Chapter Six
The Revolution of 1905

In the memory of participants as well as in the accounts of historians, the Russian revolution of 1905 often appears as a moment of social and political illumination. The murderous violence with which police and soldiers met workers marching to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg on January 9, christened "Bloody Sunday," was for many a kind of moral catalyst, igniting deep feelings of social and political alienation and anger, throwing to the surface conflicts over social and political power. In the words of one of the wounded, spoken to the legal commission charged with investigating the massacre, workers went to the tsar "like children to weep out their sorrows on their father's breast."^[1] They returned, according to many observers and participants, as mature adults. As one metal worker recalled, "On that day I was born again—no longer an all-forgiving and all-forgetting child but an embittered man ready to go into battle and win."^[2] Even if enlightenment was not always so sudden, by the end of 1905 large numbers of workers were behaving in unfamiliar ways, demanding democratic political change and fighting as a social class. This transformation was as visible among printers as among other workers.

For most printers, as for many others, this was an ambiguous revolution. The permanent end of many years of relative labor peace and the

[1] Nachalo pervoi russkoi revoliutsii, p. 107.

[2] Aleksei Buzinov, Za Nevskoi zastavoi: zapiski rabochego (Moscow and Leningrad, 1930), p. 40, quoted in Bonnell, Roots of Rebellion, p. 106. See also McDaniel, Autocracy, Capitalism, and Revolution, pp. 199–200; Sablinsky, The Road to Bloody Sunday, pp. 273–75.

widespread use of a new language of class suggests a radical repudiation of older ways of thinking and acting. But this image exaggerates both the amity of the past and the enmity of the present. In the past, I have argued, even among employers and workers most actively seeking to build a social community in the industry, collaboration was partly illusory, as workers and employers held different images of what community ought to mean. The events of 1905, in this sense, marked less the ruin of a conflictless moral community than the continued evolution in the way in which conflict was structured and understood. At the same time, the increasing explicitness of class in shaping and defining conflict did not eliminate thoughts of collaboration. The durability of visions of moral community was as remarkable as the damage done to them. During 1905 and especially in the years following, both workers and employers persisted in seeking order and regularity in their mutual relations and in demanding that these relations conform to common moral standards. This chapter describes the increasingly open and bitter conflicts between printing workers and employers during 1905.

Skirmishes, January–July

On January 7, 1905, striking metal and textile workers began roaming the streets of St. Petersburg demanding that workers in other industries join their strike, often emphasizing their appeals with rocks thrown through windows and shouted threats of violence. The typical first response by printing workers, reportedly, was "bewilderment." The strike movement had developed largely in discussions among participants of Father Gapon's Assembly of Russian Factory Workers, a government-sponsored labor organization that, like the related Zubatovist associations, sought to better workers' position through self-help and cultural self-improvement while drawing workers away from politics. But few printing workers knew anything about the assembly, though it had already attracted several thousand workers, mainly from metal plants and textile mills. Only a small number of lithographers, bookbinders, and pressmen had attended assembly meetings before January 7.^[3]

Most printing workers, especially compositors, stayed away partly because the assembly had not made any real effort to attract them,

[3] Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , pp. 104–06. See also Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 105 (January 19, 1905), p. 58; Severianin, "Soiuz rabochikh pechatnogo dela," p. 55. On the assembly and the January strike movement in St. Petersburg, see Surh, 1905 in St. Petersburg , pp. 106–67.

though also because most printers probably continued to view with condescension the activities of ordinary "workers."^[4] It is appropriate, however, that although few printers were involved in the assembly they predominated among its worker leaders: Aleksei Karelin was treasurer and a central figure in the ruling group; Ivan Kharitonov was head of the Kolomensk section of the assembly; and Konstantin Belov and Gerasim Usanov were respectively chairman and secretary of the Vasil'ev Island branch. This was not a typical group of printers: all were lithographic pressmen—a highly skilled and well-paid craft—and had been previously associated with one another in Social Democratic circles.^[5]

Once printers were confronted by metal and textile workers demanding that they go on strike, they responded willingly to the opportunity offered them, despite their own very modest history of strikes.^[6] Printing workers even began attending meetings of the Gapon assembly, and many joined in the workers' march on January 9 to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the emperor (at which at least fifteen printing workers, mostly compositors and bookbinders, were killed or injured).^[7] Thousands of printers joined the strike. By the end of the day on January 7, at least thirty-nine printing firms had stopped work, and by the evening of the eighth, at least another twenty shops had shut down, bringing into the streets 5,700 printing workers, mainly from the larger enterprises. By January 12, when the strike reached its zenith, 6,813, or more than three-fifths of the total number of printing workers in St. Petersburg, were on strike; the fact that they worked in only seventy-two firms, about a quarter of the total number of printing enterprises in the city, suggests their relative concentration in larger enterprises. Workers at the many small presses located near the city center, and thus furthest from the striking factories, generally remained at work.^[8]

[4] See Chapter 4.

[5] Karelin, "Deviatoe ianvaria i Gapon," pp. 106–09; idem, "Soiuz litografskikh rabochikh," p. 13; Surh, 1905 in St. Petersburg , pp. 116–25; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 438.

[6] See Chapter 5.

[7] Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , pp. 105–07; Kratkii istoricheskii obzor tipografii L.S.P.O. , p. 17. Individual memoirs also often describe participation.

[8] From a 1905 Strike File, which I have compiled using archival, newspaper, and other sources—especially: TsGIA, f. 23, op. 17, d. 311, pp. 54–185; d. 315, pp. 19–86; f. 150, op. 2, d. la, pp. 158–72; LG1A, f. 1229, op. 2, d. 1, pp. 54–138; TsGAOR, f. 63, 1905, d. 773, pp. 11–27; Novaia zhizn ' (1905); Simonenko and Kostomarov, Iz istorii revoliutsii 1905 goda v Moskve i Moskovskoi gubernii , pp. 206–11; Revoliutsiia 1905– 1907 gg. v Rossii . For Moscow in January, see also the calculations in Surh, "Petersburg Workers in 1905," p. 274.

When news of Bloody Sunday reached Moscow, tens of thousands of workers struck, including more than 4,200 printers. The relation between strike propensity and labor concentration is especially evident in Moscow: although more than half of all printing workers in Moscow joined the strike, they worked in only twenty-one firms, only one-tenth of the enterprises in the city. Again, because the largest plants were located nearer the industrial outskirts of the city, the effects of enterprise scale were combined with those of location.^[9] Many Moscow printers, of course, had participated in the 1903 strike, so that going on strike was itself less a new behavior than in St. Petersburg. However, they had not before joined with other trades in collective action nor protested conditions that were as much political as economic. This time they walked out without presenting any demands and joined other workers in expressing their outrage over the beating and shooting of workers in St. Petersburg.

