DEMOCRATISING THE FACTORY ORDER

On 23 February 1917 thousands of housewives and factory women, angry at the bread shortage, surged onto the streets, ignoring pleas from labour leaders to stay calm. By the next day, 200,000 workers in Petrograd were on strike. By 25 February, huge armies of demonstrators were clashing with troops, and a revolution had commenced. On 27 February, the critical point was reached, when whole regiments of soldiers began to desert to the insurgents. The same day, the worthy members of the Duma refused to obey an order from the Tsar to disperse, and instead set up a Provisional Government. Meanwhile the Petrograd Soviet of workers' and soldiers' deputies came into existence, thereby creating an extraordinary situation of ‘dual power’. By 3 March it was all over: the Tsar had abdicated and Russia was free.

The toppling of the Romanov dynasty inspired workers with euphoria. They returned to their factories determined that the ancien régime would be swept aside in the workplaces, just as it had been swept aside in society at large. They resolved to create, in the place of the old ‘absolutist’ order, a new ‘constitutional’ order within the enterprises. They set to work at once by tearing up the old contracts of hire, the old rule books, and the vicious blacklists. Just as the agents of the autocracy had been driven from the police stations and government offices, so the workers set about expelling those who had been most identified with the repressive administration of the factories.