Clearly, Izgoev concluded, Russia's current “social crisis” was giving way to an extremely significant process of “social crystallization.” See , June, 1913, passim.

15 , No. 5, 1912.

16 The Bolshevik candidate in Petersburg, Badaev, had won, they argued, only thanks to the votes that he had received at the last stage of the elections from anti-Semitic Octobrist vyborshchiki (the Menshevik candidate in the Petersburg labor curiae had been Jewish); the Bolshevik deputies Petrovsky (in Ekaterinoslav gubernia) and Muranov (in Kharkov gubernia) had run on electoral platforms actually drawn up by the Mensheviks; and even that stormy petrel, the Moscow deputy Malinovsky, had been elected with Menshevik support. For such Menshevik interpretations of the returns in the elections to the Fourth Duma, see , No. 9-10, 1912; and especially and , No. 10-11, 1913. For contrasting Bolshevik interpretations, see , No. 1, Jan., 1913 (in , 4th ed., XVIII, 462-85); and , No. 22, Oct. 29, 1913 (in ., XIX, 414-29).

17 Whatever consolation was to be sought, added Martov, could be found in the election returns in the First and Second Curiae of the cities, which had revealed, as the Mensheviks had forecast (in contrast to their Bolshevik opponents), a significant shift of the liberal elements in society to the left. Indeed, this shift had been so pronounced in some of the provincial centers, Martov observed, as to hold forth the promise of the division of the Kadet Party into “bourgeois” and “raznochinets radical” factions. Martov to Potresov, letter no. 178, Nov. 11, 1912 (NA).

18 For detailed presentations of the Bolsheviks’ claim of support by the Russian working class on the eve of the war, see , and ibid., pp. 463-502). My own reading of the contemporary Menshevik press suggests that the specific statistical data cited in these two statements, although by no means the conclusions drawn froin them, are not grossly exaggerated.

19 Martov to Potresov, letter no. 188, Sept. 15, 1913 (NA). This is the last letter that has been preserved of the Martov-Potresov correspondence of the prewar period (as noted earlier, Martov returned to Petersburg shortly after the amnesty).

20 , No. 6, 1914.

21 For Bulkin's first, and most radical, statement of this thesis, see his , No. 3, 1914.

22 , No. 3, 1914.

23 For such Menshevik analyses of the new tendencies in the labor movement during the immediate prewar period, see , No. 9, 1913; op. cit.; , No. 6, 1914; and especially , Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, 1914.

24 op. cit., Nos. 3 and 4, 1914.

25 op. cit.

26 , Nos. 21, 24, 28, Mar., 1914; and ibid., Apr. 12, 1914.

27 See (Moscow, 1958), pp. 438-39.

28 As Geroid Robinson notes, the Stolypin legislation effectively enabled individual householders in the repartitional communes to ob^ajn under certain conditions “a permanent and more or less unified holding against the unanimous opposition of the communal assembly.” Similar conditions obtained for those repartitional communes which were converted to hereditary tenure under the Arbitrary Dissolution Law of 1910. See Robinson, G. T., Rural Russia under the Old Regime (New York, 1932), p. 1932 Google Scholar; also note 28 on p. 305.

29 The Petersburg Party City Committee consisted at that time of the following members : Schmidt, Fedorov, Antipov, Shurkanov, Ignatiev, Sesitsky, and Ionov. Of these, Shurkanov, Ignatiev, and Sesitsky were agents of the Okhrana. For further details, see A. , No. 7 (30), July, 1924.

30 It is suggestive, in this connection, that so many of the student recruits into this “second generation” of the Bolshevik faction were externy, who were not sufficiently prepared, or well to do, to enroll as regular students in the gymnasia and higher schools.

31 op. cit.

32 , No. 6, 1958, p. 11.

33 , July 8, 1914, p. 3, July 9, p. 2; , July 8, p. 5; , July 8, p. 3. The Petersburg newspapers did not appear between July 9 and 11, owing to a strike of the typographical workers.

34 This ungrammatically written appeal is worthy of quotation, for it vividly expressed the feelings that animated at this stage of the strike the Bolsheviks’ rebellious following : “Comrades! The government headed by the capitalists has not declared merciless war on the laboring masses in jest; everywhere, in political as in economic strikes, bloodthirsty police heroes have appeared. They are committing acts of violence with impunity, carrying out mass arrests, sometimes shooting, closing trade unions as well as organizations of cultural enlightenment, but all this is of no avail to them. Every day, Russia's jails are growing like mushrooms; every day, the newspapers carry mentions of the deportations of our comrades to the most desolate places! [Yet] everywhere we see that the strikes are assuming the most colossal scope. The peasants are not paying their quit-rent, they are cutting down the woods of the crown and the gentry, burning down their manors; the soldiers are not taking the oath, they are insulting their officers, reading subversive newspapers. The government is trembling, worrying because around it the army of labor is growing not by the day but by the hour, and preparing for a decisive clash with its centuryold foe. But your attempts to hold the people in chains are in vain; you are showing only for the n-th time that you are helpless, and the more you inflict violence on the people, the deeper you are digging your own pit. It is in vain, you bloodthirsty tribe, that you have taken up arms against the laboring masses. The government is fighting with bayonets, the capitalists—with money, and the clergy—with sermons; but the people have taken this into account, they no longer believe in fairy tales, and in answer to you, instigators of police repressions, the whole laboring class is declaring that your song is over. We are on the eve of great events, if not today then tomorrow your luxurious palaces will be turned into people's clubs and unions The factories and plants will work only for the laboring masses. The jails will be overflowing with the likes of y o u … . Your woods, meadows, fields, everything you have, will fall into the hands of those you humiliated. Comrades! Lend your ears and prepare yourselves for anything. To wait and endure—enough with these words! Our motto is—hail the relentless struggle against the government and the capitalists! Down with capital! Comrades, get ready! Hail socialism!” This document was originally printed in , VI, Part I (Petrograd and Moscow, 1923), 79. It is reprinted in 1914 r. , No. 8-9 (31-32), Aug.-Sept., 1924, p. 318.

35 Dispatch of correspondent S., Pnoun, July 12 (25), 1914, p. 5.