In Moscow the illegal printers' union sought to influence the strike soon after it had begun. The handful of radicalized workers and intellectuals who comprised what was left of the union drafted and distributed a list of proposed demands, an amalgam of political and economic demands inspired more by ideology than by the immediate grievances of striking workers. The unionists put at the head of their list demands drawn from the Social-Democratic minimum program: an eight-hour day, civil liberties (freedom of unions, strikes, assembly, speech, and the press), and recognition of May Day as a workers' holiday. Following the example of Western European trade unions, the union also proposed shop-level arbitration boards (treteiskie sudy ) composed of an equal number of representatives of workers and management together with a third-party arbitrator to "resolve disputes." Unlike the European model, however, these boards were also to control the hiring and firing of both workers and supervisors and to maintain shop discipline. The list of demands concluded with improvements in wages and other economic conditions.^[10]

[9] From the 1905 Strike File. See also Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 106 (February 10, 1905), pp. 73–74; Sher, Istoriia , p. 153; idem, "Moskovskie pechatniki v revoliutsii 1905 g.," pp. 33–35; Russkie vedomosti , January 15, 1905, p. 4.

[10] Simonenko and Kostomarov, Iz istorii revoliutsii 1905 goda v Moskve , pp. 142– 44; Sher, Istoriia , pp. 151–52.

It is impossible to know to what extent rank-and-file workers agreed with or even understood these demands. Many workers may have adopted them at least partly as a symbolic gesture, in order to show that, as in 1903, the force of organization was behind them. When workers did adopt the union list of demands, they often had to add demands covering the sort of everyday matters that the unionists had ignored: providing hot water for tea, paying wages twice monthly, abolishing physical searches and fines, and providing better medical care.^[11]

Employers in Moscow were not especially sympathetic to printing workers' demands. The Moscow branch of the Printing Society organized a meeting of the owners of all Moscow printing firms on January 13 to discuss the demands. The employers who attended the meeting concluded, not without justification, that the strikes resulted from the "instigation of agitators and the bad example of other industries" and that the demands presented by workers were made "without serious thought," adding that in view of the 1903 settlement printing workers could have "no particular reasons for dissatisfaction." These employers therefore decided to "maintain the wages and working conditions" that had been established after the 1903 strike.^[12]

In St. Petersburg, where the strike was unprecedented, events followed a more elaborate course. Immediately after January 7, employers and workers began meeting to discuss the outbreak of strikes in the industry. Aleksei Suvorin, a major newspaper publisher and printer, invited newspaper editors and publishers and representatives of newspaper compositors to a meeting on January 8; as it turned out, these workers were as yet uncertain of their demands, so employers encouraged them to hold separate discussions on their own. On the same day, at two of the sections of the Gapon assembly, groups of printing workers, mostly compositors, also began to meet to coordinate demands. Finally, at the request of a group of compositors associated with Naborshchik together with some members of the Compositors' Assistance Fund, the editor of Naborshchik , Andrei Filippov, convened a meeting of elected representatives of all Petersburg compositors on January 12.^[13]

[11] Nachalo pervoi russkoi revoliutsii , p. 282.

[12] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 106 (February 10, 1905), p. 74; Sher, Istoriia , pp. 153–54. See also Miretskii, Pervaia obraztsovaia tipografiia , pp. 40–41.

[13] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 106 (February 10, 1905), p. 58; Severianin, "Soiuz rabochikh pechatnogo dela," p. 55; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 106. There is some discrepancy in the sources on the dates of the first meeting of Naborshchik correspondents.

Under the chairmanship of Filippov, 150 compositor deputies met at the hall of the Russian Printing Society to discuss the meaning of the strike. Filippov gave an opening speech, followed by August Tens, a compositor and a longtime correspondent for Naborshchik . Both spoke of the need to use the opportunity created by the strike to realize the often-discussed goal of a "tariff" (tarif ) regulating wages and working conditions throughout the printing industry in St. Petersburg. Other speakers agreed and spoke of the many problems that a tariff would correct. The meeting concluded by asking the Printing Society to raise and regulate wages for printing workers in the capital and to enforce the Rules on Apprenticeship it had recently approved.^[14]

The employers who headed the Printing Society responded positively and invited owners of all printing firms in St. Petersburg to meet on January 13 to discuss the proposal. In contrast to the printing employers who were meeting in Moscow on the same day, they agreed in principle that wages should be raised and voted to establish a commission to draft a comprehensive tariff to set uniform wage rates and working conditions throughout the city.^[15] The commission visibly represented the organizational and social traditions of the past. Almost all its members had been active supporters of the Compositors' Assistance Fund, organizers and patrons of the printing school, participants in the Congress of Printing in 1895, or members or officers of the Printing Society. This background was especially characteristic of the three men chosen to direct the commission's work: Roman Golike, who was elected chairman, and Vladimir Kirshbaum and Andrei Filippov, who were elected respectively vice-chairman and secretary.^[16]

Members of the employers' tariff commission invited groups of owners and workers to meet with them over the next several days to discuss conditions in their shops. These discussions had two effects. The first was to convince employers, as Andrei Filippov commented, of "the truly dismal conditions in which Petersburg compositors find themselves"^[17] and to lead them to decide unanimously that the compositors' demands for higher wages and better working conditions were just. The second effect, no doubt unintended, was to encourage

[14] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 105 (January 19, 1905), p. 3; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 107.

[15] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 105 (January 19, 1905), pp. 3–4; 106 (February 10, 1905), p. 58; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 108.

[16] Other members of the commission who had been involved in earlier trade organizations were Alvin Caspary, Heinrich Schröder, Peter Soikin, N. S. Tsetlin, and Alexander Wineke.

[17] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 106 (February 10, 1905), p. 58.

workers' own organization. The commission had asked compositors to elect representatives at their shops, who would then meet and select a smaller group of deputies to meet with the employers' commission. On a smaller scale this arrangement anticipated the government's Shid1ovskii Commission, which later that month would authorize factory workers in St. Petersburg, including many printers, to elect deputies who were to gather together to formulate and voice their needs. The effect of the elections among compositors, as among workers involved with the Shidlovskii Commission, was to create a body of elected representatives who would represent workers in more combative ways than had been intended by those who had organized their election.^[18]

Had these discussions taken place in an atmosphere less contentious than that of January and February 1905, things might have turned out differently. Surrounded by unprecedented social and political upheaval, a failing war with Japan, and open criticism of the government by diverse groups, printing workers were more likely to feel bold in challenging authority and hopeful for change. Employers, meanwhile, were more likely to feel nervous about threats to their authority. Still, the situation remained unsettled. Direct discussions between representatives of workers and employers continued, but the stubbornness and belligerence of both sides was deepening.

