612 



RUSSIA. 



of their cases, and a large number of them were 

 restored to their homes and civic rights. In the 

 night of June 2 a fresh demonstration occurred 

 at Kieff, where 192 persons were arrested. Dis- 

 orders occurred also at Saratoff. The new Min- 

 ister of Education removed some of the irksome 

 regulations in the schools and placed the dis- 

 cipline in the universities and the adjustment of 

 differences between students and professors under 

 the jurisdiction of courts composed of members 

 of the faculty. The German university authori- 

 ties were enjoined from Berlin not to admit Rus- 

 sian students until the Russian embassy gave its 

 approval in the case of every applicant. 



Labor Agitation. The immediate object of 

 the working men was to obtain the right to or- 

 ganize in labor unions and to defend their inter- 

 ests by the methods that are free to the labor- 

 ers of other European countries. The manufac- 

 turing industries of Russia are all new. When 

 Russian capital was not forthcoming to develop 

 the mineral resources of the country and build 

 up domestic manufactures commensurate with 

 the railroad facilities that had been created, M. 

 Witte removed the restrictions on foreign capital 

 and invited foreigners to start industrial enter- 

 prises, which were nursed by the Government, not 

 only by high protective duties, but by every 

 means in the power of a paternal despotism. In 

 the last twenty years a large number of companies 

 and syndicates have entered upon the exploitation 

 of the vast sources of mineral and other wealth 

 in southern Russia, the Caucasus, and the Ural 

 mountains, which have hitherto been merely 

 tapped in spots. Of the capital so invested 80 per 

 cent, is French, Belgian, German, and British. 

 Though the earlier companies have been successful, 

 many of those that came later into the field ob- 

 tained less desirable properties or such as could 

 not be made profitable and financed them in a dis- 

 honest fashion, so that the public that took the 

 stock was doomed to suffer losses. The failure 

 of the harvest in successive years reacted on all 

 industry. In 1902 two-fifths of the industrial en- 

 terprises were virtually insolvent and few were 

 still making profits. Many concerns had already 

 collapsed, carrying down with them banking and 

 financial institutions equally unstable. All were 

 obliged to curtail expenses, and wages felt the de- 



Rression first of all. It was estimated that the 

 >sses and decline in industrial properties have 

 amounted to 1,000,000,000 rubles in ten years. One 

 of the conditions of the state-aided industrialism 

 was a supply of labor that could be depended on. 

 The foreign companies brought managers and 

 skilled mechanics from Belgium, France, Ger- 

 many, and Austria, and had no difficulty in ob- 

 taining an abundance of raw hands in Russia. 

 Peasants who left the communes during a part of 

 the year to earn wages in the factories developed 

 into a working class, numerous in itself, yet small 

 compared with the peasant population to which 

 the workmen still legally belonged, each being a 

 member of his village mir, liable for his part of 

 the taxes and subject to being sent back home if 

 he was not satisfactory to his employer. 



The strikes that broke out in 1901 and 1902, 

 doomed to failure because they occurred in the face 

 of a depressed labor market and closing factories, 

 but for that reason more bitter and desperate, 

 were a novel and, in Russia, a revolutionary phe- 

 nomenon. The strikers were generally treated 

 accordingly as disturbers and malefactors, knout- 

 ed by the Cossacks and dragooned by the soldiers 

 wherever they were found assembled. There was 

 nevertheless a strong feeling of sympathy through- 

 out the south of Russia for the workmen and an- 



tipathy against their employers, the foreign com- 

 panies that were believed to be draining the nat- 

 ural resources of the country and extracting 

 money from the Russian workmen to pay divi- 

 dends to stockholders abroad. The nobility and 

 peasantry alike were jealous of the industries 

 that had flourished by the aid and protection of 

 the Government on duties, taxes, special railroad 

 rates, banking facilities, etc., all for the benefit 

 of foreigners who had received concessions of the . 

 coal, oil, iron, and other minerals, railroad con- 

 tracts, and industrial concessions that yielded 

 large profits at the apparent expense of Russian 

 agriculture and the primitive native industries. 

 The demands of the Russian industrial workers, 

 put forward under the instruction of their social- 

 democratic teachers, were similar to those made 

 or already attained in other countries, and in 

 some places the Russian strikers obtained partial 

 concessions. In St. Petersburg they demanded a 

 legal ten-hours' work-day, restoration of holidays 

 taken away in 1897, prohibition of labor of chil- 

 dren under fifteen and night labor by women, fort- 

 nightly pay-days, stricter factory inspection, lia- 

 bility of employers for accidents, fixed rates of 

 wages and fines, the right to confer by delegates 

 with masters and authorities, arbitration of dis- 

 putes, and trial in open court in the place of ar- 

 bitrary arrest and administrative banishment. In 

 Kieff they called for the rights possessed by their 

 brethren in other European countries. In Mos- 

 cow the workmen, among whom were educated so- 

 cialists, who chose a life in the factories in order 

 to teach revolutionary ideas, and also many so- 

 cialistic artisans from other countries, were fa- 

 vored by the Grand-Duke Serge Constantinovich 

 and the police previous to the revolutionary out- 

 break. The official policy there was to encourage 

 their desire to form labor unions on the English 

 model and treat with their employers as work- 

 men do in France and England, and by supporting 

 them in such economic liberties to prevent the 

 growth of political revolutionary ideas. In tea- 

 rooms established in Moscow and neighboring 

 manufacturing towns benefit societies were started 

 under the auspices of the authorities, and tea- 

 rooms were founded by them in which labor mat- 

 ters, and political theories as well, were freely dis- 

 cussed. A clash occurred between the civil au- 

 thorities and the manufacturers when the police 

 actively intervened in a quarrel that one of the 

 latter, the French manager of the largest silk-mill, 

 had with his work-people. These complained that 

 the manufacturer unjustly withheld many thou- 

 sand rubles of their wages, and demanded arbitra- 

 tion. Col. Trepoff ordered the factory manage- 

 ment to admit men he appointed to investigate 

 and arbitrate, and when these men approved the 

 claims and the manufacturer refused to pay, the 

 weavers went on strike and were lodged and fed 

 at the cost of the Government. In most places 

 the strikes were for an increase of wages equal to 

 recent reductions and a reduction of the hours of 

 labor or a restoration of the hours that formerly 

 existed. Silk, cotton, and other factories in Mos- 

 cow and its vicinity were closed by strikes. When 

 the new Minister of the Interior went to that city 

 to investigate, a deputation of workmen submitted 

 the rules of English trade-unions and threatened 

 a general strike if the same privileges were not 

 accorded to them. In November a serious strike 

 of workmen in the railroad shops at Rostoff, or- 

 ganized by social democrats, did not end until 

 Cossacks had killed and wounded many men. In 

 St. Petersburg workmen were permitted to form 

 associations for improving their position, subject 

 to governmental scrutiny. 