When employers invited the workers' deputies to attend a meeting on February 1 "for mutual consideration" of the first results of their deliberations, a tariff for compositors, they expected ready agreement to their proposals, which seemed to them quite generous. The workday was to be shortened to ten hours, hourly wages were to be raised to 18 kopecks, and piece rates were to be increased by several kopecks, though on the condition of meeting standards of minimum productivity. The commission also proposed to allow news compositors five days of rest each month (staggered for individual workers so as not to interfere with the seven-day production schedule), to apply strictly the rules on apprenticeship drafted by the Printing Society in 1902, and to introduce a number of other improvements in the conditions of labor.^[19]

[18] Ibid. 105 (January 19, 1905), pp. 3–4; 106 (February 10, 1905), pp. 58–59, 68– 69; 107 (March 10, 1905), p. 113; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 108. On the effects of the Shidlovskii Commission, see Bonnell, Roots of Rebellion , pp. 110–16; and Surh, 1905 in St. Petersburg , pp. 218.

[19] "Proekt normal'nogo tarifa dlia pechatnykh zavedenii goroda S.-Peterburga," Part I: "Tarif dlia gg. naborshchikov"; TsGIA, f. 800, op. 1, d. 427, p. 51. The commission announced that work was continuing on a tariff for other crafts, whose representatives would also soon be questioned by the commission. Subsequent events precluded this.

The workers' deputies responded that these proposals were inadequate and on the following day presented their own counter-offer. They insisted on a nine-hour workday, higher wage rates, and lower productivity norms (though they did not oppose the idea of establishing norms). They demanded Sunday rest for all workers and annual two-week vacations. Finally, to employers' stipulation that "in cases of disagreement or dispute between press owners and compositors, these will be considered and settled by the Russian Printing Society," workers added the words "together with deputies of the compositors from that press where the disagreement occurred."^[20]

The readiness of these twenty-two workers' deputies to challenge employers must have come as a surprise. They had been elected for the convenience of employers, though they were now calling themselves the compositors ' tariff commission. Also, the backgrounds of the individuals whom workers had chosen to represent them encouraged expectations that the ideal of social collaboration was intact. Almost all of the worker deputies had been associated with the journal Naborshchik or with a workers' assistance fund. The chairman of the deputies' group, Pavel Baskakov, was not even a worker but a former compositor now managing a small shop, who was well known for his essays in Naborshchik expressing sympathy for workers' needs. The vice-chairman was Mikhail Kiselevich, a compositor active in the Printers' Burial Society. August Tens, a regular columnist for Naborshchik and a strong supporter of the Compositors' Assistance Fund, was elected secretary. Other deputies included Nikolai Vorob'ev, a former compositor who was now managing a government-owned press and was head of the Assistance Fund, and several compositors known for their contributions to Naborshchik: A. Tiukhtiaev, a popular worker-poet; Petr Vasil'ev, better known by his nom de plume, Petr Severianin; and Petr Orlov, another regular columnist. Although Andrei Filippov was not elected to the group, he was often asked to preside at its meetings.^[21]

That even workers such as these were unwilling to compromise with employers reflected the increasingly defiant mood among those who had elected them. On February 13, the deputies called a meeting of all workshop representatives of compositors. As at earlier meetings Andrei

[20] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 106 (February 10, 1905), pp. 66–70; typographical errors corrected ibid. 107 (March 10, 190.5), pp. 109–10. Concerning the participation of workers' deputies in resolving disputes, news compositors referred more generally to involvement by "compositors' representatives."

[21] Ibid. 107 (March 10, 1905), pp. 106–08, 113; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 108.

Filippov presided, and he opened the meeting by reminding workers of the necessity for compromise. But once he had finished, and the shop delegates began to speak, it became clear that most workers were prepared to accept nothing less than the full satisfaction of their demands. The employers' proposed tariff, workers insisted, "does not correspond to those improvements that compositors had come to expect." The meeting resolved, in a vote by closed ballot, to reject the employers' tariff proposal and to resubmit without change the proposals drafted by their deputies.^[22] Changes would, in fact, soon be made, but not in the direction of compromise. On February 17 the deputies decided to add additional demands: better workplace sanitation, improved ventilation, free health assistance and medicine, the abolition of searches, "polite address with all workers" (i.e., use of the respectful second-person-plural "vy"), and paid summer vacations lasting from one to four weeks, depending on years of work.^[23] They also decided to organize a strike in case the demands were refused.^[24]

When employers did not indicate any further willingness to compromise, strikes began on Monday, February 28. About 900 workers in a dozen medium-sized enterprises quit work for three days. Employers were not impressed and even members of the compositors' tariff commission recognized that the strike was a failure. Petr Vasil'ev later attributed the meager turnout partly to the fact that many workers had only just recently struck in protest of the government's closing of the Shidlovskii Commission, but mostly to the lack of support by crafts other than compositors and by compositors in small shops. Noncompositors had generally been left out of the tariff discussions, and in the small shops, where conditions were much worse, compositors were likely satisfied with the employers' offers, which raised their wages by as much as 20 percent.^[25] The compositors' tariff commission met again on March 3 and agreed for the first time to some minor concessions but remained firm on the major issues of wages, hours, working conditions, and worker participation in the resolution of disputes.^[26]

[22] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 107 (March 10, 1905), pp. 106–14.

[23] Ibid., p. 110.

[24] Severianin, "Soiuz rabochikh pechatnogo dela," p. 56. A year after the strike, Petr Vasil'ev (Severianin) wrote that it had been planned for February 25, though both logic (February 25 was a Friday) and the actual date on which the strike began point to Monday, February 28.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 107 (March 10, 1905), pp. 112–13.

Employers also became more reluctant to compromise, especially in the face of workers' escalating demands. They had made several minor changes in their original offer on February 10, but these were their last.^[27] Although the compositors had set March 9 as the final deadline for the employers to respond to their proposals, the employers' commission, symbolically indicating its refusal to be threatened, scheduled a general meeting of all employers for Friday evening, March 11. Roman Golike advised the gathering to reach a decision quickly, explaining that "compositors have waited patiently for a tariff since January 13." But the meeting ended without a decision and was resumed only on March 18. Some seventy employers and managers attended these meetings, representing about one-third of the printing firms in the city.^[28]

The choice of leaders at these meetings of employers continued to suggest the influence of traditions of trade community. Count Ivan Tolstoi, head of the Printing Society, was elected chairman, and the ubiquitous Andrei Filippov was chosen as secretary. Both were long-time proponents of collaboration between workers and employers, and neither was an owner of a printing firm. In addition, Pavel Baskakov, a manager and former worker, was invited to participate in the meeting on behalf of the compositors' tariff commission.

However, as among workers, recognition of the leadership role of these traditional proponents of trade community did not exclude growing skepticism about their claims. Not only did employers and managers meeting in March conclude that they had already made enough concessions—even rejecting the demand for a nine-hour day, though a number of printing employers had agreed to it during the January strikes—they also became more openly hostile to workers. Employers complained that so much time was wasted by workers warming up the stoves in the winter, talking among themselves, and failing to show up for work after holidays and paydays that a ten-hour day, which was already standard in many printing firms, was the best they could offer. They rejected any changes in the proposed wage rates, insisting that the proposals of their tariff commission were more than generous. Finally,

[27] A copy of their final proposal is in TsGIA, f. 150, op. 1, d. 81, pp. 1–2. It was also printed in Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 106 (February 10, 1905), pp. 64–65; 107 (March 10, 1905), p. 118. Much of this material has been reprinted in Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza, pp. 121–31.

[28] This estimate is Filippov's. Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 107 (March 10, 1905) [actually printed on a later date], p. 105.

though the employers' commission had proposed that the tariff be in force for five years and workers had accepted this provision, the meeting rejected this in favor of a three-year limit.^[29]

The meeting concluded with speeches of self-congratulation at this "first attempt by the interested parties to come to an agreement."^[30] To be sure, there was no precedent in the history of Russian labor relations for such collective regulation of conditions, and the readiness of both sides to seek such terms suggests the strength of the idea of agreement among workers and employers. But there was no escaping the "interestedness" of the parties nor the fact that this was only an "attempt" at collective agreement. Ultimately, employers had done no more than affirm proposals that workers had already rejected. And there was no guarantee that the majority of employers would even abide by the agreement, since there were no mechanisms to enforce it. As Count Tolstoi observed at the March 18 meeting, "The tariff has only a moral significance for printing employers."^[31] The Printing Society added no more force on April 8, when it approved the tariff as a "useful guide" for employers and workers, though it did offer one significant suggestion: workers and employers should form organizations that could discipline their members to comply with the new rules.^[32] There could hardly have been a clearer admission that the model of a community of masters and men was becoming implausible.

During the spring and summer, the most persistent source both of conflict between printing workers and employers and of efforts to resolve problems collaboratively was the question of Sunday and holiday rest for newspaper compositors, who still worked an average of 359 days a year, unusually high even in Russia. In St. Petersburg, representatives of newspaper workers had included Sunday rest in their proposed tariff. As newspaper deputies grew impatient with the failing negotiations, they drafted a direct appeal to publishers and readers. Many publishers and editors expressed sympathy, and on March 22 representatives of nine daily papers met at the Printing Society and passed a resolution supporting the principle of Sunday rest. However, since half of the city's newspapers were not represented at the meeting, they voted to delay any final decision until a larger gathering could be arranged.

[29] For protocols of the meetings, ibid. 108 (April 10, 1905), pp. 162–63; 109 (May 10, 1905), pp. 216–17.

[30] Ibid., p. 217.

[31] Ibid. Tolstoi's words were paraphrased by Andrei Filippov, secretary of the meeting.

[32] Ibid. 108 (April 10, 1905), pp. 155–56.

Workers, however, would not wait. They had reason to doubt the result of a larger meeting of publishers and editors, even if it endorsed Sunday rest, because only a few days earlier a meeting of press owners had rejected the demand for Sunday rest in the proposed tariff. Perhaps more importantly, the atmosphere in which these discussions were conducted did not encourage patience. Strikes were breaking out in numerous industries, workers and students were demonstrating in the streets against the established order, and Social Democratic agitators were appealing for greater boldness. Also, factory workers were beginning to experiment with direct imposition of their demands, such as physically expelling despised foremen and instituting an eight-hour workday simply by refusing to work more than eight hours.^[33] Perhaps encouraged by these examples, but certainly emboldened by the general atmosphere of social insubordination, representatives of Petersburg newspaper compositors decided to introduce Sunday rest by direct action (iavochnyi poriadok ): beginning April 10, no printer was to work on Sundays.^[34]

This tactic was initially effective: on Monday, April 11, not a single newspaper appeared in St. Petersburg (and the visibility of its effects further encouraged the use of direct action by workers in other industries). Employers continued to insist on their sympathy for the principle of weekly rest, but they argued that in such times of war and political unrest they had a civic duty to keep the public informed and thus sought means to resume daily production. The following week a few publishers managed to issue abbreviated Monday editions by using materials typeset earlier in the week and having apprentices compose the telegraph-agency reports early Monday morning.^[35] As a long-term solution they proposed that all workers be given one day off a week, but that these be spread throughout the week so as not to disturb production. As during the tariff negotiations, workers rejected the plan and escalated their demands. On April 22, a meeting of deputies resolved unanimously to continue refusing to work on Sundays and to include as rest days New Year's day, two days each at Christmas and Easter, plus a dozen additional religious holidays, reducing the number of working

[33] Shuster, Peterburgskie rabochie v 1905–1907 gg., pp. 119–27; Surh, 1905 in St. Petersburg, pp. 259–67.

[34] TsGAOR, f. 6864, op. 1, d. 4, p. 3 (recollections of a deputy of the news compositors); Knizhnyi vestnik 1905, no. 13 (March 27), pp. 346–47; Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 108 (April 10, 1905), p. 178; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza, pp. 137–38.

[35] Since mechanized press work was less time-consuming than type composition, it could wait until early in the morning on Monday or after a holiday.

days each year from 359 to 296. In a circular sent to all newspapers, the deputies announced that any worker who violated this decision would be publicly shamed by having his name printed in the press.^[36] On April 23, all but three of the city's newspaper publishers, meeting at the Printing Society, agreed to most of these conditions.^[37] But they soon sought to reverse their decision. A few publishers continued to print Monday editions with the help of apprentices and workers in book presses—who saw an opportunity to earn some extra income and who, it was said, resented the better-paid newspaper compositors as "fat and sated."^[38] Other publishers feared losing circulation to these papers and sought to do the same.

On May 6 the publisher of Rus', A. A. Suvorin, who had consistently opposed any settlement that would limit publication, organized a meeting between the publishers of twelve newspapers and the representatives of news compositors to reconsider the alternatives. First, the publishers proposed that only one-quarter of the compositors in each shop work on Sundays and only after five P.M., to enable production of a Monday edition, and that complete Sunday rest be introduced only after the 1905 subscription year ended. The compositors insisted that they had "been authorized" to accept nothing less than their original demands. In frustration, some publishers offered workers what amounted to a bribe: if workers accepted these terms, employers would make a large donation to their union, which was just then forming. Some employers also made threats: A.A. Suvorin warned that he would have to replace his workers with typesetting machines if they refused to work Sundays. Finally, the meeting declared that the "temporary" agreement of April 23 was now void.^[39] Three weeks later, publishers of six newspapers offered to let their compositors have Sundays off but maintained their right to hire temporary workers to print Monday editions.^[40]

For the whole of the summer and into the fall, workers tried to sustain their position against the determination of employers to print on

[36] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 109 (May 10, 1905), pp. 228–29; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza, p. 139.

[37] They resolved that beginning April 24 no work would be allowed on Sundays, the first day of the Easter celebration, St. Nicholas' day (December 6), and the first two days of Christmas. Vecherniaia pochta, April 24, 1905, p. 2; Knizhnyi vestnik 1905, no. 18 (May 1), pp. 452–54.

[38] Pechatnyi vestnik 1905, no. 3 (June 23), pp. 26–27.

[39] Ibid. 1905, no. 1 (May 15), pp. 9–10; TsGAOR, f. 6864, op. 1, d. 4, p. 5; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza, pp. 147–49.

[40] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 110 (June 10, 1905), p. 284.

Sundays, against book compositors who were willing to work in place of regular newspaper workers on Sundays, and against some of their own coworkers. Although workers' leaders appealed to renegade workers and shamed them in the press, and on occasion compositors even ceremoniously put strikebreakers into trash cans and carried them out to the street,^[41] they could not enforce full Sunday rest.

In Moscow, the campaign for Sunday rest proceeded much the same, except that the underground union played the part that the workers' tariff commission played in St. Petersburg. On April 22, in the city's main evening newspaper, the union printed an appeal to all newspaper compositors, as the "motive force of enlightenment," to join with their "Petersburg comrades" in introducing Sunday rest in Moscow, to begin on May 1.^[42] In the week preceding May 1, representatives elected by newspaper compositors met and voted to support this suggestion. Meanwhile, publishers expressed their sympathy for workers' desire for rest but insisted that general Sunday rest would harm the "public interest" by depriving readers of Monday-morning newspapers. As in St. Petersburg, they offered to find some means to allow individual workers a day of rest each week without disturbing production. As an extra incentive to accept this compromise, employers also agreed to recognize May 1 (on the Russian calendar) as a "workers' holiday."

The recognition of May 1 effectively delayed the confrontation. But employers' proposals were not enough to prevent it. On Friday, May 6, workers' representatives and newspaper publishers each met again and reaffirmed their respective positions. On Sunday, May 8, workers at several major newspapers refused to work. Employers repeated their offer to satisfy workers' desire for rest on an individual basis only and threatened to fire workers who independently refused to work on Sundays. As in St. Petersburg, workers were unable to press their claims any further. The divisions among printing workers and the lack of effective organization limited the ability of newspaper compositors to enforce their will. As in St. Petersburg, book workers were willing to work in the place of newspaper compositors, piece-workers were willing to work in the place of salaried workers, and unemployed workers were willing to work in the place of anyone.^[43]

[41] Pechatnyi vestnik 1905, no. 5 (July 31), p. 7.

[42] Vecherniaia pochta, April 22, 1905, p. 3.

[43] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 109 (May 10, 1905), p. 221; 110 (June 10, 1905), p. 272; Pechatnyi vestnik 1905, no. 2 (June 12), pp. 18–19; TsGAOR, f. 6864, op. 1, d. 25, p. 8.

Confrontations over Authority, August–October

Challenges to authority in Russia continued to grow more varied and threatening during the summer, though strikes subsided. The liberal and democratic opposition blossomed with a profusion of meetings, congresses, publications, and organizations, especially in the wake of the humiliating defeat of the Russian navy by Japan in the Straits of Tsushima on May 14. Socialists and even anarchists found a growing audience for their messages. Students, sailors, peasants, and national minorities joined workers in defying authority.^[44]

Although printing workers were affected by this atmosphere of revolution in the early fall of 1905, they also responded to more immediate experiences. In Moscow, printers had still achieved virtually nothing since the start of the year. So as the traditionally busy fall printing season approached, workers in the shops began to discuss renewing their efforts to improve wages and working conditions. In a few cases, such as at the large Kushnerev and Sytin plants in early August, workers elected representatives and presented management with lists of demands.^[45] The underground printers' union responded, as in January, by appealing for common demands in all firms and distributing a printed list of suggested demands. This time, however, explicitly political demands were omitted. Most demands focused on higher wages and better working conditions: an eight-hour day, annual paid vacations, illness and maternity leave, improved sanitary conditions, limitations on the number of apprentices and improvements in their working conditions, and the abolition of subcontracting, overtime, fines, and physical searches. At the head of the list was a demand, increasingly heard among Russian workers in 1905 and already proposed by the Moscow printers' union in January, that sought to link better working conditions to workers' own power at the workplace: the recognition of elected worker deputies, who would serve not only as permanent representatives of workers' interests before management but also as direct agents of these interests by controlling shop discipline and the hiring and firing of workers and apprentices. The union advised workers to discuss these demands and propose corrections and modifications but to avoid taking any action until all workers understood and accepted the common demands and a general strike could be organized.^[46]

[44] Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, pp. 152–207.

[45] Vestnik soiuza tipografskikh rabochikh 9 (August 1905), p. 7; TsGAOR, f. 63, 1905, d. 773, p. 27.

[46] TsGAOR, f. 518, op. 1, d. 55, p. 208.

As it turned out, the union lacked the authority to enforce such discipline. On August 11 workers from all of the shops of the Sytin plant met and presented management with a list of demands, which included a nine-hour workday (eight on Saturdays and before holidays), graduated pay raises that would decrease pay differentials among workers, sick pay, maternity leave (of interest to female binding workers), and no retribution against workers who participated in negotiations. Although Sytin workers asked for an answer in two days, they were not in fact especially impatient. After managers explained that some of the directors were out of town and that their answer to workers would in any case depend on the results of sales at the Nizhnii Novgorod fair, workers agreed to wait an entire month for an answer to their demands. When Sytin and his fellow directors responded on September 13, they offered only a nine-hour day and sick pay for two weeks a year. For compositors and binders, who were paid by the piece, such a reduction in the workday without any increase in wages meant a serious loss in earnings. They refused to accept management's answer, waited until after they collected their next paychecks on September 19, and went on strike. They were immediately joined by most other workers in the plant.^[47]

Union leaders were visibly annoyed: "The Sytintsy have started," they proclaimed in a leaflet, "without waiting for the Union to declare a general printers' strike when fully certain of success."^[48] The unionists tried nonetheless to influence events that had started without them, organizing a meeting on September 20 in the yard of the Sytin plant, at which workers elected shop deputies and adopted most of the union's twenty-four demands, with a couple of significant exceptions: they replaced the symbolic demand for an eight-hour day with the more realistic demand for nine hours, and they added the demand that men and women doing the same work be paid equally (presumably reflecting the involvement of female bindery workers).^[49] Over the next few days, workers at other presses joined the strike, often presenting the union's list of demands.^[50] By the end of the week, almost

[47] TsGAOR, f. 63, 1905, d. 773, p. 27; Sher, Istoriia, 164–65; Vserossiiskaia politicheskaia stachka, pp. 55–56.

[48] TsGAOR, f. 518, op. 1, d. 55, p. 214. See also Vserossiiskaia politicheskaia stachka, p. 48.

[49] Sytin workers also dropped a few demands that did not apply to them (such as the abolition of subcontracting and of requirements that workers live and eat with the employer). TsGAOR, f. 63, 1905, d. 773, pp. 13–14. See also Vserossiiskaia politicheskaia stachka, pp. 49–50.

[50] TsGAOR, f. 63, 1905, d. 773, pp. 19, 52, 115–16, 141–43; f. 518, op. 1, d. 55, p. 215.

all of the large printing firms in Moscow and many smaller firms had been closed down.^[51]

Unanimity among workers was far from complete, however. Some workers joined the strike only after being threatened by crowds of strikers in the streets.^[52] Many newspaper compositors, whose wages were higher than those of book workers and who probably resented the lack of support by book workers in their efforts to win Sunday rest, were now reluctant to strike until crowds of strikers descended on newspaper offices, breaking windows and shouting threats at the workers inside. Union leaflets admonished newspaper compositors for their lack of support for "the common cause" and admitted that most newspaper workers who did strike did so "only because they were asked to in a manner that was not especially polite."^[53] Still, once newspaper compositors joined the strike they met together and drafted their own list of demands.^[54] In order to make the strike more effective, the union organized a Council of Deputies (Sovet deputatov ), which first met on September 25 and soon included representatives from most printing enterprises in the city.^[55] Its first task was to revise and promote the demands that had been proposed by the union. The new list was approved on September 26, with the addition of two demands reflecting the greater role of workers other than compositors: free nurseries for the children of working women (there were still very few women compositors, though many worked in bookbinding) and polite address to all workers (this was especially a problem for workers other than compositors).^[56]

Employers in Moscow also sought to coordinate their activities and, as in January, turned to the Printing Society. On September 22, meeting at the offices of the society, employers declared their refusal to negotiate. But as the strike continued, and especially as it was reinforced by a mass upsurge of labor protest throughout the city, employers backed down. On September 26 the chairman of the Moscow branch

[51] The senior factory inspector reported that between September 19 and September 24 all 89 printing firms under his supervision took part in the strike. TsGAOR, f. 63, 1905, d. 773, p. 257. Laura Engelstein has calculated that one-half of the work force in larger plants (of more than 100 workers) and one-third of the workers in smaller plants participated in the strike. Engelstein, Moscow, 1905, pp. 76–77. The Moscow printers' union announced in a leaflet on September 23 that "all large firms and a large number of smaller ones" had struck. TsGAOR, f. 518, op. 1, d. 55, p. 215.

[52] Pravo, September 25, 1905.

[53] TsGAOR, f. 518, op. 1, d. 55, p. 215.

[54] Russkoe slovo, October 5, 1905, p. 2.

[55] The genesis and structure of the council is discussed below.

[56] TsGAOR, f. 518, op. 1, d. 55, pp. 215–16. See also Sher, Istoriia, pp. 171–74.

of the Printing Society invited workers' representatives to a meeting with employers, to which the Council of Deputies sent members of its executive committee. Discussions continued for several days, though both sides refused to make any significant concessions. By early October, the leadership of the council was forced to recognize that after two weeks on strike workers were "worn out" and would not be able to hold out much longer. According to one member, the council began to look for "any sort of an acceptable compromise that would allow them to end the struggle in a way that was honorable for the workers."^[57] Employers also began to seek a solution, though as individuals rather than as a group. Although the Printing Society continued to endorse resolutions opposing concessions and even, on October 13, resolved to lock out workers if they did not end the strike,^[58] individual employers had already begun offering concessions to get their workers back to work.

On October 4, the management of the Sytin plant, which soon after the strike began had sought to end it by offering some additional concessions,^[59] announced that it was now ready to agree to a nine-hour day, a raise in pay of from 7 to 10 percent, and half-pay for time spent on strike. At the same time, newspaper publishers met separately from the Printing Society and agreed to many of the workers' demands. Seeing its opportunity for an "honorable" way out, the printers' council advised workers to return to work if they could attain conditions similar to those won at Sytin and authorized newspaper workers to return to work immediately and use their wages to give material support to those who remained on strike. Many employers also grasped this opportunity to end the strike and thus ignored the Printing Society's resolution and accepted the Sytin compromise. Small employers, for whom the cost of the settlement was less sustainable, were typically more stubborn and often forced their workers back to work without making concessions. At least one large enterprise also refused to compromise, the Kushnerev plant, which was under the directorship of Vladimir Borovik, formerly chairman of the Printing Society. Workers at the plant, once a stronghold of Zubatovism, continued their strike until October 19, when Borovik

[57] Sher, Istoriia , pp. 177–80; idem, "Moskovskie pechatniki," pp. 56–58; Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 114 (October 10, 1905), p. 455.

[58] Russkoe slovo , October 14, 1905, p. 3.

[59] TsGAOR, f. 63, op. 1905, d. 773, pp. 67–69 (declaration by management dated September 21).

finally agreed to limited concessions.^[60] In this first open confrontation in the industry between organized workers and organized employers, though both sides ultimately compromised, only employers retreated in organizational disarray.

On October 2, three thousand printing workers met in St. Petersburg to hear a delegate from the Moscow Council of Deputies. The meeting agreed to raise money to support the Moscow strikers and to declare a three-day sympathy strike. However, as in previous efforts at collective action, workers were divided. Within individual enterprises, compositors usually struck first and then, with varying degrees of success, persuaded workers in other crafts to join them. Some firms were struck only after threats from crowds of workers in the streets. In the end, at least fifty-nine printing enterprises and almost six thousand workers are known to have gone on strike, representing about one-third of the printing workers in the city. Virtually every daily newspaper in the capital was shut down, which increased the public impact of the strike,^[61] an impact reinforced by the spread of strikes to other industries.

When Leon Trotsky later described the September 1905 strike among Sytin printers as "the strike that started over punctuation marks [and] ended by felling absolutism,"^[62] he emphasized that printers quit work with the intent only of forcing changes in their own working environment. However, as in other industries, the momentum of protest soon led printing workers to look beyond "punctuation marks" to view their actions as part of a wider challenge to social and civic authority.

Challenging the State

During the early months of 1905, most printing workers were generally silent about political matters and sometimes even hostile to radicals who were viewed as endangering the economic struggle by introducing politics. At the large Iahlonskii press, workers even threatened to throw their elected representative to the Shidlovskii Commission out

[60] Sher, Istoriia , pp. 180–81; Engelstein, Moscow , 1905, pp. 91–92; Vserossiiskaia politicheskaia stachka , pp. 413, 417–19, 420–21; Vecherniaia pochta , October 7, 1905, p. 2.

[61] Data on the number of enterprises and workers involved in the strike are from my 1905 Strike File. See also Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 186; Torgovopromyshlennaia gazeta , October 8 (21), 1905, p. 3.

[62] Trotsky, 1905 , p. 102.

of a fourth-floor window when they learned that he had supported the inclusion of demands for political rights.^[63] There is evidence that some workers retained feelings of loyalty to the imperial family. In Moscow, after Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, the governor-general of the city and Nicholas II's uncle, was assassinated by Socialist Revolutionaries on February 4, a large crowd of printing workers attended a Mass sponsored in his memory by the Typographers' Assistance Fund.^[64] In St. Petersburg, some printing workers still sang "God Save the Tsar" at cultural gatherings, and many contributed money to "patriotic collections" to aid the families of the wounded and killed and to "strengthen the navy" in the war against Japan.^[65] On the other hand, nearly two thousand Petersburg printing workers (though working in only fifteen enterprises) joined protest strikes in mid-February over the government's refusal to alter conditions limiting the free action of worker deputies to the Shidlovskii Commission.^[66] Although many workers remained hesitant to compromise their economic struggles by including political demands, many were prepared to challenge political repression and the lack of civil rights when these compromised their ability to express their needs. This nascent political awareness grew rapidly during the last months of 1905.

Although membership in the underground socialist union in Moscow gradually increased after January 9, and small groups of workers began meeting in the capital to discuss political issues,^[67] workers' hesitation to become involved in open political struggles persisted until the fall. In St. Petersburg, the leaders of the printers' union encouraged this political caution. Although civic concerns were certainly implied by statements about the need to defend the "legal rights" (pravovye prava ) of members, one of the stated goals of the union, and despite occasional expressions in Pechatnyi vestnik of thinly veiled hopes for political reform,^[68] until October the union leaders did all they could to avoid political issues. The workers who led the union wished to create a legal and open professional organization and feared the divisive effects, and risks, of direct political involvement.^[69]

[63] Kratkii istoricheskii obzor tipografii L.S.P.O. , p. 18.

[64] Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir 106 (February 10, 1905), p. 73.

[65] Ibid. 107 (March 10, 1905), p. 144; collections were regularly reported in Naborshchik i pechatnyi mir during the first months of 1905.

[66] From the 1905 Strike File.

[67] Sher, Istoriia , pp. 154–55; Tipografiia Lenizdata , pp. 30–31.

[68] For example, Pechatnyi vestnik 1905, no. 7 (August 7), pp. 2–3; no. 9 (August 28), p. 1.

[69] Ibid., no. 15 (October 15), pp. 2–3.

This reluctance was appropriate to the mood of most workers. In Moscow, where the union was already illegal and politicized, efforts to convince workers of the linkage between economic and political struggle had little impact before October. Most workers, unionists admitted, would "run away" when they tried to speak to them about politics.^[70] Even as late as September, most of the workers elected to the Council of Deputies were said to be "absolutely against any sort of 'politics.'"^[71] The first meeting of the council almost collapsed in a riot, the chairman recalled, when a socialist declared that "before we pull the hats off the heads of our bosses, it is necessary to pull the hat off the big boss sitting in St. Petersburg."^[72]

The behavior of the political authorities helped to erode this political reluctance quite rapidly in the early fall. As in 1903, printers in Moscow spread their strike by means of crowds moving from shop to shop. In the more threatening atmosphere of 1905, however, the police were not so tolerant. The first clash occurred on September 22. After police dispersed a crowd of workers that had broken windows and threatened non-strikers at several presses, the crowd formed again around the Pushkin monument on Tver Street, surrounded by police, cossacks, and soldiers. A witness described the scene in a letter:

Cossacks with their swords unsheathed and infantry with their guns cocked formed a tight circle around the crowd. The cossacks closed in, tightening the circle. . . . Shots suddenly rang out from the crowd, and a gendarme tottered on his horse and fell. The crowd, frightened by the shots, mined and ran. Mounted cossacks set out after them. What followed cannot be described; even now recalling this terrible scene makes my blood run cold.^[73]

The following day, printing workers returned to the streets, stoning presses and breaking down gates but also, in at least one case involving one thousand workers on Tver Street, confronting gendarmes and cossacks with bricks, cobblestones, and even a few guns.^[74] Over the coming days, as the printers' strike grew into a citywide general strike, there were more clashes, in which dozens of workers were killed or injured.^[75] The boldness of printing workers and their outrage at police violence

[70] Vestnik soiuza tipografskikh rabochikh 9 (August 1905), p. 6.

[71] Sher, Istoriia , p. 169.

[72] N. Chistov, "Moskovskie pechatniki," p. 138. This incident is also described in TsGAOR, f. 6864, op. 1, d. 48, p. 27; Moskovskie pechatniki v 1905 godu , p. 130.

[73] Sher, "Moskovskie pechamiki," p. 51.

[74] Ibid., p. 50; Sher, Istoriia , pp. 166–67; TsGAOR, f. 63, op. 1905, d. 773, pp. 151, 157, 206.

[75] Engelstein, Moscow, 1905 , pp. 87–90.

were encouraged by the sight of much of urban society challenging the political status quo.

The growing willingness of Moscow printers to become involved in matters reaching beyond their own immediate professional interests was visible at a meeting of the Moscow Council of Deputies on October 2. Printers at this meeting discussed their own recent experiences but also heard a report by a representative of strikers from the Filippov bakery who were severely beaten while in police custody on the night of September 24. Deputies who had only a week earlier shouted down political speakers now not only listened to militant political speeches but themselves declaimed against the brutality of the autocratic order. The meeting concluded by approving a resolution, with only four dissenting votes, proclaiming that "only when the entire people govern the country through its representatives, elected by universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage, will we be protected from police tyranny [proizvol ] in our struggles with employers." Even former Zubatovists, it was said, "made revolutionary speeches."^[76]

By October 19, at a meeting of several thousand printing workers at the Moscow Conservatory, every political statement made by representatives of the various left-wing parties was greeted with sympathy. Resolutions passed at the meeting demanded amnesty for all political and religious prisoners and the end of the use of troops to maintain civil order and called on workers to join the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party and to prepare for an armed struggle to realize a "new state order" based on universal, equal, and secret suffrage.^[77]

In St. Petersburg, we see the same emergent sense among workers of being part of a larger confrontation than between themselves and their employers. Although the October strike in support of Moscow printers did not address larger social or political matters, the boundary between professional and civic concerns quickly disappeared. On October 14, at a meeting at the university, several thousand printing workers approved a resolution, introduced by Social Democrats (possibly Bolsheviks),^[78] that openly called on workers to arm themselves—"including by breaking into gun shops and seizing arms from police and soldiers where

[76] Chistov, "Moskovskie pechatniki," p. 138; Sher, Istoriia , p. 179; Vserossiiskaia politicheskaia stachka , p. 404.

[77] Russkie vedomosti , October 20, 1905, p. 3; Sher, "Moskovskie pechatniki," pp. 63–64; Sher, Istoriia , pp. 185–86; Pechatnik 1906, no. 1 (April 23), pp. 8–9.

[78] This was the claim of the authors of Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 198. The call for armed struggle in the resolution suggests that Bolsheviks may indeed have been the sponsors of the resolution.

this is possible"—in order to "turn the army of the striking working class into a revolutionary army." The resolution defined the workers' aim as overthrowing the autocracy and establishing a "democratic republic."^[79] On October 15, many printers in St. Petersburg again quit work in support of the growing national political strike. The union paper Pechatnyi vestnik , which had been studiedly non-political, reflected these changing concerns, especially after the tsar's promise of political reform on October 17. For the first time, articles began to call for elections to a constituent assembly; freedom of assembly, speech, and the press; and support for the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party. For the first time, the union paper also welcomed contributions from non-workers.^[80] By early November, politics had become part of the daily life of organized printers. At a meeting of seven thousand printing workers on November 4, workers who sought to limit the discussion to economic issues were not even allowed to speak.^[81]

Workers' growing attention to politics in the fall of 1905 partly distracted them from workplace issues. But politics had not become abstracted from social relations. It became conventional for printing workers at mass meetings, repeating the arguments of the socialists, to criticize other classes for political vacillation. As a resolution adopted by Moscow printers on October 19 stated: "The Manifesto was not given voluntarily. It was seized by force. Everyone must recognize that this victory belongs to the working class, which carries on its shoulders the entire weight of the struggle for political freedom."^[82]

This perceived connection between class and politics was also expressed in efforts by organized printers to build alliances with other labor organizations. The Moscow Council of Deputies sent representatives to a meeting on October 2 through 4 to plan a citywide workers' council, to the First All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions in Moscow on October 6 and 7, and to the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies in November. In St. Petersburg, the printers' union sent representatives to the Conference of Trade Unions, joined other unions in organizing a Central Bureau of Trade Unions, and participated actively in the soviet. In both cities, activist printers produced the newspapers of the soviets at presses specially "seized" at night for this purpose.

[79] Kiselevich, "Soiuz rabochikh pechatnogo dela," p. 297.

[80] See, for example, Pechatnyi vestnik 1905, no. 16–17 (October 30), pp. 2–9; no. 18 (November 27), pp. 1–6; no. 19 (December 4), pp. 1–5.

[81] Vysshii pod"em revoliutsii , pp. 366–67.

[82] Russkie vedomosti , October 20, 1905, p. 3.

Printing workers also joined the political strikes that were organized by these class organizations. In St. Petersburg in early November, more than five thousand printing workers (from fifty-seven firms) responded to an appeal by the soviet to strike in protest against the declaration of martial law in Poland and the threat to execute rebellious soldiers and sailors of the Kronstadt garrison. Many would again strike in December in support of the Moscow uprising.^[83] In Moscow itself, nearly six thousand printing workers quit work in support of the uprising, and many took up arms.^[84]

The intermingling of politics and class was especially evident in the political issue that most preoccupied printing workers in the last months of 1905—censorship. The owners of printing firms, especially those also involved in publishing books and periodicals, had long been critical of censorship, a government practice that offended them both politically and professionally. After the government established the Kobeko Commission on censorship reform in January 1905, publishers tried to push forward its slow-moving efforts. Frustrated, and encouraged by the promises of the October Manifesto, publishers of most of the journals and newspapers in St. Petersburg met on October 17 to establish a Union for the Defense of Press Freedom; they also agreed to cease submitting materials to the censor as of October 22.^[85]

In Moscow, nine periodical publishers and six book publishers met on October 19 and similarly resolved to stop submitting materials to the censor. They also called on press owners, the Russian Printing Society, and the union of printing workers to support them in their campaign.^[86] Moscow press owners proved less bold than the publishers (some of whom, however, were also press owners): a meeting of owners of printing enterprises on October 28 concluded that direct action was "too risky" and resolved to wait for the government to offer its new censorship law.^[87]

On October 19, the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, as part of its efforts to continue and expand the political struggle after the October Manifesto, adopted a resolution proposed by the leadership the printers' union announcing its own campaign to introduce freedom

[83] Calculated from the 1905 Strike File. This number does not include the workers at the massive Office for the Manufacture of Government Paper, who had been on strike for nonpolitical reasons since October 26.

[84] Engelstein, Moscow , 1905, p. 229.

[85] Knizhnyi vestnik 1905, no. 13 (March 27), pp. 327–28; no. 44 (October 30), pp. 1255–1257, 1267–68.

[86] Ibid., p. 1269; Russkie vedomosti , October 20, 1905, p. 3.

[87] Russkoe slovo , October 29, 1905, p. 3.

of the press. Like the publishers' union, the soviet proposed to end preliminary censorship of periodicals by refusing to submit materials in advance of publication. The soviet resolution added that "freedom of the press must be won by the workers" and threatened strikes and even sabotage against employers who continued to submit to the censors. On October 30, a mass meeting of printing workers approved this plan to create an uncensored press by direct action.^[88] In Moscow, also on October 30, a mass meeting of printing workers approved the publishers' proposal to print without censorship and berated press owners who hesitated. On November 7, a mass meeting resolved to "boycott" firms that continued to submit materials to the censor.^[89]

Despite the shared goal of a free press, it was evident that workers did not feel a sense of common cause with their employers. Organized workers treated employers as unwilling allies at best. At mass meetings in St. Petersburg on October 30 and in Moscow on November 7, workers authorized the leaders of their unions to "discuss" their decisions with publishers and press owners, but not to negotiate—employers were either immediately to stop submitting to censorship or be "boycotted," that is, workers would refuse to work in their shops.^[90] Even amidst a struggle that might so well have served to unite workers and employers in the spirit of common interest and moral conviction, the old dream of trade community seemed increasingly unreal and distant.

[88] Pechatnyi vestnik 1905, no. 16–17 (October 30), p. 2; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , pp. 204–05; Novaia zhizn ', November 2, 1905, p. 3; Vysshii pod"em revoliutsii , p. 345.

[89] Russkie vedomosti , October 31, 1905, p. 3; Vecherniaia pochta , November 9, 1905, p. 3. See also Sher, Istoriia , p. 213.

[90] Novaia zhizn ', November 2, 1905, p. 3; Vysshii pod"em revoliutsii , p. 345; Vecherniaia pochta , November 9, 1905, p. 3; Moskovskaia gazeta , November 12, 1905, p. 3; Sher, Istoriia , p. 213.